Hey all. This isn't an article persay but just some lessons I'm learning about Yoshi while playtesting at home. Hopefully this will give some of you a bit of an extra step in building his deck. YOu can see my intial test deck in the deck building forums. I have moded the a lot since posting that. But it has been used to get most of the results I'm going to give to you.

Strengths and cards that must be played.

Right now he is a strong death and order character. If you are going to get the most out of his discard you have to go death. If you want the most out of his draw you have to go order. With that said I've found a death/order hybrid is best. Many of the cards that don't meet up at death share void. So you can just string off of void when you need to.

Discard is obviously his main strength and certain cards shine in his deck more then others.

The top of the list is Pavilion. This card combos with so much stuff its not funny. It is not a card that you have to base Yoshi around but it forces a person to never be set up into the perfect hand. If a person has 4 cards they want to play in that turn at best they are going to play 3 that they desire and be stuck with 3 other cards they didn't want to have. Yes its a terrain and can be blown up easily. That did happen a lot. But I found the other player at times had a harder time because they had to ditch things they needed from their hand. This card only worked well against when Yoshimitsu* was out.

Yoshimitsu*: This weapon is Yoshimitsu only and I'm glad it is. This card makes your opponent take damage every time they draw. It is non-commital R. as well. You can do damage on your opponents turn without having a reversal in your hand.

Excellent thief/Contemplation: These cards are must haves in Yoshi because they make it so your mill doesn't backfire on you. Also when played right you can have a fat hand going into your opponent turn. You will need that because Yoshi doesn't have a lot of stock defensive options.

War Between sisters: This card is you every turn level control. You need 4 of this card in your deck so you can mess with your opponent on their turn and force them to play a hand they didn't want to play. On top of that you don't have to pack more then 3 Meditating in Battle if you have this card.

Mt. Devil Divider: When I initally red this card I thought it kicked in when the oppoenent had less then 15 life. I was wrong. This card can be crazy good if you have the right damage pumps. I chose all life is prey. It worked well with I-Pressence to keep the offensive abilities of the other decks to a minumum. When I got 2 all life is prey's out I always used the second one on Mt. Devil Divider. Taking the 5 damage is hard but it is worth it. If done right you can 1 shot any 18 hand sizer.

My personal tech selection has Yoshi running off of throws so Master of Magic and I-pressence was essential so I could get crazy damage with All life is prey.

The main thing is that you are stripping their hand before they can do much and getting cards out that will always do damage so you can widdle them down. Throws give you that edge of consistent damage. Some people may want to go with Yoshi's attacks mainly because they discard as well. I would say that most of the attacks out side of Mt. Devil Divider don't serve him well and force you pack speed pumps. Also Wipe the floor, while nice, isn't manditory to strip someone's hand of cards. Its nice only in the first few turns. It is up to you if you want to play it or not.

Weaknesses and disapointments.

The biggest weakness he has is his health. i was quickly reminded that taking 5 from Mt. Devil Divider set me back a lot. Also you are many times in range to be easily punked by Hilde on her turn. Unless you pack Ka technique and undisputed ruler you are mainly waiting for moments to play your war between sisters if you have non-blocks in your hand. The other problem I saw was that Yoshi's commital to do damage is not as threatening as I thought. I may be reading this wrong but the opponent would only take damage due to a single card effect and not a stacked card effect. So say you land a throw using 2 keep them down. The opponent would discard a total of 4 cards. But each is a seperate effect so the commital would only do 2 damage and not 4 damage. If I am wrong on this then great. But if not you are playing Yoshi for his non-commital E.That being the case you are stuck with a situational discard function that doesn't go off well outside of throws or unblockables. Yes one good damage pumped throw could strip a hand of the opposing player but even then you only get half of the damage delt rounded down. So to strip 3 cards from your opponents hand you have to deal 6 damage getting a throw up to 12 damage. It is possible yes but a bit to much work for yoshi.

Lets look at some cards that I felt that disapointed me or didn't add much to the deck...

Keep them down: Against 7 hand sizers it can work but against 6 handsizers the card hardly ever went off because they are packing 3 cards going into my turn. This made the cards just sit there or get blown up by I pressence. .0

Flea: I have to wait to block before I can get this card down against my opponent. Yes it does serve its purpose on my turn if i don't have enough discard abilities out early game but the cost is a bit high for that.

Master of Ninjitsu: This card is not as useful as I thought it would be in my Yoshi throw deck. The main reason was I either stripped my opponent of their hand or I just made them not block which left a card in their hand. In the over psychology of the game the card is good but maybe not for Yoshi.

Leader of the Manjitou: When I first read this card I was crazy excited. When I played with the card I found a dark reality. Most draw functions only draw 1 card thus the effect never goes off. Sitting at 3 difficulity that is a hard pill to swallow. Stopping your opponents draw is essential but man does it hurt not have this card go off. Yes it does stop a Recon discard from ruining your day but that is about it. If you have Pavilion/Yoshi* combo out discarding to Finicial troubles may not be a wise idea.

Sacrafice for a cause: Its a good card but in yoshi you don't need it unless you are going against heavy damage redux or anti-discard foundations. Even then giving up 2 cards from your hand is going to hurt when you are trying to kill them. Yoshi has good draw but its a lot of draw 1 card . So you can easily tap yourself bad if you try to over draw. Sacrafice for a cause puts you at risk for over drawing.

Nimbus: Tried it for a bit. It has to be played after your opponent has no hand. You are better off playing lion slayer.

Those are my thoughts so feel free to add or subtract from it.

Good post, man. Very thoughtful and articulate.

For my own part, i'm not interested in playing Yoshi, but i know it's only a matter of time before i play against him. So, this helps me out, too.

I'm still new to this Card game but have played alot of others so take what you want from this post.

Dark great work can't wait to play more so I totally get what you're saying about the other cards. Even if you don't play Yoshi it's always good to know the good and bad from someone who has taken the work in testing it. So great job.

But from my days playing other card games hand denile was big and needed support to maintain, from the few games I got in and watched this past weekend I see that Speed Pumping is huge and can see Yoshi trying to slow that down with his hand denile too bad his ability may not include stacked effects (guess Brian "Antigoth" could confirm that for us) cause then it could be strong, then again that's probably why it maybe worded as is to only work on one effect not stacked.

From my playing days of Raw Deal, 7th Sea, City of Heroes I like to focus on denying the hand or resources needed to mount an effective defense. However with those to maintian the burn I had to find ways to draw into cards so having a hybrid deck to be able to draw and discard is key so I have limited knowledge of the cards currently in UFS but a good balance of draw and discard seems like it's will also be needed, but then again I could be completely off base and need more time playing to get a hang of it.

Long story short I enjoy then insight and look forward to playing UFS more.

Micah said:

lol dude this is Edward man. Hit me up at the shop. I know you and your Pyrexia deck man.

Thing is this man hand denile with Yoshi can make a six hand sizer a 4 or 3 hand sizer when played right on your opponents turn. The problem is that you will be loosing hand as well. I got the deck built and if you want to see it on saturday you can. The hand denile effects of Keep them Down stacks (if your opponent has 4 or more cards in hand they discard 2 cards) but I don't think Yoshi react would count the total stacked effect. But that hasn't been ruled on yet. Hand denile draw to get the kill in or get your hand base up to block is not as strong as the sybmols that have straight up hand draw focus. Ivy has consistent crazy draw. For the Money and Hilde's weapon is crazy good draw. King to an extent is draw. Just about all the top characters and decks have massive draw ability. I see Yoshi being able to deal with a good part of that. The more I look at a Yoshi build the more I realize that Death Kisheri or Life Kisheri may be more viable then a death/order, death, order, death/void Yoshi. I will say that Death/Void has some awesome throws to pull from. Being able to play most of kings stuff rocks but the Hata was smart enough to make sure cobra twist only had earth and not void on the card. If void was on cobra twist then I would promote a death/void deck because comboing into cobra twist you could reduce the handsize of your opponent making it easier to mill out their hand on their turn and setting you up for the kill on your turn. DANG YOU HATA DANG YOU!

Speed pumping is huge and its even bigger in this set. The thing is speed pump and damage haven't meet until now. Usually most high damage attacks outside of stacked Astrid (ask Ricky about that) and Hilde (again talk to Ricky) don't get more then 5-7 speed on average. If you check a 5 or 4 you usually have to check on average 3-4 foundations to block an attack. That is factoring that you have an average +2 block. The cards that speed reduce in this block are promos we couldn't get at the shop and I'm not going to pay for to get. They are only worth it if you plan to go to worlds or a big tourney in my opinion. With more sets comming I would wait until the next 2 sets to get an answer to the speed boost crack. I don't know when I'll get my order of starter decks but I can hook you up with 2 different decks to give you something to work with.

Thanks Dark.

I'm looking forward to maybe getting out to the shop at least twice a month for some card flopping.

I've been reading all the stuff in Block 4 to try and get some ideas find it somewhat confusing as to what can and can not be played and when the effects/blocks and stuff like that but that will come with time.

The same problem I have with Mt Devil Divider I have with Ice Pick in Nina:

it contradicts what Yoshimitsu stands for. Oh wow, an unblockable attack, BROKEN! Yeah...it's too bad Yoshimitsu is a discard character, and that more likely than not, they won't even have a hand. If they have no hand, um, every attack is unblockable.

Good stuff all-around, especially Pavilion + Yoshimitsu Asset* + Excellent Thief/Contemplation is definitely his most appealing prospect. Honestly I'd feel better using Bad Stomach and The Jesus Attack, especially because that combo in turn combos into Knight Breaker.

MarcoPulleaux said:

I'm going to be honest with you man. I'm moving to a whole new build. I'm working on something a bit better. I have to thank Lord Aggro and my friend Kevin for the idea. It not a tri symbol deck. But I've gotten an eye open to something lol funny lol that will be overlooked. I need some testing and some tunning. I've already dropped a good amount of yoshi support for other cards that work better. My issue right now is how I am going to do damage or loop. Be looking out between here and my Yoshi deck I posted in the deck building forums. He isn't unstoppable broke like I thought he would be. He is on the fringe of being annoying as hell and strong at what he does with where I'm going. I just need a couple of hours maybe and some testing rounds. Right now Kilik is shutting him down. I have to change to something not throw dependent. That was the first shocker revelation I had to deal with. The second is Acrobatic hack was jacking with me to much and making my damage not pan out on key turns. Its obvious when I'm setting up for a big attack and certain foundations give me a bad time. I'm on version 3.5 of the deck. to much execitement to contain.

I'd say consider Order. Death simply has so many characters to choose from, most of which can also utilize discard, throws, etc. With Order, you can Stun out their gray area, and when they have no hand and nothing ready, they simply cannot do a single thing to stop you.

Stun is almost worthless when they can't block. Only a handful of effects mess with damage or speed from the staging area. I thought about the stun element. It didn't work on paper well. I found myself commiting to stun and discard as a secondary effect. Then the dicard became almost worthless.

so your saying that stun isnt worth it when they have a couple standoffs in play? they dont have a hand so they have no reason to not commit out to give your attacks -4 damage as many times as they possibly can....if you stun them then there isnt anything at all they could possibly do to stop you

Da_ghetto_gamer said:

That is assuming 2 things. The first is that their card pool is small. The second is that they have 2 or more stand offs in play. The little stun you can do off of any of the symbols Yoshi has nets you a joke level of stun. THis is done to balance the symbol. If you want to manicial laughter to add on more stun then you have just lost a needed foundation base that Yoshi really needs unless he is doing it to limit his enemy. The next thing is that you could commit 2 foundations and let one of them slide and keep moving. Stand off could be annoying but I don't think that it would be game over unless your opponent has a lot of foundations. If that is the case anyway nothing would be different for any non- stun deck. So the critque has a base but it really is very general. There is no deck without weakness I will yeild that your postion has criedence but I don't see it being a deal breaker.

In any other case that doesn't have standoff stun doesn't matter. I'm to tired to edit. I just spent 4 hours redoing my deck for tommrow. i'm putting a lot of effort behind this because it seems like the only deck I could play and even think about doing a major tourney with even though my Kilik deck is better I'm up in the air on how it goes down. But if I get the basis of what I have down I'll have a really strong deck.