Brawl Observations--Yoshi

[SOVAman]

The ETS is more of a mind game and it just mixes it up.

 

[Kiwikomix]

Yeah, ETS is mostly when I'm running away and want to start eggspamming. Pretty useful against those slower characters.

 

[Gindler]

Ah, thanks. Guess I'll have to try and work eggs more into my game.

 

[SOVAman]

I <3 Eggs

10eggs

 

[Chaco]

Agrees with Lil B.

10AgreeingEggLovers

 

[Chaco]

Revives.

Okay in the tier list I am gradually noticing other mains are starting to see our point, mostly thanks to Mmac, or so the ones I've asked. So I think Yoshi is on the radar now...we just have to get ourselves out there now. And teach your younger siblings Yoshi, the next generation of Yoshi mainers is in your hand...that doesn't mean to go conceive a child btw...XD

 

[Shiri]

What? No children?

But...

Hmmm....

You should have...

...said that sooner. >_<

 

[Yinlong]

What? No children?

But...

Hmmm....

You should have...

...said that sooner. >_<

congrats on the kid!

 

[Shiri]

LOL I didn't have one for real...

...but I can only imagine the reaction of someone getting orders not to have kids too late. XD

Just between guys, though, I wouldn't mind settling down sometime in a few years. I think it would be nice. ^_^

 

[Yinlong]

i just thought of this there aren't any girl yoshi mains are there?

so we'd have to crossbreed...
xD

 

[Shiri]

NEXT TOPIC PLEASE

 

[Mmac]

Yes... well......

Yoshi is Awesome!


That's a Topic >_>

 

[Gindler]

Ha, I have seen a few girls who main yoshi...only thing is the ones I've seen just aren't good and only use him cause he's cute (don't tell anyone but that's one of the reasons I use him =P)

 

[Shiri]

So I was just thinking about this the other day.

And by the other day, I mean a few hours ago.

I remember I was playing Brawl with a buddy of mine and he said to me, either jokingly or in earnest, "You know, Yoshi really breaks all the rules." I couldn't help but think to myself, "You really wouldn't want to play against a Yoshi that actually broke the rules." I got to thinking right then and there during the matches about Yoshi and how he plays, the "rules", who may or may not be able to "break" them, and just some general stuff.

First question I want to ask is, have you guys ever noticed that Yoshi seems to have a knack for contending with the best characters in the game in whichever Smash game he's in? Admittedly, I never reached what some would call a "professional" level in Smash 64, but I think from what I saw at my level that Yoshi, while not being underestimated at all, wasn't really very popular--somehow, I feel he managed to abuse several tools unique to him to rise to the challenge called "Ness". In Melee, it's the same with him and Marth, who was clearly the best character period. It wasn't a counter matchup, but it was one that I think a smart Marth couldn't ignore, like he could ignore all of his other matchups, save Marth dittos and Sheik, which wasn't that bad either. Now in Brawl, Yoshi is trying to go even with Meta Knight, something most characters can only dream of. This is just a trend I'm noticing and just wondered if anybody else has noticed it or if I'm too high in the clouds.

Next, I'm also sitting here thinking about the "rules". Brawl has opened up many new ways for characters to do things and to deal with things that other characters can do, so I've begun to ask myself some questions. What's "good"? What does it mean to "be good at Brawl"? Which characters are good and why? What's "fair"? What's "cheap" or "unfair"? These are all ideas a friend and I have been wrestling with in our almost nightly discussions about this game and the tactics we see and use and even dream about discovering. Characters now have super armor, heavy armor, multiple momentum-based airdodges, automatic sweetspotting, extremely easy powershielding, pro shield games in general, and the like. As a character that's never been an auto-win button in most circumstances, Yoshi has to find ways to both abuse these techniques and also to find ways to deal with them effectively to remain tournament viable. In this game, one simply cannot choose to ignore techniques that they think don't matter--as matchups become less important, how you play the game increases moreso, and I think every character that wants to remain viable has to keep reinventing the way it's played.

On that note, I began to think of character viability and, of course, the first character to enter my mind was Yoshi. I'm on the fence about this topic, in all honesty. I think he sports the best chances for taking a tournament in this game, but somehow, I feel that his viability in general is the lowest it's ever been. It's confusing for me, so I won't put all my thoughts here, but I think Yoshi can make it as long as we can keep raising the standard for playing him higher and higher. I truly feel that the more we discover with Yoshi, the better his chances in the long run really become. I think the majority of his secrets are stored in his double jump and in his shield--only time will tell, I suppose. It's not going to be hard to guess who the next two characters are that came to my mind in regards to viability: Snake and Meta Knight.

It was funny, I had seen a hilarious tier list the other day and it made me laugh because at the very top, Meta Knight was all alone in "Snake Tier" and I just thought that was awesome, haha. I think people have made it very clear that Meta Knight is, hands down, the best character in the game. Victory is his destiny, and I think that won't change, regardless of whether or not people decide to ban him. The first question a ban raises, though, is...who will take over the #1 spot if he is banned? People keep saying Snake, but I don't see it. Snake, at this point, is like Melee. People still play him, but he's mostly dead. As a character, he's been outplayed and sucked dry with almost no metagame to show for it. A bad character with broken moves and very good matchups, I think he'll still be around, but there are a few more characters waiting in the wings like Mr. Game and Watch and Lucario who may be able to vie for top spots.

How does this all relate to Yoshi? I think over the next six months, we'll all see a paradigm shift in how Brawl is played and I think it may work to Yoshi's advantage. Right now, everyone essentially has their main, their fun character, and their secondary Meta Knight. By early next year, I think we'll see a steady decrease in the high tier (King Dedede, Falco, etc.) who have successful, but stagnant games and see a very very tiny increase in some development for characters that have barely any representation. As more characters will be fighting for top spots, most of Yoshi's harder matchups, I think, will slightly fade from mains to counterpick characters. Yoshi has average matchups across the board with some that are extremely advantaged and others that are just as disadvantaged, but average otherwise. I think if we can keep raising the bar that is "Yoshi", we can see some significant progress with tournament results and character fortitude in general.

I'll finish these thoughts with another anecdote. Yesterday, for some unearthly reason, I was playing really well with Yoshi with a friend of mine who I haven't sat down to play with in a very long time. We had such a blast that time flew by. I was doing stuff that I never even thought was possible with Yoshi; I was playing extremely intelligently and my friend and I were quite literally undergoing a mental battle with very intense and unique play coming from both of us. At the end of the night, he turned to me and said, "Wow, Yoshi's so gay." The best part was, I had to agree. The way I was playing was really gay. In conjunction with playing smart, I was taking the opportunities I spotted and ***** the **** out of them. Yoshi seems very balanced, but I think with time and the right attitude that he can become extremely abusable in a tournament sense. I used to like it when I got nice complements for placing poorly while playing well (in Melee), but now I think I can get used to receiving snide remarks for placing decently while playing gay (well...gay for Yoshi's standards).

I know I say this a lot, but I'm glad to post here. When I wake up and get around to getting on the computer, I ask myself, "I wonder what the fellas on the Yoshi boards are talking about today?" This group isn't too lazy to discover or research and everyone shares what they know as best they can, and I think we all have come to realize long ago that we're in this as much for our personal benefit as we are for our betterment as a group.

tl;dr -- Yoshi is good, but we have to keep on keeping on to see him become successful in tournament. I don't think supermains will dictate his playstyle this time around and that more people have a chance to develop their own Yoshi playstyle while still being intelligent and effective. Yoshi has good matchups and very abusable playstyles that we can use, but the techs should evolve with the game to keep the character "on the ball" and ready for anything.

I don't really expect a reply to all of this. Just some stuff I felt like posting that's been on my mind recently.

 

[Kiwikomix]

I don't really expect a reply to all of this.

TOO BAD

This is pretty interesting, actually. I've never thought about pushing Yoshi to the limits of all his abilities like I did with Melee characters. That means finding out exactly what Yoshi can and cannot do, exploring the advantages of the cans, and finding good ways to work around the cannots. For example, one of the big cannots is Yoshi's crappy shield, so instead, Yoshi just never goes on the offensive. Stuff like this can really help your gameplay as well as (here's the overused phrase) advance the metagame.

In closing, Shiri is too good.

 

[Bwett]

You inspire us all, good sir

 

[Shiri]

I...just type a lot. You guys are the ones that place well, so it goes both ways, I suppose. .__.

 

[Chaco]

Wow...Shiri you really inspired me here. I've been putting off my research to see if we had missed any CGAble victims.....so I will hop on that right now. :O