My Yoshi experience at EVO (also, parrying)

[Dan Salvato]

Sup! Shoutouts to the Yoshis, you guys play probably the character with the most potential out of all the low tiers. At EVO I played against Vectorman and Amsa (Japanese player). I generally know what I'm getting into with Yoshi but Amsa absolutely blew my mind. I've never seen a Yoshi parry like him. He literally parried my hookshot when I tried to grab him. While there was some overlap on the techniques between Amsa and Vman, each player goes about the nuances in his own style.

However, I really think parrying is the future of Yoshi metagame. I mean I obviously don't have a ton of experience with Yoshis so please feel free to share your opinions. This character really intrigues me and I'd love to hear what you guys have to say!

 

[Kimimaru]

Parrying is certainly one of the most notable defensive techniques that Yoshi has; the other is superarmor on his double jump.

I think a Yoshi player that's proficient at parrying your attacks when you least expect it can be a real threat. By this I mean actually having parrying incorporated into the player's playstyle to a point where the player can start combos with it and use it to counter strategies on the fly. At the moment, no Yoshi players are quite at this level yet, but aMSa may be the closest right now.

Also note that there are a vast number of other things that haven't been explored in depth yet in the Yoshi metagame. This includes new uses for D-air and Egg Lay (neutral B), spamming RECEs against offstage opponents, N-air shield pressure, and incorporating purposeful double jump lands to maximize combo potential and mixup options. I also think I'm the only Yoshi player that uses U-smash properly (no offense to other players).

Unfortunately, it takes a good deal of practice to get good at even the most basic Yoshi techniques (like DJC aerial timing and movement with wavelands), and even more to perform the more advanced ones (ECEs, various ledgestalls) consistently. This, combined with the very small pool of Yoshi mains, slows down the rate at which the metagame develops as a whole.

So in short, parrying is one of several things that can advance the Yoshi metagame. However, it's a technique that's based more on general player skill than pure execution because it requires reading the other player's habits and movement style, which differentiates it from any of the aforementioned techniques. I think that it would be more productive overall to look at the other underdeveloped aspects of Yoshi's metagame first so we can use parrying later to help improve them.