The following is an archived post from the Amiibo Dojo. It has been uploaded to the Exion Vault for referential purposes and retains its original publication date; some of the post’s links may not function currently or exist at all.
The “Standstill Arena” is an unofficial name I’ve given to a custom stage build discovered by Amiibo Royale. It’s a single-platform stage with lava covering the entire thing…except for a very, very thin sliver at the the top of of the stage. For some reason, it causes all AI in the game to go braindead, doing not a single thing at all. No moving, no attacking, no recovering. In today’s post, I’m going to revisit this stage and share with you how I use it, and why it’s not the best way to train an amiibo from Level 1 to Level 50.
Want to download this stage for yourself? All you have to do is search for my name in Miiverse from your Wii U (with Super Smash Bros. open). My Nintendo Network ID is Cloud_Nine987. When you find my profile, click the activity tab. You’ll see that I’ve uploaded a few custom stages for training, and the Standstill Arena is no exception. Still confused on how to get the stage? Click here.
There’s the original video. As you can see, it does indeed cause any AI in the game – be it an amiibo or a CPU character – to do absolutely nothing. The uploader of this video followed up this video with a Sheik amiibo that was trained from Level 1 to 50 on this stage. Here’s how it worked: set the timer for 99 minutes, and when the match begins…just stand there. For the whole 99 minutes. Basically, during the match, you’d do nothing, and the amiibo would also do nothing. When the time runs out, the match would go to sudden death, and the player would kill themselves immediately. Using this method, Amiibo Royale trained a Sheik amiibo to Level 50.
As you can see, the amiibo’s quite good in battle. I’m going to quickly explain why this is. I believe that there are ten AI settings in Smash 4. CPU characters can be set from Level 1 to Level 9. But I think there’s a Level 10 CPU setting that’s reserved for Level 50 amiibo. As you fight your amiibo, it’ll pick up on what you do and change its playstyle accordingly. So if you train a Sheik amiibo from Level 1 to 50 by mirror matching it yourself on an omega stage, it’s going to use the “Level 10 CPU AI” at Level 50, but this AI will be changed depending on how you played against your amiibo. The Sheik amiibo in the video above is simply using the default CPU AI.
Now, there are some people who think the best way to train an amiibo is to use this stage – the Standstill Arena. I’m here to tell you, this simply isn’t true. Amiibo trained on this stage have multiple flaws that prevent them from being great. First of all, it’s not good for amiibo with equipment. Amiibo that are fed equipment need time to adjust to their stat boosts and bonus effects, and with the Standstill Arena, they aren’t getting to try out their bonuses at all. Even when equipment is taken out of the equation, though, it’s still not the best way to train an amiibo.
So let’s say you’ve trained an amiibo from Level 1 to 50 using only the Standstill Arena. If you mirror match it afterwards to test its ability, and then save the amiibo’s progress, it’s essentially done for. You see, the amiibo hasn’t hit you with any moves at all, and you haven’t hit the amiibo with anything. If you play a match with an amiibo trained using the Standstill Arena after its initial training is complete, do not save it. If play a 1-stock match and you set the amiibo’s handicap to 300% and kill it with an up smash, that’ll be the only move the amiibo was ever hit with. So it’ll suddenly start spamming its up smash. See where I’m going with this? In a tournament environment where you’re required to save your amiibo after each match, Standstill Arena-trained amiibo suffer.
But we’re not done yet. Standstill Arena-trained amiibo are also very vulnerable to amiibo with Counter moves, like Marth and Little Mac. They automatically prioritize their smash attacks above all else (because the smash attacks are their most powerful moves). Since they’re going to be throwing out so many smash attacks, they’re an easy target for other amiibo with counters.
To put a Standstill Arena-trained amiibo to the test, I had a Yoshi trained on it from Level 1 to 50. I put him against my self-trained Ness amiibo. To my surprise, Yoshi gave Ness a run for his money, but Ness prevailed. I noticed that after one 5-minute match against Yoshi, Ness was suddenly a whole lot better against Yoshi in general, even if it was me playing them. That’s when I realized – the Standstill Arena is not best used to train a competitive amiibo, it’s best used to supplement amiibo you trained yourself. What do I mean by this? Well, if you’re terrible at using Olimar, and you want your Ness amiibo to be better against Olimar, you can train an Olimar amiibo on this stage and have it fight your Ness amiibo, and Ness will become better against it! This is primarily how I use the stage – I buy amiibo of characters I’m terrible at – such as Samus, Zelda, and Olimar – so they can help my self-trained amiibo become better against their characters.
This leads me into my next point. There are a few amiibo who are actually better when trained with the Standstill Arena than when trained by a human player in mirror matches. The amiibo who are better trained with the Standstill Arena are generally really spammy amiibo who are hard to train using my guides. These amiibo include Yoshi, Samus, Fox, and Pikachu. All of these amiibo can get into the habit of spamming moves really easily, and having them trained with the Standstill Arena ends in them being somewhat competent.
Overall, the Standstill Arena isn’t good for training a competitive amiibo – training them yourself is still the way to go. However, it can be a helpful tool in training up characters you aren’t good at so that your other amiibo can improve against them. It’s also a good last resort if you’re having a lot of trouble with amiibo like Yoshi and Samus. I hope you’ve learned something from this article – if you’ve got any questions or comments, email me at amiibocloud@gmail.com!
