Counterpikas?

[Kiwikomix]

Let's talk this over.

Matchup-wise, Pikachu is an extremely average or below-average character.

He gets ***** by Marth's range harder than most characters. Sheik can man/womanhandle him. Falco can shut him down quite easily with lasers.

It goes without saying that, when playing to win against people at the same level of skill, Pikachu is just not viable.

However, he does have several "good" (by which I mean "even", so good by comparison) options against some higher characters. He can score a few crazy ridiculous combos on Fox. Falcon gets destroyed by uair and is easily gimped. Jiggz' combos fall short and she gets killed at low percents.

So what I'm wondering is, does Pikachu have more possibilities as a counterpick-style character than as a standalone main?

Discuss. Not really expecting that many replies from a dead board, but we'll see.

 

[INSANE CARZY GUY]

dude just try to think of a way to counter them like look at marth what he do: chain throw and fair and other marth stuff , his up tilt wins and d tilt does too, so let him come to you he can't fireball you like mario so wait for the fair or grab and let's see what pika can do ,couch before anyhing to mess with them and if you think he's coming with fair try up smash

or if he grabs jump or forward smash you have great range with F-smash and chase him for pressure and as i have said pika/pichu can NEARLY chain throw marth with down throw
(if you try he can only use fair and pika's grab game sucks more pichu's)and that means up-smash or something=air game and marth's dair can't do much to you, so take full advantage of that

so look at everyone like that and it's all right if you jump in first
and maybe my post will inspire people to post and and stuff

sorry it that didn't make scents i am trying harder to make scents

LOL pichu users are helping pikachu users deal with their many bad matches and I suck really bad as pika i just know what he can do and stop looking for just good match ups try his bad goods to make a good counter srta. to help all pikas that's what we IC's do

 

[PsychopathicEmus]

i don't know how pertinent this is, but one of pika's strengths is that he's an unfamiliar character to most people. even when a friend and i switch up (i play fox, he plays pikachu), i feel a degree of uncertainty even though i main pika =X. but once people get a feel for pika...yeah, get *****

 

[INSANE CARZY GUY]

that's truer for pichu but when they figure out pichu pichu has more defense than pikachu exp. his shield game is better in every way (can take more and pichu has a much better grab)and pichu is smaller and and he can act on a mistake a little faster and i think pichu has a better offense too (just me) pikachu just has all the the other parts like approach (not grab game) and pika as a counter pick...

well maybe for kirby and one would say pichu but that's because pika doesn't die as fast and a little bit of range ,really pichu is faster by far and people who play as pichu anywhere can be very dangerous because they are most likely good just like any low tier main and worse it's impossible to tell what he might do (pichu's are extremism) really you just have to make a plan for everyone because even if you counter them they can still win

 

[Kiwikomix]

You can't just "think of a way to counter them" if the character doesn't have the tools to win. If Marth were to space himself properly then Pikachu could theoretically go an entire match without getting a hit in. Having to fall back on mindgames or similar obscure strategies is a last resort for any matchup, and Pikachu is no exception.

@ Emus: I understand what you're saying. But, like you said, it only goes so far once your opponent knows the matchup. And if you're at a high level of play, you had better bet that they will. Even if they don't, sometimes it's still near impossible to win disadvantaged matchups.

For example, there's a video of N64, who I'm sure you know is a talented Pikachu and probably one of the best three or four in the nation, facing a Marth played by Cactuar, who admitted in the comments section of the video that he doesn't know how to play Pikachu. He did almost nothing but spam fair or fsmash and N64 had to try hard to find an opening, ultimately losing the set.

Not to sound like I'm ripping on N64. <3

Spoiler

No homo

 

[PsychopathicEmus]

ah yeah, i get what you're saying. i suppose pika would do better as a counterpick/sub since you could whip him out and make your opponents go "wtf" for a game. the thing is, unless you're chu dat (or other IC main), i don't understand why you'd counterpick with pika, you know?

 

[N64]

marth is tuff. His sword is sharp and immune to lightning.

Pika soft counters falcon, and can do well against spacies. He has the ability to beat samus and peach, but they're both probably technically not in his favor. I actually like the pika v. sheik matchup a decent amount, but I know it's ultimately a bad one for pika (there's just such cool combos on sheik).

Countering pika and also countering stage (lets take a falcon to japes shall we) can be fancy. Just be weary of them pulling out a better char for that stage (falco on japes is icky).

 

[INSANE CARZY GUY]

IC main here and dude really you just have to fight them alot so you know the match-up better like which way i Di or does this combo or not and the best way to recover and when you get down it none of us can really teach you how to win the match up because !. everyone has their own style 2. i know falcon's knee can lead to another knee ,but i don't know how even if it happened to me 3. when comes down to it everyone just has to keep up or get ahead like wobbles did he found a way to stay a head of the game and so did every pro

 

[Zig-Zag!]

N64 is a lying son of a *****. There are no "cool combos" on shiek.

I cant beat great falcons with any character other than pikachu. They all know how to destroy the top tier characters too well.

Marths arent too bad, but they suck so hard to play against. A lot of marths I play say that they dont like playing me, but Im not sure why.

 

[INSANE CARZY GUY]

do you A. spam or B. run away alot or C. **** to hard?

 

[N64]

Zigzag, you have challenged my honor.

We must fight.

 

[Kiwikomix]

Marth is such a terrible match.

In other news, I was looking at that really old matchup chart Phanna made, and the Fox matchup was 2-8, wtf? I'd like to think it's not THAT hard.

 

[KirbyKaze]

N64 is a lying son of a *****. There are no "cool combos" on shiek.

N64 did Thunder to Thunder on me.

True story.

 

[-Chad-]

just throwing this out there.

Jiggs is probably my most hated matchup now vs Pika.

at smym9 I fought some jiggs player (forgot his name, Climhazzard maybe?) and the time ran down for nearly all of our matches.

In conclusion, I would not pick Pika vs a Jiggs as a counterpick.

 

[#HBC | Mac]

i thot pika did well against jiggs?

 

[Kiwikomix]

Although Pika kills Jiggz at low percents and can edgeguard her almost better than she can him (if you're persistent you can usually recover past her, whereas semispikes make her use up her jumps and she doesn't have an upB to compensate), neither character really has any other great options versus the other. I consider it a soft counter, but I personally love playing against Jiggz so I think you're all crazy.

 

[festizzio]

just throwing this out there.

Jiggs is probably my most hated matchup now vs Pika.

at smym9 I fought some jiggs player (forgot his name, Climhazzard maybe?) and the time ran down for nearly all of our matches.

In conclusion, I would not pick Pika vs a Jiggs as a counterpick.

I just now realized something.

When I used to play this game all the time, one thing I read, although I can't remember where, really stuck with me. And that was chu dat saying, "I just play on instinct," or something very similar. Anyways, I realized that the faster you play, the easier it is to predict where your opponent will go, what moves they will do, because if you play aggressive enough, they are forced to dodge you, rather than the other way around. Every time I start to doubt myself, I always think back to that statement, and I just play the game. Things work out better that way.

Now, I had this mindset for quite a while before and after going to FAST1, and it was really helpful. However, I stopped playing the game for about a month, simply because I had a new job and it required me to work every saturday. Anyways, after about a month of working there, I decided to start requesting time off on saturdays to go to tournaments. Luckily, my boss is really chill, and she usually accepts my requests.

What I just now realized, after getting back into the game after only a month of absence about 5 months ago, is that I had stopped playing aggressively. I tried camping uairs, and thundershocks, and even camped in my shield a lot, especially against jigglypuff, and because of this the time usually ran past the 3-5 minute marker.

I realized that to beat a good jigglypuff, because they WILL out camp and out space you, you really have to play really aggressively. I found myself discouraged at this because it seemed every time I would rush in, I'd always get slammed with a bair. But I only did this once or twice a match, and it didn't work. You have to be relentless against campy characters/players, especially as pikachu.

tl;dr version: play really aggressively against a jigglypuff.

 

[-Chad-]

Uh...

I tried that during the repeat of our 2nd match (yes our 2nd match had to be re-done because the time ran out and we had the same stock/percent) and I just got kicked a lot due to his excellent spacing and reactions to what I was doing.

Sure Pika can kill Jiggs at low %'s with....upsmash only? Maaaaybe u-air thunder if they drop their controller after the u-air and don't DI? But landing those is hard as all hell, whereas Jiggs has a pretty easy time landing b-air's, f-air's which chain into each other quite well.

 

[N64]

Pika vs. jiggs is meh.

Pika vs. a really good fox is meh. IF he screws up you can take a stock, but if not he just ***** you.

Pika vs. falco is slightly better, since his recovery is terrible.

 

[Kiwikomix]

I've never really found the difference in their recoveries to be that noticeable when I'm playing against them, since they get edgeguarded the same way

Falco's lasers are annoying enough to make up for the difference anyway

 

[festizzio]

Pika vs. jiggs is meh.

Pika vs. a really good fox is meh. IF he screws up you can take a stock, but if not he just ***** you.

Pika vs. falco is slightly better, since his recovery is terrible.

i'm no expert or anything, but isn't the point of mindgames to make them screw up?

jus' sayin'

 

[-Chad-]

A good Fox won't fall for simple tricks.

A good Fox who knows the Pika matchup won't fall for Pika tricks often.

To sum it up- Good Fox's or just good players in general aren't going to fall for everything you throw at them, and I'm sure they'll try/succeed at tricking you too. (which probably will result in a lot more damage/death)

 

[festizzio]

A good Fox won't fall for simple tricks.

A good Fox who knows the Pika matchup won't fall for Pika tricks often.

To sum it up- Good Fox's or just good players in general aren't going to fall for everything you throw at them, and I'm sure they'll try/succeed at tricking you too. (which probably will result in a lot more damage/death)

The funny thing is that the first two statements, pikachu and fox can be switched and it'll work just as well.

About the last part, sure, Fox has his uthrow -> uair stuff, shine/thunders combo, stuff like that, but it really doesn't matter how much fox does to you; if you can get in a gimp or a 0-60 combo, you still have a shot at winning. Who says you're going to get grabbed 100% of the time by Fox? Every missed grab is an opportunity for comboing. Every missed dash attack, every missed usmash, everytime he gets stuck in a shine after an aerial, the possibilities are endless. Pretty much any grab can lead to anything else if you're smart enough. Nobody is completely unpredictable.

 

[-Chad-]

Uh...okay...

I guess we're completely leaving out the part where Fox actually tries to win.

Sure you can be as positive as you want, but against really good players they're not going to fall for something or put themselves in a situation where they could possibly be gimped.

A good/smart Fox would laser camp you, forcing you to approach and then react to whatever you do. Sure you can mix it up a bit but most of Fox's options are better than Pika's.

My crewmate, Myztek, does this every time we do that matchup. I lose most of the time because he's a smart player plus he knows how Pika plays. I could then switch chars and do a lot better just because of the character.

Pika does not fare well against good Fox's. Bad Fox's are combo fodder to pretty much any char.


"The funny thing is that the first two statements, pikachu and fox can be switched and it'll work just as well."

Yes sure, but did you try that logic to your paragraph too?

 

[festizzio]

Uh...okay...

I guess we're completely leaving out the part where Fox actually tries to win.

Aren't both players trying to win...?

Sure you can be as positive as you want, but against really good players they're not going to fall for something or put themselves in a situation where they could possibly be gimped.

There really isn't that many options for a Fox player once they're off the stage. If they're close, they can air dodge, but if you're on the edge you can ledge hop an uair and get them back off the stage.

If they illusion, side b into it. If they start fire foxing, then just uair. Firefox below the stage? Drop down and fair. Pikachu has a lot more options than people think he does for gimping.

A good/smart Fox would laser camp you, forcing you to approach and then react to whatever you do. Sure you can mix it up a bit but most of Fox's options are better than Pika's.

Fox is vulnerable when he's laser camping. He can't just "react" to anything you do because his range of motion with shl is very limited. If he's reverse shl'ing, he'll hit the end of the stage eventually, and a good fox isn't going to sit at the edge against a pikachu, especially if they know the match-up.

It's definitely frustrating to fight against a really campy fox, but it's not unwinnable by any means.

My crewmate, Myztek, does this every time we do that matchup. I lose most of the time because he's a smart player plus he knows how Pika plays. I could then switch chars and do a lot better just because of the character.

Irrelevant.

Pika does not fare well against good Fox's. Bad Fox's are combo fodder to pretty much any char.

Good foxes can be combo'd just as easily, but pulling those combos off are a lot trickier.

Yes sure, but did you try that logic to your paragraph too?

I did, but Pikachu doesn't have an uthrow uair.

 

[N64]

Fox just has more tools at his disposal. Yes, pika has a couple 0-deaths on fox (some stage-reliant) and a couple well placed uairs can set up edgeguarding opportunities and etc. for pikachu. A lot of it, however, is really postitionally dependant. Fox has to be in a few postitions and a few states for these to get started. If he avoids these positions (easier said than done, i'll admit) he's relatively safe and pika has to just chip away at him with 1-2 hit strings.

The difference from fox's perspective is that you have a lot more to do. You have better approach options, a better projectile, better priority overall, equal-better spacing, better shield pressure, a better grab game, etc. You are a threat from more positions than your opponent, and it's generally easier for you to control space and control them. Though foxes combos don't last as long on pika as vice versa, he has more opportunity to set them up, and pika's no superstar at surviving very long. Uthrow to uair is scary past 80%. Spacing an upsmash is scary past 80%. Bairs, nairs, fsmash, dsmash are scary past 100ish.

 

[soap]

ive seen anther beat good foxes by being aggressive, and then waiting for something, then gimping

with my pika i find the matchup extremely hard, not that ive ever tried it in tourney. I think if u keep your eyes open pika does have the tools to scrape a win.

 

[Kiwikomix]

Few random matchup notes:

Spotdodge -> dsmash ***** Fox and fastfallers in general

In terms of edgeguarding, while shine spikes alone probably won't kill you, Fox's bair will. So if he's hanging on the ledge you really don't have a choice but to try to recover far above him

Once he starts a combo, actively defend yourself. If you don't DI or tech away from his attacks you're as good as gone

Fox is probably the most fun matchup in the game imo, but that doesn't make it easy.

 

[KirbyKaze]

My horrible, horrible, horrible Fox beat Anther in a game. I think that has to indicate something about the matchup.

All I did was laser camp and dash dance grab camp and periodically do Nair. And Shine. Nair and Shine are surprisingly good moves. On edgeguard when I did kill him by edgeguard I just did the combo of a million ledgehop Bairs. Pikachu's massively fat body didn't stand a chance.

Lasering ***** Pika. He has to move in, and Fox has this ridiculously broken dash dance game and more priority. If he doesn't play near the edges, he also removes the only thing Pika really works with; gimps.

tl;dr mindgames will not avail you in the face of massive Fox homosexuality.

edit: Whoever made the myth about Pikachu being really, really awesome against Puff should be shot. Puff is fine versus Pika.

 

[soap]

anther beat chester

and imadh.

two very decent foxies

u can do it with insane anther tactics

u shoulda seen the anther raynex friendlies the next day, they were wild

 

[KirbyKaze]

My post is mostly an exaggeration, but I do think Pika gets ***** in the matchup. He doesn't work with much and Fox can force better positional crap.

Imadh went Marth against Anther. He's a Marth main.

But I do agree that Pikachu can do it if he's ridiculously good. But that's much easier said than done. Fox is really, really good at dismantling Pikachu when played right.

 

[Oracle]

I use pika mostly as a counterpick on falcon and jiggs, and a few others.

Not that I really need that as I main sheik

 

[KirbyKaze]

I'm trying to make my terrible Fox not so terrible.

 

[RaynEX]

He says his Fox is terrible then takes me to last stock in Fox dittos all the time. : /

 

[N64]

I do think it's a tossup. Anther has moved on to brawl primarily (to my knowledge) so I'm not expecting him to be super good at melee anymore. He may still be, but yeah. Back right before brawl came out, he was at least in the top 3 if not best pika out there.

Best foxes would still do well against him, especially the more they played. Pika has a bag of tricks, fox has solid approaches and spacing overall.


Also, yeah, pika vs jiggs is even with many pikachu players. I personally think it's very slight advantage jiggs (she's a pretty gay char and all), but honestly it can go either way. Pika has to find an opportunity to usmash at 70%+, or else you're just trading aerials with her (or getting outprioritized by her better aerials). It's like jiggs vs. fox except jiggs has no uthrow-rest and pika has no good moves outside of usmash. Exaggeration, yes, but not by much.

 

[Anther]

Si to the brawl thing. I used to practice melee at least almost every other day to stay on top of my tech skill, but now I only play when I see it at tournaments, and no foxes at pound 3 particularly dominated me, and sheiks even less so, but now I have huge problems vs both. My approaches in melee have fallen apart and I'm really bad at countering defensive strategies in the game now, so the DD camp gets me really badly since my tech skill falls apart very often XD. I really doubt the metagame has changed as much moreso that I just can't play the matchup as well as I used to. I'll need to practice more in order to be sure of the rapage. But I didn't think fox or sheik vs pika were bad matches at all until I stopped playing the game. XD.

 

[Big_R]

He says his Fox is terrible then takes me to last stock in Fox dittos all the time. : /

hes burning u u better fight him

 

[N64]

well, anther knows what he's talking about. I personally think both fox and shiek are bad matchups for pika, but that sheik isn't as bad as most make it out to be.

 

[festizzio]

Sheik's only bad if you fall for stupid sheik tricks, or try DI'ing anywhere but off the stage in a chain grab.

 

[Kiwikomix]

Chaingrabbing is really the only Sheik thing that bothers me

Sometimes she'll try to lead it into a fair on the edge but that's really not as threatening as it could be