Meta Knight Matchup

Meta Knight




General Discussion

Meta Knight is at the moment one of the best characters in the game. This is dues to some wicked killing moves coupled with extremely fast startup times. It does not matter that he is light since he is very hard to hit. Unless you have grenades or another great projectile, you are gonna be taking a lot of damage. This is a very hard matchup if the MK user knows what he/she is doing.

Pika's Advantages:

1.) tjolt/dair from above cancel the tornado
2.) QA into the bottom of the tornado can cancel it
3.) has a projectile
4.) has a faster means of escape(QA!)

Pika's Disdvantages:

1.) mk's moves are a lot faster
2.) pka has way less priorty
3.) mk can spam a few moves but yet still win the match
4.) outranged
5.) worse airiel range/game
6.) cannot CG MK


Strategy for Winning:

General

What most people seem to have a problem with when fightin MK is that he uses faster moves that have a ton of priority. This means that in close range, MK will usally hit you first and has an easier time killing, even though MK has only 4 good killing moves. These are the fsmash/dsmash/nair/upB(shuttle loop). Any good MK will try and bait you into getting in range of these attacks. But, more to come later in this section about what to do.

The tornado

The first thing that needs to be addressed when fighting MK is his tornado. If you find yourself with a Tornado spammer, to know how to combat it, you must first know how the Tornado move works. Spend a couple of minutes figuring out how the Tornado can be controlled by playing as MK. As you'll notice, they need to tap the button in order to stay afloat. Any smart player would notice "There is no way for MK to increase his fall speed!" Meaning, if you use some mind games to make him whiff the attack AND bait him to follow you into the air a bit, you can easily fast fall down into any attack you want, excluding Thunder of course! However, any GOOD MK will try to stay as close to the ground as possible to prevent this. So be wary. The moves that will take MK out of a Tornado are Pika's Down Aerial as long as it connects at the top of the tornado, if you do a short hop back you can create a nice Thunder Wall to protect you, and a fsmash will always do the trick but again a good MK player will hover over it. One thing you could try is to stutter step and into a fsmash which could potentially land you a hit. Also, if you let the tornado sit out for a little over a second, you can QA into the base and cancel it (nado) w/o worrying about getting sucked into it. Last but not least, if already caught in a tornado, try to time an aerial dodge so that Pikachu can fall through one of the attacks, giving you a nice opportunity for a Smash.

The Shuttle Loop

The next thing up for discussion is the shuttle loop(sl). MK users love to spam this move to no end also. This is used as a recovery, and as for a great killing move. A sl can be directed back towards the ground (gliding), canceled by a nuetral A, then immediately combo into a dsmash/fsmash. Very hard to get around. But not to hard to shield and wait till it ends to try and grab MK and punish him. Normally an effective mind game would be to charge at the opponent, and do a shield roll to his back side leading to a down smash, but again his down smash is just too quick even though it attacks only one side at a time! But, we could also go on the offensive. Throw in some airiels that can mindgame him. These are the uair/nair/bair. The uair needs to be timed really well, so I would not try and do that. As for the nair, try and throw out a nair early and cancel the glide attack out. The bair will also cancel the glide attack. The bair will then continue through the glide and hit with the remaining hits.

The Cape

A new discovery has been made with MK. MK can now disappear infinately and then attack you. This move is banned as a stalling move but thats the limit now. The only way to get around this move is to either get to higher ground(on a platform) or be lucky enough to spotdodge it. As for now shielding/spotdodgin are the only effective things since you cannot hit MK while he is invisible. If you are playing on a stage with no platforms then get close to the edge and pray they mess up and fall to their death.

Edgeguarding

As for edgeguarding, Mk's will most likely try and use their sl to kill you off the stage. Now, you can do a few things to beat this strategy. First of all, always watch Mk to see if he is anywhere near you to use it. If he is and he uses it, spotdodge it and get back to the ground asap to punish him for it. If off the stage, then you prob have it made since they will be traveling the opposite way and you can grab onto the ledge and let them fall to their death. If they do come back towards the stage then you can edgeguard(next paragraph). You can also try and bait them to use the sl. Try it out. Great for mindgames. Another thing that they will do on the edge is use their downB to grab onto the ledge. Not so much a problem since we can QA around it. Another very common thing they will do is use the tornado when you are on the edge to get more damage on you and stop you from hagning on. Wait for it then drop down, use your thunder; or you can use your invincibility frames and hit A to get them out.

Now when you are edgeguarding, MK has 3 ways of getting back to the stage. They can use their jumps>glide. They can sl. Or they can use their >B. Edgeguarding can be difficult since a sl can spike you and MK can sl and glide to the other side of the stage if its possible.The most recommended method for edgeguarding, is using the thunder. Use the wavebounce method if MK is below you. Use the autograb thunder is above you. If he gonna use his >b, get out of there. You cant stop it by yourself. Go ahead and wavebounce thunder is you can. Can't hurt to try. When MK is hanging onto the ledge, stand back and spam tjolt. He can and will use the tornado or sl if you are close enough. We do not want that happening.

Mindgames

Next, the mindgame aspect. First of all, spam the tjolt. Get damage any way you can. Most mk's are gonna try to pressure you into not using jolts by running up to you and power shielding them as they get closer. Don't let this stop you. Once mk closes in just wait for moments to throw one more in. As long as you're putting damage on safely you're okay. Next is using the QA(C). QAC's dont tend to work on this character unless you're doing a QAC directly into a Down Aerial since Pikachu doesn't need to be right on top of MK to connect. The impact of the dair is enough to send him back some damage and getting powned by another tjolt. QAC can be an effective in that it can get you out of harms way too.

Now a lot of metaknights use empty fsmashes to bait opponents into running into dsmashes. If you're not close enough to punish a whiffed fsmash don't try to be a hero. If you know the charge time for smashes, you can time a QA into something just as metaknight's fsmash is finishing, but otherwise, stay away. His smashes are different than any other character. They have extremely fast startup AND end times. Remember, you have a projectile at your disposal. Use it if you can't punish the smashes.

Approachiing MK

Nw as for approaching MK... you will more than likeley be approached by him since they are confident in their abilities to beat pikacu. Once they are afraid, or you feel like attacking, then here are some things you may want to do. Use the bair more than useual. It can surprise any good MK players, can rack up damage, and knock them back. Grab>dthrow>w/e combo you want. I suggest the usmash. Although, the video below shows anther doing a dthrow>utlt>uair>biar. They are both good thing to do. ALso, try and trick him into thinking you are attacking with your airiels and then use your tilts to surprise him. But, remember that his tilits are much better than yours so if it become a tilt war, he will win. His ftilt can kill. It is one of his best(and only) kill moves.

Airiels

As for his airiels, the best are his niar/uair/diar. He can give a significant amount of damage with the nair. Its comparable to pika's nair. Good knockback+damage=good move. The uair can be used for juggling. Skullbash/DI/airdodge out. The dsmash is used mainly to get opponents out of recovery range or to surprise you when you are below him. Also, he can use his tornado when below you and it will send you flying up if you dont get out. So if he is below you, watch out for the tornado since they can also use that to hit you above the cieling.

Killing

As for killing Mk, the usmash/fsmash/thunder will be your best chances. The nair/usmash won't be used that much, since MK can easily dodge or attack first. The thunder is gonna be your best friend. Try and let it connect to you though since it gives out more damage and a bigger probablilty to kill. Fsmash whenever you get the chance too. this is mostly timing and luck.

All in all though, this is a very tough match that will come down to knowledge and luck. Expect a few intense battle here.

Helpful Video's:

In this video (anther vs rofa)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=3pakhMiAStw


[SIZE=""]Overall Matchup:[/SIZE]

Meta Knight> Pikachu

f-smash neutralized *****-nado

t-jolts / dair from above knocks him out of it as well (*****-nado)

MK has less kill moves than Pika, and is lighter

Mk is faster, both attack and movement speed

QAC - both offensive and defensive uses: mobility, or mindgames, but also to retreat quickly from one of his attacks like B or side-B

idk if he is CG'able, but that would be good to know

Well I'm not gonna go into too much detail on how I fight metaknights

I'll share a few things though

1. If you let the tornado sit out for a little over a second, you can QA into the base and cancel it (nado) w/o worrying about getting sucked into it.

2. If you do any attack too early (even attacks that are known to interrupt it) you might still get sucked into it.

3. Jump off stage and space yourself to bait a shuttle loop

Once metaknight goes into his glide, pika can jump towards him and do either uair, nair, or bair.

Metaknight will have three choices

A. Try to glide around you. Which will probably be what they go for.

B. Try to glide attack you. If they try this you can either use good timing for an uair. Throw out a nair early and cancel the glide attack out. Or you can do a bair. The bair will cancel the glide attack. The bair will continue through the glide and hit with the remaining hits.

Uair needs to be really timed well

Nair can be started early and the bair has to be out a little already...

If someone is trying to spam shuttle loops into glide attacks this will be the most unexpected response to it.

You can fall towards someone trying to shuttle loop around a stage and put them to decision

Either try to gide attack you and possibly kill you with a stage spike or not do anything and hope you're just tryin to scare em

Even a perfectly spaced glide attack will get canceled out by pika's nair, bair or uair

Just work on it

Also a lot of metaknights use empty fsmashes to bait opponents into running into dsmashes

If you're not close enough to punish a whiffed fsmash don't try to be a hero. If you know the charge time for smashes, you can time a QA into something just as metaknight's fsmash is finishing

Most mk's are gonna try to pressure you into not using jolts by running up to you and power shielding them as they get closer.

Don't let this stop you. Once mk closes in just wait for moments to throw one more in. As long as you're putting damage on safely you're okay

Don't go for flashiness unless you know you clearly are better than your opponent and even then don't start out too overconfident


This matchup still isn't easy for pikachu though

most MK's i play love thier tornado and upB. They upB into the ground where the cancel it with the A button and then damsh immediately. i find shielding and then grabbing after the dsmash works great.

the tornado is a beast though. if they spam it they can rack up a lot of damage.

I dont know why, but every MK i have ever faced seems to be weak to Pika's uair juggling. I dont know if it is the opponents letting it happen or if it is a face that MK is easy to combo for pika...

Yeah baiting the shuttle loop works very well. especially if you hang around the upwards part and the top. they cant resist the top part.

no. it happens to me too. uair seems to really throw them for a loop. on time i actually grabbed a MK(with marth)>fthrow>fsmash(tipped too)>fair>fair>>uair>death. it was amazing. you would think that MK has good airiel dodging skills, but not from what ive seen.

Yeah i was able to get a combo to work that i have been working on for a while on a MK. jump-uair-uair-DJ-uair-fair. brought him back to the ground. almsot got a utilt off but he got away, he was just high enough to escape.

thats a sick combo. great to know if he gets in range or QAC>your great stuff.

wish anther would get involved in these matchups since he has the most experience playing different chars. than most of us...oh well x.x

Something I've noticed fighting MK has been one word, "Difficulty!" The sole fact that MK has enough ground moves which are fast and have excellent priority over 99% of Pikachu's moves makes approaching this character very hard. However, there are a few tricks I've noticed.

A lot of MK characters like to show off their speed. They love to just run up to you and do a Down Grab into hopefully a Down Smash; however, we can use this to our advantage by mixing in a random Front Smash or Down Smash. The only reason I say this is because it strangely enough seems to work, no joke! ^_^

For anyone who doesn't know, be VERY CAREFUL when trying to edge guard this opponent!! An easily placed MK Up B will KO you if you are hit with the bottom opposite corner of the attack.

If you find yourself with a Tornado spammer, to know how to combat it, you must first know how the Tornado move works. Spend a couple of minutes figuring out how the Tornado can be controlled by playing as MK. As you'll notice, they need to tap the button in order to stay afloat. Any smart player would notice "There is no way for MK to increase his fall speed!" Meaning, if you use some mind games to make him whiff the attack AND bait him to follow you into the air a bit, you can easily fast fall down into any attack you want, excluding Thunder of course! However, any GOOD MK will try to stay as close to the ground as possible to prevent this. So be wary. The moves that will take MK out of a Tornado are Pika's Down Aerial as long as it connects at the top of the tornado, if you do a short hop back you can create a nice Thunder Wall to protect you, and a Front Smash will always do the trick but again a good MK player will hover over it. Last but not least, if already caught in a tornado, try to time an aerial dodge so that Pikachu can fall through one of the attacks, giving you a nice opportunity for a Smash.

Normally an effective mind game would be to charge at the opponent, and do a shield roll to his back side leading to a down smash, but again his down smash is just too quick even though it attacks only one side at a time!

Again in my personal experience, QAC's dont tend to work on this character unless you're doing a QAC directly into a Down Aerial since Pikachu doesn't need to be right on top of MK to connect. The Down Aerial where Pikachu doesn't even leave the floor, more of like a QAC into a face plant into the ground lol.

Any of the things the preious posts have mentioned work too, I'm just trying not to be redundant.

Good luck in fighting one of the character's I fear the most!
Os

Yeah, MK is hard to approach with fairs, even if they are cross over fairs (you can still get hit by a down smash if he shields the whole thing). Usually, I trick him into thinking that I am going to touch his shield with my aerials, but then back up and hit him with a ftilt or dtilt when he tries to rush me.

DON'T try to trade tilts with mk. His outdistances yours every time.

QAC can be an effective in that it can get you out of harms way, but I wouldn't suggest using it to get close mk. His dsmash will get you if you land in the wrong place.

Bairs can be useful (as long as they are not overused) because that last a long time and most people don't expect it. Just be careful when using it close to the ground.

I guess y'all already covered the tornado, so that is it for me.

the problem with MK is that he is just so fast at attacking and can KO real easily. Its not that hes unpredictable or has any technical stuff. Just plain hard to get over those fast moves.

Metaknight - Dsmash beats Tornado, nuff said

so then what are pika's advantages in this matchup?

Besides Pikachu having a projectile, not much...

Pikachu's air game is rediculusly pathetic in comparison to MetaKnight
Pikachu's prioritys are pathetic in comparison with MetaKnights attacks

So basically, Your going to be relying on alot of luck when playing against MK. Thunder works really well against him, But thats about it.

One of my close friends plays MK and i find it very frustrating when i get out prioritized. So basically my strategy when i fight him is to predict his every move. Usually when he runs at me, he either A) runs and grabs me or B) dash attacks me. When he does this I usually spot dodge then turn around and grab him / side tilt (side smash is too slow). However, a pro MK player would mix up his game play and be almost unpredictable. Thus, making it very hard for pika to fight him

So im just gonna list a few things that you should be careful with.
-When going off stage, be very careful because meta's off stage game is almost imba. he can jump multiple times and either A) use an aerial or B) use up b and **** you.

-Be sure to pressure the MK with thunder jolt, dont let him freely control the stage.

-Off stage thunder usually doesnt work due to MK's imba recovery.

-I find that when i QAC into MK, he usually downsmashes as i go in, or shields then downsmashes... Soo i think that offensive QAC is a bad idea against MK

-You should learn MK's move set so you know how many hits each move has so you know when to shield and spot dodge.

-down smash is really effective against MK. Instead of shield grabbing, you should shield then down smash.

those are few important factors to keep in mind if you want a victory




In this video (anther vs rofa)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=3pakhMiAStw

you'll find that

-spot dodging can be very useful against MK
-a good MK WILL punish you for QACing into him
-MK's aerials outrange pika's
-unpredictablility is a key factor to win
-you want to control the stage with thunder jolt
-use low delay moves when close to MK

^sad but true. Pika is pretty much at a complete disadvantage. It is best to try to attack on the ground or close to the ground...still at a a disadvantage though.

Bad matchup for sure.

Do a lot of jolts and try to keep the fight grounded as much as possible, don't bother with edgegrabbing, don't be afraid to thunder when he's in the air, he has no way of punishing it.

Meta flies to high, just use Thunder and you win.

using thunder can only save you for so long. this matchup is going to be very tedious and gut wrenching. MK can fly high, yes. but, they can also glide on the ground, and attack with moves that are much better than pika's. Does anyone ever see an utlit or dtilt from MK players?

I see dtilt infinites... utilt notso much but on another note, good job with the guide, but IMO its about even matchup, I think the only tricky thing about it is if you don't know how to read your opponent, and then the matchup goes in their favor, regardless of who they are playing as. I didn't see it but if it's there, I apologize; its late...but mention that F-smash can negate tornado and with stutter stepping into it, you can go back or forward some distance to catch them off guard and gain the extra distance needed to not get sucked into it while neutralizing it. Just my two cents tho

done. its added into it now. thnks for the opinion!

Hooray, it's done!

Could you add in a few things about the Tornado?

Thunderjolt and Nair can go through the top of the Tornado.
To shield the tornado correctly
- as I heard from anther, you're supposed to tilt your shield up or towards the Tornado, then punish once he gets out of it. If you get popped up by the Tornado, you'll already be holding up, so you'll get knocked out of it quickly: leaving you able to punish MK

(a video may be needed) ((I can't make videos :\)) (((awesome thread)))

OS mentioned in the mk debate that all an mk needs to do then is drop the tornado and it shield pokes even through a tilted upwards sheild.

hopefully, no other MK mains listened to that...

You'll still pop up, and the tornado isn't too capable of falling that quickly. Use your eyes to move that shield around, hehe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsGvhciLg5o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EktWz78Qz68
Some vs MK vids if you guys haven't watched them yet... I think most you that hang around the Pika chat have seen them though.

Anther just wow...

I love how you punished MK's shuttle loop

10wows

Someone Link Me To Anthers Myspace Please

Wow!

I'll leave my trials and tribulations when facing a metaknight. I never had that much trouble with metaknights before because most of them do rely on shuttle, d-smash, f-smash, f-tilt, and assaulting too much. Then, to my dismay, I faced Mew2King at a recent tourney in a friendlies and got 2-stocked. The hardest metaknights for me are those who can be patient.

1) Watch your DI and airdodge against certain throws at mid-range damage: good metaknights can shift the hitbox of shuttle loop from vertical to horizontal depending on your height from metaknight and score a quick KO. Also, at low-damage to mid-damage ranges, metaknights can just not do shuttle altogether and charge a f-smash after pika is done from airdodging. After throws, to dodge shuttle loop one must airdodge, but to avoid charged smashes and tilts one must NOT airdodge and DI AWAY or QAC. I found that 50:50 choice annoying against M2K's metaknight. At higher damage, some metaknights just grab release into smashes, shuttle-loop point-blank KO, or continual grabs (release grab offstage into d-air KO--used that a lot!). So yea, jump out of the grab if possible is probably the best thing to do.

2) Better metaknights shuttle attack into stage (to autocancel) more often rather than attacking pika's with the glide attack. Then they either spotdodge, shield, grab, Shuttle again if threatened, tornado for incoming projectiles, or attacks (f-tilt = ultimate annoyance). The safest move to use were one of my tjolts. Another option is to force metaknight to glide attack higher in the air (denying his autocancel) and either canceling out is glide-attack with the n/u/b-airs or airdodge.

3) Pressure on ground works okay with tjolts. When they start powershielding, I find that short-hop tjolts to an occasional short-hop > circle dash-grab works well against even top metaknights. Be careful of a grab/attack/shuttle-loop.

4) Tornado.... whatever Anther says is totally what must be done. Oh, the coolest gimp I love to do to a metaknight that I had the chance to do 3 times in a tournament: tjolt to cancel a tornado and some metaknights who miss the split-second cancel accidently does side-b and goes off the stage (just edgehog the confused ball with wings).

5) Wall of thunder is amazing only if the metaknight is in mid-glide. Sure, he can cancel and get out and continue with the 4 jumps, but this limits the number of ways he can get back. Just thunder wall again if the the spacing is right during shuttle loop or side-b recovery or the glide of shuttle loop.

Overall, yes.... VERY ANNOYING fight. I hope some of this helps. And.... M2K is ..... quite the opponent.... T_T

Sincerely,
Legendary Pikachu, LDPK

PS. I met Mister E at the tournament! :D My first encounter with another actual pikachu main from the boards. We took a pic together and everything!

Nice writeup Legendary Pika =9. I'm up at like 4 in the morn and I feel like typing a slight write-up about Metaknight too.
This could be a lot of BS theory stuff, and a lot of how I play the match-up is getting the MK to feel like they have more safe decisions than they really do. So, part one of fighting MK.

Typically MK is playing a dangerous and imposing cornering game that leads to you being at high percents and either getting edge-guarded to death hardcore, or making you get rash and run into something like a fsmash or DI badly because you're overwhelmed.
Pika in general plays the same way, except his "edgeguarding" is sometimes more vertical ( =p ) and his cornering is done a lot more with thunder, spacing jolts, fairs and tilts.

Kays, firstly, IMO, to beat Metaknight, you need to be at least as technical as the MK player. If you can't press buttons or react as fast as they can change up their attack patterns, you're probably screwed, and should work on getting more fluid. You can't be a lil slowbie and keep complaining that metaknight's too good. You have to know the counters to his stuff as well as he knows to pull them off, and be able to see when you're figured out.
There's a lot of technical aspects you're gonna need for this matchup, since meta can be offensive in every way any other character can pressure you in this game XD. Metaknights have the luxury of being fluid the second they pick up the character. With other characters you have to learn their moves and quirks without everything kinda being handed... so guess how much more fun you can have by not playing as MK ;p, you get to discover stuff. .. >.>

You need to be able to notice when they fair your shield too closely, and be able to jump into a nair or whatever counterattack quickly and efficiently, you have to be able to take grab opportunities with ninja like reflexes and accuracy, react to his attacks as soon as you notice he can pull them off (That stuff starts in liek 5 frames ), and not flub up your reactions. Match-up knowledge and just knowing your character (Pikachu) inside out helps immensely.

As legendary Pikachu has stated, meta has a lot of options from grabs in what I like to call the "Brawl" throw tech chase games. Usually the safest option after any throw he does is to be DIing away, so your trajectory gets you as far away and have the max amount of time possible to react to what he could be thinking, and then not start air-dodging on reaction so you don't get regrabbed or get punished because you had to land. Sometimes you don't get a choice and bad stuff happens, tis life. Figure that stuff out, it happens often. (I'm not gonna be very thorough ... XD )

Of course, you have the same effect on him with your Fthrow. Fthrow, and its trajectory is almost mirror of what meta's dthrow does to pika. He has the options of jumping away and counter attacking or airdodging. If he airdodges, you can run up and regrab him, (preferably a shield grab just in case he gets an attack), or if he's going to jump away, you can run up and upsmash sometimes. Same with Dthrow, except for what you gain in ease of reaction, he also gets the same ease of reaction, it's all a thinking game , if he airdodges you can dsmash, or if he jumps and dairs or something... maybe you can nair? I dunno. Sometimes the birdy flies away...

BRAWL RULE, it's typically not a good idea land next to your opponent with an airdodge if they're chasing you or you're just generally in a position where you don't how to react. ALmost every character has a really good punishment option for this even if it is just a grab. Pikachu and a lot of the better characters have the option of not landing in a predictable spot, use quick attacks and other various means to vary your landing timing. Meta's punish this a lot with regrabs, dsmash/fsmash, ... any move really.

k, I lied, it's not a rule because you can land and dsmash in a really quick sort of fashion. You can only do that if they're not spaced in such a way where they can grab you, or if they're shielding when you land. Good lucksies... XD.

Alright, new topic. Tornado!
Pikachu is one of about... 12 characters who just shouldn't get ***** by the tornado ever. I think ^^. I know I talk about pointing your shield and such to stop the tornado, but that's not typically the best solution always, and there are lots of variables affecting your choice of counter measure. If they're n00b and try to approach with tornado at about... Fsmash range/height?.. Charge an Fsmash, release. If it's just coming in awkwardly and you don't think you'll trip, run away ;P. If your'e over it, and you're playing friendlies, try to attack it at various times with fair. Eventually you can get a good sense of when you can punish the tornado. Otherwise, shielding one that's trying to poke your shield while pointing your shield upwards and toward the tornado is the best way to get to punish the tornado.

(Random lesson) You can move your shield around in brawl/melee/..64? (Random fact) It makes pikachu's shield in melee not bad and made him more playable, since everything wasn't getting through. Tilt the stick slowly and eventually you'll have it straight above you, revealing all sorts of sexy pika legs.

Anyways, if they stay around for the majority of the duration of the tornado and you shield the whole thing, congrats, you get a free grab to fthrow or whatever. If they're wise to such trickery, they probably didn't poke your shield, and if they did, you'll pop out of the tornado because you're holding up and smashing both sticks a lil bit like you're mad to make sure you Smash DI out of it. At that point, you can follow the tornado, airdodge past it, and then dsmash or whatever to punish it if the timing is right. Otherwise you kinda get juggled for about 3-5 percent. Fair trade, eventually you'll punish him and do 15+ damage, especially at low percents. Also retreating by jumping and shooting reverse jolts is also sometimes a good idea.

Shuttle Loop. Man what a sucky good move. This move lets you punish it just enough that it encourages you to get stupid with it and jump into a glide attack and lose your stock. If they glide attack into the ground and you aren't there to instantly shield and grab them out of it, chances are you are going to lose whatever counterpick option you're thinking of. If you run up and shield and meta hits you with the beginning part of it, you need to jump instantly and hit him, it's free damage against him usually. ... I don't want to type about dodging it in the air and such... it's fairly obvious when you should airdodge in the air or jump or whatever. Always be mindful of your DI when there's a chance of getting hit by shuttle loop. If you DI well, it probably won't kill you (Unless you're unlucky and the gods of trajectory hate you..)

Hmm, What else. Edgeguarding metaknight. Pika is unstoppable on the ledge. Don't abuse it because it'll get stopped, is annoying, and it'll get stopped XD. If meta is recovering from below, it's pretty necessary for you to know his range of his up-b and when it'll start sweetspotting the ledge, and also how long you can hold on to the ledge if he ops to wait for your invincibility to wear off. In which case you should just tilt the stick toward the stage and climb back up and lift up your shield. ... Watch my vids for basic scenarios with that x.X...
Liek.. These 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrfExRO9h50
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsGvhciLg5o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_AKBmmUi1s - He just picked up meta like the day before..

When Meta knocks you off stage and is threatening your life, I THINK pika has a pretty high chance of getting back unscathed if you recover smartly. You might have to get some really good diagnal to straight line sweetspots to ensure your life sometimes, but if meta's chasing you, you can usually always back away from the stage and quick attack past him after he throws out an attack. ... You just have lots of options and headbutt tends to be the worst if he's chasing you. ... just don't eff up your DI if you do see you're gonna get hit. I might expand upon this later... but I have homework and wanna finish this XD.

The approach!
Both characters suck at approaching each other when in a neutral position. You have jolts every so often, especially since he typically can't swipe them away without doing something with the B button, but he can also run past them and get to you, and jolting limits your movement... so sometimes you get punished hardcore generally for doing it. You're both gonna be patient rangers in this matchup for a good portion of it, until someone gets a position advantage, and that's when things start shifting around a lot for both characters. They're both very similar, but with lots of differences, so ... yah, I... done... typing.



Edit: HOLY CRAP I TYPED A LOT OF STUFF... that might mean nothing XD.

Btw, when metaknight runs out of jumps, his wings go straight up. You can know when his recovery or landing options begin to dwindle, this helps with getting the occasional edgehog against him.

Another thing, mentality is almost everything Pikas! Go in, be confident, be patient, don't land on top of forward smashes >.>. Metaknight players COMMONLY bank on your hatred and fear of the matchup to make you lose. If you can think of what advantages you can pull over them and not constantly think "omg this char is broken" you'll do better, even if he really is broken =p. You don't really have time for such negative thoughts.

Don't worry about it being an annoying fight.. because there are MUCH worse in this game. It's personally my favorite matchup because of how little BS there is once you get past meta's base tricks. Pika's at the very least 50.6-50.4 adv over meta ;p. Don't add those numbers up.

<3sies.
BTW...

Pika's Advantages:

1.) tjolt/dair from above cancel the tornado - Fair's much better to try to cancel it with imo
2.) QA into the bottom of the tornado can cancel it - I've NEVER had that work right XD... and if you do this and are put in a neutral state, I really think metaknight will be in a more neutral state ...
3.) has a projectile - True
4.) has a faster means of escape(QA!) - YES

Pika's Disdvantages:

1.) mk's moves are a lot faster - Not entirely true, your dsmash is quicker than a lot of his typical options/reactions when you're next to him, and your cooldowns/attack durations are kinda nicer against him as opposed to how they are against you... Sometimes. (See how I word things to make it stupid to argue against me XD?), plus you get to experiment and find how true my speeked words are without arguing for no reason >.>
2.) pka has way less priorty - In general.. Pika's moves all clank with Glide attack, and will go through tornado when you figure out the spots. All pika's physical moves will trade with meta generally except for thangs like the early part of shuttle.
3.) mk can spam a few moves but yet still win the match - So can you if you make your opponent play badly, MK does this to peeps.
4.) outranged - pah, range, if we wanted range we wouldn't play pika... And his range is extremely greater than subpar.
5.) worse airiel range/game - Lies
6.) cannot CG MK - he can't "cg" you either, but since it's not an advantage I guess it can go here ;p.

Great Stuff (as always) Anther! :D

Thanks for the enlightening matchup details. I'ma going to go duel some more metaknights mains today just because of these amazing informations (plus I like the matchup too). It's like facing a DBZ character (MK) when you're a just normal person (cute squirrel)..... AND WINNING! :D

I like how if a Pikachu person wins, one gets comments like "Wow! Amazing. Good Stuff man! A pikachu freakin' won?!" And when a good metaknight wins, there's this "oh... that's nice to hear..." kind of atmosphree.

We should have a Pikachu smash convention somewhere close or something just for kicks. Anyone up for this?

Thanks again fellow brethren.

Sincerely,

Legendary Pikachu, LDPK, a fledgeling smashboards'er

"Pika's at the very least 50.6-50.4 adv over meta"

Anther says it

It must be true!

That post was made of intense amounts of win

Good post Anther! I actually read all that.

LDPK and Anther, you've outdone yourselves. I doubt there is anything I could add.

So true LP. Except eventually they turn on you and start rooting for the metaknights again... =P. Squirrels FTWsies.

Thx thx, I type a lot of yellow text sometimes.

I dont think you can angle your shield in smash 64 but then again shielding was dangerous in smash 64 anyways ^^

however awesome advice! im going to be using this very very soon :D

lol anther i think that post u made will help me more than any of them! hahaha. ive been losing to your god**** pikachu for close to a year now. but NOW, NOW I know your strategies. WOW U ARE A ****ING IDIOT. GG, U JUST LOST YOUR SPOT AS BEST IN MIDWEST. B PREPARED TO GET ***** NEXT TIME BIATCH.

by the way, where u been? u no go to pandas lately and it makes rofe rofe sad