Dallas Fuel coach Rush on stream (11/25/2020) — excerpts and summary
VOD: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/814998082
Translator’s note: edited and summarized in parts for clarity/reading comprehension purposes. I matched the chat-stream interactions as best as I could, but it’s probably not perfect. I also excluded some questions and answers that seemed irrelevant, or ones I didn’t quite catch (sometimes the sound was uneven).
Chat points out he still has the Paris Eternal skin equipped on his characters, so Rush goes to switch
He buys Dallas skins for Widowmaker, Tracer, Zarya, Winston, Doomfist, McCree, Reinhart — chat tells him to get a Lucio skin and he says “why would I do that”
Rush: I’ll answer some of the questions I received. I asked for questions for a Q&A stream while on Paris too, but I got too busy… Let’s see.
Rush: There’s 52 people watching… that’s too many.
Rush: I feel bad, non-Korean viewers won’t be able to understand what I’m saying.
Rush: Who left a question in binary code? Do I have to solve this? Will someone solve this for me? Ok, I’m going to ignore that one.
Rush: “Any more recruits?” No, not for now. No plans at the moment to recruit more players. Simple answer. Unless something happens, no new players.
Rush: “I’m a 3-year Dallas Fan, really happy to see you become coach. When do the players go back to the Dallas team house?” I don’t know myself. We don’t know what’s going on with the pandemic, but I assume we’ll go next year. Almost positively.
Rush: “Xzi was announced late for Dallas Fuel, was there a particular reason for that?” Ask Xzi, that’s his problem. It’s his fault. Nothing we could have done about it.
Rush: “Is there a role you want to strengthen on the team? Are there any other players you want?” A role I’d like to strengthen is… what I initially aimed for was 3 DPS, 3 tanks, 3 supports, so if it were permitted, I would get another tank? Not that I have a player in mind. If any of the players run into trouble, we can substitute someone else in most cases, but right now we just have two tanks, so if something were to happen to a tank player, we’d have to have someone from a different position. Not to say our tank line isn’t strong, but it’s just good to have a third tank player for a variety of reasons, be it main tank or flex tank. I don’t have a particular player in mind.
Xzi: (in chat) I have no problems
Rush: Is that right? Ok then.
Rush: Next… I feel very weird because I feel like I’m just talking to myself. Also I heard you can’t play music [on Twitch] anymore? So I can’t even do that. “Were there other team offers you received besides Paris, before you came to OWL?” So this is referring to last year, right? Yeah, I received a lot of offers. There was a team I almost chose over Paris. There were a bunch. That’s all I’ll say. And I picked Paris.
Rush: “I saw Doha and Sp9rk1e were practicing Tracer nowadays, which of the two will be playing that hero? Also, is the 8-man roster final?” So I already said the 8-man roster is final, and as for Tracer, all three DPS players should be able to play her. I’m making all of them practice in the off-season. I think Doha is probably worse than Sp9rk1e though, I scolded him a good deal in the past about it. Both of them are working hard, so I expect they’ll be good. She’s not hard.
Rush: “Favorite fried chicken?” My fave is… nothing in particular, but recently I’ve been ordering something from a local chicken place, not a famous franchise. I don’t eat it a lot though.
Rush: “How did you come to Dallas?” Um… A few teams got in touch with me after the season ended, and I liked Dallas the most out of them. And they already had Coach Yong and Doha, from way back. Of course, at the time I had no idea I would be leaving Paris. But I ended up leaving this off-season, and Dallas was very interested — they were very interested last off-season too. I wanted to be able to stay with my players, and with Dallas I was able to do that.
Rush: “If you were to name something lacking right now for Dallas, what would that be?” Hm. What might that be? I haven’t even been to the US [team house] yet, so I can’t think of anything. We’re resting right now, so… if it’s to do with players, I’ve already answered that.
Rush: “Are there any players who are FA or in Contenders that you covet?” There are. Yes. But we can’t get all of them. There are definitely players I’d like to recruit and coach. This is the first season where I’m not working with a rookie. Even in Contenders, I worked with rookie players, but on this year’s roster I have no rookie players. I usually like working with rookies and seeing them grow, it’s really fun, so that’s a bit of a shame. Of course, our players are really good, so…
Xzi: (in chat) $10,000 prize money, rush tazmo 1v1
Rush: Mr Jung Ki-hyo (Xzi), what are you doing… of course I would win.
Rush: “In your opinion, the best DPS-tank-support players are?” I don’t think that exists. Every player is different and good at different things. Every team has world class players, including ours. Of course, our team — Fearless Hanbin Xzi Sp9rk1e Doha Rapel Fielder Jecse — our players are great, that’s why we’re together, and we’re working to get good results next year. Though I don’t know if Doha should be included in this line-up, hmm… [Note: fairly sure he’s ribbing Doha here, though his voice is deadpan enough that I’m not 100% certain]
Rush: “Question from Xzi — coach, any thoughts on putting me on Genji? I’m a Genji specialist.” Uh. Whenever players put in requests like this, I let them do it. I’ve tried everything in scrims. Mr Jung Ki-hyo’s Genji… basically you could say that as soon as he pulls out Dragonblade, he dies. Actually, when you use Dragonblade, all your enemies can hear the sound and it makes it very handy for focusing you down, like as soon as you start “Ryuujin no-” they all look at the Genji and Xzi is dead.
Xzi: (in chat) That’s the Ana’s fault. They didn’t give me Nano. Also the tanks didn’t dive in. It’s the team’s fault.
Rush: So he mentions the nanoboost, but a Genji players should always first check on the Ana’s positioning, call out positioning in comms, and be in a space where Ana can nano them. And Xzi has no idea how to do that, he’ll wall climb to somewhere weird and then whinge about not getting the nanoboost. He’s no Genji player. Though I guess if he did nothing but play Genji, he could play Genji in pro. He has talent. It’s just that he doesn’t have experience. Sp9rk1e wasn’t good at Genji either at the beginning.
Xzi: (in chat) hear that kids, next year’s Genji is me
Rush: Mr Jung, you have to start performing in scrims first. Back in the Element Mystic days, Fearless used to run Genji on ranked a lot, and he always got flack for being bad.
Rush: “How did you feel moving to the Dallas team?” I was really happy. I’ve been in esports for about 10 years, and Dallas (Envy) is one of the few endemic esports teams, they have a lot of interest, and I was able to stay with my players, recruit good players, bring good coaches. And they have a good environment, they have good staff. They treat our players and coaches better than other teams. So I felt good, I wanted to quickly sign the contract, get the results, and relax — while all the other teams are still scrambling and recruiting, we’ve got everything finished and we’re resting.
Rush: “Are tryouts over?” Yes. And I have a good sense of what my players are capable of. There are definitely players I wished I could have gotten, but it can’t be helped.
Rush: “Is there a special reason why the old Element Mystic players have gotten together?” No special reason. Initially we had an EM contingent on Paris Eternal, and then we had players who went FA, and players who transferred, we just gathered them one by one… I didn’t plan for this at all, actually. Fearless almost didn’t make it, it almost didn’t work out. The Element Mystic reunion was really coincidental. In the case of players we added [in addition to the Paris contingent], well, Doha was already on Dallas. And the supports aren’t bad so I brought them over.
Rush: What hero would you like to see a meta form around next season? I’m consistent on this, I like Genji metas. I think Overwatch is the most fun and cool when Genji is in play. This past season as well, I think the matches were really cool when Genji was meta. When we get double sniper, double shield, it gets boring, you’re doing poke damage from afar and you get a pick and then the game starts… Genji meta is the most fun.
Xzi: (in chat) My Genji >>> Doha Genji
Rush: Over Doha Genji? Hm. Ok, Mr Jung, I’ll see your Genji in scrims. I always let you try things out, I let you Pharah when you wanted to play Pharah. But you were so bad at using Barrage….
Aid: Xzi is good at everything, it’s just he can’t use his ults.
Xzi: (in chat) Honestly my Pharah was good in the ATL match… I got 30 second Barrages…
Rush: “What’s your ranked tier?” I’m hardstuck Diamond. But I’ve found Open Queue is easier, my SR is a bit higher on OQ.
Rush: “How strong do you think Dallas was during Summer Showdown? I thought they were quite competitive with Paris in that tournament.” I was a little worried during Summer Showdown, it was a meta that Dallas could work with. I think the first map was Lijiang? I knew what they were going to play, I saw them on Genji-Doomfist and I thought “ah… of course.” And I knew we couldn’t lose.
Yong: (in chat) ouch
Rush: I knew it was going to be Decay and Doha and they would be on Genji-Doom. And there they were. But they were kind of scary back then. Mr Decay and Mr Doha, a fearsome DPS duo at the time. After we beat Dallas, I felt like [the tournament] was winnable.
Rush: “Reasons for getting Rapel and Jecse?” I felt they were really underrated. Jecse is one thing, but Rapel was being really really underrated as a player. He’s a good player, but he’s been kind of ruined in OWL, so I’m going to rehab him. He’s been ruined. Gotta get him back on track.
Xzi: (in chat) Decay left because of Coach Yong. Yong got violent. He’s like a gangster lol
Yong: (in chat) why are you making rumors
Rush: Hey, you’re going to make Yong cry. Yong did everything he could to take care of the players.
Rush: “Why didn’t you pick up Heesu while you were gathering pieces of Element Mystic?” Heesu? I… I… I’m sorry! There’s a limit to the roster. This is all because of Doha, he’s taking up space. If only not for Doha… he’s the problem.
Rush: “If you had to pick a player you wanted from other teams for every role?” Hm. From other teams? Let’s see… I think it would have been nice to have Decay, I would have liked to coach him. There’s a lot of players I covet, a lot of good players in OWL. Hard to pick one on each role. Edison? Fleta? Fleta I liked since Flash Lux, he was so good when you played against him, and I heard he’s a hard worker, so I’ve wanted to work with him since. Edison would have been nice too.
Rush: “Why weren’t you able to bring Doha to Paris [last season]? Did you ever want to bring him back when you saw him playing on Dallas?” We didn’t have space on Paris. I’m sorry, Doha. I never thought it was a shame he was on Dallas, I felt he was earning his keep there and he said he was being treated well by everyone on Dallas, so I was proud. I felt he was working hard, and though he might whine, I thought he should stand on his own a bit. Though now we’re back together.
Rush: “Which player got “the baseball bat” the most in Paris?” [Note: A joke since the EM days that Rush would resort to physical violence if the players didn’t do as they were told] At Paris? I didn’t yell at the players all that much. A lot more mellow than the past days. And everyone was having a hard time because of COVID.
Aid: Xzi pls listen to the coach…
Xzi: ..? That’s more Sp9rk1e’s problem…. I’m very obedient.
Rush: “Any teams you think look strong, based on the announced rosters?” I think SF Shock, always. I haven’t seen all the news because there’s been a lot of players moving around… Let’s check out the rosters. (Loads up Liquipedia)
MCD: Hangzhou lol
Xzi: Hangzhou would be a strong team if they didn’t have MCD, but now that they have MCD they’ll be a “restaurant” [Note: slang for easily beaten team]
Rush: (Checks Boston, London, NYXL, Paris rosters) oh my god where are all the players… Toronto. Oh. Toronto has gotten stronger. They got more Koreans too. Philadelphia. Look how strong they are. (Highlights NineK) Tada! They’re stronger. Very scary. And he knows my style, too. Washington? Washington… let’s see… yes, they’ve gotten stronger. They have some amazing players. I think they’ll receive a lot of attention next season. But still, I think SF is the strongest. Undeniable. All other 19 teams have to work to beat them.
Rush: “Rank the players, strongest to weakest?” Hmm. Xzi says he used to do mixed martial arts but I think if you were to punch him he’d break. He’s so thin. Like a stick. Rapel also says he used to learn boxing, and also he’s kind of big-boned?
Xzi: (in chat) Sigh. I used to be the strongest in middle school.
Rush: “Any thoughts on bringing back Pokpo-Daco, the backbone of old Element Mystic?” I think Daco was going to do military service, and Pokpo… are you alive, Pokpo? Oh Pokpo, what happened… I can’t bring him even if I wanted right now, we have all the players we planned for. But in the future, if we get the chance, who knows?
Xzi: (in chat) I heard Daco was starting military service in December.
Rush: “Why are you so good looking? Do you have a girlfriend?” (Also questions from Xzi) I can delete these, right? Pass.
Rush: “Thoughts on boosting and account selling?” Uhhh. I don’t like boosters, it’s true. And account selling was what Sp9rk1e got caught doing, back when he was younger. Back when I played other games like LoL, and also SC 1 and 2… oh, I guess there were account sellers back then too. Yeah, I don’t like it. I don’t like boosting. But I’ve found that if you look into it, some people had no other way. You can’t always do what you want. (reading chat) Did Sp9rk1e get the bat back when he was caught? I made him clean our team house in the summer, when it was hot.
Rush: I don’t like boosters because when I played other games, a player I coached into a really good player got caught for match-fixing. So I really don’t like that kind of stuff. Because if you get into boosting, it’s easier to fall other [illicit] activities, so it’s best not to even set foot in that stuff. That player I used to coach was even on the 9 o’clock news. Of course, that player ended up doing what he did because he met a bad coach after me, so… [Translator’s note: After doing some quick research, I’m reasonably sure that he’s referring to the player Lee “Life” Seung-hyeon who was perma-banned from SC2 after being caught for match-fixing; this was part of a massive SC2 match-fixing scandal in 2015–2016, which saw players, coaches, and even esports journalists arrested, and reportedly involved illegal betting “brokers” and members of the mob. Both Rush and Life were, at one point, on the SC2 team Startale, which would eventually become Afreeca Freecs.]
Rush: So I think that concludes all the questions I got [on the web forum]. Any more questions?
Chat: Did you have plans to stay on Paris longer, originally?
Rush: Originally, I think I would have stayed for 2 years. That was the contract. But COVID happened and… couldn’t be helped. We all ended up leaving, looking for other teams…
Chat: Any chance Dallas might come to the Asia division?
Rush: I don’t think so. Most teams want to stay at their home bases, though who knows with the pandemic. At the moment, I would say no.
Chat: Any chance of getting more coaches?
Rush: Coaches? No. I would like to have more, but we’re not in a situation to get more.
Chat: Who’s the best performing player on Dallas right now?
Rush: Hmm, none of the players are really working that hard right now. I think we’ll have to start up scrims to really know.
Chat: What are your thoughts on the future of OWL?
Rush: I mean, the situation isn’t good [with the pandemic]. It doesn’t look good right now, to be honest. Before we thought it looked rosy, but now it’s looking rough and it’s unfortunate to see, the league has to do well for us all to do well, for the fans to enjoy the games…
Chat: Is there any hope for Hanbin’s Hog
Rush: Hanbin always says he’s good at Roadhog but when you try him out on the hero he sucks. So it makes me angry LOL he says all the time he’s good. But when he plays Hog he’s like “oh it’s hard.” He didn’t really have much reason to play Hog this past season… he’ll probably get better if he practices more.
Chat: I heard a Mr Jung has been playing Valorant
Xzi: What is Valorant. I do not know such a game. I love Overwatch.
Rush: I don’t know why people play Valorant, it’s not fun. Really.
MCD: (in chat) I’m a good Hog
Rush: MCD? Oh that’s true, actually, he’s actually better than Hanbin. Back on Element Mystic, before 2–2–2 role lock, on the 3 tank meta, MCD hooked a lot of enemies playing Hog.
Xzi: Shut up you Roadhog lookalike
MCD: you fucking Fiddlesticks clone
Xzi: Better than looking like a pig
Chat: Any chance of a preseason tournament?
Rush: I think the team will let us know soon, they said they’d brief us on some stuff soon. I’m not too sure about the preseason. I don’t know much. Xzi, I never said you looked like Fiddlesticks, I just wondered…
Xzi: Coach you hurt me
Chat: What do we need to patch in order to end the Hog meta?
Rush: I’ve not thought about it, to be honest, since the league season ended. Whenever there’s a patch, I concentrate on the present patch rather than worry about future patches. I have to get a grip on the present patch first.
Rush: (talking about his difficulties with English, seeing English language questions in the chat) The thing about English is, if you try to speak it clumsily with only a rudimentary knowledge, your meaning can get misunderstood or twisted. People may not understand. Even with a translator, conveying meaning can be difficult. So that may get easier on Dallas.
Chat: What rank do you expect to achieve for the 2021 regular season?
Rush: I’d like to get rank 1. Depends on Xzi doing well. If Xzi does well, we can get first place. Everyone agrees, right?
Xzi: Pls rollback McCree’s attack speed
Chat: Which DPS would you use in a Tracer meta?
Rush: First of all, Xzi needs to do well. He’s not a bad Tracer but… god he can’t stick his bombs. Very frustrating. All three are bad at sticking bombs. If you can’t stick them you shouldn’t play Tracer. … And his movement is kind of sluggish. Sp9rk1e is a bit better with his movement and reaction speed.
Chat: Prettiest Dallas skin?
Rush: The colors are nice… I think Genji looks the nicest.
Chat: Is Doha also a good Tracer? Even though he’s a flex DPS?
Rush: Doha a flex DPS? No way. He’s a Sombra one-trick.
Chat: Is everyone just practicing from home until they go to the US?
Rush: Yes.
Chat: Can you win OWL with six Dohas?
Rush: Six Dohas? I’ll retire. I’ll die. Could we even play in Contenders? I think it would be rough.
Chat: Which player could you win OWL with, if you had six of them?
Rush: I’ve never thought of this. But I do recall MirroR playing three roles last season in one match. That was really impressive, he played something different every map. It’s really burdensome for players to practice for that, it was amazing to see.
[An extended bit of chitchat about which skins are the prettiest and which one he should buy]
Chat: There are quite a few coaches who don’t actually play Overwatch
Rush: Coaches? We don’t actually have a lot of time to play the game. We have to watch more than we play. Players have to play the game during scrims, and after, but coaches and analysts watch the game during scrims, and then we watch the game afterwards as well.
Chat: Any chance of a Doomfist stream?
Rush: I might have back when Doomfist was OP but now I think I’ll get dumpstered.
Chat: Was it not possible for NineK to also come to Dallas with everyone else
Rush: It was probably too difficult, circumstances-wise. It’s a shame. He’s on a good team now.
Chat: Any streamers you think are OWL-level?
Rush: I haven’t watched any since I went to the US. But either way, I think it’s best for players to first compete in Contenders, get a taste of competitive play, before coming to OWL. [Note: LOVING THIS TIER 2 VALIDATION]
Rush: I think that’s about it for questions? Nothing really special. I’ll try and do another one of these during the regular season next time. Sorry I’m not very entertaining on stream, I don’t think I’m cut out to be entertaining like some of the players. It feels weird to be playing Overwatch and talking to myself like this. I’ll try and make the next broadcast better.
