The missing pieces of aMSa's Yoshi - Optimizing the Dragon

[Ten of Nine]

So I want to list off a few items that I noticed about aMSa's gameplay; bad habits, suboptimal choices, things left to improve. Some are things that could have won him those MLG sets, and others are bad habits that I feel some other Yoshi's might mimic and emulate not knowing they are gimmicks or easily punishable by top players.

Let me also preface this with a statement - I think aMSa's skill level as a player (separate of just the character Yoshi) is extremely high, he is highly intelligent, his tech skill is on par with the top 10, his punishes are usually flawless. I have great respect for him and the sets he gave us and the work he's done to show that Yoshi was always good is priceless.

Having said that there are a lot of bad habits, auto-pilot, and weaknesses in his game.


1. Almost never did he use Yoshi's long Nair the way Link mains use theirs to edge guard. backwards or forwards you start it early then FF down onto them or jump out there with it. Yoshi's weak Nair is very strong, one of the strongest weak aerials in the game, add that with Yoshi' aerial mobility and it's fantastic to use like this.

2. Rarely would read option select, or make medium-hard reads properly. I.e. when opponent was knocked down by edge he would almost always miss the roll in.

3. Platform tech chases - Yoshi has many options to cover entire platform aMSa would often have predictable timing and the same move/movement to punish.

4. He used F-smash when his back to the ledge WAYYY to much. High level players don't fall for that, it's like a 2002 playing against your friends tactic and it's easy to punish. It never worked in top 32 once, pretty much no one else either yet he still kept doing it.

5. Would often use Up-smash when like 4 other moves were better choices. It would often be whiffed but even when it landed a follow up was not found. (some may have been missed up-tilts)

6. His neutral approaches on platform stages was very predictable. I think this is a result of practicing solo too much and working out routines. He would WL DJ Aerial to attack certain zones in the same exact way every time. To the point that if I were playing him I could have countered every approach from a WL with Roy's laggy Down-B.

6.5 His Shield Drops were also kind of predictable, he would wait for a hit and almost always SDrop Up-air or DJC Nair. Most caught on and baited him into a punish. Yoshi shielding on a platform in the current meta is way too predictable.

7. He never used spot dodge. Even at a high level spot dodge is used successfully, often in groups to throw off opponents. Yoshi has a top tier spot dodge, it's a solid mix up and a way to get out of egg aside from rolling/light shield. plus it can lead to an immediate punish on a whiff.

8. He wouldn't try and set up grab traps such as Egg > force them to shield > Running grab them. Or the same on platforms with following it into aerial Egg Lay or platform AI grab.

9. He would often forget to use Eggs in neutral and fading back eggs. He did use the standing backwards egg behind a lot and people somehow fell for it. Jump > DJ back Egg is much better and can set up a trap as well as control approaches and neutral pacing.

10. He didn't use Egg Roll for recovery. There were moments where he air-dodged and got KOed where he could have survived with Egg Roll. There are ways to use it that beat reaction time and allow the end lag to be avoid punishment.

11. His ledge dash and ledge game were kind of predictable - He never varied the WL distance (was always PWL), he never used AIs from ledge, he almost always used the same attacks after landing on stage or platform.

12. His last stock or clutch "game" was lackluster. You'd often see tech flubs all over the place and the nerves affect his game tremendously.

13. He was bad at adapting. He would just do his thing and often while watching a set I'd do what I always do upon first viewing - Pause it every few seconds to try and predict what moves and movement would happen next. With aMSa I would be able to predict a lot of what he would attempt. And this would rarely change within a set.

14. His shield pressure was predictable - It was either DJC Nair into SH/FH Nair or DJC Nair into Jabs and F-Tilts. Not the best and he got punished a lot for it. He could have been crossing up with 3-4 DJC Nairs back to back, on platforms you can AI drop Uairs back to back, I noticed he didn't back angle cancel his jabs either which left more space between them, could have used D-tilts with Jabs. There were many instances where he almost broke shields, and totally could have if he'd been more aggressive and creative.

15. Would almost never DD or Dash WD back or WL back to fake and confuse movement. Something that I've noticed @Peanutphobia is much better at, and it usually pays off for him.


Concerning the long sets and aMSa results now, I of course recognize that it was Yoshi MU ignorance at first. But I also believe that a lot of it was people being able to adapt quickly to aMSa's habits and tells. I see a lot of the same exact things in new/current Yoshi mains, which is worrying. I think there is still a lot left in Yoshi's tank and he has the options, speed, and tools to succeed further. I don't know if there will be a player that will surpass aMSa with Yoshi (especially in the Parry and Shield Drop departments). They'd have to have his tech skill but Mango's unpredictability and mental game.

Are there any I missed or maybe general optimizations you suggest for Yoshi? Do you disagree with me on some of my points?

 

[dvatch]

i dont agree with a lot of these

 

[r0se]

Concerning the long sets and aMSa results now, I of course recognize that it was Yoshi MU ignorance at first. But I also believe that a lot of it was people being able to adapt quickly to aMSa's habits and tells. I see a lot of the same exact things in new/current Yoshi mains, which is worrying. I think there is still a lot left in Yoshi's tank and he has the options, speed, and tools to succeed further. I don't know if there will be a player that will surpass aMSa with Yoshi (especially in the Parry and Shield Drop departments). They'd have to have his tech skill but Mango's unpredictability and mental game.

I think there is still a lot left in Yoshi's tank and he has the options, speed, and tools to succeed further.

This was the most important part. The yoshi MU ignorance doesn't push the meta.

 

[kkccaammss]

Hi there.

First time on smashboards. Yoshi main, been watching the game for some time (and lurking on aMSa's chat, very occasionally), started playing seriously a few months ago. I've been meaning to post a couple of things for a while, but never got around to do it. This thread provides me with a good opportunity to discuss some of them. Sorry if my post isn't very well formatted, learning the interface.

I am neither a very good player nor a great analyst, so can't judge all of these points, but I have watched a lot of aMSa matches (his Yoshi got me interested in the community, basically, so I felt I should try and learn more about him), so there are some things I feel I know a little about.

I'm sort of confused as to why the past tense is used. aMSa isn't inactive. He is less active, certainly, but still goes to several tournaments in Japan. In the past few months he played at a Battle Gate Way, played at Pound, won Godsgarden (a.k.a KSB2016, which had some really funny trash talk between aMSa and Rudolph) recently (some of those sets were great, by the way, watch them if you've the time). Or perhaps you feel some of these apply less now than they used to ? If you're restricting yourself to analysing up to anaheim, then you will have missed some progress aMSa's made in several areas.

If you are judging solely based on the Anaheim matches, then some of the things you mentioned were truer then than they are now (and apologies for the wall of text slightly off-topic in that case), but I can't ascertain it from your post. And even then, I don't know why you would use that as a starting point for optimising Yoshi.

Anyway :

#1 : Agree for some matchups. Yoshi's Nair, Dair and Fair can all be used to some extent off stage (or in the case of Fair, close to the ledge). aMSa doesn't use Nair much. But he does occasionally use Dair and Fair. And on slow-recovery characters like samus, Shekik, peach and jiggs, he uses R-ECE a heck of a lot.

#6 Very matchup-dependent. Seemed true for example vs Amsah, Blur mentioned it, but I would certainly not go so far as to call aMSa outright predictable.

#7 : Agree. aMSa doesn't use it much, and there is a good (and much better than me) Yoshi player in my region, and he uses it more, and quite well. I haven't asked him, but I also feel it is often a good option versus opponents who try and change the timing of their aerials on a parry bait.

#8 feels less true when looking at recent performances.

#9 Not true, look at some more recent sets or sets in Japan.

#10, #11 I feel are less true now.

#12 If you look his Pound set vs Wizzrobe, aMSa's last stocks were very good, and I don't think it was because of nerves on Wizzy's part. (I don't feel he played as good as usual at Pound btw, he did seem to flub several edgeguards he usually lands).

#13 Disagree, VERY much disagree. See below.

#15 Eh, dunno about that one. Some sets he seems to dash-dance a lot, others he wavelands a lot.

Regarding #10, I think Kofi (was it Kofi ?) once mentioned that he felt Peanutphobia's recovery was better. He does seem to have more creative uses of air dodge and egg roll.



I feel like some of the other points are at least explained in part by what I discuss below.

'Concerning the long sets and aMSa results now, I of course recognize that it was Yoshi MU ignorance at first.'

This irks me a bit. While true for some matches, I would not agree for several, if not most of aMSa's big matches. In fact, I would say that in some cases, aMSa suffered from matchup inexperience just as much, if not more so, than his opponents. Your statement feels incomplete to me, and wouldn't justify several of aMSa's victories, or his continued good placements (Apex 2015, Evo 2015 (he had a loooooooooong losers' run), his wins in Japan, Pound) if he were bad at adapting.

Most people seem to look at aMSa from America's/Europe's perspective. 'He wins because of inexperience, because of style differences, blah'.

Let's look at it from Japan's perspective.

I don't know if you've watched some of aMSa's tournaments in Japan, but the Japaneses scene seems to be like this :

- No relevant (as far as I can tell) ICs players in Japan the past few years
- Super lame-style (maybe I'm exaggerating a bit, but it is quite a distinctive style) Foxes
- Very few Falco players
- One very good Peach (Shippu), one very good Falcon (Gucci), one very good Jiggs (K.F.), one very good Samus (Nanashi, aMSa's main training partner), one very good Sheik (or maybe two, but the one called Sheik is the only one I can think of right now)

And, last point, a lot of Japanese players prefer NOT to use some characters vs aMSa. Recently, Rudolph plays Fox vs aMSa most of the time, I would suppose that he mightn't feel confident with his Marth in the matchup ? In fact, I haven't seen aMSa fight a Marth in a while (actually, even PewPewU switched to Fox for EVO 2014 vs aMSa after losing at Anaheim with Marth).

I might be slightly inaccurate, but hopefully you get a general idea of the Japanese scene. They also meet up a lot less (one big tournament a month, perhaps ? aMSa doesn't go to all of them, in any case).

So yes, there is some matchup inexperience in the US versus Yoshi. But if you consider :

-that he beat Sfat three times (Apex 2014 Salty suite, Apex 2015, Pound 2016 (sidenote : funnily enough, Toph states in 2014 that Sfat has Yoshi experience cause of Kimimaru, then states in 2015 that he has Yoshi inexperience)),
-that he lost vs Lucky twice before beating him at Apex 2015,
-that he beat very good people (some of which are good at adapting (KirbyKaze, Overtriforce), or in unusual matchups) at matchups he would himself have very little experience in (MacD, Prince Abu, Kage (twice), Chudat, Nintendude, Fly Amanita, Blea Gelo, Green Ranger, DJ's Bowser)
-Mew2king had already played vs aMSa at EVO 2013 (and in friendlies as well I believe), so he knew who aMSa was and what Yoshi could do before losing to him.
-Perhaps some of my stats are wrong, but you could maybe make a case for aMSa being these past months relatively inexperienced vs Marth, which seems outlandish an idea, doesn't it ?

(In some cases, you can even see him working things out during a set (DJ getting Daired after a while)).

Do you think somebody incapable of adapting and nervous on last stocks would go 3-2 vs Mang0 in losers ?

While some of the points you mentioned are true or were true in the past, I don't think matchup inexperience is enough to justify some of aMSa's wins, and some of the points you mentioned feel off to me, or at least untrue now. I would attribute his losses in 2014 in part to nerves, lack of consistency, in part to lack of experience vs top players or specific styles of certain characters. There could be other Johns (travelling, etc.) that might have played a part in some of his losses, or in his favouring a style in some tournaments.

I think an interview of his even mentioned that he sometimes doesn't do certain things because he doesn't feel consistent enough for them on that given day.

Even now I feel that some styles of Sheik or Fox -top-tier characters that almost everybody- could give him trouble, particularly since aMSa has spent less than three weeks in the US in the past year and a half. Yet he still placed thirteenth at Pound.

I veered slightly off-topic, sorry (hey, you did ask if other people disagreed). But I felt that some of the things people say both about Yoshi and aMSa feel to me incorrect or a bit too simplified and I wished to provide a different perspective. In your case, some of your statements, as well as the explanation for aMSa's wins and losses.

Also, I agree with R0se, and with spotdodge, and somewhat with offstage edgeguarding, these could be developed more. I haven't looked at the tech-chase situations closely enough to be able to judge. And some matchups are still quite inexplored. And some things around parrying, perhaps ?

And finally, about 'optimising the dragon'. I feel like a lot of points have been discussed elsewhere in the boards (or provided by the great PerhapsMan, thanks for those Yoshi videos, by the way), but I also feel that most of the Yoshi players besides aMSa and perhaps V3Man and Leffen -even the very good ones- lack some of Yoshi's suppleness and options that they have through their tech, that also enables them to confuse or mindgame their opponents a lot more just from having those extra movement options.

Yes, Yoshi can be optimised in areas where aMSa is lacking, but in my opinion he isn't lacking for all the points you mention, which mitigates -for me, anyway- some of what you try to endeavour.

Perhaps aMSa's style isn't the ideal Yoshi (I wonder what a moslty grounded and parrying Yoshi would be like, for example), but I think that getting that kind of crisp movement and those multiple options at the ledge is just as important as optimising the areas where the top Yoshi players are lacking. Perhaps more so, given aMSa's results even with those imperfectnesses in his gameplay and his disadvantages which I have discussed.

 

[Ten of Nine]

I definitely do appreciate such a thorough response, but I do get the strong feeling that you are a bit too eager to defend aMSa to the point where it might color your responses and foresight for this character. You bring up fair points, but a lot of it is a bit too definitive (I'm right or wrong) for your self-described experience.

All this was not just based off his MLG sets, and I'm not talking about him in the past tense. I'm very much aware that he is active and I've watched pretty much all of his matches from the Japanese nationals, regionals, US Nationals and regionals, all the off screen rare matches, all the salty suites, the qualifiers (I even saw footage of his games with Light at EVO 2015)....I think I have over 120 VoDs of aMSa downloaded and archived that I've analyzed in the same fashion that I have for Fumi, lil' Fumi, V3ctorman, Perhapsman, Peanutphobia, Kimimaru, Leffen, etc.

You mention the big wins against players with reputation, but you leave out all the losses against unranked and ranked players during that same period. His failure to qualify many times for larger tournaments in the US.

I feel like I was really fair and unbiased here in my analysis. My main motivation was finding these things, thinking about how to improve and helping future Yoshi mains to not repeat the same exact problems. I don't think it does any good to just think aMSa is a God, he is perfection, makes all the right choices, and there is nothing left to improve (so copy everything he does)

I'm sure most of this will not apply to aMSa going forward, his game did change a lot over the 2 cumulative active years in the US so far. We are MUCH more active with Melee over here than Japan, so we have even unranked players that could probably beat him once they learn the MU (and some that did already). What I said about MU ignorance shouldn't irk you at all, THAT IS A VERY REAL THING. People know Fox like the back of their hand to the point where all his tech timings, his Up-B timings, his ledge timings are all muscle memory. Not only that but they know his moves and his hitboxes and frame data. All of that is massively influential in a high level match, and Yoshi does benefit greatly from that ignorance. Hell I still hear all the commentators saying that Parry is a 1 frame thing and it's super duper hard or the 100s of wrong explanations about how Yoshi's DJ armor or his Shield/Roll works....there is still confusion about the very basic things about Yoshi, imagine when such simple things become common knowledge and beyond.

Anyway I'm excited to see how aMSa levels up, and I'm excited to see the creativity in other Yoshi mains if the character's usage increases. Yoshi has the tools as I said, he has the ability to grow and overcome a lot. I think Peach and Falcon are going to be the only real problems in the future.

 

[TIN0]

if a yoshi has good enough reads (this is all theoretical by the way) and his movement is perfect, he is theoretically top 5 in the tier list. Now, this sounds crazy, but hear me out. double jump armor combined with an amazing punish game is something that is not matched in melee. the closest thing to it is samus's or peach's cc. yoshi has a good spotdodge and cc so he can punish with dtilt, which sends the opponent the same amount of distance every time. he could also just parry instead of cc or spotdodge. another thing to note, every character essentially has a parry, being their jump out of perfect shield, but yoshi is able to parry grabs, which lowers marth and shiek's game against yoshi. if yoshi punishes to death with every hit or counterhit, he can be the new jigglypuff. I strive to make him top 5. I believe that I can read and adapt fairly well and I always work on movement. Once I can settle down a perfect punish for common situations, I believe that I will become top 100 in the next year. I am not trying to be cocky, I just want to take yoshi's potential to a new height. aMSa punishes extremely well and can counterhit to death almost everytime. His edgeguards are amazing and his reads are insane. what makes him only top 25 or so is that he can be predicted. when it comes to top 25 or even top 100, neutral becomes the new factor for winning, not just tier. axe was top 5 because his neutral was amazing, combined with his reads and punishes. I believe that yoshi has that same potential, if not more. I will make a video soon theorizing yoshi's future in better words. I hope to see you all in the future. for now, all I have to say is keep yoshi going. he is completely underused and poorly used (mainly because the majority of people who use him just nair and downsmash, thinking that yoshi only has that one punish). Anyway, thank you all. I hope to improve yoshi's meta as much as aMSa.