Pikachu Matchup Thread

[Admiral Pit]

Matchup: Pikachu

This matchup is more tricky than some think. While most Pits may have faced maybe 1 common spammy Pika which usually consists of Dsmashes, Fsmash, and some Thunders, the more better Pikas (like Anther) are more complex, faster, harder to hit, and harder to predict, just harder to beat in general. Pika is also small, and Pit does have some hard times hitting small targets.

Just to state the obvious stuff....
-Pit and Pika both have just about the same range
-Pit can reflect Jolts and Thunder
-Pika can come up from the ledge really quickly, and I mean quicker than just about any character
-Pika has a good edgegame just like Pit


The matchup was considered just about even between both characters, so it is currently 50:50, until we get some data here.

I don't have much info for this, so discussion and input will be needed for this. This includes needing to know about if Pika can CG a Pit. Pit has that F-throw to Stutterstep Fsmash, starting from 0 to a quick 30% damage.

 

[Ayoub]

Uhm, pikachu's who got the QA to aerials/side b/thunder/jolts are really annoying. They are too fast, and as you say, hard to predict. And watch out for their stupid quick attack lock. It's not really hard for a good pika to set that up, they mostly end it with thunder, so when ur in a QAL, you'll die anyway. Uh... Pikachu has pretty good killing moves compared to pit, pikachu's recovery isn't easy to gimp. And it cant be MS'd. I guess you should play defensive in this matchup. Sheildgrab, punish, arrows (I hate it when they crouch when I start with arrows), and make them approach I guess. Pit's SH nair doesnt work well in this matchup.

And pikachu is small, so approach isn't smart to do. Oh, and pit outcamps pikachu, atleast thats something.

 

[321BOOM]

arrows (I hate it when they crouch when I start with arrows)

i always angle my arrows down on short characters.
especially those who can crouch, theyre bound to try to avoid it.

agreed about outcamping pikachu.
his thundershock comes out slower than our arrows.
pika will eventually get annoyed and approach once they figure it out.

learn to DI out of pika's downsmash, it sets up easily to a thunderspike.

 

[Ayoub]

Oh yes, thats what I wanted to say. xP TDI and SDI out of pikachu's downsmash, it's not that hard. Downsmash is one of pika's killing moves. So when you control the DI, you limit pikachu's killing thing. xP (My english sucks).

 

[MysteriousSilver]

DI for Dsmash is just up, I believe. Really easy.

He'll probably expect you to DI out of it though, and it still puts you in a disadvantageous position, so be careful.

According to this thread, Pit doesn't seem to be on the chaingrab list.

Watch for the "PIKAAA!" and AR his thunder early on, he'll use it more cautiously after that. Watch for it out of QAC, some Pika's seem to think they're safe out of that. Pika's got some interesting Techs, I'd advise just browsing through them (if you haven't already fought a lot of Pikas) just to see what he can do.

 

[ShermantheTank]

Watch your edge-game with Pika, he's got a lot of nasty stuff (smashes, standard/down B) he can do to punish a Pit hanging on the edge. On the flip side, it's really easy to bait a Pikachu into doing a thunder if you recover high.

Also, I'm fairly sure you can MS his side B. That gives us another tool to gimping him.

Honestly, the only killing moves that Pika has that I know of his is forward/down-smash and his down B. Given that the first is easy to avoid, the second can be DIed out of easily, and the third can be reflected, Pit should be able to hang around for a very long time.

 

[MysteriousSilver]

Upsmash is nasty, and usually sets up into thunder... Nair is probably his best ariel killer.

MSing skullbash isn't as useful as some things, since he still has full control afterward, and shouldn't be using it that close to the edge anyways.

I mean, if you both happen to be off the stage and he does it, go for it.

 

[Admiral Pit]

After playing Anther a few times earlier this week, I realized that Usmash (or just getting launched into the air in general) and then thunder is more difficult and irritating than I thought since you may only have time to probably do an airdodge, but even that won't save u from a possible KO from Thunder since you can't airdodge a full portion of thunder, and if the Pika knows what location that you DI'd towards.
Better Pika players won't use thunder so much knowing Pit has reflectors. Many would stick to a few Thunder Jolts, a whole string of melee-based attacks, and some use QAC combinations. He's fast, small, and hard to hit, so faster and smarter Pikas like Anther are very difficult to deal with.

At the beginning of your stocks, I have been trying to get through the F-throw > F-throw > Usmash, but I really don't think we could ever escape if the Pika is fast enough, or at least, in my experience.
Thankfully Pika doesn't have any of those major CGs on Pit <3

Pika has a great edge game like us. He can also come up from the ledge really quickly, quick enough that he will still have about half his invincibility frames from hanging on the ledge even when he comes up, and he could attack from there.

Against Dsmash, if the Pika uses it, try to DI upwards, before the last hit kicks in. SDI for quicker results. This may be common knowledge, but still some people have problems with it.
If you predict a Dsmash and if you are shielding it (Not Mirror Shield), you should be able to shield the whole attack, and land an Fsmash on them. The Pika Dsmash does 7 hits total, so keep that in mind and try to counter when that time comes.

As far as recovery and gimping goes, for Pika to Pit, he can send thunder jolts at us if we are recovering low, or thunder if recovering high. Gliding is tempting because of this. If you're forced to use Up-B, GL getting back, especially against a smart Pika. They can come after us at both high and low elevations.

For Pit to Pika, arrows do well against him recovering with Side-B. It's just hard sometimes to hit his small self, though. As far as Quick Attack goes, surprisingly, Angel Ring can stop it in its tracks, but knowing where Pika will go may be very difficult to predict. Some Pikas would aim for the ledge, but just try to know more about your Pika opponent. We could edgehog the Side-B and Up-B if we can time it right. If we don't we'll be getting hurt a lot.

Pika's KOing moves are Fsmash and Thunder obviously, along with the sweetspot of N-air (The absolute start of the move). Don't underestimate that N-air when Pika gets under your wings. The strongest point of this move is at the start of the move,
Usmash is an okay KO move by itself, though it's usually used when trying to go for a Thunder KO, or at the beginning of a stock after Pika's F-throw..

This is all I have for now. On rare occasions I think Pika may have a small advantage against us, but for other reasons I think he's just about even with us.

PS: Anther loves my Pit >.<

 

[Afropony]

Bump.
I'm gonna ask the Pika boards to come here and Help us out. We need more talk on match-ups and hopefully this'll help.

 

[Legendary Pikachu]

After playing Anther a few times earlier this week, I realized that Usmash (or just getting launched into the air in general) and then thunder is more difficult and irritating than I thought since you may only have time to probably do an airdodge, but even that won't save u from a possible KO from Thunder since you can't airdodge a full portion of thunder, and if the Pika knows what location that you DI'd towards.
Better Pika players won't use thunder so much knowing Pit has reflectors. Many would stick to a few Thunder Jolts, a whole string of melee-based attacks, and some use QAC combinations. He's fast, small, and hard to hit, so faster and smarter Pikas like Anther are very difficult to deal with.

At the beginning of your stocks, I have been trying to get through the F-throw > F-throw > Usmash, but I really don't think we could ever escape if the Pika is fast enough, or at least, in my experience.
Thankfully Pika doesn't have any of those major CGs on Pit <3

Pika has a great edge game like us. He can also come up from the ledge really quickly, quick enough that he will still have about half his invincibility frames from hanging on the ledge even when he comes up, and he could attack from there.

Against Dsmash, if the Pika uses it, try to DI upwards, before the last hit kicks in. SDI for quicker results. This may be common knowledge, but still some people have problems with it.
If you predict a Dsmash and if you are shielding it (Not Mirror Shield), you should be able to shield the whole attack, and land an Fsmash on them. The Pika Dsmash does 7 hits total, so keep that in mind and try to counter when that time comes.

As far as recovery and gimping goes, for Pika to Pit, he can send thunder jolts at us if we are recovering low, or thunder if recovering high. Gliding is tempting because of this. If you're forced to use Up-B, GL getting back, especially against a smart Pika. They can come after us at both high and low elevations.

For Pit to Pika, arrows do well against him recovering with Side-B. It's just hard sometimes to hit his small self, though. As far as Quick Attack goes, surprisingly, Angel Ring can stop it in its tracks, but knowing where Pika will go may be very difficult to predict. Some Pikas would aim for the ledge, but just try to know more about your Pika opponent. We could edgehog the Side-B and Up-B if we can time it right. If we don't we'll be getting hurt a lot.

Pika's KOing moves are Fsmash and Thunder obviously, along with the sweetspot of N-air (The absolute start of the move). Don't underestimate that N-air when Pika gets under your wings. The strongest point of this move is at the start of the move,
Usmash is an okay KO move by itself, though it's usually used when trying to go for a Thunder KO, or at the beginning of a stock after Pika's F-throw.

This is all I have for now. On rare occasions I think Pika may have a small advantage against us, but for other reasons I think he's just about even with us.

PS: Anther loves my Pit >.<

Your insight into the matchup clearly proves you have major experience with the matchup (even if we overlook you facing freakin' anther... ^_^)

Actually... from my experiences (and surrounding publicity of course) I hear that only Anther, stealthraptor, myself, and a small handful of others actually spend a lot of time/skill to 'laser-aim' our thunder gimps. From my experience facing other pikachu's in dittos, while most know the general u-smash>thunder KO and u-tilt > thunder KO, if you just airdodge towards the pika or away (alternating) you'll survive against 'most' of the newer pika's (read their jump direction). Against ppl like anther, stealth, or me, a perfect setup will pretty much land unless you're good/lucky.

Pikachu's edgegrab lag is only 12 frames whereas EVERYBODY ELSE (for some odd reason that we pika's don't know yet) has 24 frames of edgegrab lag (before they can drop off and do anything). That is true wherever you heard that from. ^_^

A good pika will also risk QA'ing through you (and back to ledge/stage) if you up-b. WoI under stages like smashville is almost like a suicide attempt (since t-jolts wrap along the bottom and thunder wall with prevent sweetspot). In short, If icarus comes out... expect to die just like in the fairy tales ^_^. Wall of thunder should take care of gliding even, but that also depends on pits gliding skills. :D

Don't forget u-tilt at high damages. At around 115+, u-tilt is even better than u-smash sometimes in setting up for the thunder gimp (the knockback direction is much more profound and the reaction time for DI'ing is shorter). D-air is nasty at 120+ percentages if it's fresh and has been known to stagespike when you are below/hanging on the ledge.

Against pits, I usually PS/DJ over the arrows and cover the rest of the space with QaC>u-air or n-air. I try to stay clear of Pit's jab-cancels which always annoy me still to this day. My main objective is forcing pit offstage and baiting the Wings of Icarus out. My second objective is to thunder gimp him either off the top or using the blast. BLUE THUNDER BLAST IS A PHYSICAL MOVE! Against a new pit, I always give them the impression that I am a thunder-spammin' pika (using thunders and DI'ing out of any reflected ones). Once they get into the habit of Mirror shielding them, I'd always land at least one thunderblast to the face against a pit who 'thinks' they can reflect it (about 1 surprise blast per new pit i meet~i've done it tons to wolf's and foxes too ^_^). My last objective in killing pit is straight up smashing/n-airing at that point.

So there's my speil on my experience/plans against pits. Please do visit the pika forums sometimes... you guys are always welcomed to the general discussions because its mostly funny stories anyways (tell em' LDPK invited ya ^_^).

Hope that helps. ^_^