Some time ago I was thinking about a Boxer-type character for Fantasy Strike and came up with a boxer called McLeon. It doesn’t really have anything fantasy about him, but I really liked the concept of a character that has a lot of quick pokes to hit confirm into larger moves and can establish advantage on block, effectively adding pressure to the opponent.
This is my attempt at a port of McLeon to Yomi. It’s not meant to be balanced, mainly because I suck at Yomi and wouldn’t recognize something broken even if it jumped right on top of my nose, so eh.
Carlos McLeon, the Underground Boxer
McLeon is an underground boxer, swift on his feet, looking for an opening in the opponent’s plan while showing no opening of his own.
However, something only his opponents know, is McLeon’s main ability is how he can sneakily cheat without getting caught: backhanded punches, forceful guard opening and foot stomps, anything goes for McLeon in order to win.
75 HP, 3 CP
x.2 normal attacks
x damage normals
x.8 throws
x damage throws, 2CP starter, no KD
Innate Ability: Pressure
When the opponent blocks your normal attack you get your attack back.
Innate Ability: Counter hit
If your attack outspeeds an opponent’s attack, your attack becomes a 0 CP starter and you draw 1 card.
The first ability is sort of a reverse Defense Mastery: if your opponent blocks one of your normal attacks, you go card neutral (unless the opponent has defense mastery, in which case you go minus).
The second ability, counter hit (CH) lets you hit confirm into more damage than you normally would be able to, by letting you use your full 3 CPs for the combo with “free” extra damage, while also letting you draw again, possibly drawing into combo pieces.
2 A/D*
3 A/D
4 A/D
5 A/B
2 D*
Ducking
If you succesfully dodge with this card and follow up with an attack, that attack knocks down if it deals damage.
2-4 are the McLeon’s normal dodges as well as his fastest normal attacks. They are all left punches, meant to be quick and deal little damage. The 4 is a bit on the slower end, but actively using it can give the opponent a reason to attack you, letting you fish for counter hits.
McLeon ideally looks into counter hitting the opponent’s attacks, so the dodge side is less important than it is on other characters.
The 5 can be used to beat Oni’s 5 and Troq and Rook’s K. That aside, it’ll be either a combo piece or, more often than not, a block.
The 2 dodge is a named dodge which gives you a KD option, but the opponent can ignore the KD by blue bursting.
6 T/B
7 T/B
8 T/B
9 T/B
10 A*/B
10 A*
Left-Right Combo
You can combo into this card after any normal attack (it still counts as a straight), except a 10.
McLeon has a very healthy amount of throws, as well as a dominant throw in most matchups at 6.8 speed as well as a high normal, 10, which is a right hook. It’s a slow attack that you’ll never use as a combat reveal, but thanks to its ability can be comboed into from fast normals. This lets you do something like 2,3,10 for 15 damage, a draw and an ace. On CH, you can also do 2,3,4,10 for 19, a normal draw, counter hit draw and 2 aces, going card neutral at the end of the turn.
The other throws McLeon has are pretty slow and take 2 of your 3 CPs, but they are needed in McLeon’s range to force the opponent to attack.
J* Knee Strike/Elbow Strike
3.4 speed, 1CP linker, 8 damage
Knee Strike beats blocks above 7. Elbow Strike beats blocks under 7.
J is a low-high mixup attack, although both sides can be blocked by a 7 block.
J is probably not McLeon’s best tool, but it can appear in combos as a linker and occasionally as a combat reveal to beat some turtling opponent’s habits of blocking with specific blocks.
Also, J can make the opponent prefer blocking with their 7s, which also usually happen to have a throw on the other side. If the opponent holds onto their 7s to use them as blocks, this means that both your 6 and your 7 become dominant throws in most MUs.
Q Headbutt
0.6 speed, can’t combo, 5 damage
Headbutt is McLeon’s reversal. 5 damage isn’t much, but if this counter hits (which is a reversal’s ideal role), it gives you a full combo, acting as 5 free damage on top of a sneaky combat win.
K Backhanded Punch
9.0 speed, 1 CP ender, 10 damage, KD
This is one of the hit-confirms we were talking about. You’ll never see this is a combat reveal, but it’s an invaluable source of damage as a hit confirm, as well as McLeon’s only KD option. It’s very efficient damage, which is a very good thing for McLeon, who usually isn’t too card efficient and thus often card hungry.
A* Foot stomp/AAA+A Gazelle Uppercut
Foot Stomp: 2.4 speed, 1 DMG, 0 CP Starter
Foot Stomp beats normal blocks and normal dodges, but if it does the opponent draws 1 card.
Gazelle Uppercut: 0.0 speed, 25+15 DMG, 2 CP ender
Foot Stomp, for being an Ace, is a not very showy. It’s a very sneaky attack that can pry open an opponent’s defense in a similar way to his throws, but leaving 3 CPs open while also beating most attacks. With all the drawing McLeon does, and the normal straights, Foot Stomp will always be in McLeon’s hands, and be a constant threat to the opponent, beating any option besides attacks faster than 2.4, named blocks, named dodges and jokers.
Gazelle Punch, on the other hand, is McLeon’s flashiest move, as well as his only “legal” non-normal attack. 25 damage for 3 A is not great, but since McLeon has a lot of ways to hit-confirm into this, you’ll only be challening Blue Burst jokers with it most of the times. With all the drawing from normal draws and counter hits, you may even get AAA+A without the opponent noticing and hit confirming into it in the early game without the opponent even bothering to bluff.
If, instead, you want to use it raw, it’s an expensive reveal but opens up the most damaging combos McLeon has on CH. In fact, if you CH someone with Gazelle Punch, you can do AAA+A for 40 damage and you still have 3 CPs that you can use however you want. You could do 10JK for 28 additional damage (68 total) and a KD or do less damage with 4510 (19 damage, 59 total) but get an A back that you could use to force your way in with Foot Stomp.
Notice that being 2 CP ender, you can’t follow it up if it lands on an opponent’s block and you can’t throw-confirm into it. Also, AAA alone does 25 damage, which means that if you hit confirm using Foot Stomp (something like A,AAA) it’ll only be 26 damage at the cost of 4 aces, while doing A10JK would be a lot more efficient (27 damage and a KD at the cost of 1 A and 2 cards).
So here you have McLeon.
Normal attacks are a huge part of his toolbox:
- In the early game, normals are used to generate advantage: you get your card back on block and draw from normal draw, letting you look for the cards that’ll actually be the damage in your plays. Normal vs. Block is usually good for McLeon, since he’s very card hungry to try and convert his combat wins into actual damage. Getting your low normals (2,3) dodged hurts a lot because you lose one of your precious fast normals. Actually, hitting a throw also hurts for the same reason, although you at least get a card to replace your normal.
- In the mid game, you are actually looking to convert your wins into damage, and your normals let you hit-confirm into anything, racking up damage fast. They are also dodges to beat the opponent’s attempts at outspeeding you (which is something McLeon is quite susceptible to, since his Q, which is mildly slow for a reversal, and his AAA are his only “reversals”), but you don’t really have good dodge confirms aside from AAA+A and K.
- In the late game, your normals finally transition to completely being dodges. With blocks being less useful in the late game, your normals are basically slow, not very damaging attacks.
A is a very good tool to slowly, but surely, chip away at the opponent’s HPs and becomes incredibly good in the late game, beating most battle options.
Collecting aces in hand for AAA+A is also a very valid game plan, since being CH by AAA+A almost always equates to losing, and dodges threaten being lethal when the opponent is under the 40 HPs mark.
All of this was written in a single session, so I expect there to be tons of errors.
I also kind of wanted to include a named dodge, called Ducking, which gave extra properties to the attack you dodged into (probably more damage and KD), but it didn’t make the cut gameplay-wisely. I still think it visually looks very cool.
