Wolf Matchup Thread(FINALLY FINISHED!!!!!!)

Wolf




General Discussion

Wolf is a part of the lylat trio, in which he is the second easiest to fight. He has a reflector, a spammable laser, and a wall of pain that is very annoying. Although he is a very tough character in general, he has very little combo ability and has weaknesses that pika is great at exploiting.

Pika's Advantages

1.) A higher jump
2.) Faster in speed
3.) Better Recovery
4.) Great edgeguard ability
5.) Chaingrabbing
6.) Cannot be chaingrabbed

Pika's Disadvantages

1.) Light Weight
2.) Thunder/tjolt can be reflected
3.) Out ranged on the ground by fsmash and in the air by the bair
4.) Out Prioritized
5.) Cannot duck under the laser

Strategy for Winning

Knowing the Matchup

This matchup is one of those where "What you see is what you get" matches. Wolf players tend to be very aggressive while relying on their lasers for offense, as well as defense. The laser is up for discussion first. The common theme in brawl is whoever is the better defensive player will win. This is more or less the case here. Wolf's will try and use their lasers as their offense, but in a defensive way. That means spamming the ***t out of their lasers. Unlike his friends, we cannot duck underneath these lasers. This means spotdodging, shielding, or jumping over them. I suggest not to spotdodge and rely on the other options. The reason for this will be explained later in this section. Shielding can help you to stop the lasers while preventing a wolf from getting a second hit on you if you keep the shield up. Then it enables you to shield grab and then punish wolf to the extreme. Jumping over the lasers allows you to mix up your game with some offense and defense. QAC around them after jumping. Tjolt after you jump and put the pressure on them. If he tries to attack you, airdodge and get a grab. If you are above him and he doesn't jump up to attack you, FF fair into a grab, and start a chaingrab or edgeguard.

The Reflector and Thunder

The next thing up for discussion is his reflector. Most annoying since it comes out(visually) better than falco's/fox's. Meaning harder for us to predict. This to can be used offensively as well as defensively. Offensively, wolf has to be real close to use it. BUt, when he does, it has good knock back and be sure to watch out for a fsmash. This means shielding after getting hit by it! As for defensively, it will be used to deter your tjolt and thunder. It can also be used to break out of your chaingrab. I will not go further into the CG since I dont want wolfs knowing that this can be done at a certain time in the CG. If you want to when this happens then please PM me and i will tell you all about his reflector in the grab. As for reflecting, be sure to never let the thunder hit you. Only use thunder when they are at the very top of the screen suffering from hitlag or when they are recovering. Fake setting up thunder a lot, and when they turn on reflector jump and Nair him. Throw some mindgames in there. As for tjolts, there are a few things you need to know. You can full hop a tjolt to keep pressuring him when he is on the offensive. But also, make your T jolts unpredictable so you don't get it countered back at you.

The Ground Game

Wolf's ground game consists of fsmash, dsmash, usmash, jabs, and ftilt. Rarely will you see good wolf use dtilt or utilt. The jab combo is great. It has 3 hits which have descent knockback and startup time. If you are not careful they can cancel their jab into a fsmash which will more than likely hit and punish you a great deal. DI out of it and if you notice a pause in the jab combo, shield. The ftilt comes out of the shield a lot so if you are pressuring a shielded wolf, be sure to make sure you don't give him the chance of using his ftilt by getting out of range or by hitting him. His fsmash has excellent range. Very excellent. Its a great edgeuard tool as well as an offensive weapon. They will usually try and save their dsmash till late in the match when they need to kill pika. But if you can bait them into using it and diminishing their best kill move early, you will have a better chance at surviving. Rolling around them alot will condition them to the dsmash.

The Air Game

Wolf airiel game is his bread and butter though. His bair is amazing since it has priority, range, and zero lag. Fair can be a killing move, uair is great for damage if below an opponent, the nair has two strikes which is not that useful against pika since he is so small, and the dair can meteor characters. Wolf has a strategy called the wall of pain. This WOP is basically a bunch of bairs headed your way. They jump and get like 2-3 bairs in. Basically, the best thing to do against a wolf who loves airiels is to keep this fight on the ground. His airiels are much better than ours. Try and stay away from an airiel fight. If you do get into one though, it seems as if nair/fair are your best options.

Basic Strategy flor Winning

Now onto the strategy for winning. The single most important weapon that we have against wolf players is our grabbing game and our ability to punish from the grab. Let me emphasize that grabbing is awesome for pika. Grab wolf as much as you possibly can. When grabbing wolf, dthrow to no more than 34%. Once you get that high fthrow across the stage(up to about 70 % i think). This is awesome for pika since we start his new stock with such high percentages. Once you get to the edge and fthrow, runn after him and use your nair to knock him off the stage. Once you get him off the stage then its time for edgeguarding. If you grab wolf at any other time and you cannot CG, dthrow>utilt/usmash>combos. Trust me, get under wolf and you are good to punish.

Killing Wolf

When killing wolf, there are two ways. Pure muscle and gimping. Usmash/fsmash/dsmash/nair are good killers. Usmash>thunder is another great kill move. Try and keep you usmash/fsmash fresh though as to save them for killing. When they are off the edge, try and get them to recover above you. This way you can ledgehop nair/dair to punish. Wolf can recover using 2 methods. His upB or his scar. His upB is mainly for vertical and 45 degree recoveries and by far the most punishable. Grab ontl the ledge and use your invincibility frames. The scar on the other hand, harder to gimp. On certain stages(smashville, battlefield, etc...) he can scar through the stage wihtout needing to rgab the ledge. It also comes out really fast so it harder to predict and it can spike you(at the end of the scar), so use your invibility frames to you advantage when grabbing. To counter the scar though try and tjolt him further away to force him into his other recovery, make a wall of thunder, or use you nair/bair to time it just right and nail him. When he is scarring through the stage, shield it then use a dsmash or grab him. He has enough lag to punish his foolish attempt so be sure to take advantage.

Try and get wolf below the stage. Once you get him in a position where he has to use his vertical recovery, he is doomed since you grab grab the ledge. Get him below the stage as much as possible. The QA can get you around corners so us getting back should never be a problem.

Recovering

As for pika recovering, the only thing that you really have to worry about are his lasers and him spiking you when using your skullbash. The lasers are not that big of a threat since we can airdodge now, but the meteor is something to worry about. Use your skullbash situationally. Your QA should be your main recovery move.

Overall, this matchup depends on who is a better defensive player and who is better at predicting. Setting up opponents for mistakes is key in this matchup for wolf. His game is very direct, unlike other characters like snake. To win this matchup you need to know what he is capable of and what he isn't capable of and then take advantage of what you can.

Thats pretty much the matchup for now. I will be back to evaluate it next week since right now i am extremely tired and need to get some rest.


Helpful Video's

Soon to come

Overall Matchup

Pika> Wolf

Chain Grab him. Edge hog him. Be aggresive, his reflector and spammable projectile say you can't camp. Make your T jolts unpredictable so you don't get it countered back at you. Only use thunder when they are at the very top of the screen suffering from hitlag. fake setting up a thunder a lot, and when they turn on reflector jump and Nair him.

I really feel that THE most important thing Vs Wolf though is edgehogging. I get SOOOOOOOOO many of my kills on him that way, his recovery sucks and that is a simple and effective way of stopping it.

Tjolt spamming against a Wolf really isn't that bad of any idea. If you are paying attention, and if you are SH them, you won't get hit by the reflected ones and you put wolf on the defensive. He will either be stuck in his reflector, which will allow you to approach him, or he will be forced to get closer you, and you want to be in tight with him so that you attacks we most effective.

Note of caution: When wolf approaches you, he can get at you in many ways. Watch out for his bairs, no lag fairs, and SH and double reflectors. They can put you in a very tough spot.

Like Rollerking said, edge hog. This is wolf primary weakness. Exploit it to the max.

When recovering (really at all time) be careful of Wolf's WOP. I can't really explain it anymore than that. It can be quite painful.

Last of all. When in engaged with Wolf, watch out for reflectors and nairs. Usually, when I am getting juggled as Wolf I like to bust out these two moves. They are very good in that they allow Wolf to breaking his opponents offense and they allow him to switch from being engaged to engaging his opponent.

Oh yeah, watch out for dsmash. Death move.

That is all I have.

P.S. I love Wolf. What's the matter? Scared?

There are two ways wolf can play: Aggressive and Campy.

If a wolf plays aggressive and tries to get to you using SH nairs and fairs, just full-hop and Thunder jolt while moving backwards to slow him down. As always, Chaingrab chaingrab chaingrab. Wolf is the easiest character to chaingrab, and i think you can d-throw him to 30 before needed to f-throw him till like 70, so one grab = ownage. After the f-throw at the edge, dash-attack to get him even farther away. Ledgehog so he has to go above the stage, and then just ledge-hop a nair or dair. My footstool combo i thought of will be really easy (see my thread here http://smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=182126) since he is the fast-falliest of all the characters. This is why most wolfs, if they know the matchup, will play campy.

Campy wolfs will spam lasers when you are far, and stronger attacks when you are close to knock you away. Since pikachu's fullhop is higher than wolf's you can just fullhop a thunder jolt and you won't get hit by a laser. Keep fullhopping, and if he tries to attack you, airdodge and get a grab. If you are above him and he doesn't jump up to attack you, fastfall a forward air into a grab, and start a chaingrab or edgeguard.

General:

Watch out for Bairs, D-smash, F-Smash, and Sliding up-smash, they can be devestating, especially bairs they can be very annoying if spammed like a wall of pain, or as a wolf player in Florida calls it, the Wall of Wolf. Regrettably, this is all i have in this matchup because i have only played wolfs in tournament twice.

wolf is NOT the easiest person to change grab.. basically if the wolf player is any good, he knows how to get out of it via his reflector. shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, theres a good # of wolf players that dont know this. cough. but if they do know it, there is a way around it using a mind game. basically, they can start using their shield around 30% so if ur chaining, you wanna shield to take his reflector's hit then shield grab xP. but yeah. against wolf ur gonna need a lot of spot dodging for his down smash and front smash.

to counter his front smash, which has tremendous range, you can do 3 things.

spam tjolt
predict it and spot dodge then turn around a punish
predict it use side tilt to cancel it then follow through with another side tilt.

i would say that wolf vs pika is a pretty even match up. chain grabbing is fallible. if it werent, then pika would have the edge. and SHHHHH ;D

dsmash is wolf's kill move and shouldn't be used that much in a game, excpet when he wants to knock us off the stage. fsmash has tremendous range. be sure to watch out for it when they are edgeguarding. but wolf's bread and butter moves are his bair/fair. his bair has no lag once it end and his fair has good range while being a real damage/combo breaker. wolf has very few(if any) combo's. the one combo that wolf's try to do is dthrow>fsmash. its pretty accurate if not predicted.

thank you all so much! my friend mains wolf and I can never beat him with Pika. This should help a lot.

sorry bout the delay guys. ive been afk since friday cuz i had a tourney. this will all be updated by tomorrow night. thanks for your patience.

Sorry bout the double post but its extremely important that this threads get bumped to the top again so that the pika community knows that teh wolf matchup is done.

*bump*

Nice job here galax, hope the snake one is as good eh?

Very good guide, but one thing to add not to get careless about.
If the wolf is on the stage and up-b's to the middle, do not try and punish it. He can shine before you are able to do anything at all, besides grab. I know one wolf (Equi) who does this once every match or so, and its really irritating if you don't know what you are doing.

Oh yeah, did is mention that Wolf is the shiz?

Thank you all so much! My friend mains Wolf and I can never beat him with Pika. This should help a lot.

wow. very nice write ups and contributions from all. good stuff, and kudos to all who contributed.