Metamorphosis: The Universal Yoshi Matchup Discussion Thread

Meta Knight -
Snake -
Wario -
Falco -
Diddy Kong -
King Dedede -
Marth -
Pikachu -
Olimar -
Ice Climbers -
R.O.B. -
Kirby -
Lucario -
Zero Suit Samus -
Toon Link -
Pit -
Donkey Kong -
Peach -
Mr. Game And Watch-
Luigi -
Fox -
Wolf -
Sonic -
Sheik -
Bowser -
Zelda -
Pokémon Trainer -
Ike -
Lucas -
Mario -
Ness -
Yoshi -
Samus -
Jigglypuff -
Captain Falcon -
Link -
Ganondorf -

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Allright, get to it!

If you're trying to actually KO him, you're really doing it wrong and I actually mean that. You lose by trying to actually KO Snake. Every character does. You have to gay him. You have to gimp him. It's really the only way. His tilt game is broke and his grenades are easy, but his survival game is 100% legit, so don't try to KO him when you can put less effort into gimps and gays.

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Snake lives to over 150% in this matchup if you don't gimp him. Meanwhile, Yoshi won't live over 120% here.

Also, While CGing him, he will have 1 frame to act, in which case he can drop a grenade when you grab him.

As Snake, you don't have to work that hard to win against Yoshi. Unfortunate but true.

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probably something like 20:80 snake
I honestly don't see anything that yoshi has except egg lay that would make the matchup winnable at all.

And even then he can spotdodge it and punish with a tilt, which WILL kill you at a higher %

So basically he outcamps you, beats you close range, and you can't really juggle him since uair has too much cool off lag.

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If you ever fight him, make sure you have port priority(or port 4). This way, when you eat him and a grenade blows up, you will not recieve knockback meanwhile he gets blown up.

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There are four places this match takes place on: the main stage, the edge, the air, and any platforms that may be present. I'll describe some basic strategies here, but the one overwhelming point is this: do not hesitate to reset. Yoshi is already a character balanced with plenty of risk for his rewards. You do not need to waste percentage or stock running into Snake's bullsh*t. If you see an opportunity to reset your positioning and "start over," you should take it.

On the main stage, this is where Yoshi really has to go head to head with Snake intelligently to gain an upper hand. One wrong step means you're 25% behind and another mistake means you've probably lost the stock, or will spend your next stock trying to get back in the game. Snake has two weapons on his part of the stage: forward tilt and dash attack. Jabs and grabs to a lesser extent, but Snake doesn't just throw those out. He only uses them when he has an opportunity to set them up, so they're not applicable.

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Snake's forward tilt is such that if they're about to land and you go for the dash attack, let's say, to intercept their landing...Snake can intercept with forward tilt using its ludicrous speed and range. He can, in fact, throw this move out (just the first step) with very little risk to himself. Because of this, do not be afraid to shield early and shield often. Let's go back to the scenario where Snake is landing. If, instead of dash attacking, you dash into shield (early, especially since forward tilt has the range and speed), many Snakes know not to perform the second step of forward tilt on a shielding opponent. They will most often opt, instead, to perform a jab, and then another forward tilt to apply shield pressure. After the jab, you can roll away with relative safety and reset your positioning. If you do happen to shield a second step of the forward tilt, examine how far away from Snake you are. If you are close, you can jab combo and reset or rush into a grab. If you are medium range, you can dash grab or try for a dash attack, but watch out for powershields. If you are at maximum length, do not do anything. If you begin to roll back and Snake tries to forward tilt again, you will get hit in the vulnerability frames. Sit tight and wait to see what he does and try to react accordingly. If he does perform another tilt, you can roll immediately after the first swing.

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Dash attack is killer. There are three ways to deal with this move. Pivot grabbing is one way. Unfortunately, you oftentimes do not have the space and time to deal with a dash attack in this manner. Another way to deal is to use forward tilt. I cannot express, however, how precise your timing has to be with forward tilt to beat out Snake's dash attack. There is no tie; you will either beat it or you won't. It almost has to be a twitch reaction, but it could be worth it if you learn the timing. The final way is to, again, shield. On shielding the dash attack, you should release immediately and perform jabs to reset your position. Don't try anything else--it's not worth it. Even if you have to run away after you double jab, it will be that much better.

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Now, Yoshi has a few weapons to use here. First and foremost is to realize that eggs beat grenades hands down. However, you have to be careful to not just lob eggs mindlessly. Snake can throw grenades faster than you can throw eggs and if he slips a grenade your way he will immediately follow up with a mortar slide to cover distance and apply massive pressure. Don't let him do this. At mid range, it is your job to spot an opening for a back aerial. PLEASE DO NOT PERFORM RISING BACK AERIALS WHEN ATTEMPTING TO COMBO SNAKE AT LOW PERCENTS. Do the back air when you're at the peak of your jump to get the maximum amount of hits with the minimum amount of downtime. A full back air leads into a forward tilt, which leads into an up tilt almost (honestly) 100% of the time. This is a free almost 40% damage that leads into your main weapon: the pivot grab.

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Grabs **** Snake. Hands down. Period. Whenever you see a spot to grab him, go for it. Yes, you can chaingrab Snake, it does work. You have to buffer the dash, but it works. If you grab Snake at or near the edge, forward throw. Forward throw and back throw do ridiculous damage; just toss him in whichever direction puts him off the stage. I'll discuss how to deal with him offstage later. Make efforts to recognize predictable spotdodge patterns and capitalize on them. Grabbing Snake will win you matches; this is fact...not opinion. If you're on a smaller stage with platforms like Battlefield, chaingrabbing is not the way to go. Use forward and back throws and follow up with the following strategy.

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Other than grabs, the basic way to beat Snake while he's on the stage is to pepper him with small hits at a constant rate over some period of time. You don't have to do massive amounts of damage or game-breaking combos. You just have to keep pecking at him to 1] push him to the edge and 2] to keep him from hitting you. It's best to stop Snake from getting at you by constantly keeping him flinching with jabs and other light hits. Keeping him flinching and slightly off the ground (to prevent pseudo CC forward tilts and such) will keep Snake off-balance for a majority of the match and will eventually force him to start pulling grenades to defend himself when he gets hit. A simple scenario is if you manage to forward tilt him at close range at a somewhat low percentage. You can follow up with a jab combo and run straight into a dash attack. If they're still at low altitude, you can follow with another dash attack or something else suitable that keeps Snake vulnerable. Remember, you want to focus on low knockback moves that keep Snake off the ground, but at low altitudes until you can get in that stock-ending grab or neutral air to push him off the stage. One more word about grabs; abuse them. Really. When he is landing? Grab. He missed a tilt? Grab if you can. Predictable spotdodge? Don't forward smash, grab.

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At the edge and off the stage, Yoshi wins hands down. If you're on the stage and Snake is trying to recover, a standing grab is more than adequate to stop him. Once you get comfortable with how Snake moves off the edge, you can start getting consistent forward air spikes on Snake's sides while he's recovering from below to make your job easier. When in doubt, neutral air.

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Just be safe and patient. Run from side to side and throw eggs, grab to upsmash when you see an opening. When recovering, just airdodge, there's no need risking your stock for a bit of extra damage.

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The only thing we have against MetaKnight is the Chaingrab, and it rarely works if the MetaKnight plays smart and demolishes our approaches. Tornado, UpB OoS, Dair, Fair, this **** is just simply hard to deal with.

Even with the Chaingrab, MetaKnight is just so much better. This matchup is really frustrating.

I would say 35:65-60:40 MetaKnight's favour.

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You must time and buffer the Dash Attack>ChainGrab correctly or during the Grab-Release animation MetaKnight can simply Dair you and end the series of ChainGrabs.

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Yoshis advantages: Can rack up 30+ damage off mistakes with good reads and egg lays.
Can usually avoid getting actually gimped (however, will likely take a lot of damage offstage)
Can kill out of a grab and can refresh moves out of a grab

Mks advantages: Outranges in general
Can glide attack eggs and punish
Can tornado to punish pretty much everything, so standing still is one of your few safe options XD
Kills early
Has the advantage in most aerial zones.

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If possible, keep the amount of time on the edge minimal. ECE's are great, but your ability to get off the edge is limited, especially after 100%. You will be punished. In this MU, you need to keep MK out of your space. You can do just fine against MK if you keep mid to long range at all times. Use pivot grabs to keep him from the ground. Mix this up with SH bairs.

If he is in the air over a roll's length away, use eggs to punish. Glide attack is nothing to worry about. If he is close to the roll's length bubble, then if he uses glide attack to clink with the egg, then pivot grab. Outside of that bubble, another egg ETS'ed backwards will be fine. If he is inside, you shouldn't be throwing an egg because it's too close and he can punish, so either pivot grab, usmash (which will probably clink), and fsmash (if he is flying in low).

A big problem that Yoshi's have is the don't know how to punish dair camping right above their head. You try to usmash, but they just jump slightly out of range. Eggs won't work since they can dodge and punish. Wait for a few dairs and just SH uair. Works pretty well. Also, wait for the 5th jump, read the DI and punish with grab. They will probably try to tornado on the way down so you should be fine.

Know all the moves that beat all of MK's moves. It's safe to assume that usmash beats almost everything. Same with fsmash. Even dsmash beats tornado lol.

The main thing to worry about is just making a wall that MK can't approach. This will take alot of mixing up with pivot grabs, bairs, egglays, tilts, and even weak thrown eggs. If you become predictable, he will easily get through and you'll take quite a bit of damage. This setup works extremely well against aggressive MK's.

Against passive MK's that just wait, this is where it gets really difficult and why I think 65:35 might be reasonable. An MK that just stands still or slowly advances, you don't have many options. You can throw eggs, but if he powershields and walks closer, if he closes in the gap, you will get punished eventually. You can try to dash grab, but spotdodge will **** you. You don't have much of a choice other than to slowly retreat his upcoming advance. Eventually, you will reach the ledge and be forced to jump over him. And you already know that you are in a bad spot when you are above MK.

You can beat this strategy, but it will take alot of effort. I'm currently trying mixups between bair and egglay. Bair easily beats spotdodge. Egglay beats some attacks and shield. Just as a note, this mixup is extremely powerful against all characters. Approaching the same way, back facing to the opponent, and choosing either move from this is an excellent option.

Also, against an MK that knows how to use tornado, it is extremely difficult to punish. You can if you predict it, but based solely on reactions, it is near impossible to catch an usmash or grab.

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Peach vs Yoshi is so ****ing boring for the peach. To **** yoshi you have to space your Dairs, Fairs, and camp really hard with turnips... and that's pretty much it. Spotdodging is bad vs yoshi as is a lot of other options (Bair <3) that I enjoy using so while peach has limited options vs yoshi, the ones she has completely ***** him. It'd be worse if she could kill.

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People used to believe yoshi could outcamp peach because eggs have further range. All peach needs to do is get a turnip (meaning she just has to knock you away) and your camp game and approaches become useless.

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I try to approach a peach holding a turnip with Bair or egg lay. Turnip beats egg lay head on, but peach can reverse glide toss to punish my landing Bair or forward glide toss if I try a retreating Bair. I try to force a peach holding a turnip with eggs, peach blocks is and glide tosses forward to punish me in my cooldown lag. I can't grab her unless she's made a mistake because turnip beats my grab. I try to double jump Nair her shield but she glide tosses up and puts me in a bad position (granted this is probably my safest attack). My best option is to Z catch the turnips, however peach can use her aerials with ease while holding a turnip.

I try to pressure peach so she has no room to pluck a turnip. Bair can be ***** by her Nair OoS and a retreating Bair gives her room to pluck a turnip. Fair beats out all my approaches except for egg lay, which she can just float backwards to avoid it and Fair me in exchange (as floating is a lot more accurate spacing wise than DJC).

I'm thinking it may be best to try and up smash her. As I go in to up smash her when she's floating, she double jumps backwards and Fairs. I can't up smash her shield because she can up smash me out if it in return.

So here's a character who severely limits what I can do. The fortunate thing is that she can't kill easily and she can make mistakes.

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Its a hard matchup, but its very winnable. Play super gay, dont be impatient, usmash ***** peach hard, you WILL get comboed hard unless you have good SDI to get out of dair. For example, i get combod from 0-64 in that video, but you cant get impatient, just try to camp to avoid down airs, go for uair kills since usmash will usually be stale.

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Upsmash is actually quite comical against Peach, especially at 0% and other low percents. Peach is known for comboing best from 0% and while Yoshi is not capable of such consistent damage racking abilities, he can do really silly things in this matchup like triple upsmash at 0% at goofy stuff like that.

Spacing against Peach's forward air is key. Pivot grabs, crawling, retreating airdodges, etc., all help to avoid her basic pushback/KO move. Spacing against this move should be priority number one.

If you do not know how to ASDI or Smash DI, this matchup will teach you how to do it, LOL. Don't get comboed, Yoshis! <3

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I'd say it's 55-45, maybe even as good as 50-50 the big thing is that you need to get out of her combos and it's pretty easy with proper DI, It's also a process of knowing how to shut down her approach and what beats what

camp wise yoshi and peach are pretty tied (eggs, turnips) but most good peaches (like edrees) don't sit there and spam turnips, they use the turnips to cover their approach and apply shield pressure (turnip to dair is a common combo, the turnip makes you shield then dair to apply pressure)

Dair is definitely a problem to most yoshis sense it is a seemingly unpublishable high priority move. but u-tilt beats it

force peach to airdodge when above you sense she has a pretty bad one (use eggs ect.) and punish with an u-air works well.

if peach uses fair alot at low percents it makes the match much easier sense aside from fair peach doesn't have many good kill moves. (u-smash is good but is a hard to land hitbox)

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Out of all of Peach's aerials, fair is the most intimidating to my Yoshi. Simply because his bair has a good chance of getting spanked out of the way. Usmash *****....so hard anti-air against many characters, Peach being no exception here. Fair is the only thing I see getting past or at least trading hits with Yoshi's up smash. Eggs do quite nicely for pressure. Pivot grabbing against predictable air assaults does well also.

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-Peach's camp game beats out yoshi's camp game and actually punishes all his approaches/camp game/grab game unless he's able to consistently grab turnips in the air

-Peach's Fair and Dair both>Yoshi, she can space them correctly in med-close range where he can't punish (Fair is better but harder to learn the spacing for)

-Yoshi cannot recovery from below safely against peach, below leads to a stage spike without an airdodge, with an airdodge means yoshi might get up smashed/stage spiked if peach grabs the ledge

-Egg Lay is super **** if peach isn't holding a turnip, she can beat you out with Fair but spacing the Fair is a lot harder than for you to just DJC in with an egg lay

-Peach can actually beat your Uair with Bair if spaced correctly

-Peach can Up smash OoS yoshi's up smash, so don't get greedy lol

I think if played correctly the matchup is 65:35

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Peach v. Yoshi is a weird matchup overall. If Yoshi can stay far enough away, Yoshi can camp Peach. However, if Peach maintains mid distance, her camp game with turnips wins. It's extremely difficult to approach a turnip camping Peach. It is true that peach can space herself in the air against Yoshi. However, Peach's "spacing" against characters is fairly predictable.

Peach plays a weave game of pretending to approach to bait an attack, jumping back to dodge, and floating in to punish. Many people fall for this strategy because not many characters are able to do this so effectively. However, because usmash beats almost everything Peach has in the air, if you play smart, you can get in and do some major damage. Because of this weave game, if you approach on the ground, run towards Peach. Odds are, she will jump back into a float expecting an attack. Just keep running and don't attack. Her float is too slow, you will catch up to her and be able to usmash before she gets out her fair. Of course, this won't work all the time, but here is where reading and RPS comes in.

Furthermore, Peach is terrible at getting back to ground level from the air. You are in a major advantage if you are below a Peach and she isn't near the ground. Your uair beats her everything. She can airdodge the uair, but another uair will punish it. Uair beats dair. A properly spaced uair will not be punished by toad. If you have her in the air, keep her there and don't let her get back down.

Overall, this matchup is based upon creating walls that are to be broken, baiting moves, punishing those baits, and baiting baits to punish those. If you miss an usmash, she gets a fair. If she misses a fair, you get a grab.

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Peach has a Uair String combo on Yoshi, although Yoshi's bizarre jumping animation can make things tricky.

What is this?
Ground float uair -> ground float uair -> *repeat as many times as possible* -> full hop uair (usually) -> followup (nair/dj nair is good)

Characters that get hit by the weaker 12% hitbox when standing
-Peach
-Mario
-Luigi
-Diddy (both)
-Yoshi
-Wario
-Link
-Toon link
-Pit
-Falco
-Fox
-Wolf
-Lucario
-Ivysaur (rarely)
-Ness
-Sonic
-Sheik

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Peach can't space against Yoshi's uair in the air. She has poor aerial mobility compared to Yoshi and we can always adjust pretty easily if you meagerly try to move in the air. It's useless in that regard. I used to play Kos-Mos alot so I know this matchup pretty well.

Keep in mind, that if I anticipate you are gonna do dair early, if I do usmash early, the usmash will win. That's why I said that after that one situation, it becomes RPS. There is alot of RPS in this matchup. Technically, against a perfect player, Yoshi can't approach Peach and Peach can't approach Yoshi. It's too hard.

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Also, I agree with fair being a baiting tool. I'm talking about reading the fair with a dash or pivot grab. Fair can't be punished for it's lag, but can be punished if read. If Peach does happen to get a dair on Yoshi, it really isn't that big of deal. Yoshi can get out of her dair pretty easily compared to other characters.

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Furthermore, let's say she catches a dair on Yoshi's shield. Once again, it's not a big deal. Unlike other characters, Yoshi isn't forced to react to Peach's aerial pressure because her dair is focused on lowering shield until the pressure of being shield poked becomes too great, forcing the opponent to react, and then punishing that reaction. You can stay in your shield the entire time and then either spotdodge or roll.

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Lastly, those that think that powershield and spotdodge are the end-all be-all of egg camping obviously aren't doing it correctly. Let's say that your opponent is ahead by 50%, and you start camping. Eggs do 9%. It will take roughly 6 eggs to break even or possibly be in the lead. There are still 5 minutes on the clock. In a perfect world, the opponent will PS or spotdodge each egg. HOWEVER, we do not live in a world that is perfect. People rarely take mindgames into consideration when throwing eggs. If they try to spotdodge, just throw the egg past their body so it explodes behind them. It will properly bait and punish a spotdodge. Let's say they start trying to PS the eggs. Just changing up the speed and angle at which you throw the eggs will screw him up. All it takes is him to normal shield 1 egg. After that, he is in danger of being shieldpoked. You have 5 minutes and they do not have an infinite shield. You win in that situation.

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Don't get me wrong, I believe this to be slightly in Peach's favor because of her turnip camp game. However, I believe it only to be 55:45.

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You can camp Ness. He has to approach. You can pivot grab his aerials for a GR > Usmash. If he's trying to dance in the air you can just throw an egg at him. Ness has a weak grab game so he can't really approach from the ground. It's kind of like the Peach:Yoshi MU. While Ness can shut down our aerial options, the ones we have just **** him.

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It's possible to gimp Ness, though it's much harder than people think. As long as the Ness isn't stupid and drop to the same angle to PKT everytime, it's very possible for him to recover. His DJ is good and he can use a Fair to shield himself and then recover. However, he has a very difficult time returning from the ledge since he can't really approach us anyways.

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For stages, we can do our GR on nearly any stage. You can still do the GR on BF, Lylat, and YI depending on the platform angle. Smashville platform lets him shield it, I believe. Ness does well on Brinstar and RC, so I recommend banning Brinstar since Yoshi's terrible at that stage and attempting to outgay Ness on RC. Try to stay ahead of him and camp, don't try to fight an aerial battle with him, he will beat you. We have a lot of good neutrals to choose from for striking and for counterpicking. I usually use BF since it reduces his approach options and it doesn't screw with this GR. For CPs, you can use BF, FD, Lylat, SV. The majority of the neutrals are good to use vs. Ness.

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Ness has good aerial mobility, and his quick double jump rising forward air is a good pressure and is difficult to punish. His forward air in general is very hard for yoshi to punish, and if you are just pivot grabbing on reaction to his short hop in hopes to catch him, he can fast fall and punish, since you cant punish a forward air on reaction.

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Neutral air out of shield ***** pretty much everything. Ness kills much more easily, his grab is easier to land because you are forced to stay on the ground in many cases due to that nasty forward aerial, while yoshi can mostly grab on landing, which certainly happens, but idk, ness is pretty good at not getting grabbed on landing.
Down air beats us soooo bad, it spikes at all percents out of double jump (and the sweet spot is huge), and his double jump can follow us up on ours, and makes it tricky to avoid (not that you should be hit by it, but its a very dangerous move and it is very realistic to land it). Side b can punish us for 40+ percents depending on how they read ur DI/if you have your double jump.

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Yoshi has a Grab-Release>UpSmash combo string on Ness.

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Tjolts are gonna be common to neutralize the ground. learn to ping them out, but make sure that pika isn't at mid/close range when you're about to do this. You're basically gonna be asked to get hit/grabbed while trying to defend yourself from the Tjolt. For the most part, I would say to stay grounded, and to try using DR to keep your speed. Pika can CG us for a little (20% I think?), after that, we can Nair, but sometimes they'll expect that and shield, so keep that in mind. learn to DI up out of Dsmash, and please god do not airdodge into the ground cause that's when you'll be asking to get Dsmashed. Space yourself with Jabs, Ftilts and Dtilts cause OoS Nair can **** Yoshi, but it's a consequence for using it too much as it's his killing move.

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Uair can sometimes combo into Nair so be ready to DI Uair. DI up to get out of Bair, and learn to not ****ing momentum cancel when pika is below. Unless you have great DI reaction, you'll get thundered and lose a stock for momentum canceling. Uh.....if pika is on the ledge, just egg him cause he has two main options that make him hard to punish (QAC and the normal getup options). Plus, drop off Uair will hit us if we try to get risky over the ledge.

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It's pretty even until it comes time to killing, where pikachu wins by a little. Pikachu also punishes a lot harder than yoshi does.

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This matchup is a pretty gutsy matchup for a game like Brawl; as much of it can be played long-range as can be played just centimeters between the two characters. This is probably going to be one of the toughest matches Yoshi has, but for different reasons than character qualities. This matchup extends beyond the abilities of the characters and reaches into the abilities of the players. This matchup requires persistence, consistency, accuracy, foresight, and plenty of risk assessment. One might say that these qualities are necessary for all matchups, but I find none that reach into the heart of actual combat like Yoshi v. Pikachu.

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First things first. Pikachu does not outcamp Yoshi on most horizontal stages. There, I said it. I don't care if you don't believe me. It's the truth. Yoshi can fire off eggs at the same time that Pikachu jolts; even if Pikachu runs, Yoshi can still keep up with the fleeing opponent by using his best weapon against Pikachu's incoming Thunder Jolt; his jab. Yoshi's jab stops most forms of projectile camping cold and not many players realize this. Smaller stages, stages with lots of platforms (or the moving one on Smashville), and vertical stages are where you can find Pikachu beating you out on the projectile part of the game. Pikachu not getting hit is fine, but giving Pikachu more unique angles at which to fire projectiles from makes your job not getting hit extremely hard since, in order to camp Pikachu in return, you must be standing still. Yoshi cannot camp Pikachu while moving; it does not work. Throw eggs and jab incoming jolts--that is the recipe for success long range. The fight won't last that way for long. If you can keep up not getting hit and manage to land an egg, even just occasionally, you will find that the egg's superior damage right off the bat (combined with using jabs on the jolts to keep eggs mostly fresh) will eventually force Pikachu to enter mid-range combat in order to gain some momentum. Even the most patient Pikachu players know when something like jolt camping just isn't working the way it should and they are smart enough to know how to enter mid-range to neutralize the situation and try again.

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Once Pikachu moves mid-range, things get difficult. Pikachu's superior priority at mid-range is essential to his battle plan. High pressure aerials and trots can make any player second guess themselves at this range, since one hit usually leads to a few more and although the hits may not do lots of damage, one can certainly feel the momentum of the match change. Spotdodging at mid-range against Pikachu is generally a very bad idea and you can expect them to stay grounded when attempting to bait and punish defensive maneuvers like shielding, rolling, and spotdodging. Trotting upsmashes and dash grabs can be very characteristic of mid-range aggression by Pikachu. Forward aerial also makes an annoying addition to his arsenal, leaving Yoshi locked on many options, both ground and air-based. What makes it even more difficult is that Pikachu can stop almost on a dime and shift to a passive-aggressive mode or go straight into defensive spacing depending on how Yoshi reacts. Passive-aggression usually entails baiting ground approaches into carefully spaced forward smashes and pivot grabs. Defensive spacing options include down tilt (sometimes canceled into a retreating forward smash), neutral or retreating forward aerials, and retreating jumping jolts.

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Oh, yeah...I forgot about the Quick Attack Cancel. By the way, this move is your friend. "Now he's off the deep end more than usual," you are probably saying to yourself. Pikachu's dreaded Quick Attack Cancel strikes fear into the hearts of many characters and rightfully so. It's quite potent against a good deal of characters and players. Here's the skinny on this technique, though. There's nothing to be worried about unless you've fallen and missed a tech (which is entirely your fault; don't let anybody tell you otherwise). I'd say out of most of the movement techniques in this game, it is one of the easiest to take advantage of. The weapon of choice for Yoshi here against this technique and against most of Pikachu's mid-range assaults is the ever-reliable pivot grab. Pivot grab stops aggressive Quick Attack Cancels cold and punishes reckless dashes in. In fact, grabbing in general tends to keep Yoshi's viability at mid-range in this matchup somewhat intact. From dash grabbing on passive-aggressive trots, to standing grabs for spotdodges, and pivots for expected aggression, Yoshi can and should rely on intelligent grabbing to keep him safe in this tumultuous area of the battle. This is the area where Pikachu has the easiest time and where he has the highest chance of shifting momentum his way; expect opposing Pikachu players to abuse this range to their utmost ability.

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Close range is where Yoshi can really shine. However, this is still no walk in the park. The biggest part about this matchup that may be discouraging for many Yoshi players is that there is no rest for either player if both are playing intelligently and to their characters' strengths. In the Snake matchup, you can go easy when you spot your grab openings. In the Meta Knight matchup, you can go easy when you are waiting for Meta Knight to return to the edge or when you are chaingrabbing. In this matchup, even in your most advantageous area of the matchup, there is no rest. Yoshi is blessed with the ability to create an early momentum lead in the match very easily; keeping that lead as the battle shifts into different phases is key to winning matches and sets. Close range, Pikachu will be working on lots of obvious aggression. The reason it can still be potent is because of Pikachu's good priority, great attack speed, and the ability for his attacks to flow into each other naturally for the most part. One can expect lots of grabs, rapid jabs, forward tilts, dashing neutral airs, and the occasional upsmash. The only defensive maneuvers present are shield and spotdodge. Spotdodges will be followed up most likely by jabs or (more often) by downsmashing (which you should be prepared to DI at any point in time). Shield is followed up mostly back out of shield tactics like up aerial, back aerial (sparingly), and the dangerous neutral air.

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Yoshi can lock down the close range fight with some very simple and effective tactics. Yoshi's most reliable and dangerous weapon at this phase in the battle is his jab. Single jabs tap on Pikachu's shield to prevent OoS retaliation on apply almost infuriating levels of pressure. Successful double jabs lead to highly successful dash grabs and dash attacks. Jabbing stops many of Pikachu's close range ground options safely on block and provides ridiculous amounts of disruption to any momentum he may have been trying to muster at this range. Aside from jabs, Yoshi has his entire tilt game at his disposal. While down tilt is probably the least useful because of its excruciating lag time, both forward and up tilt provide protection and offensive support, making Yoshi's job at this range considerably easier. Downsmash also makes a guest appearance here as a reliable tool to take advantage of a situation where you may not have any other options and can use it to force edgeguards or tech rolls. The sparingly used short hop down aerial can do massive shield damage and short hop rising neutral airs can give Yoshi lots of burst momentum and even some surprise KOs near the edge to take advantage of short ranged blunders by Pikachu. As Pikachu learns that close-range is not the best bet for this fight, the player will either lean toward extreme aggression or extreme defense. Pikachu can easily retreat and reset by Quick Attacking up and away to stabilize the momentum and try to spot some openings in your play. On the other hand, Pikachu can try to force his way through your options by abusing super high priority aerials that can take advantage of Yoshi's blind spots, hoping to either knock you into mid-range, off the edge, or into your shield...these are all places where Pikachu can begin to space himself into a comfortable range and attempt to fall into a rhythm. If, for some reason, you are getting forced out of close range, you should just run out and attempt to reset and long range. Rolling and excessive spotdodging or airdodging will get you punished in a match-altering way and you honestly can't afford to make simple mistakes like these; remember, if you have to get out of close range, don't walk (or roll)--run.

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Yoshi's job in this match is to stay grounded. If you're a fan of Prince of Tennis, you can appreciate the mystifying effectiveness of Tezuka Zone (although I prefer the more comical movie version). The long and short of the technique is that its user stays in one place and is able to force returns of the tennis ball back to itself without using any unnecessary movements to hit the ball back. Similarly, Yoshi wants to stay on the ground and avoid unnecessary dashing, dodging, DRs, trots, or many other tricks. Jumping is also bad for Yoshi in this matchup similarly to how jumping is bad for Snake in his matchup against Yoshi--there are too many ways to take advantage once the character hits the ground to try to make unnecessary jumping a viable tactic or even an option. Movement to different parts of the stage or to different phases of the matchup is certainly necessary, but I'm talking about using movements that don't have a direct and significant purpose; those kids of movements have no place in this matchup. For instance, the Egg Toss Slide is a very fun and somewhat effective technique for Yoshi users who can see the value in retreating while applying some form of pressure. Should this technique be used when you suspect Pikachu will stay at mid-range or retreat to long range? No. You should use this technique when you KNOW Pikachu will either stay where he is or retreat. The onus is on Yoshi to keep himself as invulnerable as possible; Pikachu can quite literally camp out your movements and take advantage of them from a safe distance with his good speed and quick-starting moves. Likewise, Yoshi can wait out Pikachu's response to feints or movement by observing without leaving himself open while performing techniques that may or may not work and have a high chance of crippling his chances at keeping stock.

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Aerial combat in this matchup is no joke. Know what you're getting into. This part of the match is tough. Similar to the matchup with Mr. Game and Watch, Yoshi really has no business being in the air with Pikachu at the same time. I don't care who you are or who you play, there is no real reason to justify Yoshi and Pikachu both jumping at each other at the same time. Pikachu will win most times hands down, not only because of his priority, but because of the flexibility of his aerials. He is well suited with many of his aerials to tackle more than one area surrounding his character with a single aerial. Yoshi does not have this luxury and is very restricted in which aerials he can use and when. He is further restricted by his environment and Pikachu's medium weight (which alters how Yoshi will have to use aerials as Pikachu's damage increases; lighter weight means more adjustments with fewer percent increments as the stock goes on). When Pikachu is in the air, you need to assess what the player is trying to accomplish. It's more than a simple, "Hey, he's using a back aerial." The depth of your thinking needs to see the purpose behind the moves. Is the back aerial forcing a particular type of DI? Maybe the Pikachu player knows you are unaware of how to DI the back aerial and is using that to rack up damage and chip away at your patience or confidence? Since this match is decided more by the players than the characters, you need to be able to see past the simplicity of the moves just being performed. There are lots of ulterior motives on both sides to using moves and forcing moves...Pikachu can use his aerials to great effect in this particular part of the battle and you can expect the best Pikachu players to abuse this relentlessly. Once you have ascertained the intent behind their aerials (other than to "do damage"), you can begin to examine your options. For example, if a dashing neutral air is meant to knock you into mid-range or into your shield, you can pre-empt this by meeting the Pikachu with a dashing upsmash of your own instead of getting pushed into a situation where you're not in control. You might trade hits, but Pikachu will learn sooner or later that you can, indeed, read into his strategies and that future attempts at anything will have to be accompanied by a Plan B or by failure.

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We can cancel your arrows with Jabs and Bairs, but arrow spam will ultimately force us to approach you. We simply cannot outcamp you; your projectiles are much faster than ours, and you have multiple reflector moves on top of that. Once we get in close, we could probably build up some pretty good damage with our jabs and tilts. I don't know much about Pit's moveset; I know there are a lot of multi-hit moves, and Bair is one of your stronger attacks, but that's about it. I can't say much about Pit's close-range game, but I get the feeling he wants to keep Yoshi out of his face.

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As for the air game, Pit's got some nasty attacks. You cannot attack him from above, he'll just uair you and it's annoying. Nair also beats air dodges if you're trying to come in straight down, so make sure you're moving pretty quickly if you're dodging. Dair has nice range but hits you up, Fair also hits the same. Bair is a kill move but it's got terrible range and has to be sweet spotted.

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Ima pit main and ill throw some tips out there just cuz im nice. WE CAN GIMP YOU! dont underestimate the power of wing renewal. Those invincibility frames dont last forever, and we can stay in the air, off stage, for a pretty long time. so yea, it can happen. Or sometimes A pit might not even bother to try, and just patiently wait for a kill when you get back

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Pit should have a hard time edgeguarding/gimping Yoshi because of that midair jump with super armor frames. Footstool isnt gonna work, unless it was a bad yoshi. Pit's Angel ring can try to knock him outta the mid-air jump via multiple hits, or a Sweetspotted Pit B-air due to its strong force. The Yoshi can airdodge to easily avoid this, though a Pit can still attack if he predicts this. Mindgames and prediction come to this part.

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Good and smart Pits can do F-throw to Stutterstep Fsmash (roughly 0-30% combo) to a Yoshi, or actually can do it to anyone except an Up-Bing Marth, so if a Pit tries to grab at the beginning of your stocks, you may expect this.

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Pit's Glide Attack has more range than either Yoshi's Usmash or Pivot Grab. If he doesn't space it well it's easy enough to Usmash him though. Shielding it is probably Yoshi's best option like you said. It shouldn't ever kill Yoshi at 130 unless you DI it badly though

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Pit wins something like 60:40. Yoshi can't out camp him and has to approach for one and tbh Yoshi's approches vs Pit aren't that great. Yoshi kills Pit with Usmash around 130% or so with good DI iirc while Pit should kill Yoshi around 150% with Fsmash. Bair would probably kill around 110-120%. Either way he doesn't live "forever".

On another note Pit, can gimp Yoshi out of his DJ if he catches him with AR far enough off the stage as AR outlasts the Super Armor on his jump. At that point it more or less depends on if you can get back with his Egg Throw and DI. Just throwing that out there as well

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can't say this is all Pits, but Sagemoon seems comfortable approaching from above. I saw you trying to punish him with something grounded as you waited for him to fall, only he could usually extend his air time a little bit with wings of Icarus and then dive in with a fair. I suppose in that situation, Yoshi should use eggtoss to get him out of the air.

Another thing I noticed that worked were eggs at almost-close range. Medium or long range doesn't work at all for obvious reasons. But when you were fairly close and doing eggtoss, things looked awkward for him. I sound a little stupid saying this, maybe I am. I dunno, near close range eggs seemed to work.
For you long range would be a light eggtoss' range away from him. If you venture any farther, things kinda suck.

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Delta-cod said:

Shiri, you need to tell me your secrets. @_@

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Delta-cod said:

Meta, I'll take you on that challenge. =D

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Delta-cod said:

Shiri, you need to tell me your secrets. @_@

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MarikYoshi said:

Glad to see your input, people!

I wonder, if Chaco or Shiri allow us, perhaps we can also discuss matchups here based on what people have stated in their lists?

Not sure, maybe we could just continue matchup discussion in the actual thread, but it would be much easier allowing the conversation to take place in this thread, as we can debate and rationalize each other's understandings in one place, at one time.

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Shiri said:

It's impossible to "necro" matchup threads.

They exist for discussion, no matter how long since the last one took place.

I personally don't mind general discussion among lists in this topic. I would prefer, though, if specific matchup stuff went in those topics, as that's what they're there for.

P.S. - I like your sig, Hadesblade

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Metatitan said:

I'm actually trying to get a job so I can come to pound 4.

In the meantime, use less vulgar descriptions

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bigman40 said:

He should just come to EC and show it instead of jacking off about it here when someone thinks it's even.

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Delta-cod said:

I dunno what it is, but I find the MU really easy. Grab ***** Ness, Usmash on release for damage, uair for the kill. If you play REALLY gay, it's really hard for the Ness, especially since we have an answer to all his main options: Pivot Grab and Usmash.

I guess I'm just too gay. XD

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