The set up wasn’t very good and the execution was poor. Those were the things Dallas Fuel head coach Aaron “Aero” Atkins was discussing with his coaching staff while Noh “Gamsu” Youngjin was taking a leisurely stroll on Orisa.

His teammates were being eliminated left and right. It was one of the few fights the Justice (2-7) won Saturday evening as the Fuel (2-3) swept them 3-0. Still, Gamsu went unnoticed as he walked with the payload to finish the map without contest -- better known in Overwatch as a “C9."

“We were caught off guard,” Aero said. “I was talking to our staff about how we shouldn’t have lost this fight and our setup was kind of poor. We wanted to change this and that. While we were talking about that we capped the point and we were like ‘wait a second, what just happened?’”

My team distract so I can have peaceful walk ^^ https://t.co/YReMJJbhhe — Gamsu (@GamsuOW) April 12, 2020

Fuel support player William “Crimzo” Hernandez joked about the moment, which was a back-breaking mistake by the Justice. It made sense the Fuel be the beneficiary of a moment where their opponent lost its focus, because Dallas looked like a demolition crew every other fight. Nothing could go right for the Justice, and the dominant Fuel even had luck on their side.

“Before the fight we knew what was going to go down and we called ther C9,” Crimzo said jokingly. “They just fell for the trap.”

Crimzo later admitted that the moment was completely random. The Fuel’s performance wasn’t random at all though. Dallas did play weird team compositions -- They used a Doomfist, Genji, Junkrat, Mei, Hanzo and Pharah all in one match, which was uncommon even before the Overwatch League instituted hero pools -- Weird strategies have become the Fuel’s style though.

The Justice just became the latest victim.

“I think they kind of just got out-played to be honest,” Crimzo said. “Our comps were really good counters to what they were playing and I think we were genuinely more prepared and ready to fight for the win today.”

The much improved Fuel are a product of significant amounts of time away from official matches. They went two months without playing an OWL game due to matches being canceled while the league handled the outbreak of the coronavirus (COVID-19).

Aero and his team didn’t twiddle their thumbs and take on practice as it were status quo. They recognized how valuable those moments were, and used it to their advantage by practicing a variety of compositions and styles despite not getting to display them for the world to see.

“I think we are growing a ton as a team right now. We have gotten some officials under our belt and we are handling pressure really well,” Aero said. “It’s crazy freedom to be able to choose comps. One of the early things we decided on as a team is we don’t what to think about only countering in terms of picks. We also want to be able to counter with play styles.”

GGs @washjustice Quick 3-0 feels good to start getting some W's lets keep it going :D — Trill (@Trill_ow) April 12, 2020

Gamsu marching may have been because the Justice weren’t paying attention, but the Fuel were convincing enough in every other moment. They dominated every map on every composition they used. Jang “Decay” Gui-un and Kim “DoHa” Dongha are capable of basically every damage hero and the Fuel used that to their advantage. Decay utilized his skills on Tracer, Hanzo and Genji while DoHa was able to pull off five eliminations with one Junkrat ultimate. Everything went right.

It took a few seconds for Aero to remember the last time the Fuel played that well. He decided it was April of 2019, when the Fuel picked up two wins against the Houston Outlaws and the Los Angeles Valiant at the team’s homestand weekend.

“It’s been about a year since we really played this well in an official match. Since then things haven’t been perfect on stage and to be able to have this kind of performance today feels great.”

Aero admitted that not everything has been easy for the Fuel. Going two months without matches made practice emotionally demanding. Not everyone wanted to be doing that every day, and now that the team couldn’t leave their homes with the stay-at-home order in Dallas, they missed out on bonding time. Practice became about all they had.

“It can be tough for people in this state and I can see that in my players sometimes, that it’s affecting them,” Aero said. “But to be able to come out today in a match and play like this, I think says a lot about the mental fortitude that our players have.”

Practice paid off. The Fuel, who only ended a 15-match losing skid on April 5, are officially on a win streak.

Find more Fuel stories from The Dallas Morning News here.