Barely a spark: Let’s talk about Dallas Fuel
It’s no secret to anyone that Dallas Fuel are off to an extremely rough start. The boys in blue have lost a surprising 4 games in a row to start off their season. The team that many, including myself, thought would top the table currently find themselves slumming the bottom. I’ve spent a lot of time researching so let’s talk about what has gone wrong.
As I said in previous posts (which you should totally check out *wink wink*) about how important communication is in professional Overwatch. Clear and consistent calls win games, Fuel have neither clear nor consistent comms. Fuel’s communications are all over the place, from people calling different targets to everyone talking over each other. This lack of communication have proven to be a huge stumble for Fuel as other teams have found it easy to prey on their lack of coordination. Coach Kyky has been noted as saying when he first joined as coach of Envyus, they had no shotcaller and most games were played in silence. Envy didn’t need coordination because their mechanical play was so much higher than everyone else. Contenders was the most recent and most obvious display of this. In contenders Envy didn’t lose a single game and in most cases didn’t lose a single map. This dominance in the tournament can shine a light as to the issues Fuel face now, if they never needed comms before why would they need them now? Well now in the Overwatch League that’s no longer feasible. Fuel made the needed adjustments when it came to filling holes in the roster but not in leadership. In previous metas shotcalling was often designated to the Lucio player. Lucios usually filled this role because they were often on the frontline diving with the main tank and main DPS. Now we find ourselves in a Mercy meta due to her unprecedentedly powerful ultimate and teams have had to find other means of shotcalling. Currently teams have found success by having their tanks take over the shotcalling role. Tanks often find themselves in the frontlines of the fight giving them a good lay for the battlefield and how fights will progress, making shotcalling easy. Fuel have the options of making Cocco or xQc their shotcallers but for now Cocco is their only option leading to my next point.
xQc is one of the most divisive and polarizing personalities of the Overwatch community. xQc is extremely passionate about the game, this can easily be seen on his very popular stream, averaging about 10 thousand viewers per stream. This passion and energy is a knife that cuts both ways as xQc’s mouth and actions have landed him in hot water on many occasions. The first instance that had implications for Fuel was the preseason ban of xQc’s main account. This ban was instigated by his abuse of the report system. Actions such as these are beginning to be taken less and less lightly by Blizzard and for someone in xQc’s position, an example had to made. The multiple day ban that was leveraged on his account divided the pro community, many saw Blizzard’s ban to be in the wrong light in the face of the one trick problem in grandmaster. xQc faced a ban while those who refused to cooperate with their teams faced no such action on their accounts. This ban was responded to promptly by Fuel who had a sit down with xQc regarding his behavior. An apology was published and xQc kept a low profile for a while, the regular season began and following one of the more one sided loses xQc found himself in hot water once again. Following the match against the Houston Outlaws, xQc made a comment towards Muma, an openly gay player, in an extremely inappropriate and derogatory fashion. This comment being “I’d tell you to go suck a dick but knowing you you’d probably like it.” While xQc was swift to apologize to Muma on twitter and the two made peace, the damage had already been done. Blizzard made it clear this kind of homophobia wouldn’t be tolerated, banning him for 4 games. Fuel took the actions into consideration and extended the ban until the end of stage 1 of the league. xQc’s passion often causes him to act without thought, while Dallas picked him up for this aggresive mentality in game, the same behavior out of game is the issue. The question now stands, is xQc more of a help or hindrance? Currently the answer remains unclear but leans towards hindrance. Some players have hinted that the extension of xQc’s ban was extended by Fuel due to issues behind the scenes but they didn’t elaborate any further. When xQc was announced as part of the roster, I was cautiously optimistic. His high skill with tanks in a more aggressive manner filled a hole they had due to Cocco’s more passive playstyle. That being said I was more than familiar with xQc’s personality from his streams and was not very excited to see him added to the team. xQc’s rabid fanbase and obnoxious stream personality usually leave me eager to distance myself from his nonsense.
Finally, Dallas have found themselves with some injuries. Both Taimou and Chipshajen have found themselves with arm injuries which hinder their play. Being the main DPS and main support respectively, these injuries can attribute to the lackluster performance of Fuel. Luckily, Fuel have a strong support staff that have been working with the players to mitigate the effects of any injuries.
Dallas Fuel have had a rough start to the season. So many things go into making a pro team work, some fans can see, others they cannot. The most recent game against Spitfire showed a much more cohesive performance from Fuel. Fielding the classic Envy roster with the addition of Seagull seems to be yielding more success for them. The season is young and there are many games ahead. Fuel may have no come out blazing but I’m with them till the end. Being one of my two favorite teams, the other being London Spitfire, I’ve had one team go undefeated and the other winless. Fuel are going to make the adjustments they need and start burning other teams down. The last game showed improvements and it can be assured that more will follow. The blue flames may not be here now but every fire starts with a spark.
