The Beginner’s Guide to Training the Corrin Amiibo in Smash Ultimate

By Spike, Regular Contributor, putting the “er” in “gamer”

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Hey, readers! I’m Spike, one of the writers here, a fairly good amiibo trainer with over 30 wins in the scene at the time of writing, and the best Corrin in the competitive amiibo scene at the moment. I have multiple competitive scene Corrin wins to my name, so yeah, the guide you’re about to read is credible and meets Amiibo Doctor standards and all that.

I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned it before, but I always feel like this little section at the top where I go over my credibility is better used for some lighthearted poking instead. I mean, c’mon, this is an Amiibo Doctor guide. It’s going to be from someone credible.

A note- I’m going to refer to Corrin as female for this guide, because I used female alts for all of my Corrin amiibo. If you want, read the “she” and “her” as either male or nonbinary pronouns. I have better things to do than type out he/she/they fifty times.

AI Issues

Corrin has been blessed with an overall lack of major AI issues. I really had to think about it for a bit, but the only one of her AI flaws that can really be categorized as a major issue is her love for Neutral Special. Opponent’s on the other side of the stage? Even if you taught her to use Forward Smash and to get fairly close (as you should, I’ll go over that later), she’s still a fan of the shooty glowing ball. Opponent’s offstage? Well, even though both Forward Air and Neutral Air are amazing options that single-handedly destroy the likes of Little Mac, Ike, Chrom, and other mainly vertical recoveries, she’s going to use Neutral Special a lot.

I have no idea why. I’ve tried training Corrins without ever using or getting hit by Neutral Special, and using aerials offstage, and they still love their glowing death ball. Oh well, can’t do anything about it, just keep it in mind- and try to avoid being hit by your amiibo’s Neutral Special. You don’t want her using it more.

I suppose Side Special and Down Special are also AI issues, but both are pretty useless on the amiibo anyways.

Overall Playstyle

The optimal Corrin amiibo is essentially looking to play keep away. Keep the opponent away with Forward Smash, get them into the air, and juggle. You’re looking to rack up damage with jugging and kill with either offstage shenanigans or some sort of aerial kill, so you can safely ignore a lot of Corrin’s kill moves.

Moves To Avoid

• Side Special (the amiibo will mess up the timing, not follow through, and, above all, it’s really easily punished by other amiibo)
• Down Special (amiibo generally use counters wrong)
• Neutral Special (I’ve already been over this, the amiibo likes it way too much and you don’t want to encourage it)
• Back Air (just not as good as her other aerial options)
• Down Smash (you can get away with using it at the ledge, but don’t- it has an awkward hitbox and you’re better served with basically anything else)

How To Train Corrin

Corrin is super easy to train, but the difference between a good one and a bad one can be pretty small. You’re going to need to be careful to avoid teaching it bad habits, because just one flaw messes up the entire amiibo. Just be careful when training it and, with my advice below, your Corrin should run like a well oiled machine.

As with all amiibo, train by mirror matching so that you don’t have any easily avoidable weirdness.

Most competitive amiibo tournaments are vanilla (no Spirits), but if you want to add Spirits, do it before you start training. When you add Spirits, the amiibo basically gets randomized- there’s a value to each move that determines how often they use it, and adding Spirits changes the values. It’s better to fix any Spirit issues right off the bat than to screw over everything you’ve worked on after training it.

The best stat spread for Corrin is 2100/2100, as with most amiibo. In competitive amiibo tournaments with Spirits, the “Big Five” (Armor Knight, Autoheal, Great Autoheal, Super Armor, and Slow Super Armor) are usually banned on account of being completely overpowered, but if they aren’t (or you’re training this amiibo as a raid boss), Armor Knight with Move Speed Up is the best spread for Corrin. There’s also a case to be made for using Trade-Off Ability instead of Move Speed Up.

When the “Big Five” are banned, you can mix and match. Weapon Attack Up and Air Defense are both amazing, as is Trade-Off Ability. You can also try out Critical-Health Stats, or, if you’re completely crazy, Critical-Healing & Metal for a wild but risky defense buff.

Corrin training is split up into four distinct areas:

• On stage, where the goal is to get damage with Forward Smash and get the opponent into the air with a few other moves;
• Above stage, where the goal is to rack up damage with aerials;
• Juggling, where the opponent is in the air and Corrin will be keeping them there while racking up damage; and
• Off stage, where the goal is to kill the opponent by knocking them so far away they can’t recover

I’ll go over each one individually below.

On Stage

This is simultaneously the easiest and most difficult part of training. Corrin has four big moves here, and balancing them is the key to a good Corrin.

When the amiibo is far away, make sure you’re hitting it with Forward Smash. Forward Smash is an excellent way to rack up damage, and while not as essential as with other amiibo such as Shulk or Chrom, it should still be a good chunk of your on stage attacking.

When close to the opponent, you have two options- Forward Tilt or using Down Tilt to chain into Up Tilt to get the opponent airborne. Personally, I focused a lot more on Forward Tilt, simply because it’s a move that puts the opponent right where a good Forward Smash or Forward Aerial will smack them. Past Corrin trainers have been successful using a lot of Down Tilt into Up Tilt to rack up damage (amiibo don’t combo unless hardcoded to, but Corrin usually uses Up Tilt after Down Tilt, because the opponent is within range of Up Tilt and Up Smash and Up Smash is slower), but I didn’t want to focus on it. It’s just not efficient enough for me.

The last move in this segment is Dash Attack. You can close in on opponents with it, and you should use it sometimes to get close enough to your amiibo to hit it with a Forward Tilt. However, be careful not to use it more than once or twice a match- amiibo are pretty much frame perfect, and they’ll punish Corrin really badly if Dash Attack misses.

Make sure to shield sometimes on stage, as Corrin kind of needs the added defense in actual matches. She’s light enough that she struggles with heavy attacks, such as those carelessly tossed out by King K Rool, Donkey Kong or the majority of swordies, and shielding helps keep her around for longer.

Above Stage

Neutral Air or Down Air. Take your pick. I prefer Down Air because it gets the amiibo back to the stage quickly and gives it a chance to juggle, but you can have a good Corrin amiibo that engages in the air with Neutral Air.

DO NOT HIT YOUR CORRIN AMIIBO WITH DOWN AIR OFTEN. She’ll spam it fairly easily, though not as easily as Greninja or Zelda. Still, if you hit her with Down Air about 10% of the time, she’ll figure it out.

Juggling

This is where a lot of your Corrin amiibo’s damage and kills are going to come from. There’s two parts to this- Up Air chains, and catching landings with Up Smash or Up Tilt.

Up Tilt is kind of amazing. It’s going to catch landings often- use it. It spells death for larger amiibo that can’t avoid it, such as Donkey Kong or Ridley, and it’s fast enough to avoid being punished if avoided. Up Smash is something you should use less frequently, and it’s really better for attacking through platforms, but it’s something you should use on occasion. Just make sure the amiibo knows it.

Up Air chains are brutal, and brutal is good in amiibo. If you’re training the amiibo and it’s in the air above you, not going to land in the next second or so… use Up Air chains. They’re absolutely nuts in actual matches.

Off Stage

You basically have no control over this. Sorry. You can sort of steer Corrin in a particular direction, but she loves Neutral Special, and she’s going to use it.

You can try knocking the opponent away offstage with Neutral Aerial or Forward Aerial, or using Down Smash or even Forward Smash to knock them back down after they hop up from the ledge. Corrin will sort of pick up on what you use, but at the end of the day, yay, glowing death ball gun arm thingy.

Why Does It Work?

A lot of amiibo can’t match Forward Smash’s incredible range, and can’t sustain taking 20-30% every time Corrin gets close or gets them airborne. That’s the only reason Corrin actually works in the current meta, just outpacing the opponent’s damage and then killing, despite a lack of great kill moves.

In Conclusion

In amiibo, Corrin is a solid middle of the pack option. Despite Yoshi, a popular and good matchup, moving up a tier and no longer appearing in the B Tier tournaments I recommend Corrin for, she’s able to contend solidly with a majority of amiibo below her and a few above. She’s quite fun both to train and to watch, so give her a try… if you can find the figure for a decent price, which… yeah, good luck. Amiibo cards or Powersaves bins are also an option, though.

Until next time, 

Never Stop Training

-Spike

Geez, I need a better phrase to sign off with.