Talk me into playing your main

Yomi
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I’m, more or less, a beginning player. I’ve picked the game up a couple of months ago, played it some, then life got in the way. I’ve picked it up again a couple days ago, and I’ve been thinking about who to play.
I like playing shotos when I start a fighting game, so Grave was my first choice. I keep fishing for TPoS, albeit becoming a bit predictable, but that’s fun, so why not?
Then, fascinated by Ghost Riposte, I got into Degrey. The pleasure of A into nothing to bait out Jokers is just too cool.
I’ve been dabbling into BBB. I found it a bit confusing to play against, and my weapon of choice to understand a character is to play it. It feels a bit clunky to play (well, that’s a clockwork robot for you), but landing Junkshot on block is my kind of fun.
I’ve tried out some more character, but I’ll be leaving my impressions out for the sake of this discussion.

Who is your main? Can you talk me into trying it out?

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I’m a rook main, but I don’t need to talk about him. Several will be along shortly.

Secretly, I’m a Zane main, but don’t tell anyone. Why should you play Zane?
Chaos, Anarchy, free combo cards, and oppressing your opponent. Bombs! Meaties!
Draw cards for free to use in your combo! You don’t even need to manage your hand!
Just kill em!

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Fun topic. Let me give it a go.

I play Arg and Oni the most in Yomi. They each represent a different kind of patient, steady pressure to wear down the opponent, and that’s right up my alley.

Arg applies psychological pressure from the start with 2 damage dealt to the opponent every turn. Each block-block is a small win for you, the opponent can’t get complacent. His Ace block adds a whole new level of pressure on top of that. If you get it off, you get a couple turns where you are free to make riskier high payoff plays while the opponent sweats and tries frantically to break your bubble. Like the no-damage clause of BBB’s Range, except all you have to do is block to get into it. That psychological strain alone can make them be predictable. Then his AA is a lovely 0.2 speed and can contend with some of the fastest out there. Which means that Arg isn’t nearly as reliant on his draws as some others, with two Aces in hand he instantly has a threatening Ace Block vs AA mixup. Sometimes you get a high enough lead that the opponent essentially has no way to win from there. Nothing more satisfying than dodging into nothing, then casually pressing end turn and watch as your opponent’s life drop to 0.

Onimaru gets to mixup from turn 1. Guard Crush versus any fast attack/dodge to catch attempts to beat it. If you like Junkshot, then playing a 10 attack into a block and dealing 20 would be right up your alley. Oni has reliable draws in a different sense - every card Oni has serves a function. You’re rarely unhappy to draw one, and might be hard pressed to choose which card to use as powerup fodder. Which is great, because you don’t need to worry about powering up as Oni - just play your Aces as you draw them! In the lategame he has pressure like no other with unbeatable attacks that can deal 35 on hit (J+, A*). Every hit he gets is satisfying, the opponent can rarely let down their guard, and when they do put up their guard - it gets crushed. Did I mention that he also has .2 speed throws to contest the fastest non Grappler throws out there? On a large hand, every option Oni has becomes threatening, and there is no safe ground for the opponent to stand on. And that’s just how he likes it.

Definitely give those two a spin. Speaking of spins, I’ve got a couple other favourites in the cast… but I’ll leave it up to other more suitable players to advocate for them.

You should also play Rook, but I don’t need to talk about him. Several will be along shortly.

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I just finished reading the character breakdown, and the x.3 speed attacks speak to me. Also, free combo cards.
From the breakdown alone, it feels like it might be a bit frustrating to play because of the lack of fast attacks, but powering through with a bomb feels cool enough.

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Arg has one major downside for me: I play FS, too, and he’s my worst character. That scarred me a bit.
On the other hand, the Yomi gameplay plan for Arg is appealing, but nothing crazy. I’ll definitely try it out, sooner or later, but it feels like it lacks hype plays.

Oni, on the other hand, is high on my list. I love having the ability to checkmate my opponent and forcing my way through opponent’s attacks. Also, I love some oomph with my attacks, and that sounds like Oni.
The downside to Oni is one minor gimmick I don’t really like in Yomi (as of now, but I can see that changing over time): I don’t like it when some properties of a card change based on their suit, and Oni was gettinf away with it scot-free before Final Authority kicked in.

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I’ll break it down to you. Aside from troq and Zane, there is really no need to play any other character (if you play to win). They are both card efficient, can punish hard most opponent weak points, and do a lot of damage. Troq is the only grappler that can do 20 dmg out of a normal throw, can dodge confirm into a 45 dmg 3 cards super that gives you back 2 cards and all of his face cards have a great value. Zane has already been introduced above, so I’ll skip him.

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Honestly I could do this for every character without breaking a sweat, but it’s better to hear from multiple people.

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Zane is very powerful. The lack of fast attacks just means that he plays like a grappler in practice, and on knockdown his normals become very fast. He also has a 0.0 50 damage super move, one of the best supers in game.

Yeah, Arg isn’t made to have lots of sudden hype moments, he’s more about smothering your opponent in incremental advantages. I love that personally, though.

As for Oni’s suit dependency - that is where one of the few cases for powering up for his aces come in. You can power up for an Ace with the suit you need, and that alleviates a lot of the variance there, if that’s what you’re worried about. I personally like the added layer of hand valuation/management.

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Oni have big sword. Big sword go BONK BONK. And that’s about the size of it. (feathers covered the rest.)

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I’m probably not the best person to try and sell Quince, but here goes nothing. Do you like the mind game aspect of Yomi? Do you like options? Then Quince is for you. Positive spin is not only a fun ability, its a good one too. Depending on what face card you reveal, there is even more mix up potential (Attack after Positive Spinning Quince K. Strongest option for opponent is to throw faster than 9.0 and attacks stuff it). Even if the other side of Positive Spin loses, you get to draw a card off it.

Patriot Mirror is even better. While you have to play 2 cards, this can be used to potentially chain Patriot Mirror and Positive Spin or just guarantee combat win. His normal abilities are also pretty strong.

His 2 ability (Two Truths) is very good. Getting back your face cards from discard is big. At WORST, you go even with this card (I can’t imagine a situation you would want to split 5-0). Not only does it get you your face cards back, you can get Aces from the top, or just get one of the options you’re missing in your hand.

Flagstone Tax can net you 3 cards in some situations (Taxing attack, they attack anyway into block. When you’re KD this can change due to mix up normals). Most of the time it will just shut off that option for them because they don’t want to give you 2 cards, however, depending on life totals and hand sizes they may not respect it.

I’m sure other people that play Quince could explain things a little better. Hopefully that all makes sense and I’m not just rambling. Also, his health is pretty high and deals pretty good damage.

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My main is playing to win :smiley:. I recommend playing powerful straight forward characters while learning the game. Troq, Degrey, Arg being the best examples (Arg is not really like his FS fighting game version, very straight forward and easy to pickup character). That being said my biggest recommendation is Zane. He’s actually pretty complex at the highest level but the great thing about Zane is he is good right out of the gate while still having a high ceiling.

He can also play any style. You like to be aggressive? he is an amazing rushdown character with some of the best throw speeds and payoffs in the game with nasty knock down loops. You like to be passive? blocking a lot until you get Maximum Anarchy is one of the best passive strategies in the game. You’re getting crushed? Just hit a gold burst, power up aces, and now you have anarchy and are back in the game. You’re the one doing the crushing? Watch your opponent have fun trying to get through meaties, fast throws, K etc.

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As a Grave main, I’d push you to keep him.
You can play many styles, i.e. be patient, build hand, use KtO and threaten all your dmg out or you can be really aggressive, with fast attack and good single A dmg out, putting in some throws here and here (19dmg out of a throw is good too).
And of course you have TPoS (juicy! raw, dodge into, hit confirm into), but you don’t need to rely too much on it: you’re scary anyway.

And if you like Grave, why not look at Menelker?
He’s a some kind of overpowered Grave (a little slower) with really good innate (adorably destroying decks), threaten of DSD, huge dmg out.
Low hp make him more interesting.
A little bit need to build hand, but you can be scary on low hand too.

Surely the big 4 are optimum choices, but why not make it a bit harder? :wink:

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The coolest and most versatile character is Geiger. He can pressure many characters with spirals, he can do 90dmg in one combo, he can get paid for blocking with Cycloid revolution.

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(pssst, @Nopethebard, you’re the rook main I was alluding to)

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I main Rook exclusively
Rook is a big lumbering tank of a character. He is the only character to have no dodges, but his special blocks are there to compensate. He has very efficient damage and armor for a few of his moves. Also you can sometimes just erase their life bar with CMB for blocking when they shouldn’t have. He’s not the strongest character, but he can still be terrifying with a good sense of timing

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This is all you need to know about Rook.
Now pick him up, go out there, and reap glory.

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So, here are my answers up to now.

I tried Zane out. On paper, he sounds great. Heck, even in practice he plays very fluidly. I love playing cards from the top of my deck and Crash Bomb is a card I thoroughly enjoy playing.
On the other hand, for some reason, I didn’t feel compelled to play more than 4 games with him. I’ll try him out later on, but as of now that’s a pass for me.

I also tried Onimaru out. Guard Break and Final Authority together make you feel almighty. Heck, after destroying a raw TPoS with Final Authority on a K with two pumps I fell in love with that card. Also, I got into yomi because of @mysticjuicer’s videos on the game, so I was really hyped for Oni given his one hour strategy guide. I’ll definitely pick Onimaru up for good after I’m done trying everyone out.

I had already tried Rook out back when I first picked up the game since Rook was one of my mains in FS since day one. I didn’t feel very attracted to his gameplay in Yomi at first. While I’m all in for hype moments, I also love strong confirms (which is why I would love to play 2v2 one day just to drop CMB off a dodge), and the absolute lack of dodges in Rook kinda hurt me. However, picking the character up again these days, I must say I misjudged him at first. While Rook Armor’s suit dependency still isn’t my kind of gameplay (I must admit I’m not that good at planning ahead, yet), being able to power through the opponent feels great. However, I can’t help but compare the guy to Onimaru. While I know they have different gameplans, the whole powering through attacks gimmick feels underpowered in Rook after playing Oni.
I want to like Rook, so I’ll definitely play him again when I’m done cycling every character, hoping to like him even more.

I still haven’t tried Arg, Troq, Quince, Menelker and Geiger. I’ll be describing my experience with them once I try them out, but if you want my pre-impressions on them:
Arg: as I said, he sounds like the least hype character in the game, and with some of my hate from FS carrying over, I’m pretty much sure I’ll hate playing him (both as and against). I’ll try him out, just as I’ll do with everyone else, but I’m procrastinating that SO much.
Troq: damn, Troq sounds so cool. From what I read about him, he sounds like the most hype grappler. I don’t really feel good about the blocks not returning to your hand after blocking, but I get that it is for a greater good.
Quince: I don’t really like the character design behind him, to be honest. On the other hand, the gimmick sounds like a lot of fun, though maybe hard to play correctly. I’m procrastinating him, too, but he definitely will get his share of play before Arg does.
Menelker: I’ve read the character breakdown for every character in the game, and Menelker’s is probably the one that got my attention the most. I love the lore (also, does any fighter have siblings who don’t fight? Man, there are other jobs). It might be because of how similar he is, conceptually, to Grave. However, every single card sounds so fun to play. Probably my next one on the list.
Geiger: I’m feeling conflicted about him. I love the damage output you could get with theoretical plays, and I also really like the Time Spirals. On the other hand, nothing else really speaks to me about him, which feels strange to me. I’ll have to try him out a bit more intensively than the other guys to get a good feel.

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Welcome to the community, and nice topic! Even though whatever character you end up wanting to play is totally up to you, I don’t want you to turn into yet another Zane player so I’ll try and sell you one of my mains.

Jaina :jaina:

She was a character that at one point was considered to be among the worst in the game but turned out to be quite underrated. Offering a balanced playstyle of a shoto character with rushdown potential and explosive damage, Jaina is a good fit for players who enjoy putting on the pressure and threatening late game checkmates.

Jaina is easy to pick up but difficult to master. Her innate allows her to spam attacks but you’ll find that doing so too much can run into blocks or undercut by your opponent’s faster options. You have to finesse your way in neutral and manage your HP well to build a large hand full of damage.

She offers a lot of DPs (sub 1.0 speed attacks) at her disposal that she can easily access with straights, her 7* ability, and buy back from her innate. This synergizes with her late game plan of putting her 10s in discard and forcing her opponent into checkmate. A good Jaina will pile on damage and chip damage and bring your opponent’s HP to critical levels to checkmate them.

Jaina’s main weakness is that she only has four ranks of good throws and blocks. This can lead to awkward hands and you have to manage them well. However she can mask bad hands well because of her innate and buyback keeping her hand size large. In addition, Jaina has among the highest throw damage in the game which does make up for her weakness.

Anyway, hope you give :jaina: a try and you enjoy playing her mate. Fell in love with her character design and playstyle, and she can even be viable in tournament. Won IYL8 on the back of this character so I can swear by her effectiveness.

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You are correct about Rock Armor being not very good. I rarely use it. Also he is indeed pretty Oni-like, but with better answers for dodges and he can deal more damage off normals. Also the threat of CMB to get people to attack too much

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Jaina was the second character I played in Yomi. Mainly because she was one of my mains in FS, but I also really liked her innate. Back then, though, I didn’t have any idea of which cards were ideal to buy back. Also, my stiffness against suit dependency came from me not noticing that black cards didn’t do block damage and thus not understanding why I didn’t win the game once. Even then, I really like both the abilities Jaina has (Unstable Power and Smoldering Embers), and even the general playstyle. I’ll definitely try her again, and I can confidently say I’ll probably like her too.

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