Ahoi,

A Beginners guide to tournament level Yomi play.

Start Here: Everything you could ever need as a beginner for Yomi When in Doubt, Block is your Safest Bet (except against grapplers): Block only loses to throw, you can’t be punished by a dodge and you draw a card if they attack. You still can take chip damage though. Effective blocking separates those who win and those who don’t. When you can go for Lethal Damage, DO IT!: I lost track of the number of games I lost when I was starting out because of this. Even if they combo escape with a joker, you will still be exactly where you were healthwise and will draw into more damage. Don’t Show your Opponent Cards at the End of Turn: You’re not psyching anybody out or setting up any crazy mind games, all you’re doing is giving away free information unnecessarily that a good opponent will use later to beat you. Stop Windmill Slamming your Amazing Topdecks: If we’ve been playing for a few turns, playing cards face down at a steady pace and all of a sudden you play a card immediately after drawing it, it’s one of three things:

A) A Joker that you’re going waste on an unsuccessful gold burst.

B) An Ace or other good special attack.

C) Whatever type of card you haven’t had for the last 5 turns, often a throw.

Guess what beats every one of these save for a throw, Block/Dodge. At very best, you’re converting one of your best cards (Joker/Ace/etc) into card advantage for your opponent, which is terrible and at very worst, your freely telling your opponent, dodge will win them the game. Even if it is a throw, unless it kills the opponent or sets up a checkmate situation, a good player will just brush it off. Suboptimal Comboes lead to Suboptimal Situations: So you just won your first combat with a throw and are wanting to lay the smackdown, but you only have a 6 to follow up with but it’s the last block in your hand, should you do it? No unless it’s lethal, see tip 3. That 6 can be later used to block to refill your hand or keep you from being locked out by your opponents blocks/dodges/faster attacks. Another situation, while playing Grave, you land a throw and only have one K to follow up with, should you? Again, tip 3, if it kills go for it, if not, don’t. Using a single K now weakens all future K’s. Cross Ups: Look here for everything you need to know . Until you’re at <=0 Hp, You haven’t lost the game yet: An example of playing through the pain . At some point, you’ll be in the situation where a TPoS/Checkmate Buster/Combo will kill you, and you have to know how to play around it. Jokers are unreliable, so the next best thing is to not let yourself get picked apart trying to play around it. Often, Graves will either dodge or go straight to AAA when they get it, so pay attention to their discard and playstyle to figure out what might be next. My Yomi notes app, designed to help you remember character specific details and comes with a life counter

For further improvement, here are beginners guides to more advanced competitive game concepts (metagaming, patience, etc).

If anyone knows of anything else to add to the yomi beginners guide, let me know.