Surrounded by the chill air of Korean winter, former World Champion and chess legend Garry Kasparov, found himself at the World Youth Mind Sports Fair—an event designed to showcase the greatest strategic games humanity has devised. Kasparov, whose battles on the 64 squares remain iconic, was a natural guest of honor. Yet, as he greeted eager fans, delivered insightful lectures, and demonstrated his chess prowess in exhibitions, Kasparov noticed something else about the air: a pervasive enthusiasm around League of Legends, the flashy centerpiece of esports.

It was during a featured exhibition match between teams SK Telecom T1 and NaJin Sword that Kasparov posted to social media an observation that rippled through online communities: "Chess & baduk (go) are far less popular here than 'esports,' the multiplayer computer game competitions Koreans love & dominate. For now! Tough for chess to overtake League of Legends, the most popular game here, but I don't think they'll play that in 100 years. Chess, yes!"

At the time, Kasparov’s stance seemed robust, grounded in the notion that games reliant on graphics, narrative, and evolving expansions lack the timeless purity of classic games like chess and go. Yet, over a decade later, the clarity of the master’s prediction has blurred. Today, chess itself has embraced esports elements, thriving on platforms like Twitch and gaining popularity among gaming communities worldwide. Meanwhile, digital titles once thought to be fads have demonstrated surprising resilience: fans, young and old, still enjoy the low polygon counts of Super Smash Bros. Melee. Meanwhile, the speedrunning community tirelessly seeks perfection in cult classics like Golden Sun, endlessly discovering new techniques and strategies within rigid structures.

Read more — How computers changed the world of chess

Kasparov was certainly right about one thing: only classics withstand the test of time. But what makes a classic? How do static rules foster dynamic evolution? What gives games—from chessboards to digital arenas—their enduring appeal, transcending fads and outliving predictions of obsolescence? To answer these questions, we’ll explore the strategic evolution, community devotion, and relentless pursuit of innovation that define such games. Through the perspectives of three exceptional Team Liquid members — Juan "Hungrybox" Debiedma, a veteran of Super Smash Bros. Jesse "Plexa" Hart, a Golden Sun speedrunner and the Senior Director of Sports Science and Analytics, and chess grandmaster Fabiano Caruana (someone with no gamertag but boasts the awesome nickname “The Machine”).

Masters of their craft in a timeless arena: Caruana, Hungrybox, and Plexa

Hungrybox first encountered Super Smash Bros. Melee as a casual diversion in 2001, the year of the game’s release. His early ambitions were modest, driven by a childhood penchant for completionism and friendly battles in suburban Florida living rooms. Yet, something about Melee’s fluidity and depth tugged at his competitive instincts, particularly through his chosen avatar—Jigglypuff—a character whose unassuming appearance hid devastating strategic potential. 

By 2007, six years after the game's release, Hungrybox began competing in Orlando’s weekly tournaments, his early defeats only stoking the fire of his ambition. Gradually, top-five finishes became his standard. His natural affinity for intricate matchups, coupled with an intuitive grasp of the game’s ever-evolving strategies, quickly distinguished him as one of Melee’s emerging talents. Soon, the formerly casual gamer stood atop international stages, his performances redefining the game's meta while earning him a place in Melee’s royalty as a top player whose name resonates far beyond his game’s community.

Plexa enjoys an even older discipline than Hungrybox, with the original Golden Sun releasing about 3 months before Melee in August 2001, discovering the subtle magic of Golden Sun through his high school years in 2004. Nestled behind his school laptop screen, his fascination began through emulator sessions. For Plexa, this Japanese role-playing game—deceptively simple on the surface—concealed intricate layers of strategy beneath its charming visuals. His initial brush came with Golden Sun’s sequel, The Lost Age, which revealed a tantalizing glimpse of a secret final dungeon, locked behind a code imported from the original game. This limitation became his catalyst, compelling him back to the original, only to experience the joy of that first title. 

Fast-forward to 2012, the speedrunning scene was evolving, nudging itself from niche obsession toward broader appeal. Awesome Games Done Quick (AGDQ), the now-famous charity marathon, was still fresh and brimming with potential. Inspired, Plexa entered the fray in earnest in 2013, driven by an instinctive desire to dissect his childhood favorite. His meticulous experimentation quickly bore fruit, elevating him into a friendly rivalry with Werster and eventually propelling him to top speedrun records with Golden Sun. He has remained a pivotal part of the game’s community ever since, and still boasts multiple top finishes in several games and categories. 

Fabiano enjoys an even older discipline than Plexa, with chess dating back about 1,500 years before Golden Sun. His path to chess immortality began quietly, his prodigious talent recognized at just five years old in a modest after-school program in Brooklyn. In 2007, just shy of fifteen, Caruana became one of the youngest grandmasters in history. His teenage years were punctuated by wins in multiple prestigious events, each victory further sharpening his formidable analytical abilities. 

By 2014, Caruana had cemented his status among the global elite. That year’s Sinquefield Cup in St. Louis showcased his peak — seven consecutive victories against the world's best, including reigning champion Magnus Carlsen. With a near-unprecedented performance rating, Caruana etched his name permanently among chess’s enduring greats, exemplifying the game’s timeless strategic depth and its capacity to captivate across generations. He is now consistently ranked as one of the best players in the world. 

The unchanging game, the ever-changing meta

Each of them has spent large portions of their life devoted to their respective disciplines, and each talked about how their games have evolved throughout the years. In many cases, it’s a matter of sharpening the minute details past the hilt. Plexa described a quiet revolution occurring over the years, where the overall rhythm of the game stayed the same but the microscopic details evolved subtly yet powerfully. One of the most notable examples came with the daunting Colosso segment. 

For years, speedrunners tackled the daunting segment at level 15, relying purely on their character’s agility to survive. By 2023, runners innovated, realizing that simply consuming special bread to increase health allowed them to survive encounters at the lower level 14. By 2025, runners realized they didn’t even need the bread — clever rearrangements of abilities provided the health buffer necessary, enabling victories at level 13.

Occasionally, however, seismic shifts do happen. Hart recounted a groundbreaking discovery by a glitch hunter whose meticulous manipulation of poison states uncovered a way to skip a grueling 17-minute boss fight sequence entirely. This discovery had a domino effect, forcing a reevaluation of strategies across the entire run. Such moments, Hart reflected, while rare, exemplify the profound and unexpected leaps inherent in seemingly static rule-bound universes — an unpredictable disruption like discovering a hidden pathway in an ancient maze.

In Melee, Hungrybox echoed similar sentiments of incremental discovery within unchanging rulesets, specifically in his approach to Jigglypuff. The Balloon Pokémon is considered to be one of the less mechanically demanding characters in Smash’s arsenal — relying more on mind games than technical precision — and still, there are endless opportunities to expand Jigglypuff’s depth. Hungrybox emphasized a major leap forward through the "Reaction Tech Chase" (RTC) strategy, a maneuver that transformed previously complex multi-step combos into decisive, instantaneous kills. 

Read more — How Hungrybox won CEO with a broken controller

Mastering RTC wasn’t a simple shift: it demanded exceptional reflexes, blending precise reactions with predictive instincts. Hungrybox himself, with his reliance on the "tap jump" style unusual among top-tier players, overcame personal mechanical hurdles and adapted intricately to implement RTC through practice. Though a lot of training is needed for such a seemingly small weapon in Hungrybox’s arsenal, that’s the game of inches required at the top level, with this tool used famously to win GENESIS X2.

But perhaps the biggest leap forward in Melee’s development came with a tool that opened the floodgates for people to practice as much as they want. The advent of Slippi, a modern, community‐driven platform that integrates rollback netcode into the original Melee engine, has been earthshattering. Slippi recreates Melee online with near‐perfect timing and accurate replays, allowing top‐level play from anywhere in the world without the inconsistent lag that plagued earlier netplay. The platform has radically changed the meta, most notably by bringing lesser‑used characters into contention. Fighters previously considered nonviable, like Donkey Kong, gained new life as players discovered advanced options and practiced consistently online. Hungrybox stressed that keeping pace means immersing yourself in constant play, both online and offline: only by engaging with every shift in matchups and fresh threats can a competitor stay at the cutting edge.

Fabiano explained how the advancements in chess are even tighter, but still an active part of the game. He described contemporary classical chess as a landscape of extraordinary preparation, an arms race to uncover subtle innovations within openings. Each minute adjustment, each incremental discovery, demands exhaustive study, hours devoted to memorizing variations. Classical chess magnifies the weight of each error; one misstep in a marathon match can derail an entire tournament. Caruana recounted the emotional toll exacted by games such as Magnus Carlsen’s against Gukesh, where mastery for 80 percent of the match collapsed catastrophically due to momentary lapses. 

And like all top players, he leans on a powerful ally: chess engines. Tools such as Stockfish, Lc0, and Komodo have become integral to preparation and analysis, allowing grandmasters to explore variations with superhuman depth. These engines help identify novel opening ideas, uncover tactical motifs, and evaluate complex endgames, refining human understanding and pushing the boundaries of known theory. By analyzing with these bots, players can simulate thousands of positions per second, revealing insights that would take humans weeks to discover. This could be a hint to where all games go: developed to the point that only machines can ever push them further.

Pushing the limits of Chess, Melee, and Golden Sun

So why keep practicing endlessly if machines are catching up? For Plexa, in the most niche of these disciplines, community is his sustaining force. He speaks candidly about the odd paradox of the Golden Sun community’s collective endeavor — “We’re all kind of stupid. Who the hell would do this to themselves?” Yet beneath the mock disdain lies a powerful connection. It manifests in spontaneous visits to friends halfway across the globe, from impromptu meet-ups with fellow runners to casual conversations that spring to life whenever his stream flickers online, regardless of whether he’s breaking records or running for fun. The community is a web of competitive camaraderie, bound by a mutual understanding: they might compete for the fastest time, yet they celebrate each other fiercely, knowing each has the same goal. 

Hungrybox continues to grapple with the allure of competition itself. "This game is really hard to put down," he confesses, articulating the unique, consuming thrill the game provides — something unmatched by anything else in his life. For him, it's not just the act of competition, but a narrative that allows him to continue writing. After so many years at the top, returning to the top in a post-pandemic world, amid a flood of younger talent pushing the game's boundaries, would craft an unparalleled story. He envisions a finale, returning to the world’s number one ranking, that could transcend his past glories, solidifying an already legendary career into something mythic.

For Caruana, the chessboard is a mirror reflecting his evolving relationship with motivation itself. Chess, with its static 64 squares, offers an ever-shifting internal landscape. Periods of wavering enthusiasm are natural, he explains — universal even at the highest levels. His motivation was rekindled by circumstance: during the isolation of the pandemic, he briefly lost purpose. It returned in full force only when tournaments restarted, and he found himself engaged in the demanding rhythm of commentary and personal training during the 2023 World Chess Championship. Despite not playing, the structure reinvigorated him, and he won his next major event. For Carauna, longevity comes not from external evolution, but from the evolving interior battles and the endless pursuit of personal excellence.

As Kasparov predicted, only classics endure — but the notion of what constitutes a classic has evolved profoundly in our digital age. The resilience of games, whether ancient like chess or “modern” like Super Smash Bros. Melee and Golden Sun, hinges on an invisible yet tangible force: the unyielding human passion that continuously breathes new life into them, regardless of updates or not. It is through relentless innovation, communal devotion, and deeply personal quests for mastery that players like Plexa, Hungrybox, and Caruana transcend the boundaries of their chosen arenas, transforming structured simplicity into a canvas of endless possibility. Maybe Kasparov will be right—maybe Melee or Golden Sun will fade into obscurity within the next few years. But already they have both seen incredible development, and have proven just as effective in fueling people’s ambition. In that sense, aren’t chess and them exactly the same?

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