An Interview With Seagull: The Fuel’s Favorite Bird Talks Changing it up in Dallas and Getting Back into Streaming

We sat down with the REAL Seagull after the Dallas Fuel’s game against the Los Angeles Valiant to talk the biggest upset of Stage 4 and his plans for the off-season

Alright Seagull, that match was ridiculous. What was the game plan going into this? How much homework did you guys do against the Valiant? 

It was very close. I mean, we did a decent amount of homework, but it’s hard to do homework on the Valiant right now since earlier in the week they were running their secondary roster (KSF and Bunny.) We weren’t really sure which players they were going to use- KSF/Bunny, Soon/Agilities, we didn’t really know.

2018-06-15 / Photo: Robert Paul for Blizzard Entertainment

The only thing that we were sure of is that we wanted to change some of our default game plans, since we had done them for so long that teams were counter-stratting really well- especially Seoul. So against the Valiant we tried to use a few different strategies on a few different parts, and for the most part it worked out pretty well. Sometimes- I think especially during the second map?- we got a little too hyped up, and really unlucky actually with OGE and that D.Va bomb, which kinda cost us the map. Otherwise things worked really well for us- it was less about counter-stratting, and more about developing new strategies of our own for this game.

What’s the logic for swapping AKM in the second half over Taimou? Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t- a lot of people have been questioning that move when Taimou starts on a hot streak. 

I think we’ve done both before- there have been times where we’d have Timo play all of the maps, and then sometimes we swap. Sometimes that works out, and sometimes it doesn’t- honestly, I think you’d have to ask Aero for the specifics. I just know that sometimes- I think one of the first times, actually- Timo was having a bit of a hot streak, and I believe AKM’s mouth was hurting, so they kept Timo in for a few more maps. By the fourth map, though, he was feeling a bit more tired- he was super hyped up that series. Beyond that, I think it’s just a style thing. Timo is a lot more hype in a general sense than AKM, and AKM is- how do I put it- he listens very well, he’s very attentive. There’s that difference in internal comms, but they’re both really really good.

And is that helpful in managing the team’s attitude in a game? 

Yeah, and it also helps Widowmakers in general to have more practice on specific maps. I’m not a Widow player or anything, y’know, but if you know the angles of a map, a lot of times you can get the drop on other Widowmakers, I’d assume.

Alright, so it’s been a crazy season for the Fuel. What’s the biggest lesson you’ve taken away from these past six months? 

I mean, I guess I should pick D.Va more often? I mean, she really is just a fat Genji- you run around, shoot stuff, right click on your teammates, press Q, hit shift, press Q again.

 That just reminds me of fat scouting in TF2… 

Ha! It’s kinda funny, because I don’t actually pick D.Va on ladder at all, for the most part. I don’t think I’ve picked D.Va on ladder in almost four weeks. I only play her in scrims, and that’s it. I’ve done pretty well, I think, because I don’t really have bad habits from D.Va play on ladder. I just do homework on bombs- it’s fun to sit in a custom server and just throw D.Va bombs.

Talking about ladder vs. live segues nicely into this next question- are you glad that we ran Stage 4 on this patch, rather than the live patch? 

Uh, yes and no, because I would be the Hanzo player and get to be totally overpowered. I can see Hanzo being- because right now when they reworked Hanzo, they made him significantly easier to play, which means that every time you’re in a ladder game, there’s a Hanzo there. And if he looks in your general direction and presses E, and left-click, you’re probably gonna die.

2018-04-27 / Photo: Robert Paul for Blizzard Entertainment

It’s hard to say what the meta would be like with new Hanzo. Ladder comps use a lot of what’s easy to do, rather than what’s truly good, because a lot of times on ladder you’ll see strategies that are easy to do and hard to counter. Those do very well because teams aren’t organized. Like, how many times do you see Orisa/Symmetra/Torb just full hold points, or Torb in general, or Symmetra in general? Those team comps are really really strong, and they’re never seen in pro play, but they’re seen a lot in ladder. And they work there, but no way they would work here, right? They require setting up to surround, making sure you spam, making sure you don’t peek and die to a Symmetra turret or whatever. Given all that, it’s hard to say, but I’m glad I get to play D.Va so much and sad that I don’t get to play overpowered Hanzo all the time.

One day, maybe. Well, I don’t know- we’re a long way from Season 2, and a lot could change between now and then. 

Well, would he be in for playoffs?

I asked, but I don’t think anyone knows yet. 

I assume he’d be in for playoffs, but maybe… maybe they think he’s overpowered, I don’t know.

Well originally Blizzard were talking about bugs in the tournament client for that patch, and that’s why they didn’t run it for Stage 4.

Yeah, I remember World Cup 2016, where they first launched 150-tick servers, so Mei ult was ticking twice as fast. Mei was very meta at that time, and when you threw your ult, everyone instantly froze. I think that’s made Blizzard shy away from instantly implementing patches as fast as they were before, so they probably want to do much heavier QA than they did in the past, because they were like “Wow, we actually really screwed up with that Mei ult bug from the 2016 World Cup, and that made it to BlizzCon!” People didn’t really notice at the time, but the Mei players noticed, a lot of players in general noticed. Because of that, I think they’re wary, and they want to make sure to prevent any bugs possible. I think that’s a very good philosophy to have.

Speaking of tournament servers, you guys are so close to making it in for the Stage playoffs! It could really happen! Which opponent would you guys want to face the most? 

I actually haven’t even looked at that, I have no idea. I mean, who would the opponents even be? [Laughs]

Tazmo: New York, Gladiators, and Valiant are the other three. 

Oh. Out of those, I think New York is scary, so I want to avoid them. Other than that, I don’t really know.

After that, then, got any big off-season plans? Are you going to start streaming again? Will you be streaming just Overwatch, or having some variety? 

Yeah, I want to be doing daily streams again. Even when I was full-time streaming for a few months last year, I was doing variety. Usually how I schedule streams is a four or five hours segment of Overwatch in the morning, and that’ll be morning stream. Then at night, I’ll do maybe one or two hours of Overwatch, and after that it’ll be a few hours of just random games I feel like playing. What I want to do this time is have a little bit of variety in the mornings too, because it’s kinda fun to play some other games. Variety something is always something I wanted to build into in the long term, but with the Overwatch League going on I’ve just been playing Overwatch. Now, though…

Stay tuned for Part Two of our interview with Seagull tomorrow! 

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Featured Photo Courtesy of Robert Paul for Blizzard Entertainment

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