Chi “Chi” Wong is a Sheik main from North Carolina, respected not only as a high-level player but also as a talented TO. I recently got the chance to talk with Chi about his impact on NC’s competitive Melee scene and what his vision is for the future of NC Melee.

Hello Chi! Thank you for giving your time to be interviewed today.

Chi: Hey Dylan, thanks for giving me the opportunity to be here!

For those reading who may not be familiar with you, why don’t you start by giving us a brief synopsis of who you are and what your significance to the competitive Melee scene is?

Chi: My name’s Chi. My tag is also Chi. I’ve had lots of different tags, but people just end up defaulting to my real name, so it’s just Chi. My current significance to the Melee community, in North Carolina at least, is I am the lead TO/organizer of an in-state circuit called the NChi Circuit. It’s open to anybody to enter, from any state, but the idea is that there’s alternating events [called “premiers”] between the two major state universities in North Carolina, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University in Raleigh. And in between, there’s lots of different events hosted by different TOs in different cities on weekends. Across these events, people accumulate points [based on their performance]. The top 16 players and top 8 teams that have the most points at the end of the season will not only skip pools at the finale, but be showcased in various ways on stream [at the finale] as a reward for their effort.

What inspired you start the NChi tournament circuit in the first place? What’s the vision you have for the impact this will have on NC’s Melee community?

Chi: The genesis of the NChi circuit was that… so there’s a couple of events, or situations, that are gonna come up soon within the Melee community. One is that Samox is gonna release a new documentary within the next year or so, and the last time a documentary happened there was a huge swell in terms of new members and new competitors looking to play Melee, and so I wanted to be ready for that. And the other thing that we had to be ready for in terms of accommodating growth and sustaining growth is the release of Smash Ultimate. Once the new game comes out, there’ll be a lot of opportunities to host events where the games are side by side, and that, too, brings in new members of the community, so I really wanted to put NC in a place where it felt like we had the infrastructure ready to accommodate the new people. And I guess… the circuit isn’t only meant to accomplish an infrastructure purpose; for the events I’m directly involved in TOing (i.e. premiers), my intent is to provide players of all levels a premium competitive experience. And also, I’ve been hosting tournaments for a while, and I’ve hosted regional-sized events, local-sized events, and I’ve helped TO at nationals. And so it felt that sort of the next step for me as a TO to grow was to host something on a larger scale, like a circuit.

Talk to me a little bit about the decision you made to centralize this circuit on these local college campuses.

Chi: So, the decision to centralize the tournaments on campuses has everything to do with the fact that venues are really expensive to rent and difficult to find. And also, there’s lots of different logistic concerns. I don’t really have a good sense, for example, of whether or not conference rooms in hotels can adequately support the amount of power we need. I mean, there’s probably no reason to worry, but it’s just like, there’s a lot of different administrative hoops that I have to jump through, and also there’s the difficulty of dealing with potential legal situations where where they’ll accuse us of gambling or something. Additionally, the Smash demographic is still mostly college-centered, at least within North Carolina. I mean, there’s definitely some people that exist outside of college gaming clubs and the college age, but by and large we’re all, like‒I mean, I have a job and I’ve graduated, but a lot of the Melee players in our scene are still attending university or are still in high school. So it just made, sort of, from a cost sense and from a demographic sense, it made a lot of sense to centralize around NCSU and UNC.

We’ve seen a lot of North Carolina’s top level talent coming out to support these events so far, but we’ve also seen a little bit of out-of-state participation. Can you tell me a little bit about how these out-of-state players play into your vision for this circuit as opposed to the in-state players?

Chi: Certainly. I guess in terms of my thoughts about out-of-state [players], I’m really happy that, first off, that out-of-state players are coming. I never envisioned this circuit to be restrictive because, I mean, regular tournaments aren’t restrictive in the first place. I don’t host tournaments that are only available to NC members, so similarly, there should be no restriction on the circuit. And in terms of my vision, I mean, ultimately the circuit isn’t just in a community sense, or strictly a social sense. It’s also about the competitive sense. And when out-of-state talent comes, they bring a sort of new perspective, they sort of bring different skill sets, and so it’s also a challenge for our players to be able to overcome. And so I don’t really see, I mean you didn’t frame the question this way, but I don’t see a problem with it, and I in fact think this can only benefit us as a scene. And also, I mean, when you consider just how tournaments work and how tournaments grow, typically there’s a substantial portion of your attendance base from within the state, but how you get sort of greater relevance within the region, and also maybe nationally or even globally, is that you just start having other people come in. So to the extent that other people from out-of-state are coming and believing in my vision by attending my events and seeking competition here, I’m more than happy to accommodate them.

Now I’d like to shift gears a little bit from talking about Chi the TO to talking about Chi the player. In September, you won the NC Melee Arcadian. Tell us a little about your run at that event.

Chi: I talked about this at length on our state podcast, Two Floaties One Wobbler, which is hosted by Sharkz, HiFi, and ZENT, but essentially, I was really happy to have won the Arcadian. I didn’t feel as gratified at the time because, I mean, it was just a really long run, and I had been there for twelve plus hours. But, I don’t know, I treated that event really seriously. I’m at a position in skill where I’m just at the cusp of getting PRed, and I’m consistently able to beat people who are below my level, and I trade sets with people who are at my level. So it felt really good to me in a symbolic sense. Really, the event was also satisfying because it proved to me that the way I prepare and approach events is... [it] works, and moving forward I have a solid foundation to move off of regardless of where my skill level is at.

Do you ever find any conflicts arising between yourself as a TO and yourself as a player? Which version of Chi takes priority?

Chi: That’s a great question. Really, whenever I’m hosting an event, the priority is always TOing. Now, as a slight tangent here, I think as a TO evolves his responsibilities grow from just individual organizer to task delegator. So to that end, to facilitate me as a player at events, I’ve actually learned to train other staff and bring other TOs into the fold; not just for the sake of the future of the scene, right, cause I’m not gonna be around forever, but also in the sense that, by training other people, I’ll selfishly get more time to play and to warm up and to focus on myself as a player. But in the end, if an emergency calls, or if I feel like the tournament’s not running to my standards, it’s always the other people who have chosen to give their time and their money and their efforts towards my event. Those people come first, always.

With these last few questions, I’m gonna give you the chance to tell my readers a little about NC Melee from your perspective. So first of all, who’s your favorite NC player to watch and why?

Chi: I’m not gonna talk about any of our inactive players, or our Top 100 players I guess, cause it sort of goes without saying that I’ll cheer for them by default at events. Like, $mike, household name. Kaeon, also a household name. Sharkz, growing on a household name. So I guess everything below our top class I’ll talk about. I think one of my favorite players in North Carolina to watch is HiFi. He plays Puff, and he started in the scene two years ago. He’s also one of my best friends; he was technically my best man. But it’s just been awesome to watch somebody so dedicated towards the game and treat it so seriously and have astronomical improvement in results. I mean, two years ago he was going 0-2 at locals, and next thing you know he beats Captain Smuckers at Super Smash Con, and he wins a regional event over Davemon and beats bobby big ballz, reverse 3-0ing him at the same event. So he’s easily one of my favorite players to watch. I also really enjoy watching Tylenol and Saef, our marquee Fox mains aside from Kaeon. Those two are just really fun to watch because they’re really explosive and they’re also really smart. So yeah, HiFi, Tylenol, and Saef are my three favorite players to watch, outside of Mike and Kaeon and Sharkz.

Who’s an up-and-coming NC player you think the national scene should keep its eyes on?

Chi: In terms of the national scene, it’s difficult to say because I don’t think very many people within NC are looking to travel outside of the state. Out of the people that have those intentions… myself? It’s sort of a cop-out answer because, again, I don’t really know that many people who… Oh, no, I think Timebones is somebody who travels a lot and who intends on traveling a lot. He’s been improving a lot lately and it’s nice to see. He’s a Marth main. I think he took it quite close to Swiftbass, and he takes the game seriously. And now that he has a job and he’s in a more stable situation, he’s more free to practice and prepare. So aside from myself, who puts in a lot of time and tries to work and think in a sort of broader setting than the local scene, it’s also Timebones who I feel might have a strong presence soon nationally.

And finally, where can my readers follow you on social media?

Chi: They can follow me on social media @chijustchi. That’s my tag on Twitter, and I’m most active on there. I have an Instagram also but I don’t post very much on there. I might step it up soon. But yeah, that’s where you can find me.

That’s all I’ve got for you, thanks so much Chi!

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