Guide Pika's Matchups

[Shadow 111]

N64, i played you before at VLS with my jiggly puff in a couple of friendlies.
i wanted to be able to use pikachu against other jiggly puff players because i've heard he has the advantage.
i saw on your character match ups you put it as even though.
what combos are good to use on her? and moves that will easily win the fight.
i know up smash at high percents is good.
sooo, any more advice on the match up would be good.

 

[N64]

Pika vs. jiggs can be really touchy. They know your usmash hurts, so they'll probably play a lot of the match retreating/approaching bair spamming, making usmash difficult to pull off. Also, she will fsmash to punish rolls/techs/etc. Never techroll towards/behind jiggs. Also most of pika's combos don't work on lighter chars. So, best you can get off is like two hit combos. Thunder can catch her offguard if she likes recovering above you, jolts harass her recovery if she tries from below (make them follow the stage if she keeps too close to it), if she recovers from the side, nair is usually pretty safe. Don't thunder unless you absolutely know it'll hit, or if she's too far away to get to you before the lag ends, otherwise you'll get rested. If she aerial pounds you and you see it coming, shield->usmash can work. Um, other stuff, that's all I can think of at this moment. It's an annoying matchup because, except for terrible DI, neither character has many decent combos on the other. Jiggs is better at racking up damage, pika's better at killing. Good luck!

P.S. were you the kid I played during second round of pools? I think I remember you. I wasn't in the best mood at the time, heh, sorries if I didn't talk much.

 

[Shadow 111]

thanks a lot for the advice.
i'm not so sure about using pika now though against jiggly puff. i may just use puff.
i had thought that the match up was in pika's favor but i think it'd be a pain to fight jiggs no matter who i used against her lol.

yea, it was about the time of second round of pools that i played you in a couple of friendly matches.
nahh, you talked a little. you showed me the glitches that pika can do with his projectiles on battlefield and on pokemon stadium.
after i played you i saw you beat my friend though in pools lol.
do you use any other characters than pikachu?
it may have been you but i'm not so sure lol.

 

[N64]

heh, yeah i kinda remember that. Sounds like me anyways (I adore the thunderjolt glitch).

Um, I secondary young link, who I use against jiggs and a couple other odd matchups.

 

[Shadow 111]

ha lol. i actually forgot how to do the one on battlefield >_<.
yea, i saw you beat my friend who also uses jigglypufff with your y link in 2nd round of pools.

 

[PsychopathicEmus]

lost to a sheik on dreamland 64 today and uh, somebody told me dreamland 64 is a bad counterpick for a pikachu vs sheik game. is this true? i figured the wide walls, low floor, high ceiling and all that would help me live longer, and i'd just get edgeguard kills instead of usmash kills. and if dreamland 64 is a bad stage for pika vs sheik...what's a good counterpick?

 

[D. Disciple]

Bad stage for Pika in general because of the high ceiling and wide walls. But I still go there, work on gimps on that stage.

Also it's hard to get on the platforms, when you're getting chain grabbed.

 

[PsychopathicEmus]

but your own survivability goes up too doesnt it? and for the wide walls, sheik has a crappy recovery to begin with, and if i DI correctly, i might make it back from her fair when i normally wouldn't. but the chain grabbing thing was true T.T

 

[D. Disciple]

Yes you have a better chance of surviving on that stage, but you have other stages that can help you out a lot. Personally I would take a Shiek to FoD, that's just my tastes though.

 

[PsychopathicEmus]

hmm...in retrospect that probably would've been a wiser choice. for some reason, the sheik was being pretty defensive and needling the crap out of me. but FoD's limited area means out-prioritization of pika all over the place. no chain grabs there though...

 

[Anther]

On FoD though, sheik has problems when characters are below her, and Pika excels when they're above him, so if you can get them on the platforms a lot, you're pretty good far as the battle is going, and it's really easy to edgeguard sheik on FoD.. just make sure she can't grab the ledge and sheik is probably gonna die soon. Crouch cancel dsmash works a lot and her grab isn't nearly as dangerous on FoD. With pika you have to get used to running away for a long time until an advantagous situation comes to you.. :x. Course, you'll have to do a lot of fights where you run into a lot of attacks to learn those situations, but a lot of the match vs sheik you're gonna be running away.

 

[PsychopathicEmus]

bah, i can't believe sheik's in brawl again T.T

 

[festizzio]

If the full version is anything like the demo, the chaingrabbing will be reversed this time around. >:D

 

[PsychopathicEmus]

does anybody still play melee? lol. i feel left alone in the world of melee while everybody went on to brawl. not that i blame them =(.

anyway, for anybody who still cares about melee: i think pika has a chain grab on marth...sorta. when marth's at 40-ish percent, pika can dthrow and jab before marth gets to tech and then grab again =D.

 

[-Chad-]

does anybody still play melee? lol. i feel left alone in the world of melee while everybody went on to brawl. not that i blame them =(.

anyway, for anybody who still cares about melee: i think pika has a chain grab on marth...sorta. when marth's at 40-ish percent, pika can dthrow and jab before marth gets to tech and then grab again =D.

I still play Melee, but not as often cause everyone else is playing Brawl : (

 

[PsychopathicEmus]

nooo chad! stay with me! i think i'll be playing melee until a nice competitive community develops for brawl. right now... but i'm secretly hoping that brawl never gets as good as melee and people come back to the light =). i apologize to brawl fans...i can't deal with the changes =*(

 

[Zig-Zag!]

what's a melee?

 

[Tope]

does anybody still play melee? lol. i feel left alone in the world of melee while everybody went on to brawl. not that i blame them =(.

anyway, for anybody who still cares about melee: i think pika has a chain grab on marth...sorta. when marth's at 40-ish percent, pika can dthrow and jab before marth gets to tech and then grab again =D.

Doesn't work.

 

[PsychopathicEmus]

ahh ****. maybe my friend just didn't know how to deal with it. oh well =/

 

[-Chad-]

nooo chad! stay with me! i think i'll be playing melee until a nice competitive community develops for brawl. right now... but i'm secretly hoping that brawl never gets as good as melee and people come back to the light =). i apologize to brawl fans...i can't deal with the changes =*(

I'll still be playing Melee but I'm sad that I won't get to travel as much for melee tournies since it seems as if a lot of people are going on to play Brawl, and the thought of 1v1 brawl is what helps me go to sleep at night.

 

[N64]

I'll play you in melee Chad and/or Emu.

Just travel up to NY. See ya soon!

 

[PsychopathicEmus]

NY huh? well...i'll be visiting University of Rochester soon...XD. and if i were to go to U.R., maybe we can be smash buddies =p

 

[juki]

Im having some problems in local tourneys when i go against marths in the finals :S

I found the best way to beat them is to keep them in the air.

 

[N64]

By all means, if you can get below a marth, stay below him. This actually goes for just about every character (except maybe falco) as pika. Marth has very limited options against those below him (his dair, while a good combo finisher, is a kinda poor approach compared to his other moves). Pika, however, can do so much against those above him. If you're near the edge, tailspike marth and he just kinda dies. If not, juggle with uairs, tailspike into a usmash (percentage/di permitting), or just fake aerials into usmash. Keep him in the air and keep below him.

 

[-Chad-]

Pika pika pika pika pikaaaaaaaa

Melee Pika foreverrrrr

 

[Zig-Zag!]

Pika pika pika pika pikaaaaaaaa

Melee Pika foreverrrrr

Oh shut up, you don't even play pika in melee

I don't get how you guys can still play that game. Brawl is so much more fun. I think three years of competitive play with five stages and five characters is enough!

 

[PsychopathicEmus]

3 years, maybe for you...more like half a year for me. help explain a bit? =D.

 

[-Chad-]

Oh shut up, you don't even play pika in melee

I don't get how you guys can still play that game. Brawl is so much more fun. I think three years of competitive play with five stages and five characters is enough!

The hell...

You keep saying I don't play Pika in melee like you stalk me all over every tournament I ever go to, when in fact I play him in every tournament, and recently more than ever cause I think brawl is garbage and Pika is the new Peach with his great roll to d-smash crap.

 

[festizzio]

Oh shut up, you don't even play pika in melee

I don't get how you guys can still play that game. Brawl is so much more fun. I think three years of competitive play with five stages and five characters is enough!

*hem hem* see sig.

 

[PsychopathicEmus]

god...pika vs campy fox feels like a more ******** match up than pika vs sheik or pika vs ICs. here's how the deal goes:

SHDL while keeping a distance. when i try to approach, i get grabbed out of my shffl nair(WTF?!) or take a usmash to the face. if i try and jolt, he'll just reflect the jolt and either i'm too close and i get hit by my jolt(sometimes shffl nair just doesn't cut it), or i'm too far away to punish the reflection lag time. i just don't see any openings! i mean, sometimes he does a shff nair/dair and misses the l-cancel and i get to add some 20-30% before he goes back to his stupid lasering D=.

so what do i do? camp him as well by just doing ledge QA tricks or something 'til he gets bored? =X. then i gotta deal with being on the ledge with him edgeguarding =p

 

[festizzio]

I just do the thundershock, like you said, and if they reflect it then just jump in towards them; if you can't punish the shine lag then you can at least get right next to them so they're not camping anymore. Or you could try approaching with fairs occasionally, it usually works for me.

 

[PsychopathicEmus]

fair = higher priority than nair?

 

[-Chad-]

Campy Fox is a pain.. : (

 

[N64]

If they're bad, I just pressure them to death. It's pretty funny to watch i think heh.

If they're good, I lose. Campy fox is indeed a pain : /

Best I can tell ya is to mix up your approaches and get good at spacing. Empty shorthops can work, mainly you don't want to do anything laggy unless you're positive they won't be able to punish you for it (i.e. if you do hit their shield there will be enough poshback to push them off a ledge etc. making it difficult to punish). As soon as they attempt to punish and miss, grab if at all possible, or usmash or uair, get them in the air and stunned. As long as you're below fox, he's not that scary.

Another thing I'll do occasionally is get a little bit away from him (out of quick punishes range) and start approaching with uairs keeping your back to them. Jump -> immediate uair -> ff -> l-cancel uair before you land, repeat, getting closer every time. If he backs up, keep approaching, if he tries to get around you (i.e. over you) intercept with a uair and chase. If he tries to punish, hopefully you'll trip him up with one of the uairs. Isn't guaranteed at all, but it can be awkward and difficult to punish.

But really, it's a crummy matchup. Good Luck!

 

[PsychopathicEmus]

thanks for the input guys, good to see the pika boards a little more active for a bit =p

 

[-Chad-]

I like doing a wall of u-airs against Fox >_>

 

[Kiwikomix]

One thing I've found that can be decent against Fox (if you have good reflexes) is to sit in that perfect spot where he doesn't want to hit you with a laser but is far enough to see his dash attack/running grab/cc'd dtilt/cc'd smash coming, then spotdodge into dsmash. It usually capitalizes well on his afterlag of whatever he does.
But that's just me, I dunno if it's something you guys would bother doing. And I assume that it couldn't be done consistently, since Fox would begin to see it coming. Most of the time I just approach from the air, since his ground game >> Pika's.

 

[PsychopathicEmus]

his usmash > everything pika can approach with...except maybe walk to fsmash =p

 

[Zig-Zag!]

Are we talking about fox? I find once you get to a certain point, the only thing you can do is be better than the other person playing.

So...be better.

 

[Tope]

You can always try powershielding.


Some people that play with me have near perfected it, so I can't shoot any jolts or lazer or what have you.