How Much Is Winning the Kick-Off Really Worth?
What 29,301 kick-offs from ranked 1s and 2s, Plat to SSL and the pros, reveal about what a kick-off win is worth, what actually wins one, and why 2s is a different story.
A quarter of the goals in ranked 1s go in within ten seconds of a kick-off. So we measured what winning one is worth, then every part of the kick-off, the arrival, the contact, the flip and the landing, to find out what actually wins it.
of the time in ranked 1s,
between 60% and 66% at every rank
1,000 ranked 1s games, 500 ranked 2s games
from finding them
A kick-off win in 1s is worth the next goal six times in ten, at every rank. The same two players score next 24 points more often after a kick-off they won.
Seven plans were written down before the games kept back to test them were scored. 31 of their 39 claims held, and the eight that failed are listed in full below.
Proof that a technique causes the win. Flipping away holds for the same player, and with the line, nose and arrival held level, but it’s still replay data, not an experiment.
The dead centre 50/50, where which move to use isn’t settled. The wave dash. And the diagonal spots, where the whole recipe looks strongest but only 27 kick-offs did all of it.
Everyone wants to win the kick-off. How much is it actually worth?
A game of ranked 1s has about a dozen kick-offs, and every player has an opinion on them. Some say win every one. Some say it’s a coin flip and it doesn’t matter. So we measured it.
So Study 007 asks three things. How much is a kick-off win worth in 1s? What actually wins one? And is it the same in 2s, where there’s a second player on each team?
29,301 kick-offs. Winning one means coming out with the ball.
Pacifist Labs pulled 29,301 kick-offs from Ballchasing. Ranked 1s and 2s, Platinum to Supersonic Legend, with the same number of games at every rank, plus the pros’ own ranked games. The ranked games are from 2025 and 2026, the pros’ from 2024 to 2026.
Most people say whoever touched the ball first won the kick-off. We don’t. You’ve won the kick-off if you come out of it with the ball, able to take a clean shot straight away or gather the possession. That’s the replay parser’s own kick-off possession result. 92% of 1s kick-offs have a winner. The rest are nobody’s ball.
| Set | Games | Kick-offs | What it answers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ranked 1s | 1,000 · 200 a rank | 11,980 | What a kick-off win is worth |
| Ranked 2s | 500 · 100 a rank | 3,359 | The same in 2s |
| Ranked 1s in detail | 800 · 160 a rank | 9,369 | What wins a kick-off, from both cars’ contact, flip and landing |
| The pros’ ranked 1s | 316 · 43 pros | 3,913 | How the pros do it |
| The pros’ ranked 2s | 98 | 680 | An early look at the pros, counted in the total, not used for any figure |
For what wins a kick-off we read every frame of the 800 detailed games, so we could measure both cars at the moment of contact. How lined up each car was behind the ball, which way its nose pointed, when it flipped and which way, and how long it took to land. Most of what follows uses real 50/50s, where both cars touched the ball and one of them came out with it.
Win the kick-off in 1s and you score next six times in ten.
Across 1,000 ranked 1s games, the kick-off winner scored the next goal 62.4% of the time. It barely moves with rank, from 60.3% at Champion to 65.5% at Grand Champion.
Kick-off winner scores the next goal, ranked 1s
You might think that’s just the better player. The better player wins more kick-offs and scores more goals anyway. So we compared each player against themselves in the same game. After a kick-off they won, they scored next 62% of the time. After one they lost, 39%. That’s a gap of 23.7 points, and it’s there at every rank.
| Rank | Gap | Interval | Games |
|---|---|---|---|
| Platinum | +22.7 points | +17.8 to +28.0 | 194 |
| Diamond | +25.5 points | +20.2 to +30.5 | 195 |
| Champion | +19.7 points | +14.8 to +24.4 | 196 |
| Grand Champion | +26.5 points | +21.9 to +30.7 | 199 |
| Supersonic Legend | +23.1 points | +19.1 to +26.8 | 197 |
| All ranks | +23.7 points | +21.6 to +25.8 | 981 |
Kick-offs decide games too. 26.7% of the goals in ranked 1s go in within ten seconds of a kick-off. Take those goals out and 22% of games end with a different result, about one in five. And Grand Champion players let in three or more kick-off goals in a third of their games.
In 2s it still matters. It’s just not where games are decided as much.
In 500 ranked 2s games, the team that won the kick-off scored next 56.6% of the time, against 62.4% in 1s. A kick-off win turned into a goal inside ten seconds half as often, 12.0% against 25.3%.
1s against 2s
The likely reason is the second player. Win the kick-off in 2s and there’s still a defender waiting. Lose it and your teammate’s there to cover. So the kick-off still matters, but what you do after it matters more.
What do you do after the kick-off?
In 2s that matters more than the kick-off. Upload one 2v2 replay to Pro Match. The free mini report shows which of the 12 most popular pros you play like, the one habit to keep and the one thing to work on. It doesn’t grade kick-offs.
Find my Pro MatchGetting there first and hitting it harder barely matter. The contact does.
So is it getting there first? Mostly no. In seven kick-offs in ten, the two cars arrive within a twentieth of a second of each other, and then the first one there wins it about half the time.
| How much sooner | Share of kick-offs | First there wins it, 800 games | First there wins it, 1,000 games |
|---|---|---|---|
| Within 0.05 s | 69.7% · 70.6% | 50.7% | 51.6% |
| 0.05 to 0.09 s | 12.5% · 13.4% | 52.2% | 56.0% |
| 0.09 to 0.3 s | 13.3% · 11.6% | 58.4% | 57.1% |
Get there a tenth to three tenths of a second sooner and you win it 57% to 58% of the time. But that only happens in 12% to 13% of kick-offs. Gaps of 0.3 s or more, 4% to 5% of kick-offs, are left out of the table. There the first car hits the ball on its own and the late car collects it 94% to 97% of the time, which says more about the first touch than about getting there first.
And hitting the ball harder barely helps. The car that hit it 150 uu/s or more harder won it 54.5% of the time in the games we explored, and 51.3% in the games held back. (uu is the game’s own unit of distance. A car is about 118 long.)
What wins most kick-offs is the contact. Draw a line from each car through the ball, towards the goal it’s attacking. If you’re lined up behind the ball, with the ball between you and your opponent’s goal, you push it forward up the pitch. Catch it from off to the side and it spills out the side, where your opponent can pick it up.
Wins the kick-off, the car with the edge against the other
Whichever of you is more lined up behind the ball wins it 58% of the time, and between 55.5% and 59.1% at every rank in the 500 games explored. And your car’s nose needs to point straight at your opponent’s goal. If it’s pointing into the side wall, that’s where the ball goes. In a model that holds everything else level, every 10 degrees off square cost 4.6 points.
See which side they’re on, then flip away from them.
Then there’s the flip into the ball, and almost nobody does this on purpose. As you jump, look at which side of the ball your opponent is on, then side flip the other way, away from them.
Here’s why it works. The ball goes the way you flip. Flip right and it went to your right 71% of the time. And if your opponent is on your left, their hit pushes the ball to your right as well. Flip right and you’re both sending it into the open space you’re already heading for.
Side and diagonal flips into the ball, away from the other car against towards it
It isn’t the player. The same 147 players won it 57% of the time when they flipped away and 44% when they flipped towards, a gap of 12.8 points, interval 6.6 to 19.1. And away beats towards at every rank.
Every way into the ball, on a level field
Flipping away works best with your nose square. Within 10 degrees of square, flipping away won 63.8%. Twenty degrees or more off, 50.7%.
From dead centre, a flip does throw your touch off the middle of the ball. From a dead centre line, a side or diagonal flip ended within 20 uu of the middle 33.2% of the time, a single jump 46.7%. That’s fine. They won it 49.5% and 48.2%. The flip just decides which way the ball goes.
Faster at every rank, but not by enough to matter. It wins at Plat and Diamond.
People think the speed flip is about speed, and it is faster at every rank. But head to head against a diagonal flip, it typically gets there only 0.03 s sooner, 0.07 s at GC. Mostly that’s inside the twentieth of a second where it’s a coin flip anyway.
It doesn’t line you up any better either. When the same player used both, their touch was just as lined up either way. The speed flip touch was 1.6 uu nearer the middle, interval -5.1 to +2.0, so no real difference.
Where it does help is Platinum and Diamond. There, arriving together, a speed flip beats a diagonal flip 60% of the time, interval 56 to 64. From Champion up that edge is gone, 49%. By then about eight kick-offs in ten are speed flips anyway.
| Rank | Speed flips, share of each car’s kick-offs | Typical gap against a diagonal flip | Speed flip beats a diagonal flip |
|---|---|---|---|
| Platinum | 58.6% | 0.034 s sooner | 61.3% |
| Diamond | 71.6% | 0.033 s sooner | 59.3% |
| Champion | 82.8% | 0.035 s sooner | 51.4% |
| Grand Champion | 69.8% | 0.067 s sooner | 52.4% |
| Supersonic Legend | 87.3% | 0.033 s sooner | 51.6% |
| Pros | 90.4% | 0.033 s sooner | 42.9%, head to head, descriptive |
The win share is the tested measure. It was written down for Plat to Champ before 300 fresh games were opened, where it held at 55.9%, and the table shows all 800 games by rank. Shares are each car’s kick-offs in real 50/50s. The pros’ figure is a different, head to head count of their own speed flips against diagonal flips, and it points the other way. None of the ways of going for the ball changed who scored the next goal on its own. Every one scored next between 47.3% and 54.4% from every spot.
On the diagonal, turn your nose up the pitch first.
There are three kinds of starting spot, the centre, off centre and the diagonal. From the centre you come straight at the ball. From the diagonal you get there quickest, but you come in at an angle, so it’s much harder to get lined up behind the ball.
Here’s how the winners play it. Before you hit the ball, turn your nose up the pitch towards your opponent’s goal, and take the ball on your car’s front corner, the one nearest the wall you started by.
Diagonal kick-offs won, by how far your nose is off straight at their goal
Get your nose within 10 degrees of straight at your opponent’s goal and you win the diagonal kick-off 63% of the time. Hit it along the diagonal and it’s about 41%. Only 9% of diagonal kick-offs get it right, and it’s the same at SSL.
From the diagonal, the side flip away was the best flip in the 364 games kept back, 62.2% and 58.3% from the two sides, against 52.6% and 54.8% in the games explored. A diagonal flip away came out at 45% to 48% in the games kept back, so on the diagonals it’s the side flip.
Lose the kick-off and land slowly, and they score more often.
You and your opponent both flip through the ball, and you both have to land. Lose the kick-off and get back on your wheels inside 0.9 s, and your opponent scores inside ten seconds 17.6% of the time. Take longer than 1.2 s and it’s 26.5%, more than one in four.
When you lose the kick-off, they score inside 10 s
So how do you land faster? Flip early. Start your flip a tenth to a fifth of a second before you hit the ball, and only about one in ten is still in the air after 1.2 s. Leave it right to the moment you hit the ball and it’s nearly one in four. And flip straight after you jump. Wait 0.2 s or more between your jump and your flip and it’s nearly one in three.
Still in the air 1.2 s after the touch
Just don’t go too early. Flip more than 0.3 s before you reach the ball and you miss it 16.2% of the time, and come out with it only 37.0%. We expected flips 0.1 to 0.3 s early to miss more too, and wrote that down before testing it. They didn’t, 3.5% against 3.2% for flips at the touch. So flips 0.1 to 0.3 s early showed no extra misses, and the flips that land quickest, 0.1 to 0.2 s early, sit inside that. The 16.2% for flips over 0.3 s early wasn’t one of the written down claims. It’s what the table showed.
And this is where SSLs do something different. A third of SSL kick-offs, 31.8%, are a single jump into the ball with no flip, against 21.7% at GC and 12.8% at Plat. Nearly half of those SSL single jumps, 46.4%, end in a wave dash.
| Rank | Single jump | Of those, a wave dash |
|---|---|---|
| Platinum | 12.8% | 18.0% |
| Diamond | 14.7% | 24.5% |
| Champion | 16.7% | 43.0% |
| Grand Champion | 21.7% | 38.2% |
| Supersonic Legend | 31.8% | 46.4% |
| Pros | 33.5% | 60.5% |
Jumping in like that wins the ball a little less often, 47.3% on the games held back. But you’re back on your wheels in 0.76 s with a wave dash and 0.95 s without, against 1.09 s after a flip. Either way, the job’s the same. Land, and get back.
Do all of it and you win nearly six in ten. Fewer than three in a hundred do.
Put it all together. Speed flip in, nose square to their goal. As you jump, see which side of the ball they’re on, and side flip away from them a tenth to a fifth of a second before you hit it.
The whole recipe, kick-offs won
Do all of it and you win the ball 56.8% of the time, 63.9% from the centre. On the diagonals it looks even better, but hardly anyone does it. Only 27 diagonal kick-offs did all of it, and 19 of them won the ball. Turn your nose to within 20 degrees of their goal rather than 10 and it’s 82 kick-offs, won 73.2% of the time. It won’t win you every kick-off. Nothing does. And only 2.8% of kick-offs do all of it. From the right off centre spot it came out at 47.9% on 121 kick-offs, so don’t read the spots apart too finely.
In the film we show five real ranked kick-offs that do the whole recipe, one from each spot. All five won the ball and all five ended in a goal inside seven seconds. They were picked to show it, so they’re an illustration, not evidence.
The pros win two games in three, and exactly half their kick-offs.
We pulled 316 of the pros’ own ranked 1s games, from 43 pros. Against SSLs, the pros won 64.7% of their games, interval 59.1 to 70.6. Their kick-offs? 49.9%, interval 48.0 to 51.8. Exactly half.
The pros in ranked 1s, against SSLs
It isn’t that they do it badly. Nine in ten of their kick-offs are speed flips, they point their nose about as square as SSLs, and they line up about as well as SSLs. When a pro side flipped away from the other car, they won it 60.7% of the time. They single jump into the ball more than any ranked group, and most of those end in a wave dash.
| Measure | Pros | SSL |
|---|---|---|
| Speed flip in | 90.4% | 87.3% |
| Single jump into the ball | 33.5% | 31.8% |
| Of those, a wave dash | 60.5% | 46.4% |
| Side and diagonal flips that go away from the other car, judged as the flip starts | 60.5% | 55.5% |
| Nose within 10 degrees of square | 53.3% | 54.7% |
| Typical touch, off the middle of the ball | 45.7 uu | 45.3 uu |
So the pros aren’t winning the kick-off. They’re winning what happens after it.
A replay shows what happened, not why.
Every result here comes from replays, not an experiment. We compared the same players in the same game, held the line, nose and arrival level, and checked the claims on games kept back from finding them. That rules a lot out. It doesn’t prove that a technique causes the win.
Some of it runs both ways. A hard knock slows your landing and sets up their goal at the same time, so a slow landing and a goal against go together without one causing the other. And the better player on the day wins more kick-offs and scores more, which is why the same game, same player comparisons matter.
The sample has limits too. Ballchasing uploads lean towards keen players. Rank is the game’s band on Ballchasing, and we took at most three games per player per rank. The 2s set is 100 games a rank, half the size of 1s.
Lined up, nose square, flip away.
The rest of this section is my coaching, built on what held in the data. It isn’t data itself.
- Get lined up behind the ball. The ball between you and their goal, your nose square to their goal. On the diagonal, turn your nose up the pitch first and take it on the front corner nearest the wall you started by.
- Flip away from them, a tenth early. As you jump, see which side of the ball they’re on and side flip the other way, a tenth to a fifth of a second before you hit it. Never more than three tenths.
- Lost it? Land, and get back. Flip early so you’re back on your wheels fast. If you single jump in, wave dash as you land.
- In 2s, think about what’s next. Win it and there’s still a defender. Lose it and your teammate’s there to cover. Worry less about the kick-off and more about what you do next.
| Question | What to look for |
|---|---|
| Am I lined up behind the ball? | The ball between you and their goal, not off to one side of you. |
| Is my nose square? | Pointing at their goal, not the side wall. Within 10 degrees on the diagonal. |
| Which side are they on? | Look as you jump, then side flip the other way. |
| When do I flip? | A tenth to a fifth of a second before contact, straight after your jump. Never more than three tenths early. |
| Did I lose it? | Land fast and get back. |
Seven frozen plans, 31 of 39 claims held. Still observational.
| Measure | Result | Read it with this |
|---|---|---|
| Kick-off winner scores next, 1s | 62.4% (61.3 to 63.8) · 60.3% to 65.5% by rank · held back 64.8% | Includes the better player on the day |
| Same players, same game | +23.7 points (+21.6 to +25.8) · held back +25.2 | Each player’s kick-offs compared inside one game |
| Kick-off goals | 26.7% of goals inside 10 s · 22% of games change without them | Descriptive |
| 2s | Winner scores next 56.6% · held back 54.2% (50.6 to 58.0) | Held, only just |
| First to the ball | 49.8% · fresh 50.7% | A coin flip when you arrive together |
| Lined up behind the ball | 57.9% · fresh 58.1% | Across the pitch, 20 uu or more |
| Nose square | 60.1% by 10 degrees · fresh 62.3% on the tested measure | Side to side angle at the touch |
| Flip away against towards | 57.6% against 44.1% · same player +12.8 points · judged as you flip, 54.7% against 48.1% | Side and diagonal flips, other car 20 uu or more off your line |
| Side flip away, level field | 59.6% · single jump 47.7% | One model, the other measures held level |
| Speed flip against diagonal flip | Plat to Champ, fresh 55.9% · arriving together, Plat and Diamond 60%, Champ to SSL 49% | Even from Champ up |
| Diagonal, nose within 10 degrees | 63% · the other 300 games, 64% · along the diagonal 41% | Not written down before testing |
| Landing after a lost kick-off | Inside 0.9 s 17.6% · after 1.2 s 26.5% · fresh 15.6% against 23.6% | What happens, not cause |
| Flip timing | 0.1 to 0.2 s early, 8% still in the air after 1.2 s · at contact 23% · on the 175 held back, 10.2% against 23.3% | 436 games pooled, held on the 175 held back |
| Boost | 20+ less 62.2% · 20+ more 60.0% · everyone else 61.6% | Corrected to game units |
| The whole recipe | 56.8% (52 to 61) · done 2.8% of the time · diagonals 19 of 27, nose within 20 degrees 73.2% of 82 | Descriptive |
| The pros, against SSLs | Games 64.7% · kick-offs 49.9% | Descriptive, 269 games |
And here’s everything that failed. Each was written down before the games kept back to test it were scored, and each is reported as it came out.
| Claim | What came out | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Not jumping into the ball loses it | 50.8% (41.2 to 60.1) | Failed |
| Flipping 0.1 to 0.3 s early makes you miss | Missed 3.5% against 3.2% for flips at the touch | Failed |
| Counting misses, flipping early loses the ball more | 51.4% against 52.5% | Failed |
| No way of going for the ball changes the next goal, every approach 45% to 55% | Going for the ball, 47.3% to 54.4%, but the fake from the diagonal came in at 44.6% | Failed |
| In a dead centre 50/50, a single jump beats a side flip by 5 points | 52.2% against 47.4%, 4.8 points | Failed |
| In a dead centre 50/50, a diagonal flip beats a side flip by 5 points | 52.0% against 47.4%, 4.6 points | Failed |
| Landing first wins a dead centre 50/50, and only there | Dead centre 59.5%, but outside it landing 0.1 s later won, 56.0% against 46.8% | Failed |
| A side flip into a dead centre 50/50 lets in more goals | 15.0% inside 10 s against 18.1% for a single jump | Failed |
The strongest evidence is how consistent it is. A kick-off win is worth about the same at every rank, the same player scores far more after a kick-off they won, and flipping away beats flipping towards at every rank, for the same player, on games kept back to test it. What it isn’t is proof of cause. And it isn’t peer reviewed.
The detail behind the numbers.
The sample
Ranked 1s and 2s replays from Ballchasing, scored by the Pacifist Labs scorer. The 1,000 1s games are 200 per rank, Platinum to Supersonic Legend, from August 2025 to October 2026. The 500 2s games are 100 per rank, from April to September 2026. The 800 detailed 1s games are 160 per rank, from July 2025 to April 2026, and share no game with the 1,000. Rank is the replay’s rank band on Ballchasing, with at most three games per player per rank. The pros’ games are their own ranked 1s from January 2024 to January 2026.
Winning the kick-off
Winning the kick-off means coming out of it with the ball, the replay parser’s own kick-off possession result. A contested kick-off, where nobody came out with it, counts as nobody’s ball. Scoring next means the kick-off winner scored the next goal of the game, however long it took. Kick-off goals are goals scored within ten seconds of the kick-off.
Real 50/50s and the measures at the touch
A real 50/50 is a kick-off where both cars touched the ball and one of them came out with it. Lined up is the ball’s offset across the pitch from the car at its touch, so it says how lined up behind the ball the car is towards their goal, and one car is more lined up when it’s 20 uu or more nearer. The nose is the side to side angle between the car’s nose and straight at their goal, with contacts made mid flip, 3.3% of kick-offs, left out. Arrival is each car’s time to the ball, and a gap under 0.01 s counts as the same frame. Landing is the time from the touch until the car is back on all four wheels.
Which way you flipped, and which side they were on
A flip’s direction is read from the spin it starts. Flips started in the last tenth of a second before the touch are often unreadable, and those count as unclear. The other car’s side is where its centre sits across your view of the ball. Away means a side or diagonal flip to the side the other car isn’t on, when it’s 20 uu or more off your line. The main figures judge the side at your touch. A player chooses the flip earlier, so the plan also judged it when the flip started, where the two agree 86.5% of the time, and away still won.
Intervals
Intervals are 95% bootstrap intervals that resample whole games, so kick-offs from the same game move together. The same player gaps resample players instead. The level field figures come from one logistic regression, as the average chance of winning if every car had made that move.
The seven frozen plans
Each plan was written down before the games kept back to test it were scored, then scored once, with whatever it said reported. All but one were committed to the study’s records first, and the times below are those commit times. The value study held back one game in five by a fixed hash of its Ballchasing id, and what wins was tested on 300 newly pulled games. The later plans were tested on games kept back from their own exploration, some of which had already been used for an earlier question, as the table shows.
| Plan | Committed | Tested on | Held |
|---|---|---|---|
| What a kick-off win is worth | 21st, 04:10 | The 20% held back, 200 1s and 113 2s games | 5 of 5 |
| What wins a kick-off | 21st, 16:38 | 300 newly pulled 1s games | 5 of 5 |
| Jump and flip timing | 22nd, 02:03 | 175 of the 436 frame games, held back | 6 of 7 |
| Early flips and misses | 22nd, 08:09 | The 300 what wins games, with frames | 0 of 2 |
| The best kick-off from each spot | 22nd, 15:15, with its result | The 1,000 value study games | 2 of 3 |
| Which way you flip | 22nd, 15:22 | 364 frame games kept back, used before for what wins and early flips | 4 of 4 |
| Every measure together | 22nd, 15:39 | The same 364 | 7 of 7 |
| The dead centre 50/50 | 23rd, 08:47 | The same 364, after the two plans above were scored | 2 of 6 |
One claim that held is set aside. It said that in a real 50/50 the car that gets there 0.1 s or more later wins it, 57.4% on the 364 games. That lumps the long gaps of 0.3 s or more, where the first car hits it alone and the late car collects it, in with the short ones. Split at 0.3 s, being first by a tenth to three tenths wins 57% to 58%.
That’s eight rows for seven plans, because the jump plan had an
addendum written down before its own games were scored. The best
kick-off from each spot was only committed with its result, and the
time in its file was filled in afterwards, so treat it as the weakest
of the plans. The value study’s boost claim counts as held, but it was
scored in the replay’s own boost units and redone afterwards, see the
boost note in section 03. Their sha256 fingerprints, so the files can be checked,
are
289264cb687e919abd8f7833e3cf6f2273e88c70a023eb1ffa472311cd25519b for the value study,
6af747e68f53c7e57b19a238efe6781932c69cd77518966948e6562724df5b7b for what wins,
27150108c33ab8cf8b3a6825ec8170a76eaa348b4a9eb7ae2adc832840b57812 for jump timing,
efedbfbfbc671ca055b8de308f0f1efd892f4499291836119a9efd9e3ca88e4c for its addendum,
1d49563c35faae0dda2c44fecc0b590db12854736c03849fce51bafc0cab359f for which way you flip,
a7d2786eba3c943e31f57b3d274a4264bce6908eb823ff98aad4f5a3bc811d79 for every measure together, and
777a6c65344c8acf966e2360a38de58f3cf72dfb53b2db5dcd1c8af79c67b7e8 for the dead centre plan.
Sources and remaining limits
Figures were checked against the Study 007 result files and the frozen plans. These identify the internal evidence. They are not public download links.
The study is observational. A technique that goes with winning the ball might also go with being the better player on the day, and the data can’t fully separate the two. No result here establishes a causal effect on winning the kick-off, the next goal or the game.
What the findings show and what’s still open.
Does getting there first matter at all?
A little. Seven kick-offs in ten, you arrive within a twentieth of a second of each other and it’s a coin flip. Get there a tenth to three tenths sooner and you win 57% to 58%, but that’s only about one kick-off in eight. The contact and the flip matter far more.
So should I stop speed flipping?
No. It wins at Plat and Diamond, and from Champ up it’s level with a diagonal flip. Just don’t expect it to win the kick-off on its own. What wins it is how you hit the ball.
Why does flipping away work?
The ball goes the way you flip, 71% of the time. If your opponent is on your left, their hit pushes the ball to your right as well. Flip right and both pushes send it into the space you’re already heading for. Flip towards them and you win it only 44% of the time.
Do the pros wave dash because they hit it dead centre?
Not by this data. The pros wave dash after more of their single jumps than SSLs, 60.5% against 46.4%, but their touch is no nearer the middle of the ball, 45.7 uu off it against 45.3 for SSLs. In dead centre 50/50s the wave dash came out differently in the two sets of games, so whether it helps there isn’t settled.
Is it the same in 2s?
The kick-off still matters, but less. The winning team scores next 57% of the time against 62% in 1s, and half as many kick-off wins turn into a goal inside ten seconds. With a second player on each team, what you do after the kick-off matters more.
Is the coaching proven by this study?
No. It’s my coaching, aimed at what the data found. It hasn’t been tested as an intervention.
Can I see my own kick-offs?
Not yet. The free Pro Match mini report doesn’t grade kick-offs. It reads one 2v2 replay and shows which of the 12 most popular pros you play like, the one habit to keep and the one thing to work on, which is what decides more of your 2s games.
Which side of the ball are they on?
In 1s, a kick-off win is worth the next goal six times in ten. What wins it isn’t getting there first. It’s the contact, lined up behind the ball with your nose square, and a side flip away from them. In 2s it’s worth less, and what you do next matters more.
Lined up. Nose square. Flip away.
Get your free Pro Match mini report.
Upload one 2v2 replay and see which of the 12 most popular pros you play like, the one habit to keep and the one thing to work on. It doesn’t grade kick-offs, it reads the rest of your game. Or explore the Pacifist System’s Digital Edition. Study 007 informs that coaching. It is not a validation of every part of the system.
PACIFIST LABS Shaping the Future of Rocket League Decision-Making.