Melee Evangelism

freshman year of college in the dormitory, looking for my calling and meaning, i find an inspirational website by some lifestyle coach. he says get a piece of paper out. write down a single sentence.

i want to ______.

fill in that blank with whatever you want. read it out loud to yourself. read it again. did you cry?

cross it out and try again. write a new sentence. repeat this step over and over until when you read the sentence you cry.

i entered college studying graphic design because it was what i invested the most time into during high school. but i didn’t know what i wanted to do. i always loved video games, but was there really anything i wanted to do with them that could actually make me cry? like… give me meaning?

i tried a few sentences. nothing stuck.

i thought about being a kid, playing one player games alone for hours, wishing i had someone to play against. maybe i wanted to make better AI, or create endless challenges for people like me.

but that felt off. too broad. and i wasn’t interested in building systems like that.

maybe it was online play, being able to connect people. but games were already moving in that direction. it felt like something that would solve itself.

so what was i really after?

my favorite game was obvious. super smash bros. melee. i played it alone a lot. i imagined what it would be like if it could be played online, but back then with CRTs, lag, and the internet… it felt impossible. it wasn’t meant to be played online.

it was meant to be played in person. that’s what i was really after.

i went back to the paper with crossed out lines.

i wrote: i want to spread the joy of melee.

i read it out loud. and i cried.

—

i didn’t pursue it perfectly. i got distracted. i stopped playing for periods of time. i didn’t always know what “spreading the joy” actually looked like.

but whenever i had the chance, i talked about melee. i brought it up to friends, to classmates, to anyone who would listen. and when people showed even a little interest, i wanted to go deeper with them. i wanted them to feel what i felt.

i started hosting small tournaments in my parents’ basement. then bigger ones. i gave lessons. i commentated matches. i traveled to events across the country. i met people who loved the game the same way i did.

i started an organization called “melee everyday.”

it wasn’t balanced. it wasn’t casual. it was everything. and i loved it.

i loved playing it, hosting it, talking about it, teaching it. i loved seeing someone understand it deeper and deeper. i loved seeing them get better. i loved seeing rooms full of setups and people who cared.

i wanted as many people as possible to experience that.

so i did what i could.

—

over time, the game grew.

people built better tournaments. more organizers stepped up. new tools came out: practice modes, save states, rollback online play. things that used to feel impossible became normal.

chicago continued to be a strong city for melee. tournaments kept happening. majors came through. things i used to do, like national events for unranked players, started existing without me.

i moved away not knowing what it would look like. it turned out fine. better than fine.

the game doesn’t need me to spread it anymore.

—

if i were to write that same sentence today “i want to spread the joy of melee” i wouldn’t cry. because it’s no longer something i need to do.

i spent years pursuing it. imperfectly, but honestly. i found ways to live it out. and along the way, things just kept getting better and better. the work was picked up by others. the game became more accessible than i ever imagined.

the joy spread.

—

i still love melee. i don’t think i could ever love a non-living thing more than melee. but i don’t need to spread it anymore. that part is done. and i’m grateful i got to be a part of it.

Melee to WoW: Part 1

When I was younger, I could game all day, all night, and repeat it the next day. There was something special about being that passionate, so focused, and lost in time.

That feeling changed in my 20s when I was deep into my Melee career. It might have looked very similar, playing games every day. But it was rather structured, even if it didn’t appear so. My mornings were for practice, organization, errands, and recovery. My evenings were for tournaments. Some weekends I traveled out of town for bigger events. It was an every day grind.

I wasn’t just playing games to fill the time or feel my passion. Every move felt effective. Each practice session, each tournament, each challenge I had to face. If ever there were a setback, I had to personally overcome it. Because of this onus and responsibility, gaming felt productive and I never felt guilty about it.

That part is quite surprising looking back. Growing up, there was always a critical voice in the background, nagging at me anytime I sat down and played video games. I heard every critique: they were bad for my eyes, only lazy people played games, that they were a waste of time, and a useless skill. I always had classes or homework to attend to, aspirations to aspire to, and parents to disappoint less.

But when I was competing, those voices went away. I didn’t have time to hear those nagging whispers in my mind. I had practiced, traveled, competed, and progressed. It was not just time spent. It was time invested. The players who beat me when I first entered the scene began admiring my progress and it wasn’t before long that I had very few peers in my eyes.

But competitive gaming has an expiration date whether I’d like to admit or not. When that time came, I didn’t know how to transition away from gaming. My actions and habits persisted and I still gamed as a hobby. But my child-like guilt came back, with all the past criticisms. When I competed, gaming had meaning and purpose. When I no longer competed, I looked for other ways for gaming to be productive.

Many posts in this blog are related to World of Warcraft because that is the game I poured my heart into heavily after retiring from Melee. It is fitting because I stopped playing World of Warcraft around 2007 to invest more time into the real world and competing. Melee took all my effort from traveling town to town, state to state, and practicing at home alone.

So when Classic WoW was announced and my Melee career was already sunsetting, I spent a ton of time in Azeroth and started to use my gaming energy in new creative ways. And for a long while, World of Warcraft was able to replace that feeling. So I leaned into it. I played excessively during lockdown and made sure once again it was not just time spent but time invested.

I ran and recruited large social guilds, hosted raids, managed players, and ran custom events. It felt close enough to competitive Melee, with responsibilities and emergent rewards. This worked for a long time, filling the itch. But it wasn’t the same, and lockdown would not last forever. I tried persisting through that feeling, playing more and finding new meanings.

I didn’t know what had gone wrong. Was it the next expansion? Was it my fault in leadership? Maybe I needed to do better. Maybe I just needed more time.

It took me a while to understand what was happening. In Melee, I sought deeper meaning after I had journeyed through mastery. In Classic World of Warcraft, I attempted to seek deeper meaning right from the start. Sure, I had some first hand experience of WoW mastery from 20 years ago. But nostalgia has its limits and it would only be a matter of time before even old content became new to me.

Balatro: A Deck-Building Masterpiece in Simplicity and Strategy

If you’re a fan of deck-building games and rogue-likes, Balatro is the game you need to try. It combines the timeless structure of a poker deck with innovative deck-building mechanics, creating a game that’s as easy to pick up as it is hard to put down. I’ve been hooked since I started playing, and after a four-hour binge on a flight, I’m convinced it’s one of the best mobile games out there.

At its core, Balatro uses traditional poker hands—flushes, straights, and so on—but what truly elevates the experience is how it incorporates Jokers into the mix. Jokers are abundant in this game, and they bring a whole new dimension to the strategy. They offer creative bonuses, making every hand feel exciting, unpredictable, and rewarding.

One of the standout aspects of Balatro is how it perfectly balances the mechanics of deck-building and rogue-like gameplay. Each run feels fresh because the game constantly presses you to make tough choices: Should you skip the blinds and take a risk for bigger rewards? Or should you play conservatively to guarantee survival? The decisions you make directly affect your long-term strategy, making every run feel like a game of chance with modifiers that keep things interesting.

The bosses add another layer of challenge and fun. They’re themed well, both mechanically and aesthetically, forcing players to adapt their strategies on the fly. Sometimes, I found myself needing to rethink my entire approach to survive a boss fight, which adds to the depth of the game.

Visually, Balatro’s art style is perfect in its simplicity. It’s light, clean, and incredibly effective—exactly the kind of aesthetic that resonates with me. There’s no clutter, no unnecessary frills, just design choices that reflect the core theme of the game: risk and reward.

And the best part? It’s an offline game. I’ve always appreciated the freedom of playing without worrying about internet connections or data usage. On a recent flight from LAX to ORD, I played Balatro for hours straight after reading positive reviews on Steam and buying it impulsively on mobile. It was, hands down, the best purchase I made on that trip.

Balatro’s replayability is insanely high. Every run feels fresh, and the combination of strategy, poker hands, and rogue-like progression makes it addicting in all the right ways. Whether you’re trying to outsmart a boss, build the perfect hand, or hit your long-term goals, the game always offers something new to explore.

In short, Balatro is a must-play for anyone who loves deck-building games, rogue-likes, or even poker. The gameplay is strategic and satisfying, the art is perfectly matched to the theme, and the offline mode makes it the ideal game for on-the-go gaming. Trust me, you won’t regret picking this one up.