Guide The Pichu Matchup Thread

[DerfMidWest]

Welcome to the new and improved Pichu matchup discussion thread!
[Taken over by Derf as of 8-27-14]

Let's face it, most things here are a tad bit outdated. While I hope to take what I know and try to combine it with some of the old info from the old OP we really gotta got this thing updated.

That's where you come in.

If you have any specific matchup information you would like to contribute, please post it in this thread. I need help from everyone to make this thread a success. Please volunteer to write a matchup if you can.

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2/20/2014: Formatted the OP, getting ready to add all the info to come!!!
6/5/2014: Added Fox, Falco, and Shiek matchups
8/27/2014: Added Puff, Marth, Peach, Falcon, Ice Climbers, Samus, Pikachu, Bowser
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Bowser:

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Bowser -
Stages - Final Destination/Dreamland
(0)
Bowser's large brute body being quite easy to counter is really odd. The thing is, Bowser is very easy to juggle, all his strongest moves can easily be DI'd and crouch cancelled, this could probably go well with any character really. Whenever a Pichu verses Bowser, you will want to go to mainly Final Destination or Dreamland, the point being that you'll easily win a match if you juggle Bowser, strike him with a Forward Smash or Nair, and finally gimping him or pushing him away from the stage.

Juggling Bowser can be done multiple ways, I prefer constant U-Tilts after grabbing him and throwing him in the air, but their are many ways to go for Bowser. Let's just say he's a large canvas, and Pichu is the brush.

1. Throw him in the air, best to shield-grab him due to his claws having a somewhat good knockback at early percentages, and just jiggle him with U-Tilts until he's at 90% or 100%. You can either finish him with a Forward Smash, multiple Nairs and a good ledge guard, a gimp off the stage with your Neutral B, or even knocking him higher than the Blast Zone with your Up Smash.
2. Spam Nairs and Tilts, and finish him with whatever strong move you have. With good timing, you can KO Bowser off stage with three Forward Smashes. Three. Forward Smashes.

Facing Bowser, you'll want to dodge (Shield Button + Down on the Control Stick) and then grab him, get some good juggling out of him. Bowser is very slow when compared to Pichu, so you could dash dance and wait for him to use a move with a lot of ending lag, where you could easily punish him there. Bowser's moves have a lot of ending lag, make sure to especially go for the punishing moves when he uses all his Smash moves, you'll have a small amount of time to get to him when he uses Neutral B, and his Side B.

Bowser's recovery is a joke, you could gimp him by spamming Neutral B, using your Forward Smash, which has quite the hitbox, and completely shift him off stage, or nudge him a bit so that he'll have to continue using Up-B before giving up, or somehow making back. If he does make back onto stage and you have tried gimping him with the various tactics used above, use a quick Nair to continue the cycle. As a bonus, he might even have a high percentage from the attempt at a gimp he survives.

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Captain Falcon:

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7. Falcon

--Stages of Choice:--

1. FD Obvious choice against fastfallers, you can chaingrab until about kill percent, or at least get him offstage, which should mean he's dead.

2. DL Space is pretty cool in this matchup, Falcon lives kinda longer, but you should be able to gimp him basically whenever. You'll live longer too, so it's not too bad.

3. FoD Falcon is probably gonna ban it out of principle, but he doesn't have a lot of room to run, and the platforms are weird for him. I don't actually think it's too bad for him, but you can abuse the low platforms with utilts and stuff. You'll die fast though.

Yoshi's is probably a pretty bad idea, because you're gonna die from two knees.

---

This matchup is really straight forward, you grab falcon, you combo him a bunch, then you get him offstage, then you abuse his joke of a recovery and try to kill him as fast as possible.
Or, he grabs you, chaingrabs you with dthrow, and then knees you twice and you die.

Approaching falcon is actually kind of easy, just make sure you overshoot your nairs so you don't get dd grabbed.

When you're getting comboed with uairs and stuff, try to DI down and away, you're probably gonna die anyway because falcon autocombos you for free, but it'll help a little.

Anyway, you want to approach with nair->uair or utilt crossups, or late-nair->grab or just empty short hop to grab.
at the end of the day, you really want to get a grab.

depending on your position and falcon's percent, you can just uthrow chaingrab, or even tech-chase with either uthrow or dthrow, and try to get him close to the edge and then get him offstage with bthrow, dsmash, nair, fsmash, ftilt, or dtilt

then you shoot a bunch of jolts to knock him out of his doublejump and pretty much just keep hitting him to keep him off stage.

A useful tip: if you start your fsmash animation around when he begins his upB coming from under the stage, he'll run into the final hit of it, which basically kills him since he can't SDI out.

Falcon's recovery is pretty predictable, so if he's coming from way off stage, a well placed jolt->nair is a dead falcon.

I'm a huge fan of down-angled ftilts and jabs for edgeguarding because they're pretty impossible to tech and keep falcon in a terrible position.

The only other thing is to try and avoid being on platforms too often, because falcon wants you to be above him so he can start uair chains. It's good to trap him up there, but very bad if he traps you.


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@Capps if we could get this thread updated soon, that'd be awesome.

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Doctor. Mario:

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Coming Soon...​

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Donkey Kong:

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Coming Soon...​

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Falco:

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2. FALCO :

--Stages of Choice:--

1. FD:
Final Destination is your ideal stage against falco. There are no platforms to interrupt your chaingrabs or juggling, the walls and ceilings are pretty far away, and falco's movement is restricted due to lack of platforms. The only downside to this stage is that you don't have platforms to maneuver on to avoid lasers.

2. BF:
As always, this is a fantastic Pichu stage. The platforms are perfectly positioned for you to run around on and the ledges really hurt falco's recovery. The downside here is that, even though the platforms are perfect for you, they are also perfect for falco. He can be pretty fast on this stage, so you need to figure out his movement. At low percents, Falco will try to kill you off the top, so make sure you are SDIing his shines.

3. DL:
This stage has its ups and downs. It's got really far walls, so you'll be able to live a lot longer, there is a lot of room for you to run around, and you'll be able to chaingrab for awhile in the middle of the stage, BUT, falco has a lot of space to just shoot lasers. Overall, this is not a bad stage for falco, but you should be able to use this stage to your advantage.

DO NOT let falco take you to Yoshi's Story. You will die so fast.
Falco's also love Fountain, and they can combo you for days.
Stadium can be a risky choice as well due to the low ceiling and transformations don't help you.

---

For the most part, your goals in this matchup are exactly the same as if you were playing against fox.
Fortunately, Falco is a bit easier. You won't die off the top nearly as easily (still be weary of shine combos, however). Falco's recovery is also god awful and even easier to deal with than Fox's.
One thing I want to make clear: As soon as you see Falco's upB charging, hit him out of it right away. He's dead.
Falco's charging flames don't have a hitbox, so you won't get caught in them if you go out there.

The main difference in this matchup is that Falco is going to use lasers to interrupt your movement and try to force you in to shield. BE CAREFUL WITH SHIELDING. When you panic and go in to shield, you're letting falco close in on you.

It is super important that you learn to SDI falco's shine. Pretty much, you want to DI away from him. NEVER DI A SHINE IN TOWARDS FALCO.

Some really cool moves in this matchup are Utilt and Uair. They are disjointed, so if you time them correctly, you can challenge falco's down air. A lot of falco players are over-reliant on that move, so take advantage of it!

It should also be noted that ftilt is the falco slayer. It'll smack him out of his recovery and lazy nair approaches. Use it wisely.

If you get grabbed, falco is probably going to try and uthrow bair you. Don't panic, just DI behind him as if you were trying to escape fox's uthrow uair.

When falcos are on the ledge, they love to ledgehop double laser. Pichu isn't great at dealing with this, but if you are close enough, and they go for it, you can ftilt them. If you are a little further, try to get your powershielding down and reflect the first one. It can be pretty difficult to really do anything about it though.

Other than that, the matchup is exactly like fox.

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Fox:

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1. Fox :

--Stages of Choice:--
1. FD:
this is your number 1 choice against fox. High ceilings, no platforms, you CG game is unstoppable, combos for days, etc.

2. BF:
The platforms are perfect for you here, it's small enough that you can control it, and the ledges make fox's recovery predictable. You can't cg too well, but overall your #2 stage. It does have a lower ceiling though, so be careful of uthrow uairs at low percents.

3. DL:
You'll probably get camped a bit, but that's alright. The platforms are great for you, like battlefield, you can ledgecancel your upB from the ground on the top platform (the timing is a little harder than on battlefield though), so you have some anti-platform camping tools. You'll be able to cg in the middle of the stage, and the killzones are far away, so you get to live a little longer. DON'T GET INTIMIDATED BY LASERS.

UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES should you pick Stadium.
I like yoshi's as a pichu stage, but it's also terrible against fox.

---

If Fox plays correctly, sadly, there is really nothing you can do.
But fortunately for Pichus, almost no foxes will actually do that!
The average fox player lays back while playing a pichu, because he's the best character, and you're terrible, so you can get opening on a dumb spacey who is auto-piloting the whole time.

So, in neutral, you have your dashdance (into nair or grab or utilt, generally), and you have your fullhop retreating jolts. You can use jolts to stop an over-committed approach, force fox to shield, or get fox to jump up on a platform. You need to look for that double jump, because that is a nice thing to take away from a spacey.
You can also use fullhop retreating PAs as a baiting gimmick, but don't become over-reliant on them.

Don't shield. Shielding stops your movement, robs you of a lot of options, and is a big bubble that tells for "here is a free grab," which means uthrow uair, which kills you at like 40%.

Be careful on fox's shield. Your standard nair through shield->uair/pivot grab is risky because shine out of shield will crap on you.

A lot of spacies like to laser camp or bair camp you. This can be pretty hard to deal with.
What you're going to want to do is dash dance in an out. When they jump up, you want to run under them and do a dash canceled utilt.
Those can be pretty hard to learn, so if you can't do it, rising uair will work too, but its more risky.
you can also try upB gimmicks, but thats dangerous if they catch on.

If fox is camping the top platform, it REALLY helps if you know how to ledgecancel your upB into a pivot fsmash.
Don't just jump up there, because that's what fox wants.

the name of your game is getting a grab and chainthrowing the hell out of any fastfaller with uthrow. You're pichu, any free stocks you can take, you should.
If you get a grab near the ledge, bthrow that kid so fast.
from bthrow, you can cover every one of fox's options if you react quick enough.
I usually like to sh jolt to cover jump, sideB, and instant upB.
You can also just nair.
And if you wanna be ballsy, after you bthrow, if you side B off stage, and fox tries to buffer a jump, he'll get hit and lose his jump, then you just nair him.

for edgeguards, if you time your fsmash so only the last hit connects, fox is dead.
ftilt angled down also means a pretty dead fox.

utilt (with your back to the ledge) is pretty darn good if they miss the sweetspot.

you can fair or nair to intercept their sideB. Late nair destroys their upB.

Jolts are great for their sideB or the charging phase of their upB, but once they start moving, upB will go through jolts, so don't over-commit.

--Lastly--
DIing uthrow uair is suuuper important.
Here is how it's done:
DI the throw BEHIND fox.
then, SDI the other direction when he jumps to uair you.

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Game and Watch:

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Coming Soon...​

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Ganondorf:

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Coming Soon...​

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Ice Climbers:

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8. Ice Climbers

--Stages of Choice:--

1. BF The key to this matchup is mobility and platform camping to force ICs off the ground. Battlefield's high top platform makes this easier to do. The platform positions also make moving as Pichu a lot easier via edgecancels and whatnot.

2. DL Essentially the exact same concept as battlefield, the top platform is a tiny bit lower, but not enough to matter. There is a lot more room to run on this stage though, and you'll be able to live a little longer, but so will the ICs.

Avoid:
FD: while it isn't always as incredible of a stage for ICs as people make it out to be, you lose your platforms, which is a death sentence in this matchup.
Stadium: No top platform, it's also an amazing ICs stage. You'll die off the top from ICs upsmash at about 50%.

I'd also be very careful with Yoshi's or FoD, because ICs love both those stages. You die fast and lose a lot of room to run. You can still camp the top platform of both stages, but it's a little harder on yoshi's.

---

I'm just gonna be honest here, this matchup is hard. The only matchups that even comes close to this level of difficulty are sheik or doc. This matchup was considered 100-0 for a long time.
I don't believe any matchup is unwinnable, but yeah you better be a lot better than your opponent. At least study the hell out of the matchup.
But I digress;

You can not approach ICs. They're going to block you out with blizzard walls and cover everything with wavedash back-> grab/dsmash/fsmash/ftilt/???

In short: approaching is bad. Terrible idea. They basically cover all your options with ftilt alone.

If they are desynced and just walling you with projectiles, you can shoot an aerial jolt at them (I never want to see any of you use a grounded jolt ever, just for clarification) and try to mess up their timing and just be annoying (you'll probably hit nana and mess up her synchronization)

Generally, you want to be on platforms shooting jolts or jumping around up on the top platform.
Like I said before, the idea is to get ICs off the ground.
They are way faster than you on the ground and bottom platforms, but they take awhile to get down from the top, so you can get underneath them and start juggling with uairs and throw in some thunders if they get high up, it's pretty similar to dealing with peach.

When ICs jump up to pressure you with uairs, you can shield drop into fair or nair and then do a rising uair and trap them on top of the platform.
you can also just upB OoS to the floor and then jump up with a uair or nair or whatever you feel like.

Every once in awhile, you'll find yourself in an awkward position where you can use fsmash (generally if the ICs try to recover from bellow with upB or approach with jab or a raw grab or you read a ledgedash->grab or something). It's sort of high risk, high reward.
It's a multihit move, so it will desync the ICs (nana can't SDI out of multihitting moves) and even though popo will usually escape, nana usually takes the whole hit (also works with fair or thunder). Risky though, because if popo SDI's in he can grab you, which means you die.

Now that we're on the subject, getting grabbed sucks. Sopo will chain grab you until like 60%, at which point dthrow-> any smash will kill you.
If they get a synced grab, you get wobbled, so don't let that happen. (don't run into blizzards)
They can also dthrow-dair cg you, but I'm not sure why they would, since that's escapable, by DIing down and away and buffering a roll (try to mix up how you roll)
If you get grabbed by the ledge, you're getting hand-offed until death (Pichu is one of the easiest characters to handoff, so yeah, you're pretty boned)

Now then, if you get a grab, and there are both climbers, fthrow immediately. It knocks the other climber away from you and keeps you pretty safe.
If it's just one climber, dthrow is pretty awesome and all that fun stuff. Leads into usmash or nair.

I said earlier that approaching sucks, and it does, but if you feel an excessive need to run in there for some reason, fair works better than nair in most cases. Usually puts you in-between them, which is cool because you can separate them.

Once they're separated, it's a lot easier, but sopo still chaingrabs you til death, but his only real grab set up is jab and you can approach him a little more easily, but wavedash back still covers all your options.

Stopping ICs recovery is tricky. During their upB, Nana is invincible, popo is not. If you hit popo out of their upB (thunder will pass through nana and hit popo if you have time to set it up) he usually can't grab nana again.
if they do rising sideB from bellow, you can dair through it or fastfall nair (I usually prefer dair)

Getting rid of sopo is way easier. You can just rising nair through his sideB.
Try to use jolts to knock him out of his doublejump, if he gets close to the stage, ice climbers like to airdodge. bait it out with empty jumps and jolts and then you can just grab and bthrow off stage or dsmash and repeat the process.

Anyway, at the end of the day, this matchup is horrendous. You want to platform camp ICs for as long as you can and get as many nairs in as possible at higher percents.
Pichu has a tough time separating them, but if you can get nana offstage, you can kill her really easily, and that makes the matchup a bit easier. Sopo still wrecks you though.

Ice Climbers -
Stages: Dream Land/Final Destination
(-3)
Ice Climbers will be the hardest match up for Pichu, play on Dreamland, if you can't, you will have to depend on your skills and separation of the Ice Climbers with any other stage. Don't choose Yoshi's Story, you'll either have no room to fight them, or you will get wobbled. Final Destination is your other main stage if you cannot make it to Dream Land.

Ice Climbers should be Pichu's toughest battle. Not Fox, not Falco, not Marth, not Samus, not even Jiggs. Ice Climbers are pretty much only defeated through SDs made by your opponent, gimps, ledge guard/ledge hogging, or singling out the main Ice Climber (Ice Climber depends on the costume, I'll refer to the main Ice Climber as Solo Popo "Sopo"). You'll basically see juggling as your main way to KO your opponent. Grabbing Ice Climbers will be tough for Pichu, if you grab Nana instead of Popo, your opponent gets a free hit, if you get a grab on Popo, you're set. Grab Popo, throw him backwards, and absolutely push Nana off stage, so much until she can't make it, you shouldn't even have to edge guard if you can somehow stay away from Popo. Killing Nana is easy because she focuses on getting back to Popo rather than actually fighting. After getting rid of Nana, Sopo will easily be juggled, cannot wobble you, and will die easily off stage. Choosing Dream Land guarantees a stock if Sopo is flown off stage.

Ice Climber's Smash moves will easily push you away from them, regardless of percentage. That means, if you are hit directly by both Ice Climbers with a Forward Smash, you have an easy chance of escaping. You'll have to once again depend on crouch cancelling for this, you may also Smash DI their Forward Smash, and Up Smash - very easily. Tilts and grabs won't sit too well with Ice Climbers, so you might want to stock some percentage from them by using your Nair and Bair, which both push the Ice Climbers back, but can easily be Di'd.

I will have most, if not all 26 characters up on this thread by the end of this year. Please understand, these are my tactics, and usually work if done right. These matchups are subjected to change, change will likely not happen.

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Jigglypuff:

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4. Jigglypuff

--Stages of Choice:--

1. Yoshi's Story:
An obvious choice for pichu, there isn't a lot of space for puff to maneuver, so you can chase her very easily. The ceiling is low, so you'll get kills off the top quickly. The sides are close, however, so you'll die pretty quickly from her bair.

2. Stadium:
Another solid choice, low ceiling, slightly further side killzones than on yoshis. The only bad thing is that you lose your top platform, which can make things a little harder.

3. Battlefield:
Our good friend battlefield, always a solid choice for pichu. You can really abuse the platforms here and be very troublesome for puff to try and catch.

FoD is an alright stage, the ceiling is kinda high, but the moving platforms can annoy puff quite a bit. Really try to avoid FD and Dreamland. FD is really big and has no platforms, which you really want in this matchup, and puff will just live forever on dreamland.

---

This matchup isn't really that complicated. It can be hard at times, but your goals are pretty straight forward.
basically, you either want to be under puff, or camping the platforms.

So, as you probably know, puffs like to try an wall you out with bair. Surprisingly, this can actually be kind of hard for them to do against pichu because you're tiny as hell.
The easiest way to deal with this is to wait for puff to jump, if she looks like she's going for a low bair, just fullhop jolt.
If she goes higher to try and stop an approach, you want to get under her either by running in and usmashing or utilting (rising uair works too, but it only does 3%) or by using a PA as soon as she leaves the ground.

Jolts are really good in this matchup. Usually you want to be using fullhop retreating jolts or falling jolts from the top platform, similar to how sheik would needle camp. Since neither of you can really combo each other, this is a matchup that is all about just getting a hit or two and then getting out. You have to be very conscious of your positioning the entire time.

Your moves tend to send puff way above you, she's really slow at falling, so you can just hit her with thunder for free. It doesn't do a lot, but it really annoys puff players and it wracks up percent.

Puff players usually won't go for rests against pichu because you're really tiny and hard for them to hit, but if they do, and they miss, you want to charge up your sideB. It's the puff slayer. If they have any percent, they will probably die from it.

Just be really careful with your tech rolls, because they are slow as hell and puff will be looking for them.
Also, when you get grabbed, puff usually dthrows, looking for you to DI in or something dumb like that so she can get a free rest, so just DI away. Her grab really doesn't do anything to you.

I don't like generic nair approaches in this matchup, puff looks for them and you don't have the range to approach her bair.
Jolts are definitely your best friend here.

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Kirby:

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Coming Soon...​

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Link:

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Coming Soon...​

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Luigi:

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Coming Soon...​

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Mario:

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Coming Soon...
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Marth:

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5. Marth

--Stages of Choice:--

1. Battlefield:
Always and forever. Movement is super important in this matchup. You never want to be standing still.

2. FD:
This is usually a solid pichu stage. You have a lot of space on the ground and you can jolt spam like no tomorrow.

3. DL:
Good stage in this mu. Lots of room and you don't die as quick.

Avoid: Yoshi's and FoD. Really close sides, not a lot of room to run. Bad things happen.

---

Alright, I'll just start off by saying this matchup is balls. Marth pretty much decks you super hard.
But, you can do things if they aren't playing the correct way, which a lot of low level marths won't.

So lets break it down: Being close to marth sucks. Getting tippered is gonna kill you at like 30%
Approaching is really hard.

So what you're gonna want to do is run around a whole lot and shoot a lot of fullhop jolts.
I like to bait marth into the air with a fullhop and then use a retreating doublejump jolt if he tries to sh fair me.

If marth is on the ground, he can kinda just jab your jolts, which is really dumb, but there isn't a lot you can do about that, so whatever. Try to get him off the ground.

You're gonna be playing just outside his range a lot. This is tricky because the very edge of his range is the part that kills you, so you have to be super careful and aware of your position the entire time.

When marth fsmashes your shield, you use a PA to get close to him and grab. If they're bad you can fsmash, but a better player will just sdi out of that if they react quick enough.

Once you get a grab you can dthrow into stuff.
At really low percents if they don't do anything you can regrab or tech chase them, but marth's tech rolls are pretty good, so you'll have to use PA to follow them a lot of the time.
Or you can just usmash and try to get something out of that by baiting an aerial out.

at mid-high percents, nair is usually the best follow up. It doesn't set up a whole lot, but it's really safe. A lot of the time it'll force marth into the grounded position or a place where he has to tech and if you react quick enough you can follow that up.

Marth off stage can be tricky to gimp. Jolts are always a good option to try and kill his double jump.
I like to bait the doublejump aerial out by getting bellow him off stage and then using a rising nair to punish, but don't get over-reliant on that because marth has a big ol' sword and can punish you pree good.

Learn the marth slayer. It's really easy to do, and you'll definitely need it.
If you don't know what that is, you basically just roll towards the edge and angle your light shield down and towards the ledge, when marth's upB hits it, you'll fall onto the ledge and then marth dies.

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Mewtwo:

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Coming Soon...​

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Ness:

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Coming Soon...​

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Peach:

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6. Peach

--Stages of Choice:--
*It's difficult to say which stages are best for this matchup, because it changes depending on the style of peach.

1. BF platforms are your best friend in this matchup. You're going to spend most of your time running around peach, and the position of the top platform makes this very easy.

2. PS I'm personally not a fan, because you lose your top platform, but you can kill peach off the top pretty quickly. You can also stop peach from getting to you in certain transformations via thunder.

Yoshi's and Dreamland are iffy stages that depend on the peach. Dreamland gives you a lot of room to run, but peach is not gonna die. As for yoshi's, peach dies, but she corners you really fast. These days there are a lot more aggressive peach players, and they love yoshi's.

FoD is another iffy stage, I love FoD in general, but like yoshi's, you have no room. You also have a low ceiling (it takes longer to kill peach), close side blast zones (she kills you faster), and peach loves the platforms on this stage (you can utilt through them and stuff, but watch out for those low blenders)

FD is your worst choice, in my opinion. Having platforms and staying off the ground is super important.

---

Alright, on to the fun stuff:
This matchup requires you to be moving. A lot. You need to develop strong platform mobility, which is why I'm such a huge fan of battlefield.

Approaching peach is pretty difficult most of the time, which is why you generally are gonna want her to come to you.
You can sometimes run in with nair if she's on the ground, but while she's floating, you're gonna want to keep your distance.

turnips are pretty much a free approach. Most peach players can't consistently turnip pull cancel (it also puts them in a bad position since they usually have to be on a platform), so if they just stop to pull a turnip, run in with a nair.

once peach has a turnip in her hand, you can force her into shield and there isn't much she can do (still watch out for FC aerials OoS though).

learning to catch turnips helps a lot, you gain a projectile that doesn't hurt you, and pichu's aerial item throw is pretty decent.
it's easiest to catch them from a crouch or standing still, but you can still catch them in the air, so just practice.

ok now general peach tip:
unless peach dash attacks or jabs/tilts, this (crouch canceling) is a terrible idea. If you cc a downsmash, you're going to take up to 80%. fortunately, pichu's crouch cancel sucks, so you usually won't take the full 80%, but generally speaking, you're gonna have a bad time, so only CC if you know for a fact that you're getting away with it.

Shielding while peach is floating is also questionable (aka bad), because an FC aerial on your shield gives peach a major opening and she can shield pressure really well. Don't try to shield grab an FC aerial. If you do shield an aerial, peach will do one of these three things:
1. jab. this stops shield grabs. (usually followed by: )
2. grab. usually a mix up.
3. dsmash. that just eats your shield up.

so yeah. those are solid options, you might get lucky and read a grab and spotdodge it or buffer roll out or something, but generally, shielding is bad (unless you're on a platform)

Both of these scenarios are completely avoided by playing on the platforms and avoiding the ground altogether.

Run around spamming jolts like a madman. Your goal is to get peach off the ground.
usually, she tries to float underneath you (you always want to run back to the top platform) and try to poke you with aerials.
You can jump over them, CC at low percent, or shield.
I'm a fan of either avoiding them, or using shielddrop aerials (usually uair) to put her in a bad position (she does not want to be above you)

You can also use agility OoS to get underneath her (PAs are ideal, obviously) and then trap her with uairs and thunders and all that fun stuff to wrack up as much percent as you can, then once she gets down, repeat the process.

This matchup can be slow and repetitive, but pretty much you're going to do that as much as you can to gain percent, then try to get an upsmash or get her offstage with nair.

Edgeguarding peach is tough, but pichu is capable of doing it. You aren't pikachu, but you still have a really solid edgeguard game.

rising double jump nairs from underneath are your best friend.
jolts will knock peach from her float or force her to put her umbrella down, which makes her vulnerable for a short period of time.
you can also create off stage thunder walls to stop her from just floating to the ledge.

This was one of the matchups where I started implementing Derf Hops to edgeguard, but they take set up and can be difficult to learn how to time.

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Pichu:

[collapse=Matchup Rating: Pichu Dittos PWN]

Coming Soon...​

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Pikachu:

[collapse=Matchup Rating: -2]

10. Pikachu

--Stages of Choice:--

Doesn't actually matter. You'll die really fast on Yoshi's and Stadium, but you'll also kill faster if you land an upsmash.
Dreamland sucks because pika lives forever, but still kills you relatively quickly with a thunderflip. I usually just go to battlefield out of principle.

---

So Pikachu is you. But he's bigger, faster, kills earlier, and lives longer.

It's kind of hard to stop pika from approaching, I just like to ftilt, or if you know how to time your dsmash to abuse the invincibility frames, that works really well, but it takes practice, and it sucks at low percent.
You can uptilt if he overshoots.
You can just shield grab his nair if it's stale, but only if he lands in front of your shield (same applies to you though, just a general tip)

Pika can stop your recovery really well if he's on the ground though, his upsmash and downsmash work really well for blocking you out. he can also wavedash back into fsmash, ftilt, and dtilt really effectively.

But, your nair has a little more priority, so you can challenge him in the air.
Pichu's nair is no joke.

Killing pika is generally easiest off the top, being able to upsmash out of shield is very helpful. thunderflipping kills pika around 70-90%, pika's thunderflip kills you around 60% though, but if you overshoot nair on his shield, he can't hit you with the strong part of his upsmash directly OoS after your nair connects (pichu's upsmash will start behind him, so you get away with it more easily).

pika's recovery is good. Like... best in the game good. You're probably not going to gimp him unless you get a read or if he uses sideB, you can just nair him.
Generally, if he's offstage, you want to hold the ledge and then try to punish if he goes for the stage (pika will do the same to you, most of the time, but you have less land lag from your upB if you land correctly)

When you are recovering, you really don't want to use your sideB unless you have to, because pika will use the opening to tailspike you, and if that happens, you're usually dead, or at the very least, in a bad position.

You can chaingrab pika for a little bit with your dthrow, he has the same dthrow, but the cg doesn't last long because you weigh less. Tech chasing pika is also really easy, because his techrolls are only slightly less terrible than yours.
However pika's standing tech is tied with pichu's for the fastest in the game, so you have to act fast to punish it. tech->usmash is pretty hard for pichu to react to/punish, but at low percent, I cc to cover it and then just react to either roll or a missed tech.

Obviously, being above pika is bad, his uair is massive and disjointed (and really quick), so try to avoid being on the platforms too often (or at least carelessly).

Respect pika on platforms though, his shielddrop game is really solid (shield drop uair is scary).

Also respect pika on the ledge. He has options, and they are really safe. Just stay back and pressure with jolts or use your dash dance outside his range to bait a response.

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Roy:

[collapse=Matchup Rating: -2]

Coming Soon...​

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Samus:

[collapse=Matchup Rating: -3]

9. Samus

--Stages of Choice:--

1. BF Great stage if you want to go the platform play-style, which I do. The ledges also make it a little difficult for samus to recover, but it doesn't drastically effect the matchup with more experienced samus players.

2. FD This is pretty much the exact opposite, no platforms whatsoever. This makes it so samus can't make missile barrages as freely. The blastzones are pretty far though, and the walls of the stage go down pretty far, so samus can live pretty long on this stage.

The other legal stages really depend on the samus. More aggressive samus players love yoshi's and FoD. More campy samus players love Dreamland and Stadium.
I think FoD is decent for pichu in the matchup, you need to watch for samus's uptilts through platforms more, but missiles are less of a problem. Samus can recovery from reeeaally low though.
Stadium actually isn't that bad either, you can kill samus off the top pretty quickly, and she usually doesn't survive until 200+%, you don't have a top platform though.
If the samus is missile happy, yoshi's can make that weird with shyguys occasionally getting in the way and the smaller stage gives her less room to run.

---

Alright, this is an odd matchup.

First things first; lets talk about missiles.
Pichu is tiny and has weird high priority moves that will cover his body, so he can actually weave through missiles pretty well.
When you're on the ground, ftilt and utilt.
In the air; nair and bair.
You can also dash attack through them, but pichu's dash attack is kinda laggy, so I don't like to use it.

A lot of samus players will approach you (often behind a missile) with jab, dash attack, dsmash (usually at higher percents) or occasionally dair, fair, or late nair. In general, if you know what to do, samus isn't very good at approaching pichu.

at low percent you can CC all of those, when you can't CC, ftilt will clank will all the grounded moves, utilt will stop all the aerials (spaced fair being the exception, but you can CC that until pretty high percent).

Don't approach samus if she's on the ground unless she whiffs a grab or does a grounded missile or something else laggy. Any other time, she's just gonna wavedash back into jab, ftilt, fsmash, dsmash, or utilt. Those are all things you'd rather avoid.

Jolts are actually pretty annoying for samus, so I like playing on platforms with a lot of jolts to give samus a little motivation to come to me.

Comboing samus is weird, she's got an odd weight and her nair comes out on frame 3 or 4 or something (I'm not sure, but it's fast and interrupts combos well). Usually, I like to chain nairs together across the stage or use uairs and utilts to juggle her.

Killing samus takes awhile. Your main goals in terms of killing her are to either use upsmash to kill her off the top or to use nairs too keep her offstage.

Edgeguarding samus is a trying experience that takes some patience, but Pichu is definitely capable.
I use a lot of offstage thunders and derf hops or roll jolts around the stage to catch her out of her grapple.
You can also just drop on her with a nair too, it's pretty effective.

When she's bombing around, thunders and jolts to annoy her. Then just run in with nair and she can't do much about it.
I'm a fan of jolt->nairs on samus since her movement in the air is slow.
only thing to worry about is her nair out of a bomb jump, but you can use your double jump to bait that out.
Same concept if she has a charge shot.

You really want to bait her double jump out, because that makes it a lot harder for her to recover.

If she's coming up from bellow you and you're on the ledge, invincible nairs are pretty awesome at stopping her upB (hitting samus out of her upB also makes her lose her charge shot).

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Shiek:

[collapse=Matchup Rating: -3]

3. SHEIK :

--Stages of Choice:--

1. DL:
Dreamland is pretty much your only hope in this matchup. You can abuse your mobility to run around sheik a bit and keep yourself alive a lot longer than on other stages.

2. BF:
This is only a good stage for you if your movement is on point. You need to be able to hit every edge cancel and keep moving at all times. This stage is really good for sheiks to move around on and needle camp, so you need to be moving faster than she is. Be careful of the lower ceiling, sheik will want to dthrow uair you.

Never let Sheik take you to Yoshi's Story or Fountain of Dreams. Stadium and FD are also risky choices though.

---

This matchup is straight up horrible. You don't really have a crouch cancel, so sheik can just start wailing on you at low percent. You have to be moving fast and occasionally put yourself in risky positions just to get around sheik's needle camping, and even then, you have enough trouble dealing with just sheik's ftilt.

You're pretty much going to want to run away with jolts for as long as you can. It is super important that you never stop moving in this matchup.

If you get grabbed, you're probably dead. Sheik is going to start dthrowing you and can chaingrab you with it until killing percent. You're going to want to try to mix up your DI a bit, but sheik can react to it easily. Try to get off the stage, DIing down and away. You'll probably get faired and die, but sometimes you'll live.

Edgeguarding sheik is pretty easy. Pretty much, just make sure she loses her second jump, then grab the ledge and hold it until she reappears. If she teleports on to the stage, just jump up there and throw her back off or upsmash her if she's at high percent.

Fsmash is very interesting in this matchup because it will suck sheik in if she tries to sweetspot the ledge. Don't overuse it because a good sheik will SDI out of it.

This is a matchup where thunderwalls can actually be useful if used correctly. They stop needles and prevent sheik from approaching you.

If you get the chance to get sheik above you, try to keep her up there as long as you can with uair, utilt, usmash, and rising nair. She has trouble coming down on top of pichu. Watch out for fast fall fairs though.

If you get a grab, dthrow and fthrow are really good. You can pull off some janky chain throws at low percents. At mid percent, your dthrow combos into your aerials really well.

Overall, this is a rough matchup. Don't get frustrated.

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Yoshi:

[collapse=Matchup Rating: 0]

Coming soon...​

[/collapse]

Young Link:

[collapse=Matchup Rating: -2]

Coming Soon...​

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Zelda:

[collapse=Matchup Rating: -1]

Coming Soon...​

[/collapse]

 

[DerfMidWest]

I've archived the old OP here for now until I take anything from it worth salvaging.

[collapse=Archive]

The Pichu Matchup Thread

Alright, as dead as this board is, I though we could get some discussion going with a matchup thread. Basically, we do 1 character a week, in which you post your thoughts about the matchup. At the end of the week, if we have a consensus, I'll add the matchup and a brief summary about it.

Matchup schedule:
Week 1: Kirby
Week 2: Bowser
Week 3: Mewtwo
Week 4: Falco
Week 5: Captain Falcon
Week 6: Fox
Week 7: DK
Week 8: Free discussion, but was generally Marth
Week 9: Ice Climbers
Week 10: Samus
Week 11: Peach

Pichu's Match-ups:
Note: () values represent a range of values the matchup could extend to based on knowledge of the matchup or varying playstyles.



Small Advantage (55-45):



Neutral (50-50):
ichu: 50-50(+50 with goggles Pichu :D)
50-50(+ or -5)




Small Disadvantage (45-55):



Disadvantage (40-60):
40-60


Counter(35-65)
:mewtwo: 35-65(-5)

Hard Counter/LOL(30-70 or worse)
30-70
30-70(-5)
25-75(-5)
5-95
15-85(+/-5)
10-90
5-95
:shiek: 1-99 Lol chaingrab

Week 1: Kirby

Summary: Not as easy as you think. Many characters can abuse Kirby's lack of range, but you're Pichu. Everyone has a range advantage on you, including Kirby. SH nairs, as always, are one of your best options. Be aggressive, but be careful, Kirby's bair> your nair, and Kirby will try to outspace you with it. It's predictable though, so try to bait and punish. Don't get grabbed, his d-throw techchase is painful. Finally, when it comes to KOs, Pichu KOs Kirby very early with u-smash, but it can be difficult to recover against a smart Kirby, so mix up your recovery tactics.

Week 2: Bowser

Bowser is easy to hit and easy to combo, but you have to get inside his range first. Fair is one of his better spacers, so be careful when approaching from the front. Grounded fortress(up-b) is amazing, and can punish a whiffed grab with ease. Once you've broken his defenses, combo and juggle him with nairs, uairs, and some thunder here and there as much as you can. Keep him airborne and he can't do very much. Bowser is far more durable than you. Every hit counts. Don't get hit, bait an opening, and punish hard.
Week 3: Mewtwo

Mewtwo ***** Pichu. ALL DAY, son. ChuDat's Pikachu couldn't beat my M2 either.

Elven, those are the obvious range advantages that Mewtwo has while on the ground. You're not including superior grab range (can grab Pichu out of the air), upward angle tilts, a projectile, and now Mewtwo's F-air actually out ranges something. Not to mention a scary back air edge guard and early forward air KOs.

Pichu really has just a linear SHFFL game, an ok one, but only because it HAS to be. If Mewtwo can read that, then Pichu loses. If Pichu can get inside of Mewtwo and mix up his cross up SHFFL game and sneak in more up smashes then Pichu can be a winner. Otherwise, Mewtwo just won't die easily from Pichu, there just aren't any guaranteed KOs that are reasonably viable to land against a good Mewtwo.

Though I won't rule out that my perceptions of this match are distorted from my own experiences playing as Mewtwo, but for any other Mewtwo player against Pichu players, I'm sure it would probably balance itself out since there aren't many M2 players with the appropriate level of spacing that's necessary to even do what I'm talking about.

Pichu's Dash dance won't work very well against Mewtwo's WD down tilts, IMO. If Mewtwo just calls the retreating dash away, it's worthless since it isn't long enough to really escape M2's WD which is the 3rd longest in the game. Then you can even do that following hopped shadow balls...

I have a feeling that in an average M2 vs Pichu match, Wavedash back Shield grab will probably be what ***** Pichu's SHFFL game.

Basically, Mewtwo's greater mobility and range will win the match for him in most cases. Be patient, wait for an opening, and punish Mewtwo's mistakes.


Week 4: Bread Falco

Another great writeup by Taj:

I think Falco vs Pichu is just a slight disadvantage for Pichu. Looking at it from Falco's perspective, he just doesn't have the **** that he use to have. Basically everyone and their mom can gimp Falco.

Falco has control of the match like he does to just about everyone, Falco has the priority, the combos, the range, the shine, and Pichu has the lack of everything Falco has including weight. Good Falco will beat good Pichu just because like most low tier characters, getting Falco into a gimp scenario is just difficult.

Pichu's SH runs into Falco's natural SHL and loses to Falco's everything. Pichu really has to probably stay low, get into Falco's SHL space and mix up dash JC grab and quick short ranged SHFFLs. If Pichu can get inside Falco then Pichu can start comboing, tech chasing, chain grabbing and force Falco off stage for those gimp KOs.

Oh, and Pichu's Down Smash is not a viable edgeguard in the current metagame. Doing that would actually hinder Pichu's edgeguard overall. You're better off down tilting or something, IMO. I'm sure there is a time and place for it somewhere though. Like reverse down smash or something.

Yet again, the basic strategy is to space carefully, wait for a mistake, and proceed to combo Falco to SSB64 and back. This is the common theme for Pichu matchups; some characters are just easier to apply this to. In the case of Falco, you get the bonus of easy gimps once you've got him offstage. A stage suggestion: Battlefield limits laser spam, and it's easy to juggle him and set up for the gimp.

Week 5: Captain Falcon, the manliest character in the game

Primarily a falcon player, a scrub none the less, I'll give the falcon write-up a try.

This is an honest to god david vs. goliath matchup. You've got low-tier pichu, who's character is the size of c. Falcon's head, vs. Mr. Powermove himself, capt. falcon. For pichu, the trick to this is keeping in that magic zone where falcon can't shff knee you, and he can't get a running sh fair. Approach with caution, and use your nimble size to avoid grabs and get on the offense if capt. tries to approach with an aerial. Keep on your toes. It's important to remember that he's faster than you. If he goes for a combo, use di/your small size to get out of folow-up range, which shouldn't be a problem at higher percents, due to the fact that he'll knock you the hell out of follow-up range.
This is the most important thing for light characters to remember when facing falcon: Avoid the knee like the god**** plague. Space yourself and brace yourself. If you get off the stage, you've got about a 60% chance of recovery. He's going to wallhop, bair, fair, and edge-hog his behind off, and edgeguard like the dickens. In case I wasn't being clear earlier, don't just avoid the knee, avoid anything that could get you off the stage. I mean Fsmashes, dsmashes, usmashes, dairs, bairs, and even the gentleman. You may not see it coming, but he's going to follow up. I promise.
Finally, as for grabs, coming from capt. Falcon, they shouldn't be much trouble. Above %50, they're going to have trouble getting a steady follow-up if you di/try to not get hit, really.
Just an extra word of advice: Falcon's gonna mindgame you. His character is perfect for it. You being at an offensive disadvantage, you're going to need to play the smarter game. just wavedash, don't get pivot-fsmashed, and try to get your juggle going before he can get at you.

Sorry if this doesn't help, this is from more of a defensive perspective for pichu. Happy smashing.

The key here is to stay on the move, grab him, and above all don't knocked off stage by a surprise knee, bair, etc. He has a lot of options for edgeguarding you. Once you've got the grab, u-throw or d-throw into stuff, or b-throw if near the edge to go for the gimp. In this matchup, Falcon's grab combos aren't too effective on you, just DI as necessary. Go for juggle opportunities, gimps( he's hard to kill outright, so these are more important than ever), and don't let Falcon break your momentum with a surprise attack.

Week 6: Fox

Pichu vs Fox is very simple. He's faster than you in every conceivable way, has more range than you, can kill you from throw, can kill you from shine tech chase, and obliterates you for existing. You, conversely, are limited to mostly terrible priority aerials and grabs.

In the matchup, you are going to contrive to have Fox make the first move. You can't camp him, of course, Pichu camping is laughable in its own right. You have to engage him in close combat but strive to put pressure on him (mostly with your proximity and hit-run; attacking into Fox a lot is brutally hard and Pichu lacks semi-safe ranged pokes) and convince him he has to fight you. At which point, you decide if you can punish it with a DD grab or SH Uair underneath it, SH Uair OoS, or basically anything. It's Pichu so you're going to have to get creative.

After Nair when you wind up having to approach by force, try to land behind him at all times. Otherwise we get into all sorts of stuff that we don't want to deal with. Things to watch out for when attacking him, on that note, aside from him just picking a move and it completely overriding yours, is his shield, and basically anything he can do out of it. It's all very good and it can all **** you. So watch out for it and pray to god he sucks.

Beyond that, just...

Be better than them. Much, much, much, much better. Often disproportionately so. Your chain grab is yay but it only works on like one level. More often than not you're just going to try to hit him into some sort of edgeguard and then gimp him in any way you can. It doesn't really matter how, so long as he dies offstage and you're alive. Ledgehop Nair, Jolt him once and then drop with Nair, Fair --> Fair if you have to (8% sucks but if he dies it's probably worth it), F-tilt, D-tilt... just get him off the stage and for the love of god keep him there. You cannot by any stretch of the imagination keep up with him onstage, he'll cream you.

He explained it better than I ever could, so I'll just pull out the basics. Approach him, hope he throws out a laggy move, and proceed to various grab combos. Mix your grabs with OoS uairs. They're good for random, quick damage. Above all, keep him offstage anyway you can that doesn't kill you. Even if you don't kill him, he'll take a good deal of damage before he makes it back. Every % is critical here. Good luck: you'll need it.

Week 7: DK

First thing would be the approach. Both how to deal with it and how to do it.

DK's approach is fairly simple and you can read a lot of his options by just looking at which way he's facing. If his back is to you, he's most likely going for a bair, though he could always turn around and use another approach, so watch for that. If he's facing you, he's limited to the nair, the dash attack, the grab and possibly a Giant Punch. You'll sometimes see dairs, fairs and uairs, but they're not as good. The dair is slow and easy to avoid, the fair is really slow and easy to avoid and you're too short to hit with the uair, although if they shorthop at you and haven't already thrown an aerial, it's likely that they're going to try this.

The bair you really can't do much about because of its huge range. Of course, they do have to have their back to you, which limits how useful this move is. They could wavedash towards you, but wavedashing is fairly laggy and you can punish him in the meantime, since he'll most likely have to do it multiple times to get close. The most common way you'll see this move used is probably out of a dashdance. The best way to counter this would be to start up a dashdance of your own and bait an attack that you can then punish. Don't give him a stationary target. You could also shoot a few Thunder Jolts, because hitting him makes him face the direction he was hit from, disabling his ability to bair. You could also try to fulljump over him and nair down at him, but it's not really the best option.

Watch out for reverse Giant Punch charge cancels into bairs. You'll probably only see these out of a fulljump, but it's not something you'd really look for unless you knew it was there.

Grabs and nairs should be dealt with with dashdances and wavedashes. Wavedashing back and running forward with a nair can take apart a lot of lower grade players. Watch spacing carefully and make sure you know DK's range for his attacks so you can skirt right outside of them.

The best thing to do, though, is to be on the offensive. Proactive players almost always have an advantage over reactive players because they're calling the shots. As Pichu, you have a small advantage in that you can't get hit very easily by the Spinning Kong out of shield unless you're in the air. Watch out for that. The sweetspot is basically DK's back arm, and it hurts.

Nair, like always, is going to be one of your staples. Grabs are also an option, but they're quite telegraphed. Since your options are low, you're going to have to mix things up. If your opponent shields a lot, you can jump through them with a nair and turn around grab, or just jump through and turn around grab. If you're feeling daring, you could jump through and then charge a usmash to catch him on the jump, since DK won't really be able to hit you immediately out of shield.

You could also consider using the uair in this matchup. One of DK's biggest weaknesses is his crappy shield. Dashdance a little if he's shielding to let it wear down, then jump and try to clip his exposed head with a uair. This won't work if he's clever and decides to lightshield, but you can use the above options to get around that.

DK falls surprisingly quickly, so you could use uair to fairly good effect. Uair itself doesn't do very much damage, so don't get carried away with it. Try uair to usmash or uair to nair for damage. DK doesn't have any fast downward attack options, so be bold.

On the edgeguard, you're basically going to have to edgehog him. You can punish attempts to go above you with ledgehop uair to nair at low percents and just straight ledgehop nair at higher ones. You can hassle him with Thunder Jolts or throw yourself at him with a nair if you really must, but his arms are bigger than you are, and you won't get too much done. Dtilt can work here, but DK's horizontal recovery is such that he'll probably make it back anyway, and you'll most likely have gotten hit for no reason.

Basically, you want to exert pressure on DK throughout this matchup. He outranges you and outprioritizes you (like most characters) but you can take advantage of his bad defensive options. His spotdodge seriously blows chunks and his shield is really bad, especially if he's had it out for a while. Rolling would force him to give up ground and pressure. Keep moving and keep him on the back foot. Bait attacks (you'll probably see a lot of the ftilt) and punish him after. You're really going to have to keep a step or two ahead of him the entire game if you want to win.

Week 8: Marth

Spoiler

(is the most broken character in Smash)

He doesn't deserve an image...
But he does get a summary.

1) Projectile needs to be used because you can't get through his sword on your own
2) Don't get trapped against Marth at his ideal spacings because then he can punish everything you do; either be very far away from him (sufficiently far to throw out a projectile with impunity) or be very close
3) Edgehog with some combination of ledgehop Nair, light shield edgehog --> ledgedash D-smash reverse, and projectiles to kill his momentum

I'm guessing for close-range game (the only time Pichu will hit) will be mostly a mesh of whatever you can hit on Marth so that's pretty much open to anything. D-tilt seems to be Pichu's most ranged fast move but that doesn't really matter when all of his moves have horrible range so I'm guessing whatever you can get should be taken?

Does Pichu have anything better than WD OoS --> U-throw Nair to punish Marth's non-tip F-smash on block? Can he D-smash if Marth does it at the edge so you could possibly reverse and edgeguard? Or is it too slow?

Week 9: Ice Climbers

ICs: 2 big things to focus on here. Don't get grabbed, and separate them. This fight is all about the air. Keep them there. You'll be doing little, if any grabbing(or close combat) yourself; Pichu is tougher to grab and tougher to CG than most, but it's still not worth the risk. Jolts now and then can help set up an approach, but desynched blizzards are tough for Pichu to breach. Bait a smash or grab, then switch gears to offense. Quickly punish with a nair/uair, then follow up. Uair juggles, nair rush, etc. Overall, it's a battle for positioning. ICs want the fight to stay firmly on the ground, and Pichu wants an aerial fight.

35-65 or worse, simply because ICs can take and hold control of the match more easily.

Week 10: Samus

A sucky bit of note on the missiles: If your Nair stales, you get hit T-T

You have no approach, really. Anything you can hit her with, she can crouch cancel and downsmash. That's if you space it correctly. If not, you eat a wd back fsmash. The only thing that I've found that even SORT of works, is fair to grab (risky) or dair at mid percents to buffered shield.

You could try and bait an opening or just push for a lucky hit by short hopping thunderjolt, but that damages you and doesn't really work. If you do manage to get the hit, jc grab fthrow and avoid her nair/fair her again. There's really not much else you can do.

UpB from shield ***** Pichu, especially on stages where the upB lines up with a platform.



For a final number... I'd say 80:20 wouldn't be unreasonable. Possibly more. I find this almost as hard to deal with as the Marth matchup


EDIT: Oh, also, wavedash out of shield is your friend here. It's like second nature, so I forgot to mention it, but more often than not, this is probably how you'll get inside Samus. Her moves are strong, have good range and come out relatively fast, but her smashes have enough lag for you to abuse. Do it.

Week 11: Peach​

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[INSANE CARZY GUY]

We must start now!!! ... mario is harder than dr. mario for his dair , it hits more often and harder to edge guard for he recovers better and it's very hard to D-smash spike him any thing i miss? most of the time not for pichu in my option dr.mario is better

 

[The Milk Monster]

We must start now!!! ... mario is harder than dr. mario for his dair , it hits more often and harder to edge guard for he recovers better and it's very hard to D-smash spike him any thing i miss? most of the time not for pichu in my option dr.mario is better

Learn better english, seriously.
None of us want to translate every one of your posts.
In response to this thread though, about Kirby, he is small, so harder to hit with shffl'd aerials, along with harder to juggle because of the float, the light factor on Kirby's behalf will be nice for earlier kills with an F smash, U smash, or maybe a skull bash?
That's my input.

 

[SpaceFalcon]

Large disadvantage 35-65?! Pretty sure Marth vs pichu is like 95-5 his grab outranges everything pichu has lol.

The best matchup for him is probably Falco>Falcon>Fox>Ganon?
Well thats only comparing the better characters in the game, and this is judging from me playing pichu when I was nub.

I don't understand why the 2005 tier list had Pichu dead last, then 06-07 had Pichu above mewtwo, and now his back on bottom on the newest list?

Personally I think Kirby is the worst character followed by ness, then mewtwo and pichu right after.

 

[Mogwai]

I don't think Kirby can legitimately deal with a nair spamming Pichu (read: good Pichu). His only real means of fighting the nairs is to space bairs, but this should be easy enough for most Pichus to play around due to Kirby's rather sad horizontal aerial mobility. He also dies stupid early to usmash, so that's cool. Oh, he also can't really kill pichu except with bair/uair at higher %s, since Pichu's recovery is so beast. I'd say slight advantage -> advantage pichu.

EDIT: You also got the ditto wrong, it's highly in Pichu's favor. Like, 75-25 or something

 

[The Milk Monster]

Yeah Marth like destroy's Pichu, he'll grab him out of everything the lil' guy has.
In my opinion it should be like this, Kirby dead last, then Zelda, then Pichu.
Mewtwo and Ness have more options then those three.(Pichu, Zelda, Kirby.)

 

[Mogwai]

Yeah Marth like destroy's Pichu, he'll grab him out of everything the lil' guy has.
In my opinion it should be like this, Kirby dead last, then Zelda, then Pichu.
Mewtwo and Ness have more options then those three.(Pichu, Zelda, Kirby.)

You haven't played a good Zelda, have you?

Mewtwo is infinitely more limited than Zelda, and Ness has about the same # of options, but they're worse. Zelda's fair/bair are exceptional and just straight up better than everything that Ness and Mewtwo have. Pichu is extremely limited (nair nair nair nair or nair, those are your only options), but it's a good option, so I think ...

wait, wtf, why are we discussing tier list here... wrong thread, stop talking about not-Pichu here except in relation to the matchup vs. Pichu.

 

[The Milk Monster]

You haven't played a good Zelda, have you?

Mewtwo is infinitely more limited than Zelda, and Ness has about the same # of options, but they're worse. Zelda's fair/bair are exceptional and just straight up better than everything that Ness and Mewtwo have. Pichu is extremely limited (nair nair nair nair or nair, those are your only options), but it's a good option, so I think ...

wait, wtf, why are we discussing tier list here... wrong thread, stop talking about not-Pichu here except in relation to the matchup vs. Pichu.

I agree on Pichu's options being nair's.
But yeah, on the topic of Pichu, though his options are crazy limited, Pichu main's or sub mains make the most out of what he has going for him, though it's so little.
What is everyone else's input on the Kirby match up?

 

[Monkey Wrench]

EDIT: You also got the ditto wrong, it's highly in Pichu's favor. Like, 75-25 or something

Only if you use goggles Pichu
Regarding the matchup, Pichu can just spam nair and Kirby can do little about it. His bair is easy to predict, especially with his slow aerial movement, so just outspace him and Pichu should be fine. Basically, what Mogwai already said. Extra note: Pichu is immune to Kirbycides(both die at the same when they cross the blast zone)

So, somewhere between 55-45 and 60-40 then?

 

[INSANE CARZY GUY]

and kirbicide fails because you and pichu must die everytime and you can't spit pichu out and and survive because of his quick up B , kirby won't likely suck you up for your B move who wants to hurt themself ?

on the side note I think samus is the hardest charcter to combo for some reason i can combo J-puff way better with uair
i was tpying that monkey wrench

 

[Pink Reaper]

Pichu's Nair isn't a big deal for Kirby, it's an obvious move and easy to predict. Moreso, because Kirby's small it's harder for Pichu to properly space it, he basically has to land in/in front of Kirby, making it an easy move to shield grab. And on the subject of the grab game, Pichu's tech roll is so horrible he's the only character kirby can Dthrow->Hammer if he wants. Granted, it's usually just better to Dthrow->Tech Chase Grab over and over again.

Kirby's Bair may not be a particularly strong or high priority move but it will always, ALWAYS beat anything Pichu throws out. Uair juggles don't work on kirby because of how light he is and while Usmash may hurt Kirby quite a bit any good player will be able to keep Pichu out of range. And that's really what makes Pichu easy to deal with. Of all the characters in the game, Pichu is the only one Kirby has range over. With just a little bit of patience and proper tilt/aerial spacing Kirby can just poke Pichu to death, considering Pichu can't really spam Kirby into approaching.

 

[The Milk Monster]

and kirbicide fails because you and pichu must die everytime and you can't spit pichu out and and survive because of his quick up B , kirby won't likely suck you up for your B move who wants to hurt themself ?

on the side note I think samus is the hardest charcter to combo for some reason i can combo J-puff way better with uair
i was tpying that monkey wrench

If you drop far enough down you'll be fine, Pichu's up b isn't the easiest to aim.

 

[INSANE CARZY GUY]

but he is the hardest charcter to kirbicide next to ICs for an easy to see reason . so is kirby a better match up for pichu , but still in kirby's favor

 

[The Milk Monster]

To Monkey, yeah I'd say about 60 - 40.

 

[INSANE CARZY GUY]

yeah all kirby has it's a little tricky to combo him , a small amount of range , he is heavier , hard to edge guard ,

you have speed , better kill moves , he is one of the easiest people to up kill and you kill up very well, you as pichu areharder to kill by kirbicide (there is a guide on it) ,I think pichu has a much easier time taking control of the match , so how would take on pichu?

 

[Dogysamich]

Pichu might be better than kirby, the tier lists arent based off of pure "Who beats who"

and lets not forget the infamous t!mmy vs t0mmy $100 money match.

XD

 

[INSANE CARZY GUY]

i loved that it was like many mini combo videos ,but pichu have more on kirby than kirby has on pichu , does anybody disagree and if so why?

 

[Parker1006]

I think Kirby is one of the few characters in which a stage like YS or PS is actually in your favor (as Pichu).

Matchup 4 should be reserved for the space animals or Marth (considering that they are the most used characters out there and I'm sure I'm not the only one that wants to scrub top tier users.

 

[KirbyKaze]

Vs Kirby the Pichu needs to be aware that his grab game is better than Kirby's (U-throw Nair racks damage faster than you want especially if you can connect another Nair after the first through tricksies) and that he's a lot faster. It's mostly just spacing, and trying to get the other guy to whiff on something and then punish and then do it again. In Kirby's case, he also has the option of trying to beat out Pichu's attacks with his superior range moves.

Personally I think Pichu's lower overall lag and superior speed gives him the edge vs Kirby (just running back and forth is rather effective against Kirby ) but Kirby's range is rather decent so who knows.

 

[Pink Reaper]

You have to understand that a simple Ftilt from Kirby has about twice the range of anything Pichu can do KirbyKaze. A patient Kirby will always beat a high speed, ritalin abusing Pichu by just out spacing it. And believe it or not a stage like DL64 is better for Kirby as a Recovering Pichu can take upwards of 15% just using his recovery moves.

 

[KirbyKaze]

I want to believe simply outspacing people with WD back F-tilt or stationary F-tilt works that perfectly but I don't think it's that simple.

Either way I wouldn't know.

 

[Pink Reaper]

There's also the fact that your grab range is like, 5 times longer than it should be. It helps against a character who cant tech roll more than 1 inch. But yeah, tilts work well, as does simple Bair spam just because Pichu can't really do much about it. Now if it was Pikachu he could Thunderjolt camp you and actually use his Fair, but he's not so he cant

 

[KirbyKaze]

I was thinking that camping in the matchup is somewhat awkward... Pichu's camping is bad but Kirby's anti-camping in turn is also bad. So I'm not sure whose level of bad beats the other's out.

I'll take your word for it though.

 

[INSANE CARZY GUY]

pichu edge guards better 1 his secret spike d smash 2 nair 3 bair 4 B 5 his tilts 6 thunder 7 if you are crazy as me side B yes i have landed side before and lived to tell the tale. kirby bas 1 bair 2 dair up B 3 down tilt 4 B and keep in mind I rarely play Kirby's

and kirby's recovery is super easily to predict

 

[Taj278]

1.) Kirby edgeguards better in this particular match up and Pichu can't really gimp Kirby either.

2.) A secret Down Smash spike that isn't really a spike and it isn't even a secret that it has reverse knock back unless the Kirby has never even played against or even as Pichu before.

3-4.) Neutral and Back air are both full body attacks with minimal priority and poor damage and knockback after the initial attack against a character that almost just as small with one of the better grab ranges in the game.

5.) Pichu's neutral B has already been discussed as a terrible anti camping move since well... Pichu always takes 1% damage with it and is never worth it unless it of course lands, which is never guaranteed, or you force damage by using it to approach and calling the opponent's actions.

6.) Pichu's tilts are terrible unless you're practically inside of a character, and in this particular match-up Kirby is just too small to make tilts work very well coupled with an excellent grab range, tilting can almost always result in a shield grab against Kirby.

7.) Pichu's thunder doesn't have nearly the same KO and combo utility of Pikachu's. It's completely negligible and lackluster.

Pichu's Forward B has very little place in competitive play, and an even smaller place in high level play. Against Kirby, Pichu's Forward B is borderline worthless as an attack, and only viable as a means of recovery. Kirby has the lowest crouch in the game.

Kirby's recovery is relatively easy to predict, but there is almost nothing Pichu can really do about it most of the time. All you can do is try to intercept an Up B sweet spot, but most of Pichu's attacks have a horizontal and vertical knock back, so Kirby either dies or just floats back.

Kirby's tilts against Pichu and his shield grabs are what will win the match. Kirby's anti-camping game versus Pichu's camping game isn't the problem, it is Kirby's camping game against Pichu's anti camping game. Against a character with poor priority, poor grab and attack range, full body attacks, an unspammable projectile, and limited KO options, Kirby can just slowly approach and play a great spacing game with up tilt to counter cross ups, forward and down tilt to pressure shield, Inhale eats neutral air attempts, and overall just a more solid ground game since Pichu doesn't have much to really pressure Kirby except pursuing and punishing rolls with some empty short hop mind games.

 

[INSANE CARZY GUY]

how do you so well you never stop amazing me but i have edge guarded people like that before I use side B if i am up a life and D smash is way better that one would , i once use uair to fair on a Falco he fell off the stage and i used dsmash the second i could if i can i will show the video , but wise taj who's favor is it in your opinion

 

[Parker1006]

how do you so well you never stop amazing me but i have edge guarded people like that before I use side B if i am up a life and D smash is way better that one would , i once use uair to fair on a Falco he fell off the stage and i used dsmash the second i could if i can i will show the video , but wise taj who's favor is it in your opinion

For the love of all things good and wholesome....USE PUNCTUATION!

 

[Smash G 0 D]

Kirby ***** Pichu.

Dthrow tech chase

next matchup?

 

[Pink Reaper]

For the love of all things good and wholesome....USE PUNCTUATION!

And some level of proper english would be greatly appreciated as well.

 

[rhan]

Kirby ***** Pichu.

Dthrow tech chase

next matchup?

This basically sumed everything up.

Pichu really doesn't stand a chance against anyone really. He's just the screw around character.

But for discussion. Kirby can do more to Pichu then what Pichu can do to Kirby. Pichu as very few approching options. The best thing Pichu has really is just SH Nair. Kirby has his huge feets to out range Pichu in every way. Kirby can easily get Pichu off the edge with a few bairs. Pichu's recovery may be good for comming back but it's landing lag will get him knocked away again. Thus leaving him in a chain of being knocked back and forth from the edge. Even if the Pichu trys to sweet spot the edge, Kirby can just D-Smash and prevent that all together.

 

[Monkey Wrench]

Kirby up as a 40-60, but I left a margin of error for now.

Bowser is up: Discuss.

 

[Smash G 0 D]

Pichu ***** Bowser.

Bowser is easy to punish and Pichu is hard to hit

I may be wrong though

 

[Pink Reaper]

Pichu ***** Bowser.

Bowser is easy to punish and Pichu is hard to hit

I may be wrong though

Bowser's Up B out of shield ***** Pichu so hard it's not even funny(ok, it's a little funny)

Bowser can play an attrition game with Pichu as his huge weight and Pichu's overall weak strength means that in almost every situation Bowser will come out on top. By simply spamming what works(Fair, Bair, Up B out of shield) Bowser will will put Pichu into kill range long before he ever has to worry about dying. Bowser also has stage advantage on almost every stage playable with the exception of Pokefloats and Rainbow Cruise. No matter where the match is played it's almost always just a battle of racking up damage so on smaller stages Bowser can just kill Pichu at ******** low percents and on larger stages Bowser can just wait it out as he will live basically forever.

 

[Taj278]

Yeah, I think this match up is even or slightly in Bowser's favor as well. Pichu is easy to use, and does have a speed advantage, but Bowser's attacks are all higher priority or full body attacks that ignore Pichu's small size and makes that advantage more negligible.

 

[INSANE CARZY GUY]

plus bowser has good edge guard moves and he has many defensive moves but bowser is super easy to combo and if you can play as bowser good , he is very easy to beat because there is nothing new and shadowclaw 3? man I wish i could be a punching bag

 

[T0MMY]

Pichu might be better than kirby, the tier lists arent based off of pure "Who beats who"

and lets not forget the infamous t!mmy vs t0mmy $100 money match.

XD

The only reason I won that match was because I could adapt to t1mmy's playstyle better.

1.) Kirby edgeguards better in this particular match up and Pichu can't really gimp Kirby either.

Uh... yes he can. Whenever Kirby does his Up+B his head will pop up a bit and all Pichu has to do is D-Tilt for a very simple KO. ANYONE can gimp Kirby's recovery, after his Up-B he will have NONE of his 5 jumps left, even if he hasn't used them yet.

2.) A secret Down Smash spike that isn't really a spike and it isn't even a secret that it has reverse knock back unless the Kirby has never even played against or even as Pichu before.

Unless it's t1mmy, chances are that Kirby hasn't played a Pichu... because nobody plays Pichu X^D

7.) Pichu's thunder doesn't have nearly the same KO and combo utility of Pikachu's. It's completely negligible and lackluster.

I rely on that Thunder for my KOs!

Pichu's Forward B has very little place in competitive play, and an even smaller place in high level play. Against Kirby, Pichu's Forward B is borderline worthless as an attack, and only viable as a means of recovery. Kirby has the lowest crouch in the game.

I actually pulled off the Skull Bash on quite a lot in high-level play. It has some tricks to it nobody else would really find out unless you played Pichu for YEARS... I'm not saying it's a garbage attack, but I am disagreeing with saying it's completely useless as an attack. It will hit Kirby in his crouch.

Kirby's recovery is relatively easy to predict, but there is almost nothing Pichu can really do about it most of the time. All you can do is try to intercept an Up B sweet spot, but most of Pichu's attacks have a horizontal and vertical knock back, so Kirby either dies or just floats back.

I disagree. Kirby is vulnerable to plenty of attacks on his recovery. Kirby is rather fat and slow when recovering X^D

Kirby's tilts against Pichu and his shield grabs are what will win the match. Kirby's anti-camping game versus Pichu's camping game isn't the problem, it is Kirby's camping game against Pichu's anti camping game. Against a character with poor priority, poor grab and attack range, full body attacks, an unspammable projectile, and limited KO options, Kirby can just slowly approach and play a great spacing game with up tilt to counter cross ups, forward and down tilt to pressure shield, Inhale eats neutral air attempts, and overall just a more solid ground game since Pichu doesn't have much to really pressure Kirby except pursuing and punishing rolls with some empty short hop mind games.

I agree on everything except Kirby's Swallow being used against the N-air. It's way too slow to use for that.

Pichu ***** Bowser.

Bowser is easy to punish and Pichu is hard to hit

I may be wrong though

You are.
I found it difficult to beat Gimpy's Bowser when I'd play him. Then again, it is Gimpy, why would it be easy to beat him? lol
He ***** Chu in a MM at Super Champ Combo though... omg you should have seen the F-air > F-air > F-air combo he did to that poor Pichu X_X

 

[Pink Reaper]

T0MMY! Pichu vs Kirby MM, $50, NOW!

 

[Taj278]

Kirby can cover his himself while he recovers with higher priority aerials. When Kirby NEEDS to up B, then of course he's able ti be gimped just like everyone else. Pichu doesn't particularly have anything that will genuinely force Kirby into those kinds of recoveries. Most of the time it will a standard high and floaty recovery.

But you know what, I've played your Pichu, and you never hit me with skull bash and I never see myself ever getting hit with skull bash unless I'm 5+ years retired. Perhaps my perceptions of the move are distorted, who knows. Skull Bash definitely has less utility than a Falcon Punch in a 1v1 though, that much is certain.

Pichu's Thunder for KOs is easily DIable since it multi-hits with piss poor knockback.

Kirby is... just not vulnerable to Pichu's attacks. I just don't see it. If Kirby plays against Pichu like Isai played against Ken's Sheik from like 2004, then I just see a slow poke fest that is in Kirby's favor. You might have a case for Pikachu since he has some kind of semi-viable anti-camp projectile, a more viable up smash KO option, decent priority up air with gimp potential, and more weight.

I dunno... a ****ty range down tilt edgeguard for Kirby's Up B assuming Kirby HAS to up B for sweet spot... Maybe I'm just not thinking that Kirby's recovery is THAT linear.

Kirby's inhale isn't as slow as you think, but I'm not implying that it is a strong counter. I'm just implying that if Pichu made the mistake of a slightly longer Short Hop, even if it was empty or a neutral air, it could be inhaled or it could even be started preemptively.

This is coming from the guy that made two of the most worthless moves in the game for one of the worst characters in the game remotely viable. If Mewtwo had a forward B or down B with as much utility as even Kirby's inhale instead of a ****ty Forward B that results in 24/26 characters throwing a free 13% or higher back-air, Mewtwo would be middle tier unconditionally even if I had to prove it myself. If Skullbash has its tricks to it, then I'm ****ing David Blaine when it comes to those two moves, ****.

/tired

 

[Pink Reaper]

T0MMY full charge skull bashed M2K at either OC3 or Pound 3(I can't remember which)