People who are actually trying to rate Pikachu below top 15 miss a lot of things about the character. I get that people like
NairWizard
and
Trifroze
are credible, but it really doesn't excuse the ways people talk about the character in this thread (which are off-base with virtually the entire community at large). Look, virtually no one thinks Pikachu is top 5 anymore. That's not an audience. However, putting Pikachu in the top tier bubble and as a real top 10 contender -- these are not based on empty reasoning. It's the credible opinion of many top players and individuals throughout the community and to imply that all these people are somehow stupid is a bit presumptuous.
First of all, let's look at his representation. It's not the best top tier representation, but it's a lot better than many characters and is literally the first thing people go after. A solo Pikachu main (most of the time) has achieved top 8 placings at multiple national tournaments, at a couple even making grand finals. This is a lot more significant than people realize. Let's go with the sample size of CEO 2015, EVO 2015, Super Smash Con, Paragon LA, TBH5, MLG, and Genesis 3 for the purpose of supermajors. The following characters have made top 3 at these tournaments:
7x,
6x,
5x,
4x,
2x,
1x
ESAM is one of 7 total players and uses one of 6 total characters to ever make top 3 at a supermajor. This isn't luck, and it's not just ESAM's skill. Skill doesn't get you through gauntlets of top tiers and highly skilled players for these types of placings. Look, I get that ESAM has a couple inconsistent placings (Paragon LA and Genesis 3), but it's stretching to say that ESAM getting 13th spells doom and gloom for the character. He lost to really good players, matchup inexperience is a thing in this game (ESAM doesn't even live in a good region that would help this), and not everyone is consistent. ESAM gets far more hate than anyone else for being inconsistent and far less praise than virtually anyone else for the top placings he
does have (I didn't really feel like going further than top 3 was necessary but you can do that if you really want, ESAM is 4/7 top 8 and 7/7 top 16 which is better than many top players).
Who are the rest of Pikachu's representatives? He's not a well-represented character in terms of sheer numbers, but might as well mention who else plays him. NAKAT has brought ZeRo to the brink of defeat with Pikachu more than once and has achieved good results in his (spotty) tournament attendance. He plays multiple characters so you don't always see the Pikachu, but NAKAT is a representative that people often dismiss just because he likes to play Ness. The best Pikachu in Japan is Shimitake, who isn't really as good as the other top players in the country. But he's still done things like recently taking a game off 9B's Bayonetta at a recent tournament, as well as beating Earth and Kie to make top 8 at Sumabato 8. In recent months he's also beaten players like Umeki and Saiya. There's some other players who have done well at a local level like Z and Captain L.
Let's take a couple other characters we call top tier. Villager has Ranai, a top contender, and like one somewhat threatening player (MJG who is known for his inconsistency). Ryu's best representative (9B) completely dropped Ryu and in general got very inconsistent placings with him. Trela's placings are pretty whatever if you look at a national scale. Sonic has a lot of players, but his national level representation pretty much boils down to 6WX (who is a top player) and StaticManny (who is high level) with Komorikiri rarely using him at this point. With these things in mind, it's a bit perplexing to me that people don't consider Pikachu a top tier character based on representation alone. For some reason people care a lot about random local players doing well... His national level representation is superior to Ryu's and on par with that of Sonic and Villager. All of these characters are considered top tier without a second thought, and no one even brings up their representation as a factor. But when it comes to Pikachu, suddenly the floodgates are open.
Wanna talk matchups? I legitimately want to know who people think Pikachu loses to besides Mario, Ness, and maybe Luigi/G&W. It's not Rosa (every Rosa main is laughing at you when you say this), he's not even with ZSS (wins), he doesn't lose to post-patch Sheik, there's many arguments for him beating Bayonetta, he's argued to beat Ryu, and he's no worse than even with Cloud, Fox, Diddy, post-patch MK, Sonic, or Villager. This notion that he loses to swords is hilarious to me because by most accounts and the evidence we have he beats Corrin, Ike, Roy, Marth, Robin, Lucina, and whatever other 'sword character' you wanna bring up. There's substantial evidence that ESAM losing to SlayerZ's Peach is a player, not a character problem (Shimitake beats the Japanese Peaches, Umeki and Kie). Almost everyone agrees (I hope) that he doesn't actually lose to Dr. Mario. I guess he could lose to...Lucario? ffs post-patch Sheik has a worse spread of losing matchups than this (Rosa, Sonic, Mario, Lucario). Villager loses to the top 3 characters. Ryu loses to Rosa, Bayonetta, Sonic, Diddy, and Pikachu. 'Heavily overrated matchup spread' and 'worse than other top tiers' my ***. Learn something about this character's matchups and think for a second before you make generalized statements with literally zero evidence supporting this. Ness has MUCH worse matchups (virtually unwinnable vs Rosa & quite bad matchups against characters like Villager and Sheik still).
fsr people are always like Pikachu doesn't have enough advantageous matchups but he beats
and arguably
(says all of ESAM, ZeRo, and MVD)
(says both ESAM and Larry). I didn't comment on a few like
that I don't understand personally and there isn't evidence to suggest either way.
Lacking neutral? You have to be kidding me. He has among the best ground mobility in the cast, including a great foxtrot and perfect pivot, combined with the single best overall mobility tool in the game via Quick Attack. He has a disjointed forward air that is safe on shield if safed properly, a down air that is safe on shield, dtilt for lagless spacing, a projectile, a good grab to punish overshielding (including throw combos, incredible positional throws to transition into Pikachu's brutal edgeguards), one of the safest and most disjointed forward smashes in the game that he can space with on shield and for counterapproaches if spaced properly (watch ESAM play or play vs any decent Pikachu if this concept doesn't make sense to you), and frame 3 nair oos. Quick Attack means that he can punish commitments and threaten space at virtually any distance; it's by no means a perfect approach tool, but the mixups and speed that is oppressive against certain characters make it a very effective move. This stuff about Pikachu being forced to overcommit in neutral situations is nonsense. He has to commit somewhat to
kill (unlike certain characters in this game...), but this is a lot different than the stuff people suggest.
NairWizard
you underrate Pikachu's advantage state by a longshot. Pikachu has great mobility and options to juggle as well as punish landings. Forward smash and up smash are some of the meatiest landing punishes in the game, and Pikachu has the mobility to grab landings effectively which puts him in a position to exact his edgeguards and solid ledge pressure. Up air is quick and can keep people in the air, as well as lead into follow-ups that hit people off-stage. If a character can get too far away with an option like Bouncing Fish, Flip Kick, ABK, whatever, Pikachu has the mobility via Quick Attack to get there. He can also use Quick Attack itself to cover landings. The other part of advantage, when an opponent is off the stage, is Pikachu's specialty. He has the best edgeguarding in the game and great ways to cover typical ledge options (namely dair and fsmash). Pikachu is known for being able to get damage on and even gimp vs anyone and everyone with his Thunder walls, back air, nair, w/e.
Quick Attack also gives Pikachu one of the best disadvantage states in the game. Look, he struggles to kill, and yes that does matter. He has a throw 50/50, strong smashes, and top tier edgeguarding. Not everyone is good at killing. Sonic and post-patch Sheik stick out like sore thumbs, and once people stop falling for some of the gimmicks that Sheiks are getting away with right now she'll be even worse at killing. Mario has no kill setups whatsoever and pretty much relies on a roll behind back throw or someone to land on him so he can get an up smash. Killing is just one aspect regardless and it's not like Pikachu can't kill whatsoever; he just struggles a bit, which isn't even that abnormal among top tiers. Ya'll need to stop bandwagoning and actually think these things through yourself.
