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thehard
: As far as Pikachu is concerned, right now I feel like Yoshi is his worst MU. Some other Pikachu mains have agreed with me on that. The way Yoshi is built as a character is just annoying for Pikachu. He's extremely difficult to kill and holds his own well in the neutral game too. Also does a lot more damage per hit than Pikachu does and kills Pikachu easily.
Mario does pretty well against Pikachu and I've seen a lot of Pikachu mains asking for help fighting him. I think it's more even rather than a disadvantage to Pikachu, but he is seriously frustrating to face for Pikachu at the very least. Mario does mad damage when he gets in, and in Pika vs Mario both of them are "in" all the time. Cape is like the easiest way to shut out thunder-jolt camping in the game, too. I think Mario would straight up have an advantage if it wasn't for the fact he can be gimped easier than most.
Going off topic a bit just on Pikachu in general, I feel he pays for mistakes a lot more than most characters which keeps him tamed to an extent. He is incredibly dominating in a lot of areas (neutral, recovery, edgeguarding), but his low damage per hit and fragility help balance him. I do think Pika is top 3 but at the same time not really metagame centralizing due to his lack of players, relative difficulty of use and a greater requirement to play without mistakes than the other top characters.
The thing about Pikachu (and the reason I play him) is that he has the tools to deal with every situation and often multiple tools to deal with a given situation. When you play Pikachu you have more options than anyone else, even Sheik. Most characters, when faced with bad matchups, just flail for months in the metagame and sometimes never find a workaround. Pikachu has so many moves that are good in so many situations that 9.8 out of 10 times, if a matchup seems hard to you, it's just because you're choosing the wrong options. Wrong options doesn't mean punishable options--wrong options means suboptimal options. Are you grabbing when you could be pivot f-smashing (which is safe on shield usually)? Are you up-airing for chip damage when you could be getting a b-air that knocks your opponent offstage?
Matchups can seem arbitrarily hard based on invisible opportunity costs for the options that you choose.
When I began to play Pikachu, I had trouble against the swordsmen, like Pit, Shulk, and Link. I wasn't accomplishing a lot by using f-airs and tjolts, and my d-tilt was getting outranged by strong disjoints. But then I realized that swordsmen don't really have quick "get off of me" options, so I started to use more pivot up-airs and Quick Attacks, fast options that swordsmen have to predict to deal with. Once I also started to use ledge canceled b-airs on stages with platforms, I found that the swordsmen matchups felt close to even, or even in Pikachu's favor by a little. And unlike Pikachu, the swordsmen have a hard time counteradapting because they simply have fewer options.
Mario is another matchup that seemed difficult to me at the beginning, but now seems manageable. What this matchup comes down to is range. Up-tilt and d-tilt are big (Pikachu's d-tilt has about as much range as Diddy's), and you can wall Mario out to some extent with them, especially because his ground speed is not that amazing. Pivot f-smash is a fantastic option too, and Mario's f-air is too slow to serve as a forward-hitting punish for your attempt at f-smashing him (you can't pivot f-smash Sheik for example because she can jump over it and f-air or even land a bouncing fish if she calls it; best Mario can do is fireball you, or maybe n-air depending on your spacing). Mario will then have to go to the air to get in on you.
Remember what I said about hidden opportunity costs? Here's a good example: if Mario is spacing fireballs on you, what do you do? You can't really shield since you get grabbed, so your first answer might be to try to duck under them and hit Mario from underneath or behind with b-airs/n-airs/up-airs when he's in the air, but then you might find that you're getting n-aired or d-aired into followups; it's a dangerous game because Mario has decent hitboxes directly below him, and Pikachu's airspeed is bad. What if you tjolt camp him back? This is better, but it means that you trade some damage back and forth, and that's not always great since Mario is heavier.
Ah, but what if you use your up-airs and f-airs to negate the fireballs? This way, you have a hitbox out in case Mario decides to try to hit you with one of his aerials (which don't have a lot of range, while both Pikachu's f-air and up-air are disjointed), and you can pull back, land right outside of his range, and d-tilt. Up-tilt will beat him out of his n-air and d-air if you time it right and will even catch him if he tries to land behind you to do a crossup. This strategy is safer than ducking and weaving because you don't have to pause after your initial dash (which gives Mario time to use one of his lagless moves on you), and it's more rewarding than tjolt camping because you aren't trading damage with fireballs.
Cape is not a good tool against Tjolt because Tjolt is slow-moving and you can move while Mario is caping. The cape animation is really fast, but it has just enough lag that you can Quick Attack into Mario while he is caping your Tjolt. If you aren't careful with the timing then Mario will catch on to your QAs and up-smash you, so you have to time it so that the moment that Tjolt interacts with the cape is the moment that you hit Mario. Learning the angles for this is the best way to make sure you have control of the MU. Actually, this strategy isn't foolproof; if Mario starts using pivot f-smash, then both you and the tjolt are toast. I haven't seen Marios do this yet, but I always wonder why they don't. They often n-air or b-air through instead, which are comparatively weak options.
I think that the Yoshi MU is even, but more than almost any matchup it punishes you for making suboptimal decisions. One thing is that egg toss is punishable, so if you are clever with your QA angles you can both avoid the egg itself and also hit Yoshi whenever he egg tosses. In this MU you have to kind of play like Sonic, where you punish Yoshi's mistakes with your burst mobility and then run away and don't let him near you (and shield if he's near you because his grab is poor). Following up on Yoshi in advantage is risky because down-b and d-air are deadly (down-b kills and d-air does way too much damage), and n-air lets him reverse the situation, so you're relying on chip damage mostly. The MU is boring, but even. If you're in disadvantage, you should always skull bash -> Quick Attack to escape, and if you're in advantage, just settle on stage control and wait for another opportunity to punish. It's a matchup defined by neutral and constant resets.
Greninja and Megaman feel moderately difficult to me still. Greninja is like a sword user but with more options and speed, and Megaman is difficult to gimp and has fast KO options. I haven't really figured out these two matchups yet, but I am sure that I am missing something and once I play a few high- or top-level Greninjas/Megamans I'll figure out something, as they don't feel
too difficult, just difficult. Pikachu has tools. It's just about finding the right combination of them.
The same kind of applies to Sheik (but to a lesser extent, as she has more dominant options and fewer overall options) with matchups like Ness, ZSS, and Lucario.
