Teching against Youko

[Gloomy]

I just played at the UK Nationals this weekend which was a lot of fun, but one of the match-ups I had the most trouble with was Youko. It was my first time playing against her so I only had a vague idea what she could do. I ran Kirai which was probably a mistake because cards.

So I played nearly the whole game without a control hand meaning summoning was significantly reduced, and also no protected (Urami). Ikiryo was pretty much shut down as without cards I couldn't shrug off the bucket loads of distracted being dished out (my opponent targeted lost love early to get rid of my condition removal) I didn't kill a single model and ended up losing 5-3 which probably would've been 8-3 if we'd played the last turn

So just wondering what experience other people have had against Youko and how they handle her. I think Kirai may just be a bad a match up for her as she's so card intensive. At a quick glance I'm thinking Von Schtook may be a good choice? He has good card draw which is definitely needed. Can also remove conditions himself and pulse out focus to handle all the distracted. Also can hand out stunned pretty easily to turn of some of those nasty triggers

[zavros]

I play youko.

If you don't want your hand to be attacked, do your reveal objectives quickly as it stops backroom dealings from hitting your hand as hard. Sure youko gets a bucket of pass tokens to use, but with something like urami you can out punch her crew if your able to summon goryos on top of her weaker models.

You can assist distracted off your models. In something like urami you have seishin that can easily run up and assist your bigger models at a low cost.

Concealment is reasonable, it makes it more costly to hit you with her actions.

Movement tricks get you past disguised on a lot of her models, seishin are good here for walking your guys up to hit something.

Youko wants to engage you with kabuki warriors/geisha early, their distraction auras let her near guarantee hit you with her actions. Those models are really weak to ranged attacks and can be picked off early if the youko player isn't careful when you have ranged threats.

 

Transmortis is one of the best crews in the game, they do everything well and could easily fight youko's crew.

 

[Jinn]

Youko can't really discard your cards that well if you don't let her. The only way she herself can force you to discard your cards is with a trigger on her bonus action (so once a turn) which will discard two random cards until you reveal your schemes. Her action that allows you to either discard two cards or let her gain two pass tokens? Give her the tokens every time unless she gets the obey trigger and it's a potentially devastating action. Youko is really easy to kill, especially with adversary.

I'd definitely take two copies of the intuition upgrade (one on Kirai, one on a Goryo maybe) to mitigate the lack of a hand, but I assume you've got it stapled to Kirai's card already for summoning.

Charm Warders are very scary (they also have the discard trigger, and anti-summoning tech) so I'd focus fire on them. For Distracted just concentrate to get around it, none of Youko's models are hard to wound so you should be able to kill them pretty easily with focus.

Youko is IMO rather bad because she is very easy to play around. Her opponent dictates whether or not they reveal their schemes or choose to give her pass tokens so once you figure out the best line of play against her she folds due to underwhelming stats.

[Gloomy]

Yeah it was Backroom dealings and the trigger on Blackmail (which went off every time) that wrecked my hand, I discarded cards to stop the Obeys, which maybe I shouldn't have done. Now I know how BD works I'd definitely try and get the reveal on schemes quicker. 

I also forgot that insignificant models can assist  that would have helped alot 

[Ogid]

I'm not sure if revealing schemes early versus Youko is a good idea; she get a lot out of all those pass tokens... She can force the entire other team to activate before hers to pick off key model with her Lures and damage spikes, gain initiative the rest of the game and give to duels of her key models.

I'd say: Intuition as said above would be key for her. Bring some extra source of card draw if possible. Summon early in the turn to prevent that the random discard may hit your good summoning cards if you need to use the hand; in this same line front-load your damage if you get good cards. Asume your hand will suck and bring something like Toshiro (aura with for minions), take the obeys on the chin (just don't hire models that may kill himself with bonus actions and things like that); Kirai have a lot of reposition with the Seishin and some healing to patch the effect of those obeys. Appart for the charm warders, make a priority to kill Chiyo, her misinformation has a low stat but it hits the hand hard (and it becomes much more reliable when a model is under a distraction aura).

[benjoewoo]

As far as Kirai specifically I don't know I can offer much advice on that end as I don't play Kirai myself. I have a general idea of the models available to her though, and I play Youko myself, so I'll offer more general thoughts.

I'd recommend running slightly more mobile crews and going for higher activation counts. Youko's in keyword options are fairly slow in that there aren't many movement tricks in keyword; there's basically Lure on the models, requiring multiple activations to accomplish positioning to give you time to react, or she's using trained ninja on minions to give them from the shadows, typically to give Lure greater efficiency. Youko will typically want to hire more elite than swarm, and while you may give her some initial pass tokens, at the end of the day getting more activations with action(s) than getting passes scores VP. It also spreads her more thinly--you'll typically face Youko and her escort of 1-2 beaters, maybe a supporting geisha, and then the other 1-3 models are running schemes. Kill the scheme runners and she has to re-purpose one of her beaters, none of which are quick outside of Bill conditionally gaining Fast. 

She'll have trouble keeping up with you if you can be mobile. Stealth on Chiyo and models with trained ninja can be an issue, but your scheme runner hunters should be able to catch up fairly easily and take them out. While you've asked specifically for Kirai, you may find hiring Seamus useful as teleporting into Chiyo's face and blasting him is usually effective--if you go Seamus as the leader then you could potentially get a second shot on the gun in the same or the next activation as well. Youko's in keyword scheme runner options are also pretty terrible, so your scheme runners themselves could contest them, though I would not necessarily recommend it as her scheme runners tend to be more on the beater side than the runner side (e.g. crit strike trigger on bunraku).

Also, Youko herself is squishy if you have built in positives. Her only guaranteed printed defensive ability is serene countenance, and she can conditionally mitigate the first flip you make. If you get adversary on her, she has no guaranteed defense. Focus is also a decent general alternative. Her in keyword options are also fairly squishy for the most part other than occasional armor, one of the relatively easy abilities to bypass.

Going on the squishy part--if you can focus out the beater Youko is sending with Bill, you'll probably get a lot of mileage. Bill is more of a back up beater because his defensive ability is armor +1 and his conditional heal on you revealing your schemes. Youko should be sending him in as a back up beater to a model like Hinamatsu--if you focus out the main beater Bill spends his actions saving the main fighter by repositioning/healing. If Bill is running schemes or hunting scheme runners, Youko's frontline should be softer for not having him and/or there are fewer models in the crew because Youko has a 9 SS henchmen running schemes. 

Virtually every in keyword model also wants to be in your junk, so make use of auras, pulses, etc. that punish being close, like Jakuuna's hazardous aura. Onslaught is very painful on Hinamatsu in hazardous terrain because it effectively bypasses armor. Serene Countenance is also possibly a problem because in keyword options can only spend one pass token at a time meaning they only get to a straight flip provided they don't have focus or another source of positive flips.

How much mileage are you getting from vengeance against Youko? Youko herself is rarely going to care about causing damage, but her in keyword options are all almost beaters, and pings for 1 effectively bypass armor, so again Jakuuna or even an onryo taking 1 damage from a min hit from HInamatsu pings back equally or comparably against an armor +2 model. Even if it's Bill, he's taking half the damage he deals at Vengeance +1 against an incorporeal model.

I would avoid revealing schemes too early against Youko if discards are your issue--change your activation order first and see the mileage you get. Against a Youko led crew you're playing a 5 card hand vs. 6, and if you reveal too early you're effectively enabling her to maintain the 1-3 card advantage in card flips vs. actual discards; both drain your hand, but making her take actions presents a cost to her IMO--she's also going to make you discard anyway when she targets her patsy models to activate her own draw engine. Also, nothing sucks worse than Youko having initiative every turn starting turn 3 because she's generating 9+ pass tokens a turn and you can never take Bill down because he's healing 3 on turns 2 and 3. Youko doesn't have much healing to warrant anti-healing tech, but Bill heals up to 6 over two turns if you reveal schemes sequentially. If you're going to reveal, reveal both your schemes on the same turn if possible when Bill has 3 damage or less so you don't give him maximum output.

I don't know if you feel you can, but try to run models with terrifying--many of Youko's in keyword options are average Wp, so terrifying tests are a real drain on Youko's hand unless she's using her pass tokens to help succeed those duels, likely costing her 2 pass tokens per attack action to get one positive flip to the actual attack duel. The only in keyword ruthless option is Bill, but that can be negated with The Grave Spirit's Touch. It may be worth putting that on a minion or two to basically put up chaffe while possibly getting you free focus from the pulse--Youko pretty much hires all living models with the exception of Hinamatsu/bunraku, and most of the versatile options she'll want are living as well, so it should have ample opportunity to help you. Maybe even put it on a non-minion just for anti-ruthless, but I don't know how well that works for Kirai. 

I'm sure you've thought of this, but I probably wouldn't run a summoner against Youko if I knew Youko was coming, because of the hand drain mechanics Youko has. Also because Charm Warders can execute summons regardless of damage dealt on their melee attacks, which combined with positive flips from pass tokens and +2 from Chi, can doom your summons' with relatively poor defensive stats.

I don't think Kirai is auto-lose, but  I think there are some major disadvantages going in because of how her summoning interacts with Youko's in keyword options and how they want to play. I think going with a hit and run type crew would be more effective, like Seamus, or a crew that can tactically play around with hand disadvantage, like Molly. If you're set on playing Kirai though, I hope the above can help.

[Maniacal_cackle]

Archie seems like a good out of keyword hire from what people are saying?

He ignores conditions and is the best schemes runner hunter in the faction IMO.

[benjoewoo]

I don't know how viable it is in competitive play, but you could also try the following:

(1) Hire Molly as a 2nd master to mitigate hand disadvantage. Essentially run a forgotten crew out of Kirai between Molly, Archie, and 1-2 crooligans. They score your VP on possibly the strategy and most of your schemes. Kirai summons effectively hardy chaffe to go in at the start of each turn to fight to buy them time to do so. You lose Lethe's Caress, but I think if you're playing at higher levels it tends to proc less often so it shouldn't be a major loss.

(2) Hire Archie with 1-2 crooligans. Same idea for fewer stones but less utility. 

I know super friends lists aren't super popular, but I think Kirai is one of the few masters who can do it because she summons and those summons can be fairly hardy compared to other summoner's summons. She seems able to run with few in keyword options too, leaving a number of flex stones.

[newsun]

Unless they hang way back Kirai should be able to get 2-3 models in to "kill Bill" or Hina t1. With Seishin and I'm assuming you have 3 that's six possible free walks for say two Shikome and Ikiryo. That's not counting Datsu who might make a charge or get a free Onryo depending on where things line up. You can replace all those minions and Ik so fire and forget is acceptable most likely.

While you can get away outside of keyword, I'm not sure I see why with Kirai in this case.

[Starrius]

12 hours ago, newsun said:

Unless they hang way back Kirai should be able to get 2-3 models in to "kill Bill" or Hina t1. With Seishin and I'm assuming you have 3 that's six possible free walks for say two Shikome and Ikiryo. That's not counting Datsu who might make a charge or get a free Onryo depending on where things line up. You can replace all those minions and Ik so fire and forget is acceptable most likely.

While you can get away outside of keyword, I'm not sure I see why with Kirai in this case.

Interesting I come from the other side and play youko as one of my main masters.

 

Karai is a pain in the butt but recently I've started seeing ways around some of their tricks I've learned that challenge in youko crew can be one of the most singularly effective abilities.

 

I've used to stop masters from attacking for entire turns or limit options.

 

In addition  to this the blackmail ability on youko ability with the mask trigger so if you dont discard 2 cards I can obey you model can really frustrate summoners who are often in demand for their cards.  Given the initiative and an easy target you can find your hand stripped very quickly.

 

Senshin are prim targets for charm wardens and can be killed on t1 from across the board with their chaos theory power and I've murdered multiple before they've activated turn one before as they only need a 6 of crows and los to a model to effect them. And then its luck whether you flip 1 card of the suit they picked.