Snake vs. Pikachu

[The Milk Monster]

Yeah that's how I feel too.

I'm going to CP it like no one's business against my friends Pika.

I just hope I don't run into my down smashes.

 

[Attila_]

pretty sure pika ***** on brinstar... doesnt he? he benefits heaps from extended hitboxes on his killmoves, low ceiling helps him kill too, and he can run away for aaaaaaages. i think i mentioned frigate a while back, just cause it takes away ledge gayness and doesnt really help him in any way.

 

[SamuraiPanda]

I've found Frigate to be lackluster at best. Also, Brinstar cuts his CGs due to the angles and the lava, it doesn't let him use projectiles, his extended hitboxes are hilariously easy to punish, his survivability is destroyed due to the closer blastboxes (Pika relys on his absurd aerial mobility and bucket brake to survive to Snake-like percents), and his ledge game is shut down when the lava comes up.

Overall its a decent stage in the matchup. Likely dependent mostly on your playstyle more than anything else.

 

[Attila_]

yeah that makes sense. didnt explain why frigate doesnt work...

i dunno. ill have to try brinstar at some point

 

[etecoon]

i dunno. ill have to try brinstar at some point

better hope they don't secondary...

well practically anyone really, lmao snake on brinstar

 

[Yumewomiteru]

What about RC? The changing stages can deter them from their grabs plus the platforms can block thunder.

 

[Stealth Raptor]

thunder goes through platforms for like the first third of that. you also have walkoffs up top. i would not recommend taking pikachu there at all. plus our cg goes fast enough we can rack plenty of damage before the moving becomes a problem

 

[OverLade]

Snake definitely wins this at least 55-45 imo. It's not hard to play without getting grabbed and Pikachu's approaches are pretty easy to counter. You slightly outcamp him and can kill him at 110% pretty easily. A Ftilt will eventually kill if you don't utilt him.

Even if you get grabbed, he has a lot of trouble killing you.

 

[The Milk Monster]

Agreed with RH.

Though I've seen Anther get really crafty with those Fsmashes, it seems like his kill moves can be fairly hard-ish to land.

 

[Mister Cadaver]

Yeah, I agree with Red Halberd. Sure, he can rack up dmg, but it's pretty tough for pika to kill snake.

 

[Berserker.]

I think it's 50:50 since Pika's f-throw CG is pretty gay and his combos are also gay but Snake has lots of killing power, better range and obviously outcamps pika anyway. If not 50:50, I'm saying 55:45 Snake

 

[Pika_Cam]

I find it hard to see this as even. It's 55:45 Snake IMO.

Snake can outcamp Pikachu and force an approach, which already puts him at a disadvantage. You can just jab tjolts or powershield if you prefer. Eventually Pikachu will get frustrated from getting hit by nades and just approach. Pikachu's approach is limited. He can shield approach and try to grab you. He can fair approach. He may use sh autocancelled dairs, or he could just try to dash grab you. That's pretty much all he's got here. Snake's pivot grab isn't even hard to land if Pikachu tries to grab. Pikachu's range is so limited. He may try to FF fair you to whatever combo, but you can either shield or hold a grenade and he will fail hard. QACing is just like asking for a jab or utilt to the face. If Pikachu starts jab comboing you, you get a free uptilt on him. However, a smart Pika will only jab you once so you trip. You shouldn't have trouble killing Pika; a few ftilts and grab techchasing and Pikachu will be ready for an utilt death.

The biggest problems Snake has here are in the air or when he's being chaingrabbed. Pikachu is a terrific juggler with uairs, nairs, and even bairs. These are usually led in by a dthrow, utilt, or a FF fair. Seriously, learn to not get hit by FF fair. It leads into utilt, dsmash, grab, ftilt, and even dtilt. If he is juggling you, he can also dsmash before you hit the ground to catch you in it and give you less time to DI out.

And then he has thunder... the way Snake recovers can make this tricky, but it's definitely avoidable if you stop your recovery just before you reach it and fall directly downward to the ledge. Avoid being uptilted at high percents because you will probably be in too much hitstun to get away from being thundered off the top. The key for DIing away from thunder is to get as low and horizontally far away as possible. A lot of people focus too much on airdodging and end up getting killed off the top. If you do get too low, the Pikachu will most likely decide not to thunder because missing could mean eating a bair as Snake comes down. He could still try to hit you with the base of thunder, which has a lot of kill potential, but you can see it coming if you just exercise good judgement.

Sorry if I am a little scatterbrained. Hope that helps.

 

[The Milk Monster]

If it was ANYTHING except even it'd be 55:45 Snake, but I really feel like it's even, considering how difficult it could be to kill Snake (Especially on the right CP's.)

While Pika can rack A LOT of damage, Snake can come back with those tilts for an EARLY kill.

 

[KayLo!]

Personally, I think it's dead even..... or slightly in Snake's favor if that makes people feel better. Everybody's pretty much covered everything I would say, though.

I think a large part of the matchup in practise is who loses their stock first. Pikachu has to be VERY careful not to die before Snake. Once we're a stock behind and forced to approach for the kill, it can be ridiculously impossible to catch up. If Snake dies first, however, we have the mobility to safely rack damage while avoiding anything deadly.

My favorite stages against Snake are Frigate and Delfino. I ban Brinstar. Dunno if I'd ban that or Japes if Japes was legal here, but PA has a pretty conservative stage list, so thankfully I don't have to worry about it.

 

[Infern Angelis]

Most problems that come from this matchup is Pikachu getting an early kill by using thunder while you are on ur cypher, besides that, its a relatively all right matchup, Snakes favor of course.

 

[Toneh]

snake eats pikachu for breakfast

 

[PMC66]

AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DI UP AND OUT OF D-SMASH. I'M TIRED OF SEEING PEOPLE GET HIT BY ALL THE HITS.

I cannot agree more with this D-smashes uses are situational if your opponent can DI out of it but ESAM should not be beating Afrothundah just by using D-smash so much admitedly I love Esam I really do but so many of his opponents don't know basic DI it's laughable.

overall good matchup thread Snake does have a small advantage over Chu with the range of his tilts and kill power alone.

 

[ZTD | TECHnology]

Probably not going to say anything that isn't known but:

55-45 Snake.

The good:

We completely outrange Pikachu in close quarters combat (CQC for the MGS fans)

We kill him fairly early.

Our weight makes it very hard for Pikachu for land a kill. He has average kill power at best.

The bad:

Pikachu's mobility can make it difficult hitting him.

The CG will usually give Pikachu a very big lead in the beginning of the match..combine this with the point stated above and we'll usually have to play by Pikachu's pace.

Pikachu's Thunder practically counters our recovery. If you don't airdodge it at the RIGHT moment you get hit.

Pikachu has a spammable projectile that can disrupt our camping to a degree.


Pikachu seems broken on paper but the match plays out a little bit more in a favor then you'd think. He has a lot of tools against us, CG, speed, aerial game, the ability to hamper our recovery. But our sheer power, weight and range make up for these hindrances. Quick Attack Canceling seems really problematic at first but we can hit him out of hit (we'll probably end up taking 3% but whatever) and each Pikachu has patterns though it seems erratic. You just need to be observant and predict where he's going. Pikachu's really just use it for defensive though it seems like an act of aggression. They will be camping you with T-Jolts which need to be Powershielded or jab can work also. Its basically a game of cat and mouse. Pun intended.

Pikachu can rack up the damage but we kill so much easier so we don't need to land nearly as many hits as they do. We should be living to high percents unless we **** up and get killed early by Thunder. Just power though the camping and force Pikachu into bad positions with your nades (used wisely and sparingly) and your zoning abilities. Pikachu puts himself at risk when he has to close in on you. Camping will get Pika some % but he'll have to close in for the kill at some point.

Speaking of Thunder.. its NOT that scary. You CAN airdodge past it but it requires you do it like last second. Also don't get predictable with your airdodging with recovering also. Don't let them bait it. React accordingly. I see too many Snakes getting hit by this.

And speaking of things we get hit by too much: Down Smash. Learn to SDI out of it. All you need to do is smash up and away from Pikachu. You will only take 2-3 hits and pop out if it.

Hmm what else..

Edgeguarding a smart Pikachu is very difficult. They have a very strong recovery game and can recover from seemingly anywhere though they have limits. A good Pikachu can live past 160% with proper DI (from horizontal knockback anyway). I try to keep Up Tilt fresh for this match.

Oh and if you have a good tech chasing game you can wreck Pikachu. His roll distance both away and towards are both "eh". You don't need a boost grab to catch him. His get up attack is quick though. It hits towards us since we'll be behind him so if you forsee a getup attack you need to shield before he does it unless you can Powershield it like a beast.

Um..thats all I can think of for now.

 

[OverLade]

Pikachu wins this matchup. No question.

 

[AfroQT]

EDIT:
I don't even main snake why am i posting here.

 

[ZTD | TECHnology]

Pikachu wins this matchup. No question.

I'd love to see your reasoning for that (not being sarcastic or anything). I feel like at the worst it could be argued 50-50.

Then again I also feel like ratios are outdated. I just think its slightly in our favor.

 

[napZzz]

cg's, quick attack ****, he's just hard as **** to hit and ****s with us in the air

then again, we're snake and um...yeah

 

[Stealth Raptor]

as im sure i have posted in this thread before its definitely 50-50. snake kills us way too early or this would be such a good matchup ;;

 

[RATED]

IMO is even, but watching vids of ESAM vs Snakes makes me feel its 55-45 Pikachu, he's just awesome at the MU or Pikachu just *****. IDK, but it seems even, is annoying in both sides.

 

[MoNrA.1]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MT0UKwlSfQA

that happend if you dont know the MU or not camp hard. you ll get a ****.
Actually i won the last MoneyMatch vs Cao xD

-A or Ftilt > Thunderjolt
-never try nair vs Pika's SideB recovery, try hit the last hit of the nair, and put nades before go away the stage.
-USe Uair as Momentum Canceling, if you do nair or bair you re death...
- practice your DI for Pika's Dsmash. I use the wiimote with my feet to practice this i dont have brothers with enoght IQ.
- i think, if you get grab at 40% the grab is fresh, you could get out easy i do it some times or Cao's Chain grab sucks ( i dont think so )

IMO 50:50

 

[Takeover1806]

Okay now looking at this mu is very misguiding and underdeveloped in today's metagame just because there are few pikachu's that are actually good.

Personally think this mu is either 50-50 or 55-45 pikachu's favor.

Pro's:
- Easy to shield and punish pikachu's thunderjolt
-Our grenades make it hard for pikachu to approach at times.
- Easy to tech chase him.
- Up-tilt out prioritizes pika's QAC.

Con's:
- Chaingrabbed to high percents and get sent off stage for pika to edge guard.
- He is deceptively fast so not hard for pika to get inside. Snake is slow so if you play
stupid or make a mistake, pika can punish hard.
- Snake has bad horizontal movement in the air. Pika probably has one of the best edgeguarding tactics vs. snake especially with thunder. So put everything together and snake gets ***** by pika in the air.
- Pika is kinda heavy believe it or not.
- Snake has a hard time catching pikachu at times.
- He has Ash Ketchum by his side controlling him.


All in all if snake does not die early and not get chain grabbed at high percents. Snake has a higher probability of winning the mu.
But tbh that's not an easy task considering how good pika players are.

 

[Berserker.]

We can kill Pika early but annoying CGs, thunder mindgames and aerial **** is too annoying. At least Snake is super heavy, hard to kill especially with good DI and we can camp him. Despite Snake's weight, I still think it's even. Or snake's slight favor. Pikachu is still a pain so it's not easy.

Despite us having the arguable advantage, Pikachu tends to find punishment within Snake which could turn the tables.

 

[etecoon]

EDIT:
I don't even main snake why am i posting here.

afro uses a real manly character now

 

[MoNrA.1]

lol i got *****
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADZDONJCw5g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXgGQgib04Q&feature=feedu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxMBF1jd2fg&feature=feedu

Guys ban delfino >_> and be carefull with the airdodge >_< he gimp me at 80%