How to perform the Speed Flip in Rocket League

In Rocket League, the Speed Flip is a mechanic that has quickly become an important skill to learn in order to keep up to speed at the highest level of ranked or the professional scene. In this guide, players can learn how to perform the Speed Flip, as well as how to Flip Cancel; a necessary step to understanding the set-up of the mechanic.

What is a Speed Flip?

A Speed Flip is a more efficient way of flipping forward, which will mostly replace your standard front, diagonal and side flips. It combines several inputs borrowed from the Flip Cancel mechanic in order to be performed.

Why use a Speed Flip?

When flipping forwards, the player can only boost for a short window of time (while the car is facing forward). This is the general strategy for basic kick-offs. Boosting while the car is pointing up, down or backward will reduce your speed and change your trajectory.

Second, when flipping forwards to hit the ball, the player ideally wants to hit the ball with their nose. This requires good timing and distance judgment. If this is miscalculated, the player can accidentally make contact with the underside of the car (known as a belly flop), which can cut their car’s momentum to a stop.

The Speed Flip allows a player to launch forwards at the ball with a flip while holding the nose forward the entire time. This gives the player the speed boost included with a flip, allows them to boost throughout the entire flip (if necessary) as the car is always facing forward, and it ensures they hit the ball with the nose of the car from any range.

How to Speed Flip

Flip Cancelling

The Speed Flip borrows from the Flip Cancel mechanic. Players must be able to perform this first. As the name implies, to Flip Cancel, the players performs a Front Flip and then cancels the animation. This is done in order to keep the car’s nose pointing forward. To Flip Cancel, players can use the following inputs:

1. Single jump with left stick Down (6 o’clock) to have the car look slightly upwards
2. Use your second jump with left stick Up (12 o’clock) to initiate a Front Flip
3. Immediately pull left stick Down again (6 o’clock) after the Front Flip begins and hold it

When timed correctly, the Front Flip animation will cancel and a player’s car should stop rotating before pointing directly downwards. This is depending on how high their car was facing during step one. If players use low sensitivity settings, their car may start to turn or barrel roll. If so, they can use Air Roll to manually complete the roll and recover with their wheels pointing down.

The button combo looks like this:

Speed Flip

Comparing a standard Side Flip with Air Roll assisted Side Flip helps to demonstrate what a Speed Flip will look like and why Air Roll is important in this mechanic.

1. The first example is a standard Side Flip. The car barrel rolls but falls slightly short of the full 360-degree roll. The same also happens with a forward diagonal left flip.
2. The second example is an Air Roll assisted Side Flip. We’re holding Air Roll (square) and the left stick in the direction of the flip throughout the animation. This addition of manual Air Roll allows a player to complete the full 360-degree rotation smoothly.

To successfully speed flip, players can slightly adjust the Flip Cancel input directions and combine that with the Air Roll assisted Side Flip (to the left). Players can mirror the left stick actions to the right to perform a right side Speed Flip.

1. Single jump
2. Secondary jump with the left stick pointing Up-left (11 o’clock) to initiate a diagonal left Front Flip
3. Immediately cancel the flip animation with the left stick pointing Down-left (7 o’clock) and also holding Air Roll
4. Continue to hold down-left on the left stick whilst holding Air Roll. This will assist the car through the final portion of the rotation

Using Rocket League legacy controls (Square for Air Roll), the button combo looks like this:

Perfecting the Speed Flip

There are a few more additions to make the Speed Flip smoother and applicable to more scenarios.

It’s not necessary for all scenarios, but many players will initiate their Speed Flip with Power Slide. This is mostly necessary coming from the kick-off as initiating a forward diagonal left flip, while fully gripping the ground, can potentially push the car two to three car widths to the side. This can delay a player’s kick-off approach or cause them to miss a pre-flip challenge on the ball.

With Powerslide, the car can release its grip on the ground and the forward diagonal left flip won’t push the car so far to the side. Additionally, players may also initially offset their car by Powersliding diagonally opposite to their Speed Flip direction. This is so that if the car does push sideways, it’s technically traveling diagonally forwards and the boost pushes the car back into the middle (onto the line).

For a left-sided Speed Flip, a player Powerslides to the right to offset the direction.

1. Hold Powerslide and the left stick pointing Up-right (1 o’clock direction)
2. After a very slight turn, perform the standard left side speed flip

Using Rocket League legacy controls (Square for Air Roll and Powerslide), the button combo will now look like this:

Players will be performing a Square, X, X, Square button combo (Powerslide – Jump – Flip – Air Roll) while timing the left stick movements as above. As they get quicker at this, it will look as though they are making a big anti-clockwise semi-circle rotation. But the skip between step three and four is still necessary to ensure the Flip Cancel is properly registered.

Additional tips

Here are some additional tips and drills for improving Speed Flips and increasing utility around the pitch.

Powerslide out

Players can additionally hold the Powerslide again before the car makes contact with the ground. This will allow players to Powerslide out of the Speed Flip and maintain their momentum if their car isn’t facing directly forwards. This is generally used in kick-offs and can also be used to chain together multiple Speed Flips as a recovery method.

Transfers

When approaching the wall, players can use a Speed Flip in the direction facing the wall. When timed correctly, players can gain speed from the flip and then land on the wall at 270-degrees through the Speed Flip. They can use this drill to practice their transfers

1. Speed Flip near a wall to transfer
2. Jump off the wall and dave-dash back to the ground
3. Speed Flip again on the ground

Players can use this drill to hit the ball near the wall, transfer, and then keep their momentum to continue chasing the ball up field. Combining Speed Flips and wave-dashes together when transferring is the best way to chase in Rocket League.

The Speed Flip Test

Players can use Musty’s Rocket League speed flip training pack to test how quickly they can approach the ball. If they’re too slow, the ball will disappear. As a final tip, the player should start the Speed Flip before the first pattern change on the grass.

Musty’s Speed Flip training pack code: A503-264C-A7EB-D282