So after I got harshly stomped on by Meccs on stream this week at my weekly, I've been putting a lot of thought into the Ness match-up. This seems like a good time to talk about this match-up since I believe the massive buff to PSI magnet in patch 1.0.8 has changed the dynamics of pika's neutral game quite a bit.
While it was never safe to use t-jolt against Ness, pre-patch at least he had to commit to something laggy to reflect/absorb. Now that psi magnet is totally free (end lag reduced to only 4 frames down from 20) t-jolt and thunder are almost removed from our tool kit. With only QA left in our bag of gimmicks pika is left to play an almost *shudder* honest neutral game. In my sets versus my friend's Ness (over wi-fi sadly) I was pleased to find how effective pika's grounded spacing and footsies game is against Ness. Ness has great tools to box out Pika with his super disjointed and fast SH fair, the occasional well spaced PK Fire, and a decent to good jab and tilts. He even had decent anti QA tools with SH nair and cheesy onstage PK thunder stuff.
The big thing he lacks however, is any reliable way to approach a grounded pika. Dtilt is great in this match up, as it stuffs all of Ness's grounded approach options (maybe dash attack is disjointed enough to be a problem, but I haven't experimented with that yet, shouldn't be too big of a problem as it is super unsafe on shield). I also found that D-smash to be a decent anti aerial option against Ness for when a falling fair is poorly spaced.
Since Ness can convert so well off of a grab at almost any percent, baiting dash grabs is likely to be a big part of this match up. I find that one effective mind game is to deliberately wiff an f smash and then punish the dash in with a d smash. This isn't safe by any means, but since it hits frame 8 (only 2 frames later than our fastest tilt or standing grab) and has enough knockback to possibly set up an edge gaurd. D-tilt and SH nair are also ok options, since the get space and might force a tech chase scenario or set up a jab lock, but between these two D-tilt is the best option as it has way more range and shouldn't get shield grabbed or stuffed by a SH fair or dash attack.
There's tons more to say about this match up, especially on off stage shenanigans, effective and safe QA useage and how not to get grabbed, but I'm quickly getting out of my depth on this subject. I'm going to guess that a lot of pikachu mains are going to say that pika might lose this matchup, but I think that is because Ness' strengths define the matchup more than pika's. But even if Ness restricts pika options quite a bit, and even if he has really janky easy kills I suspect pika might still have more ways to win. Though it's probably super even.
Now for some ESAM footage. All Pika mains should study this set that was played last week between ESAM and Shaky at a weekly in south florida. It contains not only some of the highest quality Pika and Ness play I've ever seen, it might just be one of the better sets of smash 4 to have taken place so far. Get hype and take notes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=II9JB81jxLw
And just for full disclosure, on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, here is me getting absolutely bopped by Meccs. If you refuse to take me seriously after seeing this I wouldn't blame you. This was my first time on stream XD:
http://www.twitch.tv/gameunderground/v/6513643?t=1h20m14s
I have johns for days about how on tilt I was after work and on little sleep, but really Meccs is just on a totally different level than me at the moment and would beat me at my best. I just wish I went out in a way that didn't make my pika look like slopcity. Hope I get to play him again soon.