Smasher:Crush

Crush "Kimba"
Character info
Melee main	Fox
Other Melee character	Falco
Personal and other info
Real name	Jack Hoyt
Birth date	March 1, 1998
Location	Massachusetts
Miscellaneous info
Skill	Top level (on hiatus)

Crush is a semi-retired SSBM Fox player from Massachusetts, and is still considered the best player in New England. Crush was previously ranked 1st on the Massachusetts Power Rankings, 1st on the New England Melee Power Rankings, and 17th on the 2018 MPGR. He has wins over top players such as Plup, aMSa, Zain, SFAT, S2J, Lucky, HugS, Swedish Delight, PewPewU, and Westballz.

Crush quietly went on an unannounced hiatus from Melee in 2018, attending his last event of the year on June 5th, 2018; he had also registered for CEO 2018, but did not attend. Around this time, on June 28th, 2018, he deleted his Twitter account without any prior notice, cutting off most communication with the Melee community. Crush gave no indication as to why he left the scene, but it is speculated that he wanted to focus on college, or that he had achieved his goals within Melee.

Over a year after his hiatus began, in June of 2019, Crush entered two tournaments, a Boston weekly under the tag "Bagheera" on June 11th, and another larger tournament in New Hampshire under the tag "Kimba" on June 15th. He won both events (the latter of which had Hax, 2saint, and Slox in attendance) but he has not entered any tournaments since, and Crush never reactivated his Twitter account.

Playing style

• Crush is a highly savvy and technical Fox-user, distinguished by his "footsies"-based approach to the neutral game, to the degree that his gameplay resembles that of more traditional fighting games. After jumping, Crush tends to be very choosy about where he lands, typically drifting far enough away from the opponent to make his drills, back-airs and nairs safe. When he approaches, he is calculated, typically going for wavedash forward down-tilts or running shines (relatively safe options with a good reward); he is quick to pick up the cadence of his opponent to justify going for riskier options like SHFFL'd aerials and dash attacks. He is very good at finding precise grabs on whiffs and at using spotdodge judiciously to stay safe from being grabbed himself. Crush's dash dance and out-of-shield game are overlooked aspects of his repertoire, as he is more than capable of waveshining out-of-shield and also utilizing his dash back to stay clear of his adversary's threat ranges.

• The core suite of Crush's skills give him a natural resilience to the more common options that are typically seen in the current meta: that is to say, Crush's move choice and aerial drift allow him to consistently circumvent any would-be crouch cancel retaliation; they also put him at distances where he is essentially always safe from the opponent's out-of-shield options (e.g., shield grab or nair out-of-shield).

The most recognizable traits that Crush is known for:

• Laser lands for quicker platform movement.

• Empty land up-tilts (and down-tilts).

• Clean intangible ledgedashes.

• Jab cancels into turn-around up-tilts.

• Waveshining out-of-shield.

• Shield-drop or short hop drilling onto the opponent's shield, but drifting so as to land outside of shield-grab range.

• Wavelanding back to distort cadence and spacing.

• Picking good times to spotdodge, often finding correct moments to use it to circumvent shine-grabs and float-cancelled aerial-to-grab strings.

• Occasionally going for side-b out of shield to escape the corner.

Tournament placings

Super Smash Bros. Melee

Tournament	Date	1v1 Placement	2v2 Placement	Partner
Revival of Melee 4	November 19th-20th, 2011	49th	—	—
Apex 2012	January 6th-8th, 2012	129th	—	—
Apex 2013	January 11th-13th, 2013	129th	49th	Ryobeat
EVO 2013	July 12th-14th, 2013	79th	—	—
Apex 2014	January 17th-19th, 2014	97th	—	—
Northeastern Smash Attack 2	March 29th, 2014	17th	—	—
MLG Anaheim 2014	June 20th-22nd, 2014	77th	—	—
EVO 2014	June 11th-13th, 2014	129th	—	—
BUST	November 22nd, 2014	7th	—	—
Super Nebulous 2	January 24th, 2015	13th	—	—
Apex 2015	January 30th-February 1st, 2015	113th	—	—
EVO 2015	July 17th-19th, 2015	49th	—	—
Super Smash Con	August 6th-9th, 2015	25th	13th	$mike
Super Nebulous 4	March 27th, 2016	7th	—	—
Pound 2016	April 2nd-3rd, 2016	25th	17th	Swiftbass
Mass Madness 8	April 16th, 2016	1st	—	—
DreamHack Austin 2016	May 6th-8th, 2016	13th	—	—
New England Invitational	June 4th-5th, 2016	1st	5th	S2B
CEO 2016	June 24th-26th, 2016	25th	17th	$mike
EVO 2016	July 15th-17th, 2016	49th	—	—
Emerald City 4	July 23rd, 2016	2nd	2nd	Rustin
Super Smash Con 2016	August 11th-14th, 2016	25th	13th	$mike
Shine 2016	August 26th-28th, 2016	25th	5th	Slox
GUTS 4	November 11th-13th, 2016	1st	1st	Slox
Don't Park on the Grass	December 17th-18th, 2016	33rd	9th	dizzkidboogie
GENESIS 4	January 20th-22nd, 2017	17th	33rd	satdaddy
B.E.A.S.T 7	February 17th-19th, 2017	9th	9th	HomeMadeWaffles
TGL Monthly 14	March 11th, 2017	1st	1st	Blea Gelo
Bean Town Lean House 1	April 8th, 2017	2nd	1st	Slox
Flatiron 2	April 22nd, 2017	9th	2nd	Gahtzu
DreamHack Austin 2017	April 28th-30th, 2017	13th	5th	MacD
Function(2)	May 6th, 2017	2nd	1st	Slox
Royal Flush	May 12th-14th, 2017	9th	7th	Slox
Battle of BC 2	June 3rd-4th, 2017	9th	3rd	Bladewise
GENESIS: RED	July 9th, 2017	5th	—	—
EVO 2017	July 14th-15th, 2017	25th	—	—
DreamHack Atlanta 2017	July 21st-23rd, 2017	9th	7th	ZoSo
Get On My Level 2017	July 28th-30th, 2017	13th	9th	Hax
Super Smash Con 2017	August 10th-13th, 2017	17th	5th	Colbol
Shine 2017	August 25th-27th, 2017	65th	5th	MacD
Emerald City V	September 9th, 2017	1st	1st	Captain Smuckers
GameTyrant Expo 2017	September 29th-October 1st, 2017	25th	5th	MacD
The Big House 7	October 6th-8th, 2017	9th	7th	MacD
Too Hot to Handle	October 28th-29th, 2017	2nd	1st	Plup
Smash Summit 5	November 2nd-5th, 2017	9th	7th	Hax
Melee at the MADE #51	November 17th, 2017	1st	—	—
Pat's House 3	December 2nd-3rd, 2017	4th	2nd	KJH
The Holiday Bash Smash Invitational	December 15th-17th, 2017	1st	7th	KJH
GENESIS 5	January 19th-21st, 2018	9th	17th	KJH
The Gang Hosts a Melee Tournament	February 3rd, 2018	3rd	—	—
Nebulous Melee 115	February 24th, 2018	1st	—	—
MMOM bi-monthly #11	March 3rd, 2018	1st	1st	Slox
New Game Plus Ultra 22	March 6th, 2018	1st	—	—
EGLX 2018	March 9th-11th, 2018	7th	5th	Swedish Delight
Full Bloom 4	March 24th-25th, 2018	17th	4th	Ryan Ford
GEMINI	April 14th, 2018	1st	5th	JFlex
The Scarlet Classic IV	April 15th-16th, 2018	1st	1st	AbsentPage
Flatiron 3	April 21st, 2018	4th	—	—
Get On My Level 2018	May 18th-20th, 2018	9th	—	—
New Game Plus Ultra 33	May 29th, 2018	1st	—	—
New Game Plus Ultra 34	June 5th, 2018	1st	—	—
New Game Plus Revolution 21	June 11th, 2019	1st	—	—
Cold Hard Smash 6	June 15th, 2019	1st	—	—

Trivia

• Crush has used many different in-game tags throughout his career, these include:
  • FSBR - An acronym for "Fashion Sense Back Room" which was a New England crew containing players such as; Crush, Tommy and $mike.
  • JACK - Crush's first name.
  • BTSM - Likely a portmanteau of "BDSM" (sexual preference/activities) and "TSM" (professional esports organization).
  • F$BR - Fashion Sense Back Room but with a dollar sign instead of the "S". Interestingly, Crush seems to have only used this tag once in a set against Leffen.
  • F - Possibly a reference to the "Press F to Pay Respects" meme.
  • MOTB - Could be a reference to "Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer", a role-playing video game released in 2007.
  • HBT - It is unknown what this tag is referencing but it is one of Crush's more common tags.
  • 808S - Likely a reference to the album 808s and Heartbreak by Kanye West. Could also refer to the Roland TR-808, a drum machine used commonly in modern rap, hip hop and electronic music.
  • ALCS - Potentially a reference to the American League Championship Series, a Major League Baseball Tournament Series.
  • 10AM - Could be a reference to what time it was during the set since this tag was seemingly only used once during Round 2 Pools.
  • BTG - May be a reference to Bitcoin Gold, a cryptocurrency that stems from the more popular Bitcoin.
  • KSG - Possibly a reference to the album “Kids See Ghosts” by rappers Kanye West and Kid Cudi
  • YRH - Potentially from the song "YRH" by Migos, a popular American hip-hop trio where YRH is an acronym for "young rich homies".
  • NFP - Probably Crush's most common tag, could be an acronym for "no flash photography".
  • NNOD - Meaning unknown.
  • YCR - Meaning unknown.
  • 1999 - Might be a refererence to the album "1999" by rapper Joey Bada$$.
  • W.E - Potentially an acronym for "whatever" (the "." to differentiate it from saying "we" instead).
  • AKON - A reference to the popular singer/rapper Akon.
  • GL BRO - An acronym for "good luck bro".
  • C02 - The chemical formula for carbon dioxide.
  • INFP - One of the 16 personality types included in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, a self-report personality test. This could also be a reference to one of Crush's more common tags "NFP".
  • PODE - An acronym for "Potentiometer Oddity Degradation Effect" which, in short, allows GameCube Controllers to have 1 frame dash back and no snapback.
  • HBD - An acronym for "Happy Birthday" that Crush used in grand finals of Cold Hard Smash 6 on his birthday. There's a possibility that this could also be referencing Crush's "HBT" tag but this is likely just a coincidence.
  • LUGE - An abbreviation of Crush's old username, Lugedude045. [1]
  • LD45 - Another abbreviation of Lugedude045. [2]