This MU is -1.5 without customs. It's not a full counter like Meta Knight. I've taken sets off of equally skilled Pikachus and Buns has beaten ESAM before. But this matchup is way too difficult for a soft counter rating to do it justice.
I have no clue what the MU is with customs.
Anyway, this MU is dumb. All of Pikachu's options are incredibly safe and his mixup options are frightening and often almost completely unpredictable due to, in addition to all of his safe aerials, his incredibly fast up b that allows him to move twice and has very, very little endlag even when it isn't cancelled. It's lag is virtually nonexistent when it is. Of course I should expect one of the only chars to currently be considered even with Sheik to dominate this MU.
First off, I hope Lylat gets banned because that stage is basically an autowin for Pikachu in just about any matchup, let alone this one. ESAM can probably attest to this.
Anyway, to the matchup!
- Pikachu completely dominates neutral thanks to a projectile that can only be punished with a dash attack out of well-timed gravity pull. If the Pikachu knows how to space, this simply isn't happening. Besides that he has a very difficult to punish quick attack and his aerials, especially due to the increased shieldstun, are extremely safe on shield. His neutral is absolutely frightening for the same reasons as Sheik, except his aerials are also extremely varied and many of them knock away Luma.
- Pikachu's shield pressure is insane thanks to his low lag aerials, especially considering he can easily aerial behind us and then respond with an up tilt before we can do anything (with one exception). Our OoS is noticeably poor (probably worst or second worst behind ZSS amongst all of the top tiers) and I am NOT about to nair out of shield to hit a target behind me that could potentially evade and kill me with a usmash. Ridiculous.
- Quick Attack is overpowered. It combos into a lot of stuff, allows him to get out of a lot of stuff, and if the opponent isn't being dumb, it's a free recovery and a free way to get back onto the stage and get stage control.
- His killing options are much more limited, having virtually none when onstage and in the air. However, his grounded killing options are so good this is barely an issue. He can kill off of a grab and the window is so hard to react to. In addition his small size combined with his surprisingly large usmash range makes it very difficult to space around and its quick speed makes it a really nice punish.
- His punishes hurt so bad. Uthrow to thunder and usmash both kill around 100ish. God forbid you have to recover against him either, since that's basically a free 20 damage. You can't recover high too often either, since Thunder will spike you to your death.
- By far the most insulting part about fighting Pikachu is how if he's next to you in the air, he basically has free rain to throw out an aerial thanks to how stupid fast they are. There are very few situations in which we can actual win in a situation like that.
He also subverts many of Rosalina's biggest strengths thanks to his natural features and his moveset:
- Zoning is very difficult thanks to him being able to up b through anything that is remotely laggy. It's completely ineffective on stages with platforms since he can simply edge cancel an up b over us, or for the less tech-savvy (since edge-cancelling is not easy), simply land on a platform because of the amazing distance covered by quick attack).
- Juggles are difficult outside of the standard low-percent guaranteed combos thanks to his small size and his ability to fastfall into an aerial as a mixup, as well as his ability to simply jump away and up b to safety. His aerials also squish him against the ground during their endlag, making our usmash and grab both miss.
- Gimping and the offensive offstage game are almost impossible. Pikachu has had one of the best recoveries (in one case the best recovery) since Smash 64. There are like no options outside of a ledge trump or a hard read.
- Punishes are bleh. Similar to Meta Knight and Sheik, due to the very short amounts of endlag on all of his aerials in addition to the amount of different positionings he can have when hitting your shield with one, attempting to punish is very difficult. Unless punishing a dair itself, all aerial punishes have to be reactions too. No guessing, because dair as a mixup covers any attempted punish at anything else. To make it worse, his aerials have a similar ridiculous effect as Yoshi, dodging our grabs. He can also duck for the same effect, IIRC.
- If we're knocked off-stage for any reason, Luma dies. If he decides to fair in neutral, Luma dies. If we get taken to a stage as small as smashville, Luma dies.
Meta Knight is able to combo floaties to death for some dumb reason, but if he was designed in a way that let floaties have their primary advantage, then Pikachu would be our worst matchup.
One thing about Pikachu is that he can't score kills on-stage in the air, so don't be afraid to challenge him in the air at higher percents. At lower percents it's just free damage but with the chance we can hit an aerial, he has no reason at all to challenge us in a high-percent situation. Unless he can hit the ground and usmash, you have almost nothing to worry about here.
In fact, the best strategy in this MU is to jump in the air. It's his ground game that hurts against us, and usually his aerials only connect out of combos or if he's right next to us. But he can't be right next to us from neutral unless he runs up to us or he quick attacks us. One of them puts him right under us if we jump and the other one leaves him in special fall. If that doesn't make sense, just trust me on this. Go play some friendlies and jump around in neutral. Tell me what happens.
On another note, I've figured out why mid and mid-high-level Pikas have so much trouble with Mario despite ESAMericus saying it's even: it's because they can't just throw out unpunishable hitboxes against him. He can counter with his own free moveset.
