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Guide The Pichu Matchup Thread

Monkey Wrench

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If Pichu destroyed Falco, then Pika would destroy him even more, and everyone would CP Pichu/Pika against Falco, which would do wonders for their viability. But Falco isn't nearly as bad a matchup as some others in top/high.

40-60, no better, no worse. (Unless the Falco has no clue how to fight Pichu, which they might. But don't count on it.)

Falcon discussion, go.
 

The Irish Mafia

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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.
 

INSANE CARZY GUY

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so pichu's only help in the match is he is small and c. Falcon can be combed? wow that sucks well at least you don't hurt yourself with every move... wait what
 

victra♥

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I find that against any of the higher tiered characters, Falcon is probably the easiest to compete against. Mainly because of Falcon's gimpable recovery. =P

I donno, Falcon doesn't have a lot of priority in his aerials. It makes it easier for Pichu to approach etc, at least for me. I count be wrong though. =/

Pichu's also small and cute. ^^
 

victra♥

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What works even better is changing the language to Japanese and playing Jigglypuff. x3

But yeah, being small can be ridiculously annoying, especially when pichu wavelands/dashes around.
 

elvenarrow3000

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Aerial priority is such a subjective thing... I like how Irish Mafia's advice basically boiled down to "Don't get hit" =P Good stuff.

Pichu's small size will probably help him avoid the straight up knee, the dair and the nair to some extent, but the uair will probably still hit him quite a bit. I believe you're supposed to DI away to avoid being comboed by that particular move.

I feel like in this matchup you might want to hang out near the edge. Not right up against the edge, but maybe a roll length or so away from it, just so Falcon can't fly back and forth past you without cornering himself.
 

The Irish Mafia

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Yeah, the uair is one thing I left out. you can't really get a uair juggle against pichu, due to the fact that he can just di away. it's going to be a good edgeguarder, tho.
as to what elven arrow was saying, that's the golden area I was reffering to earlier. he relies on his dash-jump nair/fair to approach, and if you place yourself so he's going off the edge when he does that, you've gained whatever offensive priority you can grab.
 

KirbyKaze

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shine does 4% and that's why it's broken clearly uair is also broken going off this reasoning.

falcon just get under him somehow and sh uair --> stuff and then death (hopefully) and / or gimp him a lot.

btw pichu gets ***** really badly if they just don't run into you when you're pretending to be helpless at the edge and / or if they ban fd.

this is NOT just 60 / 40.
 

INSANE CARZY GUY

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well i think this match up would be a bit harder for pikachu for his size/slower and pika's shield is not as great as pichu's (pichu can fight mindgames with mindgames)and pichu's taunt is about as broken as it gets if can use it right
 

KirbyKaze

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pikachu has the super ridiculous uair and semi-disjointed tail that eats falcon's moves. overall better gimping game, better moves to force falcon off, better setups to force him off, etc.

and nobody will ever believe me but in actuality pika's got a faster dash speed than his decrepit younger brother.

since falcon spends most of his time running back and forth looking for grabs vs bad characters i don't think shield size will ever matter all that much in this one.
 

elvenarrow3000

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Pikachu is third fastest in running speed, tied with Sheik and Marth and behind Falcon and Fox. Accelerates slower than Sheik, but faster than Marth. Pichu has less landing lag though, I guess...

Pichu? Mindgames? Pichu has like one move.
 

KirbyKaze

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You have to believe in the heart of the mindgames. Only then can you unlock the Black Luster Ritual and launch Dragon Champions via Catapult Turtles into Castles of Dark Illusion thus shattering their floatation ring causing them to collapse upon all of their monsters because they're trapped by the chaos shield.
 

elvenarrow3000

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Black Luster Ritual is used to summon the Black Luster Soldier.

I remember that episode. He used Curse of the Dragon, Gaia the Fierce Knight and Polymerization to make Gaia the Dragon Rider and shot that at the Castle of Dark Illusions.
 

INSANE CARZY GUY

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100th pichu match-up post we need to do peach after fox or marth because i want to see if pichu is any better with the matchs than the ICs and pichu can spam up smash on the fastest fast fallers like falcon /fox falco and maybe someone else
 

KirbyKaze

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Black Luster Ritual is used to summon the Black Luster Soldier.
While this is true, the Heart of the Cards allows me to activate the magic card "Break the Rules", thus allowing me to cheat whenever I want.

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.
 

KirbyKaze

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that's why you learn to sdi uair?

idk, food for thought.

the first thing you need to learn in the matchup as pichu is to sdi uair perfectly with super consistency and to chain grab perfectly. from there, you need to learn how to pressure without doing moves. like, actually. you have to learn how to **** around in close quarters and scare people while doing minimal moves because if you lag you take massive range damage.

finally, you need to learn how to gimp him and kill him EVERY TIME HE'S OFFSTAGE SO HE'LL DIE AND YOU WON'T.

then the matchup isn't super brutally impossible it's just brutally impossible. instead of it being like 12 / -2 it's just 10 / 0.
 

KirbyKaze

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I'm exaggerating the numbers, but no matter what innovations you have with Pichu, Fox is still a horrible matchup for him. Like, super horrible.

If they're any good at all...

*shiver*
 

KirbyKaze

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Pichu can't be hit by Thunders after like 10, he stands after the Jab (in neutral stand; not forced wakeup or anything gay like that). That assumes the Pichu isn't ASDIing those Jabs up like a good little Pichu to avoid it altogether...
 

INSANE CARZY GUY

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next peach or the ICs I know ICs very well . Fox is easier than folco in my option other than the low percent kills and if pichu can get a f-smash at about 23% or so fox's stock is gone due to edge guarding
 

KirbyKaze

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I guess if your opponent DIs horribly on the F-smash sure.

Or doesn't SDI it.

Or doesn't just not get hit by it because you know Pichu's F-smash isn't exactly a fast or ranged move.
 

unknown522

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pichu vs anything above low tier is impossible.

Not literally a 10 - 0, but still, matchups harder than 8 - 2 are pretty impossible. You'll lose to half decent players.
 

KirbyKaze

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Your point does not diminish the fact that their F-smash is still better than Pichu's entire moveset.

You've merely added that their D-smash is also (significantly) better than Pichu's entire moveset.
 

INSANE CARZY GUY

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pichu has better set up and speed and about the same range and is better for edge guarding and pichu's hits them farer than ICs. all they have is more damage and a small bit more range and as an ICs user i never use the move (but if you desysce it right it can be a little better) but if the ICs had the move than they would be better and they would have even more chain throws
 

KirbyKaze

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Pichu's can be SDIed out of. And is slower. And doesn't hit at a good arc so it's useless for hitting people out of the air unless they've misspaced ever so slightly directly in front of / behind you. And has terrible range.

All these things make it worse than the ICs' F-smash.
 
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