I was just asked a question about what to do as a newcomer to the Yomi scene (since I am one), given that it’s sometimes hard to find a game in quick-match. I figured I’d cross-post my answer in public so that people can point new folks to it (and so that old-timers can post their own advice).
First of all, welcome! Glad you found your way here!
In some ways, you’re right that the online community is pretty quiet, outside the tournament scene, but all is not lost!
So, here’s a list of some tips for finding games as a new player:
- Check out the list of players in the IYL5. The divisions are grouped by timezone, so you might be able to figure out what players are near you. Dreadlands is (broadly) Europe, Flagstone is mostly West-Coast US, Morningstar is mostly East-Coast US, and Pandaland is pretty much a grab bag.
- Check out the SirlinGames Discord. It has a Yomi channel, and folks sometimes post in there as they are hopping into Quick Match (and I encourage you to do the same).
- Hop into Quick Match. You might not find anyone, but you can always play against the HardBot while you wait, for some extra practice, and you might just run into someone and get some good games in.
- Check out the IYL Calendar. I’ve been doing my best to put all of the IYL matches on there, as well as any one-day tournaments (and I’m going to offer the other ongoing tournaments to put their matches on there as well). If you find a match that’s at a good time for you to watch, you can go spectate (and chat, and maybe learn a thing or two), and then maybe play some casual games with one or both of the competitors once they’re done (or with some of the other spectators).
- Enter tournaments! Even if you lose both of your matches, you’ll still have gotten some games in, and experienced players often like to give advice after a match.
- Post in the introduction thread. You might find some other folks that are temporally local to you that way.
- Not game-finding related: Don’t worry too much about not knowing the matchups. What’s worked well for me is to play a bunch of different characters a little but until I found a couple whose game-plans resonated with me (in my case, Setsuki and Rook). Then I just focused on learning how to play the Yomi fundamentals and my side of the matchup. Except for a few characters (Quince, and BBB, for instance) that have tricky rules themselves, as long as you’re playing good fundamentals, you can make a reasonable showing for yourself, even without matchup-specific knowledge.
- Watch MysticJuicer’s YouTube Videos. The Getting Good at Yomi series, especially, focuses on the fundamentals, and after you’ve watched that, you can basically watch any of his commentary videos for entertainment/education.
- If the timing works well, check out the weekly casuals night, Wednesday Night Warzone (which sometimes runs on Thursday or Friday as well). There are usually folks on for a bunch of hours, willing to throw down with any and all characters (I played a series of about 10 Rook games last Friday).