If you, like us, have spent the last few months glued to the WFTDA postseason, you know the narrative…the rest of the world is once again closing the gap with our North American OGs. But over in the MRDA lane, it’s a similar story…with one, rather large and very golden asterisk.

Whose House?

Europe isn’t just raising the roof in MRDA; that thing is on fire. At the recent Men’s Roller Derby World Cup in Orléans, Team France didn’t just compete with the Americans…they blew them away, beating Team USA 230-137 in the Final to take Gold.

And that result was no fluke, no freak lightning strike; it was a decade in the making. When the Men’s Derby Coalition formed in 2007 (rebranding to the Men’s Roller Derby Association in 2011), the postseason was strictly an American party, dominated first by New York Shock Exchange and Your Mom Men’s Derby, and later by the dynasty of the St. Louis GateKeepers. Across the pond, however, European teams were quietly laying their foundations.

Manchester Roller Derby and London’s Southern Discomfort Roller Derby set up shop within a few months of each other in 2010, becoming the first UK leagues to earn MRDA membership back in 2012. Southern Discomfort blazed the trail as the first European charter ever invited to MRDA Champs, Cwmbran hosted the first European edition of MRDA Champs in Wales in 2017 before Newcastle’s Tyne and Fear brought the tournament to England in 2024.

Roller Derby Toulouse’s Quad Guards climbed from European challengers to undisputed kings of the world, winning the 2025 MRDA Global Championship on American soil (beating hosts Concussion 235-93 in Salem, Oregon) and entering this weekend undefeated since 2022.

So, as Euro Derby News packs up and heads to Toulouse for the Men’s Roller Derby Association (MRDA) Eastern Hemisphere Cup (EHC), be warned, this isn’t just some regional Roller Derby. You’re watching the best of the best. And, if this is your first time diving into MRDA, we got you.

Here’s the essentials on the MRDA postseason landscape, and your invite to play along with our EDN Bracket Challenge…

Faster Chaos & Familiar Faces

First, MRDA plays the exact same WFTDA Rules of Flat-Track Roller Derby. Gameplay? Pack dynamics? Tactics and strategy? Everything you’re used to analysing to death is right there! Fair warning though, expect the tempo to feel like someone hit x2 speed.

Where top WFTDA games often revolve around slow-grinding attrition and locked-in brace work, the MRDA meta leans heavily into elastic pack spacing, explosive clearances, rapid-fire offence-to-defence transitions, and jammers launching into orbit around the apex, or anywhere they can!

Just as importantly, despite the historical “M” in the branding, European leagues refer to this division as OTA (Open To All) for a reason. MRDA is open-gender where men, women, and non-binary skaters share the track every week, and the association allows dual-chartering with WFTDA. Skaters who meet the gender inclusion policies of both organisations can actively skate for both simultaneously. Keep a sharp eye on the rosters in Toulouse and you will see WFTDA stars lining up right alongside MRDA lifers.

Grand Cru Run of Sham’Pain (#06)

Before we go any further, we need to salute and commend Toulouse’s Sham’Pain. While she wasn’t on the Men’s World Cup roster, the run of elite tournament play she has strung together over the last 16 months is nothing short of absurd: skating at the 2025 Roller Derby World Cup in Innsbruck, taking Gold at the 2026 WFTDA European Regional Championships in Namur, going wheel-to-wheel with the world’s best at WFTDA Champs in Malmö, and now rolling straight into the MRDA Eastern Hemisphere Cup on home track with the Quad Guards (while also helping run the tournament livestream!). Phenomenal.

WFTDA Crossovers meet MRDA Royalty

Sham’Pain is far from the only familiar name pulling double duty. Across the weekend, you’ll see WFTDA heavyweights like Crime City Rollers’ Bruise Li (#101) skating for D.H.R., Leeds Roller Derby’s Crash Test Barbie (#93) suiting up for Sheffield’s Inhuman League, and London Roller Derby’s Boo-dica (#66), Camer Rattattack (#02), and JT (#33) rolling with Southern Discomfort.

Better yet, they’re sharing the track with the veteran MRDA cornerstones who have defined European MRDA for years. Skaters like Toulouse’s Galopin (#125) and Slash (#2), Tyne and Fear’s Braines (#0191), Force-A-Nature (#110), and Terremoto (#333), and SoDisCo’s Blitzkrieg (#101), Bear Skillz (#1337), and Windmill Wilkin (#004).

Wait, what happened to New Wheeled Order?

If you’re an old-school UK derby watcher squinting at the seedings and wondering where Manchester Roller Derby’s New Wheeled Order is hiding, the pioneering travel team stepped back from MRDA competition after the 2024 season. While Manchester’s developmental squad Chaos Engine still competes domestically in Five Nations OTA Tier 3, plenty of NWO pedigree is alive and well in Toulouse, most notably on the Wirral Pack Animals charter, where former NWO mainstays Gigg (#12) and Ewok E. Horror (#450) now ply their trade.

Why a “Hemisphere Cup”?

To keep international play financially sustainable for self-funded teams, the MRDA split its 2026 global postseason into two premier regional championships rather than a single Global tournament. Back in August, the Western Hemisphere Cup (WHC) took place in Dallas, Texas, culminating in a 154-150 thriller where the #3 global St. Louis GateKeepers edged out #2 Concussion Roller Derby.

Now, it’s Europe’s turn. Eastern Hemisphere Cup (EHC) features a 10-team seeded bracket playing 15 games across three days at the Gymnase du Château de l’Hers.

Friday morning opens with Round 1 play-in games between seeds #7 through #10, while #1 Toulouse and #2 Tyne and Fear wait in the wings with byes until Friday evening’s Quarterfinals.

Even if a team drops an early game, nobody goes home early: Saturday and Sunday feature full Consolation Bracket battles for 5th through 10th place, and every single one of those games counts for bonus points in our Bracket Challenge.

Where to Watch Live (Free All Weekend!)

Every game of the 2026 MRDA Eastern Hemisphere Cup stream live and free – tune in on the Official MRDA YouTube Channel

Meet the Teams

It’s a tale as old as time, the battle across the Channel, and the top of this EHC bracket is no exception. Basically it boils down to a style clash between two geographical heavyweights. The hyper-coordinated, lightning-fast French system versus the grinding, physical pack play of the British teams.

Final Bosses – Friday Morning Byes

#1 Roller Derby Toulouse Quad Guards (MRDA Rank #1) 

Our hosts haven’t lost a single game since 2022, coming into this weekend on a ridiculous 46-game winning streak. 9 of the 14 games the Quad Guards have played this year have been sanctioned, and they already lifted the French Elite Championship trophy back in March. They are the undisputed final boss of the tournament.

#2 Tyne and Fear A (MRDA Rank #5) 

Founded in Newcastle upon Tyne in 2011, Tyne and Fear marched through the 2026 Five Nations (5NRD) OTA Tier 1 season undefeated to claim 1st place. Toulouse got the better of Newcastle 305-68 in an October warm-up clash, meaning Tyne and Fear has had the last month to plot how to drag the French champions into deep water if they meet again on Sunday.

Quarterfinal Heavyweights

#3 Roller Derby Nantes Atlantique – Jules Vénères (MRDA Rank #6)

Established in 2013, RDNA boasts the full club set, an OTA team, a WFTDA team, and a junior squad. Entering as French Elite silver medalists (after going at it with Toulouse in the March national final on home track) and ranked 6th globally, Nantes is tested against almost every roster in this building, with only D.H.R. and Birmingham left to cross off their list.

#4 Nordiks de Touraine – Tours Track’Ass (MRDA Rank #12)

Part of the Nordiks de Touraine multi-sport club in Tours that does just about anything on wheels (including rink hockey!), Track’Ass is the third prong of the French trident and steps straight into Friday afternoon’s tightest quarterfinal.

#5 Southern Discomfort (MRDA Rank #13) & #6 The Inhuman League (MRDA Rank #23)

Veteran backbone of English MRDA. London’s SoDisCo (est. 2010) and Sheffield’s Inhuman League (est. 2011, who played all of their 2026 games in Five Nations action) finished 2nd and 3rd respectively behind Newcastle in 5NRD OTA Tier 1 this year. Both arrive in Southern France ready to turn Friday afternoon’s Anglo-French quarterfinals into a proper rumble.

Pick Your Underdog: 4 Wildcards to Back

We love an underdog to get behind, and the four teams opening the tournament on Friday morning are packed with personality. If you want a lower seed to cheer on in Round 1 and through Saturday’s consolation bracket, here’s why you should back them…

#7 D.H.R. Roller Derby (MRDA Rank #24) 

Historically rooted in Kiel and Copenhagen, D.H.R. was started in 2016 by Kiel Roller Derby from the leftovers of folded German squad H.O.S.S.A. (Hot Outstanding Super Sailor All Stars), with Denmark’s Aarhus Roll’n’ Men’ace joining forces in 2017 to keep OTA derby alive in their corner of Europe. 

D.H.R. stands for Der Hässliche Rest (“The Ugly Remains”), which is why their logo proudly features the ugliest animal on earth: the naked mole rat. Look closely at their uniforms and you’ll spot each skater’s home city printed on their shirt, and because a huge portion of this Germany/Denmark/Sweden squad just skated together as Kalmar Union at the World Cup, their chemistry is way deadlier than a #7 seed suggests.

#8 Wirral Pack Animals (MRDA Rank #29) 

Charging out of the North West of England, the Pack Animals own the best pub-quiz stat of the weekend: a remarkably large percentage of their team consists of non-medical doctors. If you want to put your bracket faith in a pack of literal PhDs calculating in real time, the Doctors of Wirral are your team.

#9 Borderland Bandits Roller Derby (MRDA Rank #33) 

Established in Stamford in 2022 (and boasting a junior team, the Borderland Beasts), the Bandits are the newest club at EHC this year. They were originally formed by a breakaway crew of Southern Discomfort and Lincolnshire Rolling Thunder skaters who simply wanted to skate nearer to their own houses instead of driving half the length of England for practice.

#10 Crash Test Brummies (MRDA Rank #48) 

Based in Birmingham and established in 2012, the Brummies hosted the delightful transatlantic Summer Smash tournament in 2025 and have surged in size recently because guest skaters drop in for a single session, fall in love with the positive team culture, and never leave. Plus, as Painbow rightly points out, “everyone looks good in yellow”. They are missing powerhouse Smacks this weekend, for the ultimate derby flex of flying to the US to compete in World’s Strongest Woman.

Obligatory EDN EHC Bracket Challenge

It would be rude to have a championship weekend without wildly overthinking your predictions, so we’ve fired up the Euro Derby News Bracket Challenge engine for Toulouse and the EHC.

But predicting MRDA games comes with an interesting statistical twist. While most WFTDA fans rely on Flat Track Stats (FTS) to forecast games, MRDA utilises its own internal algorithm for seeding: the Linear Regression on Score Ratios (LRR) tool, built and maintained by MRDA President Grimace.

Unlike FTS, which updates chronologically game-by-game, the LRR evaluates every sanctioned game in a 12-month window simultaneously. If Team A plays Team B in May, and Team B plays Team C in October, the LRR retroactively updates the mathematical weight of that May game.

If you want to win the EDN Bracket Challenge, you have to know where these two algorithms disagree. Here’s where we think you should be looking on Friday…

Coin Flip (Game 3 – Friday 13:00) 

#4 Tours Track’Ass vs. #5 Southern Discomfort. FTS calls this a 51/49 dead heat with a razor-thin 82:81 projected score ratio. MRDA’s internal LRR gives Tours a slight 1.17x edge. Ultimate Friday afternoon bracket-breaker?

Upset Watch (Game 2 – Friday 11:00) 

#8 Wirral Pack Animals vs. #9 Borderland Bandits. FTS gives Wirral a 73% win probability at a modest 13:10 score ratio, leaving the Bandits with a 27% chance in the Friday morning play-in. If you want an early underdog pick to separate your bracket from the Hive Mind, circle this one.

Margin Dispute (Game 4 – Friday 15:00) 

#3 Nantes vs. #6 The Inhuman League. Both models predict a Nantes win (91% on FTS), but FTS thinks Sheffield can hold the French squad to roughly a 2-to-1 ratio (29:15). MRDA’s live 12-month regression, however, rates the French Elite Silver medalists nearly 2.75x stronger.

When it comes down to it, whether you’re backing the Quad Guards to stretch their unbeaten streak past 46 on their home track, betting on Newcastle or Nantes to spoil the party, or just hunting for Friday morning underdog chaos, you really don’t have an excuse not to get stuck in. 

Fifteen games, three days, free livestream on the Official MRDA YouTube Channel, and the best open-gender roller derby on the planet going head-to-head in Southern France.

Ready to lock in your picks? Fill out your 15-game EHC bracket before the first whistle blows on Friday at 09:00 CET, then pull up the MRDA YouTube stream to watch the chaos unfold live!