Pikachu vs marth

[666blaziken]

So according to Ken, pikachu has the matchup against marth, but I still have a lot of trouble in the neutral and when he gets me off stage. Every time I try to approach him, he swings his sword around like a **** in a foursome and plays so gay, and I can't get towards him. When he starts to dash dance, I thunder jolt him, but landing a grab or nair on marth is extremely hard to do. When he is offstage, I usually have an easy time gimping him if I get the thunderjolt, but I am unsure what to do if I land the back throw near the edge. It doesn't help that I only see axe play against foxes and sheik's the majority of the time. Anything I can do to get better at this matchup?

 

[Phez_]

The best (and maybe only) thing to do is to bait laggy approaches from marth. The best way to do this is to dashdance in and out of his range, bait something, and then punish with a Nair, Uair or USmash. This can be tricky and difficult against a patient marth. This is only what I like to do so any other responses would be greatly appreciated

 

[MudkipUniverse]

ken isn't good anymore.

Baits won't work if your opponent doesn't do punishable stuff

Pikachu confirmed doesn't beat marth

 

[The Jets]

I asked Axe how he gets in on Marth when he was on his stream one time. What he said is you can inch your way in with CC Dtilt and you can also CC a few of his moves into grab. He said it was kind of ironic that you can threaten Marth with Pika's little grab lol. Other than that you'll want to DD and bait or DD and once you're at the right spacing, do a cross up nair. Follow up the nair with a rising Uair. I have a bad habit of Dsmashing after the nair, but you can usually get more mileage out of the rising uair.

As far as offstage against Marth, almost any hit off stage will kill Marth so try to land a nair off stage even if Marth is low. Pika is really good at getting back. TJolt works like you said. You can also grab ledge and nair and trade with marth's upB depending on where you hit Marth.

And an awesome approach is the jolt approach where you dash into a full hop and jolt in the air, then if you run along with the jolt it'll force Marth to shield or get hit in which case you can grab sheild or combo after jolt hits. However, this gets beat out if Marth swings his sword to hit you and the jolt at the same time. You need a decent amount of space to start this approach, I'd say you need to be about a little more than a 'third of FD' length away.

Hope this helps =]

 

[666blaziken]

I asked Axe how he gets in on Marth when he was on his stream one time. What he said is you can inch your way in with CC Dtilt and you can also CC a few of his moves into grab. He said it was kind of ironic that you can threaten Marth with Pika's little grab lol. Other than that you'll want to DD and bait or DD and once you're at the right spacing, do a cross up nair. Follow up the nair with a rising Uair. I have a bad habit of Dsmashing after the nair, but you can usually get more mileage out of the rising uair.

As far as offstage against Marth, almost any hit off stage will kill Marth so try to land a nair off stage even if Marth is low. Pika is really good at getting back. TJolt works like you said. You can also grab ledge and nair and trade with marth's upB depending on where you hit Marth.

And an awesome approach is the jolt approach where you dash into a full hop and jolt in the air, then if you run along with the jolt it'll force Marth to shield or get hit in which case you can grab sheild or combo after jolt hits. However, this gets beat out if Marth swings his sword to hit you and the jolt at the same time. You need a decent amount of space to start this approach, I'd say you need to be about a little more than a 'third of FD' length away.

Hope this helps =]

Thanks, that's the best advice I've heard yet! Can pika duck under marth's grab like jigglypuff can?

 

[N64]

Everyone is giving good advice. Dtilts and threatening quick nairs is actually kinda threatening to Marth.

I also think it's worth noting that Marth does really well in the matchup up until the highest skill levels. Mediocre Marths will often wreck mediocre Pikachus, so don't worry if the matchup feels extremely tough. Marth has a pretty easy job keeping pikachu out until pikachu gets confident in his pressure tools.

 

[Simmons]

Everyone is giving good advice. Dtilts and threatening quick nairs is actually kinda threatening to Marth.

I also think it's worth noting that Marth does really well in the matchup up until the highest skill levels. Mediocre Marths will often wreck mediocre Pikachus, so don't worry if the matchup feels extremely tough. Marth has a pretty easy job keeping pikachu out until pikachu gets confident in his pressure tools.

Don't mediocre Marths beat just about any mediocre player?

 

[N64]

yeah, i suppose. He just has more room for error than Pikachu. Once the pikachu player gets especially good at his punishes then Marth can be in trouble from whiffs or poorly spaced attacks, but until then the marth player can just keep him out with his range and rack up damage a lot easier without needing particularly efficient combos. At higher skill levels Pikachu has the ability to stay in on Marth once he gets in, potentially for the whole stock, and never give him breathing room.

 

[~Radiance~]

In every iteration of smash marths BnB has been zoning and spacing with tippers. Pikachu has had the constant struggle of low range and trouble closing in on highly safe zoning characters. Marth has no quick hitboxes that cover his feet, and fair and bair both do not cover under his toes, so use pikachus speed to your advantage and get under his feet and apply pressure. You just have to work harder at getting in under marths zone and onto his toes because thats where he struggles: pierce his zone and marth cannot deal with people being up close past his safe spacing game.

 

[Tyler Swift]

Once you get a nair on marth, pikachu is really good at stringing more together but baiting and not getting faired/fsmashed in the neutral is a big part of the matchup. also u can utalize pikachu's dash dance range to weave in and out of where marth thinks he can hit you but this could be a bit more difficult

 

[CannaSwiss]

I struggle with Marth a lot but I have noticed that dtilt works really well, especially when the Marth starts getting impatient to close out the stock. I don't usually have much luck with the nair approaches personally. The few times I can approach with a nair I can almost always follow up tho.

As far as offstage against Marth, almost any hit off stage will kill Marth so try to land a nair off stage even if Marth is low. Pika is really good at getting back. TJolt works like you said. You can also grab ledge and nair and trade with marth's upB depending on where you hit Marth.

Marth off stage feels pretty comfortable to me, nair and dair gimps both seem to work a lot and the uair spike is really nice cause Marth has trouble recovering. One of the things I'm trying to work on now is using less random nairs and being more patient, Marth is just so frustrating tho lol

 

[1MachGO]

The advantage Pikachu has is that Marths are among the least likely players to study weird MUs and consider how their options change against other characters; let alone how they can properly exploit them. It seems like most Marths are keen on playing the close-quarters walling game (which gives Pika the most opportunity for counter attack, imo).

Just watch Axe and study what he does. When Marth's start running away and dash dancing outside of Pika's max nair range or use jab as their main interception tool, you might need to come back to the lab.

 

[The Jets]

I know I had a beautiful sentiment about this match up earlier in the thread but things have changed. My friend has played me enough to figure out what to do against me. I feel like I can't get footing in the MU. When we are both standing out of range of his fair it seems like my nair can be easily stopped with Marth running the opposite direction or just Fair-ing me. Dtilt just seems like a worse Marth Dtilt so I feel like I can rely on that.

Basically I'm having a lot of trouble getting inside so that I can combo Marth. My friend does a great job of keeping me out and then destroying me if he gets the right hit.

 

[soju]

Try switching it up. Sounds like he's accustomed to your play style try other things. In neutral you have bolts, shffl nair, dtilt, and all kinds of different options.

 

[The Jets]

Anyone see how Axe uses pika's >100% ledge-get-up attack when edgeguarding Marth? What he does is use the attack when marth is right above him, after Marth is forced to up-B on stage. The attack sends Marth backwards. It's chill

 

[Psyant]

Dtilt just seems like a worse Marth Dtilt so I feel like I can rely on that.

That's partly why it's good against him though, funnily enough. Start poking at Marths with Dtilt, and 9/10 times they will get outraged that you dare try and beat them in the ground poke game, and start using their Dtilt in response. Once you've got them conditioned to Dtilt more to beat yours, Nair right over it and hit them in the face. The more you get them to use Dtilt, the more they aren't walling out your real approach (Nair) with Fair/Utilt etc.

Pika v Marth can be played kinda like a high conditioning rock-paper-scissors match. That's how I go about it at least.

 

[Spasmodic]

I consider marth to be pika's worst match up. His insane range and grab is the perfect counter to pikachu's little stubby arms. Your best bet would be to camp it out with thunderjolt and wait for an opening.

 

[666blaziken]

I consider marth to be pika's worst match up. His insane range and grab is the perfect counter to pikachu's little stubby arms. Your best bet would be to camp it out with thunderjolt and wait for an opening.

while that matchup is pretty dirty, I think that pikachu vs falco followed by sheik is the worst matchup. Falco's dair can shield poke really easily and he has an easy time comboing pikachu.

 

[GrizzyBeer]

while that matchup is pretty dirty, I think that pikachu vs falco followed by sheik is the worst matchup. Falco's dair can shield poke really easily and he has an easy time comboing pikachu.

I think IC is a worse matchup for pikachu than sheik. falco isnt that bad. if you can get falco off stage he should be dead. probably the easiest character to edgeguard

EDIT: holy crap my grammar