Making a Betta Spirits Meta

by Doc

When it comes to making amiibo tournaments that have legalized Spirits, you’ve got basically two options.

1. Ban the five best spirits, resulting in most amiibo running a 2100/2100 loadout with three spirit slots that slightly buff their overall attack.
2. Don’t ban the five best spirits, resulting in most amiibo running a 2100/2100 loadout with three spirits slots dedicated to one of the five best spirits and Movement Speed Up or Trade-Off Ability, if there’s a slot left over.

…It’s not a very fun meta. But what if there’s a third option that opens the door for vastly more optimal spirits amiibo loadouts?

Many of the non-optimal spirits aren’t optimal for one reason: time. They either last for a very short amount of time, or they’re only around for the first stock, or both. If you give your amiibo Giant, it’ll only last for 8 seconds, and then go away. If you give them Beam Sword Equipped, they only get the Beam Sword for the first stock. It ain’t great.

So… what if we just did one-stock matches, and set up the rules as Best of 3? We could set it to high stamina and experiment with how long matches usually take so we get a good pace without losing a lot of action, and using the Best of in the Advanced Rules allows us to still incorporate other stages. Item spirits should be left legal to keep the optimal spirits from ever becoming too centralized.

Suppose we went forward with this ruleset – would the Big Five spirits still be the best?

Well… maybe not. Maybe.

Giant would become a lot more viable – while it only lasts for 8 seconds, the tremendous damage output in that time could turn the match before it’s even begun, regardless of what kind of defensive Big Five spirit your opponent is running.

Metal might as well. It lasts for 13 seconds, and would negate a lot of what Giant would do to it. It would also be able to tank any major hits given to it, as if it were Super Armor to the extreme. I doubt it would be as effective as Giant.

Home-Run Bat Equipped would be a serious wild card, if it was allowed to be edited on – while the amiibo would probably just throw it, it’s a very powerful item to throw. And if they used it properly, they could land a KO. HRB is a real knockout of an item. But as I said, it’s not something you can put on your amiibo through legitimate methods.

(Ba-dum-tiss).

Bob-Omb Equipped would be in the same boat as HRB, but with a timer on it. They’re both throwable, but Bob-Omb doesn’t have the option for a Home Run like HRB does. It’s a much riskier item because you can’t reuse it.

If the amiibo AI could use the Ray Gun so that it juggles, then Ray Gun Equipped might even be a useful spirit against heavies. It’d be the perfect anti-meta spirit: useless against lightweights that can DI or jump out of the juggle, but heavies get carried to the blastzone.

Critical-Health Giant might be a more optimal version of Giant, at least if we’re not using stamina. Without stamina it would probably last longer and keep the user alive for long enough to KO their opponent. With stamina, it makes them an easier target.

I think this ruleset has a lot of potential, especially with the item spirits! I may even host a tournament on it myself.