The Washington Justice are the Happiest Team in the Overwatch League: An Interview with Kate, AVALLA, Stratus, Fahzix, and Mason

The Washington Justice are joining the Overwatch League under interesting circumstances. Underdogs to a man, this team trends towards the bottom of many power rankings thanks to their roster of relative unknowns. Despite the dour projections, though, this team is determined to prove the doubters wrong through sheer force of will and that most famous Overwatch mainstay, Positive Mental Attitude.

To get a feel for the Justice’s workflow and mindset going into the season, we sat down with no less than five Justice personnel to discuss the inner workings of the team – their trials process, their daily workflow, their Red Bull consumption. You know, the really important stuff. Read on for all the specifics!

Let’s start with you, Mason! Can you give us a brief intro of who you are and what you do, so we don’t horribly garble your name and title?

Mason: Sure, hi! I’m Mason Dusanic, and I’m the Washington Justice Player Operations Manager.

Can you explain what the position entails? What do you do?

Mason: So, for me, being the Player Operations Manager is a very nebulous topic. I do a lot of stuff in order to make sure that the house is a good environment. My focus is on the players and the staff, and making sure that they feel comfortable and that they can reach out [to me], as well as being the person that makes sure that everything is in line for them. I’ve been handling peripherals, I’ve been handling Red Bull…

Very important!

Mason: Yeah! I’ve been handling talking to the landlord (and fixing our jacuzzi, which has been a recurring problem…) I have a very big, catch-all sort of job. I’m the first person outside of the coaching staff and Kate who deals with everything else, basically.

Kate: I think it’s a little reductive to say you just do domestic stuff.

Mason: No, I definitely don’t! I’m a point of contact for a lot of Blizzard people, and I try and be a point of contact for the players and staff in order to make everything work together. It’s good to have a middleman in this environment, because everything is so emotionally charged. Having someone to parse that – someone that understands what really needs to be done, how best to do it, with the space to do it myself instead of having to multitask – I think it’s very important to have a person like that.

So you’re the nexus, basically.

Mason: A lot like that, yes!

Who drinks the most Red Bull?

Stratus: Corey.

Kate: Corey.

Mason, Fahzix: Corey.

AVALLA: Corey for sure.

[Everyone at the table spends a moment arguing about the specifics of Corey’s Red Bull consumption.]

Mason: Ok, no, but- he says he only has one or two a day – and I don’t… believe him? Like, he doesn’t have a coffee in the morning. He drinks a Red Bull. So…

AVALLA: WITH a donut.

Kate: Thing is, sometimes he does drink coffee! Unless he’s just getting hot water from Dunkin Donuts… which would be a flex.

AVALLA: No, he just gets the donuts.

[The entire table spends a moment deliberating the specifics of Corey’s Dunkin Donuts order.]

You guys really need to keep better track of this. Who knows how much caffeine this kid is getting!

Mason: Oh, I’ve had multiple discussions with Corey, just to make sure his levels aren’t, y’know…

Kate: I don’t think it’s unhealthy, I just think he really likes his caffeine. I drink that much coffee every day.

Mason: That’s what I tell him, too. So long as you’re not drinking a TON of those things.

In any case, Mason, you said you’ve been working in this role for about a month now?

Mason: Correct, though I was on board before the players were even in the team house. I’ve been with the team since day 0 – trying to make sure that everybody would have someone to talk to, and someone to contact if they needed something, whether that be an emotional need, or even a piece of furniture or something. That’s something I can do. I just really like helping people. It’s a great job for me – I’ve been having a fantastic time.

It’s really funny, something I always joke about is my younger sister, who’s a freshman in college now. All my older-sibling energy has been unleashed on this team. I’ve been bottling it up since she left, and now I can use it again.

On a scale of one to the Jacuzzi breaking, how challenging has the position been so far?

Mason: It’s hard to say it’s challenging when I’ve been learning so much. I feel like every challenge is less an obstacle, and more something I learn how to work with or around. It’s been a very fulfilling job, I would say. Everybody wants to learn on the job, and I do a lot of that. And I do it well! So I’m very proud of my work.

Good, ok! Switching gears, here – let’s talk about power rankings. Everybody knows the deal with those. They don’t mean that much to people on the inside, but do you guys worry about what people are thinking? Are they motivators?

Kate: I think they take some pressure off, really. I don’t know about you guys, but for me… we know we’re not awful, right? We know that. We get up and we play every day, and we know we’re ready for this challenge. To see people who sometimes don’t even get our players’ positions or their former teams right while writing these up is frankly laughable.

Fahzix: Or ANYTHING about me, really. [laughs]

AVALLA: I think they’re actually a really good motivator. Everyone’s expecting us to be last, or somewhere near last, but if we do well then that’s just gonna build up our story. We know which teams we’re facing, we know how we perform against them. It’s really exciting to show people what we’re actually gonna do.

What’s your favorite (or most amusing) misconception that people have about the team?

AVALLA: Oh, definitely the idea that [Fahzix] is a flex support. He’s a main support, and he’s been in that role for a year. People still say “Oh, the Washington Justice has two flex supports! Fahzix and Gido are fighting over the position!” I think that’s hilarious.

Kate: Well, that’s better than the people who completely miss that Gido isn’t a DPS player.

AVALLA: Right! Then they say “Oh, Washington only has Fahzix and Hyeonu, what a weak support line.” Like, you haven’t even gotten the positions right.

I don’t know how many times I’ve had to correct that myself – people saying “I’m not sure that Gido’s Tracer is really what this team needs…”

Kate: Well, they’re right, really. We definitely don’t need his Tracer! [laughs] We’ve got that covered. It’s alright. I mean, let’s be clear, in a pinch or an overtime stall situation, sure. But otherwise…

Right, if it’s really a back-against-the-wall situation, but that doesn’t happen too often. Some people really just don’t know. Like, have they ever tuned into one of Fahzix’s streams?

Kate: Exactly, and do they get that that’s a big part of what got him picked up in the first place?

Exactly!

Fahzix, I wanted to talk with you about that as well. Your streams have always been your mainstay, and while I don’t want to say that they’re what got you noticed in the first place-

Fahzix: Oh no, they definitely did! I agree with that.

In either case, when you first started out – when you just wanted to play and explain your process while trying to educate people – was that with an asterisk that said, “And then one day an OWL team will notice me”? Or was it just a thing you wanted to do?

Fahzix: So, funny story – my job before all of this was working part time at Wendy’s. And I don’t want to say I hated it – it was your normal first job, it got me money and did everything it needed to do – but I definitely didn’t enjoy it, either. I looked for other outlets outside of work and school, since I was doing fairly general studies there to graduate with an Associate’s Degree. When I started streaming, I realized that I could do something like this long term, rather than just for a year or two like other jobs I had had. So I put in the time to stream and build my brand that way.

Speaking of building your brand, you were at Blizzard Arena’s first ever Overwatch LAN, the Contenders Season 0 Playoffs in 2017. (I was there too!) Do you feel that that LAN experience has helped you grow, both as a competitor and as someone trying to build his brand?

Fahzix: Obviously that experience helps when you’re looking at something like the Overwatch League, yeah. I’ve been to Montreal twice, Philadelphia, China, Taiwan, and here. Contenders Season 0 was one entry on a long list of LANs that gave me that experience, I’d say. Hearing the rumbling of people cheering and the white noise from the headphones is definitely a big thing for me.

Kate, was that a factor that affected your decisions and attitude regarding Fahzix when you first started looking for someone in his role?

Kate: I mean, Fahzix overall is the veteran presence on this team. He’s been playing this game for so long, and as weird as it is to say this, he’s really mature! He’s someone who’s been around on a number of teams, who’s been in the LAN environment before, and who’s been put under real pressure before. I knew we needed that kind of personality.

And that’s such a rarity from Contenders level players, too.

Kate: Yeah, and we hope the Contenders scene gets more infrastructure, so more players with that sort of experience are grown by the system. For us, he’s got that combination of league experience, global LAN experience, and Contenders experience – which we’re combining with new players that we think are really promising. It was all about finding that healthy mix of personalities and experiences, and right now I think this team has a really good one. They’re all getting along, and I really enjoy coming to work with these guys everyday.

AVALLA: We’re probably the happiest team in the Overwatch League.

That’s a headline!

AVALLA: Well, we are! Aren’t we?

Kate: I think we are!

Well let’s go into that. You think Washington is the happiest team in the Overwatch League. Why?

AVALLA: We looked at a lot of different personalities when we were first picking our players. Personality was almost our #1 issue when looking at players overall, aside from their mechanics. Because I was in NA Contenders [for Optic Academy], I had some experience [with NA players]. Since I was also in KR Contenders [with Meta Bellum], I also had some experience with our Korean players, too.

What we were looking for were players who were willing to work actively and passionately, and who were really active thinkers. People who wouldn’t just accept what they were told – people who would speak up and express what was on their mind. Because we knew what we wanted, our environment is way different than any team I’ve been on to date. In other teams, the coaches will really get on players and tell them what to do at all times – if you get it wrong, they tell you again, and if you repeat the mistake, they really lay into you, or get angry at you. Here, though, the coaches do our best to share our ideas and have active discussions. If the players ever want to speak up on something, they know they can talk to any coach or manager. I think that’s helped us build a really healthy relationship overall.

So in a standard scrim block, let’s say, is that your role? Facilitating that back and forth, presenting what the coaches have found and taking feedback from the players?

AVALLA: We (the coaches) try not to talk, at first. We always let the players talk before we say anything – we keep our early discussions to a minimum to let the players think actively and remember what happened better (like if they want to bring up certain things on certain maps, etc.) Even in feedback, I try not to tell them what I’m thinking too directly. I’ll phrase it as a “What do you think we should do here? What do you want to happen? What’s your opinion on this?”

So you’re trying to have the players lead those sorts of discussions. If that’s the case, where do you start doing some heavy lifting as a coach? You’ve mentioned being part of the developmental process, and you’ve discussed your role in review, but are there any other tasks that you’re always charged with handling in your day to day?

AVALLA: During and after scrim blocks, I work on certain projects that Wizard[hyeong] assigns me – things that we agree are important. We’ll gather certain information via our own review and via clips, then we’ll take what we’ve found and bring it to Fahzix and the team to discuss it together. When we take those things to the team to review and to have them focus on it, it becomes our way of fostering long-term success.

A common conception is that you’re “the number cruncher”, especially after your “When to Beat” post. If that’s true, are you taking down data points throughout scrims as part of the review process you mentioned above?

AVALLA: I would say I’m not the number cruncher as much as I’m the video cruncher. I collect a lot of clips that show what mistakes we’re making, and whether or not what we’re practicing is actually effective. That’s what we’re really trying to get at.

Kate: And part of what we do under Wizard’s coaching philosophy is making an effort to move away from subjective reads to objective reads. When you bring something to a player and back it up with video evidence and statistics, then it’s a lot easier for them to understand. We can say, “This is exactly what’s going on. This isn’t just my feeling about your play; this is something we’ve seen you do.” Then it becomes a thing to hammer out so we can learn if we’re actually doing better or not.

Speaking of Wizardhyeong, how has he been doing? He was your first signing, Kate, and I know you moved very quickly to get him. What is it about his coaching – besides his high opinion of himself – that made you say, “That’s my guy”?

Kate: I talked with him for a very long time before pulling the trigger. His signing was the first decision I made [as GM], and I think it was the most important decision I’ve made, too, because after that I’ve had him around to help pick out the rest of the staff and the players. His philosophy on the game is really complete and holistic. I feel like he understands and empathizes with players really well, too. He has a great philosophy towards working with the player collaboratively, and I think that attitude is a huge reason for the positive environment we’ve been discussing. A lot people assume from his persona that he’s “difficult” – I mean, he literally calls himself a genius for the media, but that’s just bluster. He’s really a humble guy, and he’s easy to work with. I think our working environment is fantastic because of it.

Bluster or not, would you say he’s the biggest diva on the team?

Stratus: Ooh, he’s up there.

Kate: No, actually, that’s Sansam. He’s our biggest D.Va on the team, I’d say. (Wink.) No, really, it’s Ado – he’s got a Gucci wallet and everything.

So you signed Wizardhyeong first, and Janus followed right after. That much we know. Can you walk me through the order in which the rest of the team fell into place?

Kate: Everyone else was fairly simultaneous. We started with around 150 players, and narrowed it down to about 12.

Now THAT sounds like a process. Can you talk about that??

AVALLA: I actually want to talk about that!

Kate: Please do, because the coaching staff deserve ALL the credit for it. Go ahead.

AVALLA: So we actually did NA/KR/EU trials separately, and for NA trials mkL and I worked on building some test rosters to work with, where we pulled players from Contenders, Contenders Trials, and so on. For Korea and Europe, we did the same thing. We had all sorts of people – both from Contenders and Trials, as mentioned, and from ladder as well – and we tested them out in different metas to see if they would be ready for different things. We tested their GOATS, their Mercy/Lucio Dive, Tracer/Genji, Widow metas, everything. That way we could prepare the best team for whatever meta might come.

For those tests, we had three separate phases, where we would gradually cut down the number of players by half, I think. In the last phase, we had 12 players competing with each other for the best spots on the team. It’s funny, because a lot of people might think that we didn’t test out many players, but we tested all the players you might think would earn a tryout. Anyone and everyone you can think of, we trialed.

So even with that huge group of players, which no doubt included some that most would consider “bigger names”, you stuck with this roster given their talent, attitude, etc?

AVALLA: Yes. And while a lot of teams only did trials for a few days, our process took something like three or four weeks – it was exhaustive. That way we knew what we were working with, both in their best games and over the course of many different games.

Kate: And that was really the first huge accomplishment of this coaching staff that we’ve assembled. They put in the hours and were in grind mode all the way. This was our one shot, right? So we knew we had to get it right. Every member on this coaching staff deserves a huge amount of credit for the work they put in, and not only that – the players that made it through that process deserve it, too. Overwatch is a marathon, not a sprint, and the players that can continually perform through a process like that are the ones that are gonna make it in the Overwatch League.

AVALLA: Not to mention, we gave these players feedback as we went through this process, to see how they responded to it as well. Whether they would take that feedback and improve, or if they were ignoring it and not improving, etc. That was a big part of the process as well.

Alright, let’s get some hot takes. Everyone’s coming into some preconceptions, but how will the Justice surprise people this season?

Fahzix: So we’re a new expansion team, and we don’t have much formal experience, of course. These non-expansion teams have been together for who knows how long. On top of that, we’re a mixed roster, so we’ll have some general problems, cultural problems, things like that. Despite all of those, though, I still feel like we have a solid communication structure in place. We have a lot of code words that we use. It makes the environment really funny, sometimes, but keeps things serious too.

Stratus: Our code words are really goofy.

AVALLA: We can say one, right?

Kate: We can say some, sure.

AVALLA: Some of our comms include, “I’m sexy, I’m sexy!”, and we have a lot of Korean foods, like kimchi, bulgogi-

Stratus: My favorite is probably “Pizza”.

Kate: Clips of our comms that are on broadcast will be incomprehensible, but entertaining.

Mason: It’s even better for someone like me, who’s sitting there with the staff, but not spectating the scrim while I work on something else-

Kate: Which is only because – and if you’re reading this, Blizzard, we’re sending this message directly to you – it’s because we NEED MORE SPECTATOR SLOTS IN THE LOBBY, PLEASE.

I will send this directly to Jeff, don’t worry.

Kate: Thank, you really. [laughs]

Mason: It’s just really funny because we’re so focused on having a positive mentality and keeping it fun – and it directly results in stuff like this, which is great.

Stratus: It’s always funny to see the staff in the other room burst out in laughter every five minutes or so.

[A big thank you to the Washington Justice for an amazing interview! Good luck this season!]

STAY UP TO DATE