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

by RAPJM

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Howdy, I’m RAPJM and today I’ll be talking about the Ken amiibo. I’ve been labbing him for awhile, and have trained around 40 bin files of the Ken amiibo.

Doc note: As I’ve explained on the Youtube channel, the Ken amiibo is a hash brown of an amiibo, generally considered to be beyond salvage. Don’t get your hopes up with Ken.

AI Issues

It’s well known that Ken isn’t the smartest, which is why he’s so low on the tier list. Ken has a few moves that he’ll try to combo into Up Special, which makes him SD when he’s close to the ledge.

He’ll also try to combo Down Tilt into Up Special, but he’ll randomly reverse Up Special for seemingly no reason whatsoever. This leaves him very, very often for a punish and he will also SD if he’s near the ledge.

Ken will also try to connect his Back Air into Up or Side Special, which also causes him to SD if he’s offstage.

It’s… not a great situation.

Overall Playstyle

Ken amiibo should stay grounded as much as possible. He has nothing really going for him in the air. At a distance, Ken should be throwing out Hadoken, and you can mix it up between the fast press, long press and command input Hadokens. Hadoken is your “neutral” option.

When up close, Ken should apply both Shoryuken (Up Special) and Forward Smash, but Shoryuken is the higher priority move here. Shoryuken is one of the moves that really carries Ken, and a lot of his damage will stem from using Shoryuken properly.

At point-blank range, Ken should focus on Up Tilt. Up Tilt is useful because it keeps the opponent airborne briefly, giving the Ken amiibo plenty of opportunities to use Shoryuken should it decide to. Even without Shoryuken, Up Tilt is at least useful for building damage on the opponent.

How to Train the Ken Amiibo in Smash Ultimate

Your main move will be Shoryuken (Up Special). Shoryuken is a strong multihit move and it doubles as an anti-air option. You should focus on Shoryuken throughout the training, but focus on it especially in the early levels of the amiibo. Don’t forget to put in Forward Smash at middle range, though – Shoryuken is a better move, but Forward Smash’s somewhat longer horizontal range and different KO angles means it can bring its own utility to the table. It sometimes KOs when Shoryuken otherwise wouldn’t.

Ken has a built-in combo, allowing him to chain Up Tilt to Forward Tilt to Shoryuken. We like that combo. However, Ken can also be easily taught to spam Up Tilt on accident. We don’t like that combo. Be careful when teaching Up Tilt, and don’t be afraid to quit mid-match to prevent him from learning Up Tilt spam you may have taught him.

Hadoken is your neutral move, but Ken really shouldn’t be in neutral all that often. Use Hadoken infrequently, and focus more on getting up close to the opponent.

When the opponent is falling, Ken should use Up Smash and Shoryuken as anti-air options to “catch” them. During training, if you have hit your Ken amiibo into the air and it’s moving back and forth to return to the stage unharmed, use Up Smash and Shoryuken to hit him back into the air.

When you’ve been hit into the air by your Ken amiibo, use these moves to land (in order of decreasing importance):

• Down Air
• Forward Air
• Back Air
• Neutral Air

Why It Works

Focusing on a grounded playstyle lets Ken rack up damage with his short-range moveset, and zone out the opponent with Hadoken. By focusing on KOing the opponent in close-range interactions, Ken reduces his bad matchups to the more ranged side of the roster.