Poochie is an enigma - she's the first amiibo trained in our home, raised mostly by my girlfriend while neither of us had a clue what we were doing with these things. Somehow, through just goofing off, she became the best amiibo we own - I've tried putting others through strict training regimens, and still they can't touch this thing. I can't exactly recall her customs, but I know she has the Toad that sprays spores without needing to counter and a modified Up + B, but I don't know exactly which one. So, I thought I'd see how she'd do "for reals."
The first tournament was an amiibo + Trainer Duo, friendly-fire off, single elimination, one round (last round was best 2 out of 3). I got there a few hours early to mingle, saw some people setting up 8-player matches with a mix of amiibos and players, and I thought I'd see how she'd do. I entered her alone on that machine, but then the machine next to me opened up so I started playing separate from her. I lost track of time. About 20 minutes later I realized Poochie was still in these FFAs, and I asked them to take her out. I let them save her too, but I was a little worried - apparently she did well, landing third place in a few matches and racking up a lot of kills, but I'd heard stories about how 8 Player FFAs can ruin a perfectly good amiibo. I'd have to wait and see what effect it had.
The tourney was starting, and there were apparently criteria that needed to be met - no stat could be over 120, and certain abilities were banned. The guy verified her, saw she was pure, and asked if I wanted to feed her anything off his Wii since she might be outplayed by the buffed amiibos. Reluctantly, I agreed - I got all three of her stats slightly positive, and gave her a Mirror Shield. More unpredictability. Could I trust that she'd handle these last-minute adjustments?
I had the second-to-latest buy, so I had to wait to wait all the way until almost the end of round 2 to play. Fortunately, I got to see everybody else's playstyle ahead of time. Of note were a Ganondorf with some interesting customs are (he was getting star KOs with Flame Choke, his Wizard Punch used the sword, and his down+B was the one with more horizontal distance and a blue flame) and a Little Mac with No Flinch Smash. There were also two pairings of Ness/Ness, both of which landed top 8.
As for me and Poochie, we made it far. First couple of rounds, I was worried about the last minute changes, and it seemed I got almost all of the kills - but she still played fine, acting as a sturdy damage soak and a distraction. Since FF was off, my strategy was to follow her and capitalize on any distractions she caused. Things turned around in Rounds 4 and 5... both games, the trainers wisely focused me down - but Poochie carried me. Round 4, she had all 6 KOs to my 0. Round 5, I was knocked out and my opponent still had his amiibo and himself in - and Poochie beat them both by herself. she was 5 to my one. People were commenting left and right about how scary this Peach was.
We made it to finals. It was us against that cheesy Little Mac and his trainer, a Charizard. The trainer was actually not that good at all - and when I noticed this, I realized we were in a lot of trouble. I turned to focus on the Little Mac - I shielded an uncharged forward-smash, and he broke my shield from nearly full health. Every time we tried to attack him, he'd respond with a smash that couldn't be interrupted. A fully charged smash attack was dealing 76% in one shot.
It ended as best it could - we made it to game 3, and both the opposing trainer and me were knocked out, leaving Poochie and Little Mac alone together for their final stock. Everyone was rooting, the crowd was split evenly, people were taking bets.
Sadly, Poochie just couldn't do anything to this cheesy Mac. Even when she'd land a good smash, he'd hardly flinch. Both his attack and defense were raised as high as was tournament legal. Still, we made it to 2nd, and Poochie earned the respect of the crowd. This was one of the funnest tournaments I'd attended, and it's the farthest I've made it in a Smash 4 tourney - but I couldn't have done it without Poochie.