Fighting control

How does one deal with control characters in Yomi? Every time I run into one, I get locked down seemingly without a chance to play the game. I don’t really know what I should do differently. Please help

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Which characters are you having trouble against?

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Persephone, Quince, and Geiger.

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I’ll put Persephone aside for now, because she’s a weird case out of those three.

For Quince, a good approach you can take with Troq or Midori, is to pressure his hand size as much as possible. You can generally do this by playing attacks faster than 5.8 (or more ideally 2.8) into Quince’s positive spin turns. A decent speed attack will force Quince to win combat in card inefficient ways.

This is pretty obvious with Q spin, where the Quince mix-up is attack/throw or dodge/fast attack. If they really play the Q, nice, you get to hit them! If they don’t, they have to spend a card to dodge, and then also play an efficient follow-up.

For K spin, the Quince mix-up is throw/dodge or an attack. Your attack is likely to outspeed almost any of his, and if Quince really plays the K, they have to spin it to dodge side, and then play something efficient to follow it up.

For J spin, similar story, but you need to play something faster than 2.6 to force Quince to dodge.

Of course, you’ll want to actually play to win combat as well, but this attack-based approach pressures Quince’s hand size in the early and mid game. Troq and Midori have an abundance of throws that beat K spin, which is a one-card checkmate you have no throws faster than 9 in hand. They also have face cards that are at a nice sub-2.6 speed. Defence mastery means that blocks prevent Quince from getting as much value out of normal draw. And they have the high-HP necessary to trade against cards in Quince’s hand.

The approach is similar on Patriot Mirror turns, but even better, because Quince has to spend two cards before your attack forces him to spend a third on dodge follow-up.

Now your goal is to try to win combats and build your own hand during the rest of the match, and not tank more damage than you have HP.

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The alternative approach to fighting Quince - or any control character - is to just win combat way more than them. Play Setsuki - throw their blocks and dodges, Q their attacks, dodge their desperate anti-throw duffs. You can use the ‘attack Quince a lot’ strategy here too, but you only have 70 HP, so you can’t escape the need to Win Lots of Combats.

Setsuki is also helpful because your decision-making can be guided primarily by your hand on any given turn. I find that helps psychologically when things don’t work out.

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If it helps at all Nope, in that particular match I think slowing down your pace would help you readjust and untilt. The more tilted you play the more predictable you become and the more frustrated you get, trust me I’ve been there. And like MJ mentioned, Setsuki is the ultimate fallback when you’re tilted since you just play to dump.

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Against Quince and Persephone I think it helps to take an assertive stance, as long as your character and your hand supports that! If you have familiarity with other card games, I’d recommend being the beatdown against these two. If they don’t develop their hands it can be difficult for them to maintain their advantage.

Also, like you said they can both be really controlling, but in my opinion that requires them to have certain cards in a particular mixture to convert their “advantage time” into something game-winning! It seems to me that Persephone without a 10 that controls or influences your draw, access to 7 throw or K against non-grapplers, reliable access to dodges, J to get knockdowns against faster throws for one card, and On Your Knees to heavily encourage blocks on knockdown for many characters isn’t that coherent or powerful, and that’s a lot of pieces to assemble! Sometimes one or two is just missing and that complicates things from the Perse side! Also, when you get dodged by Perse and can facedown something without great cost being dealt to your hand - go for it! I don’t think most Perse players are going to prioritize a potential Mistess’s Command over a KD opportunity that draws them a card and sets them up for getting four cards back if they’re successful on the next turn!

Deal as much damage to Perse as you safely can and pay attention to your opponent’s tendencies! Do they seem to prefer to dodge/J/AA/or throw to set up knockdown situations? (This is also going to be hand-dependent, but their playstyle might be more consistent!) How often do they dodge when they have a knockdown as Perse and they know that you have an attack that beats every attack or throw they have, like Grave’s or Menelker’s Q - for example? If they aren’t respecting your Q and dodging, then you might need to play it more often to force them to dodge instead. Not all players are going to just give you the benefit of the doubt and dodge without you ever actually playing your dominant attack option!

As for Quince, his attack speeds are pretty slow, so he often wants to dodge to get his Positive Spin and Patriot Mirror mixups going! That’s pretty obvious, though, which allows a lot of Quinces the ability to safely poke with slow normal attacks… As long as their reads are right! Pay attention to how the Quince player approaches their Positive Spin and Patriot Mirror turns. How often do they opt to beat the thing that would beat their Positive Spin card? How often do they just play it? Does it seem like there are some face cards they would reveal for Positive Spin, but aren’t quite ready to risk playing? Like, actually revealing a Q for Positive Spin and just playing it without even a Flagstone Tax on attacks will catch some people off guard! If there are certain options the Quince player never establishes, stop playing around those! That might simplify things!

On Patriot Mirror turns it’s trickier, because if the Quince player has a good read they just win combat. Don’t feel bad when that happens! Just maybe think if you could have played differently based on what you knew up until then. How you could’ve avoided getting hit/chipped by an Ace and how you could’ve handled the Patriot Mirror turn better! In general, I’d say that blocking or attacking on Patriot Mirror turns is advisable. Attacking with a fast poke when you have a Joker is a good response! And blocking might seem risky, but a very common Patriot Mirror setup is dodge + crossup normal, and as long as your block lines up properly you’re out of the mix-up!

There’s a lot more I could say about Quince, as I’ve played him a lot & he’s my favorite character in Yomi! I’d be up to playing a few games sometime, @Nopethebard, if you’d want to get some more direct practice in!

I also have things I’d like to say about Geiger, but that will have to wait! He’s much trickier to respond to in my opinion, because he alllllmost has it all! His throws are just a little on the slow side? And he doesn’t have a ton of fast pokes? Beyond that he is quite a delight! ^^

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Can Rook do the Hand Choke strategy in that MU?

MJ’s advice on attacking Quince is great - I’ve seen lots of good players use it, and especially effective when Quince is on mid-low hand. In addition, if you have a Joker, then attacking with Joker backup during a Spin/PM turn guarantees you escape from his loop. However, sometimes the Quince might have efficient dodge followups, or you might not have fast attacks, or they played Tax on attack, etc. In those situations there’s also another anti-spin option for each of his faces.

For J: Throw. J deals a maximum of 9 damage, which is less than most of Quince’s good follow up options - PM, attack Q, throw Q++, etc. Quinces also often play Js attack side first, so you deny their spin draw. If you throw with your 7, you’ll also tie or beat the other side of the J mixup, their own throw.
For Q: Block. Max damage off of Q throw requires more cards to pull off, and doesn’t knock down. You’ll also get out of spin if they played the other Q mixup option, dodge/fast attack.
For K: Block as well. They’d have to spend additional cards to get more than 9 damage off the throw, and Ks are often played throw first so they don’t get to spin draw. You beat the mixup attack as well.

If you ever find yourself lost in Quince spins and unable to keep track of the mindgames, you can default to attack, or one of the Spin specific options above when appropriate (your life total can take it, and Quince has good dodge followups).

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Rook’s cards don’t stand on their own as well as Midori or Troq’s, so he doesn’t do it as well. If you’re Troq and you play a 4 attack, you can tack on a Q or a J really easily. If you’re Rook, you have only Q. That matters because your combats need to be more efficient than Quince’s for the strategy to work.

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I’ve kinda committed to trying to not use top 4 for the time being and I don’t do well with or really enjoy Midori. Can Rook do it well enough, or does he need to do something else?

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You’ll have to decide that for yourself - I’m pretty biased; I don’t find Rook’s MUs pleasant to play anymore.

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You can ask Djister for the specifics, I think. He seems pretty comfortable with all of Rook’s mus still, last we talked.

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Rook vs Quince is 5-5 IMO. Rook having the most hp helps, and his special blocks actually provide some extra protection when he’s KD too.

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A point that variable made that I’d like to echo. Those control characters often have a very delicate game to play in keeping all of their options handy and keeping their advantage time going, even as they try to seem strong and all powerful to the opponent. You can try to identify what state they are in. Are they being aggressive, looking to get in? Maybe they have good options in hand. Maybe they’re more likely to play for maximum payoff, long combos and card intensive pumps. Are they being defensive, trying to build hand and using conservative, efficient responses? Maybe they’re running low and are just trying to keep their loops going, covering for a weakness. You can try and use that information and adjust your play accordingly. Punish opponents who are trying to get a big payoff and make greedy plays. Pressure opponents who are in a bad spot, force them to use their remaining best options to beat you, prevent them from getting breathing room and gathering options.

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Rook’s special blocks are also a counterplay against K Spin, because they defend against throw duffs while possibly not giving the Quince much value if they do play the K!

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Thanks guys! I’ll try implementing this stuff in order to handle these MUs better

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What’s your roster look like. I know the easiest answer is to just “play zane”, but a lot of characters vs Persephone/Quince have more complicated game plans. I don’t really think I can give specific advice unless I know what you like to play.

Easy to play counters
Persephone - Gwen (Just do gwen things)
Quince - BBB (not necessarily a hard counter, but easy to play)
Geiger - Menelker (Power up Black K a lot and combo into black faces off throws.)

I know weirdo niche things like how Vendetta beats Quince, but its all a bit too complicated to write at the top of my head.

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i always assumed quince does really well vs midori but loses slightly to the other 2 grapplers. Lots of HP, checkmates K big normal straights. Seems not the worst to me

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It would be Rook advantaged if Quince didn’t have a decent number of answers to rock armor with Q and A, and Rook not having dodges makes tax setups even easier. But yea, my opinion of Quince vs grapplers is 5.5, 5, and 4.5 for Midori, Rook, and Troq respectively. I don’t think Quince beats Midori hard because at least Midori’s DF makes getting wrong on spins dangerous for Quince because of Midori’s high, efficient damage; plus he makes dodges more expensive if Quince has to expend faces.

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