The Dallas Fuel have done everything they can to keep everyday life feeling normal. That’s been difficult with the now-global spread of the coronavirus forcing the Overwatch League’s hand once again. OWL took action on Wednesday by canceling all events for March and April.

The Fuel were a team already crushed by the outbreak, which has caused thousands of cases worldwide of COVID-19. They lost the opportunity to travel to China and South Korea to participate in the league’s globalization initiative.

“We’ve been preparing for this for a while, unfortunately. We got a jump start when we saw what was happening around the world with coronavirus,” Team Envy owner Mike Rufail said. “Unfortunately we had to cancel the events but for us it’s safety first. We want to be a positive outlier and contributor in helping the world overcome this pandemic. We are dedicated to making sure the safety of our players, fans and staff are put first.”

Wednesday’s announcement came as other major sports leagues in North America announced changes to upcoming matches, later including the suspensions of the NBA and MLS seasons. College basketball tournaments also were canceled nationwide Thursday morning, as the status of the NCAA tournament still looks in flux.

Other esports events in North Texas had already been impacted, too, including the cancellation of the Rocket League Season 9 World Championship scheduled for April 24-26 at the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland. The first Apex Legends Global Series major in title history, scheduled for March 13-15 in Arlington, was also postponed.

The positive for the Fuel is that practice has been fairly normal, Damage player Zachary “ZachaREEE” Lombardo said. Maintaining was important because while the upcoming events, which included two Fuel homestands, won’t happen, the matches will still be played and the Fuel have plenty of scrimmage time already on hero pools.

The exact format of those matches has not been announced.

ZachaREEE spoke to The Dallas Morning News a few hours before the news broke on Wednesday, and even then he was concerned about the stability of their event schedule.

“Everything is kind of getting canceled in other esports, too,” ZachaREEE said. “Counterstrike matches are getting canceled, League of Legends, too. We kind of don’t know what is going on so we have to play by ear with everything that’s happening with the virus. But odds are it might probably get cancelled.”

He was right about that, but teams may still end up playing sooner than expected. The Fuel have been practicing for the better part of six weeks now, and that’s the only thing they’ve been able to do. They didn’t get to play any matches with hero pools -- nine teams played last weekend during the launch of hero pools in OWL play -- but that mechanic was available to them in scrimmages.

“In scrims you can practice with the bans you want no matter what,” ZachaREEE said. “You are just practicing for the stuff you are doing. You just can’t do individual practice outside of scrims because the bans are different.”

The Fuel players haven’t been deterred by the change either. ZachaREEE said it’s been a “breath of fresh air” and the team was plenty flexible enough to make anything work.

The Week Five bans were Reinhardt, McCree, Widowmaker and Moira. It makes a bigger difference for tank and support players just because 16 of the 31 heroes in the game are in the damage category.

Still, even as a tank player, Noh “Gamsu” Youngjin didn’t mind swapping.

“It doesn’t make a difference for me. I just have to practice with a tank that isn't banned,” Gamsu said. “It doesn’t mean anything for me because if Rein is banned I play Orisa, and if Orisa is banned I play Rein.”

There isn’t a plan yet for how matches could be played, but OWL is exploring what to play the matches online, multiple Fuel representatives told The News. Fans aren’t big losers in the scenario. They get their money back and if the games were played online, they’d still be watchable from the live stream.

Other competitive industries don’t have that kind of fallback. The NBA postponed its season after Utah Jazz forward Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID-19. In basketball, everyone obviously has to be in the same building to practice or compete, touching the same objects.

The Fuel and OWL can overcome that while contributing to safety. They’ve been practicing for it without focusing on the possibility of online matches, because that’s the nature of esports. The Fuel and other teams that couldn’t play the hero pools followed a pattern that could help them be prepared for when they can finally compete again.

“What a lot of teams are doing is look at what characters are banned, then see what characters were strong during those bans and how it will change what the meta will look like,” ZachaREEE said. “There will be a few comps that will be good and teams will try to adapt, but it’s best to try and create your own type of style during that ban. It’s going to change every week, so it’s about being able to adapt and pick up stuff fast.”

Turns out adapting wasn’t just about hero pools. Everyone in OWL, and really, the world is having to adapt. Esports just happens to be in a unique spot where business can potentially operate as normal.

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