Meta Pikachu Metagame Discussion

[hell-dew]

Well now everythings been out for a while we have MUs shown up in way more detail and exposure heres a useful dump for the newcommers shoutouts to umbreoff for the google docs dump which is godlike.

Basically if you have questions about a MU go check inside of there it compiles the info we have talked about thus far we need to focus on keeping this updated as we find stuff

Also updated the post cause umbreoff asked to update it may as well make this look a bit cleaner credit to him for keeping this info in check and shoutouts to everyone who contributed to the topic thus far keep it up guys

Matchup Compilation List Version 1.00

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XWWiqnsBIOmK6hlQ5L4yeoJpJvqjZ51_wOfOkzIFmH4/edit

I'm going to call this compilation version 1.00 as I think this is the one that finally deserves it. This list includes all posts contained on this thread up until today and a "Meta-Matchup Analysis" section that details how well we've analyzed the characters so far and how much we should prioritize them in the near future. There's also a few really small notes included. I also made this based off of post#250:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lmR_AafY4ghxWd4eR0KdiRiDgtjQxDHplSOt6aLFSbM/edit#gid=0

It's ESAM's matchup list ranked from freest matchup to toughest matchup instead of alphabetically. I think that ranking it from freest to toughest is good because people (newer players in particular) can look at it at a glance and say "Oh so this is who pikachu has trouble against... Guess I'll pick up another character for that matchup." I invite other people to do something similar to what ESAM did in that post. I'll find a way to organize it. I might have a weighted matchup list that finds a way to make sense of all of the matchups and combine them into one essentially.

I'm thinking of visiting the pikachu video thread and searching around on Youtube to find some good pikachu vs. whoever matchups. Either that or visiting other characters' matchup threads and trying to amalgamate that with what I have here. Linking characters' frame data also seems like a good idea. That would all take a long time, though, I think and if I follow through, this might warrant a thread of its own... Maybe.

In the meantime, I request discussions on custom mii brawler and custom palutena because I think they need them.

Also another user named Felth posted this so you guys can use this which is pretty useful id definitely thank him for it its a nice PDF version of the information

I invite you to read this PDF. It's a summary of the posts discussed in the Match up Thread. I'm writing this document using a special compiler called TeX. Thanks to Umbreoff to write the word version of this document.
I'll write a PDF version using the same template with the corresponding Theory developed in the Specific Match up posts for each Character.

 

[The TaBuu]

Mr. Lonk
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Link has been heavily buffed in Smash 4 and what used to be a simple matchup for Pikachu, has turned into a complex game of spacing and punishing.
Let's start with the obvious here.
Link has a sword. This automatically gives him the upper hand against Pikachu as the disjointed, extended range can beat out some of Pikachu's options. For example, Link's Ftilt vs Pikachu's Ftilt is not favorable at all.
Link has three projectiles and a Hylian Shield that blocks projectiles by just standing there. While Pikachu does possess Thunder Jolt, Link has a much superior camp game and his passive range through projectiles can easily give Pikachu problems. It's unfortunate but Link's neutral game is just really good. Layman's terms : we gotta do the dirty work and approach the elf.
Link's vastly improved aerial moveset is enough to challenge Pikachu in the air. Fair, Nair and Bair have little to non-existant lag while possessing the ability to 'box out' Pikachu in the air, making head to head aerial combat a difficult task. Zair should also be remembered as it can be used to space out Pikachu and quite effectively at that.
Link's KO capabilities are ridiculous and he lives longer than Pikachu too. Usmash, Fsmash, Dair spike, Dsmash, Up-B, Dash Attack, you name it. He's got the tools to finish a Pikachu off really quick, once damage has been racked and quite frankly, that isn't a ridiculous task at all for Link.

BUT. All is not lost for our adorable, yellow, electrokinetic mouse.

Pikachu is much more mobile. With a naturally faster running speed and access to Quick Attack, Link players may find themselves getting crossed up by Pikachu. Projectiles can only do so much against a character that cover nearly entire stages with one move.
Pikachu has the ability to juggle Link quite effectively. Unless Link has a bomb in hand, Pikachu can string moves together on Link and ruthlessly keep him in the air. Link has very few solid options to escape juggle situations and the lack of a bomb will only exacerbate the situation.
Pikachu's gimp game can work on Link. Pikachu's superior recovery and better aerial mobility really provides Pikachu the freedom to take the fight to Link way off stage. Link players don't have the same liberty and will always find themselves in the disadvantageous situation.
Pikachu is too cute. The amount of cuteness that Pikachu exudes is ridiculously unfair. Having your butt handed to you by a mouse wearing a blue party hat or a white bandana will certainly distract Link players to the point of frustration.

By no means am I a super strong Pikachu player and I haven't played too many strong Links but this is what I thought of the matchup so feel free to agree, disagree or ... pikagree

My personal verdict : (5/5) or (6/5) with a slight lead to the green Hylian freak, I mean warrior.

 

[SyncNatsyu]

Pikachu is too cute. The amount of cuteness that Pikachu exudes is ridiculously unfair. Having your butt handed to you by a mouse wearing a blue party hat or a white bandana will certainly distract Link players to the point of frustration.

I agree with the rest of the post too, but this is our trump card.

 

[hell-dew]

nice getting the ball rolling with the link feel free to post stuff

adding to link

Link is super prone to being juggled and comboed and one of his worst weaknesses is his landing. a lot of heavy weights likes bowser for example have a ton of trouble landing, and usually have laggy landings which is something we can cover with our awesome mobility. link is a huge sucker for falling prey to landing traps Properly spaced Fsmashes are his worst nightmare on landing also we can prop him back up into the air using dash attack

gimping link is pretty funny you can waste his jump with well timed jolts and his recovery is super free with out a jump. also if he ever thinks he can tether to the ledge Drop down and Nair him, ledge trumping is also very effective against link cause his air game while strong isnt terribly fast letting us get Upairs on him for trumping if you catch him off of it.

another thing about link his best kill options are punishes playing safe is a pain in the rear for him leave small openings dont over commit a ton and it makes him trying to land a kill move on you a struggle or else hes forced to read you. while he does kill us early IMO his kill moves tend to be fairly predictable. OOS punishes are also not very pretty for him and jolt is wicked against getting in on camping link. you will have to play aggressively against him but he will have a miserable time camping us.

 

[NobleClamtasm]

And awesome work so far guys. I'd love to do a matchup analysis in the future.

 

[Psyant]

I'll quickly describe the MK matchup since I played it a lot against a really good player.

Metaknight

Despite the gigantic nerfs this guy got, he's still good. Pretty damn good. Though his reach has been shortened a great deal, he actually received some good buffs and is better than he appears at first. His forward smash is VERY powerful now and his throw game is incredibly strong, having many guaranteed high damage follow-ups off of his throws regardless of %.

Overall, it's a bit of an awkward fight, as Pikachu vs any similarly small, fast character is. Pikachu's main advantage in the neutral game is having a projectile, but Metaknight closes distance so fast that it barely matters and you'll be slugging it out at a very close range throughout much of the match. MK has strong options out of shield with his blindingly fast Dsmash and Ftilt, but shielding against him isn't that great of an idea due to just how much he gets off a grab. I found that to be the number one thing to keep in mind in this match-up: don't get grabbed. If you get grabbed that'll lead to a free Up B or aerial for him most of the time, and at lower %s even a free up smash.

The pain doesn't end after that, however. So he just got a free hit off a throw, and now you're above him to boot. Being above MK in this game is AWFUL. Easily one of the worst characters to be above. His up tilt has a bonkers hitbox vertically so he's a threat when grounded, but in the air is where you really need to be scared of his lightning quick Up B, which is much better for chasing people in the air than it was in Brawl. It can be seriously hard to get to the ground without being hit by that thing, even with airdodging. If he hits you with it then you won't be able to get back to the ground before him to punish him in time. At higher %s his Up B will easily kill you off the top as well.

Despite the heavy nerfs it got, do not sleep on the Nado. His neutral B move can still do like 20% to you if you eat every hit, so be on point with smash DI (what little of it there is in this game) as it lost the vacuum effect. He can quickly perform it out of a full dash, so don't get caught off guard by that. It's something to watch out for because you'll be extremely close to each other most of the battle.

Where edgeguarding is concerned, a lot of MK's like to recover at an equal height to the stage with Side B. It's either that or recover low and Up B. You'll rarely see nado recovery anymore. Side B can be a bit of a pain to edgeguard due to it's constant hitboxes, but it's doable. MK has a bit of a harder time edgeguarding us than we do him, so we have the advantage there. Still, there won't be many successful edgeguards for either side in this MU, so it mostly comes down to on stage game.

Overall, our range, damage, kill power and edge guarding, weight and recovery are on pretty equal levels. MK however has a stronger grab game than us, while we have a projectile and quick attack a surprise approach. I think it's either an even 50-50 fight, or possibly a slight advantage to MK like 55-45. Don't sleep on him regardless, or you'll be in for a surprise the first time you fight a good one.

 

[Pursuit]

Hey guys, I just got done playing quite a few games against a Megaman player and thought I'd leave some of my thoughts on the match up.

As far as camping goes, he wins. His side b and neutral b are quick enough if alternated to cancel out our T-Jolts and to apply some ranged pressure. His little bullets (Ftilt and such) are another way to cancel out T-Jolts, they just don't apply the same amount of pressure. His Fsmash is also a projectile that can do a lot of damage and is very wide (top to bottom) when charged. A sticky bomb (I think his neutral b) and a Fsmash can almost fully deplete your shield so be careful if you get stuck and he is charging a smash.

As far as gimping goes, I think we are a bit stronger. I found Nair to be most effective against him because of the angle it pushes him (out and down). Anytime I just hit him out horizontally or straight down (FF Bair), he didn't seem to have a terribly hard time getting back to the stage. His up B reaches pretty high. When we are recovering, watch for his Dair. It can push us downwards (semi spike, he only hit it once so I couldnt really tell) out of Up b or side b. I didn't have any trouble recovering out side of this move. If they charge an Fsmash while you are on the edge be careful, it can hit us off the edge if we sit there too long.

In the air, I feel like he wins here. His Fair and Bair beat our Fair and Bair. his Usmash beats any aerial approach we have (FF Fair/Dair/QA). Also his Uair can be scary so be careful when he is below you. I still am not sure if you can get out of this move and at mid - high percents, it can kill you off the top.

Overall, I'd say this match up is in his favor. I was having quite a tough time beating him. I am pretty sure he was a better player so it's probably not as bad as it seemed to me. I'd have to go with a 60:40 Megaman for the match up. I would like to play it a bit more and figure out how to play vs him in the air a bit more and find some better ways to approach him.

 

[hell-dew]

megaman isnt bad hes just really bloody annoying you have to learn to respect his stuff i fought some good ones so i can give some my input on him from my experience .


his kill moves are horrid. his smashes are horrid punishes so dont let him read you play safe and smart and he shouldnt be offing you with those. uptilt is CRAZY punishable.

Jolts are actually super annoying for him the diagonal angles really screw with him if he commits to pelts to often.

in the air bait him. his fair is hella laggy also upair decimates him i found holding Down on his upair to be kind bad i had more luck holding off to the sides but i need to test this more. Be wary of Bair it kills the last hit hurts. Dair is also one of his secret high % kill moves even on stage. his dair spike is something that he should never be hitting you with. just QA smart and you will be fine.

also landing punishes are his worst nightmare. abuse landings on him and abuse his crap recovery. hes gimp food stage spikes Bair drops Fairs to gain positonal advantage and nair to waste his jump megaman with not jump is a goner so look to waste his jump nair is excellent at doing that and using the soft ending of nair is hilariously effective.

also if he pelts you and tries going for anything remember thunder abuse combo breaks and it makes his crappy string game horrid. and if the match comes down to a hit for hit you should never be losing this. and do not roll like an idiot Dsmash hits crazy hard and when hes grounded land away from him challenging his dumb attacks that hit straight upwards its plain silly and wrecks our dair pretty hard.

I found SH Dair really good against him in general to.and shielding slide and Dash attack is so bad for him plus use lots of pivot tilts and Fsmashes on him zoning his landings/options down.

 

[hell-dew]

in terms of MK i dont know what i can really say i watch Blacktwins and holy fight PIka/MK where Holy won with MK. that MU looks really interesting i want to play it more MK loses a lot of annoying brawl jank and frankly its a MU that resets to neutral a lot. i found platforms do not roll in his favor at all cause his lack of mobility and out amazing platform game works well against him. unlike a lot of characters juggling him is crappy to like wise he fails pretty hard at gimping us so both sides of that MU look really awkward cause neither character can abuse their best strengths

 

[Psyant]

The really good MK I fought was called Holy. Guess it was probably him. I brought it pretty close several times so it probably isn't a bad MU for Pika at all considering he's likely a lot better than me as a player.

 

[M15t3R E]

This is a useful thread, even if the game is still very young.
Thank you in particular to hell-dew and The TaBuu for enlightening us some more on the MU against Rosalina and Link. Those two are the worst MU's for me, personally.
I feel like I should talk about Little Mac. I hear gripes about facing him both on forums and among friends who have the game.
Little Mac has immense power but the scariest factor when facing him is probably his nearly unpredictable and long-lasting superarmor that ruins all of your progress and leaves you cursing at the screen. Forcing Little Mac to approach you will cut down the threat of his superarmored attacks to a minimum. Use constant t-jolts to ensure that the boxer cannot set up camp and so he is forced into the air. The air is not where he wants to be as Pikachu clearly has the advantage here. If he is airborne, whether rising or falling, it is virtually 100% safe to approach him in the air at this time. This is how you play the MU. Juggle Little Mac and don't let go using FF SH fairs, u-tilts, u-airs and even b-airs whenever you can. And if he makes the mistake of landing next to you while at killing percent, have your thunder shockwave give him a warm greeting. If he lands next to you while your back is facing the edge of the stage, toss him off-stage and he is almost helpless in the air. Little Mac is a fairly popular character and using this strategy I've faced a few dozen Little Macs online and have only lost to two or three.

 

[Psyant]

I personally feel Pikachu is a soft or even hard counter to Mac. Pikachu is everything Mac hates in a character: Short (half of Mac's moves miss on short characters), fast, hard to hit, able to camp with a projectile as well as good at juggling, gimping and getting people off stage.

I haven't lost to a Mac as Pika quite yet. The good ones I played over friend battles agreed it feels like an awful matchup for Mac. 'Course, we'll have to wait and see how the characters develop in the future, but I think it's reasonable to say Pikachu is more well suited to fighting Mac than most characters.

 

[Tyros]

Anyone have thoughts on Ganondorf and Dedede? I find myself getting wiped up pretty hard against them. I find openings, but none are enough to get a good hit in. Mostly just tilts, and those don't start to kill until around 200. They've almost always taken me down once before I can get them up around there.
Deded is nearly impossible to gimp thanks to that disjointed hammer. I find all my aerials totally cancelled by a simple, quick swing.

 

[Psyant]

Pikachu walks all over those two in the neutral game and you can combo them easily, but it only takes a couple of hits from them to equalize your 10 hits. If you play it perfectly you can steam-roll them, but if you make mistakes too often you'll suffer badly for it.

I'd say Dedede is harder than Ganon because of his annoying survivability, recovery and aerials. Ganon you can kill pretty early by gimping as he's one of the few characters that still has a bad recovery.

Basically just try not to screw up. The pressure is on you to be perfect and they can be extremely lazy, land a few lucky hits and turn things around. That's how light vs heavy matchups go in this game pretty much. But you should win if you don't make mistakes.

 

[Tyros]

Yeah, makes sense. Guess I've got a lot of practicing to do with gimping. Feels hard to do on the DS.
But this ain't really the thread for that, I know.
I'll keep on practicing!

 

[Nocally]

Anyone have thoughts on Ganondorf and Dedede? I find myself getting wiped up pretty hard against them. I find openings, but none are enough to get a good hit in. Mostly just tilts, and those don't start to kill until around 200. They've almost always taken me down once before I can get them up around there.
Deded is nearly impossible to gimp thanks to that disjointed hammer. I find all my aerials totally cancelled by a simple, quick swing.

Pikachu is quick enough to juggle them for days, just try and bait some of their laggier moves and punish them hard.

 

[ZTD | TECHnology]

I got some good experience against Robin recently and here are some cliff notes:

- Always keep the pressure on Robin. Keep TJolt pressure on him if he's attempting to charge Thunder. His charge system is in stages. If you can make him respond to TJolt before he can upgrade to the next level, he has to start from that level again. This is important because Arcthunder and Thoron are a big deal.

Respect Arcfire but don't let it make you play timidly. You can bait and punish Arcfire with dash grab/attack if you're right at the spot where it comes out. If you're too far back, you lose options to punish him for it. If you are in the air and you suspect he will try to trap your landing, QA instead. You want to make him pop his fire tome. It makes approaching him much easier.

Pay very close attention to how many Levin sword attacks he uses and when its about to break. His kill power is significantly gimped when its broken (except Thoron).

Speaking of Levin sword, respect his Levin aerials. Up Air is GODLIKE. Bair and Fair are also really strong. Don't challenge these moves outright. They have insane priority/range/power/coverage/speed.

If you have Robin high above you, it's tempting to get greedy. But wait and then punish. Elwind does spike after all. But Robin is quite slow and you can punish him with Thunder and a variety of other tools. Just be mindful.

If they keep Arcthunder stored and their off stage, they can actually gain a 3rd jump by charging to Thoron. Keep that in mind when he's off stage.

If you mess up in close range you can expect to get grabbed and thrown away so they can charge Thunder. Robin's tilts also really fast. Down tilt has almost no recovery on it. Since we like to do close range footsies, its relevant to look out for.

 

[dettadeus]

So...

Pika completely destroys ROB lmao. Was on For Glory and ran into a ROB player of about my skill (we did the ditto like 8 times and it was super close every time) then I went Pika and he took like three stocks over 10 games.

If ROB is out of fuel you can gimp him when he grabs the edge by forcing him off it.

 

[Psyant]

Yeah, Robin is pretty free for Pika imo. I co-main Robin and I think he has huge flaws against short, fast characters. His auto-cancelled short-hopped aerials often can't hit small characters, Elfire is easy to run under as a short fast character like Pikachu and his usual keep-away tactics being ineffective combined with Robin's lack of movement speed (slowest dash in the game alongside Jigs) and fairly large start up on his hard hitting attacks means you can walk all over him without much fear on the ground.

The only thing to really watch out for is his tilts, but they don't do much damage or have very threatening range. His F/Dsmash are threatening but not that fast. He's much more dangerous if you go for him in the air, as Levin sword aerials sting and are decently fast, but on the ground he's pretty easy to deal with. Don't get hit by his Bair or Uair and he'll have a hard time killing you without a smash attack read.

Also, ducking under Thoron is funny.

 

[Nevarro]

What do you gus think of the lucario matchup? I played a few rounds against one and it seems that his thing of dealing more damage the higher his % is would be a problem for pikachu, who has to rack up a higher % on others to ko lucario.

 

[Pikachu4lyfe]

how has the fox matchup changed from Brawl?

 

[hell-dew]

Brawl Fox MU was CG him and lol (it was super free) now you actually have to fight him. I find fox not hard (felt evenish maybe even a bit our favor) although i need more experience before i can say a whole lot more i only have TOjoe`s fox in friendlies to go off which he edged me out with (last hit last stock) be aware that phantasm into firefox is Free edgeguard damage for him. be wary of foxes mobility hes fast dont roll like an idiot fox can walk up and upsmash you. also upair >>>fox if you space well its a pain for him to get around i think we trade with Dair VS upair to so dont risk it at high %

Lucario my best advice is kill him do less then 10% on his second stock and run away. be careful planking him now cause aura sphere will hit you off the ledge. I found in terms of gimping him stage spikes work. he kills us moronically early through and im pretty sure you can mash out of force palm (i dont think its reasonable at super high %s though) hopefully you can get that upsmash read at like 90%ish cause at 160 he can kill us at 60 (160 dash attack kills against him.) also his moves become safer if you raise his aura otherwise think of it like the brawl MU just he can recover and is super buffed in terms of knockback and recovery while his moveset felt slightly worse. il test out both of these MUs more when i can test stuff and thanks for the other posts thus far guys keep it up. il give a heavy/D3 overview to next time

 

[shlemon]

Some extra points on Robin, i just played about 20 games vs a fairly good one:

You can duck under all of his thunder attacks, with the possible exception of arcthunder (I got hit a couple times by ducking that but it also passed over me some times so I'm not sure). This includes thoron! Also, your landing animation is low enough to duck them too, but thoron's hitbox lingers longer than your land animation so don't try that.

When on the ground your bair on his sheild actually finishes too low for him to grab you as a punish. This makes me think it might be possible to duck the grab too, but I haven't tried it.

Keep aggressive on him, but try to cover your approach with T-jolts. It can cancel most projectiles he throws and if it doesn't it'll either hit him and you can follow up, or he will shield and you can dash grab.

If he is recovering low and close to the stage, try to catch him in a T-jolt spam by the edge. His recovery has limited uses so he's more likely than many characters to get gimped this way.

When chasing him upwards, approach slightly from the side to avoid an unexpected elwind. If he uses elwind, you have plenty of time to land back on the stage and prepare your punish. Dash attack is good if hes sideways form you, and otherwise go for an uair or nair. Usmash is even better if you're feeling confident (remember it can be done out of dash).

 

[Nocally]

The fox match-up has obviously become much harder since we don't get a free chain grab on him, but overall it seems to all come down to the players instead of the characters. Both fighters are quick and has some good combo potential, but they both lack reach, disjointed hit boxes and some reliable kill moves. like Pikachu, Fox usually kill by using up- or side smash, so it all comes down to the neutral game in which they seem quite even. Be aware though, That Fox´s jab is easily es-capable by tilting down, hit shield and punish with down-tilt.

 

[Volt@ge]

Anybody got any tips regarding Palutena? I find her a bit of a nightmare, mostly due to my inability to reliably land SHFF Fairs. Can't really Tjolt to cover your engage and the rolls I just cannot punish. Racking the damage is eh, but actually landing the KO, amongst the counters and infuriating windboxes is a struggle for me.

 

[Psyant]

One amazing thing we have on Fox is Bair. You know how if you get clipped by one hit of a multihit move you get meteor'd? When Fox is attempting to Firefox to the ledge just run off and put your bair out at the ledge. Usually Firefox will trade with your Bair, which results in Fox only taking one hit of it and getting meteor'd straight out of his recovery. Esam was using this really well against Nakat, as you can see here.

 

[BellaLunaWolf]

Blegh... I just lost a bunch of For Glory matches against Greninjas and Sheiks. If I can't consistently hold my own in For Glory, I am still very much a scrub.
In hindsight I should have kept some replays of my losses to see what I could have done better.

So, to those who are more knowledgeable, how are the matchups with Pikachu against the two shinobi?

 

[Nocally]

Blegh... I just lost a bunch of For Glory matches against Greninjas and Shieks. If I can't consistently hold my own in For Glory, I am still very much a scrub.
In hindsight I should have kept some replays of my losses to see what I could have done better.

So, to those who are more knowledgeable, how are the matchups with Pikachu against the two shinobi?

Personally, I love the match ups, Greninja seems to be a very hit and run type of character, but Pikachu is usually fast enough to do something about him. The only things Greninja really has against Pikachu is some possible reach on a couple of his moves, but nothing major except his up-smash, and his up-b can gimp Pikachu, so don't get too predictable when recovering.

Shiek You can combo around like she can you if you re not careful. Shielding her areal approaches and her jabs can net you some nice damage on her, if she carelessly throws out her jabs you can shield or DI down and shield, then punish her with a down-tilt. If the Shiek player spams needles, spam thunder jolts, since the two attacks will go through each other. Both Pikachu and Shiek has trouble killing, but the only thing you really have to look out for is her bouncing fish move, otherwise her kill moves are easily telegraphed in close range, which is where Pikachu´s kill moves are.

All of this is of course only generic pointers and tips to help out, but overall just look out for Greninja and punish his approaches, and don't be too afraid to go in on Shiek.

 

[Volt@ge]

I feel like Greninja is the harder matchup of the two. Shurikens can help dodge your T jolt approaches, his roll is absolutely godlike, his reach is naturally longer than Pikachu's, and if you space outside of his tilt range, he can easily punish with a close range Shadow Sneak which comes out incredibly quickly.

If you ask me, learn to love your D-smash. Worship it, spam it, you can't really escape it in Smash4, it can punish rolls pretty well too. Be wary of the massive hitbox on Greninja's U-smash too. It easily outranges pretty much anything you can approach with from every angle.

As Nocally also said, respect his Up-b. Especially with something like Quick Attack where a windbox can go sour very quickly. If he looks like the type to use Up-b religiously when edgeguarding, recover lower than you perhaps normally would, or delay your QA, else he can easily KO you off the top with it.

 

[Psyant]

Greninja has been the hardest MU for me so far, for the reasons stated. One of the few characters that has a way to gimp quick attack somewhat reliably, he has a lot of reach and speed, can be hard to pin down. Slippery bugger. When the WiiU version hits (or if you play a good Japanese player with a New 3DS) watch out for his literally stage-length DACUS too.

Sheik is pretty even grounds but I think Pikachu wins by a bit. Pikachu can make even Sheik look slow in some ways. Sheik also relies on edgeguarding to KO even more than us if she can't hit with Bouncing Fish, so it's a nightmare for her to KO Pikachu. In my experience if you vector up from her down throw she can almost never hit the up air followup on Pikachu, which she relies on to kill a lot.

 

[ZTD | TECHnology]

I feel like Greninja is definitely doable, but its like fighting another Pikachu but with better range and hitboxes. Defensive play doesn't really work as well because Water Shuriken does a great job of controlling the space in front of him. So you're forced to try to poke and harass something that has viable answers to most of your toolset. We've got things on him too, but I consider him to be one of the most annoying MUs for the aforementioned reasons.

 

[Psyant]

I feel like Greninja is definitely doable, but its like fighting another Pikachu but with better range and hitboxes.

That's exactly how I feel about it too. It's mostly even grounds and a fair match but Greninja has a good edge in range. It's tedious to play.

 

[ZTD | TECHnology]

Yeah, you have to be so much more careful here and weave in and out/bait more. Usually if we can't just outright approach someone we can always camp to create openings but Greninja's zoning abilities are difficult to deal with once you start playing ones that know what they're doing. You have to constantly shift gears and use some choice mindgames if you want to take the momentum away from Greninja. I enjoy all of the hard MUs because they require a certain finesse/control with Pikachu but this one gets frustrating sometimes. And they're EVERYWHERE. lol

 

[Wiscus]

One warning about spamming dsmash, greninja can work his way out if you become predictable with its use esp as percentage goes up, at the start of dsmash you can work your way out bit by bit eventually breaking out if youre fast enough, they can also sometimes successfully shadow sneak out of it.

 

[Volt@ge]

The Counter is also a pretty good answer to D-smash. I didn't necessarily mean 'spamming' it, but it's a lot easier than trying to SHFF Aerials if he's really in your face, and the somewhat larger hitbox also helps. F-tilt would be a better option if his didn't have double the range of ours. ><

 

[Wiscus]

The Counter is also a pretty good answer to D-smash. I didn't necessarily mean 'spamming' it, but it's a lot easier than trying to SHFF Aerials if he's really in your face, and the somewhat larger hitbox also helps. F-tilt would be a better option if his didn't have double the range of ours. ><

Ah, yeah I didnt mean to make it sound like I was downing your advice or anything, just something to be aware of, Im guessing by the time wii u version is out dsmash will be a lot easier to get out of. Hopefully greninjas jab will be too.

 

[Volt@ge]

Lol no worries, I should have been clearer when I said it. =p

And yeah, getting out of multihit moves atm is a bit of a nightmare, especially jabs.

 

[Gamingboy]

As for Greninja: Clearly, what needs to be done is a petition to Sakurai to make all electrical attacks against Greninja Super-Effective. It's for accuracy, dang nabbit!

 

[BellaLunaWolf]

As for Greninja: Clearly, what needs to be done is a petition to Sakurai to make all electrical attacks against Greninja Super-Effective. It's for accuracy, dang nabbit!

Didn't type effectiveness used to be a thing in Brawl? Well, it only seemed to affect the Pokemon Trainer trio, and not the other Pokemon... It was kinda simplified, too, as Squirtle was only weak to Grass and not Electric attacks, unlike the real Pokemon games.

 

[Gamingboy]

Didn't type effectiveness used to be a thing in Brawl? Well, it only seemed to affect the Pokemon Trainer trio, and not the other Pokemon... It was kinda simplified, too, as Squirtle was only weak to Grass and not Electric attacks, unlike the real Pokemon games.

Yeah, it was really simplified and was more meant to spice up PT mirror matches than anything.