Pikachu vs. Puff Discussion (with a video of Anther vs. Hbox)

[The Jets]

It's a weird match up for every character because of how difficult it is to chase down puff and combo her.

I saw this video and was really happy to see Anther use fair into utilt on puff, even if it's not 100%, it can start some really good combos to make the MU less worse. I think the combo can be extended well by reading the puff's DI and jumps.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pO_f2PynEJI <-- Thrzy v Hbox

What more is there to do in this MU than a few nairs and time a good upsmash oos?

 

[Psyant]

I'm actually a firm believer that this matchup can be Pika favoured with some more figuring out. Jigs basically has Bair against us, and while it's annoying, she doesn't have that much more than that against Pikachu, besides the occasional Rest setup. Pikachu can:

• Challenge & punish her aerial spacing game with his high speed aerials, dashdance & running jump momentum.
• Generally avoid being edgeguarded most of the time (can't do much if you're too far away to use Up B when she gets to you, but this only really happens when you're already at high % anyway), which is Jigs main kill method on most of the cast outside of Rest.
• Kill Jigs absurdly early with Usmash, which can be true combo'd into with a soft Nair, used as an OoS punish, or used after a crouch cancel when you're at low %. A weak Nair at as low as 45% can combo into a Usmash that will kill her on most stages.

Uair > Thunder is also worth putting a lot of time into mastering. Axe shows great use of this against floaties when he's playing well and Anther does too, but I think it needs to be focused on/practiced a bit more. It is legitimately possible to 0-death Jigs on Yoshi's Story with Uair > Uair > Thunder, killing her at 17%. That'd be rare to see, but it shows just how incredibly strong Uair > Thunder is on floaties. It can be DI'd out of, but people fail to DI Pika's Uair correctly very, very often and you should be ready and able to land it if given the chance.

One other thing I like to use in this MU is fullhop Dair. Used during a fullhop, Dair will complete long before you reach the ground, meaning you don't leave yourself with any endlag, and the way Pikachu angles his body upside down combined with his fullhop height is perfect for hitting Jigs from above while avoiding any aerial attacks at the usual height she hovers around. Just something extra to throw in now and again to challenge their bair spacing, but I find it works well.

Fullhop t-jolt can also work well to block the angle she usually comes in at. While jolt is kinda laggy, used as an occasional mixup the risk isn't too great, and remember that if you hit her and do 10%, you basically just shaved off as much as 20% of her stock's lifespan, assuming you can hit an early Usmash.

IMO this matchup is completely about your ability to efficiently kill at the earliest possible %s. Master that, and you'll barely have to hit her at all to get her to kill %.

 

[The Jets]

What can Pika do about puff doing a well spaced retreating bair on shield. I've tried upsmash OOS but I just get wrecked after I whiff. Puff moves too fast for anything to come out after shield stun ends

 

[soju]

Recognize what you can and cannot punish, you have a projectile and she doesn't, why chase her if you can get her to come to you, just play her game get the % lead and be patient, puff doesn't have the ability to give overwhelming amounts of pressure up close like the top tiers, when you get ahead there's no need to be aggressive.

My advice pick fd or stadium, camp her, punish her when she aggro's too much

 

[ShadowKing]

OK let see pikachu can use a lot of quick moves on puff to lay lots of damage but what would be a good finish after making all the damage on puff?

 

[soju]

Usmash? No reason no to use it for early kills

 

[ChivalRuse]

I played the matchup a bunch on my stream. I don't know much about it yet, but I'm finding that fair has good reach for catching Puff out of the air. Nair is good, as usual, but you have to react really well to the Puff's bair tempo. Overall, a matchup that is still very much undeveloped from the Pikachu side.

One nice thing is that she can't plank Pikachu, because of our projectile.

 

[_trix_]

I'm really late, but upwards angled ftilt against puff is amazing. Greatest thing ever

 

[Psyant]

Yeah. Upwards angled Ftilt is just gdlike in general. Actually stuffs like the majority of approaches in the game including many good SHFFLs. Also really good against Falcon. It's just difficult to have the presence of mind and reaction speed to defend yourself with it a lot. Probably something we could all work on.

 

[proxibomb]

Would usmashing early be super punishable? The only time I could see it being useful is if Jiggs makes a mistake. That soft nair into usmash thing does seem really useful, though.

 

[Psyant]

I think how much you risk randy Usmash is down to your values as a player more than anything. There's pros and cons. In his most recent set vs Hbox I noticed Axe seemed to just outright refuse to ever throw Usmash out in neutral, and I think it did him more harm than good.

The thing is, yeah, Pika's Usmash doesn't have the best range, meaning it's more of a hard read than something that is pretty reliable to hit if thrown out given the opponent is roughly where you think they'll be (Fox Usmash)...but if you don't use it at all then you are basically saying to the Jigglypuff player "Hey, play as brave as you want, because no matter how many times I hit you, you'll only die at 120%+ to a Nair anyway! All you have to fear from my punishes is eating 12% from an aerial!".

Pikachu has such good frame data that he rarely gets rested even if he whiffs something, and he can't be punished that hard by Jigs via combos/grabs etc like fastfallers can, so I think it's completely reasonable to throw out a couple of up smashes per game just to show that you are willing to do it. It has a huge amount of scare factor to the Jigs player and forces them to play more meakly. I think that's worth it even if you don't hit the Usmash you try. At worst you will probably just eat a few Bairs or something. This MU will usually see a lot of neutral game wins on either side before it's over, and that gives you some leniency to lose neutral a few times if what you're doing influences their playstyle in a way which makes winning the rest of the neutral exchanges easier.

Not using Usmash vs Jigs is like playing against a heavily-crouch cancel based character like Peach/Samus and never using Dsmash. Sure, you might get punished for randy Dsmashes occasionally, but does that mean you shouldn't do it? The overall gain you get from manipulating your opponent into playing in a way in which you can beat them more easily is well worth the few times you get punished for it, imo. You need to show them that they have something to be afraid of.

Again, I think it comes down to your values as a player, though.

And yeah, weak Nair to Usmash is super amazing and is absolutely essential learning for every floaty MU. It even works on Sheik and Marth at higher %s. I get a lot of shock from Peach/Puff players when they die to Weak Nair > Usmash > Thunder from a Nair at 40%. I'm honestly kind of perplexed as to why I never seem to see other Pikachu players do it.

 

[ihasabuket]

Im not a pika main but I do know quite a bit about the character and game. Like you mentioned Anther demonstrated that fair is really useful in this MU. It has decent disjoint and combos if you hit one low to the ground. As seen in the match posted, fair -> tilt is very effective. A tilt is guaranteed after a fair if jiggs is close enough but the most reliable one to land afterwards is ftilt. To get uptilt you need to FF a bit later to go into/past them. Uptilt combos into thunder a bit better than upair because of the send angles; The front part sends up and a bit behind pika while the back part sends up and a bit in front of pika. With survival DI it sends directly above you and closer to the cloud so it hits earlier.

Anther provided a lot of insight to the neutral in this MU but I still think it can be developed and I have a few ideas already. As I saw anther's match with Hbox I realized that he didnt often get punished for dtilting. So I got on my setup and found out that puffs rising SH bair cant hit pikachu. If jiggs wants to hit a crouching/dtilting pika with a bair she has to be descending which means she wont be able to DJ or AC forcing her into landing lag. Because of this dtilt has very little risk in the neutral and ASDI/CC a bair can score you a nair. Hbox realized this in game 3 and started nairing a lot at the beginning of the game.

Something important to note is that the gap between 2 bairs while airborne is a minimum of 28 frames. The move comes out frame 9 and is fairly slow and the initial disjoint is actually not that great which means it can be stuffed effectively. The main problem is that most people whiff punish with nair. While pika does have great running jump air speed, nairs range prevents you from effectively whiff punishing a fading bair. I came up with a solution for this. Instead of punishing head on you can dash to where puff is and pivot upair. Not only does it have more horizontal range than nair but you can hit from under the bair's range. Pivoting lets you whiff punish with upair effectively, fade the aerial, and gives you an ambiguous approach in neutral.

As for thunderbolts, I think theyre best used on platforms. When shot on a platform they travel along the edge and go under it making for a very active hitbox that covers a lot of space. It should be used in conjunction with shield stops so you can shield stop FJ(full jump)/DJ thunderbolt to fade back or jump forward without committing with your running jump momentum. When used this way it controls a lot of space and many puffs tend to fade into the corner to space aerials. You can read a retreat and do an advancing thunderbolt. As a rule of thumb I never thunderbolt more than once in a row.

Im not sure I explained things that well so feel free to ask questions and/or criticize.

 

[FakeSnakeJake]

I went to a local and played a couple of Puffs (one in bracket). I found that abusing jolt is decent because it gives you the range that all pika players desperately need. The only large problem I noticed was getting b-aired constantly, and because of that, being forced into shield which became a shield poke. I'm not sure if that was a smart thing to do, but I definitely had trouble landing u-smashes.