Throughout each week of Stage 2, this series will follow the Dallas Fuel and assess their performance, roster changes and areas for improvement as they try to lift themselves back up the ladder. I’ll also look at the next week’s games and weigh in on Dallas’ chances.

At the end of week 1 of Stage 2, Dallas looked decisive and confident off two victories against the Los Angeles Gladiators and the Shanghai Dragons. They had maintained a logical and strategic roster and looked to keep the momentum going against the Seoul Dynasty and the Los Angeles Valiant in week 2.

The Dallas Fuel enter the Blizzard Arena.

Unfortunately, that was not the case. Fuel lost both games last week, going 1–3 against in both matches. Unfortunately, a lot of the ground made in week 1 seems to be lost and a failure to continue to evolve and adapt is the key issue. Inconsistency was rampant and once again, communication and team synergy was off. We were back to the same problems that have haunted Fuel from the beginning of the season.

In both series, Effect played his own game. He was so disconnected from his team. In some ways, he seemed like a solo queue in competitive who had been matched up with a five stack. He was engaging at the wrong times and was trying to single-handedly win fights that were already long lost. A good example of this was the first map against Seoul on Hanamura. The team would push up on the right hand side of Point B with Effect flanking on the left. However, there were countless times when Effect rushed onto the point at the wrong time and often before the rest of the team on the right were ready to engage. There was follow up on his distraction with an engage, because the team wasn’t in position. This created either a 5v6 fight or a huge attack stagger for Dallas. Whether this communication stemmed from one particularly shotcaller or the team as a whole is unknown.

No one is denying Effect’s raw skill and talent. However, it did seem like this off week was the culmination of the many weeks of play prior where he’s been openly frustrated with his own performance. Throughout the season, Effect has apologised for losses and vowed to put in enough practice hours to improve. He was even seen practicing by himself on the stage at half-time against the Valiant. It’s clear that Effect feels a strong correlation between the team’s performance and his own. The lines up with others on the team, such as Taimou and xQc, who have indicated they would grind and improve their own performance after team losses.

Effect practices alone at half-time versus the Valiant.

Individual skill can be instrumental to games and team performance. However, individual skill is not the main problem faced by Fuel at the moment. Whilst some players have clearly had off weeks, most of Fuel’s problems stem from their inability to consistently come together and communicate as a team. Even issues like mistimed or misused ultimates can be traced back to bad communication in the heat of the moment, depending on the situation. Whilst xQc clarified that Effect could talk to the team backstage through his microphone whilst he practiced alone at half-time, it’s still an odd move. When looking at morale and team relationships, being on a microphone connected to backstage is not the same as going backstage with the rest of your team. Nonetheless, Effect did come back stronger against the Valiant after practicing at half-time, so maybe there was something in it on a personal level.

The tank line was also a source of many problems for Fuel this week. On his stream, xQc talked about Fate, the Los Angeles Valiant’s Winston player, playing against Dallas last Friday. xQc explained that Fate is, mechanically, a great player, but when playing against Dallas he didn’t play his best. Fate was jumping in and wasting bubbles, amongst other things, but he got away with it because Envy, the Valiant’s D.Va player, was always with him. The synergy in the tank line gave them the edge over Dallas.

In both games last week, Mickie and xQc were constantly separated. Mickie rarely followed up xQc’s dives and was often investing resources into protecting aKm in the back line. For some reason, instead of the tanks diving in and giving room for aKm to set up in the back of a fight, Mickie decided to put attention into keeping aKm alive at all costs. It only got worse as the maps went on — teams realised that applying pressure to aKm was the best way to shut down a push, so Mickie had to frequently peel back to aKm, which then meant xQc was left to make room by himself, which then meant that aKm never had enough room to set up, which enabled the opposing team to put pressure on aKm… and so the cycle continued. Fuel got stuck in this repetitive cycle way too often and didn’t seem to make any effort to change strategies to break it.

Hanamura was the map that best exemplified all of Fuel’s problems in both games this week. On Hanamura, Seoul put most of their resources into shutting down aKm, particularly when they defended Point B. On Fuel’s first push on B, Miro and Zunba immediately pressured aKm when he stepped onto the high-ground directly opposite the point. On the second push, aKm used tactical visor, which prompted Zunba to zone him out with a self-destruct. On Fuel’s 2nd attack round, Seoul varied strategies and ignored aKm, moved past him and harassed the supports behind him. This indirectly shut down aKm as he had to peel back out of position.

aKm uses tactical visor and immediately gets zoned out by Zunba’s delf-destruct.

When attacking Point B, the only strategy Fuel used was to push up the stairs on the right to the high-ground with aKm setting up on the high-ground directly opposite the point. Meanwhile, Seoul never did the same thing twice when engaging with Fuel on Point B. Fuel simply kept trying the same thing over and over, which only allowed Seoul to further exploit them. This ultimately meant Fuel couldn’t capture B on their second attack round, losing them the map.

However, it gets worse. It’s one thing to not be able to adapt during a game, but the Fuel didn’t adapt their Hanamura strategy at all between games. When they went up against Valiant on Hanamura, they tried exactly the same strategy of pushing the high-ground to the right when attacking B. Valiant ran laps around them — Soon had a field day with Dallas grouped up and squashed into the right corridor every time they tried to attack and aKm was shut down push after push.

Oddly, another strange element of Fuel’s play style over Stage 2 thus far has been their reluctance to drop Mercy from their support lineup. Looking at Mercy’s pick rates for each team, Fuel’s is the highest by far at 56%. Whilst this is certainly down from the near-100% pick rate Mercy had on each team in Stage 1, the next highest Mercy pick rate on any team in Stage 2 is the Shanghai Dragons, with 38%. Although Mercy may not be completely out of the meta like some people thought she would be, across the board she’s not used nearly as much as Fuel are using her. For all other teams, Mercy’s pick rate sits somewhere between 10 and 25%, with some pushing up into the 30% region.

No one else is using Mercy as much as Fuel. This is not innately a problem — in the past, EnVyUs were known for bending or ignoring the meta somewhat. However, playing Mercy was certainly not one of Dallas’ strong points in Stage 1. It should also be concerning that HarryHook is now the team’s Mercy player, despite Custa and Chipshajen sharing the role in Stage 1. In a strange turn of events, HarryHook has played more Mercy than Lucio in Stage 2, with a 55% pick rate on her (with Lucio 2nd on 28% and Ana on 16%). HarryHook’s Mercy looked pretty bad in week 2. He was constantly being picked off and went for resurrections in questionable situations or when the fight was already over. It seems like an odd route for Dallas to take and we’ll have to see what happens come week 3.

Felix “xQc” Lengyel

Many people were also confused why Rascal was only subbed in for one map (against Seoul for map four) over the course of the two games. We can only speculate here, although it remains a valid criticism, especially when Effect was inconsistent this week and aKm was being consistently shut down. Rascal might have provided some more flexibility to Fuel’s strategies. However, it’s worth noting that if Fuel had practiced specific strategies in scrims revolving around aKm and Effect, then subbing in Rascal would only throw those strategies completely out the window and probably do more harm than good. Nonetheless, hopefully Rascal gets more playtime in week 3 and Fuel develop some strategies around him.

It might also be time to start subbing in Seagull for Mickie, depending on how well his transition to flex/off-tank is going in scrims. If Fuel are going to keep using xQc, then they need someone who can play with his aggressive style. Mickie hasn’t shown that he can do that over his last three games with xQc. Plus, with King’s Row in the lineup for both of Dallas’ matches in week 3, Seagull would be a good option to have for Zarya instead of Mickie.

This week, Fuel go up against the San Francisco Shock and the Florida Mayhem. Coming off two losses in games which should have been competitive but weren’t, I’m not sure how to look at Fuel going into week 3. I’d like to say that both matches this week will be easy wins for Fuel, but something is holding me back. San Francisco Shock should definitely be victory, although I feel that the game against Florida could be surprisingly competitive, given that both team are suffering from similar problems.

Fuel need to recapture that week 1 energy. It’s frustrating to watch progress be made one week and then watch Fuel lose it all in the next. Now is the time for consistency, synergy and communication, but then again, so was the beginning of Stage 2. If Fuel can’t pull off two wins this week, it’s time to be concerned not just for the rest of the stage, but for the rest of the season as well.

Things to look out for in week 3:

The return of Chipshajen: This will continue to be on the list each week until Chips returns. With disappointing Mercy play and very little Lucio, it might be time to send HarryHook backstage and bring out Chips instead. Brush that dust off Ana and bring her out of the cupboard for week 3!

This will continue to be on the list each week until Chips returns. With disappointing Mercy play and very little Lucio, it might be time to send HarryHook backstage and bring out Chips instead. Brush that dust off Ana and bring her out of the cupboard for week 3! King’s Row: This map is one of the best in the current map pool and it will allow Fuel to be a bit more fluid with hero picks. Could we see Seagull subbing in for Mickie in order to run Zarya? Will xQc take up the Reinhardt and give another stellar performance on his best map in the stage map pool? Let’s hope so.

This map is one of the best in the current map pool and it will allow Fuel to be a bit more fluid with hero picks. Could we see Seagull subbing in for Mickie in order to run Zarya? Will xQc take up the Reinhardt and give another stellar performance on his best map in the stage map pool? Let’s hope so. The tank line: xQc has already indicated he understands the problems with the tank line. With this in mind, it will be interesting to see what tank combination Fuel decides to run in week 3. Taimou played one game to begin his transition over to main tank and hasn’t played since. We will see him again this week or will xQc stay in? Could things be mixed up with a Taimou-Seagull tank line? I wouldn’t put it past Dallas, that’s for sure.

Statistics thanks to Winston’s Lab. Photos by Robert Paul courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment.

Edit: A previous version of this article claimed that Rascal was subbed in after Dallas had already lost 3 maps to Seoul. The score was actually 2–1 to Seoul at that point.