The Dallas Fuel have their work cut out for them over the next couple of weeks, but their next match against the Washington Justice on Saturday could provide a fresh start. Dallas started its season 0-3 with hopes of proving doubters wrong, that the Fuel (3-4) wouldn’t be a bottom-five team.
Since then, they’ve had a bit of a hot streak, going 3-1 with the only loss being a five-map thriller to the defending champion San Francisco Shock.
The Justice (2-8) have almost exclusively struggled to compete this season, so with a win the Fuel can prime themselves for a refresh.
Here is a preview, prediction and player to watch:
Streaming schedule
Saturday:
2 p.m. CT -- Fuel vs. Justice
Notable:
The teams already met on April 11, resulting in a Fuel sweep of the Justice without much kickback. It was the first time Dallas looked completely dominant in nearly a year, Fuel head coach Aaron “Aero” Atkins said after that match.
Where there are ever-changing variables within the Overwatch League with hero pools, especially this week, the Fuel should be the favorites in a rematch.
“We are steadily improving from where we were at the beginning of the season. From then to now I think we are a completely different team and we’ve really evolved in all forms of Overwatch,” Fuel support player William “Crimzo” Hernandez said. “But if we get this win, it would give us a nice 4-4 clean slate and then we could keep moving forward and improving.”
What’s at stake?
As mentioned previously, the Fuel can return to dead even with a win and be a 4-4 team. A sweep would have them even in the win-loss column too (they currently sit at 13-16)
While every OWL team would want to sweep every team they play, it’s important the Fuel get as substantial of a win on Saturday as possible because their schedule hardens soon. The Fuel play top-of-the-table Philadelphia Fusion (9-1) on May 10 and the Paris Eternal (5-4) on May 17.
The Fusion have 29 map wins to 11 losses. Dallas will look to that match as an emergence as a top team, but can’t count on dominating what is perhaps the best team in OWL.
They can dominate the Justice, though.
Three keys
Not like last time:
While Crimzo was confident the Fuel were better than the Justice when he hopped on a call with The Dallas Morning News on Thursday, he admitted that it would be a different kind of match. Overwatch’s new hero, Echo, will be available for the first time in league play and the hero has made some noise.
“Before we just knew what the Justice were going to play and we could 100% easily beat these guys because they just weren’t as good,” Crimzo said. “Echo is currently just running through scrims, though, and it’s rough right now to be playing. But at the end of the day we will still be winning.”
Playing against Echo, an extremely mobile hero with great pick-off potential, could be cumbersome, but the Fuel have their own Echo player.
On the Echo:
Aero said the Fuel’s best Echo player may have been Jang “Decay” Gui-un, but KIm “DoHa” Dongha has been nothing to trifle with, either. Decay has the notoriety of dominating other projectile damage heroes like Genji, but DoHa has range, Crimzo said.
“We mostly have DoHa playing Echo right now because to play that hero you need to be able to flex to a lot of heroes when you use your ultimate,” Crimzo said. “So Decay is a good projectile player but it naturally works out for DoHa because he has a bigger hero pool.”
The danger for Fuel opponents is that either of the Dallas superstar damage-dealers are capable of playing the hero.
Trust and adapt:
Aero and the Fuel have been good at this over the course of their little hot streak. Crimzo said they expected to defeat the Houston Outlaws a little more handily last Sunday, but were still able to come out with a 3-2 win.
Houston had a surprising composition for the Fuel, which was what made the match difficult.
“I think we are just better than Houston and, in my opinion, the only reason the series was close was because they caught us off guard with a composition we never practiced against before,” Crimzo said. “If they were to of mirrored us or anything like that we would’ve just rolled them.”
Dallas stayed around in the match because of its ability to adapt its style, and the Fuel may need to do that again with Washington, to a degree. Echo could throw a wrench in the gears and Dallas will have to ultimately adjust.
Player to Watch
DoHa: Either of the Fuel’s damage dealers would probably be fairly effective on the game’s new hero, but DoHa’s larger hero pool would give him more options with the Ultimate. He’s the teams’ Doomfist and Sombra player, showing his range at the damage position, but if he can play tanks well, he could make Echo dangerous for the Justice. Decay would work just fine on McCree or another damage dealer. He might actually work better as an Echo counter than on the actual hero.
Final prediction
Fuel over Justice, 3-0.
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Find more Fuel stories from The Dallas Morning News here.
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May 02, 2020 at 12:14AM
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Preview, prediction and player to watch: Dallas Fuel can take advantage of Justice rematch - The Dallas Morning News
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