Overwatch – Interview With The Dallas Fuel Team!

When we were invited by Blizzard for a visit at the Blizzard HQ in California, we were also given a ride around the Blizzard Arena in Los Angeles. There, we toured around the arena and had an interview with one of the most popular teams of the Overwatch League (OWL), Dallas Fuel. We were greeted with the main roster of the team namely from left Seagull (Brandon Larned), HarryHook (Jonathan Tejedor Rua), Mickie (Pongphop Rattanasangchod), aKm (Dylan Bignet), uNKOE (Benjamin Chevasson) and Effect (Hyeon Hwang).

Seagull had a rough start at the beginning when he was coming into the interview room with a nudge on his head due to his height but he was okay. Once the team had taken their seats, Mickie, as the comical one says “Welcome to my stream.” Of course everyone laughed but we moved on with the interview questions before the new season of OWL begins.

To break the ice, a simple question was posed to them, “How are you guys doing?”. After the team had an 8 losing streak, HarryHook brushed it off stating that despite their lost streak, they are still feeling good. With uNKOE that recently joined their team, they had a great start during the Stage 3 as they nabbed their first win of the series against Shanghai Dragons.

This was due to the shot-calling by uNKOE as the support player for the team. Being in the backline and keeping watch on the opponent’s ultimates, he was able to provide information and reminding the team to beware of. Of course, uNKOE does it along side with HarryHook and it is highly dependent on the composition of the team as well. Seagull gave an example of a dive comp or when a Sombra is in the team, the team needs to communicate with each other before initiating a fight with ultimates and also the positioning of supports. So the whole team communicates and talks a lot dependent on the situation.

Micke: I can’t because I don’t understand

Seagull: He likes to pretend his English is bad when he gets tough questions

aKm known for his signature Soldier76 picks in matches was asked if he’s comfortable with his role to flex between different roles and heroes during the coming matches. Given that most of the matches require him to play DPS, there were instances where he would switch roles as an off-tank like Roadhog or Sombra since she’s pretty strong in the current meta now. He also said that he felt good to be able to perform on something else other than Soldier76 or Genji.

With Dallas Fuel still experimenting and looking for the best composition for the team, Mickie who was usually seen taking up the off-tank role with his signature hero, Dva, was switched to play as the main tank for the team. He was seen playing Orisa, Reinhardt and even Winston because he does not mind swapping roles to improve the team’s composition. By coordinating with Seagull, Mickie is also comfortable to play as a main tank with this team.

During the OWL Stage 2 event, Seagull was benched for a while but now that he’s back in the main roster, we had to ask about his break in Stage 2. It was due to the number of DPS players in the team which gave him the idea to pick up on another role for the benefit of the team. He was training to play Dva during his break to get ready for Stage 3. With his signature heroes like Genji, Junkrat and even Hanzo, he’s now changing his role from a DPS to an off-tank to help the team cope with other heroes as seen during the beginning of Stage 3.

Dallas Fuel has come a long way since Stage 1 of OWL. With new members and players stepping out from their comfort zone like Seagull and Mickie, they recognize the need to be flexible in their hero pool to improve the team’s composition. Because most of the players in Dallas Fuel are DPS players like Taimou, Effect, Seagull, HarryHook and aKm, the need to be flexible and communicate with the team is needed to bring the team higher in the OWL ladder.

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