Lucario
Basic Nature of the Matchup - Lucario's a character you're going to definitely need some experience before it even starts to look towards Olimar's favor. It's not the hardest matchup, but it's a little more difficult than most that are in Olimar's favor. The matchup is going to revolve around Olimar keeping Lucario at midrange, while Lucario's trying to figure out some way to get inside Olimar's bubble and **** him up.
Aura - Just because Lucario's at kill percents doesn't mean you should go for the kill. And you shouldn't try to rush and kill him as fast as possible so that he doesn't get too strong. Just be patient. The kill will come to you, that's just the kind of character Lucario is. If you go looking for the kill, you're going to be hit much harder than you should have been, and will often cost you stocks you shouldn't have lost. Keep a solid camping/spacing game going and make him work for every single thing he wants. Whether it be a kill, or even getting in on you. Make him work for everything and give him hell every time he ****s up and leaves himself open.
Section One - Keeping Him Out
Our Camping Game - Olimar completely outcamps Lucario. No question. The trick is to not short hop (or full hop) pikmin toss unless you're throwing a purple from long-mid range or a white from long range. So basically, throw pikmin from the ground unless you absolutely have to throw them from the air to hit him and there's no way he can punish it. However, this part of the battle doesn't really matter much, as 80% of the battle is going to be fought at midrange if you're doing it right.
Mid Range - Reason you'll want to camp Lucario while grounded is that you'll need your ground options to keep him from going from midrange to close range. The number one goal in this matchup is to do whatever necessary to keep the Lucario out of your bubble. Because once he gets in, it's really difficult to get him out. Think Falco. But I'll cover what Lucario can do up close in a later section. Right now I'll go over what tools you'll need to use to keep the opponent at bay.
Tools:
Pikmin Toss: Purple Pikmin - Incredible. We all know how amazing purple pikmin are. The main job purples will serve in this matchup is creating an opening for you to approach for a followup, which will be, oftentimes, difficult to find in this matchup against a good lucario. Lucarios have a hard time dealing with purple pikmin, as they spend a good majority of their time out of shield (as shielding makes it difficult to approach Olimar, obviously, and almost all of Lucario's approach options are aerial) and Lucairo doesn't have many useful attacks that also serve as an answer to tossed purple pikmin. Landing a grab, after a purple pikmin hits, is extremely easy.
Pikmin Toss: White Pikmin - Actually, white pikmin are much better in this matchup than most other matchups. Like I said in the above section, Lucario has a difficult time keeping pikmin from landing on him, whether they be solid or latching pikmin. Lucario can't approach with a shield safely, so he oftentimes leaves himself vulnerable to a white latch.
Pikmin Toss: Red/Yellow/Blue Pikmin - Don't spam pikmin too much against Lucario, it'll leave him openings to cross the midrange border into closerange. Between pikmin you'll want to fit in one of the below tools I'm going to list (or a purple pikmin toss). Pikmin Toss (Red/Yellow/Blue) will mainly only serve the purpose of causing the opponent to run into one of your other tools.
Forward Smash - Don't be afraid to spam it. Easily the best tool at keeping Lucario out. Fit one of these between every few pikmin tosses just to punish him for thinking he can approach you. Because he
can't approach you. Forward Smash creates a barrier that Lucario has to think twice about trying to cross, and results in annoying the Lucario into either trying to camp you or approaching in ways he shouldn't approach in, leaving him open.
Short Hop Fair - Olimar's and Lucario's fair both have the same startup time, so most likely if you've thrown out a fair, it's too late for him to try to beat it out with one of his (which would be his best option for countering yours). Lucario's Nair comes out one frame faster, but doesn't have the disjointedness he needs to outdo Olimar's fair unless he predicts it long before. Lucario can, if he's positioned right, dair, or use his double jump and dair, to try to beat out your fair, but it's not as reliable. But regardless, fair works as an amazing mixup and a counter to a good majority of Lucario's approaches. It's also deceiving at how punishable it is. One trick I use in many matchups (but much more against Lucario) is to throw out a forward air, land without hitting the opponent, and then either forward smash, grab/pivot grab, or even approach with up smash or nair if I feel the Lucario won't see it coming (much more risky than the first two options, though). Most opponents will think the forward air is punishable and will only end up running into a forward smash. It also frustrates the opponent because they feel like you have a wall up that they just can't get across, and their approach will get sloppy. And against Lucario, him coming at you with a sloppy approach, could end up giving you the set. Red, Blue, and Purples are the best for forward air. The extra range from yellows doesn't make enough of a difference in this matchup. But I'll go more into that in a different section.
Grab - Obvious. More of a punishing tool in this matchup than anything. You're not going to want to space with grabs, but instead use it to punish his landings. Lucario is going to do mostly aerial approaches, so grab won't work as well countering his approaches. But he
has to land.
Section Two - ****, Now What?
Close Range - You ****ed up. But it happens. Everyone's gotta mess up sometime. Lucario has many, many more options up close than he does at mid range, and our close range options just don't cut it most of the time. There's two positions we could be in against a Lucario.
Situation 1 - Olimar on the Ground, Lucario in the air - Lucario just got in our bubble and this is your best chance to get him out. Right now he doesn't have access to most of his tools and is only going to be wanting to create an opening to get himself on the ground. In this position you have two options. Hit him or run. The first one all comes down to predicting whether or not he's going to try to hit you on his way down, or land safely and go from there. Basically, you want to do what he's not. If the Lucario falls on top of you with a dair, fair, or nair, sit in your shield. Don't try to beat out anything Lucario has at close range, it's not going to work. If he comes down on you with a dair, and hits your shield, you have enough time to do whatever you want afterwards in his lag. Up Smash, Down Smash, Forward Smash, Grab, whatever. Nair and Forward Air are usually another story. With fair, the Lucario's able to afterwards throw out another aerial (usually down air, sometimes neutral air but not likely in this situation) before landing to counter an attempted punish. In this position, continue to sit in your shield, or try to get out, unless he hits you with a down air afterwards. If the Lucario drops with a Nair, either after a forward air, or at any time at all, get the hell out of there. He's already gotten too far for you to try to keep him out. Neutral Air has very little landing lag so he's able to cover it with his quick jabs or any of his close range options.
Situation 2 - Both players close up against each other. The Lucario managed to get his way in. If you've ever played a Snake or Falco, you'll know what this is like. It's not as bad, but you'll deal with it the same way. When you're up close against Lucario, your main objective is going to be waiting for him to throw out something laggy enough for you to, not punish, but run away during. Lucario has several upclose options that turn it into a guessing game for us.
Getting Out - When forced into the situation of being up close against a Lucario, you're basically stuck with two options. You can try to force him out, looking for lag in his attacks, for one. Many of Lucario's attacks have large amounts of ending lag, enough for you to fit a fair, dsmash, nair, etc, in. Shielding his barrage of attacks until you finally get your chance is definitely an option. The only problem with it is that you'll have to guess when he's going to go for a grab. Smart Lucarios, if you sit in a shield, will take advantage of the opportunity and use a grab to get us closer to the ledge. He definitely doesn't have the fastest grab in the game (nine frame startup) but it's enough to take advantage of a defensive Olimar. So if you plan to force him out, do it as soon as possible. The other option is... well, just get the **** out. Rolling is bad, but sometimes you really don't have a choice. Rolling isn't the only option, however. If you don't feel safe challenging the Lucario up close, run from him while covering your tracks midway with a pivot grab. If the Lucario tries to keep pressure on you with a grab, he'll run into yours. If he tries with a forward air, you'll have enough time to shield his approach.
Use Both! The best thing to do is to not rely one of the options too much! If you always try to force him out, the Lucario's going to catch on to your patterns and mix up his game close range. If you always run away, again, he's going to catch onto your patterns. Having both options available is going to make it extremely difficult for the Lucario to keep pressure on you and get us out of the tight spot.
Lucario's tools close range:
Grab - Lucario's best close range option against us. Lucario's throws allow him to bring him to his goal. Putting us at a ledge. Lucario getting us to the ledge is, by far, the most dangerous situation in the matchup. Not even getting us off, just getting us to it. And his throws work much better at bringing that situation than anything else he could possibly do.
Jab/Up Tilt - Lucario's quickest moves that he'll be able to get out right after landing. Lucario's going to try to use these to keep constant pressure on us after getting inside of our bubble. Jab is going to be used against Olimars that tend to sit in their shields more, and will be used as a way to keep Olimar from knowing when the Lucario is going to throw out a grab/force palm. If you notice the Lucario going for Jab -> Jab -> Force Palm on your shield, you have enough time roll behind him after the second jab and plenty of time to punish him afterwards.
Down Air - Short Hopped Down Air is definitely not his best option after he's already gotten inside of our area, but it's definitely something available to him. Dair will shut down Olimars that are less defensive and try to fit more attacks inbetween Lucario's holes. So if you try to force Lucario out, watch out for down airs. Just like I said previously, if you predict one and shield it, you have plenty of time to punish it with whatever you'd like. But again, it's not as effective of an option as others he has.
Forward/Down Tilt - Not as effective as Jab/Grab against Olimar as they are against other characters, simply because Lucario isn't going to be focusing on out spacing in this matchup, so you shouldn't have to worry about forward or down tilt too much.
Forward Air - Normally wouldn't be thought to be a good close range option. However, against Olimar this is definitely the case. When up close, Olimar has a difficult time dealing with fair, and a smart Lucario will take advantage of Olimar trying to punish him with Olimar's normally groundbased punishing tools (grab, dsmash, etc). Not detrimental, but something to look out for.
Section Three - Don't Let it Touch the Ground!
Both characters are going to play the juggling game pretty different from each other in this matchup. For Olimar, you'll focus more on hitting Lucario while he's at about a full hop's height, and punishing his landings, most notably when he tries to land with an aerial. Lucario, on the other hand, is going to be focusing almost entirely on punishing Olimar as he lands, when he's most vulnerable.
Olimar's main option when juggling lucario is spacing up airs, as it's our only attacks (sans pikmin chain) that will beat out his dair (his best anti-juggle option). However, know that up air doesn't actually outprioritize dair, it only outranges it. It's not faster, either. So if the uair isn't spaced well, we won't beat out his dair. Also, be careful to not double jump before going for the uair. If by some chance Lucario does land a dair after you've used your second jump, the horizontal knockback will put us in a terrible situation, and can often cost the stock at higher percents.
Punishing Lucario's landings is also basic. Spacing grabs and forward smash in the general area that you know the Lucario is going to land makes landing extremely difficult for him. However you want to be careful because missing the punish will often mean that the lucario is now in close range against you, which is right where he wants to be. If he tries to drop down with a dair, again, shielding it leaves you plenty of room to punish.
Lucario juggling Olimar is a little bit different. Instead, he's going to be focusing mostly on hitting us as we land, while he can't do TOO much when both are in the air. Forward Air, Up Air, etc, do beat out a good majority of our attacks, just don't be afraid of whistling through them. Trying to airdodge your way through instead is usually not a better option, as it leaves him more time to throw out another attack and keep close range pressure on us even while we're in the air. However, once the Lucario realizes that you're just able to whistle through all of his aerial options, he'll realize what he really needs to do.
Lucario punishing our landings is a pain. He has three main options that you're going to have to get use to the timing for. Grab is basically his move to either attempt to reset the juggle, or get us to the ledge where he can go for the kill. It's his answer to whistle and his best punishing option overall against Olimar. Forward Smash works well dealing with our landings as well. It's able to be whistled but difficult. If you mess up and only whistle the last part of the attack, Lucario has time to run in and punish us afterwards, or at least keep pressure going. Aura Sphere isn't as big of a problem, but may be difficult to see coming at times, or predict when to whistle/airdodge. The attack moves slow so don't try to air dodge it.
Section Four - Edge Guarding
This is where Lucario gets his kills against us. He doesn't focus so much on himself traveling off stage, chasing us for kills, but moreso keep pressure on us while we're on the ledge, or trying to get back. Zoning with Aura Sphere limits the areas we're able to travel, oftentimes making our recovery predictable. One thing done often by Lucarios, is to stand just far enough from the ledge so that his forward smash covers exactly the distance from him to the edge of the stage. This allows him to completely outrange Olimar, without him being put at the danger he normally would be at during the lag of the fsmash, as Olimar has to get off of the ledge and get to him before the lag ends. Also, when landing while recoverying, be sure to go for the ledge most of the time. Lucario has too many options to deal with a landing Olimar. And considering that, when recovering, it's obvious exactly where the Olimar is going to land it'll be extremely difficult to make the landing unpredictable. If Lucario lands a grab on a recovering Olimar fast enough, Olimar will not get his jumps back after being thrown, and will basically die.
One simple trick I use when getting off of the ledge is to drop from the ledge and immediately jump and whistle his fsmash. If the first part of the fsmash is whistled and/or you're fast enough, nair -> usmash is guaranteed within his lag. Be careful, if the Lucario sees what you're doing or your timing's off, he has plenty of time to shield the nair and grab you afterwards.
However you don't always have to follow up something after a whistle. Jumping from the ledge with a whistle, and merely focusing on getting past the opponent works as well. You take some damage in the process, but you preserve the stock and get out of a dangerous position.
Lucario's off stage options are definitely something you need to look out for. Fair is his best tool for edge guarding off stage. It doesn't have lag, leads into nair (which will be the death of us at stupid percents if we've used our jump), can combo into itself at lower percents, steals our jump, and beats out our aerial options in almost all situations. Neutral air isn't as big of a deal unless it's pretty much guaranteed. Throwing it out after a forward air isn't uncommon, but it's inferior to fair otherwise (other than its better horizontal knockback). Lucario can land stupid early kills on us with gimps, just keeping pressure on us off stage. Down Air works as a way of keeping a barrier that's difficult to pass, however it's not as dangerous as a forward smash would be, or an Aura Sphere.
Just because Lucario doesn't have a damaging recovery move (and it's slow) doesn't mean it's the easiest to chase off stage. Landing a surprise spike is definitely possible, but can be extremely dangerous. Lucario just having out a forward air trumps most of our off stage edge guards. Our best options against at edge guarding Lucario is to toss off forward smashes or purple pikmin. If you hit him with a forward smash after his second jump, he'll be forced to immediately use extreme speed and THEN be vulnerable for a spike. Or, you can grab on to the ledge and force him to recover to the stage, which will leave him vulnerable for a forward air.
Section Five - Finishing the Job
Most of Lucario's kill options I've already listed. He's going to get all of his kills on Olimar by either punishing a landing, gimps, or taking advantage of us being off stage to land a forward smash/Aura Sphere. For Olimar, you're going to get a good majority of your kills from up and down smashes. Landing an usmash is oftentimes difficult, and Lucarios will often get accustomed to you not going for it very often. So when you do go for it, you'll get a fresh usmash kill pretty early. Lucario being a floaty character dies off the top easily. Dsmash works well because it puts him at a position to get gimped, if it doesn't kill him. Up throw is your best kill throw for this matchup. And again, a lot of Lucario's attacks have noticeable amounts of lag that you can punish. Practice power shielding forward smashes and Aura Spheres and landing kills on Lucario becomes much easier.
Section Six - Pikmin Colors
Red - Actually a pretty good pikmin for the matchup. Not the best, but better than they usually are. Landing quick fair hits with them will rack up damage incredibly fast. You won't be going for a lot of Blue Throw kill against Lucario, so reds aren't too lacking in this matchup.
Yellow - Probably the matchup that Yellow Pikmin do the most poorly in. Simply put, almost any time you would land an attack with a yellow pikmin, you would land the attack with a red/blue/purple as well. You're not going to be trying to out-disjoint lucario, you're going to be focusing on throwing out the hitbox before he throws out his. So all in all, in this matchup, the only difference between yellows and the others are less damage. :'(
Blues - Amazing for this matchup. Blues do everything here. Since they're not being overshadowed by Yellow's superior range, blue's damage in aerials, smashes, and throws are amazing. Not to mention, the possibility to land an up throw (forward and back throw aren't as good in this matchup). The only things blues blues lack are the superior pikmin toss qualities that purples or whites have.
White - Actually are pretty effective in this matchup. Read the section on Mid Range play and how whites are more difficult for Lucario to deal with than most other characters. Other than that, though, they don't have too much of a purpose, of course.
Purple- The best for the matchup, closely followed by blues. Purples aren't shielded as easily at mid range by lucario. Purple up smash kills lucario at around 70% (or earlier, I'm not sure) on normal stages. All of purple's aerials are just as good as the red/blue counterpart, and purple down smash is amazing.
Section Seven - Stages
For the neutral, you're going to want to definitely strike Yoshi's Island. Battlefield would normally be the next best option for strike, although I personally dislike FD against Lucario.
Final Destination - The lack of platforms makes it difficult to land against him. Since Olimar juggles the traditional way, the platforms actually help. However, Lucario focuses on punishing Olimar as he lands, and FD makes this much easier. So I oftentimes strike it against Lucario.
Frigate Orpheon - This is my ban against Lucario, and needs to be yours too. Lucario gets a massive advantage from being able to force us to the right side, and us recovering on that side pretty much hands him the kill. The second phase isn't much better and the boost of yellow pikmin (which results in a decrease in reds and blues) may actually hurt us in this matchup.
Rainbow Cruise - Laugh at them when they take you here. Seriously. This is a terrible stage as a Lucario counterpick, especially against Olimar where we can spend the entire game finding new ways to keep him out of our personal space.
Jungle Japes - Not as good as Rainbow Cruise, but still in our favor. A popular stage among Lucarios (every single Lucario I've played has taken me here at least once). The high ceiling and close side blast zones help him a lot, especially in this matchup, although the lack of us dying when put against a ledge completely puts the matchup in our favor. Just be patient and wait until 160%+ before you go for an up smash kill.
Halberd - Our main counterpick in this matchup. The platform works well for our landings and the low ceiling gives us kills at rediculous percents. The size of the stage works wonders for us as well in a matchup were we want to stay as far away from the ledges as possible.
Summary
The majority of the game is going to be Olimar trying to keep Lucario at midrange and Lucario attempting to cross the borderline. Olimar has several tools to keep Lucario out, as compared to Lucario not having many effective tools at getting in. On the flipside, if Lucario does get in, he has effective tools to both keep pressure on Olimar or put him in a dangerous position (either off stage or in the air), while Olimar oftentimes struggles to get him out. Lucario doesn't have many strong counterpicks against Olimar, pretty much only frigate, which is a breath of fresh air. You're going to want to focus on using blues and purples as much as possible. Reds are good too and whites are good for their one times uses, but yellows are inferior in this matchup. All in all the matchup is definitely in Olimar's favor. On a chart of 1 to 5, one being the easiest, five being the hardest, I'd rate it as a 2
