Character Overview/Basics

[details=Summary]Lum Bamfoo the Gambling Panda is an interesting character. He is good for players that like to press their luck and take chances but he is also good for calculating card counters that like to stack the odds as much as possible in their favor.

Lum’s innate, Roll the Dice, is a longer one. Essentially if Lum deals damage with an attack (even block damage) he can chose to flip the top card of his deck into the discard. Depending on the rank of the flipped card Lum gets different effects. Most of them good but flipping a Joker is bad (not only does Lum lose the Joker but he takes 1 damage).

The most common result to get is 4-10 which gives Lum a choice. Either he can KD his opponent or he can return all played face cards to his hand. If Lum played any face cards and he gets this result he should usually return the face cards to his hand. The reason for this is Lum’s face cards are really good and getting free damage is also really good. Lum needs to build up a hand so the more cards he has in hand the better. Finally, KD isn’t that strong for Lum as it is for some other characters. There will be times where taking the KD is better though or it might just be Lum’s only choice if he attacked with normals or aces and got this result.

The second most common result is J,Q,K. Flipping a face card kind of hurts because Lum’s face cards are really important to him. However, when he does flip a face card it slows down the opponent by 4 for the next combat. This means Lum’s fastest normal (speed 3.4) will usually beat all the opponent’s attacks. So while Lum loses a face card for the flip it turns a lot of his cards into great options for a turn.

Lum wants to build a hand. He does this by playing blocks and recurring attacks (they recur thanks to his innate). Lum’s throws are very inefficient. They eat up a lot of cards to do any medium damage. Luckily, for Lum, he beats almost every other character in the game at going block/block with them. Some of Lum’s face cards can also recur when they are blocked and one of those face cards is quite fast. So Lum can play a safe game of block/fast recurring attack in order to get the cards he needs.

One of the reason he needs to build up so many cards is to make his throws scary. But, the main reason is to power his signature ability: Poker Flourish

Poker Flourish is another text heavy ability. When first playing Lum the part that should be focused on is just getting 4-of-a-kind. The reason for this is because it is generally the most useful hand that can be made and it is also one of the more reliable hands to make.

Poker Flourish says: Make a poker hand with the top 2 cards of you discard pile and up to 3 cards from your hand. Then discard this card to get the effect.

For this overview the 4-of-a-kind effect will be the one focused on. The 4-of-a-kind effect says: Discard an ace for Blackjack effect. The Blackjack effect is the ability on Lum’s ace. Essentially it lets Lum play Blackjack with his deck. Lum can keep hitting (drawing a card off the top of the deck) until he either busts (goes over 21) or choses to stop. If Lum doesn’t bust he deals damage equal to the value of cards to the opponent. If he hits exactly 21 he deals the opponent 21 damage AND gets to put all the revealed cards into his hand (Joker has a value of 21). If he busts then all cards are discarded with no effect.

Poker Flourish is a very powerful ability. If the game goes long it is not unreasonable to see Lum do 40 damage with Poker Flourish alone.

The most reliable way to get 4-of-a-kind in hand is by powering up for aces. One of the reasons Lum needs to build up a hand is to get at those aces. Once Lum has built up a hand and he can power up to get four aces in hand he can go about doing lots of out of combat damage.

Just having the aces in hand won’t be enough he needs to have 1-2 of them on top of the discard and 3-2 in hand. Luckily Lum has lots of ways to get aces in the discard.

Important Side Note: Lum’s T throw, Extra Juice, is Lum’s strongest throw. It deals more base damage than any other and each pump does 4 instead of 3 making Extra Juice cap out at 22 damage. The throw is slow and it is on Lum’s signature ability card so it really should only be used in mu where the opponent can counter the ability. There are some edge cases where it is a good option such as when used as a dodge follow up when it would kill. Or on turns where the opponent is slowed down and it becomes a fast throw (it should still be used extremely cautiously in this situation).

Notes on Blackjack: getting 21 is actually quite rare because Lum will usually have all his aces out of deck making it difficult to hit 21. If Lum is at 12 or more hitting is risky because any face card will make him bust. Paying attention to the discard pile is very helpful in figuring out the odds.

The ways that Lum can get aces into the discard are numerous. He can play the dodge side of ace and that will get one ace in the discard no matter what. He can attack with his AA attack, Great Pandamonium to get two aces into the discard. Both of these options lose to the opponents blocks (dodge doesn’t lose in the traditional sense) so Lum could play a throw to beat these options. Lum’s throws are can’t combo but pumpable moves. They can be pumped with any three cards, including aces. So if Lum wins with a throw he can pump it with an ace to get the ace in the discard. One important thing to note is that when playing online the card played last will go to the top of the discard (so if Lum played throw and then pumped first with a 3 then a K then finally an A the A would be on top of the discard). The throw can be riskier because it doesn’t guarantee that an ace will get in the discard.

Another way to get aces in the discard is by powering up for aces with aces. If Lum has 4 aces in hand he can power up two of them in the power up phase to get one of them back which would leave one on top of the discard and three in hand.

Lum’s ace has powerful sides to it outside of using them for Poker Flourish. If the dodge side beats an attack or Joker Lum gets to play Blackjack (in the same manner as described in the Poker Flourish section). This is powerful because it is unjokerable and Lum can get in a bunch of damage while only using one card from hand. The Great Pandamonium side is an AA attack that can be pumped with up to two additional aces at 12 damage each. It is a strong 0.8 speed but it will use up two aces in hand making it more difficult to get them back to set up later Poker Flourish turns.

It is often better to save aces for when Lum can use Poker Flourish after aces are sent to the discard. This allows him to get the most out of his cards.

Now let’s get into Lum’s normal attacks and throws.

Lum has no normal attack on his 2 so while his normals are speed x.4 he still ends up being a bit slower then average with his normal attacks. The upside to his normal attacks is that they go all the way up to 8. This means he can put together some really powerful straights. Lum getting these straights is fantastic because not only do they give him good damage they get him his vital aces. Because of the speed of Lum’s normals starting a combo with them can be risky. Fortunately for Lum he has a great face card for starting combos (more on that later).

As mentioned before Lum’s throws are inefficient. They do low damage for lots of cards. For example the card pictured above would do 15 damage at max for four cards. That is pretty sad. The upside to this is that it is speed 6.4 which will out speed a ton of other throws and will more often than not be the fastest normal throw in the mu. The 6 throw is actually pretty important to Lum. Because of his preferred options of playing block/attack the opponent might play throws and/or blocks/dodge to stop Lum from building up a large hand. Lum can take care of these options with his own 6 throw. Lum has no 7 throw though. So he will not outspeed the opponent too much on throws even if his x.4 speed throws are above average.

Lum’s face cards are powerful and are a big part of his game.

Coin Toss is an amazing card. It is speed 1.4 and it only takes up 1 cp. This means that Lum can start combos at a fast speed and then combo into high damaging slow normals.

For example:

J678 is 25 damage and Lum will get an ace from the straight

J8J8 for 24 damage

JQ+ is 20 and Lum will have good odds to get all these cards back thanks to his innate

JK+++ while it is a rare combo at 34 damage getting JK+/JK++ is still 18/26 damage and Lum has good chances to get all these cards back.

Thanks to Lum’s innate he can use Coin Toss to put some solid pressure on the opponent. Even if this card is blocked it has good odds of returning to his hand. If it returns to hand Lum can continue to put on the pressure with it. He can play a very successful mix up of block/J. J to beat throws and block to beat everything else.

Whenever face cards are involved in a combo and Lum gets a 4-10 from Roll the Dice he should almost always chose to get his face cards back.

Rolling Panda is important to Lum because it is his fastest attack. He will need it to deal with attacks between 0.6 and 1.2. Lum’s AA attack can be too costly for taking care of sub 1.0 speed attacks. However, Rolling Panda can be great in this role.

It does great damage for its speed if Lum has two of them. Again, Lum has good chances for Q to return to hand if it deals damage.

Something very important to realize is that Rolling Panda deals no block damage. So unlike J, if it is blocked it will go straight to the discard.

Polar Cartwheel gives Lum a ton of damage he can put into combos. Since Lum will be blocking a fair amount it gives him greater chances to drawing into multiple Ks. And with Lum’s innate he doesn’t have to wait around to use his one or two Ks in hand to try and save them up for a big combo. He can keep putting them into combos to get efficient damage. He just has to cross his fingers that his innate pulls through.

Polar Cartwheel is pretty slow for a face card. At speed 3.0 it loses to a lot of attacks. It is generally better to save it for putting into combos that have been started by Coin Toss.

Polar Cartwheel is also one of Lum’s best dodge follow ups. He can get 14 damage with two Ks in hand off the dodge and the innate can possibly return the Ks to hand.

Lum has one final ability that hasn’t been mentioned yet. That ability is Jackpot. When discarded for the effect Jackpot draws Lum a card. The opponent then reveals a random card from their hand. If that card is an ace they take 7 damage and Lum draws another card. If it’s a Joker, Lum takes 2 damage.

So this ability has a couple of uses. It can be played whenever Lum wants to cycle more cards to try and draw face cards or Ts or anything else he might need. He can also wait for the opponent to power up for a bunch of aces and try and make the most of the ability by making the opponent reveal an ace.

Jackpot can also be useful to try and get hand information if the opponent has a really small hand.

There you have Lum Bamfoo. If you want to play a defensive character with a very strong attack/block game that builds up to unleash lots of out of combat damage and you don’t mind the weak throws or lack of really fast attacks then Lum may be for you. [/details]

6 Likes

[details=Summary]Vendetta the Undead Assassin is an attack poke character. He wants to poke at the opponent with his recurring attacks. His innate, Carrion Reach, reads: Whenever your normal attack is blocked or wins combat, return it to your hand. This allows Vendetta to play an attack/block range to build up his hand. If either option wins it builds his hand at the same rate. Thanks to Carrion Reach even if Vendetta’s normal attacks are blocked his hand will (usually) be built up just as much as the opponents.

Vendetta also has only 75 health which can potentially make him one of the squishiest characters in the game but luckily he has an ability that can protect him. More on that later.

Since Vendetta’s innate revolves around his normal attacks let’s take a look at his fastest normal.

Vendetta’s two attack isn’t too shabby. 2.2 speed is a very reasonable speed for how much damage it can potentially lead into. Vendetta’s 2 is one of his work horse cards because it is his fastest move that benefits from his innate. Vendetta will need to make good use of this card. It is also his fastest neutral non-ace attack. This means that Vendetta can get outsped by a lot of opponents. Vendetta has to play the part of the patient assassin and learn exactly when his moment to strike is.

His 2 attack has a dodge attached to it which are very precious to Vendetta. He needs them to deal with fast attacks and to fuel his strongest ability (more on that later). Luckily with Vendetta’s innate it makes it harder to lose this particular card if it is used as an attack.

Vendetta also has above average speed on his throws. This is his fastest neutral throw. At speed 7.4 it can often be the fastest normal throw in a mu. Vendetta will have to use his throws wisely because unlike his normal attacks his normal throws will not return to hand if they win combat.

Another important note about Vendetta’s 7 is the attack on it. Claw trip is a 1cp ender, speed 3.0, deals 7 damage, and knockdown (KD). This attack is great for a couple of reasons. For one Vendetta can stick this onto any normal attack or throw combat win to get solid damage. Or he can use it as a combat reveal if he is confident then opponent will throw or slow attack. Since Claw Trip is a normal attack if used as a combat reveal it will get the benefits of Carrion Reach (it will return to Vendetta’s hand). When successfully used in either case Vendetta will get the KD and then he can start using his powerful KD mix up (more on that later).

Vendetta has another throw worth mentioning on his 4

Kidney Shot is a somewhat slow throw at speed 8.8. But, it is a strong high risk/high reward play that Vendetta can make. The risk comes from the slower speed and the fact that Vendetta will be losing a dodge. The reward is great if it wins because it leads into some of Vendetta’s biggest damage.

86J+++ = 34

86AA = 32

8567 = 26 + get an ace and the opponent is KD

These combos are various degrees of card hungry so Vendetta will be very sad if these combats get jokered. Landing a Kidney Shot when the opponent is out of jokers can be amazing though.

Vendetta’s J, Tumbling Strike, is his high damage but card intensive card. He can get 20 damage out of it put into any combat win but it takes three more cards in addition to the J to do it. Vendetta is just going to have to make sure he has the hand to support going all in on Tumbling Strike before he plays it in a combo. However, since it can get 20 damage in any combat win it can be great for closing out games.

Even though it is an Ender it is also speed 2.4 which isn’t too bad in a lot of mu. If Vendetta finds himself in a bind he might consider using this card as a combat reveal.

Frost Web’s purpose is to connect Vendetta’s fast normals into anything else. Without Frost Web Vendetta can’t do as much with his 2 and 3 pokes. But with it he can turn his 2 poke into something truly scary. Combos like:

2Q67 = 24 damage plus draw a card, get the 2 back, and the opponent is KD

2QAA = 29 damage (while the Q isn’t needed to combo into the AA here it does put an extra 7 damage into the combo)

Q should almost never be used as a combat reveal and should be saved for putting into combos.

Vendetta’s K is another one of his work horse cards. If used properly/correctly he can get an amazing amount of value out of a single K.

The ability on K, Wall Dive Loop, says: While the opponent is KD, both sides of this card are speed 1.0. When you hit with either side of this card, return it to your hand. This means that if Vendetta has the opponent KD he gets an extremely strong mix up going that he can repeat turn after turn if he guesses it right. Having a 1.0 speed throw means that Vendetta has the fastest non-super throw in the game (it even beats the grappler normal and special throws). When Vendetta KD the opponent he can play a Wall Dive Suplex/dodge mix up. If he gets it right he will have the opponent KD (if the dodge wins Vendetta should dodge into Wall Dive Suplex unless some other move is lethal) again which sets him up for the mix up on the following turn.

Diving Pincer Slice, while extremely strong if it connects, can be tricky to land. Vendetta is going to have to make some strong reads if he is going to connect with this move. When the opponent is KD they are likely to play either a block (to be safe versus the attack and dodge) or an attack of speed 1.0 or faster to be safe from the throw and attack side of K. To be able to land a Diving Pincer Slice Vendetta will have to get a feel for the opponent’s tendencies. If it connects though it can lead into serious damage for not many cards.

KAA = 30 damage

K67 = 25 damage and KD

Wall Dive Suplex is one of Vendetta’s (if not the best) dodge follow up. Any time Vendetta has K in hand and he successfully dodges he should follow up with that K (unless another move is lethal). Even if the opponent face downs a card Vendetta should jam that Wall Dive Suplex. The reason for this is it’s free damage! The card will return to Vendetta’s hand, there is no risk in losing it if you dodge into it. PLUS it gets the KD which sets up Vendetta’s vortex.

Just playing either side of this move when the opponent is standing is pretty risky. Neither side is fast and the throw side is as slow as throws get barring any special slowdown abilities. Having said that it can be super satisfying to successfully land a Wall Dive Suplex when the opponent is standing. To pull this off Vendetta has to be so sure that the opponent is going to block/dodge in order for it to be worth it and even then there is still big risks.

There isn’t too much to say about Vendetta’s aces. Maximum Ven is a two ace super and it can be put into any combo.

Surgical Strike is a three ace move that does 36 damage (his highest damage he can do) and it is his fastest attack (well tied for fastest) at speed 1.0. This is a strong dodge follow up for Vendetta and it is also a good combat reveal. It does no chip damage when blocked however so Vendetta must be certain it will connect.

Vendetta can have some trouble getting aces because he has no normal straights off his faster normals so he will usually either have to draw them or power up for them.

Acrobatics is Vendetta’s last ability. And what an ability it is. It allows Vendetta to discard this card plus a dodge to cancel combat. Play skips forward to next combat phase and Vendetta is 2.0 speed slower for that combat.

The threat of this card will make it so the opponent will be extremely reluctant to play their multi ace super as their combat reveal (unless they have a counter). Vendetta can use this to great advantage. It is also a very good card to escape other painful combat losses. It does have a steep cost of a dodge (Vendetta has 16 dodges) and slowing down Vendetta for the next combat so it should not be used on any old combat loss.

Having an Acrobatics in hand can give Vendetta great comfort and allow him to play more aggressively the he otherwise would.

Well there you have Vendetta. If you want to play a patient assassin that waits in the wings for the right time to strike in addition to having really strong KD mix up turns and don’t mind not having access to a truly fast attack and dealing with the occasional wonky hand then Vendetta might be the character for you.[/details]

6 Likes

[details=Summary]Captain Zane leader of the Blood Guard Anarchist is a crazy character (dare I say zany?). He is an odd twist on the rushdown style by not being truly fast until he has the opponent knocked down (KD). However, one of Zane’s innate abilities, Shenanigans, lets him flip two cards off the top of his deck whenever he could play a combo card and use one of those flipped cards in the combo. This essentially gives Zane free damage and is what allows him to put on lots of pressure. It enables him to get high damage combos on fewer cards from hand. Shenanigans is also a double edged sword because Zane can end up flipping cards he can’t use in a combo. Jokers are particularly painful cards to flip from Shenanigans. But Zane isn’t a man with a plan so he just rolls with the madness.

Zane is an odd rushdown character because while both players are standing he doesn’t have a fast (speed 1.0 or faster) attack. In fact his fasted combo starting move while the opponent is standing is speed 2.3. This is quite a bit slower than other aggressive characters. Having said all that Zane becomes quite fast when the opponent is KD. Because of Zane’s second innate ability, Meaty Attacks, all his normal attacks are speed 1.0 when the opponent is KD. This is bonkers when you factor in Mix up normals on top of Zane’s high damage normals, and mixed with a dash of Shenanigans.

Now that Zane’s innate has been covered let’s look at some of his odd normals.

Zane having odd normals was meant literally. Both his normal attacks and throws are speed x.3. No other character in the game has moves that are odd speed numbers. That is just one more thing that makes this anarchist zany.

While his 2 attack is at speed 2.3, which is pretty fast considering the kind of damage it leads into, it is also his fastest non-ace attack while the opponent is standing.

While Zane’s standing attack speed is a little on the slower side he’s no slouch when it comes to throw speeds. His 5 throw comes in at speed 5.3!! this is going to be the fastest normal throw in most mu. He also has a throw on his 7 which is speed 7.3, this is also a fast throw. Thanks to these throws Zane can be played like some kind of batty offensive grappler that plays a throw/dodge range to get his offense going. But make no mistake he can connect with his normal attacks as well and many a Zane can get things going with their attacks.

One final note about Zane’s throws is that they are 2cp linkers! This allows him to place them in any combat and he can make use of them whenever he flips throws from Shenanigans. They also don’t KD, Zane can’t get his Meaty mix ups started THAT easily.

Speaking of getting KD Zane’s J, Anarch Crushers, allows him to do just that. It is a 1cp 9 damage ender that KD! That is a lot of good stuff right there. It is only speed 2.8 and it’s an ender so in most mu Zane won’t be playing this as his combat card but sticking it in combos. And what combos it makes, here are some examples of the kind of damage Zane can do with Anarch Crusher:

2Q9J = 27 and the KD (if any of the combo cards came from Shenanigans Zane just did that kind of damage and his hand size for next turn only decreased by 1)

Throw9J = 25 and the KD

Zane is very happy indeed when he flips a J from Shenanigans. Any time an Anarch Crusher combo connects it lets Zane start his Meaty offensive in a very big way.

Zane is one of 3 characters in the game that has an attack on something higher than 8. He is however, the only character in the game that can make these slow high damage attacks fast. When the opponent is KD all Zane’s normal attacks become speed 1.0. This allows for some sick damage combos all the while the opponent can’t dodge and their blocks can get crossed up. The Zane KD dream combo is:

9Q9J = 35 damage and KD

Zane’s highest damage normals are both odd. This can make Zane predictable on Meaty Turns if he always just goes for biggest damage. Zane needs to be not afraid to mix in the even attacks as well (his highest damage even attack being a 6).

Zane’s Q, Shoulder Ram, is pretty straight forward. It’s a 1cp linker that does 7 damage. Put it in combos, do good damage, and kill the opponent. It’s speed is slow at 4.0 so it won’t be starting many (if any) combos, just use it to link combos together for big damage.

An important thing to know is that Zane has no normal straights at all. So the only way to connect his fast normals to his high damage ones is by playing a Q or a throw to link them. The Q is way better at linking combos together because it is only 1cp and does 1 more damage.

While Zane doesn’t have any super fast non ace attacks in neutral (when everyone is standing) he does have a way around that, by throwing BOMBS! Zane’s “slow” K has an ability on it, Crash Bomb, that says it can’t be interrupted which means if the opponent plays something that is faster Crash Bomb will hit after and it wins combat. This allows Zane to trade well with all other characters reversals. One thing Zane needs to be wary of is high damage super attacks. If one of those trades with Crash Bomb Zane will probably be sad.

In addition to the K’s cool 10 damage it also KD which is fantastic with its ability. It gives Zane a very strong tool to get his offense started in neutral.

Crash Bomb does have a negative side. If it is blocked Zane will take 5 damage (but will also deal 5 to the opponent) and he becomes KD. Zane being KD can be a problem because he has no odd blocks, which makes it easier for him to be crossed up then some of the other characters.

Wow, what can be said about Zane’s ace attacks? Well he has two different sides to his ace like everyone else. On the bottom is slipstream phase which takes two aces and deals 19 damage for 2cp. Zane can stick this into any combo (it’s even better when Zane has one ace in hand and flips another ace from Shenanigans) that he wants.

The top attack on this card is Maximum Anarchy (MA). It is a 4 ace attack that deals 50 damage and is speed 0.0!!! When Zane gets MA he can play a very strong mix up of throw or MA. With Zane being Zane throw wins will also get solid damage so it is a very effective mix up to be playing. Not much else to say about MA but if you want to inject a little chaos into your life get four aces and play the mix up.

Zane’s other ability is on his 4. Creator & Destroy can be used whenever Zane hits with a full combo or hits with a can’t combo move. It allows him to look at the opponent’s hand. Then the opponent discards their hand to the bottom of their deck and draws that many cards.

This card shouldn’t be used willy nilly because Zane might actually be improving the opponents hand. But, if the opponent is someone that likes to build up a strong hand or the opponent has powered up for a lot of aces then it can be a very strong and effective ability to use. Just give the opponent time to build up and then let them have it with Creator & Destroyer.

Well there you have Captain Zane. If you want to play a rushdown character that is horrifying to KD opponents and has more health then other rushdown characters, and you want to string together powerful combos with free cards + if you like powerful super moves and don’t mind the fact that Zane has slower attacks then other rushdown characters in neutral then you should check out this zany guy.[/details]

6 Likes

Links to be put in later. Does any one know how to use spoiler tags on this site?

Summary

Test

If you click on the little cog at the right hand side of the toolbar in the text editor, it pops up both a “blur spolier” and a “hide details” option. There are also tags \[details=Summary\]hidden text here\[/details\] and \[spoiler\]blurred here\[/spoiler\] if you prefer to type them by hand.

1 Like

EDIT: It appears I can no longer edit the OP to put in an index, bummer.

Porting this strategy write up from BGG, with some changes. This is a general guide to a game concept that applies to most characters. The write ups focus is hand management.

Losing at the Strategic Level

When people play Yomi (especially when they’re new) they think the game is won or loss from combat reveals, the tactical level of play, and while the combat reveal is very important there is another aspect of the game that’s just as important. This other level is hand management, or the strategic level. In a game of Yomi there is a ton of play going on at the strategic level. If this higher level is ignored it will often lead to losing at the strategic level.

Let’s brake things down. The tactical level of play is noticing tendencies, reading the opponent, and what card you play in combat. The strategic level is mostly about hand management with things like building up a hand, how you combo, do you face down, how do you respond to the opponents face down, how you pump cards, and knowing or deducing what cards the opponent has in hand. Now there is definitely some blur between these two aspects of the game and some things that are strategic can also be tactical. For example if your opponent never bluffs and they face down you can be confident it is a joker, this is tactical play. Another example if the opponent is on low hand and they face down a card and you immediately pass because you don’t want to risk giving them more cards if it is a joker this is strategic play.

Now since Yomi is an asymmetric game some characters are going to care a whole lot less about strategic play and focus in on the tactical play. For the most part characters do care about the strategic level. Knowing how to maximize this level of strategy will give you a big edge over some one that doesn’t and will increase your chances of winning.

Again Yomi is an asymmetric game and the characters are vastly different so these tips will change depending on what character you’re playing at playing against. I tried to speak in as general terms as possible so you will need to learn when and where to change things up as necessary.

Knowing When to Combo

A lot of new players tend to convert any won combat in the early game into max damage. This is often very bad because it will drain your hand extremely quickly. If you bring the opponent down to 40 or 50 life while you haven’t take that much damage but you have three cards in hand your actually in a pretty bad spot because it is going to take a lot of won combats to be able to do that much damage. If you get yourself into a spot like this and the opponent was careful with hand management your even in more trouble.

When going for a combo you will want to ask yourself a few questions:
What will my hand be like after this combo?
Can I play effective mix ups next turn if I play this combo?
Is it even worth spending the extra cards?
What life will my opponent be at if I combo?

These questions are important because if you run your hand so low or you run yourself out of an option the opponent has less of a reason to fear you and it weakens your overall position.

Knowing When to Pump

Just because you can pump doesn’t mean you should always do it. Now with some cards or characters pumping the majority of the time is a good thing to do but with some cards it is just too expensive to pump and you get a smaller return for pumping. Valerie’s Q for example can be pumped twice with any card for +3 damager per card. This is a pretty bad per card damage value so you should typically only pump with these types of cards when you have a big enough hand and/or you have cards in your hand that wont do much good in the given situation and/or the extra damage will take the opponent down to a good life threshold for you. When the pump damage would kill the opponent it changes everything though and you can feel free to pump cards in that situation.

You want to be very careful with which cards you are using to pump. If you pump with your last remaining throws/dodges/blocks/attacks it is a bad idea to pump. Only pump with cards that you can do with out.

It is important to know that you don’t always have to go for max damage. I’ll use the previous example of Valerie’s Q again, if you use this card wisely and beat out something good with it just leaving it as is and taking the win at 8 damage is perfectly fine.

Knowing When to Play/Avoid the Face Down

Playing a bluff/joker can be a big part of a game of Yomi but it is important to know when to do it or when to avoid it. A lot of these instances will be at the tactical level but I just want to cover the strategic aspects of the Joker.

If the opponent has a small hand and they face down a card often it can just be better to pass because you don’t want to risk running into a joker costing you cards for no reason and giving the low hand opponent two cards is even more painful. Even if their face down was a bluff it still isn’t too bad for you because a low hand opponent is spending even more cards.

If you have a big hand of cards and/or you have gone through a lot of you deck your face downs have more weight to them so you might be able to get away with more bluffs if you are in this situation.

I left this area light on purpose because a lot of the bluff/joker aspect of the game is going to be at the tactical level.

Cards are Resources

It is paramount to view your cards as resources. The more resources you have the and the higher their quality the better you’ll be able to do.

Another point of interest is that not all won combats are even close to being equal. Some combats are vastly more important then others and winning combats with one card over another can have a hugely different pay off.

It will be easiest to explain this with examples. Let’s take Midori, he’s a character that wants to play a block/throw range through the early game and into parts of the mid game as well. If he spends all his Q attacks trying to be safe in the early game he will be in more trouble then if he had hung onto those cards and had them as options for the mid and late game. The Q is a very important resource for Midori and he needs to hang onto them to maximize their effect.

Another example: Gwen just wants to rush you down and do lots of damage fast. She also has a reversal on her Q that is speed 0.0 (as fast as moves get, only exception being Final Authority) it is however, her lowest damaging move. It is still an important part of her offense because it allows her to deal with opponents fast options while still getting damage in. It is very important to Gwen that this attack be used to beat out opponents attacks that are in between speeds 0.2 and 1.2 anything slower then that or a throw Gwen would have been much better off playing one of her other attack options. So if her Q beats a slow attack or a throw it is only an okay win for Gwen and the opponent will actually feel some relief (naturally being in range of dying will change things) that it wasn’t a much more devastating attack. However, if Gwen’s Q beats an opponents faster attack (like a super attack that costs them multiple aces) it is a big win for Gwen and a tough loss for the opponent. You typically want to save this kind of resource for when the opponent is threatening with their faster options.

Again, not all won combats are equal. You want to get the most out of your important resources by making sure they are being used at the right time and beating the more important cards. The opponent powering up will of course let you know when they have aces in hand but you can also gain information about their hand based on how they are playing and by what cards are in their discard pile. Use all these things to your advantage and allow it to help you get the best possible win.

This way of playing can be quite tricky but it is a good thing to know about and to strive for.

Building a Hand

Hand building is important because it goes right along with cards are resources. The more cards you have the more options you are likely to have, the more damage in hand you will have, and you become a lot more scary to your opponent. These are all very important things in Yomi because being scary to the opponent might open them up to losing to certain options, having options is good because you can play the card you want, and having damage in hand is good because dealing damage is how you win the game.

You build a hand in Yomi by blocking or by normal attacking. You’ll only build up your hand by blocking if your block doesn’t get thrown and you only build up your hand by normal attacking if the attack won and you don’t combo or if it gets blocked. You can also build your hand with jokers but you shouldn’t rely on them because they are rare compared to blocks and normal attacks. Some characters have other ways to hand build but this is the standard way to do it.

In the early game it is important to be able to build up a hand because often the hand you draw wont be super coherent and you will need a bit of time to mold your hand into something much stronger and more efficient. You need to be able to get in some blocks, normal attack through the opponents throws and occasionally throw the opponents blocks and prevent them from building their hand. Each character is so different that it would be unwieldy to go over every specific in this guide but just know that going block/block with the opponent usually favors one side over the other. It is important to know if block/block favors you or the opponent by virtue of the match up or the situation.

I think I should make special mention of Grapplers in this section. Grapplers get good efficient damage off of throws and their throws are fast making it impossible for most characters to out throw them. They also prevent the opponent from drawing a card if their normal attack is blocked. This can make it some what difficult for people to effectively build up a hand against them. Unlike other characters though Grapplers tend to do close to the same damage (outside of their super throws) at the end of the game that they did at the beginning. Because of this Grapplers lose when they go block/block with the opponent. So when playing against a Grappler in order to build your hand in the early game you want to block when they block and attack through their throws (look out for Troq and Rooks K throw which grabs fast normals).

Throws are Precious

Characters have fewer throws then they do attacks especially since most characters face cards and aces have attacks on them. The number of throws gets even more stretched thin when you take into account that several characters have strong abilities tied to throws and those abilities usually only take effect when the card is discarded. All these reasons just mean you have to be careful with your precious throws.

Just because a throw has an ability on it doesn’t mean you have to use it for that ability. Six of the characters in the game have an ability on their 7 throw that is triggered through discarding that card or in the case of Bal-Bas-Beta the ability is tied to the attack side of his 7 (his 7 is an attack/throw card). To make matters more difficult for all of these characters their 7 throw is their fastest throw making it an even tougher decision for them. It really depends on the situation, how many other throws you have in hand, and what character you are facing. Generally you don’t want to use every throw card with an ability on it for the ability.

Often characters have blocks attached to their throws, if you have other blocks in hand it is usually better to use those blocks instead. If you block with a card that has a throw attached and it gets thrown it can be a very painful loss if you were already low on throws to begin with.

Make your throws count. If you throw and don’t have much to follow up with it might not have been in your best interest to throw (again this is speaking in very general terms and throwing to get rid of a Degrey or Argagarg ace and leaving it at that can be good). Since throws aren’t as common as attacks you want to make them count either by being able to follow them up with good damage or by being able to get a really scary knock down mix up on the following turn.

The quickest way to burn through your throws is by powering them up. The only time you should be powering up with your throws is if you will still have a few throws after powering up or if you are powering up for a super throw. Just remember that the more throws you put in the discard the more safe the opponent can be playing a lot of blocks or dodges.

Powering up

Powering up is a great option to have. It allows characters consistently have good options in there hand. Be careful when powering up though that you do not completely rid yourself of one of the options. Also if you go too low of a hand when powering up the opponent will have a large amount of information about your hand and they won’t have to respect your options any where close to as much as if you had powered up and still had a decent amount of other cards.

Don’t power up with your strong cards. You will want to power up with your normal stuff, typically ranks 2 - 10. Getting rid of strong cards for the sake of getting aces might actually put you in a worse spot then if you had never powered up at all. This is speaking very generally and once you have a lot of knowledge with a character you should be able to make the right call about when to power up even strong face cards.

Weak Dodges

Dodges are weak in the early game. In the early game they kill your hand, because no matter what happens your are going to lose that card, for not much pay off. Do not use dodges in the early rounds of a game (again speaking in the most general of terms). They also won’t do much damage early because you haven’t had time to build your hand up to have that powerful high damage attack or throw.

Generally blocks are used in the early game to build up your hand. Then as the game goes on and especially once you have a powerful follow up in hand you can start trying to dodge. Life totals and match ups can change everything though but that is the tactical side of the game/dodge that I wont be going into with this write up.

Closing Remarks

Don’t lose at the strategic level.

4 Likes