Samus V Pikachu

[Diatenshi]

Samus V Pika

seriously wtf do you do? cannot keep him out due to the versitale quick attack cancel and if he gets beside you hes too short to jab, only a dsmash and fsmash would hit but are both slower than his options, and a Downward forward tilt only worked half the time due to its wonky hitbox.

 

[Throwback]

all his aerial approaches are laggy on landing. ftilt outranges everything except maybe fsmash. MC is good because his projectile is somewhat slow. I like to stay grounded mainly because he can get under zair easily.

 

[pwned-by-the-poob]

@Diatenshi

Here are some useful things...

-If pika tries to spam, even if it's just 2-3 bolts(i'm referring to bolts as pikas b-move since i forget what it's called) once in awhile, just do a short hop over it and missile cancel or zair if you're close enough.

-Short hop fast fall zair is also very handy in this matchup since pika's usually like to use their speed and size to punish samus' short hop, and shffz hits them before they can do anything. Just don't use it too much because they will start to see it coming and run up, shield, and grab or any other oos option.

-like Throwback said, f-tilt is good because it outranges and it's fast. Don't just walk up an f-tilt though, use it as a gtfo option and wait til pika is on 1 certain side of you instead of just throwing it out while he's above you, and hoping it will hit. If pika does shield pressure with jumps, up-b OoS works well.

-Since pika is light, aside from the blast, try making d-tilt and d-smash your primary killing options(unless they go to the edge a lot, which is a bad idea against samus) So try to camp them until they have high percent, and go for the kill with d-tilt/smash. Don't rush it or use it too early, since you should try to keep those moves fresh, and also rushing for the kill never works with Samus.

-Whenever you have the chance, start charging your blast, because when that move is charged pika can't rely on his size to avoid it, obviously.

- as for hitting pika, which seems to be your problem as you mentioned, Just try to camp him out with missiles zairs etc. and read things like quick attacks and aerial approaches, and punish after you read. You have to avoid getting yourself into situations where pika's size become an issue like when he's all over your shield and you don't know where/when to hit. In case this situation DOES occur, up-b OoS works well as a backup.

I had pretty bad grammar in this because i'm kind of in a rush but it's no big deal lol

I hope this helps.

 

[KillerJawz]

I really like ftilt in this MU. Not just because it outranges him, but because it also shuts down some of his QAC approaches, so it's really beneficial to us to use it wisely so we don't end up getting punished for it. Basically, pwned is right. UpB OoS as he said is a superb option when Pika attacks our shield. We hit him out of a lot of things, even when spaced well, fair is a major example here. Pika's like to falling fair to set things up. In this case, we can't actually let them do that, because Pika LOVES floaties like Samus.

 

[Stealth Raptor]

even though i play both chars, i dont really know the matchup well enough to comment too much, but you just gotta watch pikachu patterns and habits and punish accordingly. pikachu doesnt have the best approaches in the world and can be punished if you keep a sharp eye on what they are doing, but yeah this is very tough for samus

 

[darf nate]

Pikachu is samus' worst matchup in my opinion. It is too short and fast and with the projectile and super quick and long lasting down smash its almost impossible to win as samus.

 

[GLRY]

Me and my friend, Zeonix played melee for a while and I main with Samus and him Fox. Then we started playing brawl so I continued using Samus and he switched to Pikachu, so I started learning Samus in brawl with one of her supposedly worst match ups. I have to do this match up all the time lol.
One of the biggest things you should do against Pikachu is ledge hog. You can bait Pikachu to the ledge then try to down AIR Pikachu either KOing him or requiring the Pikachu player to have to use their B up move making it a perfect oppurtunity to go in for the ledge hog. Also, when the Pikachu players use their lightning bolts for spacing it has lag after shooting and you could punish this by dodging your way up to hit them or having a full charge shot ready to fire. Samus is one of the best recovering characters, use the bombs to float your way around the ledge and save your jumps and you can definitely make it back plenty of times.
Feel free to ask me any more questions I'd like to help you out

 

[Thor]

This is a wall of text but I hope it helps.

GLRY most Pikas will just start t-jolt if you try that stuff... if someone's actively trying to dair (meteor) me offstage I just run to the opposite side and SH/FH thunder jolt (neutral b) which means that strategy isn't sustainable, but it can be useful last stock if you're behind, except a good Pika is tricky to gimp (if you do it like GLRY says you can probably get a good punish if they're too low to QAC into the stage but you won't get many KOs that way at low percents).

First make sure your general anti-Pika-meta is ready - make sure you never get KO'd by dsmash (I main Pika and I rarely do - only if I get shield poked late) - that means SDI straight up to get out quickly (usually no more than 3 hits). Also you should probably look to avoid KO moves hard starting at whatever percent Pikachu can KO Samus (I'd guess 120%) - Pikachu can struggle to KO if you're careful and that means free percent if you're behind - unloading tons of small charge shots if you end up cross-stage might net one landing which is always more percent. Also powershielding T-jolt is obvious unless you prefer air combat by a large margin.

If a Pikachu is QACing rapidly you can force them to stop with a missle or charge shot - Pikachu's hurtboxes are HUGE during quick attack (that also actually means it's fairly easy to dair him out of it during recovery) but that means you can shoot stuff and they'll either get hit even when it looks like they shouldn't or will have to stop it and dodge/shield, which makes them predictable in that sense - that means you should be able to figure out how they respond eventually and maybe start punishing it (you have to break it to punish it effectively - most top level ones don't do this anyway but reading and predicting QAC and trying to punish with a regular move is hard). SHFFNair might also let you break it up as Pikachu's getting close if you can place yourself in the middle of a QAC (not something I'd recommend, but a potential mixup?)

I don't know Samus that well but I know Pikachu being light really helps out because I think Samus struggles to KO - unfortunately (for you all) Pikachu has skull bash and his fast-fall is percentage-wise faster than most which means Pikachu has fairly solid momentum cancelling despite being light. This just means KO moves closer to the boundary are more effective than cross-screen compared to fighting others (say Falco whom can't cancel momentum as well and therefore distance to death matters slightly less).

Pikachus will look to get close - all the best KO moves are very close to Pikachu, and airborne Pikachu has one at about 130% (I imagine more like 140%+ on Samus) and 150% (probably about 160%), so forcing Pikachu into the air and running away will help you squeeze a few extra percent out of a stock if you keeping being hit by fsmash or something. Also don't always look to straight-away punish SH dair - yes they might miss it up and yes it's punishable but if done right it has nearly zero landing lag (no shockwave) which means you need to learn the timing for it and punish midair. The saving grace (for you all) is that the dair must be done immediately so it's definitely clear when it's happening and you can respond by shielding or not rushing in. Honestly if someone abuses this it might be a reason to look for a grab? (You should check how easy/hard it is but Pikachu seems pretty grabable out of this - especially if they're doing it more than twice in a row and coming closer to Samus).

Hope it's not all garbage and this can help you out some. Others feel free to correct me or say it's all trash, I'm just trying to help and I would hate to mess someone over with bad advice.

 

[GLRY]

I am aware of the risk Thor but it DOES work if you are good around the ledge. I don't appreciate being called out on credibility.... This is not the only tactic that i do, notice that i said ask any questions, but it is very good to use when pikachu trys to recover using their up b , you can predict it and KO them or get them low enough to get in for a ledge hog. You have to be good around the ledge for this to work, practice getting tricky with the grapple and bombs. You can even back air the player when they are near the ledge to have them bounce off. The down b of pikachu is very predictable and you can almost never get hit by it if you get good with dodging and predicting. A very important move to get good with is the zair to hit the player from afar and keep good distance. Punish pikachu with this or a charge shot if the pikachu player is short hopping and shooting lightning bolts. Please ask me questions I am willing to answer any.

 

[Thor]

Yeah okay, my bad. I do agree screwing around on the ledge in general is a good idea with Samus. And yes, bomb recovery and grapple are definitely important, given how much you can stall and trick the other player. And definitely grab the ledge for when guarding a Pikachu who has to QA (preferably with zair because you are frozen on the ledge for fewer frames) QA on stage not QAC is definitely punishable but Pikachu's sweetspot is so big for QA you need to avoid letting them just (almost) magnetize to the ledge for good punishes.

Honestly though, a good Pikachu shouldn't be using thunder jolt if they are in range of zair, but I know it happens and I agree looking to punish it is important. And yes the lag is enough you can probably punish with charge shot at mid-range - good advice. And yeah, if you can just not let Pikachu get in Pikachu has to sit back and shoot thunder jolts which is never gonna win them the game. Unfortunately zoning them out well enough is easier said than done.

 

[GLRY]

Yeah, and none of this advice is guaranteed to work because everyone plays differently, you can apply some of these things to certain matchups but most of the time your going to have to switch it up and adapt these moves and combos to work properly. At the start of a match you could keep spacing with zair and missles while you figure out how the player plays and punish where you see fit, just be careful when using a grab with samus, make sure it will definitely hit or you will be punished.

 

[Deleted member]

Spamming missiles is a strategy in of its own. Mix it up with sh and fh normal and power missiles. Also, you can use them to approach and get a grab, if you notice your opponent just stands there (like many people do) when a slowly moving projectile approaches them.

Its all in the mind.