Hey folks! This is Eddie, or as some of you might know me, Eddiefrb on Discord and TheDiamondPiggy on Reddit. Being a youngster, I tend to get into all sorts of mischief, and kids tend to take Halloween very seriously. Planning out routes, finding out which houses give the best confectionaries, timing runs, and so on. Even though this Halloween I chose to skip out on the candy, I got did my fair share of tricking in order to ultimately get the treat — that is, the winning position in the Yo-kai Halloween Tournament. 101Leafy has invited me to share my team, the thought process behind who I chose and why, and my Yo-kai's Items and Attitudes, so without further adieu, here is Eddie's Winning Supernatural Entourage in excruciating detail!
This specific tournament has a special kind of charm to me, seeing as it imposes limitations, making a new tier that I dubbed the "Halloween Tier". The Halloween Tier allows Shady and Eerie Yo-kai, along with a select few others that follow the spooky guideline including Damona, Scarasol, Mircle and Shadow Venoct among others.
The key to winning a themed tournament in Yo-kai Watch is threat identification and strategy. For this specific tier, a few Yo-kai stick out as being commonly used threats, including Slimamander paired with Yoodooit, Nosirs, Wobblewok, Darknyan, Damona, and Count Cavity to name a few; However, even if you had a full team comprised of these Yo-kai, Items, Attitudes, and most importantly placements are the key to victory. If you don't have a reasoning for a specific Yo-kai being where it is, why it's there, and what role it plays, you should re-evaluate the member or the whole team.
The thing that stuck out to me the most was how Ppirit-based this tournament was with most of the premier attackers in the tier benefitted most when using Techniques. My first course of action was to plan how to counter Slimamander and Damona, and have a backup plan for any special Count Cavity that might show up. You'll see more about how I managed this later.
The second problem that came to mind was Calm Scarasol, which eradicates the spirit attackers with good Guard rolls. This specific reason was why I last minute changed my team from Spirit Count Cavity and Subzero Soul Slimamander to Dracunyan and Fiend Ring Slimamader, and that decision saved me during the finals. The last apparent trap I saw was Inspirit trapping with Nosirs and Tribe Unity, which made it vital to carry a Slippery Soul somewhere on my team. I chose to give it to the Nosirs which seemed to work well, however I was slightly worried that without the aid of a good tier Badge/Speed soul or Reflector that the Nosirs would be too frail; However, I think I actually managed to find a bit of a flaw in most people's team designs with the Nosirs and Yoodooit that I remedied with my team. My remediation might have caused me the win.
On the discord server, on the subreddit, and in the copies of Fleshy Souls and Bony Spirits lied a creeping, slowly but surely and terrifying fear of the dreaded Nosirs along with Slimamander and Yoodooit. Thus, a person who wanted to win would plan for these hyped up threats and build a team or at least a strategy for them specifically. This results in, for example, the Nosirs being nullified by the Slippery Soul. After you take out the threat though, you realize it really wasn't too big of a threat anyway if you planned for it and are left with a team optimized for one or two specific things.
Worst case scenario, your opponent's team that has no strategy finishes off your strategic team easily with the remaining well balanced team that the opponent has left, or, in Leafy and I's case, have two teams optimized for a few specific things face off against each other after doing what their sole purpose was. This can be applied to anything, like a strategy for winning that falls short or a real world example like studying for one thing on a test that you think will be difficult and having it be the easiest thing, leaving you unprepared for the rest of the test. This has probably been discovered in some shape or form previously, but I'm dubbing this "The Nosirs Effect" and using this as a warning for people who have a plan for one specific thing to remember to keep a well rounded team in mind as well, which is why I think I won the tournament, having a combination of both strategy and balance in my team.
Speaking of which, I'm sure you're probably getting bored of this long winded overview and want to see the winning team. I hear you, and I've got what I wanted to say off of my chest. So here we go!
| Dracunyan | Slimamander | Yoodooit |
| Scarasol | Drizzle | Nosirs |
Raised Grouchy/Current Rough
Dracunyan, as mentioned previously, was a last minute switch decision from my spirit-based Count Cavity "MAULar" that secured me the win for the tournament. His role is being a strong physical attacker which was mandatory to have for this tournament in my opinion, and his Skill allowed him to heal a hit after a while due to people targeting more immediate threats like Slimamander or Yoodooit first or getting drawn in by Scarasol's Stinging Soul, usually only taking early damage from Slimamander's Technique.
I always go for the Speed and attacking stat-boosting Attitudes like Grouchy and Logical, and it proved to pay off in this tournament with my team usually getting a few quick attacks off first with a lot of kick to them even without being raised Brainy or Rough. Sometimes, they were able to quickly kill off a frail member like Yoodooit. Beefy Bell should be self explanatory; It's a good stat-boosting item with no drawbacks stat wise [+50 STR] and it is what I had at the ready with me so I used it. There is one area I feel I could have improved his general performance in, and I'll get to that after my team description.
Raised Logical/Current Brainy
I only managed to get my hands on a Slimamander a week or so ago, and I must give credit where credit is due - this guy is a beastly battler. Despite my previous statements about being able to be countered easily, with a Logical raised Slimamander on the field you can gain a huge advantage right off the bat quite effortlessly. I'm sure this powerhouse doesn't need an explanation as to what he does and what role he serves, so I'll just say here that I wasn't extremely creative with my Slimamander set and had him serve the same purpose as pretty much everyone else. [Slimamander's Triple Header Skill causes his Technique to hit the opponent's full front line. His Skill makes him a powerful Mage despite his low Spirit.]
I chose Fiend Charm and the Incinerate Technique over the other Souls for Fire's good general coverage in the tier late game and to take out any Damona quickly with the boosted Spirit stat. Funnily enough I didn't face a single Damona, but he still preformed very well in sync with Dracunyan and I do believe that Slimamander was a near necessity to compete in this specific tournament and place well.
Raised Cruel/Current Cruel
Yoodooit is the most unlikely useful Yo-kai in the game in my opinion, and believe it or not, he can be used for things other than just good Slimamander pairings. He's built to be fast rather than bulky because he's better at being fast than he is at being bulky and the whole point of him is to get off an early hit with his Skill. He caused some pandemonium with Slimamander but was also very helpful when his Skill worked with the Nosirs, with a healing and an Inspirit simultaneously being very annoying for the opponent and very helpful for me. Even though he didn't do any work himself other than his Soultimate which did minimal damage anyways, he was vital to the team with his Skill. [Yoodooit's Skill, You First, makes an adjacent Yo-kai fight in Yoodooit's place, allowing for a powerful Yo-kai to attack twice.]
Raised Cruel/Current Cruel
The Nosirs, like Slimamander, are staples for their good inspirits, decent healing, and incredible Skill. I made it known that I would nullify any other trio of Nosirs that stood in my way with Lockdown here by giving them the Slippery Soul. I thought about the Reflector instead, but this I feel works a lot better.
Raised Logical/Current Brainy
Whatttt? Drizzle? Well, yes, and anyone who faced me knows that this yo-kai is not to be messed with. I needed a reliable counter for Slimamander, and I wanted something that could resist the dreaded Yoodooit-Waterfall Slimamander-Yoodooit combo with it's skill and element and could strike back at Slimamander with super effective damage, which Drizzle managed exceptionally well. He was also helpful for dealing with Scarasol against Leafy in the finals when they weren't guarding, and was generally quite a good attacker with a high Spirit tolerance which is invaluable in this tier.
I honestly expected more people to use Scarasol, and when found out he was allowed in this tournament I looked into him and knew I had to use him on this team. For those who don't know, His Skill makes it so that when he's guarding, he reflects 100% of Technique damage that he would take back at the Yo-kai who did the attack. He does not receive any damage when reflecting.
Due to faulty training he also got some SPD and STR which helped him be able to at least deal a slight amount of damage if he wasn't bothered to Guard. Leafy had two Scarasol and an Herbiboy which completely messed up my Slimamander, but in the end I managed to pull through. I do believe however that Scarasol gave me a special edge that helped me get to the finals and through the finals.
My back row, which was Nosirs, Drizzle, and Scarasol was meant to be a complete Slimamander counter and in some ways really was. I would switch to the back row when I saw a Slimamander. I would trap it in with Nosirs, and redirect all other attacks to my (hopefully) guarding Scarasol with the Stinging Soul. When Slimamander finally does manage to use his Technique, Drizzle will take little damage, Scarasol will likely deflect it, and Nosirs can take a hit or two before going down keeping the cycle going. With Drizzle killing off Slimamander easily after only one reflect from Scarasol, this strategy worked and was quite helpful for me to not get crippled early game by any pesky Slimamander.
I feel like I could have swapped Yoodooit's place on the wheel for Slimamander's, because then he would take the chip damage to help heal Dracunyan instead of Slimamander and he's meant to be pretty frail anyways. I definitely could have had the Level 10 high boosting souls instead of the story Equipment if I had more time to prepare, since I didn't have them ready or made at the time of the tournament. I also think that Waterfall or Blizzard Slimamander could have been interesting over Fiend Ring, but I'm happy with my strategy as well.
I think that about wraps up my overview. I want to thank Leafy for hosting the tournament and him alongside everyone else for being such great people and being the nicest community I've ever had the pleasure of interacting with. Because of that, I'm giving away the Drizzle and Scarasol from this team to a person from next week's tournament that I face and find has a very cool/creative team for free so they can counter Slimamander more effectively!
Alright, that's all I have to say. Goodbye!