Many Smashers have been interested in the Asia Pacific scene after a surge of content about it. Singapore, The Philippine and Korea have all been growing steadily over the past few months due to a variety of reasons.
We recently sat down with Korea Smash's leader, Ray Chun to talk about his competitive life, his scene and his experiences growing Melee in it. The interview also covers his thoughts about the state of the scene and it's potential future.
Popi: Good evening Ray and thanks for agreeing to do this interview! Tell us a bit about yourself.
Popi: So, you got into the scene really early. How did you get into the Smash scene?
Ray: I learned about it from a friend in college. Coincidentally, my university had hosted the SMYM (Show Me Your Moves) tournaments for a while. There, I played Darkrain and got double 3 stocked right away.
After that, I wanted to get better and went to MLG Chicago. I was really bad for a long time. It was 4 years of really bad Melee
Popi: These years were bad in your opinion. What were the defining moments of these years and how did you get out of those bad years?
Ray: I always had doubts about Melee. I was not sure if it was a game that would really last, or if it was a game I could be serious about. It’s one thing to get into chess, it’s another to get into Nintendo games.
After 3-4 years of not making it out of pools, and realizing Brawl was not going to be the future, I took the game much more seriously and started traveling. I went to every tournament I could find, I even went to the first Genesis. It was around then when it all started to click. I changed my main to Sheik, trained 3-4 times a week with people, and went into try-hard mode.
Popi: I actually saw you in the West vs Midwest Crew Battle!
Ray: Hahaha! I did okay against SilentSpectre! He was very god-like at the time.
Popi: Going into this, how did you do later in your life and how did you get to Korea?
Ray: Great question. By 2010, I had developed interest in going to Korea. I have family here and I knew that I could always survive teaching English. Even though I am Korean, I would still maintain that I'm Korean-American in terms of ethnic identity. I took a small, but real risk and traveled here.
Of course, I brought my controllers and Gamecube. I loved living here the moment I landed the first day. But i was worried about Melee. I knew i would eventually get worse if i stayed. So, I read up on how Armada and PPMD had practiced, even though they never had real training partners that lived by them.
Popi: Was there any previous history in the Korean Smash Scene before you guys started hosting tournaments?
Ray: Another excellent question. MYL, who is a Marth main in SoCal right now, lived in Korea at the time. His real name is Marcus. He grew up in an international school, and was a Korean-American as well. He and I started what I would define as the original Melee scene in Seoul.
Side story: KDJ, THE KDJ, was in Korea at around the same time as me but he lived south of Seoul. Him and Marcus were actually friends, but they did not get to play each other consistently, so its hard to consider that the original scene.
Popi: Why was he in Korea?
Ray: According to Marcus, KDJ was here teaching English but way way south of Seoul. KDJ dabbled in Brawl for a little, but he took some time to live in Korea and teach English as a side job. He also traveled to Japan for a little, there were videos on YouTube to confirm that.
Unfortunately, he and I never crossed paths. It would have been fun.
Popi: Going on, how did you guys start the group that we now as "Korea Smash"?
Ray: I created a new thread on the International Boards. At the time, SmashBoards was very popular, more popular than Facebook. Since the moderators did close to nothing to manage it, I pretty much controlled my thread however I wanted.
Several smashers every year would stop by, play us, and then they would leave. It was me, Marcus, a former brawl player named Brett, and a US soldier named Dave. Everyone else would be traveling ex-pats.
Soft, the well-known Jigglypuff player even stopped by once! His sister was teaching in Korea, so he visited. I beat him in 2 semi-serious sets. (I wanna say really serious, but Soft was really nice. Can’t fire shots at such a nice dude)
This went on for 2 and a half years. Then, Marcus, Brett, and Dave left. It was just me and the level 1’s. It was a dark time.
Popi: How did you lift yourself up from these times?
Ray: It wasn’t easy. At the time, 20XX was not around. So grinding out the solo practice sessions was hard. I knew at some point, there would be players in Korea. If they were players like Soft and KDJ, I needed to be ready.
I almost had to trick myself that at any point, there could be a traveling smasher in Korea and I’d have to fight him. I bought a new Wii, got new controllers, and I studied.
Eventually, around 2014, we finally built up some more players. In fact, one of them happened to work with my at my new workplace at the time. Crazy coincidence. He played Melee a long time ago, but still enjoyed viewing the live-streams and with EVO and APEX, all the hype built up momentum.
EVO helped Korea just as much as any other place in the world that had Melee. Not to mention the documentary. It just took longer than I expected.
Popi: How did the "Korean Smash" Facebook group play into this and how did this lead into you hosting tournaments?
Ray: I knew that my experience in melee would be a double edged sword.
I was kind of set in my ways, and I wasn’t a big fan of Facebook to start with. I didn’t want to evolve with the platinum era, especially since the community here was so small to begin with. I wanted to focus on getting better. At some point I realized, Melee isn’t just a game, it’s a culture that comes along with the game.
I made the Facebook group, and it was terrible at first. 10 people asked to join and none of them were in Korea!Then slowly, but surely, people would join. They never posted, but they started to lurk. Since I’m an open book, i posted my number, my Facebook, my address for a while, people started showing up at my door.
Before I knew it, we had 7-8 people at my door for ROK Rumble 3.
Popi: From there, What do you think is the state of the scene right now?
Ray: Two big things happened. Josh, aka Sizzle joined us. Josh trained in SoCal and Texas, and was a good barometer for players because he is legit good. He was fresh from the best region in the US, and he loves the damn game like crazy. He made things much easier since I could run things with him.
Second, Drakefang who is the one who hosted the stream, invited us to his place. Drakefang is the owner of ArcadeStream, one of the few arcades left in Korea for competitive Street Fighter players. He’s a computer programmer by day, bar owner/live streamer/gamer at night.
I had my doubts, and I had heard negative things about the Street Fighter scene that Drake was a part of in Korea. I was wrong. His setup is really really good.
That is where we are today, trying to host monthlies with a live-stream and consistent players.
Popi: To follow up, who do you think are the best players and contributors to your scene and who are the ones with the most potential?
Ray: #1 is definitely me. I’ve been the most consistent for a long long time in Korea. I won all the previous ROK Rumbles, even if they were just house tournaments
#2 should be Josh, although he just lost to Kevin (our probable #3). I like Josh’s play-style, but he has a lot of inconsistencies. I would say peak peak Josh is really good, but our community can be harsh. I think people saw him lose on stream which was big.
#3 is Kevin aka I’m the Nalls. Which is a horrible tag by the way! Kevin is from upstate New York, excellent player in his own right but inconsistent as well.
MYL, Marcus, will always have OG status because we started the scene together. He lives in SoCal right now and he is super good.
The future hope is Eric Kim, he’s Korean Korean and probably our #4-5. He is a legit product of the post EVO 2013 and Documentary era. He never played Smash in America and he is learning here.
Popi: Where do you think the Korean scene will go from here? What steps are you guys taking in order to grow even further?
Ray: That’s by far the most important question. I’m old school, so my answer might not reflect the rest of our small community. I just want more players to play in Korea. We will most likely never have a ‘god-level’ player live in Korea. That is an unrealistic hope.
The real goal for us is to have a situation in Korea where, players should be able to play Melee WHENEVER they feel like. When I was by myself, I would have robbed a bank just to smash with someone. Nowadays, we have the stream and at least 4 locations to play at any given day.
We still need more players. The biggest goal we have is spread the game to Korean Koreans like Eric.
That will be the real test.
Popi: What is your opinion on APAC (Asia Pacific) Smash scenes all connecting together in the future and becoming a unified body?
Ray: It’s not a bad idea. I don’t want to oppose any kind of idea that supports the community. Realistically however, we have some problems.
Japan might be the best region for Melee, but we don’t know. Josh lived in Japan for 2 years and he said the community is super closed off. Not a lot of openness there.
We would need reps from each country willing to bridge a gap, kind of like what we are doing here. I am open to it, but I have to keep track of what is happening here as well.
Popi: Thanks for doing this interview! Is there any thing you would like to promote (tournaments, etc). Any shout-outs you'd like to give?
Ray: We are hosting our next monthly on October 24th. It is called ROK: Revival of Korea. We are starting a new series, to symbolize our new era with a live stream and consistent players.
Shout-outs to my fiance for not breaking up with me, if I ever retire it’ll only be for her. Shout-outs to Drake and Josh for pushing for the live-stream as well. They convinced me to do the right thing.
AdmiralPopi is excited to cover more Stories From SEA! If you want your scene to be featured, you can contact him via Smashboards, Twitter or Facebook. You can follow his region's antics on Twitter as well.
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