PikaProject BBR MUs v3.0

[Cassio]

Sup Pikas! I'm leading the pika character panel for the BBR Match-Up Chart v3 and gonna use this thread to list the panel leaders and to provide information about the project, so anything pika related to the project can be found here. More general information about the project including the other project leaders can be found here.

The current panelists for this panel are:
Myself (panel leader)
K Prizzle
ESAM

Current BBR v2.0 MU Chart:
(ordered)
-2:
-1:
0:
+1:
+2:
+3:


The panel can have up to 5 members, but Im aiming to keep the members actually debating MUs to as small a group as needed. Though Im going to be keeping the panel small, Ill be making an extra effort to seek out opinions as well as provide outlets and be available to the thoughts and opinions of pika users and the community, as well as updating everyone on the proceeding and whats being discussed (when capable).

If you have any questions or concerns regarding this panel or its activities, feel free to post them in this thread. You may also PM me or Ish if you would rather speak to one of us privately.

 

[Cassio]

Updates

November 16
-Pika Panel set

-MU change recommendations for non panelists!
[collapse=read before recommending]Now's a time where non-panelists can provide reasoned input on MUs they would like to see changed. Im gonna leave this open to non-pika players well, however by reasoned I mean that youre capable of backing up opinions with experience and knowledge. If you dont provide some level of good reasoning for your opinion Id prefer it isnt posted. And while no one's denied from giving an opinion, be sure to make an honest assessment of your experience and skill before spending significant time making a case.

-This is not a chance to ask for the reasoning behind MU's or ask for MU advice. For instance, if youre losing to DK-Hero or having trouble with the DK MU and dont understand why its -2 theres better places to look for advice. But if youre a competent player who regularly practices with Will and feel the MU isnt so bad for DK then thatd definitely be helpful.

-Keep in mind who the panelists are and its collective experience compared with your own as well. For instance, you may have strong feelings on the MK MU after watching videos of ESAM or constantly playing your regions best MK, but before you write an essay on why MK's dtilt shuts down pikas QA consider ESAM's real national level experience, Primes experience in Texas and mine with SoCal's MKs.[/collapse]
November 8
-Pika Panel Launches!

-The panel can have up to 5 members, but Im aiming to keep the members actually debating MUs to as small a group as needed, meaning Im unlikely to add anyone else to the panel. However, if you feel as though youd make a significant contribution to MU Project that isnt covered by those currently on the panel, feel free to make a case for yourself here. In addition to adding to the panel itd also necessary to be knowledgeable, fairly experienced, active, well behaved, and good at discussion.

-Panelist selections will be finalized in a week or two, at which point we will begin discussing which match-ups to change in the panelist subforum. For anyone not on the panel, if there is a specific MU you would like to be considered for a change I'm gonna provide a chance for people to provide a well reasoned case for it. Ill get into the details of that later, but for now the focus is on finalizing the panel so I'm going to ask that you consider but hold off posting about what you might want changed until later.

 

[Alphicans]

If you want more panelists, I could join in. I am probably the best Canadian pika, and I wish I could show myself to be one of the better pikachus but obviously that's pretty hard for me to do. However I don't know if you guys need anymore panelists anyways, but I'll join in if needed/wanted.

 

[Jimmyfosho]

why isn't KPrime leading this? Just curious.

 

[Pikabunz]

Because I'm lazy.

 

[Stealth Raptor]

as much as i enjoyed the first one im sitting out

 

[Cassio]

New update on the second post, also described below.

Alphicans i spent some time seriously thinking about it, but am going to go ahead and stick with the original plan of keeping the panel small just to keep things simple. If youd mained pika Idve definitely wanted you on, but the MUs we'd likely need help with are the ones that are less popular to use pika for.

Jimmy mainly bc it doesnt really matter who leads, for the most part Im just organizing.

Update
Alright, now's a time where non-panelists can provide reasoned input on MUs they would like to see changed. Im gonna leave this open to non-pika players well, however by reasoned I mean that youre capable of backing up opinions with experience and knowledge. If you dont provide some level of good reasoning for your opinion Id prefer it isnt posted. And while no one's denied from giving an opinion, be sure to make an honest assessment of your experience and skill before spending significant time making a case.

-This is not a chance to ask for the reasoning behind MU's or ask for MU advice. For instance, if youre losing to DK-Hero or having trouble with the DK MU and dont understand why its -2 theres better places to look for advice. But if youre a competent player who regularly practices with Will and feel the MU isnt so bad for DK then thatd definitely be helpful.

-Keep in mind who the panelists are and its collective experience. For instance, you may have strong feelings on the MK MU after watching videos of ESAM or constantly playing your regions best MK, but before you write an essay on why MK's dtilt shuts down pikas QA consider ESAM's real national level experience, Primes experience in Texas and mine with SoCal's MKs.

Starting in December the panel's going to get together and start coming up with changes we'd like to make.

 

[[FBC] ESAM]

I'ma just post the changes I'm gonna want here.

MK: 0 -> -1

Poking game too strong. It is barely not even, but the presence of that strong poke game gives MK such a good risk-reward and Pikachu often has to overcommit to do anything, unless the Pika is in the MKs head. Pikachu has to react perfectly to MK to pull ahead while MK can react kinda sloppily to what Pikachu does to retaliate.

G&W: -1 -> 0

Never understood why this wasn't even. Our fast tilts (d-tilt and f-tilt mainly) shut out any potential ground game from G&W. If he jumps and tries to bair, it is easy to punish with just a t-jolt or a OOS nair between bair hits (I'm fairly certain this works)

Wolf: +3 -> +2

Wolf is really mobile and bair isn't grabbable. Hard to catch up to and has some really hard punishes. He can kill you safely while a character such as fox has to kinda go in.

Sheik: +3 -> +4

This character can't do anything alone besides needle camp which is extremely ineffective. The only thing going for her is GR DACUS, but giving Pikachu 80% won't happen before two stocks are gone, assuming you know how to do the d-throw footstool.

Ganon: +3 -> +4

Ganon can't approach safely, his moves are too slow and punishable, CG forever, edgeguard. Yeah..not pretty.

 

[Alphicans]

Well... GaW's dtilt outranges both ftilt and dtilt, and it's faster and can't really be punished OoS.

EDIT: Nairing GaW's bair seems impossibly hard, and is probably impossible if spaced on shield. Not to say there isn't any other punish, but I don't see nair having the range to be the proper one.

 

[Roller]

Please make -2.

 

[[FBC] ESAM]

Lol it isn't a -2, dafuq

Yeah G&W's d-tilt is faster, but he is way less mobile so it is really obvious when he is trying to go for it. Pikachu is a lot smoother of a character so we normally have more options while G&W's are normally 1d (not to make the pun). With our speed, we can mess up the bair spacing unless you are going to start bairing empty space in hopes that we will run into it.

 

[Roller]

It's -2.

 

[Cassio]

A well placed Fsmash will always make an opponent second guess that relies too heavily on spacing against pika. As long as its not used against their shield, just wait for them to toss out the attack then fsmash it. Stutter stepped if theyre aiming for the tip of your shield.

I could be convinced to moving wolf to -2, but not while also moving shiek and ganon to +4. The main reason Id be fine with wolf at -2 is bc no one can do the 0-death consistently which is a big deal.

IC's will probably stay at -1

 

[[FBC] ESAM]

Wolf is different to get the footstool on for some reason. I couldn't do it against McPee and then did it against a sheik player at WABA without practicing it at all...maybe I'm doing it on the wrong throw.

Also, sheik is considerably lower to the ground so we don't have to be in the air as much, which makes it even easier on her.

 

[Cassio]

Its just that in all my experience and in most videos I watch I never see an issue of pika landing the grab on these characters, but I have seen miracle comebacks when theyre able to deal a lot of damage and then wont die. I just think itd be weird to consider the 0-death for some characters and not others, but then again c. falcon should be a +4 with the 0-death imo.

Prime can you confirm that the footstool is harder on wolf than others?

 

[Roller]

uh. That should not effect whether it is considered for the matchup or not.

 

[Alphicans]

In what ways is GaW less mobile? Serious question, because I am honestly curious how a character with comparable run speed, and better air speed is way less mobile than pikachu. Furthermore, why does mobility matter that much? If dtilt>all of your fastest ground options, how exactly does mobility come into play? Remember I am only asking this because you've failed to elaborate, and are kind of pulling a **** play by stating inaccurate blanket statements.

From my perspective, GaW's dtilt shuts out pika's ground game pretty hard, and is a big reason why I think GaW solidly wins this m/u.

 

[[FBC] ESAM]

IDK, I just never see G&Ws being very mobile unless they are doing random nair shenanigans. The characters movement, although good, is very linear, it always seems obvious...to me at least, and maybe that's just my player skill. It's hard for me to put this into words, I've just never had any difficulty with G&W outside of teams because kill power in teams is silly. I know this sounds like I'm just trying to ignore you, but I honestly don't know how to phrase it better @_@

 

[Cassio]

Roller it would depend on its use. For instance Id love to take into account pikas dthrow uair footstool in all our MUs, but when do we ever see it used now? Only when its messed up.

Alphicans according to the internal mechanics thread pika is more mobile in a lot of areas:
http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=244329

The only area GW has an advantage in is top air speed, but pikas aerial acceleration is 3 times better. Personally Ive never had much issue with GW's ground game. As Id sort of hinted at if pika tips an fsmash on GW instead of rushing in dtilt doesnt shut out pika. Outside that I suck at the MU though so Ill defer to everyone else on what it should be.

 

[Alphicans]

It's hard to determine how all of those things affect overall mobility, and more importantly overall useful mobility. In some cases, having a lower value might be beneficial, while in others it might be bad. I tend to look at the factors that are easily comparable and can be easily seen as something that for sure affects a situation.

 

[Cassio]

Yeah I couldve worded that better. I just didnt want it to seem like ESAMs opinion on it was that farfetched.

 

[Alphicans]

Well it's not farfetched, I am just now wondering what do players even mean by mobility now? I think the definition gets pretty convoluted, and how do we even determine it? Getting pretty philosophical with this now lol.

 

[Cassio]

Kinda dropped the ball on this, but these are the changes that were requested by the pika panel (there may be other changes as other panels requested changes for pika).

-2 -> -1
-1 ->0
0 -> +1
+3 -> +2

-1 -> 0
+1 -> +2

If anyone has any thoughts on these or other MUs go for it here, keep in mind though to try and back up thoughts with experience and good analysis. This isnt a thread to look for MU advice (theres plenty of those in the stickies.

 

[[FBC] ESAM]

And just for reference, Snake and Toon Link were changed to the way we requested.

 

[HoldeN HoT FiyA]

Toon Link changed to +1? I thought it was about 50:50, if anything slightly in Toon Link's favor. Why do you guys think it's +1?

 

[[FBC] ESAM]

We outcamp him because it's easier to avoid, we are faster, edgeguarding is very consistent percent, and we have a good up-close game...pretty much.

 

[HoldeN HoT FiyA]

Interesting, I just generally have trouble getting inside of a Toon Link because of the constant barrage of projectiles he always has out but I can definitely see our advantage once we do get up-close and personal. Guess I just have to get better at dodging and getting past projectiles!

 

[Alphicans]

Not sure if I believe the out-camp part.

 

[[FBC] ESAM]

I mean, watch me vs MJG and you can see it. Outcamping doesn't necessarily mean we are making him approach, but we are doing more damage with projectiles considering we are more mobile and if TL ends up avoiding our projectiles we can get in with our speed and then make it a CQC situation.