The following is the second and final part of an exclusive interview with Dallas Fuel coach Kyle “KyKy” Souder, in which he discusses his perspective on the release of xQc, the ideal OWL roster size and the thoughts behind map substitutions.

Some quotes have been edited for flow and clarity, but the original meaning and intent remains the same. The interview was conducted prior to Fuel’s game with NYXL on Thursday.

We’ve heard just about everyone else’s perspective on the matter, but what was your experience with the whole xQc situation from start to end? Were you involved with the decision to release him?

At the start, we knew that xQc was gonna be a problem we had to work on. Everyone was trying to work on him. I know me, Tazmo, Hastro, we all put in a lot of time into helping him. Even though he was helped a little bit, he still strived to be the one to be the dude who had everything — he wanted to be the leaker. I think that had a negative effect on the management side. Of course, I didn’t really care myself. While we were in the practice room, there were often times where he was always just so worried about stream-related things that it made hard for him to focus. When he did play though, I felt like he could have been the best tank.

There were some great performances.

He thinks a lot about the strategy and the game. He puts a lot into it, it got to a point where Blizzard was putting a lot of weight on all the stuff that was happening. I was involved in the decision to release him, but for me it seemed like he was more focused on his stream and I knew that the players weren’t happy about that. I guess it was time to try something new. It wasn’t entirely my decision, I probably didn’t even make an impact on the decision. But I have nothing against him. He’s a great person. Every time we went out he was the life of the team. Everyone still likes him, we still hang out with him, we’re still living with him even. But at the end of the day he’s a streamer and I think he realises that now because he’s sticking to streaming and that’s good. It is what it is.

Were there discussions about releasing him before the second suspension, or was it the second suspension that prompted the discussions?

Well after the first one, we tried to work on him even harder. I know that some people like Richard Lewis put out reports that no one talked to him and told him that maybe Blizzard was going after him… but all that stuff’s not true. Everyone who was part of the organisation was trying to help him. It just got to the point where as we were closing in on the second suspension, we were like, “Ok Felix, just lay low. Nothing, nothing at all.” But he just couldn’t help himself. He knows that he should have stopped but he just couldn’t. He is who he is. He’s a free spirit. He does what he wants. It just had to be done.

Overwatch League allows 12 players signed per team. Do you think that 12 players will become the standard and is that the best way to run a team?

I think that in the long term, yes. But it still has to be figured out, because the one thing that fans don’t notice is the players’ egos. It seems like that’s been overlooked by everyone. As soon as you hit seven players, the egos come in. It’s like, “oh why am I not playing, I want more playtime.” It’s one thing if you have six main players that are big names that have been playing for a while and then six players that are rookies, up and coming players. They’ll be happy to play with the big names and learn from them. They just get to be a part of the team and then get better. But for our team, it’s much harder. The ego clashes were insane. A lot of teams will have to go through that right now because there isn’t really that many up and coming players that aren’t Korean. It seems that the Western player pool is pretty slim.

Do you think it’ll get better with more consistent Contenders tournaments, more regions and the planned path to pro system?

I hope so, but when I watch most Contenders players, the ones that are 18 years and older (and therefore eligible for Overwatch League) are not really Overwatch League level, at least not right now. I haven’t really looked too much into them, so I don’t really know what their potential is, I just don’t really have time to right now. But it’s got to get there, as long as the Overwatch League stays consistent and reliable. I assume it will get better, but it’s not there right now. So at the moment, making 12 players work is not easy.

With match substitutions, are you the one who decides who goes in when? Obviously you have a plan set in place beforehand, but do you ever change that last minute and go, no we’re going to put this player in next map?

So far, we’ve only done that twice. I want it to be a point where we go into a match, we have the bench and if someone is having a bad day, a rough game, they’re just not feeling itor they’re being countered and focused, we can sub them out. But in Stage 1, our roster was always limited to around six players. In Stage 2 with the confidence issues we’ve had and all that, it’s hard to be like, “We’re down 2–0, go in.” That’s not going to make that player feel any better, it’s going to make them feel worse.

But that’s the idea is eventually…

Eventually, yes.

As coach of the team, how much of a say do you have in roster signings like aKm and Rascal. Are you involved in the decision making process?Every player since Effect, I’ve been involved with the decision. I think, right now, it’s more so now my full decision than it was in the past. It’s all me now, starting with OGE.

When OGE was signed, you tweeted “he brings the mindset I’m looking for to achieve success.” What is that mindset you were looking for?

Basically, he’s just a young kid, who put his life into the game. He doesn’t waste time on girlfriends or the petty things that don’t matter during the season. He doesn’t care about money. He had offers from the Korean teams in Overwatch League and he turned them down because he wants more input and he wants to grow with a team that he can call a family. He thought with a Korean team that he would always be like the little guy, that they look down on and maybe he would have to live up to their standard. So I think he wanted a team that would embrace him. Like I said, he didn’t care about the money, he just wanted a family. That’s the mindset that I strive to have with all the players, that we’re not just a team, we’re a family. We live together, we’re with each other all day. You can’t just be a team, you can’t just be coworkers, it doesn’t work.

There’s been some unconfirmed reports that OGE has been boosting accounts as part of a boosting company. Do you have any comments on that?

I don’t really know what I’m allowed to say here, but I do know that the reports of him boosting are very, very small. Especially when compared to Sado, who had his own boosting company. OGE has been accused of being a small time guy who made like $200. So, I mean, it’s much smaller but we’ll see what happens.

Author’s note: A few hours after the interview was conducted, OGE was suspended for four matches for account boosting.

The fan base and early Overwatch League following had pretty massive expectations of Fuel, seen in things like power rankings, where Fuel were placed quite high. Do you think those expectations affected how the team subsequently performed?

No. I don’t think so. I guess it could have in the way they were like, “Oh you’re so good.” They could have added to the complacency. But I think in the most part, we just played ourselves. The complacency issues were the biggest thing.

Similarly, how much of the effect do you think starting with the Mercy meta had on the team. Let’s say Stage 1 had started with the Stage 2 meta, because that’s similar to what you guys had played previously, do you think you would’ve done better? The Mercy meta was obviously a huge shift away from what we had previously seen.

It definitely would have been better for us, given that all three of our supports didn’t want to play much Mercy. If we had played on something we were more comfortable with, then that obviously would have had better results. But as our confidence went down, it made Stage 2 start out a lot harder. We definitely would have done better with more of an Ana meta or even a Zen/Lucio meta.

What’s currently the short-term and long-term plan to turn things around for the team?

Well it’s hard to think of the short term right now, because at this point we’re in a very rough spot for playoffs, so I think long term is the biggest thing to try for. We need to fix our roster in a way where we have the best possible players in the best possible roles. It all has to make sense, everyone has to want to be here. But right now, we’re trying to squeeze together whatever we can and who knows if it’s going to work. But I know that the players we added, all of them — Rascal, aKm, OGE — they’re definitely good additions that will be here for a long time. They all have the right mindset. They all want to win. They’re all pretty hungry. I don’t think we’ve added any mistakes so far, but we definitely made mistakes before the season that had a pretty big contribution to where we’re at now.