Lucas Matchup

Lucas




General Discussion

Lucas is a very light and bouncy character. Comparable to luigi, but not nearly as bad. He has the ability to keep pika at bay with a whole aresenal of projectiles while having a good airiel game that can make anyone be on edge if you get in close. Although he has the right stuff to beat pikachu, this match still comes out even since pika also has some valuable traits.

Pika's Advantages:

1.) Faster
2.) Can out range lucas with fsmash

Pika's Disdvantages:

1.) Lucas can absorb tjolt and thunder
2.) Worse projectile game
3.) Airiel<lucas'
4.) Lucas has a spike
5.) Lucas has more priority


Strategy for Winning:

Starting the Match

When starting a match against lucas, or whenver he get a new life, dont be afraid to use you tjolt. He cannot possibly heal himself more when starting at 0%. But be sure to only use this when you need to, or when you want to distract him. It can heal him, along with your thunder. The thunder can give him up to 30% health back. So do not use it unless you know hes not gonna use his PSI Magnet.

Lucas' main style of play

Now lets start off with what lucas users will tend to do against opponents. The first thing is spam the PK Fire(PKF). They tend to b-stick which helps them wavebounce back when using the PKF so do not be surprised to see lucas bouncing around. the bets ways to get around this is to jump over, shield>roll> or QAC. The main idea is to get close so that most of his projectiles become useless and he has to revert to hand to hand combat. If you get knocked back, the whole thing will start over so get used to approaching lucas.

Now, close range on the ground, Lucas has more range on his attacks, but Pikachu's attacks are faster, making spacing the most important thing in this matchup. Fsmash outranges all of his attacks. So be sure to use this when trying to space lucas. Also, using your tilts(ftilt/dtilt) can also help space into a smash. Also, the dsmash is gonna be one of your best friends in this matchup for getting damage so don't be to shy to try and roll into a dsmash. When your opponent starts to predict you dsmash, you have conditioned them, which is now your advantage again once you've realized this. Do another roll because they will most like roll with you. Predicting the next move is what's gonna win this match for you.

Lucas users like t use all of their move into their game. We can't talk about each catergory of moves separately since Lucas users like to combo. A combo that is seen a lot is the nair>ftilt. This is a very devastating attack. Be sure to shield throughout the entire attack. Grab or dsmash out of it since his ftilt has very lttle lag. Hardly do Lucas users try and use their dair to rack up damage. What they mostly do with this is SH dair towards you and let the last part of the dair hit you, since it is very powerful and has good knockback. You can either shield or roll around this. Next is the bair. This move is good for spacing in the air and is good for damage. If lucas users want to space in the air though they will more than likely use their PKF instead. The fair/uair are some of his best kill moves so be sure to watch out for them. Airdodge, spotdodge, or shield them. The nair is probably one of his most used attacks though. It has little lag and can lead into more combos. It is comparable to pika's fair.

In the air, Lucas outranges you, but you have the speed advantage. The range advantage is alot harder to deal with here. So when in the air, try and use attacks that are fast and gain you advatnage, like the fair or nair. Getting underneath lucas is good in this matchup because that is where he is most weak. Uair can combo even though lucas is a bouncy character.

Killing

As for his smashes, his fsmash has descent range, but is a great kill move. It comes out fast so be sure to shield or dodge. He can do a hyphen smash with his usmash, so be sure to shield this or get away. It hits all around him and is one of his BEST kill moves. Do not attempt to roll around it. Shield then use a fast move to punish since his usmash has lag. His dsmash only hits on one side, but it has three attacks. You fsmash outranges it and/or you cna wait till it ends to grab onto him or punish him with a fsmash/usmash/dsmash.

As for killing lucas, you can't depend on thunder since he can absorb it. Also, if you are playing a good lucas then they should be able to do a PKF while jumping to send them sky high. They will then use their PSI Magnet to bounce back towards the stage(while above you). They can also tether recovery or use their PK thunder to hit them back towards the stage. Both are hard to edgeguard against. Trying to hold onto the stage can lead to your death if timed improperly. Thunder can be used if your opponent chooses to uses his PKT approach. Most of the time your are gonna be forced back and watch.

When lucas is guarding you he can use his PKFreeze/Thunder, use his dair/bair to spike, or grab onto the ledge. Grabbing onto the ledge is easy to get around though. As for the projectiles, try and manuever around by saving a jump and DI'ing weird to keep him guessing when you are gonna grab on. You have to learn to time his PKF. As for his PKT, well he can hit you twice with it. My adivce is to try and shield it. If off the stage, use your A/B button since it can give you some invincibility frames when getting up.

Other than what is mentioned above, this matcuhp is very hard to describe since lucas users have different styles of play and mix things up quite a bit. This matchup depends mostly on the users since it is a very even matchup. If you have problems still when fighting lucas please post your problems and they will be addressed and any new solution to problems with lucas will be posted here.


Helpful Video's:

Soon to Come


Overall Matchup:

pika=lucas

Lucas' advantage=PSI Magnet

i thing that in this match pikachu should do lots of qac to confuse lucas, you have to do that to aproach because if you spam the boltt lucas will absorb that, then via qac you aproach, and then you spam the dsmash and attack....

aproach via qac and then attack with dsmash....

Ok bored to all **** so I'm going to attempt to think of some stuff to post. Lets see...
Lucas' Advantages:
Psi Magnet absorbs thunder (uneasily aproached)
Powerful Smash attacks
Kinda quick
PK Fire spam

Lucas Disadvantages:
Recovery is fail, though I don't know how exactly Pikachu can't stop it
His powerful attacks are slow and if you don't do something completely stupid can be dodged
Psi Magnet takes a bit to use

Now I've never played a decent or good Lucas player other than FFA, but by "good" in FFA its "Hey, Lets spam Upsmash!" But here goes:

Lucas and his Psi Magnet may make it somewhat difficult to approach him with thunderjolt, but that could also be a disadvantage. If you thunderjolt and approach air-wise, and Lucas uses Psi Magnet, you may have some time to get behind Lucas, or perform an aerial such as dair on him. Watch out though, his Fsmash comes out fast and has some power behind it. If you try to Dsmash as well, or spam it, I think (though someone should try this to make sure) Lucas could just Dsmash when he's close enough and it would still hit you, or if not he could always PK Freeze/Pk Fire. I can't recall all of Lucas' aerials at the moment, but I think bair can spike, but that shouldn't be to much trouble as he probably wouldn't risk it.

I'll put more if I think of it, but right now I g2g.

Lucas's recovery isn't easily stopped because he usually uses it above thunder jolting height and has super armour when sucseeding indoing it.

dont forget the AT where he hits PKF along with jump to creat a ginormous jump and then uses the PSI magnet to shoot him back towards the stage. that in itself is a good recovery.

i saw a very good lucas player today and man was i impressed. he used b-stickting along with who knows what else. spams PKF along with mostly airiels and tilts.

You also cant forget those aerials. they out prioritze every aerial of pika. a properly spaced bair meteors, a short hopped nair or fair are good for approah. ftilt is also a agood appraoch i have seen used.

yeah, but lucas is more limited than pika in terms of everything...sure his aerials have more priority, but i mean the classic Dthrow -> utilt -> uair -> uair is still good and such, and personally, the lucas's I have played have used their aerials to approach, but while doing that it leaves an opportunity for mindgames which is what i think is necessary here...if you can force the psi magnet or another laggy attack , like condition them to think after they approach you will qac backwards and Tjolt, then it will be easy to change it up...one question: can his psi magnet absorb thunder?

Piman34 said:

yeah, but lucas is more limited than pika in terms of everything...sure his aerials have more priority, but i mean the classic Dthrow -> utilt -> uair -> uair is still good and such, and personally, the lucas's I have played have used their aerials to approach, but while doing that it leaves an opportunity for mindgames which is what i think is necessary here...if you can force the psi magnet or another laggy attack , like condition them to think after they approach you will qac backwards and Tjolt, then it will be easy to change it up...one question: can his psi magnet absorb thunder?

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Yes, it can absorb thunder, and it comes out fast enough that he can respond to Pikachu using it.


But anyway, I'm a Lucas user, and here's my take.

At long range, Lucas has a very strong advantage, as he can shut down your projectile and counter attack with his own.

Now, close range on the ground, Lucas has more range on his attacks, but Pikachu's attacks are faster, making spacing the most important thing in this matchup.

In the air, Lucas once again outranges you, but you have the speed advantage. The range advantage is alot harder to deal with here.

As for KOing, you can;t depend on Thunder, as Lucas can absorb (And heal a hell of alot of health. I mean alot) and jumping out to Lucas to intercept him is risky, as Lucas has two spikes in his aerial repotoire, both of which come out fast. Though intercepting is still a good option.

Honestly, I'd rather save one of my smash attacks and start using it once Lucas is in KO range.

As for what Lucas can do to you once you need to recover, he can use PK Thunder, PK Freeze, and PK Fire to make recovery difficult, though I admit, due to the nature of Pikachu's recovery, gimping will be difficult, though the damage can really rack up.


Personally, I see this matchup as pretty even.

Blackbelt said:

Yes, it can absorb thunder, and it comes out fast enough that he can respond to Pikachu using it.

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hopefully though if you are thundering correctly, he wouldn't be able to respond anyway, or you delay the thunder to throw off his timing since the lag from holding psi magnet all the way from the air to the ground is bad, you can throw him off, misplace your thunder to force the magnet and then proceed accordingly

mindgames. he can absorb the thunder and recieve, i believe, up to 30% health. i will test this out tomorrow. too tired right now. but the lucas players i saw love their airiels. i mean love them. their nair is awesome enough to watch, let alone to get hit by. his usmash is a great killer to.

galax1117 said:

mindgames. he can absorb the thunder and recieve, i believe, up to 30% health. i will test this out tomorrow. too tired right now. but the lucas players i saw love their airiels. i mean love them. their nair is awesome enough to watch, let alone to get hit by. his usmash is a great killer to.

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Yeah, we do love aerials, but only once we get in close.


We prefer using projectiles for approaches (Or more often, forcing approaches)


and yeah, the Nair is badass.

the one thing that really amazed me is lucas' upB(do not know name). i got hit by it once when being edgeguarded and it went through me and before i could attack lucas he hit himself across the stage. effectively stopping me from attacking close range.

but lucas has a good enough projectile game to force you to manuever yourself around the proj. true enough. i would think that the bair(pika) and fair are the best options here for means of damaging in the air. the nair has a good knockback, so dont be shy to use it around the edge, but that being said, it has knockback. he gets out of range and bam, it starts all over again.

galax1117 said:

the one thing that really amazed me is lucas' upB(do not know name). i got hit by it once when being edgeguarded and it went through me and before i could attack lucas he hit himself across the stage. effectively stopping me from attacking close range.

but lucas has a good enough projectile game to force you to manuever yourself around the proj. true enough. i would think that the bair(pika) and fair are the best options here for means of damaging in the air. the nair has a good knockback, so dont be shy to use it around the edge, but that being said, it has knockback. he gets out of range and bam, it starts all over again.

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That's how it works. He peppers the opponent with projectiles, close range combat ensues, one character gets knocked away, and Lucas starts the projectile spam begins anew.

Except for killing. Lucas needs to go close range to kill, or edgeguard to kill.


And all of Lucas' smashes, the F-Tilt, Fair, Uair, and PK Thunder 2 can all kill.

so what is the most annoying thing that pika players do to you lucas players?

galax1117 said:

so what is the most annoying thing that pika players do to you lucas players?

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Quick Attack Cancels. Pikachu can follow it up with aerials, and that makes for a very effective approach and miond game for Pikachu, especially with the speed at which it occurs.

Since I used to main Lucas, I can say this. FEAR THE STICK. It's like doom... but on a stick. Like a doomstick.
It's seriously the one thing I miss from playing Lucas. So yeah.

a tippered stick too nonetheless can kill pika like crazy.

galax1117 said:

a tippered stick too nonetheless can kill pika like crazy.

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Lucas' stick doesn't tip. You're confusing it with Ness' bat.

oh dangit i am. what am i thinking. the prob was i wasnt. it still kills though!

who is better in your opinion, ness or lucas?

galax1117 said:

oh dangit i am. what am i thinking. the prob was i wasnt. it still kills though!

who is better in your opinion, ness or lucas?

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You see Ness on my team?


My opinion would be inherently biased.


Though I can say who I think does better against Pikachu.


Ness, IMO, has an advantage against Pikachu, but we'll save that for when you guys start discussing that matchup. For now, I believe it better to get back on track.



One thing I should add. Lucas can tether recover with his Zair, and he will do that rather than PKT to recover when he can, so you can't depend on gimping PKT recovery most of the time.

Are you fighting Marth? If no, then I'd say Ness. Otherwise Lucas.

No but really I like Ness and Lucas, but Lucas's fsmash is a beast, and I like his non-diagonal air PK fire. Still though, Ness' fair destroys, and his spike is doom.

In conclusion. ???

so most lucas's will tend to use their tether. so in most cases edgeguarding will not be that efficient unless you can time a thunder or tjolt to hit them perfectly.

while having a tether recovery is another option compared to the long charge up time of PKT2, tethers are more gimpable IMO, and if you can expect a lucas to use tether instead of PKT2, then you can anticipate it, and like he said, QAC over, and since Pika has one of the best edgehugging abilities...you just walk off the edge and you grab it, and that way you can hit him with a quick ledge dropped attack while he is trying to hit himself with PKT2.

Piman34 said:

while having a tether recovery is another option compared to the long charge up time of PKT2, tethers are more gimpable IMO, and if you can expect a lucas to use tether instead of PKT2, then you can anticipate it, and like he said, QAC over, and since Pika has one of the best edgehugging abilities...you just walk off the edge and you grab it, and that way you can hit him with a quick ledge dropped attack while he is trying to hit himself with PKT2.

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You are right that you could do that.


However, the timing for that is pretty harsh. You drop too early, you'll get caught in the Thunder.


Drop too late, and you get a flying Lucas to the face.


Lucas' PKT is alot faster than most people think.

and another thing I got to thinking about was the turnaround speed for a PKT2 at a diagnol up angle is pretty fast too, huh? alot faster than any other direction afaik. but yeah, I would agree with what you said earlier about it being like 5/5 for this matchup

Piman34 said:

and another thing I got to thinking about was the turnaround speed for a PKT2 at a diagnol up angle is pretty fast too, huh? alot faster than any other direction afaik. but yeah, I would agree with what you said earlier about it being like 5/5 for this matchup

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Actually, I find the fastest direction to be straight forward, but not by much.

And yeah, I still maintain that this is even.

so then...this is a mindgame matchup then?

yeah, and aerial it seems, since both have either fast or good range on their aerials. which makes it about even

Jumping out to hit Lucas while he's doing PKT for recovery can be a big mistake, if you time it wrong, then you could end up getting PKT2 to the face, for up to 43% and possibly even death. Just not something I would do. Now shooting Tjolt at him, now that I would do.

its all bout timing.

I play this matchup a ton, am a Pikachu main (though not solely), so I am going to post my own opinion, and then hopefully I can record some videos of me playing a friend of mine who mains with Lucas.

Pikachu's attacks are not faster than Lucas's. Lucas can spam nair into ftilt and it nullifies a lot of approach options, which is bad because he can already nullify your projectile approach with his PSI Magnet. The only attack you have that can compete with him in speed and usability is your uair, which isn't the best for approach. Also, QAC isn't a great approach option if the Lucas player is playing defensive and SH'ing into PK Fire. Granted, that defense is easily walked through via powershielding, but it still prevents QAC abuse. The best thing you can do against a Lucas that is spamming nair into ftilt is wait for his nair to land and jump into dair, making sure not to fast fall. His ftilt has a narrow hitbox and you usually won't be hit by it if you SH into dair. For edgeguarding, you can't do much other than time your edgehug so that he can't grab the edge with his recovery, and then punish him for the vertical flight he takes afterward (I had a video of me doing this but the tape was eaten by the VCR ).

This matchup isn't easy, I'd rather play against Metaknight personally, but it's not impossible. Just be careful in how you approach him.

nice list gallax, and i know it must've been hard since its such an equal match...one thing that i keep seeing is edgeguarding...from both sides, and Kyari above me said that edgehugging is golden sometimes, but on another note I think that we have mindgamez, and need to use that to our advantage, but nice compilation of anti lucas material

thanks. i will see what i can do for the mindgames part.

Just to add on your first post, at around 60%, Lucas can full-hop and dair, causing you to be on the ground, which can lead into a d-tilt lock. Watch out for that!!!

i totally forgot about that he can lock with his dtilt. thanks!

This is a matchup I have a lot of trouble with.
One of my good friends plays Lucas. His play style is: PKF to space, Nair rushing, and PKT A LOT when I'm off the edge.

My basic plan when playing him is randomize my QAC and grab, since having Lucas in the air, above you, is way simpler to deal with.

My friend is a lucas main who has become very fluent with the Arsenal provided. When I play this matchup I end up spending most of the game spacing fsmash for the punisher, fair to dsmash for rack, and roll dsmash. I feel scrubish when I do this, and though after reading this I feel more assured, does that put me in the same category as nado/loop spam MKs? XD

2.5 years later...new record anyone?

RaqTasmeneth may be having trouble with Lucas, but I hear he's a pro at the necro matchup.