Amiibo Metagame Discussion

Defense isn't as important in doubles, I've learned, but it's still the end-all be-all for singles. I'm never going to become a truly seasoned doubles trainer - I'm going to continue focusing on singles, which is the most popular format. The "who gets the first hit" concept is indeed very important, but if an opponent is able to simply perfect shield all those attacks, it doesn't matter anymore.

The amiibo metagame itself is sort of lacking IMO. We've got Bowsers, Little Macs, and Nesses running around dominating everyone. All the other amiibo are still viable but are at an automatic disadvantage against the top amiibo. I think the metagame would be greatly improved if Bowser and Little Mac were removed as characters from Smash 4 entirely. That'd solve a lot of my problems.

Critical-hit capability being removed would hurt the metagame even more, as it would handicap characters like Meta Knight, Sheik, and Duck Hunt, who are weak and have trouble KOing, while fighters like Bowser and Ganondorf would continue to dominate thanks to their high attack power. The bonuses in the game, at this very moment, are balanced, believe it or not. It's the characters themselves who have advantages and disadvantages.

The metagame is a bit lacking. I mean, all the top amiibo's are just not defeating, but basically WRECKING other amiibos. If you dont enter a amiibo with good bonuses and at least top 15+, You can potentionally say goodbye to your win if your opponents at least are decent at training your amiibos.

And we don't have enough support for Doubles to see if there even IS a metagame there. We're still debating on things like "Team Attack ON or OFF?" or "Should ____ be bannned?" If it even has a metagame, its basically one huge LUCK. ESPECIALLY if team attack is on.


TL;DR More people need to join and help fix the metagame for amiibos, and we need MANY more people to support training for Doubles. There is a lacking metagame on singles, and almost no metagame at all on Doubles- just LUCK.

Well, its obvious if you dont all work together, nothing will get done. We could try to host as much local tournaments, with them advertising the Dojo and AmiiboTrainer Podcast to get more trainers from the local area. To be honest, I dont know what we can do. But I do believe the metagame, one day, will launch. We can just hope.

I feel like banning equipment will create a slippery slope. For example, in my local amiibo scene, the TO has banned all healing gear, Explosive shield, and Mirror shield, which means practically everything that improves an amiibos shield game. I was able to dominate the last tournament because I had Critical Hit. With no good shield customs, breaking a shield was as easy as tearing a wet tissue. In fact, 3 of my amiibo entered the last tournament because I let 2 friends borrow mine. The top 4 included 2 of my amiibo, Lucario and Ness, as well as a Mac and Zelda. The only one of my 3 that didn't make top 4? A Dr. Mario with, frankly, poor gear (increased double jump and lateral movement? Seriously?) So what about finals? It ended up being my Lucario and my Ness that my friend borrowed. They both had Critical hit and just tore through each side of the bracket. So, then, what happens if/when Critical Hit is banned? I'll just find the next best thing, expose it, and then let it consume the metagame until it's banned. What will we even have left? To further support the theory that gear shouldn't be banned: That mediocre Dr. Mario? He won the last tournament that was hosted. In fact, he ran through and completely dominated the winners bracket. And he beat a Mac in Grand Finals. It was close, but he did it. Gear is not completely dominating, as long as there is a balanced ecosystem, in my opinion anyway.

There's two ways to approach balance: Weakening what is overly strong, or strengthening what is overly weak. The former is highly problematic, for reasons already discussed, so I'll advocate the latter.

One idea that came to me a while back for enabling greater diversity was hilariously simple: Enable food.

Obviously, this makes the various Caloric bonuses viable, while also buffing up the more mobile characters. The Overloaded stat distribution's -200 speed, and the general trend of slow, tanky, top-tiers like Ganondorf or Bowser, also get a slight nerf because mobile characters will be better able to capitalize on the food spawns. On non-FD/Omega stages, the same applies to Little Mac. What's more, the healing offered by a food supply seems to balance out an amiibo's sense of priorities. From pitting my own amiibo against each other with food enabled, amiibo at higher %s would favor detours to pick up food, whereas ones in a more comfortable range would press their advantage. It added a simple extra element to their risk-vs.-reward calculations.

I would recommend a medium spawn rate, as higher spawn rates would make the Caloric Immortal bonus overpowered and possibly give the likes of Wario, DeDeDe, and Kirby (who can all get additional benefits from food healing) a bit too much extra advantage.

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Another general point is to possibly consider a more diverse stage variety. Obviously, the most skewed-in-favor-of-X stages aren't reasonable, but the basic idea of "repeat starting conditions will yield a repeat outcome" is sensible, no? Limiting the stages to FD/Omegas or Battlefield will only contribute to stagnation. 

I will note that I only have the 3DS version, but based on what I've seen from amiibo behavior there, these stages seem relatively fair for amiibo play:

Smashville: If it's kosher for human tourny play, it's fine for amiibo. 
Dream Land (64): See above.
Town and City: See above.
Duck Hunt: See above. 
(Note that Lylat Cruise is also legal in American tournaments, however I'm excluding it due to the amiibo tendency to get stuck on the edges and self-destruct, which is also why the stage is banned in Japan.)

Umbra Clock Tower: This stage is a personal favorite for training in addition to battling, as it perpetually shifts its platform conditions while keeping the central, main field a constant. I highly recommend this stage.

Midgar: As AWT 3 showed, this stage works out. Watching it, I didn't think it imbalanced conditions, and the Materia summons provide a cool backdrop, while not completely defining the match. As we saw, amiibo can be trained to handle the stage just fine, and Cloud's winning amiibo hadn't ever even played on Midgar before. Multiple times, one amiibo would get the summon materia, possibly multiple times, and then lose the battle anyway.

Anyone else have stage suggestions? In general, damaging hazards, off-screen places to stand (at the very least as a concession to viewership), and excessively favoring a category of fighters over others are good examples of stage features that probably aren't suited. 

I think the overloaded tanky amiibos will always exist because there is no rock beats scissors beats paper beats rock type of game play in Smash Bros. The game itself is not overly balanced, but player skill means a great deal. You can't just pick a specific character to counter another. In competitive play, there has been discussion of hard and soft counters to characters, but it doesn't really apply to amiibo. AI is different than humans and a highly skilled SSB4 player should beat amiibo all the time due to adaptability and more of a willingness to go for spikes and better edge guarding. Amiibo may skillfully edge guard at times, but I've never seen it consistently.

If Amiibo Dan continues to have different and unique tournaments, like the upcoming AWT #5, I think it will be fun coming up with new and different builds for them.