Ultimate just had its 1.2 patch released, and you can keep track of the changes here, on Smashboards. About a dozen characters were modified, but as of this writing there’s almost no information on what exactly was changed. All we know is that those characters have been altered in some way.
This is the first real balance patch for Ultimate, but it shouldn’t have much of an affect on the amiibo metagame. There’s not really a metagame yet, and that’s okay. We just started wtih this game. Despite that, there is something of note to mention: Isabelle is listed as having been changed. My current experimentation with Isabelle indicates that she’s one of the better amiibo (she’s beaten both Marios, and tomorrow she’s going to tackle the Inkling I just hand-trained) so keeping an eye on her is important.
Our first balance patch does give me another chance to recommend reading the Making a Meta post I wrote a week or two ago. Of everything in that post, and of everything I’ve ever written here, I want my readers to understand one thing. I want my readers to understand that the four ways to change the amiibo metagame are:
- Discovery and application of strategy and information
- New amiibo and content
- Balance patches
- Ruleset changes
This last week has been chock full of discovery of information, which is the foundational block of every metagame. There’s no ruleset quite yet, nor have any new amiibo been released. They won’t be released until February, so hopefully we’ll have established a meta by then.
This is our first example of a balance patch in action, and despite it being a small patch (it seems) this is still something to celebrate. Get out the champagne, card everyone and then have a swig.
Post-publishing note:
It turns out that amiibo that are AI trained from level 1 always have the Normal personality! It seems the in-built AI is the embodiment of Normal personality, while people provide the rest. I dunno.
Amiibo Doctor 