Does Yoshi require a secondary or can he be considered solo viable?

[Skeeter Mania]

This is sort of something I've come to notice recently. I've noted that he does lose to some notable characters (Sheik, Diddy, and now MK in particular), but in terms of the majority of the higher tiers, he can hold his own pretty well and even win against some of them.

In terms of results, I've noticed that most people who manage to get a high placing (Top 16 or above at a major) use him as a solo (Raptor and Firefly in particular), though I think it could be MU unfamiliarity (or just the innate benefits of the character and fundamentals).

Through a combination of what I've analyzed as well as MUs, I am clear in stating that he is solo viable.

Anyways, what do you think? Is Yoshi viable as a solo or not? Might this become a reality in the future?

 

[James Mesa]

In his analysis video Zer0 and Sky Williams said that Yoshi was the last character that he thinks would be solo viable. Personally I feel that having a secondary for anything you'd feel uncomfortable with would only benefit you. I do well at my locals with Solo Yoshi but that's just me. It's all up to preference on if you want to have a secondary or not in my opinion.

 

[Garde Noir]

The answer is technically yes, Yoshi can definitely be solo viable. Even outside of Zero's video, and into this board, we agree that Yoshi has more than one way to approach as a main, and therefore can be unpredictable, and adapt much more mid-match than set-playstyle characters.

Yoshi can evolve from a defensive wall to an offensive tank seamlessly, with amazing aerial mobility and a relatively strong and annoying to stop projectile. His hitboxes are almost always a threat, and a few attributes such as double jump super armor, the ability to turn mid-air with B pivoting, and acceptable landing lag means he can be a tough character to break.
His offensive can be anywhere from rush-down to guerilla warfare hit-and-run mindgames, changing to what your opponent suffers with most.

However, I tend to disagree with NOT picking up a secondary. Besides learning more mechanics of the game you're actually playing, and having a back-up option if your opponent annihilates you, Yoshi has limits. Granted, these limits are not in the character, whose excellent ability to chameleon to playstyles works best with players who enjoy adaptation more than execution, but in the players limitations. See, it's simply human nature to fall back on what you're comfortable with. There will be a way you play Yoshi most often, and most comfortably, and eventually someone will beat you for specifically that.

No matter how hard we try, we can't overcome how we perform in split second decisions: not until you're a god of the game who is so well versed in every option that every option is the most comfortable. Until that point, pick up a character that plays differently: one that beats what you can't quite do with Yoshi, yet. It'll change your mindset a little, and break long formed habits with the character we love that will allow you to do more than you thought you could. Picking up another character is like bringing a little extra cash in your wallet, just in case you want an extra large popcorn at the movies, instead of a medium. It's just insurance.

Example: I have trouble beating rush-down characters with Yoshi. Fox, Sonic and Falcon are my worst nightmares. So I picked up Pikachu. I just couldn't see past the defensive control-related gamestyle I was most comfortable with. I picked a character that could stand up to rush-downs, so now not only am I more comfortable against that playstyle, but I rarely ever mis-input my egg toss for egg roll any longer.

Pick up Olimar, pick up Mario, pick up Pac-man or Ryu or Shulk or Roy. Pick a character that is for specific situations if you want, or pick up Sheik, pick up Rosalina or Zero Suit and become bilingual at the top of the tiers.

But pick up another character. Even if you never use them. Pick it up for your own sake.

 

[Kitzu]

I've been told in the yoshi q&a thread that the top tiers Garde Noir mentioned are good secondaries, but I just can't use them! I do have a few characters I can use well though, like Samus and Little Mac.

Also Garde Noir I don't tend to struggle with rush down. I just throw my eggs to disrupt them.

Edit: The post below, I have no idea how that happened.

 

[RaptorTEC]

I don't believe Yoshi loses to MK yet. From what I've seen, Yoshis are just playing the mu wrong/really unsafe. I'd like to play a good MK to be sure.

This is an interesting topic though. I believed Yoshi was solo viable until recently. A Sheik that knows the mu destroys Yoshi. We can only win if they decide to approach or play aggressive instead of camping (play the mu wrong). Diddy is also mildly a problem if, again, they play the mu correctly. But luckily we can juggle Diddy fairly well so it isn't as terrible as Sheik. Aside from those 2 characters, Yoshi can compete with anyone. He either wins the mu or goes even or very slightly loses.

 

[Garde Noir]

I've been told in the yoshi q&a thread that the top tiers Garde Noir mentioned are good secondaries, but I just can't use them! I do have a few characters I can use well though, like Samus and Little Mac.

Also Garde Noir I don't tend to struggle with rush down. I just throw my eggs to disrupt them.

How long have to spent trying to learn them? No character can really be picked up in a day. Spend some quality time with them. If anything, it'll help you learn what they struggle with.

 

[Kitzu]

I get that but I just can't use them, they're not my kind of character.

 

[GSM_Dren]

Yes and no. Yoshi is a great character and can be solo viable, but he does get shut down by top level sheiks/diddy/rosa. He does hold is own against the other high tiers losing slightly or going even. Either way, I think it would be a good idea to pick up a secondary because it keeps your options open. Playing with a different character lets you be more in-depth with the game, you think critically as you weigh the options that both main/secondary have over each other and pick the one that bests suits the situation. Fortunately for me I've never used my secondary in tournament only because I feel yoshi still gets the job done.

 

[Sinister Slush]

No matter what game, unless you're playing stupid broken stuff like brawl MK Ivan Ooze Petshop from Jojo's ST Akuma Old Sentinel or Vergil in MvC series etc. you need a secondary to get top placings at nationals or even big regionals consistently.
For Yoshi in Smash 4 specifically, nah no way he's solo viable. A Secondary would be needed if true players want to get money at big tournaments then slowly but surely just drop Yoshi all together and just go to the top tiers.

For the stubborn mains that don't want to be tier whores like us over the generation/s, we'll most likely stay with Yoshi and have gimmicky lower tiered characters to cover up either mental block matchups or even to deal with Sheik Diddy etc. better than Yoshi can.


Also don't listen to sky or Zero, especially Zero lol

 

[Delta-cod]

Yoshi will never be solo viable on the large scale due to his poor match ups with the best characters in the game.

At a local level? If you're good enough, then sure. But this depends on what your local scene is like.

In general, Yoshi isn't solo viable. He really needs a secondary to cover those awful match ups (Sheik, Diddy). But the characters you'd use to cover those MUs also tend to do just as well as Yoshi against everyone else. So then it becomes a matter of "why am I using Yoshi anyways?" Especially once you reach the upper parts of the bracket, where you'll be running into Sheik, Sheik, Diddy, Sheik, then Sheik again. Where is Yoshi seeing use then?

That's always been a funny thing to me. People who don't main the top characters usually are dedicated solo mains, or they play a collection of janky lower tiered characters. I can't really think of a lower tiered character main who secondaried a top character, and didn't end up fully switching over in the end. It just ends up not being worth sticking with the bad character, sadly.

Luckily, Yoshi is good enough to place decently on his own. I wouldn't set your hopes too high for major tournament wins though. =/

 

[Skeeter Mania]

Rather surprised at some of the negative answers (by Sinister Slush and Delta-cod ), yet somewhat understandable.

Then again, I've rarely seen anybody on these boars come to a consensus. If Yoshi IS solo viable, then maybe Sky and ZeRo are right about him being on the lower end. If he isn't, then what will this all come to? Nothing?

 

[Sinister Slush]

That's always been a funny thing to me. People who don't main the top characters usually are dedicated solo mains, or they play a collection of janky lower tiered characters. I can't really think of a lower tiered character main who secondaried a top character, and didn't end up fully switching over in the end. It just ends up not being worth sticking with the bad character, sadly.

Didn't N@kat like switch from fox to IC in brawl? Sh@ky from Ness to MK? There's some i can think of for Brawl but not all of em, I mostly know switches from people in my state that switched from X low tier to Y top tier. Otherwise on national scale players, there's a lot of examples people can think of from Smash 4 thankfully since the game is more recent and only a year old.

 

[Delta-cod]

Skeeter Mania What do you mean by "what will this all come to?" The development of Yoshi as a character?

From what I know, most of the old guard does it out of pride/character identity. I never really understood the hype behind other people picking up because "he's amazing". But the character loyalty will keep people willing to play as Yoshi and try to develop him.

Sinister Slush I'm sure that as the meta continues to develop, we'll see a similar trend as in the past (low tier mains switching to top tiers).

 

[The Wall]

I've found some examples of people in my scene who show improvement based on the exact fact of not picking up secondaries. We have BC as a prime example with his Villager. He's extremely good with it, but he struggled with certain matchups (olimar, my yoshi). He picked up Ness/Rosalina to cover some of those flaws and was doing alright. Then one day he said "f this" and dropped them all, went back to solo villager. He 3-0'd Grimturtle's Captain Falcon that night and gave me trouble.

I tell a lot of people this. It's good to pick up a character and play them in friendlies. Learn the latency on their moves, what it takes for them to control them and get the 'general' idea of the character. Once you understand that for all characters, focus onto your one true main fighting people who are good and push past the issues. If you pick secondaries every time you have a hard match up you end up looking like Denti who is only mediocre at all characters.

I believe Yoshi is solo-mainable, and I'm on a mission to prove it.

 

[Sinister Slush]

I'm sure that as the meta continues to develop, we'll see a similar trend as in the past (low tier mains switching to top tiers).

Well I mean that's what I meant, it's happened already.
Abadango from pac to Wario, rosalina 2nd with rosa and dropped all three for solo MK main. 9b shulk to Ryu, Trela going through 5 low/mid tiers that clicked with him to eventually going to Ryu and who knows, maybe even Cloud lol

I've found some examples of people in my scene who show improvement based on the exact fact of not picking up secondaries. We have BC as a prime example with his Villager. He's extremely good with it, but he struggled with certain matchups (olimar, my yoshi). He picked up Ness/Rosalina to cover some of those flaws and was doing alright. Then one day he said "f this" and dropped them all, went back to solo villager. He 3-0'd Grimturtle's Captain Falcon that night and gave me trouble.

To be fair Villager is a contender for top 10 in Smash 4 or most likely already a top 10 character, BC just eventually got better along with finally downloading the locals in his city. Ranai MJG and many other villagers proves that, especially Ranai over in Japan.

Razer also picked up Fox if Falcon isn't helping him much in a matchup.

Will say nobody truly solo mains a character unless we wanna be super specific and say tournamnets only, we all have dumb secondaries we pull out in friendlies. For me it's Shulk and Greninja, oddly enough for everyone else it's Jigglypuff for some reason. You're all weird, you know who you are.























Red Bow jiggly > every other skin

 

[The Wall]

That must be a San Antonio thing as the only person who even THINKS about doing Jiggs here is Whispy (He's not all that good with her).

I've had my other characters and claimed secondaries but everyone knows I'm a Yoshi main and I'm not counter-picking characters. That's just how it is.

 

[Sinister Slush]

Only two other Yoshi mains exists in SA. Think one of em is Duck Hunt
I'm talking about the Yoshi community as a whole since a decent portion of em in the skype chat has jiggly as a secondary for friendlies.

 

[The Wall]

Oh well, wouldn't know that from not being in the chat (lulz). Speaking specifically on Yoshi mains, I guess that means El_Yoshi123 here has a Lucario secondary and TVBlaze has a Wario secondary. I've flip flopped between Zelda/WFT.

 

[RaptorTEC]

I mean Yoshi is solo viable if you avoid Sheiks who know the mu. We can handle Sheiks who don't know the mu just fine (which admittedly is the vast majority) but soon enough they will learn it. Unless sheik gets patched, Yoshi will not be solo viable in the future because of this one character alone

 

[Skeeter Mania]

I mean Yoshi is solo viable if you avoid Sheiks who know the mu.

I'm gonna assume ZeRo wasn't a case of that. If he doesn't know the MU, then I suppose the only other one I could point to is Karna.

 

[Sinister Slush]

Karna is more of a fundamentally good player that improved about as fast as Wall, but he certainly doesn't know the MU. Just adapts fast most of the times.

Still when it comes to bigger tournaments, having to possibly go through a bracket of 5+ sheiks is never fun. Even if you beat 2 or 3 all it takes is that one sheik factor to knock you out, and I guess random matchups nobody plays so they get beat by that one trick pony for not having that main in their region.

 

[RaptorTEC]

I'm gonna assume ZeRo wasn't a case of that. If he doesn't know the MU, then I suppose the only other one I could point to is Karna.

Are you referring to the game he lost to ESAM? Zero 2 stocked him the next game when he remembered what to do. Zero does know the mu, but Yoshi is tricky. Playing one Yoshi a lot could actually hurt you when you play another Yoshi since he can be played really differently (which is what I think happened the first game and was followed by Zero adapting)
And from watching Karna briefly, I don't think he plays the mu correctly.

 

[The Wall]

There's a difference between playing the match up correctly vs just having the opponent adapt too quickly to what you're doing. Karna's played me in tournament sets probably 15-20 times. We both have loads of experience towards what each other will do so it comes down to an adaptation war.

He did some stupid things the last time I played him at Battlegrounds but it's not like the matchup is just purely unwinnable if a Sheik "plays it correctly". You can adjust to them playing it correctly and still come out ahead.

 

[Sinister Slush]

He plays it well for half a match maybe then proceeds to take 50+% from eggs alone, Raptor.

Half joking aside he actually doesn't play the MU right, challenging Yoshi instead of just playing like most Sheik's by needle and fair camping.

 

[The Wall]

He plays it well for half a match maybe then proceeds to take 50+% from eggs alone, Raptor.

Half joking aside he actually doesn't play the MU right, challenging Yoshi instead of just playing like most Sheik's by needle and fair camping.

By that argument would you say Denti plays it right? I've certainly put him in the dirt enough times now and he does nothing but camp with needles and run away while spacing fairs

 

[Sinister Slush]

It's honestly hard to gauge Denti. People wanna say he's a top player still cause he kinda was in the brawl days, but at the same time he's still losing to everyone in his town. Just yesterday he lost to yet another local player named Jayson who played fox, before he's lost to lucario a DK mook/pika, for one of his famous rages RunCT etc.

Can we really call him a top player if he's losing to lesser known players in his own city, or even when other lower leveled players come down to compete? Sure he does good sometimes when regionals happen, but that usually tends to boil down to how many kryptonites can he avoid to get that placing.

But no, he doesn't play it right even when he's camping.
His Yoshi play doesn't work either as an example cause he implements too much rolls or grabs due to spamming it with his other characters along with many other problems. Despite attempting to play the character cause word on the street back then Yoshi was top 5 once diddy nerfs happened, he still doesn't fully understand the character so he doesn't actually know the MU even if he goes against Yoshi players. Don't think DFW has any Yoshi mains he can practice against to improve.

 

[The Wall]

From what I know the only one I've seen there is Cub who isn't at the level yet to even meet Denti in Bracket.

So what we're essentially saying is there are no Sheik's in Texas who play the matchup right? I fought Jbandrews and didn't have an issue, same with Savage from Austin. Karna and Denti have fallen though Karna still keeps it very close. Eh.... I guess we'll see what Void does tomorrow?

 

[Sinister Slush]

Was just about to edit my post and say let's see what happens tomorrow.
Me Rel El Yoshi you and a few other Yoshi mains are going, so let's see if one or two of us can make it past pools.

 

[YoHeKing]

Well uh. Sheik is the best character in this game and she does have an advantage over everyone... Even if the sheik MU was uneven its pretty obvious that Yoshi is one of her most feared MUs no matter how good the sheik is. She can't really combo, trade, kill, and approach us very well. I would still consider Yoshi solo viable even if he had a bad MU with sheik(which I personally find it even) because sheik is the best character and the MU isnt to far off in sheiks favor.

 

[The Wall]

I expect at least 2 of us will make it past pools. Here's to hoping the seeding doesn't go ludicrous mode for the bracket pools.

 

[Scarlet Jile]

I'm picking up Sheik for the Sheik MU, lol. Rough life, but Yoshi covers all of Ganon's weaknesses except Sheik, so what can you do.

 

[The Wall]

I'm picking up Sheik for the Sheik MU, lol. Rough life, but Yoshi covers all of Ganon's weaknesses except Sheik, so what can you do.

Weaaaak. I just run away and throw eggs until they get impatient. EVERYONE gets impatient eventually

 

[YoHeKing]

IMO Eggs are the worst thing you could ever do in the shiek MU unless you were a stock ahead or your trying to time them out. Its so easy to punish his up B and perfect shield it... It hardly even adds any pressure too.

 

[The Wall]

I've yet to meet a Sheik that does what you have said when I do the egg game properly.

 

[Delta-cod]

Please try to keep discussion in this thread about Yoshi's solo viability, everyone.

 

[RaptorTEC]

I've yet to meet a Sheik that does what you have said when I do the egg game properly.

There is no doing the egg game properly against Sheik. Sheiks frame data and maneuverability makes egg toss pretty unsafe mid range. Far distance is fine but from that distance you shouldn't be hitting eggs unless the Sheik has absolutely no reaction time. You're bound to get an egg hit every now and then when Sheik over extends which is nice to get a combo and try to keep pressure but that's about it. A good sheik won't be phased by egg toss camp. It should be used extremely sparingly if you have a read so you can setup into a combo. That's it. Sheik honesty should never over extend against Yoshi. Needles, combos off of grabs and grab to kill setup is all she needs. Anything extra is putting sheik at risk to Yoshi shenanigans.

 

[The Wall]

There is no doing the egg game properly against Sheik. Sheiks frame data and maneuverability makes egg toss pretty unsafe mid range. Far distance is fine but from that distance you shouldn't be hitting eggs unless the Sheik has absolutely no reaction time. You're bound to get an egg hit every now and then when Sheik over extends which is nice to get a combo and try to keep pressure but that's about it. A good sheik won't be phased by egg toss camp. It should be used extremely sparingly if you have a read so you can setup into a combo. That's it. Sheik honesty should never over extend against Yoshi. Needles, combos off of grabs and grab to kill setup is all she needs. Anything extra is putting sheik at risk to Yoshi shenanigans.

Regardless of all that I still think Yoshi is absolutely viable solo and vs the Sheik match up. Saying to never put yourself at risk is to never pull out the full potential of your character. There's a line you shouldn't cross into overextending but you do sometimes need to stick your neck out there to surprise your opponent.

 

[RaptorTEC]

I somewhat agree since the only problem imo is Sheik (and a lot of them play the mu wrong) and somewhaaat Diddy. Sheik doesn't need her full potential to beat Yoshi. She actually does better in this particular mu by keeping it simple. The day Sheiks start playing the mu properly is the day we're not solo viable

 

[The Wall]

I somewhat agree since the only problem imo is Sheik (and a lot of them play the mu wrong) and somewhaaat Diddy. Sheik doesn't need her full potential to beat Yoshi. She actually does better in this particular mu by keeping it simple. The day Sheiks start playing the mu properly is the day we're not solo viable

With patches still around the corner though this is still in a speculation stage . For all we know they could give Sheik the Luigi treatment with her down throw and now we're all snorting rainbows and drinking laffy taffy. I long for that day...

 

[Skeeter Mania]

RaptorTEC , I was wondering. Would you consider Vinnie vs Firefly at PAX an example of what you were talking about?