There’s no doubt about it: Kazuya Mishima is the single smartest Figure Player in the history of amiibo training. His artificial intelligence is spectacularly programmed, for the most part, and has a complete understanding of its entire moveset. In other words, it knows all of its command inputs and diagonal tilt attacks by the time it reaches Level 43 – even if you never taught it to use them. Kazuya’s AI is extremely impressive; train it right and all of your friends will be absolutely wowed by its combo prowess. This is one FP you don’t want to miss out on! For more information on Kazuya’s metagame presence, check out his corresponding wiki page. Otherwise, let’s jump right into today’s training!

Special thanks to Azend for contributing Kazuya’s training information!

Spirits

If you decide to equip your Kazuya FP with a Spirit team, you’ll notice his power drastically increases. Most of his hard-coded combos will deal upwards of 70%, and some of them are even zero-to-deaths. Kazuya is strong without Spirits too, but with them, he’s nearly incontestable – especially when fighting human opponents. If you’d like to learn more about Spirits and how they work in this game, check out our detailed Spirits guide. In the meantime, here are all of Kazuya’s best setups:

• Banned bonuses: Kazuya benefits from a wide variety of Spirit effects. Super Armor compliments his smash attacks well and prevents him from flinching or taking knockback at low percentages. Armor Knight is perhaps the better option, though, as it significantly decreases the damage its user sustains. If you’re running Armor, fill the third slot with Trade-Off Ability ↑ for some extra power.
• Tournament-legal bonuses: All of Kazuya’s best moves are physical, so using either one or two Physical Attack ↑ Spirit effects works great! You can also use Trade-Off Ability ↑, Move Speed ↑, Critical-Health Stats ↑, Shield Damage ↑, or Air Defense ↑. In all honesty, though, you’re probably best off with two Physical Attack ↑ boosts and then Trade-Off Ability ↑.
• Raid Boss bonuses: Kazuya’s optimal Raid Boss setup is rather simple: Physical Attack ↑, Trade-Off Ability ↑, and Move Speed ↑. With this build, his damage output will be nearly incontestable and the extra movement speed will patch up his occasionally-unreliable recovery. You could also use Great Autoheal if you want to turn the obnoxiousness up to eleven, but the loss of power will be noticeable.

For a tournament-legal Kazuya, your best bet is a balanced point distribution (2100 / 2100). This works for a Raid Boss as well, of course, but in that case, you may want to consider a defensive build instead (1700 / 2500). He’ll already be doing increased damage against human opponents, and the extra defense will help prevent him from being launched off-stage. That way your friends won’t be able to cheese your Kazuya FP by spamming Min Min’s smash attacks at the ledge! As one final note, make sure your FP’s Spirit-type is Neutral before you begin its training.

Competitive Training

If you’re new to amiibo training, characters like Ken and Terry might sound intimidating to properly train. On that note, Kazuya probably sounds nearly impossible to properly train if you don’t play him well. Fortunately, his AI is smart, and teaching him to use certain moves will automatically register hard-coded combos and attack inputs, which means you don’t necessarily need to use them yourself! Remember to walk at all times – dashing is no good! Here’s a full list of moves you should use while training your Kazuya FP. His moves are kind of complicated, so we’ll be going over them one by one this time:

• Dragon Uppercut is one of Kazuya’s special inputs, and you can use it by pressing the attack button after performing a crouch dash. A crouch dash, in turn, is performed by flicking the control stick right, down, and then to the bottom-right (if Kazuya is facing right). By using Dragon Uppercut against your FP, you’re increasing its Fighter 3 value. Kazuya has several of them, and they control how often the FP uses its inputs. The Fighter 3 value specifically controls the moves that require crouch dashing as an input. By teaching your FP Dragon Uppercut, you’ll be teaching it the rest of its crouch dash inputs as well.
• At close range, grab your FP! It doesn’t really matter what throw you use, then, because the AI will teach itself all the combos by the time its level maxes out. How convenient!
• Kazuya’s side special, Devil Fist, is best used to approach at mid-range. When the opponent is stunned, follow up with Dragon Uppercut for major damage!
• Devil Blaster works well at long range and snipes opponents off-stage. When used on-stage, the laser can force an opponent to approach straight into a Devil’s Fist!
• Crouch jab every so often at close range. This will raise Kazuya’s Fighter 2 value, which controls how often it uses moves that involve crouch inputs. By teaching your Kazuya to crouch jab, you’ll also teach it how to use the rest of its crouch attack! If you’re into amiibo file editing, aim for a value of around 70.
• Your best anti-air is up smash. It’s a great combo finisher, too! Dragon Uppercut gets stale after a while, so this move works as a replacement kill option.
• Use lots of Heaven’s Door (down special) up close. It’s a powerful command grab with super armor, and it’ll help Kazuya brute force his way through strong opponents.
• Finally, use neutral air right before you land. This true combos into Electric Wind God Fist, which the AI will perform at high levels. Electric Wind God Fist is a Fighter 3 move, so by using Dragon Uppercut you’ll be teaching it both attacks.

Let’s review Kazuya’s three “Fighter” values, then: Fighter 1 controls Kazuya’s back tilt-related moves, Fighter 2 controls all of his crouch related moves, and Fighter 3 controls all of his moves that require crouch dash inputs. You want to focus on Fighter 2 and 3 — back tilt moves aren’t really necessary.

With this moveset, Kazuya will be able to deal high damage from afar with lasers and then harshly punish opponents who draw near. Heaven’s Door helps his matchup against foes who use super armor (either on their attacks or as a Spirit), while the combination of Devil Fist and Dragon Uppercut deals incredible damage and secures fast KOs.

Raid Boss Training

If you aren’t good at playing as Kazuya, that’s okay! It’s still possible to train a powerful Raid Boss Kazuya FP, though you will still have to at least try playing as him. If you follow our Spirit recommendations and train him to use the right moves, he’ll be almost impossible for human players to defeat. In fact, he’s one of the strongest Raid Bosses period, and we recommend having one on hand just in case you ever decide you want to make your friends suffer. Here’s a full list of moves a Kazuya FP should use against human foes:

• What’s most important for a Raid Boss Kazuya are combos. You don’t actually have to perform these combos yourself – all you have to do is use the first move of the combo tree. At later levels, the AI will automatically learn the rest of the string. With that in mind, use lots of grabs. At low percentages, you can use a down throw, and at high percentages, an up throw. Mix in some Dragon Uppercuts (which are performed using Ryu’s Shoryuken input) and that’ll automatically teach Kazuya to use Electric Wind God Fist at later levels. Crouch jab, Devil Fist, and Stature Smash (down-back tilt) should be mixed in as well.
• Combo starters are your main focus here, but there are a few other moves you should add to the mix. Grounded Heaven’s Door, Crouch Spin Kick (back crouch attack), and Spinning Demon to Left Hook (press B after a crouch dash) are all great options that should see some use. If you’re totally confused, we recommend checking out Kazuya’s SmashWiki page for more details on how to execute each of his moves.
• When you launch your FP upward, use a mix of up smash and up air to juggle it. When it’s launched off-stage, simply wait at the ledge and intercept it with a down smash or Devil Blaster. When you’re launched upward, land with forward air or neutral air.

That’s just about everything! You’ll want to avoid using forward smash, 10-Hit Combo, down tilt, and Tombstone Crusher (forward crouch attack) during your training sessions. Kazuya has a lot more moves than your average amiibo fighter, but his AI is fortunately quite forgiving. If done correctly, you’ll have an extremely powerful contender on your hands who can zero-to-death opponents in a matter of seconds!

Wrap-Up

Kazuya isn’t necessarily an easy FP to train, but the fact that his AI knows how to properly use almost all of its moves makes the task much more realistic. This means you can still train a strong Kazuya FP even if you’re completely clueless when playing him yourself. If you found this guide helpful, feel free to join our Discord community! We can answer any specific questions you may have there. Until next time – happy training!

If you would like to read more amiibo training guides, please follow this link.

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