The Philadelphia Fusion returned to the Overwatch League last weekend against division rival Washington Justice. TGH was given the opportunity to talk to Daniel “FunnyAstro” Hathaway about several topics ranging from Valorant to their four-week-long break due to COVID-19.
TGH: How did the long break feel?
FunnyAstro: The break felt pretty good, I’d say. The Overwatch League is like, a really long season, so it was actually kind of nice to have a couple of weeks off in the middle [of the season] where we wouldn’t normally have that much time off. We got some time to spend together as a team. It was right around the time of me and Heesu’s birthday, which was pretty convenient. We got to get together and had some cake, which was nice.
TGH: What kind of preparations did you guys make to get back into the swing of things?
FunnyAstro: We started scrimming again but a little less since before we knew the hero bans or the maps we were going to be playing on. We start doing a couple of scrim blocks a day, not much VOD review, not serious, just to get everyone back into the groove of scrimming every day and waking up at the same time. One week before our match, we upped our schedule and went back to multiple scrims, more VOD reviews, more focused on what heroes we would be playing, etc.
TGH: How did you feel after the match this weekend against the Justice?
FunnyAstro: Playing online takes away from the hype of winning. For me, one of the greatest moments is taking the headset off on stage and just hearing the crowd cheering. It was exactly super exciting. It just felt like, we just sorta sat up from our chairs and said “nice”.
TGH: How are you guys preparing for this tough weekend?
FunnyAstro: So we know this weekend will probably be the hardest of the season looking at it now that everything is split off on east coast, west coast and Asia games. I would probably rate Paris and Atlanta as the two best other teams we have to play consistently and we have them both in one weekend. This week, we didn’t take any days off. Straight after the win against the Justice, we started scrimming again.
Everyone is super focused on this week and everyone wants to beat Paris again. Everyone wants to prove we are the better team. Them winning one match was just a fluke. For me, of course, I want to play against Atlanta. It’s a matchup I’ve been looking forward to the whole season. My old team, I get to play against. I mean, it’s going to be even more fun with match chat on now.
FunnyAstro when he played for the Reign last season – Image Courtesy of Robert Paul for Blizzard Entertainment
TGH: Outside of scrims and OWL, what do you like to do to kill time during this quarantine? Do you have a specific TV show, do you work out, any new games you’re enjoying?
FunnyAstro: I work out occasionally at home but there’s not much you can do. I’ve been playing, occasionally, well this was more on our long break, I was playing a lot of Call Of Duty Warzone. Just to kill time. I don’t think it’s healthy playing Overwatch 13 hours a day. Wake up, play Overwatch sort of thing. I do like to segment it with other games. I know a lot of other people on the team have been playing other games as well, especially on our long break. Just to kill the time and stop you from going crazy, you know?
TGH: The last question is about the game that everyone is talking about and that’s Valorant. Have you played it?
FunnyAstro: I haven’t played it. I’ve watched quite a bit of it and it doesn’t look, to me, that fun. One of the most exciting things about Overwatch is how fast-paced it is. How there’s just constant action and you hardly get downtime. If you do, it’s like 10 seconds when you’re dead. Valorant is a lot more like CS:GO with a lot of down-time. It looks interesting with all the abilities, the different characters and everything you can pull off. I think once it’s out for a couple of months, it’s going to be a lot more interesting to watch. Right now everyone is just throwing their abilities with no idea how to use them. In a couple of months, I feel like it would be more interesting to play and watch once everyone knows what’s going on.
The Game Haus would like to thank FunnyAstro for his time. You can follow him on Twitter here.
Follow Rocco on Twitter @MaridonGaming for all things Philadelphia Fusion! You can also reach out to them on Discord and talk some OWL! (Maridon#6912)
Featured Image Courtesy of Tim Tai for the Philadelphia Inquirer
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