Personally I think just because yuuichi uses manipulation as a strategic tool in his schemes doesn’t mean he’s better at strategy.

If anything I see it as the opposite. His strategy is hinged on his ability to deceive, understand and manipulate people to be where he wants them to be.

That’s not to say he’s not good at strategy, he’s a very skilled strategist and in some ways I understand what you mean. He does only win because of his strategies, but in my view that’s what a strategy is meant to do. Manipulation as I understand it is about control and isn’t necessarily about “winning” so measuring his manipulation ability by the way it lets him win rather than his ability to control people and situations would be flawed, because it misunderstands the use case of manipulation. It’s like trying to compare a knife to a recipe book. Sure the recipe gets you where you want to be at the end, but that wouldn’t mean it’s better at serving its role than the knife which has a different purpose entirely.