What can Captain Falcon do against Pikachu?

[Leoinu]

I'm one of the top 3 in my campus's Smash league (Around 30+ entrants each tourney.) Though there is this really good pikachu player within top 5, in friendlies/training I miss a lot of stuff against him with my Captain Falcon, and I dont think I've noticed much tactics against Pikachu.

So Pikachu mains, can you help me out? Whats something that is really punishable with Pikachu?

 

[infomon]

I've heard a lot of falcons say it's his worst matchup. When falcons beat me tho it's because they have reeally good baits and strong pressure game. *shrug* Counterpick carefully.

 

[Leoinu]

I've heard a lot of falcons say it's his worst matchup. When falcons beat me tho it's because they have reeally good baits and strong pressure game. *shrug* Counterpick carefully.

Only issue I have with Pikachu as a character is his height, hard to jab or grab in a lot of cases lol. But hes a good enough player to abuse more than just that, so I was wondering if Pikachu had some lagging moves that I can punish for.

 

[Kenrawr]

Eh, it's a really hard match up imo. Take advantage of rage and try not to recover low unless you have a jump saved.

I think town and city is a great counterpick for falcon since he gets more landing options and light pika+small blast zones=maybe an early kill.

TBH though you're probably better off with a secondary. It's just a really tough match up.

 

[Kenrawr]

Aye, double post.

 

[Duplighost]

Eh, it's a REALLY hard match up imo. Take advantage of rage and try not to recover low unless you have a jump saved.

I think town and city is a great counterpick for falcon since he gets more landing options and light pika+small blast zones=maybe an early kill.

TBH though you're probably better off with a secondary. It's just a really tough match up.

Aye, double post.

 

[Duplighost]

Pikachu's Thunder can be a good opportunity to strike if it misses.
Just try to keep pressure on Pikachu at all times, and don't give him the chance to attack. Ledge trumping would not be very effective because Pika's recovery is so quick, so avoid combatting with aerials. Just try to keep racking up damage, as this is a difficult matchup for Captain Falcon.

 

[Emuchu]

[...] I was wondering if Pikachu had some lagging moves that I can punish for.

The thing about Pikachu is that good players will avoid using punishable attacks unless they're confident of a hit. Pika's punishable moves to look out for are basically his smashes (tipped Fsmash might be tough to punish, though), the landing lag of Fair FF, and the end lag of Dair(2) (the floor shockwave).

Technically, you can also punish the end lag of Thunder and Skull Bash, but no one uses Skull Bash, and Thunder is usually used midair as an edge guarding option, so I don't think they're worth looking out for.

That's kind of it. The Falcon x Pika matchup is basically the two of us going ham and trying to combo the other one to death.

 

[Saviorr]

Watch out for Pikachu's broken up-tilt combos against fast fallers. One up tilt at low percent against a fast faller is almost a guaranteed 30%.
If the Pikachu uses quick attack a lot you can easily interrupt their quick attack by aiming your attacks at the dash animations of quick attack instead of trying to directly hit Pikachu. Quick attack has some weird semi-exploitable hurtboxes which should be considered especially in a possible edge guard situation.
Pikachu doesn't have the best kill power and therefore sometimes relies on gimps. Pikachu can have a hard time killing an opponent that watches out for gimps and is generally careful at high percents.

You might also want to consider the fact that Pikachu is top tier, like Sheik and Diddy, and would give any character trouble.

 

[Flawed]

I've heard that down throw knee is a true combo on pikachu.

 

[dahuterschuter]

Punch him.