So how bout that Pikachu

[pirateguru]

Pikachu is a huge pain for me. I can't beat him without having to choose a different character. His down smash pretty much out prioritize all of sonic moves and it basically has no lag after it. Spot dodging is pretty much impossible when they spam it. Shield grabbing is also unlikely during this move. his forward smash has a huuuuuugggggggeee range. plus has the thunder and jolt which are just annoying to begin with.

I want to know If someone has had a successful strategy against the annoying electric rat with sonic. His disjointed hit boxes and pretty much lag less smash attacks have been killing me for a long time. so someone please help me out.

 

[Browny]

Please keep it to the match up thread,
this is what i posted earlier today

I think Sonic has quite a good chance against pikachu. playing against my brother today his Pika beat all my mains (i used about 8 characters) except Toon link, but toon link owns in general. however with sonic, the first match he won, surviving on 154% and i won the next by almost an entire stock. I would have expected my marth, lucario, ness and wolf to make short work of pika but none of them beat him. It was quite interesting listening to him get very angry, saying how its so impossible to hit sonic.

So anyway ill add my $0.02

Pikachu

Do:
- Wait for an opening. approaching pika is almost as suicidal as approaching wolf, however sonic is probably one of the only characters who can punish pika consistently if he abuses his dsmash, thunder or skull bash.
- Edgehog. force pikachu to use his recoveries such that they dont sweet spot the edge, and get ready to fsmash when he lands. once against sonic is so quick a shield-cancelled dash into fsmash is fast enough to punish even quick-attacks landing lag.
- D-air when he uses thunder. used from high up, provided you space it properly you can get to the ground and stutter-step fsmash before the thunder animation is even over. i managed to do this quite a few times today, and eventually completely discouraged any further use of thunder.
- Approach with n-air. its probably the safest approach when pika is spamming thunderjolt. otherwise roll-canclled spin charges during an approach may work too

Don't:
- Spot dodge. Pikas broken dsmash lasts longer than the entire spot dodge, and he can spam it out of shiled to be practically invincible.
- Cancel spin dash into a homing attack. thunder makes short work of it every time
- Attack him off the stage. with quick attack pika can just zip right past you back onto the stage, and suddenly you end up being camped by thunder.

Opinion.
Pikachu is a beast in brawl, he can chain grab fast fallers up to 80%, kills lightweights at around 80% with fsmash, thunder and his dsmash is ridiculous. However many of pikas insane advantaged are lost to sonic. His chain grab only goes for to 20%, and sonic kills at lower % overall, fsmash and dsmash will kill at 100% while pika has to get sonic at least above 110%, provided you dont get thundered off the top. Sonic is one of the very few characters who can punish pika for missed attacks, be sure to do this every chance you get.

Abusing dash attacks and running shield grabs work incredibly well for racking up the damage. everytime pika misses with a dsmash or thunder, you NEED to punish it. a grab + pummel + upthrow is a free 18% damage, going anywhere up to 27% beyond when pika is beyond 100%. also, you need to master stutter stepping. it outranges thunder and dsmash, baiting pikachu into one of these two attacks is just too easy, just make sure youre ready for it, because its a free kill beyond 100%

 

[pirateguru]

well you posted this after I checked the sonic matchup thread and I began with my search to beat pikachu. But I'm going to have to disagree with somethings.

Abusing the dash attack against pikachu is the worst thing to do cause if he times a dsmash just right you'll get hit. you decide to use a homing attack instead you'll get hit. Thunder is not what kills sonic against pikachu. It's too predictable and easily avoided. It's his broken dsmash.

Shield grabs are great but pikachu has a lot of range and disjointed hitboxes so I don't really see this being effective if the player you go up against figures out that what your trying to do. cause your just pretty much being predictable and a predictable sonic is the worst kind.

One last thing I don't really know how you can say sonic can punish pikachu. I just don't see it. I'm gonna need some vids or something cause it's pretty much impossible with pikachu's lag less attacks on the ground maybe in the air but that's all i can see where this is effective.

 

[Phoenix_Dark]

His ground moves have enough lag to punish him for spamming. Also, stutter step f smashes are your friend.

 

[pirateguru]

and that's why I said if they time it. you guys are talking as if these guys spam this move only. I'm talking as if the opponent actually knows what he's doing. He has the ability to use a move at a certain given time to attack. To be honest I really don't think a good sonic can win against a pikachu who knows what he's doing.

I'll try out the stutter stepping. and my roommate actually suggested I should try out sonics short hop bair. which might just change my opinion if it does well.

 

[Tenki]

I don't know how to rate the Pikachu player I went against, but he did use the 'no-lag' quickattack thunders a few times.

If he's spamming electricity to keep you away, see if you can time a spinshot and get him while he's on the ground, since he has alot of lag from the ground.

-Skull Bash is defeated by: F-air, U-smash, among other things. It's also easy to set up a spring in front of a Skull Bash and screw it up, if you're a spring player lol.
-Tilts are your friends. D-tilt and F-tilt punish Pikachu pretty well. Similar to a Ganondorf player, try to get Pikachu to lose balance/get knocked over. Then you can chase him, set up a spindash combo if you can techread, do a full F-tilt, etc.

-Pummel when you can lol. Take advantage of when Pikachu can't hit you back >_>

-I'm not TOO sure about this one, but I think staying UNDER Pikachu might be a good thing. Feel free to disprove that since it's just an idea.

As usual, mix up your dash attacks, spindashes, do alot of spin-dash fakeouts, and kinda like vs Lucario, keep Pikachu on the defensive. Sometimes a Pikachu tries to pull a Wolf on you and Dsmash if you're too close, so you can punish that.

Also, DO NOT DSMASH VS PIKACHU'S DSMASH .__.;

 

[Piccolo_Z]

I usually don't have major issues with a pika, I think that sonic has many options against him.

I feel spin dash is a somewhat safe approach. Pikachus only real safe and effective stop to this is dsmash but i hardly get stuck in that. What i do is spincharge towards pika, then i just hit attack before touching pika to autojump, good pikas are probably doing dsmash at this point, then i just dair.

Dair beats dsmash, however they will trade on occasion.

This forces pika to do unsafe stops like downb thunder. Which you have many options against. Either dash attack before the thunder reaches pika, you hit pika, the thunder comes down, but you are safely on the other side and can follow up with fsmash.

The trick is you dont attack pika with the spindash, your just asking to get punished.
Approach with spindash press attack to autojump to bait the pika. Once you jump out of spindash you have numerous options. you can do any A attack or homing(although i wouldn't recommend homing on pika) or charge another spindash or just land and do nothing.

 

[Tenki]

Don't use Fsmash too much.

Use F-tilt/D-tilt. If they cause Pikachu to trip (it happens pretty often, I think), you can get another F-tilt in, and maybe even a real spindash-combo (it's Sonic's punisher, since you can rack up damage alot faster with it).

And above all, when you get Pikachu to 100-110%, you want to know for sure that your F-smash is going to kill, and not a "OH CRAP! I GOT OWNED BY STALE MOVE EFFECT D:" moment.

 

[VEC]

lol, I main Pika and Luigi and Sonic secondary, Yea, Pika destroys sonic, but you have to be patient to win.