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Q&A Ask about Pikachu! Hosted by Axe and N64! feat. dkuo!

oukd

Smash Lord
Joined
Apr 21, 2010
Messages
1,464
This may not be a direct question about Pikachu but rather an issue I need to figure out regarding Pikachu.

Recently I've been switching characters and played Captain Falcon for variations, and I wonder if I should keep him as a secondary of some sort (and Pikachu as main) or drop him for now and focus fully on Pikachu. Now you will say "Play the one that's the most fun" but I don't want to have a secondary if it doesn't really benefit me, atleast not unless I'm good with one character.

To the question: Is there any matchup that Falcon is good at than Pikachu may not be? Can he be used instead of Pikachu versus some specific matchups? If not I may aswell try and become a good Pikachu player and then pick him up again or some other character.

TL;DR Is Captain Falcon better in any matchups than Pikachu is?
opinions over matchups vary a lot depending on who you ask, but falcon is for sure stronger vs peach and ics

i also think he does better vs mario, doc

unsure about these but maybe marth, puff, luigi

below that, idk
 
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Spyro

Smash Ace
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Oct 6, 2011
Messages
639
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Gallatin,Tennessee
Pikachu and falcon go well together, however the Sheik match up is still going to be pretty tough even with falcon. That's the only character I can think of that both of your characters with have trouble with.
 

Oaty

Smash Cadet
Joined
Apr 30, 2014
Messages
43
Location
Altamonte Springs, FL
How does the Samus MU generally go for Pika? I've been playing the MU quite frequently lately and have been wondering what everyone's general opinion was on it.
 

Cassio

Smash Master
Joined
Jul 1, 2011
Messages
3,185
and yeah, meeting chad and cassio was cool :)
cassio beat me in a pika ditto lol
lol, I forgot we dittod, I wanted to play your peach again. Our matches were more casual since we were mainly talking pika, all the info you gave me was seriously helpful especially since I have a lot to learn, its cool how much you know. See you at EVO if you're there.
 
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ChivalRuse

Smash Hero
Joined
Jun 13, 2007
Messages
8,413
Location
College Park, MD
How does the Samus MU generally go for Pika? I've been playing the MU quite frequently lately and have been wondering what everyone's general opinion was on it.
No idea, but I would imagine it's at least 60-40 in Samus' favor. D-smash and uair are like the only ways to avoid getting crouch cancel wrecked.
 

oukd

Smash Lord
Joined
Apr 21, 2010
Messages
1,464
im not going to evo :S have fun tho

@ Oaty Oaty i think most pikas agree its at least slight samus

killing her is easy thanks to usmash and gimpable recovery
getting through the initial tanky percents is super duper hard though
on top of that her keepaway game is above average thanks to her projectiles/ground moves, and compliments her heavy cc really well
 
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ChivalRuse

Smash Hero
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Jun 13, 2007
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It's not exactly easy to land up-smash on Samus. She can camp her shield pretty hard and punish a shielded up-smash with wd oos d-smash or grab.
 

oukd

Smash Lord
Joined
Apr 21, 2010
Messages
1,464
she cant punish with wdoos grab lol
but she can probably shieldgrab usmash because tether
maybe ill test this later idk

shieldcamping opens up shield crossup mixups
the threat of cc also goes away which makes counterattacks less problematic (outside of upb or bair maybe)

she also cant really do much coming down (outside of air movement) and you can usmash there
she can like...airdodge, bomb, or dair...you can probably trade with dair and certain bomb spacings

iono ~_~
 
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FourStar

Smash Ace
Joined
Feb 26, 2013
Messages
887
Location
NOR CAL
Ok so I was playing aMSa and the Japanese players PL and Loki at Toph's house and I came across a few things I wasn't sure how to do.

1. How the hell do you fight against Yoshi?????? I was so confused against aMSa and his nair was always beat out by mine so i didn't know how to approach him. D-tilts did nothing, short hop approaching u-airs were hard to land, and down smash was only effective for so long. However, I started to throw out f-airs and it seemed to work out better for restricting Yoshi's mobility. U-air is good as well but nothing seems to follow up well for some reason. Playing aMSa was crazy cuz that guy can combo for daysssss.

2. How do you edge guard a Samus? PL was doing the bomb jump and was always making it back no problem. I would even jump in the bombs to block his bomb jumps, but he still had no problem making it back. Other than that, PL was just outplaying me and i made simple mistakes in which he captialized and punished hard. Seriously, that guy's punish game is crazy good. He was beating Darrell and I believe PL two stocked him a few times.

3. Loki's Ganon is crazy good and he has crazy good spacing. So how do I approach Ganon with out taking crazy amount of damage and fist to the face? I mean, getting under Ganon made him really easy to combo but in the neutral game, what are some good options to make sure you beat out Ganon's spacing?

aMSa, PL, and Loki are crazy good so watch out for all three of them at EVO. Especially PL, because his Samus is probably one of the best, if not, the best in the world right now.
 

Palmerfan

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Mar 1, 2014
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Middletown, NJ
I'm not too keen on the samus matchup, but I know that if you can manage to snipe them with a jolt it seriously messes up their recovery

From what I've gathered, faking approaches is the best way to get in on Ganon. He doesn't really have a quick move, so almost anything he does is punishable. Focus on getting him to throw something out and punish him for it. Also, if hes sitting in shield, crossup nairs work pretty well since he doesn't have a shine or another move that hits behind him quickly OOS.
 

oukd

Smash Lord
Joined
Apr 21, 2010
Messages
1,464
ok so for yoshi, his punish game is much better than yours
however, your rising uair hitbox breaks yoshis armor and spikes him like falcos shine LOL
outside of that it takes a really long time to kill yoshi
so a lot of your time will be spent getting him offstage and nicking with rising uair
also the default yoshi mu advice is to respect parry and shielddrop options
understand that parry is PREEMPTIVE
also respect his dj armor on stage. if you dont think you can follow something up via true combo, its usually better to just leave it since yoshi will likely burn dj to superarmor through whatever followup you wanted to do (and once you demonstrate this knowledge to yoshi it becomes a mixup)

pl is ****ing amazing!
edgeguarding samus: honestly i dont know much about this
i hear jolt is really good. jolt vs low bombjumping, grounded-jolt vs stage-sticking recoveries (ie tether)
i think rising fair > falling tailspike would be a good way of interrupting stage-level bombjumps

i played loki in friendlies at a local. i beat him with pika but got 2 stocked as falco <_<
ganon outranges pika by far but you can generally just dd out of range and punish by dd > react. abuse your mobility
i dont think ganon can do anything about ledgestalling so dont worry too much about running out of space when pulling a 100% react > punish game
feints are good too as palmerfan said, since anything you bait out of ganon is probably punishable
 
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Palmerfan

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Are there any matchups where Pika is better than marth? I plan on having a YL for Puff and Peach, so they don't count.
If you're not confident in the Marth ditto, Pika/Marth is winnable for Pika. Also, Pika/Falcon is in Pika's favor, idk how marth does in the matchup.
 

N64

Smash Champion
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As palmerfan said, Pika can do ok vs Marth (depending on how comfortable you are with pika), and he does pretty well against falcon. I don't know Ganon vs Marth, but I think pika does pretty well against Ganon too. He probably also does comparably well against spacies as marth does. Other than odd low-tier matchups though, that's probably it.

I don't know a whole lot about pika vs yoshi (my yoshi experience is very outdated), but you have to respect his super armor. You will get wrecked if you don't. Pika dair is decent in this matchup because it will break his superarmor surprisingly early. I suspect dsmash (especially while behind him) should be decent too, because he can't reasonably parry it and can only get grab out of it if you're in front of him, and even then getting grabbed by yoshi isn't tooooo bad (though you should avoid it obviously). Just respect Yoshi's ability to take a hit/parry and punish you off of it. Go for more grabs than usual, hit him with uairs from far enough away that dj nair won't hit you, etc. And recognize that he can combo you really well, figure out how to DI his hits to give him the least followup options.

Against Samus, as dkuo and others mentioned you need to really be weary of her cc ability. You can't just charge in with nair like usual. Uair is decent because it breaks cc pretty early, and dair is actually ok for similar reasons. You also can't just hang back, though, as missles are tough to handle. Pick your moment, get in with an empty hop->grab or shffl dair, and get samus into the air. You can combo her a little due to her weight, but she is fairly floaty and nair will break her out of the combo if she's given any time out of hitstun. Just try to end your combo by knocking her off the stage or by staying below her and close by. Her aerials have decent hitboxes, but none of them are particularly safe. If she throws out a bomb/aerial to try to catch you, dodge and counter its lag with a usmash or aerial (or whatever option works for that situation). If she doesn't, either catch her with a uair anyways or put pressure on her when she lands, just remember her cc.
As for edgeguarding samus, jolts are pretty good if she's bomb jumping. If you hit her, great. If you hit one of her bombs, also great. Jolt can hug stages as well to potentially catch her hanging from grapple (though in most cases samus will opt to immediately retract to ledge). Ledgehogging works ok against samus with proper invincibility refreshing because you can throw a jolt or jump out after her and get her to use her second jump, limiting her options, and then ledgehog->nair/etc.

Ganon is ez. Sorta. Don't get hit. And, like you said, get under him. If Ganon is using an aerial, respect it. In fact, if Ganon is doing a move, respect it. You're not going to beat his anything, and even trading is a horrible thing the majority of the time. Fake approaches and throw jolts to make him have to react, and then get in afterwords. As soon as he lands is a pretty good time to get in, because he doesn't have a particularly good defensive option immediately upon landing. Just keep in mind that jump aerial -> double jump aerial right before he lands is a thing Ganon can do, try not to fall for it. Once you're in on Ganon, kill him. It's kinda similar to Falco in that regard I guess? It can be tough to get in on Ganon, but once you're in with Pika, like, he has soooo few decent ways of getting out. As long as you watch out for his bair and uair, recognizing how long he'll be in stun etc., he is combo food. And he shouldn't be able to recover against you. So be patient, try to find or create the right moment to get in where he doesn't have good defensive options, then stay in if you get a hit and get the hell out if you don't.
 
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oukd

Smash Lord
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Apr 21, 2010
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@ N64 N64
you do know that rising uair kills yoshi superarmor vs low% right

earlier than dair i think
 
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Sourpatch

Smash Cadet
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Jun 21, 2014
Messages
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Location
NYC
Hi, im new to smash. I love playing as a few people but I want to seriously main and get real good at pikachu. My main problem i guess is idk really where to start when it comes to practice and i have trouble consistently using pikachus tilits, mainly back tilits, i guess i press the buttons to hard and it ends up as a foward smash. But really i just want to use back tilt to edge guard like how axe did at MLG
 

AXE 09

Smash Master
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Dec 3, 2006
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to do a forward tilt, it's literally as the moves sounds. you have to tilt the control stick lol. either that, or start walking first, and then press a while your control stick is all the way forward and youll also do a forward tilt.
 

FourStar

Smash Ace
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Feb 26, 2013
Messages
887
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NOR CAL
Haha thanks for the help guys! Btw I figured taking Ganon to stages like FD and battle field are way better because in a way I feel more comfortable and plus his movement isn't as good on those stages.

My samus is matchup is getting better because approaching u-airs s ems to throw samys players off for some reason Idk.

As for yoshi..... Yeah aMSa is still kicking my ass so Idk he's just too good lol
 

oukd

Smash Lord
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Apr 21, 2010
Messages
1,464
did you get a rising uair spike yet? those feel amazing to do lmao

amsa is insane
 
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Cassio

Smash Master
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Jul 1, 2011
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Went to King of Cali, made it out of first round pools all pika (top 3 of 8/9 ppl)! 3 peaches 3 shieks and a yoshi. Got wrecked by Amsa. Drowned in second round (top 4 of 9, [westballz okami a rookie and tai made it out]). Also changed my opinion and think that Fox is harder for pika than Falco imo after talking to Okami, though Falco is still pretty lame.

Also I think fair and dair might be underrated. I've been experimenting with autocancelling aerials and Ive been having good results so far. Ill keep playing around with it to see what I can figure out, but is there anyone that can let me know the hitstun from each hit of pikas fair?

RE Yoshi/Amsa: approaching wasnt too hard, but he strings pika surprisingly well. However the most annoying thing was I tried to ftilt his approach and my ftilt kept missing his fair because his head would move back, rofl. I couldnt exactly duck/dtilt/dsmash either. He realized that + I was horrible at teching fair so he just kept fairing me. Ill have to play a yoshi more to figure out what to do.
 
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Palmerfan

Smash Apprentice
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Mar 1, 2014
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Middletown, NJ
I just got double 4 stocked by stricnyne's Falco... getting absolutely destroyed by such a better player than me made me think everything I know the matchup was wrong. The biggest problem I had was recovering after getting bair'd off the stage on battlefield. I wasn't able to QA to the ledge since he dair'd me every time, so I started recovering on the platform but he punished that just as easily. Is there anything I can do outside of not getting hit? If not, how should I DI the back air?

Also, what stages should I aim for in the matchup? I figured FOD and Yoshis were in his favor, DL64 and FD were in my favor, and battlefield was pretty neutral, am I correct in assuming this?
 

N64

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Battlefield is pretty decent in the matchup, and I generally try to strike to there (or FD if the falco somehow lets me get away with it) at the start. Then, depending on how the match goes, I'll consider my counterpick. If I'm having a lot of trouble with his lasers, I'll go to Yoshis or FoD so that i can stay in his face. If I'm having trouble getting combo/techchased to death, I'll go to Dreamland or FD for the space (though they'll usually ban FD).

If you sweetspot your upB with the downward angle, Falco shouldn't be able to dair you. Dsmash might still catch you though.
 

Cassio

Smash Master
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Thanks guys!

And yeah with fair Im trying to see if fair:
1. Has more stun the closer to the end it is
2. May be more effective if opponents are off the ground.

It seems in the air the move has more hitstun for follow ups but not on the ground. My theory is that in 64 and slightly in Brawl pikas fair knocks the opponent up per hit, but in melee it sort of keeps them in place. So if theyre on the ground the hitstun doesnt do much, but if you catch them off the ground itll leave them in hitstun until they reach the ground if theyre close to it or until it wears off if theyre higher in the air. It also might have a use shield poking if you can leave enough time to toss out an aerial. Anyways, I havent really tested any of this yet or know enough about it.

Also I've been liking dair. Maybe others have been doing this already but full hop autocancel dair will hit most grounded opponents and gives you a surprising amount of leeway on mobility.

I just love the hitboxes and angles fair and dair provide.
 

N64

Smash Champion
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Doubleposting, but it should also be noted that Pikachad and I have coined a new term: Pancake Frames. Watch the video Chad posted for more info.
 

festizzio

Smash Champion
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PalmerFan: My main practice partner is Falco, and I know what you mean about the dairs. It seems like every time I go to the ledge, he runs off stage, DJ's back and sends out a dair and it magically hits me. -_- I realized this was because my quick attack rhythm was too predictable, and I would always quick attack at the same time when I was recovering. He can't do that on reaction, so just wait for him to do something on the ledge, then quick attack to it. So just delay it a bit. Like you said, you can also recover to the platforms and he might hit you again, but now he's in the middle of the stage and the edge should be clear. Hoped this helped, at least a little!

Edit: I also like FoD against Falco a lot, when the platforms disappear you can CG, and when they're really low you can tech chase with usmash fairly easily. Hate Yoshi's against most characters lol.
 
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Hawt Salsa

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Hi everyone, I'm Hawt Salsa, and I intend to stay here and stick to pikachu :)

also HOLY CRAP CONGRATS AXE
 

Spyro

Smash Ace
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Yeah congrats Axe! Seem like you're always getting top 8 at big tournaments with Pikachu witch is just bonkers!
 
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Teczer0

Research Assistant
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Continuing the trend, congrats Axe! Well deserved, your play is awe inspiring.

So, I've started playing Pika a bit somewhat experimenting with his moveset etc, and I was wondering if I can get some help

I have a hard time finding uses for his fair/bair it feels like his nair/upair almost always seems like a better option, are there any notable uses for fair/bair?

Is there a trick/visual cue for uair spiking more consistently?

What throws are pika's go-to's on characters like, marth/sheik/peach/etc?
 
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