Gamsu: '' Lots of travel and not being home feels really bad, at least for me.''

At the start of the 2020 season, many people looked at the Dallas Fuel’s signing of  Young-jin "Gamsu" Noh as a potential positive to turning around the franchises less than stellar time in the Overwatch League. He was a core member of the formidable 2018 Boston Uprising roster, and a key part in the turn around for the 2019 Shanghai Dragons roster. Clearly, he’s earned a reputation as a bedrock player, a true bright spot in the Overwatch League. With such a reputation, I wanted to hear for myself on Gamsu’s thoughts on a lot of the current issues facing Overwatch esports, and how that might affect him and his team.

Well, firstly how has quarantine been for you? Has it been difficult to bond with your Dallas teammates? What’s the team dynamic like and how is it different from your time on Shanghai?

For me, I just got a cat like a month ago and all day I take care of my dog and cat, stay inside. Their names are Uni and Baba.

Before quarantine, my team used to be able to play board games together, since we can’t meet anymore, I don’t think we can do anything together. We still try to play different games together sometimes, but I barely meet my teammates. I like to live alone though because I have my dog and cat, and if my roommates don’t carefully place their stuff, my dog is just going to destroy everything. I pray I don’t get roommates.

Coaching is different, in Shanghai we had Chinese and Korean coaches, on Dallas we have two western and two Korean coaches. In Shanghai they taught me more about individual mechanics, and I think on Dallas the coaches tell me more about the team, like the synergy with teammates.

There’s a lot of opinions surrounding hero pools and the large amount of retirements surrounding Overwatch? Do you have any thoughts regarding that?

I haven’t really heard about hero pools from other players, but for me personally, I like that the league tries to change things frequently. I hope no more players leave the league anymore. I wish the league would take these decisions seriously and they change the game to be better. I kind of feel like the league stopped growing, like the market. I just think about the League a lot, it's a hard situation.

So, the league isn’t growing but it’s falling either? Just stagnating?

I think Overwatch League isn't getting better, but it isn't declining. Yes.
 

What about the May Melee? I know this was something players suggested, is it a good solution? Or is it really something for the fans?

I mean prize money is good no matter what, and if you play well you can get a better salary next month. But I just try to be the best and I don't really care about winning the prize money. The season is kind of weird because we can’t play against Asian teams, we can only play against North America. I feel like it’s more for fans, even though there is still prize money to win.

So, what can the league do to start rising again?

I think they should put more time in balance patching. Even with hero bans, every two weeks, we play the same comp. Let’s say one week we play Mei/McCree, next week Mei/McCree is banned, and then the week after that we play Mei/McCree again. It feels like we play the same thing every two weeks.

It’s kind of awkward, some players have really strong heroes, but like if someone has a strong McCree/Widow, those heroes were banned for like 4 weeks you know? Some players are really good at specific heroes but if it gets banned the whole team is going to play worse.

It’s just so random, no one knows what's going to be banned. There's percentages and numbers but no one knows.

For me, if you're going to have bans, the team should be the one's banning. Because the team can actually prepare. Next month we can look at a team and say 'oh he has a really good McCree player so we ban that, that's how we can prepare more. Not like this with random bans and you have to see every time what's new. You can't really think about what to play.

So, you’re advocating for teams to select bans based on the matchup, but how does that make your job easier? Wouldn’t it still lead to randomness?

I think it’s easier to prepare instead of not knowing what the heroes are until Sunday night. It makes it really hard. You know the bans on Sunday night, and you have scrims on Monday, there’s no time to prepare.

Normally teams try to play their own things, and Friday and Saturday you get used to a comp, you figure it out. But the next day the bans are going to get changed and you have to spend another week learning something new.

It could’ve been worse when we had to travel, because there is jet leg and some people could get really bad jet leg, not everyone can be in perfect condition. Lots of travel and not being home, feels really bad, at least for me.

Images via Blizzard Entertainment