Set 1 (Lucas): Match 1
WHY DO YOU NOT KNOW YOUR CG RELEASE COMBOS?! I'll give the benefit of the doubt that you don't have the acquired skill to do GR DR Combos, but from what I remember, we were able to U-smash him from Grab Release. You at least used Dash Attack to add a little more damage, but don't give up the opportunity to land U-smash for damage at low percents, especially when we're able to make it fresh again.
You also panic when someone is too close to you. Only difference is you have a tendency to use F-smash and Down-B, which are even worse choices than what Raptor does (dbl Jabs). You need to calm down when you get in your shield and pay attention to what Lucas is trying to do. We can't get shield poked, so there's no reason to flip out.
Don't B-reverse when you don't have a reason to. You ate that PK fire because you pretty much just threw the move out without paying attention to Lucas's position and movements. He didn't have any intention of going to you when you were coming down, so you had no reason to B-reverse your Egg Lay.
You're being overly careless when over the edge. While I give F-air > N-air its props for tricking people, F-air is TERRIBLE in priority. The range was nerfed, and that doesn't make this move valuable to throw out without some cushion of safety.
Combine the carelessness over the ledge with the predictable Air Dodge, and you get killed. Just like I told Raptor, that death was avoidable had you known how to manipulate Yoshi's recovery without an up-B. If you know what to do, you can definitely create tougher scenarios where your opponent will have trouble actually killing you.
I don't remember whether you use C-stick or the A button for you moves, but your pivot grabs were slow on your 2nd stock. Using the C-stick shaves off some time and eliminates the sliding if done right. Just note that you need to use whatever means necessary to make moves work as fast as possible when you need it on command.
I don't get the reason behind using Zudenka's Egg Lay combo tactic when yours isn’t fleshed out enough to catch your opponent properly or keep your in a safe(r) position. Our of the times I've seen you use it, you've gotten punished for missing the second one, which alerts to me that you need to stop until you understand when and where to apply it (more so when). I actually have a few theories on how to implement it with more safety, but I'd need to test it out in training mode myself.
On topic of Egg Lay, understand that you don't need to be chasing with it like you were against Lucas. Egg Lay still is primarily in need of a defensive stance. When you're using momentum to charge into Lucas, you're committing yourself. It's definitely one of the harder, if not hardest, techniques to get down properly, but when you have the spacing down, you'll definitely see that keeping yourself from having excess momentum is much more beneficial.
Also, to clarify Egg Lay as a technique, I include DJC EL, FF EL, Turn Around (TA) EL, B-Reverse (BR) EL, and Wavebounce (WB) EL. All those and it's sub components create Egg Lay as a technique.
No one decided to do this, but I'm going to tell you your fault before you end up seeing it in tourney. You wait too long before DJ-ing back up to grab the ledge. You're placing yourself at a big risk of being gimped because you have no other way of getting on top of the stage if your opponent was to grab the ledge before you do could do anything about it. This might be a different story had you not used any up-Bs, but there's a ton of other scenarios stemming from that that you don't want to even get into. If you're already close to the ledge that an up-B can get there, then use it. There's no downside to using up-B to grab the ledge unless your opponent is in a close enough position to attack while Yoshi is stuck in animation. Don't exhaust options when you're not being forced to. When you eliminate your own option, then you're making your opponent's job easier.
Match 2
I had practically no complaints about your opening play... Until you decided that you were going to throw out every single kill move needed to get rid of Lucas's first stock. You should NEVER have to do this unless you're coming from behind. Players naturally get more predictable because of the fear of being behind (less of an extent when you get into higher level play). You just need to play consistently and wait until you see the opening to kill Lucas. This, ironically, comes back around to you not knowing that Grab Release U-smash is easily most viable to kill Lucas. Lucas HAS to respect our grab or else we'll just tear him to pieces every time.
Your recovery from the ledge needs work. DJ Airdodge, and DJ Aerial are not the only methods to getting on stage, especially when you're trying to past your opponent when he's already in a position to punish that option. The natural tendency Yoshi players had back then was to DJ Airdodge and try to get past our opponent, but they've moved back far enough to eliminate this option. We can definitely play around with the little bit of the stage they've given us, and even use the acceleration to make it seem like we're committed to getting past them. Another option that most don't use is using ledge jump & DJ to get high above the stage and manage from there (only viable when under 100%). It's not the most ideal since we lose our jump, but being able to use Egg Lay mechanics to help land makes it better than flying into our opponent.
On that note, if you know how to buffer a jump (it acts like a DJ) after the ledge jump correctly, you'd be able to keep your DJ in the air. That would solve that problem.
I honestly think that when you have an opponent, at low percent, on BF's platform above you, it's better to use U-smash since it leaves them in nearly the same situation as before, but with a chance to get out. When you U-air, you lost that advantage that you gained from dodging Lucas's Up-B.
Your recovery is starting to get predictable. You go for the stage more often than the ledge, and when you go for the stage, you also tend to go for attacking your opponent. Both makes you easy to be countered, and you take unnecessary damage. Don't deviate from being unpredictable. It's the crucial element needed to be a high/top level player. If the situation is not in your favor, then don't try to force it, unless you know... You've suddenly become a leading anime character in a DBZ fight.
Btw, my point is proven when you die on your first stock and most of your second stock.
What's with the SH F-air's? Like I said before, they're not good to throw out like that at all. It was fine when you had hit the back of your opponent's shield because it would be harder for some characters to actually punish it properly (ROB comes to mind), but you often used it and landed in front of your opponent, which leaves you extremely vulnerable to more moves and to being shield grabbed. Even then, so long as your opponent knows what to use to beat it, the priority on F-air will lose most of the time. It's not safe to use overall with the inherent disadvantages it picked up while transgressing over from Melee to Brawl.
Once again, you get extremely predictable when trying to get a kill, and it shows more so when you're losing. You have no reason to play as if you have only 10 secs to kill him. This IS brawl, and if you need to, wait for however long you need before making the correct move to get a sufficient kill without taking a lot of damage.
Lrn2shield. While everyone else is like, "NEVER USE YOUR SHIELD! IT SUCKS!!!!," we HAVE to use it when we don't have a choice to get away or stop an oncoming attack. It's not the end of the world when using your shield, you just have to be smart about using it. Like I've said a few times beforehand, we can cancel the drop animation of our shield by spotdodging. This can definitely help us since most players think we're near helpless and will try to attack almost relentlessly. Start thinking out the box on how to make shield more useful in the few scenarios where we have no choice but to use it.
K. I like that you're using Jab to try and lead into kills, but do more than just that. D-smash, Down-B, Tilts, Jab 2, etc. are all options that work on most characters depending on the percentage. Using U-smash alone make you predictable and won't have any effect on a player when you do need Jab to lead into a kill move.
Bad down-B is bad. What was it for? @10:30 Even if you were trying to hit him, you did the move far too late for it to even matter. Plus, you landed on a flat surface, which led to Lucas punishing you. Use your power moves in places that has some cushion for safety. I understand using it dangerously every now and then, but doing it recklessly is something that I was not stand for.
Match 3
Okay, despite doing a very good job on Lucas's first stock, you suddenly turned into one of those wi-fi, C-stick & B button mashing kids thinks they're playing against 3 other people. I know that your egglay going off the stage was a tech error, but can you explain the U-smash, The B-air that was excruciatingly aggressive, and the two B-airs that were thrown out for no reason? You use a move with reason. Throwing it out with no thought put behind it does not help you in any way, and it certainly does not help you when you're not even remotely close to your opponent.
Or rather, you may have repeatable habits that I'm starting to catch onto now. SH B-airs into pivot grab or U-tilt, N-air into dbl Jabs, etc. I've seen you use that much more than a few times...
Upon paying more attention, your reaction times are slow. You don't adjust to what your opponent does when it's within a certain amount of time before you're to use your next move. An example is at 15:23 - 15:29. You used FH Bair, and during the ending animation, Lucas was already moving away from you. Instead of chasing him / retreating from him, you FF'd a N-air in the place he WAS at. That's enough time to see when you opponent makes a small change and for you to alter what you were about to do. Reaction times are extremely important in ANY fighting game, and this is no exception. When you get into higher level play, these small windows become even bigger because your opponents will have a faster reaction time to punish those types of mistakes. You need to get that if you want to hit that next level.
Coming back to your aggression, you show how reckless you were in the second stock. You were constantly trying to force pressure when you have no momentum to even apply it correctly, which blew up in your face every time you got anything going (or attempted to). You were making Lucas's job easy with that recklessness. Combine that with the slow reaction time (the U-air at 15:43) and with the shield spot dodge (or lack of using shield when needed to) habit, you blew almost a 100% lead that you picked up on Lucas from the beginning of the match. You don't need to be aggressive all the time. It's not efficient to play one way. You have to be able to slow yourself down when you're losing and think about your situation and what you need to do when to fix it. Brawl is tons slower than anything else I've ever played, and being able to think in Brawl is tons easier than it is trying to slow yourself down and think in other games (Marvel, Melee, and FPS Games).
Notice how you slowed down to somewhat prevent yourself from becoming reckless like that second stock? That needs to happen quicker. You stopped trying to rush right into Lucas's face, and just slowly (putting that mildly) closed the space between you two so that you could punish efficiently. You can't ride on momentum if you don't have any to begin with. If you don't have stage control then why force yourself into what's most likely a trap? Remember that this game is still based on defensive tactics, so you have to play both sides of the game. Work your way to getting aggression, but make sure that your defense is still up to par since aggression is much harder to keep with the air dodge mechanics.
Set 2: Match 1
Tech errors man. You have to get rid of the majority of them when bringing it to a tournament. That DJC Egg Lay nearly killed you, but you were lucky enough to not have MK close enough to get the ledge. You know as much as everyone else that those kind of errors in high level play are unacceptable. It's fine to make some where the worst outcome is a little damage, but when it's a lot of damage or potentially a stock on the line, then don't take the chance unless you're confident.
Once again, you're overly reckless with the F-air. F-air does not have any godly priority. Normally, it's ok to use it in a situation like Raptor does, but you throw it out to land, throw it out like Raptor's method, and throw it out to recover. Two out of 3 of those scenarios are terrible to do and will get you punished hard, then we're talking about MK, and he can punish all 3 of those options because of his sword. In most of those situations, I could see a better MK running up and UpBing your F-air without a second thought.
I have to pull out these issues even if you can't see them because the MK doesn't know how to punish as efficiently as I've seen it done here in GA. When you started egg tossing on MK's second stock, he was already close enough to you to make a simple punish that would cost you your stock. Egg toss (the first toss) pops us up too high to be considered safe when a character is close enough to punish before the egg comes out. MK had the range to just use D-smash to kill you without giving you a chance to throw the egg. If you're going to do something like that, let yourself drop down a little before throwing it, or better yet, don't throw one at all if they're close. It's too dangerous when you factor in the ground speed and range MK has.
And 3:05 is where I will continue to harp on your recklessness and random love for using F-air in instances where it's not applicable. You have no advantage for throwing a F-air out when you needed to get back on the stage and, most of all, continue to live to gain a bigger lead. What would have happened had you actually landed F-air? He would've barely moved because he's sitting under 20%... This means that his pressure would still be on you, and you (in retrospect) gave him the opportunity to let him kill you. Same thing can be said at 3:32. MK grabbed you and only needed to U-throw. A lot of your mistakes going unpunished comes from a MK player that does not understand his punishes as effectively and playing against Yoshi. Higher level players might not have experience playing against a Yoshi, but they know when they can kill/punish on most scenarios. That's one of the biggest differences between the level of play.
It wasn't until at 3:50 where your own mistake on technicality caused you to die. If you were to go in and re-watch your match vs this MK, I'd guarantee that you'd be counting how many times you should've been punished for your mistakes.
Your obsession with F-smash also makes me wonder a lot. You try to force F-air and F-smash into your game that it looks extremely uncharacteristic and a desperate attempt to keep momentum.
Two more mistakes made that killed your lead. First, you down-B'd onto the stage. This should never be an option except for one, possibly two options. 1) You use it to land on the ledge. This one everybody knows why, and 2) You use it to land on the ground with an opponent up higher than normal with platforms in the way. That can give you some time is their fall speed isn't fast enough to get to you before our cooldown is done. It's not a common thing because most character's fall speed is fast enough to catch us, and/or they're close enough to the ground to where they won't have to fall down far to catch us.
The second mistake was your habit of spotdodging when MK is unconditionally close to you (and failure to DI). Think about the position you're at in relation to the scenario. MK is on your back, and you landed on the moving platform at killing percent near a death boundary. His kill options are D-smash, F-smash, Up-B, and B-throw in this situation. B-throw would be the most bland choice considering that your shield is already up, and grabs go through shields. Normally, that throw wouldn't kill because the DI can change the trajectory too much. So, the first option is to hold up in case he grabs us. Next, let's say he were to use other moves. He'd need to get us to unshield to have the chance to land one, whether it's through a spotdodge, a forced unshield due to it being ready to pop, or a roll. Just thinking from the position like this lets you know that you still have a chance to get out of the situation without guaranteeing him a kill. This kind of stuff is what I was talking with you and others over the years. Our experience in the situations we find builds our quick reactions and adaptations in matches. When you're comfortable handling situations, you don't hesitate to find the right answer anymore; instead, you're more focused and quicker to know what you need to do to flip the situation into your own hands. Yes, it's frustrating at first to get this type of skill down, but it's a needed skill that establishes a player's ability to perform in heated moments.
Match 2
I'll keep pointing this out until you understand how pissed off I was at seeing you do this kind of recklessness. 7:45 - 7:50, you DJ then just FF a F-air into a MK that's waiting on your move! Granted, he spazzed out and decided to dream about playing in Kirby's Return to Dreamland, you unnecessarily placed yourself in a stupid situation where your outcome should be a lose-lose situation against a MK that just properly shielded you attack. That's the kind of stuff I get annoyed about. Don't create your own problems intentionally. It's never a good way of playing because then you're constantly working to catch up against stronger players. I'm not harping on mistakes entirely because I know that you guys are still human. Minimizing the amount of mistakes that you make is key to becoming a beret player. It's less chances to let your opponent get the upperhand on you.
I think your reaction speed is low from not having played a game that requires much faster response than Brawl. My reactions and speed came from playing Melee (and sometimes Halo or CoD) and it transferred over to Brawl when I needed to respond to a situation quickly. I think that may benefit you in the long run when trying to reach for the top. If I recall, I kinda noticed your reactions where a little slow when we played back at Apex.
I know I mentioned that we were able to go under the stage, but was it really necessary? You lost the little amount of stage control you had in exchange for being stuck on the ledge with MK breathing down on you. Don't get me wrong, it's a tactic that hasn't found its proper place yet, but it's not one to use without the proper conditions to allow us to come out with a better situation than not doing it at all.
While on topic of doing that, you were also not keeping track on how many tosses you did (spent two going under the stage). Always, ALWAYS keep track of your recovery options. If anything else is forgotten, the knowledge on how many recovery options you have must stay intact at all times. Knowing what you can and can't do during that moment will help decide on what you will attempt to do to refresh your recovery options. Exhausting them makes the problem become much more intense and harder for you to continue living with said stock. You could've down-B'd the ledge to try and slow down the pace for a second or go for more tricky options such as egg laying MK. By this, I mean using a wavebounced egg lay near the ground to continue facing MK, but the momentum would be going towards the ledge. The point would be to have some amount of defensive cover while trying to refresh your double jump and egg toss hops. If the momentum would've pushed you off the ledge, you'd still be ok, cause you now have your options back provided that it was done correctly. Another option is going for the platforms just to refresh the recovery options trading off for a hit. It's not ideal, but another option.
That's where I've been telling you and other Yoshi's to watch your matches over and over again until you turn blue in the face. You'll start to see more options when you understand more techniques and when you decide to be experimental. It's cool to be picture perfect on what we already know, but when you start thinking outside the box, you begin to see more options that may not be staple ones, but enough to cause hesitation in your opponent.
At low percents, U-smash is not safe ON HIT. That's right. IT'S NOT SAFE ON HIT GUYS!!! I'll let your brain start thinking of other options to do when met with a similar or exact scenario again.
Don't always give people stage control that you worked for. What I mean by stage control is that when your character is pushing your opponent towards the ledge, they have less of the stage to work with, which makes some people buckle under pressure and make a mistake. It's one of the basics in advantages/disadvantages. Running away from MK when he's in the air with little space to work with on the ground gives him an even footing and puts the match back to a neutral stance(maybe). Everyone knows that having an advantage gives you more to work with and less to focus on when trying to get the opponent to make a mistake. If something becomes too dangerous, then retreating ISN'T a completely bad option because you only give up your advantage to start again at neutral position. If you were too aggressive, you can easily turn your advantage into a disadvantage, but being safe doesn't hurt you in most cases (depending on the opponent for us). A prime example is on both of your guys' last stock. You wanted to kill him so badly that you tried to go for a U-air off the stage while he was recovering. In return, you gave up stage control, a natural advantage, and gained a disadvantage, and now got juggled from one ledge to another and then got killed. Your aggression got you from an advantage to a disadvantage and then got you killed.
Match 3
Just a matchup tip for you and other Yoshi's. MK can up-B us out of Down-B when we're trying to abuse the slide canceling mechanic.
Set 3: Match 1
So much happened in that first stock that I've already told you previously that I have to reiterate it so that you fully understand and see where those mistakes costed you. Your first stock went away because you panicked when he got close to you (spotdodging), you exhausted a little of your recovery options when throwing that egg, and you did a DJ F-air while recovering. Your habit (and Raptor's) of spotdodging when someone is close to you when you're not expecting it makes you more vulnerable than before. Coupled with Yoshi's more unutterable defensive options and you're going to get punished more times than wanted. If we were to rewind time to the moment you were tossed offstage, I'd tell you that if you were to keep your first egg toss, you'd probably live. The 2nd hop is just enough to grab the ledge when someone is edgeguarding, but that's still something you shouldn't take a chance on. You didn't need to F-air or Egg toss because he was sitting on the platform. That's most likely just enough time to DJ Airdodge and land back on stage before having to fight up close again.
Your sense of spacing also is off, and it shows when you're fighting ROB on your second stock. That B-air had no type of spacing other than hoping to shield poke, and that's not going to make you harder to hit. If it seems like your attack won't get behind him or just flat out hit him, then you need to change Yoshi's momentum so that the tip of your attack can hit. Even though it's not ideal against ROB (B-air wise) as a matchup decision, it's more worth it on a whole scale.
I didn't feel like going into your Fox matches because I think I've went through almost everything I needed to say in this report. So, time to wrap it up.
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