Yoshi in Neutral

[deeseejay]

A bit of a vague question (it's obviously a huge topic) but any thoughts at all would be really appreciated.

How do people approach Yoshi's neutral game? A lot of other characters have very specific game plans.

Dash dance to grab, dash dance to bait then punish, zone out with aerials, etc. Each character has their own ways to get in and out.

What do people think this is for Yoshi? A lot of the time in neutral I'll spend my time wavelanding/dashdancing and try to turn around and punish with quick aerials. Wave landing sometimes seems very high risk/high reward and a lot of spacies will CC my turnaround Nairs. I've watched a lot of Amsa play and it seems like he struggles the most against players who refuse to approach. I know that obviously the neutral game can change a lot depending on the match up but any general advice would be really appreciated.


It's the mindsets that really interest me.

"I watch for X so I can punish with Y"

That sort of thing.


Thanks a bunch.

 

[Stax_Machine]

I watch for missed tech so I can jab reset so I can up air chain, kill, or gimp

I personally don't think yoshi has a move that he can consistently wall someone out with. He dosen't have the speed to play dash dance punish for an entire match. His projectile while good is easily beaten once the opponent learns how to nair or read its trajectory. If my enemy is shielding my shield pressure looks cool but can easily be rolled out of or interrupted by an offensive oos option depending on the character.

My point is that I don't think as a yoshi main you will have the tools necessary to try to simplify your neutral game to something straightforward, instead you should aim to interpret it as "I have the speed and moves to replicate other characters neutral game but not to the extent that I can base my neutral game off of it". So for example If you have the stock lead and you want to be peach and armor trade everything, play like peach. If you notice your opponent is shielding start dash dane grab/punish shield option like marth. The battle has gotten heated and I'm loosing at the upbeat part of the game maybe I should slow things down and egg them like a falco would lazer stuff his enemy. I can overwhelm my opponent with double jump cancel nair/up-air and weave in and out like a fox player would drill/nair.

Here is how I like to play my neutral game in general:

0-50% (my percent) - super armor trade, if I can get combo off of it, it's worth.
- get a low percent grab and cheese them with my "true" grab follow ups

50% ^ - while I'm super armor trading or comboing, try to combo/weave in and out where if you mess up it's in a "safe" way so that they can only punish me with a move that they have to throw out as soon as possible, from this I can determine when I will need to perry and can take my unsafe pressure and continue into a real combo.
- if I got the low% grab, did I get them past crouch cancel percent? if so I'm probably not above 50% and can trade for edge guards, If I got that grab how much of an idiot was my opponent? did they give me the jab reset/up-airs, or where they smart and DI away? if they were dumb, I get a juicy combo, if they were smart we are back in neutral but I have stage control.

100%^ - my armor sucks now, I pray that I've taken first stock and can nickel and dim my opponent for all the percent that I can get. REMEMBER, MY ARMOR SUCKS NOW, it's time to dash dance, fancy platform move my way around my opponent until I get an opening or if they get frustrated and do an obvious attack, perry it. If I'm super high percent and don't think I will live any longer I try to eggs on ledge myself an extra 30% or egg lay suicide them. Grab the fast fallers or knock em off the stage and nair/fair suicide them, anything to extend my lead or even out the percents.

As Yoshi, you will need to become comfortable with a very fluid neutral game that your opponent dictates, most of your advantages are lies and are not really true. Looking on the bright side though, you have a crutch for nearly every situation so try to get better at picking the right one to lean on. Focus on how you're loosing neutral so that you can pick the right crutch.