Up until this point, the amiibo meta has largely been a horizontally-based one. All of the top tiers in the amiibo meta are very horizontally potent. Incineroar has Alolan Whip, Bowser has Forward Smash, Ness has PK Fire, etc. Everything in A+ and up has some sort of powerful horizontal tool that’s integral to their moveset.
I think Banjo’s Wonderwing will absolutely crush these higher tiers.
Wonderwing is damn near one of the most broken moves in the game, and it’s only held back by the fact that it’s a single hit (making it parryable), and has limited uses. I see two likely possibilities for the final Banjo amiibo product as far as Wonderwing goes.
- He uses Wonderwing as an attack/recovery whether he has uses or not
- He uses Wonderwing as an attack/recovery but only when he uses
If #1 comes to pass, the amiibo tier list is safe. Banjo will have good matchups against a lot of high tiers so long as it uses it how you’d expect one to use it, but it won’t be anything so ridiculous that it upsets everything about amiibo. It beats PK Fire (if it gets started before Banjo is hit by PK Fire), Boomerang, possibly Alolan Whip but I’d have to check that, and just about any other form of Super Armor. If Banjo can use Wonderwing properly then it’ll bypass a lot of the best options that the high tier amiibo have.
He’ll be held back by the fact that he will use it without having any Wonderwings left, leaving him vulnerable and very easy to KO. So he won’t become absolutely dominant.
But let’s say for a second that #2 is the case. Then we’re in trouble.
If he doesn’t have the AI flaw and knows when he’s got Wonderwings to use, and when he doesn’t, then there’s really nothing that we can point to that’s going to keep him down. There’s always the possibility that upcoming amiibo will have some sort of AI flaw or weird AI oddity (Hero having very unusual Menu usage is a good example of this), but Wonderwing is the sort of move that seems pretty easy to program. It’s effectively Falcon Kick with limited usage, so there’s similar AI precedent.
If Banjo can beat out every high tier’s horizontal options, then… he may end up being another top tier.
Amiibo Doctor 