Competitive amiibo training in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate has been going (fairly) strong for almost four years now! When the game was first released, dedicated amiibo trainers were in a scramble to see what was different. After several years of struggling through amiibo training in Smash 4, players wanted to see something different. And for the longest time, they did: in the Ultimate metagame’s early days, trainers experimented with off-stage play, taunting, and combos — things the CPUs were finally capable of pulling off. But now, it’s 2022, and the metagame is winding down a bit. We’ve quickly realized an interesting tidbit. Over the years, as specific amiibo characters have been optimized and refined, something remarkable has happened: Ultimate’s metagame is beginning to look a lot like what Smash 4’sdid toward the end of its lifespan.
The idea of a free-for-all frenzy involving multiple amiibo at once is a very exciting idea to those new to training. Unfortunately, as most experienced trainers will tell you, it often ends up in the same way: sooner or later some or all of the Figure Players present in the match will simply stop moving. They’ll end up just standing still completely vulnerable to incoming attacks, and for the longest time no one really knew why this would happen. With some new research, we may have found an answer!
Remember that red tab on the Nintendo Switch home menu that nobody uses? As of yesterday, it’s finally got a use! If you have a Nintendo account and a Nintendo Switch Online subscription linked to your Switch, you can use Platinum Points to earn new profile icons, banners, and backgrounds to use on your friend list. It’s quite easy, but we’ve got all the details here for you just in case.
The final balance patch for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate has dropped! As we reported last night, files for the Pyra, Mythra, and Kazuya Figure Players were added to the game along with it. Perhaps more importantly, though (depending on who you ask), several changes were made to certain fighters that may affect their position on the official amiibo tier list. If you’d like to read the full patch notes yourself, you can find them right here. Let’s get right into it, then!
It goes without saying that Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s amiibo metagame is one of the most unique competitive scenes of all time. On the surface, the idea of raising a fighter and sending it away to do battle is highly accessible — and indeed, for tournamentsthat allow file submission, you don’t even need to attend the actual tour to see your Figure Player’s results! Unfortunately, hosting and entering file submission competitions requires the use of amiibo Powersaves,and while they aren’t all that expensive, it’s an additional barrier to entry nonetheless. For the longest time, we had no choice but to host file submission tournaments — that is, until Nintendo added amiibo compatibility to online Battle Arenas.You would think the struggles of hosting amiibo tours would end there, but that isn’t the case: Battle Arenas are actually quite difficult to work with, and for a variety of reasons.
