How to Edgeguard Pikachu

[Tablesalt]

But grabbing the ledge is telegraphed and the pikachu can usually just go for stage on reaction.

And is forced to go high.

 

[Audos]

And is forced to go high.

That's true but marth's options aren't exactly great at getting back on stage and then reaching pikachu on reaction.

 

[Tablesalt]

That's true but marth's options aren't exactly great at getting back on stage and then reaching pikachu on reaction.

Eventually they'll die with enough waveland f smashes.

 

[voorhese]

But grabbing the ledge is telegraphed and the pikachu can usually just go for stage on reaction.

LH rising aerials cover sweetspot and on stage both because you will be on the stage as they land.

 

[Syaith]

I have had opinions about this for a long time, and I finally did the research to figure this out. Marths traditionally have had a lot of trouble against Pikachu, and one of the reasons for this is that they do not know how to edgeguard Pikachu. Marth should not struggle that hard to edgeguard Pikachu. He has strong options to make Pikachu's life hell.

What to do:
You can cover every up-b angle to the ledge with dtilt. If Marth teeters on the edge and dtilts, it covers every angle Pikachu can approach the ledge from. It covers the high angles as well as Pikachu's lowest sweetspot angle (in this picture, Pikachu will grab the ledge on the next frame). For the record, Axe tends to angle his up-bs higher than this. Furthermore, you can react to Pikachu's up-b with your dtilt. On the first frame of Pikachu's up-b, little white clouds appear below him. The reaction window is about 2 frames easier than reacting to tech in place with grab. This only works if Pikachu will travel the second leg of his up-b. If he only travels the first, you cannot react with dtilt.

In this way, you can cover all of Pikachu's attempts to grab the ledge. If Pikachu tries to up-b onto the stage, you can cover those options easily too. If he hits you with his up-b, there is so litle hitstun that you can instantly punish him. If he lands on a side platform, he has 24 frames of landing lag, plus hang-time at the end of his up-b. This is enough time to hit him with a uair, utilt, fair, or fsmash depending on the spacing.

Marth has other options as well. Forward smash will also cover all of Pikachu's angles to the ledge, but you cannot use it on reaction. Often, Pikachu will up-b at a predictable time making forward smash easier to hit. You can see PPMD make a lot of good use of this in his set versus Axe at Smash Summit 1 until Axe starts mixing up his up-b timings to make PPMD miss. You can also see PPMD use dair to cover Axe's initially predictable up-bs.

Another thing to note about Pikachu's up-b is that his hurtbox expands massively for 1 frame at the midpoint of his up-b. You can see MacD abuse this fact in this image. MacD probably could have been farther away honestly. And then Marth's fsmash reaches WAY farther than Peach's bair. When teetering on the edge, you can often hit Pikchu in the midpoint of his up-b with an fsmash or jump off and dair. PPMD does both of these in his set versus Axe.

What not to do:

• Don't edgeguard him like Sheik by grabbing the ledge and punishing his landing on stage. Pikachu doesn't have enough landing lag for that.
• Don't dtilt or fsmash at the edge so that your sword barely sticks out over the edge. You have to be teetering or close to teetering to cover Pikachu's options.
• Don't grab ledge and do a ledgehop aerial like bair or uair.

With this knowledge, I hope that the Pikachu matchup can be easier for Marth mains. Effective edgeguarding techniques will also improve the effectiveness of uthrow juggles. Marth has a guaranteed uthrow->uair on Pikachu that leads into a strong juggle. However, this is often cut short by Pikachu DIing offstage and recovering for free against clueless Marths. With better edgeguarding, DIing offstage may not be as appealing an option.

Sycorax-senpai, I have a question
If pikachu angles her upb diagonally down to the ledge and snaps it with only the first part of her upb (and so doesn't put out her pancake hurtboxes), can marth dtilt intercept it? If so, would you know the frame timing? (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjNhOsusVG0&feature=youtu.be&t=7m21s)

 

[Sycorax]

Sycorax-senpai, heed my request
If pikachu angles her upb diagonally down to the ledge and snaps it with only the first part of her upb (and so doesn't put out her pancake hurtboxes), can marth dtilt intercept it? If so, would you know the frame timing? (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjNhOsusVG0&feature=youtu.be&t=7m21s)

Yes he can hit that angle with dtilt.

I don't know what you mean by "frame timing". The timing at which dtilt will work depends on the angle and how close to the ledge Pikachu is.

 

[Syaith]

Yes he can hit that angle with dtilt.

I don't know what you mean by "frame timing". The timing at which dtilt will work depends on the angle and how close to the ledge Pikachu is.

Oops, I meant frame window.
It looks like marth's dilt lasts for 3 frames, which is pretty tight. But if pikachu's quick attack snaps to the ledge quicker than 3 frames, the frame window to hit the dtilt would be even shorter?

 

[Sycorax]

Oops, I meant frame window.
It looks like marth's dilt lasts for 3 frames, which is pretty tight. But if pikachu's quick attack snaps to the ledge quicker than 3 frames, the frame window to hit the dtilt would be even shorter?

There's always at least 1 frame where Pikachu can be hit by dtilt on his way to the ledge. So it's at least a 3 frame window if not 4.

 

[Raycu]

A good way to deal with Pikachu's recovery isn't to react to it, but to scare them into a pattern. If a Pikachu keeps on doing a perfect recover ledge grab, then before they up b move onto stage and punish before they've even thrown out the move. If their reaction time isn't fast enough you can catch them. Not to mention it's true what has been said about below stage up b. I've played a pikachu/pichu main and every time they up b below stage, I got an f smash off.

Now, for pikachu it is a heavily mind game based thing. If they call you out on your ledge grab and start recovering, fake them out with a double ledge grab to make it seem like you were trying to punish for landing on stage, and so on and so forth. It's really not about reacting to their recovery imo I guess. More like making them recover how you want. The same can be done with fox's firefox. If you think they're doing one thing try and fake them out and cover multiple angles to get past them.

 

[guffawkle]

Sorry to bring up an old discussion, but why doesn't anyone use shieldbreaker? Once charging, the hitbox comes out frame 5 and lasts through frame 10. Practically speaking, it covers ledge during the last three hitbox frames, and deals more knockback uncharged than d-tilt. It covers stage better than f-smash because it has a hitbox on Marth's waist and is out for six frames instead of four, it doesn't need to be tippered to kill, and has less ending lag than f-smash.

The two downsides are that you need to charge it in order to get any results, and that once you begin charging, your opponent knows exactly what you are going to do and may be able to up-B above you or onto a platform for a lighter punish.

All points considered, I believe shieldbreaker is the most optimal choice when given time to charge it.

 

[KBK Kingkiller]

I think there are a couple issues with shield breaker. First, if it doesn't kill, it sends them a lot higher than dtilt. This means that, next time they recover, they have a much better set of options. Second, Pika's up b has a ton of range. There are few situations where they can't just react to the charge and go to a platform. Especially somewhere like Yoshi's or FOD. For dtilt this isn't a problem since you have time to tipper them. Also, an up b where they fall to the ledge from above your shieldbreaker would seem to turn this into a 50-50. Dtilt's IASA frames negate this as an issue.