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Shadows Mode

1,057
100
6
3.23
43,899
1,039 (2%)
8-10h
Shadows Mode

Shadow Apprentice achievement in Killer Instinct

Shadow Apprentice

Have a Shadow reach 20 matches played.

Shadow Apprentice0
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How to unlock the Shadow Apprentice achievement

  • LifeExpectancyLifeExpectancy
    06 Jun 2015 06 Jun 2015 06 Jun 2015
    If you're a lonely schlub like me who doesn't have any friends, this is a way to knock out Shadow Apprentice, Bounty Hunter, and eventually Shadow Ruffian if necessary if no one is challenging/beating your shadow at all from day to day.


    1. Create a shadow on both your main account and a dummy account (remember dummy accounts share your Xbox live gold on XB1), playing through the 3 practice matches. DO NOT MOVE AT ALL during the practice matches other than to throw one or two quick punches. Save your shadow data after the practice matches are over.

    2. Play ONE survival match against a random opponent's shadow. Again, DO NOT MOVE AT ALL except for one or two quick punches. Save your shadow data. This step probably isn't necessary but I did it so I added it here.

    3. On either account, CHALLENGE the other account's shadow and defeat it. DO NOT SAVE YOUR SHADOW DATA after this match. This way your shadow (whether it be your main or the dummy) doesn't get any "better" and will always stand still.

    4. Switch accounts to the one that was challenged and defeated, and play the bounty match against the other, defeating it as quickly as you can, but again DO NOT SAVE YOUR SHADOW DATA after the match. Just back out to the Shadow Lab so the win/loss for each account saves to the server.

    5. Switch accounts to the other one and defeat the bounty match in the same method. Another reminder, DO NOT SAVE YOUR SHADOW DATA after the match. The idea is to keep getting your bounty wins without 'improving' either account's shadow.

    6. Rinse and repeat, switching back and forth and defeating the bounties without saving the shadow data until you have your 25 wins. You'll get Shadow Apprentice in the process. It should take 1.5-2 hours with all the down time/loading time between matches to get Shadow Apprentice and Bounty Hunter. For Shadow Ruffian you're looking at 4x that or roughly 6-8 hours of grinding. Hopefully you still need fight challenges with the characters currently available. Why the hell we can't use the latest fighters so we can work on THEIR challenges is beyond me.

    Here's a video tutorial:

    Guide not helping? View 2 more guides for this achievement.

    Showing most recent comments. View all comments.
    SpeedyCrossfirereally hope so been trying this for ages :(
    Posted by SpeedyCrossfire On 30 Jun 20 at 22:11
    MIGHTYMILTON09Looks like this is has been fixed now. Just managed to unlock after the latest update.
    Posted by MIGHTYMILTON09 On 22 Oct 20 at 21:44
    BionicTriforceIs the Shadow Lab even a thing anymore ,I can't find it in the menu for the life of me.
    Posted by BionicTriforce On 02 Dec 20 at 18:19
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  • Runner eGirlRunner eGirl
    31 May 2015 01 Jun 2015
    For this achievement, your shadow has to be picked to fight against a human player. It doesn't matter if you win or lose, and it can be through Shadow Survival, Shadow Challenges or Bounties.

    If you challenge a friend (or several friends) and beat them, they will be able to go to the Shadow Activity menu (press Y in the main menu for the Shadow Lab) and fight your shadow for a bounty. If they beat your shadow, you will be able to do the same and go back and forth until someone loses. Each of these fights (the ones where your shadow fights obviously) will count towards your 20 matches played. If shadows are weak, you pretty much can go all the way to 20 and even 100 matches for the corresponding achievement.

    If someone loses when it was their turn to win, the other player can in turn send a challenge and get the flow going again.

    NOTE: This has to be done with the same shadow, if you have more than one shadow, make sure you pick the same one every time.
    Showing most recent comments. View all comments.
    Runner eGirlJust to make sure, when you say you did it through shadow survival you mean that your shadow got randomly picked by random players who were playing shadow survival? Since it's your shadow that has to "play" the matches, that means that you don't actually get to fight. If you played shadow survival by facing other people's shadows, then that doesn't count as your shadow fighting.
    Posted by Runner eGirl On 16 Aug 17 at 15:29
    ModifiedMag8Oh ok. That makes sense. I was just doing basic shadow survival matches in the lab. Thanks for the response!
    Posted by ModifiedMag8 On 17 Aug 17 at 04:50
    Runner eGirlnp, glad I could help :)
    Posted by Runner eGirl On 17 Aug 17 at 14:39
  • MR MITT3NSMR MITT3NS
    29 Mar 2021 30 Aug 2022 30 Aug 2022
    tldr: Tired of trying to keep up with who you've done what with for achievements? Click my spreadsheet link below and start tracking it!

    This is not a specific guide but more so a checklist along with some tips for tackling this game as a whole. There are other excellent, very detailed guides for unlocking each specific achievement.

    Background
    When I decided to start Killer Instinct from scratch in early 2021 (began 3/26/21 and finished 6/21/21), I decided that I needed a way to guide and track my progress to completion in the most efficient way possible. With a base game of 94 achievements and 28 DLCs which is composed of 23 characters, a ranked MP DLC (League Title Update), a story mode (similar to MK's ladder system), an RPG type mode (Shadow Lords 1 & 2), and Shadow Mode (machine learning type bot simulator) that made up another 370 achievements, this game was going to take some time and coordination.

    Info
    I created a spreadsheet by exporting all of the Achievement Titles, Achievement Descriptions, and Gamerscore from TA. I added the following columns:

    • Order: to keep the initial achievement order
    • BASE/DLC: determines if the achievement was part of the base game or one of the DLCs
    • Release Date: for sorting purposes
    • Type: I created 23 "Types" of achievements in this game, most are repetitive across characters (i.e. win versus match with [insert character])
    • Character: let's you know which character the achievement applies to. There are 29 characters in total. Some achievements are assigned to "Any" meaning those do not apply to a specific character. Omen does not follow the normal DLC achievement path rather it has 5 random achievements tied to it.
    • Unlocked: put an "x" in the cell if you have unlocked it. This ties in with the Pivot tab where you refresh the pivot tables to show your percentage complete.
    If you decide to use the spreadsheet, start by deleting all of the x's in the Unlocked column on KI TA tab (not to be confused with the KI TA sortable tab which is used for sorting to your hearts desire without messing with your main tab). Once you start filling in "x" 's in the KI TA tab, you can refresh the Pivot tab to see your progress based on Type and/or Character.

    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15H3gCJi-Jlv7KOkrHUn0...

    I hope this spreadsheet helps for anyone starting this beast of game that is quite fun. It was more time consuming than challenging but overall I really enjoyed it.

    Tips:
    • Complete the Shadow Mode achievements first as these have broken in the past and were unobtainable for a while before they patched it.
    • Find a hardcore, dedicated group to boost ranked achievements. Playing this game legit online will take a while and will be pretty tough!
    • Try to have fun with Shadow Lords Mode, once I understood how it worked (which just took playing it a while) it was a lot of fun!
    • Keep a second controller handy for some of the Fight Challenges. For example, blocks can be done easily by rubber banding your main controller to block while you perform a move with the second controller.
    • If you haven't already, read through the Walkthrough. It was well done up to the point before the writer quit updating it. For the rest, read through the guides and of course, the comments on the guides for good info.
    Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions to make the spreadsheet better.
Do you have a question about this achievement? Please post it in the Killer Instinct Forum