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.
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.
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 - A reference 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 - Likely a reference to the year 1999, what Crush meant with this tag is unknown.
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.
