Today, we’re saying farewell to a trio of legends: Ken, ChillinDude, and ChuDat.

If you know esports well, this might not surprise you. The world of competitive gaming shifts quickly and esports teams need to move just as swiftly so that we don’t get left behind. All three of these legends had already largely stepped away from the competition too. 

But for us, this is a farewell to three of our longest-tenured players and to three people who mean a lot to the history of Team Liquid and Super Smash Bros. Melee. In 2014, Team Liquid was just a StarCraft and a Dota team; Super Smash Bros. Melee became the third esport we entered and it was in no small part because we loved the world that we saw inside the Smash Documentary. The skill, the passion, the grassroots community, the willingness to put your whole self into a game — it all felt parallel to the early StarCraft: Brood War scene that was our own cradle.

So, we entered with a splash by signing two Melee legends, players who were pillars that the scene was built on, Ken and KDJ, with an announcement video made by Samox, the creator of the Smash Documentary. Over the years, we’d bring in ChillinDude and ChuDat as well — two players who were still highly competitive but had also been in the Melee community since the very beginning. 

The Team Liquid banner held so much Smash history underneath it, and it felt fitting because we had always been the old school org ourselves, one of the few names that had been around for even longer than Melee. Saying farewell to this trio does not change how we compete in Melee, but it does mark the end of an era for TL, for Smash, and for esports at large — a changing of the guard. A moment like this asks for a proper sendoff, so that the community doesn’t forget what the past meant for its present and future; below, you’ll find brief histories of what these players brought to Melee, to Liquid, and to esports — as well as some of our favorite moments from their careers

Ken

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The King of Smash, the original Red Marth, Melee’s first “greatest” — Ken was the first player to define Melee by setting a benchmark for everyone else to hit. His peak came in the earliest days of the game, the MLG Era circa 2003-2007, a time where he was indomitable and went on long undefeated streaks. He popularized some of Melee's earliest core skills and his patented Ken Combo is still bread-and-butter for Marth mains everywhere.

Like a lot of old greats, the game did gradually start to outpace Ken, but he often still had surprises up his sleeve. In 2007, Ken had mostly stepped away from competing and when he did focus on Melee, it was as an organizer. 2007 was supposed to be the year that Ken handed the reins over to the upcoming Melee gods, but the King of Smash returned at Evo 2007 to win the whole thing. When we signed Ken in 2014, he didn’t take back that crown again but he made a solid return to a game that had advanced a lot since he left it, eventually ranking in the Top 50. 

Even recently, when Ken played with Melee’s current best Marth, Zain, he could still hold his own with some of Melee’s better online players. He’s known for his time as a competitor, but Ken was also foundational to Melee as a tournament organizer and a colorful character — someone who helped mold the SoCal Melee scene into something special, helped create a national Melee scene, and who put Melee on national television when he competed in the reality TV series, Survivor. Ken’s old combos and chaingrabs may feel old hat now, but he is undeniably one of a kind.

Our favorite moments:

• Ken beats Mang0 at EVO 2007
• A history of the crew battles and regional rivalry that created competitive Melee, from Ken and Chillin
• Ken’s introduction on Survivor: Gabon 
• Ken shows he’s still got it while streaming with Zain

Chillin

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When Ken looked his most unbeatable, Chillin was the first player to knock the crown loose. Chillin was perhaps Melee’s first ever prodigy Fox main, as well as Melee’s first ever national-level trash talker. He and Ken agree that it was Chillin’s constant trash talk on the SmashBoards that led to the scene’s first national tournament in an American Legion branch in Maryland. Chillin bantered so heavily with the West Coast players at the time that they had no choice but to fly across the country to compete with him and his crew. 

As a TO, Chillin hosted the first ever national Melee tournament and as a player, he delivered Melee’s first great upset by beating Ken in the early rounds of that tournament. Ken would come back to win the tournament and the era, but Chillin would establish himself as a Top 10-level player and was foundational to Fox in a way similar to how Ken was with Marth.

Chillin first joined Curse Gaming, then later became a part of TL as a part of the Curse merger. At that point in his career, Chillin had been eclipsed by other Fox mains, but he pushed back into relevance in 2014 with a big EVO run, ending the year ranked at 26th. Even at 26th in the rankings, Chillin still ranked number one in terms of banter and started beef that this time went international. He took aim at Leffen, a hotshot Swedish Fox main, and created a diss track that drew Leffen into a Salty Suite best-of-five showmatch at EVO.

Chillin lost the set spectacularly. But the beef energized the Smash community and gave it the kind of narrative that feels difficult to find in esports these days. The loss marked a new era of Melee, where hyper-technical new school players like Leffen would rise to the top, but it also showed that Chillin was still every bit as relevant in that new era as a personality. He became one of the scene’s most beloved commentators and hosts for years to come.

In 2022 Chillindude would suffer a nearly-fatal stroke that put him in the hospital and in physical therapy for years to come. However, the Melee community didn’t forget what Chilin had done for them and donated over 250,000 dollars to his recovery. In recent years, Chillin’s recovery has been heroic and he’s even returned to the mic and to streaming occasionally. There was an old school magic to everything Chillin did in Melee, something that no one else can copy or recapture. Naturally the Smash community misses him, but more than anything we’ve been happy to see him recovering so well. 

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Our favorite moments:

• Chillindude beats Westballz at EVO 2014 
• A history of competitive Melee, the crew battle, and east vs west, from Ken and Chillin
• Chillindude’s Salty Suite loss (and iconic “My B” line).
• The Melee Community raises over 250,000 USD for ChillinDude’s recovery 
• Chillindude returns to commentary after the stroke

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ChuDat

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Last but not least, ChuDat was every bit as colorful and competitively relevant as Ken or Chillindude. In the MLG era, ChuDat was a consistent Top 5 player and frequently the silver medalist behind Ken. ChuDat defined Ice Climbers both in the earliest meta before wobbling and in the meta to come after wobbling was introduced. (He was even the first player to bring out Young Link as an answer to Jigglypuff, though Armada would truly refine the idea.)

The MLG Era was ChuDat’s peak, he had an argument for being the second-best player across that era, but he stayed shockingly relevant in the years to come. When Chu joined TL in 2017, he was a dark horse contender to win Majors and the type of player that the new, highly technical players feared fighting. Combine the touch-of-death potential of wobbling with ChuDat’s fundamentals and pure neutral skill, and you had a player that could even upset the Five Gods of Melee that ruled over Melee’s golden age. 

ChuDat’s 2017 was so successful that he put together arguably Ice Climber’s best year in modern Melee, ranking 7th in the world in the summer and 11th at the end of the year. (Nicki’s performance in 2024 is the only rival here.) While Chu would never totally recapture the spark of 2017, he stayed relevant, regularly making the Top 20, and staging in the Top 100 until 2022. Of all the players here, ChuDat’s competitive career may have aged the best.

Culturally, he was also one of the most natural heels in competitive Melee. Ice Climbers are already one of Melee’s most frustrating characters, even more infuriating when wobbling was legal, but ChuDat was an expert at finding play patterns that made his characters even more frustrating. (His playstyle in Brawl and PM helped get planking rules instituted in both of those games.) ChuDat leaned into all of this and whenever he won a big set, he would regularly hit a pose for the camera that he called the “Yayuzz.” Getting Yayuzz’ed was something that top players feared for years, and it gave Chu a certain charisma in Melee not that different from Chillin’s banter.

Our favorite moments:

• A brief history of ChuDat
• ChuDat goes Super Saiyan at Summit 2017
• ChuDat actually goes Super Saiyan at Summit 2017
• IMO should be replayed, the story of two iconic sets between ChuDat and Leffen 
• ChuDat eats a raw onion like an apple on stream

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As a team, when you sign players to a roster, you can only hope that they provide the story, community, and the character that Ken, Chillin, and ChuDat provided. Each one of these three players helped shape Melee into what it is today, and in turn they helped define Team Liquid Smash. So, even as they have all stepped away from Smash in recent years, it is still hard to step away from them and say goodbye. From everyone at Team Liquid, thank you for everything!

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