Uncle Crushy is a part time detective. I'm a massive fan of Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot so busting hiders on Red Alert comes naturally to me. I'm autistic savant level at pattern recognition so there are some blatantly obvious things I notice in hiders' play which reveals their identity to me.
My brain is like an encyclopedia having played thousands of games so I can identity players just from their style of play. For example if I see grenadiers and 4 soviet tanks rushing before a depot I know I am against H3zb. Or if I see 8 light tanks and a sold CY I know I am against Croboy. Some other clues are not so obvious... For example Dolche always scatters engineers around his CY and likes to build his ore ref nice and compact. Ford will make 1000 rifle infantry and will put groups of 5 south and north so I can always identify him just by this distinctive clustering of "parties of 5". Part of what makes me the legend that I am is that I mix up my play style from day to day so as to keep my opponents guessing. I'll mix up playing Soviets and Allies and I'll mix up rushing or tanking just to keep them on their toes. I don't want to be like Katsh and be instantly identified by a silo cockblock or teslaing on every map.
Here are some hiders I have busted in 2020, and also some "down the rabbit hole" theories on some others.
1) Uchicha/Pr1de = At0m1.
Had you logged in to CnCNet January to March 2020 before the global coronavirus lockdown you would have seen At0m1 religiously practicing platinum medal or test 2.5 all day everyday. When the lockdown happened At0m1 disappeared into the shadows and a player called Uchicha-San surfaced. Uchicha was clearly a top level tanker and claimed to be an old pro from MPlayer. Interestingly the only pro who remembered him was NastyNate (one of At0m1's best mates who would definitely cover for him). Players like Robskate had never heard of Uchciha from the old days. I'd like to think that if a player of Uchicha's calibre was around in 2002 then he would be remembered just as well as players such as Aloli and Niklas.
At0m1 hasn't been online for 6 months. Do you really believe he hasn't played Red Alert during a lockdown in that whole time? Especially in Finland where there's not much to do so he would be locked up all day. It makes perfect sense for him to hide. He can play without having to risk the reputation of the legendary At0m1 name and he can practice GQ as well with a free pass. There's also no Gyu type waiting to upload any of his losses. It's definitely in his interests to hide.
Uchicha and At0m1 have a remarkably similar style of play. Both are awesome Q tankers. I remember discussing build orders with At0m1 and Uchicha follows At0m1's build orders exactly on P4 and Ribbon. Power, barracks, advanced power before ore ref. Mostly every other player makes ore ref straight after barracks. If you watch Uchciha and At0m1's play they are remarkably similar.
The At0m1/Uchicha P4 build order.
The biggest clue that Uchicha is At0m1 is language. Uchicha claims to be American and have a USA flag yet speaks in broken English. He also slipped up by using At0m1isms during chat such as the famous "xD" emoticon and saying "yo wud up".
Uchicha is At0m1. If you think otherwise then you believe the fairytale that Uchicha started playing out of nowhere and was already a top tier tanker having played 20 years ago despite nobody remembering him. You are also taking a leap of faith that At0m1 hasn't played Red Alert in the last 6 months despite being locked in his cold Finnish house all day. There's only so many zippo tricks he could do without wanting to pwn Lordy with xtra pr0 Q.
The final biggest piece of evidence that At0m1 is Uchicha is Milo. At0m1 raved about how legendary his coach Milo was for over a decade. Do you really think At0m1 wasn't going to come online for a sniff of the sacred Milo jockstrap when the chance presented itself? Indeed Blank and Uchicha had many good Qmax and Hjk6 games during the summer.
Xtra Pro Q nubsense xD
2) DragonSan = Sol3|Man|
I don't need to go into as much detail with this one since it's very closely related to At0m1 being Uchicha. Essentially Dragon surfaced at the same time as Uchicha. He is not quite as good as Uchicha but still a very strong player. Dragon does certain hybrid builds that instantly remind me of Sol3. The Finnish maestros are good friends in real life so it seems very plausible that hiding as 2 American brothers would make sense. Alternatively, Dragon could be D|zzy but I find Sol3 to be a more plausible option. He is definitely a hider and a friend of Uchicha/At0m1 either way.
3) ZhangWei/RushyBoo = Herm
It's just him alright lol. You can tell by the slight VPN delay but you can also tell by how much he owns. Herm owns everyone in building on gem maps when not rusty. Rushy is the same. Pumped Beast in our crumpet game in tournament and only a handful of players are capable of that, Herm is one of them. ZhangWei also won the 1v1 Ladder playing Herm's distinctive style and owning. Very clever to adopt the Rusher name. ORA-Rusher was an average level tanker who played in 2016 for a while then disappeared. How convenient to adopt his name and pretend to have evolved into a true pwnz0r. The timeline doesn't make sense and that's how you know RushyBoo is Herm. There's more chance of Lordy and Breakdown adopting a low calorie vegan diet than RushyBoo/ZhangWei not being Herm.
4) Mclovin = Mazell
Once upon a time before Mazell was known for being a cheater, he was a good tanker just like everyone else. Mazell and Mclovin are roughly the same age. They are also both Norwegian. Illuminati confirmed? How likely is it that 1 top level Norwegian tanker disappears and then another 1 comes along with a whole new identity a couple of years later? Mclovin ground out the Liquid rooms but was already a top level player when he did venture out into gem maps and unlimited ore. I smell something fishy and it isn't the sweat from Milo's jockstrap.
5) Bart = Ehy
I know this one is obvious so I'll just cover it briefly. These 2 titans (4LW and 3LW) never met in the ring but dominated the competition to the same extent. Ehy's retirement coincides with Bart's first venture into the battle arena. I'm sure everyone would agree that Bart has reached a level only Ehy is capable of so logic deducts that they must be one and the same.
Thanks for reading. Stay tuned for more storytime with Uncle Crushy! In the meantime check out Aunt Ford's blog https://c9andrewford.blogspot.com/?m=1