‘A really bad look for us’: Dallas Fuel crushed in 3-0 loss to Philadelphia Fusion - The Dallas Morning News

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The Dallas Fuel didn’t show up as themselves. That was head coach Aaron “Aero” Atkins’ take on the Fuel’s 3-0 loss to the Philadelphia Fusion Friday afternoon.

Losing to elite teams isn’t the problem, though the Fuel have yet to defeat a top Overwatch League team. It was more the manner in which the Fuel lost -- with few signs of hope or improvement.

Dallas had a big weekend on its hands, facing Philadelphia and then the Atlanta Reign at 2 p.m. Sunday to conclude seeding matches for the Countdown Cup. The Fuel were optimistic heading into the double-header, but left Friday’s match needing a mental reset.

“Today was just a really bad look for us,” Aero told The Dallas Morning News in a phone interview. “I think we weren’t on the same page with a lot of stuff we were wanting to do and didn’t get the pushes we were going for. It’s hard to pinpoint an exact separation right now because there were a lot of things where we just weren’t on the same page.”

The Fuel were competitive with top teams all season in 2020, even in losses.

Philadelphia rolled on Friday. None of the maps were particularly close, and the Fusion had their way with whatever compositions they desired.

The Zarya and Winston worked seamlessly as the Fusion played a slow, methodical pace to charge their ultimates. Dallas played right into it, tank player Lucas “NotE” Meissner said.

“It’s about recognizing how they want to play that composition and making sure you don’t play into it,” NotE said. “I think that’s something that took us way too long today to realize. That composition works well in farming ults, counter diving and not forcing anything too hard.”

The Fuel did their homework on the Fusion’s style, NotE said. But Philadelphia came out with something totally different at the beginning in the Zarya style.

From that moment on, the Fusion kept the Fuel on their heels and had them tripping over their own mistakes.

Dallas, which started Stefan “Onigod” Fiskerstrand and Kim “DoHa” Dongha in the DPS slots, shot for a more conservative style. Fuel fans were frustrated on Twitter by the lack of superstar damage player Jang “Decay” Gui-un.

Aero said starting Onigod, who signed with the Fuel on June 19, was a coaching decision.

“I think both (Decay and Onigod) are fantastic players,” Aero said. “In this kind of meta we wanted to stick more with Oni’s style. Oni’s style is less risky and overall I think that kind of style is one we’d like to go for in that role for using Genji and Ashe in tandem.”

Onigod especially struggled on the first map against the Fusion, but the Fuel didn’t enable him well because their composition was hard countered anyways.

While the Fuel were surprised by the Fusion’s decisions, and have been countered to start matches in the past, they were unsatisfied with their recovery most of all.

“We did a lot of preparing and studying on what they ran previously to prepare for a certain style, even just starting six and players we thought they were going to run,” NotE said. “They hit us with a bit of the opposite of what they expected. We were a little surprised and our adaptation wasn’t on point today.”

Dallas doesn’t have time to linger on the Philadelphia loss. While the Fuel will use the rest of Friday, and some of Saturday, to look over mistakes and construct adjustments, Dallas has to mentally move to Sunday.

Atlanta is no pushover, either. And the Fuel aren’t certain what composition they will see from the Reign. Picking up a win would still put the Fuel in a favorable position to start the Countdown Cup in August, so being ready for the Reign is critical.

While Aero did say preparing for two matches in the same weekend makes for harder game planning, the Fuel strategized how time was spent.

“It’s something that we have to go through as a team. Basically every week we have going forward is going to have a double-header type of match on weekends,” Aero said. “So we have to get used to it.”

Like Aero said, losing to Philly in such convincing fashion wasn’t a good look. The Fuel can still make this a worthy weekend against Atlanta on Sunday.

But they have to adapt, because their preparation might not be perfect.

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