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RAE 2026 LCQ Preview: NA

Who will NA send to the RLCS 2026 World Championship?

July 11, 2026

The RLCS RAE (Region-Adjusted Elo) Rating system is a predictive model for professional Rocket League, using updating team ratings to generate probabilities for matches, teams, and tournaments. You can read more about it here.

With the conclusion of a regular season full of surprises in North America comes the Last Chance Qualifier, as 16 teams will contest the winner-takes-all event for a spot in Fort Worth.

Here’s a preview as we get set to kickoff the final GSL Stage of RLCS 2026.

North America

In accordance with their great form in Split 2, FUT Esports check in as easily the top team in the NA LCQ, all but lapping the rest of the field.

FUT's main competition will be Dignitas and Gen.G, with frisky M80 and Next2Nu rosters both having a chance to pull off a major upset (a la The Boys in 2025) and take the title.

West Coast Warriors and a crusty g.g.s., both with players who have been floating around Top 12 all season, check in as the next most likely fills for the Top 8. XJM (who went 3-0 in Swiss, albeit with an easy bracket) and Fortnite Flick are the prime contenders for the final two spots.

Places 10-16, like in most other regions, are filled with bubble talent. At the very least, every team competing in the NA LCQ has a player who made a Top 16 before, though in Signature Plays from JERBEAR's case, it's Polar's Top 8 with Singularity all the way back in January 2022 that ticks the box for them.

Is FUT going to run away with it?

FUT are about as close to a lock as you can get out of all of the LCQs this month, and for good reason: they're a proper LAN-quality team (who would likely be favored to win the much stronger international EWC LCQ) and on the upswing, unlike the upset victims of last year.

FUT's excellent Split 2 — which saw them topple NRG (twice), take a win over Shopify, and push both Vitality and Karmine to Game 5 overtime — places them as the runaway favorites to win the event. Their class combined with the mediocrity of the rest of North America this season means that their 185 rating margin over Dignitas is the largest pre-event gap between RAE's top two teams in LCQ history:

LCQ Event	Highest-Rated		2nd-Highest-Rated		1st-2nd Difference
NA 2026	FUT	1755	DIG	1570	185
NA 2025	COL	1622	SR	1455	167
MENA 2026	R8	1741	DOS	1610	131
SAM 2026	BSCO	1631	PT	1505	126
EU 2025	M8	1820	NIP	1725	95
MENA 2025	VSN	1704	TRT	1619	85
SAM 2025	SCCP	1574	GOD	1539	35
EU 2026	GK	1724	KDC	1702	22

With all this in mind, the field will be hard-pressed to take even just one win over the favorites. FUT didn't drop a single series to a non-Worlds team in the second split, and were only pushed to the brink twice (against Next2Nu in Open 5 and The Immigrants in Open 6). That's including Swiss.

But, as we all know, upsets happen unpredictably. LCQs are incredibly dependent on form, and with Championship Saturday two weeks removed from the rest of the event, whoever comes out hot on the final day will likely be the one taking the ticket to Worlds.

Looking back at the table of the biggest 1st-2nd gaps in LCQ history, you only need to go down one entry to find an argument for why FUT won't win. Second place on the list belongs to Complexity's large advantage over Shopify last season. We all know how that ended up.

Can Gen.G make a comeback?

One of essentially the two-and-a-half competitors to FUT's claim to the title is Gen.G. It was a poor year for the organization, who after making every single LAN since their debut in 2022 missed both Boston and Paris despite a strong(-ish) start at the Kickoff LAN in December.

The headline move of rise. to join MaJicBear and jstn. (finally kicking CHEESE.) ended up flopping, and their results only improved slightly after swapping jstn. for frosty.

Now, with Evoh brought in to replace rise., the three players on Gen.G are essentially the "best of the rest" in North America, with only bora and Fiv3Up having a claim to be among the top three non-LAN-qualifying players in North America. Evoh brings with him both a high ceiling and a low floor, as he usually does to his rosters — though with the form rise. showed this season, the floor probably isn't much lower than it already was.

Evoh helped bring The Boys to the LCQ grand finals in 2025 before the team (completed Aqua and hockser) fell short at the final hurdle against Shopify Rebellion. We'll likely get a good look at their level on Saturday, as they're projected to face Next2Nu to qualify for the AFL upper bracket. If they can play up to their potential and win some series comfortably (which they did in Swiss with a 3-0 win over M80, though Gen.G have beaten just about everyone in Swiss this season), then they could pose a threat to FUT on a bad day.

Gen.G's high-ceiling roster has made them a trendy pick to snatch the NA LCQ title — moreso than Dignitas, from what I've seen, despite their greater consistency this season and higher RAE rating (RAE rates the ApparentlyJack pickup as a good move for Dignitas thanks to EU's general higher quality, though Jack struggled immensely on Geekay in Split 2). It's important to remember, though, that FUT easily have the most talent of any team in the event. It's hard for me to say that Gen.G control their own destiny in that regard.

RAE Odds — NA LCQ

Team	1st	Top 2	Top 4	Top 6	Top 8	Top 12
FUT Esports	71.3%	86.0%	98.9%	>99%	>99%	>99%
Dignitas	15.5%	49.8%	83.6%	92.4%	94.4%	>99%
Gen.G Mobil1 Racing	8.6%	32.6%	83.1%	90.6%	92.7%	98.6%
M80	3.5%	18.9%	59.0%	76.2%	83.2%	98.7%
Next2Nu Esports	<1%	7.2%	27.2%	60.0%	71.4%	94.4%
West Coast Warriors	<1%	3.3%	22.4%	61.9%	79.9%	91.1%
g.g.s.	<1%	1.2%	12.5%	37.9%	69.1%	85.7%
XJM	<1%	<1%	5.4%	29.4%	51.6%	73.2%
Fortnite Flick	<1%	<1%	2.5%	13.5%	24.0%	65.8%
Team Silenced	<1%	<1%	1.0%	5.4%	10.6%	41.3%
Space Bound Cowboys	<1%	<1%	1.5%	10.7%	29.1%	50.0%
Bums United	<1%	<1%	<1%	5.8%	13.9%	56.0%
NTX Esports	<1%	<1%	<1%	5.9%	25.5%	72.6%
hey	<1%	<1%	<1%	3.1%	21.7%	57.6%
kamikazi	<1%	<1%	<1%	4.4%	23.4%	69.8%
Signature Plays from JERBEAR	<1%	<1%	<1%	3.4%	9.8%	45.8%

FUT are very heavy favorites to advance to Fort Worth, with only Dignitas sharing a double-digit probability of winning the LCQ.

Gen.G and M80 check in as the only other teams with above a 1% chance to win; three other teams (Next2Nu, West Coast Warriors, g.g.s.) have between a 1% and 10% chance of making the grand finals. Nobody else even comes close.

Put simply, FUT's position heading into the Top 16 is dominant. The question, always, is if they will be able to capitalize.

In case you missed it: you can check out the write-up on the EU, MENA, and SAM LCQs here.

To summarize, here's who RAE thinks qualifies for the World Championship:

NA: FUT Esports

In accordance with their strong Split 2 form, FUT are strong favorites to return to the LAN stage at Dickies Arena. As we saw with Complexity last season, though, anything can happen in the LCQ. All it takes is one poor series to get knocked out — and there are plenty of suitors nipping at their heels for a chance to represent their region on the grandest stage of them all.

Pyroblocks