Mario's Matchups! Updated May 15, 2007! Only missing Zelda!

[maelstrom218]

You forgot to mention that KO power is not needed too. Maybe if Falco messes up during a pillar, like forgetting to L cancel the D air part, MAYBE you could score 1 grab. By the way, do you call him Flaco by accident?

KO power (including hits with relatively high knockback) are always important, because you may not be at the edge of the stage when you happen to land a decent combo+finisher. Proper DI renders the majority of Mario's already mediocre KO moves mostly harmless. That hurts Mario, even when he's up against Flaco-the-bird-with-ironically-the-worst-recovery-ever.

I stopped trying to shieldgrab between Flaco's drill and shine ages ago. I've since learned that relying on your opponent to make a technical error as a means to gain the upper hand doesn't work on higher-level opponents. Trust me. I've tried, and I've been summarily *****.

And yes, I call Falco "Flaco" deliberately. Because he's a son-of-a-*****, I will refuse to call him his proper name for all eternity. Or until I learn how to chaingrab him from 10%-60% into an up-angled f-smash.

 

[Lucky_Sharmz19]

And yes, I call Falco "Flaco" deliberately. Because he's a son-of-a-*****, I will refuse to call him his proper name for all eternity. Or until I learn how to chaingrab him from 10%-60% into an up-angled f-smash.

I've practiced doing that, but i probably wouldn't be able to do it on real DIing opponents. I practice it at training mode and put the Dummy at Evade mode so the dummy atleast DIs a little.

 

[flaco]

No I mean I seriously had no idea what your point was, and your post was basically just a jumble of words I was too lazy to interpret lol. I'd like your opinion, but in a clear format.

well thanks I guess lol.

 

[Eggz]

You can actually chainthrow falco from 0% I think, but it depends on DI. If they DI behind you, you can't CT them until about ten. You can chainthrow them until about 70%, at which point a smart falco will try to neutral DI and shine out of it, so you utilt them, and uair them off the stage. Good stuff. Basically a guarenteed finisher.

Comment on...

DK, G&G, ICs, Doc, Kirby, Mewtwo, Ness, Pichu, Pikachu, Roy, and Zelda is basically all thats missing.

 

[maelstrom218]

Curiously enough, people tell me that GaW is ***** by Mario, but every time I go up against a GaW, I'm getting screwed. Part of it is because of his stupid range on f-air/d-tilt, and the other part is that I keep on forgetting you can't combo out of d-throw. Grrr.

Mario vs. Doc. . .now there's an interesting matchup. I remember Gea saying something about how Doc can simply spam b-air and win. . .and sadly, that's basically true. Sheer range on aerials, having a kooky sex kick, pill setups and pill rushdown, better edgeguarding with both b-air and cape that goes below the edge, and sheer KO power. . .

. . .the thing is, it's a weird matchup. Doc has almost the same combos on Mario as Mario has on Doc--and they're bloody effective. Even without Mario's famed u-tilt, Doc can still do a number on Mario, given his (and Mario's!) grab combos, jab-grab/d-smash games, dash attack, and pills. Yes, Mario can pull off the same combos on Doc, but he doesn't have Doc's array of advantages.

In retrospect though, Mario has one thing on Doc, and that's the f-smash. I swear, f-smash ***** Doc like no other. . .it COMPLETELY outranges everything that Doc has. And nailing him with a f-smash is going to be a likely occurance, because Doc simply can't compete, range-wise. That, and sex kicking through pills is a godsend, and Mario can *almost* edgeguard Doc as well as Doc can to Mario. Plus, Mario has u-tilt.

I'd say it's rock-solid even. Yes, pills are problematic; yes, Doc's KO power really ***** Mario here (d-smash is friggin' scary, but thank God for DI); yes, Doc has better edgeguarding. . .but for all that, Mario can throw Doc's combos straight back at him, and the f-smash ***** Doc hard. And yes, u-tilt can really screw over Doc, too.

 

[Lucky_Sharmz19]

Hm, how about Roy?


Well, I guess Mario has the advantage in this match up.


First of all, Roy's aerial attacks are totally worthless and weak. Second of all, Roy is slow and his only KO move is his F smash. And by the way, it's range is crap because if he hits with the tip of his sword, the attack will do even ****tier damage and knockback than Marth's unsweetspotted F smash. His ground attacks suck, his D tilt sucks at edgeguarding. Roy has the worst D air in the game. It can be meteor canceled and its so freaking hard to sweet spot. Its hard to do it on people off stage without the hazard of killing your self due to your fast falling speed and horrendous lag you receive from the attack. His neutral B attack is completely worthless because it does basically nothing. And what the hell are the chances of you getting hit by the fully charged version? Roy's counter sucks *** too. Roy's Up B is one of the worst third jumps i've ever seen. It's slow, does crap damage, and easily edgeguarded. It sucks as a recovery move and attack. UNLESS he is matched up with Jigglypuff, which auto KOs light characters like him. But, you have to hit him in the right place for it to work, and Mario isn't light like Jigglypuff.


Perhaps Mario ***** Roy?

 

[maelstrom218]

. . .Lucky_Sharmz19, have you played Roy before? O_o

Roy's aerial attacks are not worthless. . .because of his falling speed and because his aerials' relatively fast execution time (mostly f-air I'm talking about here), he has amazingly fast shffls. In that respect, Roy can be rather fast, as he can execute a large number of shffl'd attacks in a relatively short amount of time. You've seen Roy shffl'd u-air juggle a Fox before, right?

And range is still an issue here. Yes, Roy's range is for the most part neutralized because he has to spend the majority of the time at sweetspot range, which is at the middle of the sword. . .but his overall sword range--sweetspotted or not--still exceeds yours. This means that simple non-sweetspotted f-airs or f-tilts or n-airs will outrange your standard shffl's. Your approach will be interrupted by his hits, because his range is better than yours.

Roy's d-tilt isn't meant to edgeguard (usually), it's meant to be used as a vertical launcher. It's probably one of Roy's best moves, because it's a relatively fast set-up for shffl'd u-air juggling on fastfallers, or f-air/n-air hits on everyone else.

Roy's recovery is pretty standard, actually. Like Marth's, side-b helps, but you can angle Roy's up-b to give better horizontal distance. Nothing great or nothing awful about Roy's recovery.

Additionally, Roy has a grab range equal (or almost equal) to Marth's. And as we all know, Marth's grab range is absolutely disgusting.

The reason why Roy loses this matchup is because Roy gets combo'd to hell and back. Really. Roy is quite possibly the easiest person to combo in this entire game for Mario. . .partly, it's because of Roy's perfect falling speed/weight (not to fastfall-y, not to floaty or heavy)--which means decent DI is a lot harder, but it's also because Roy seems to suffer from considerably more hitstun than everyone else. He gets caught up in that hitstun, and Mario can land hits faster than Roy can recover.

Even worse for Roy is that his shffl's are extremely vulnerable to proper crouch-cancelling. CCing makes Roy's aerials almost completely harmless, as the knockback on them--even when factoring in sweetspotting--is almost zilch. The stun time isn't that great either, so CC -> d-smash/grab/jab/--almost anything--will work moderately well against Roy.

Furthermore, as you said, Roy can't KO. At all. Anyone who can DI (which I hope all my fellow Mario players can by now ) can reduce the effectiveness of any of Roy's 'stronger' hits (neutral B, side-b combos, f-tilt, low-% f-smash hits, n-air). Roy essentially has to mindgame in his f-smash. . .which means that--HOLY CRAP--Mario actually beats the opponent in terms of KO power, and edgeguarding. Wow.

. . .again, I really don't think Mario ***** anyone, but if you had to classify matchups, this is as close to **** as it gets. If the person has decent mindgames (like NEO, anyone?), then Roy becomes friggin' scary as heck. But Mario definitely has the upper hand here.

 

[Silent Wolf]

COLOR COORDINATED!!!!!!!!
im liking this topic though. ^^
lotta good stuffs.
good work shane.

 

[Eggz]

LoL thanks Otto ^_^ Ill color coordinate it just for you. <3

 

[Eggz]

A little note on the Bowser/Mario matchup

Direct quote from Gimpy
(tu)Gimpyfish says: Nah but for serious, Mario is supposed to be a pretty easy matchup for Bowser. I find that silly. I guess there aren't a lot of mario's at silv/eggz calibur running around. Man, washington has such an awesome mushroom kingdom.
</Subliminal WA+Silv+self promotion>

So Gimpy doesn't really like the matchup so its probably at an advantage for Mario. And Silv and I both love that matchup (mostly because boozer is too cute, as is Gimpy... >_> XD) so its fo sho in Mario's favor.

I wish I got to play Roy's more often, I dont know how to work with his weight class at all lol. I got my first triple uair fsmash on a roy though...good times. It was ftw in a mm too. LoL. All of it seems right so im putting the roy at the top of the Mario has the advantage section. Doc and Mario are added under even. Annnd I think thats all I've done so far. So yeah, basically all thats left is garbage characters like G&W or pikachu etc.
Thanks alot for the discussion. I <3 Mario players.

Also I color coordinated stuff. >_>

 

[Lucky_Sharmz19]

Roy's aerial attacks are not worthless. . .because of his falling speed and because his aerials' relatively fast execution time (mostly f-air I'm talking about here), he has amazingly fast shffls. In that respect, Roy can be rather fast, as he can execute a large number of shffl'd attacks in a relatively short amount of time. You've seen Roy shffl'd u-air juggle a Fox before, right?

Well yeah, but if you unsweetspot just one U air, Roy will be in trouble. Fox would just land on the ground and start doing bad stuff to Roy. Unsweetspotted U air would do 4 damage and almost no knockback.

And range is still an issue here. Yes, Roy's range is for the most part neutralized because he has to spend the majority of the time at sweetspot range, which is at the middle of the sword. . .but his overall sword range--sweetspotted or not--still exceeds yours. This means that simple non-sweetspotted f-airs or f-tilts or n-airs will outrange your standard shffl's. Your approach will be interrupted by his hits, because his range is better than yours.

But, most of Roy's aerials will do about 4 damage and a tiny unharmful shove if unsweetspotted. Mario could just double jump and hit Roy back. Well, i guess N air has some range and damage unsweetspotted. But non-sweetspotted F tilts or smashes will have as much knockback as Mario's F tilt at low percents.

Roy's d-tilt isn't meant to edgeguard (usually), it's meant to be used as a vertical launcher. It's probably one of Roy's best moves, because it's a relatively fast set-up for shffl'd u-air juggling on fastfallers, or f-air/n-air hits on everyone else.

Okay....

Roy's recovery is pretty standard, actually. Like Marth's, side-b helps, but you can angle Roy's up-b to give better horizontal distance. Nothing great or nothing awful about Roy's recovery.

Roy's falling speed won't help him very much during recoveries. It is also a bit slow and easy to hit. But okay.....

Additionally, Roy has a grab range equal (or almost equal) to Marth's. And as we all know, Marth's grab range is absolutely disgusting.

Okay.....

 

[maelstrom218]

Well yeah, but if you unsweetspot just one U air, Roy will be in trouble. Fox would just land on the ground and start doing bad stuff to Roy. Unsweetspotted U air would do 4 damage and almost no knockback.

You said that Roy's attacks were "totally worthless and weak," and that "Roy is slow." I countered by saying that Roy's shffl'ing speed is sufficiently quick enough to present something of a problem, and gave the example of shffl'd u-air juggling on Fox.

I'm assuming that the person is technically proficient enough to sweetspot the majority of the time, as most advanced Marths can. Just because an attack needs to be sweetspotted doesn't mean that the move becomes automatically awful--that's like saying Mario's f-smash is absolute crap because you have to sweetspot it. It's not. We both know that. You just have to learn to sweetspot it, like every other sweetspotted move (Mario's f-smash, Ness' f-smash, Samus' b-air, CF's knee).

But, most of Roy's aerials will do about 4 damage and a tiny unharmful shove. Mario could just double jump and hit Roy back. Well, i guess N air has some range and damage unsweetspotted. But non-sweetspotted F tilts or smashes will have as much knockback as Mario's F tilt at low percents.

When you play against a Peach, do your aerials or approaches ever get snuffed out by really weak attacks? Like, simple jabs. Or float-cancelled d-airs. Or CF for instance, and how the first hit of his n-air will just outprioritize everything. It's not the fact that these moves have little knockback and it makes them harmless, it's the fact that these moves outprioritize yours, makes approaching difficult, snuffs out your moves, and worst of all, they lead into more damaging stuff.

Same deal with Roy. Sweetspotted or not, his long-ranged attacks have the ability to snuff out your approaches, and aerials. And when they do get snuffed out, they lead to more irritating things. Like grabs or f-tilts, for instance. And let it be said that Roy moves faster, and can attack in greater succession than Mario can.

It just seems like you're underestimating Roy. He's not that awful, it's just that Mario combos him really, really badly. That, and Marth is about 30x better.

 

[Lucky_Sharmz19]

Ok, we got down Roy, who else are we missing?



By the way, when you quoted my second paragraph, i forgot to say "4 damage and a tiny unharmful shove when unsweetspotted.

 

[flaco]

Maybe marth I Think lol.Take him down lol,Marth is a pretty hard match against mario.

 

[Lucky_Sharmz19]

Um, Marth is already on the list.

 

[Twig]

Doc > Mario...not an even matchup, there have been many threads on it and many many players agree to doc >mario.

 

[maelstrom218]

Really? I can understand why they think that, because in general, Doc is better than Mario anyways. . .how much of an advantage do you think Doc has?

 

[Lucky_Sharmz19]

Not by much. All Doc has that is better than Mario are KO moves, aerials with more range, B air, and pills. I think that is it. But Doc has second worse recovery in game, has bad range, and is a bit slower.

 

[Twig]

***Doc's cape reaches below the stage, meaning even if u sweetspot ur up-b, the cape hits you and ur dead, Mario's cannot do that. ***

Lucky....the only move that Doc lacks range in is the f-smash, so if ur basing the entire matchup on this one move, ur very wrong, not to mention when u said " all he has is *list" ...u basically proved that Doc > Mario in the matchup, if mario cant get him off the stage...what good does his bad recov do? BTW Doc is like BARELY slower than mario, the only noticable difference in speed is the jab combo, in which doc's 2nd hit is slow and worthless.....

I would say Doc does very well vs Mario just due to the pill/pill f-air combo ( if u cape, he capes or the 2nd pill cancels), Doc has a better back-throw, and the cape difference. The F-smash and Recovery (and the ability to wall kick....) are the only things mario has on Doc. Doc's b-air sends people down at a lower trajectory, meaning 2 b-airs near the edge = dead basically anyone... Mario could b-air doc 2x and he can prob still get back lol.

To answer ur question Maelstrom i would put doc vs mario not under the "****" section, but its a tough MU so does well vs Mario section should suit it fine, cuz its far from even.....

 

[maelstrom218]

Again, Twig, I can understand your perspective, and from my earlier page 3 post, I know what the advantages are. It's just that Doc's advantages don't seem as overwhelming as say, what Samus has on Mario.

The reasoning behind my thinking is based on Doc and Mario's similarities. I'll agree that Doc has better edgeguarding, but in a real match, it comes down to almost the same thing. Once Doc is off the stage, he's essentially dead, and it works vice-versa, too. Regardless of Mario's non-angled trajectory on his b-air, I don't see how any Doc can survive multiple b-air edgeguarding at mid %s.

As for caping to edgeguard, yeah, Doc has a cape that goes below the ledge. Great. Mario's down-angled f-smash goes below the ledge too.

Furthermore, like Mario, Doc gets the majority of his damage in through combos. Mario has the same exact combos as Doc does, if not better, because Mario actually has a viable vertical launcher with his u-tilt. Yeah, Doc gets in his damage with his uber KO moves too, but no Doc I've seen has ever ignored combos in lieu of straight-out d-smashing, f-smashing, and f-airing.

Obviously, it's not like Mario is superior in this matchup. All I'm saying is that Doc has MINIMALLY better edgeguarding, is about equal to Mario in terms of combo potential, and loses to Mario in terms of range with the f-smash. All Doc has on Mario is Pills, and KO power--it's a definite advantage, but it's hardly what I call overwhelming.

I can see the matchup being equal, or Doc having a small advantage at best; I don't really see it as being an unbalanced matchup. Like, 5.5/4.5 in Doc's favor at worst.

 

[Twig]

W/e man, doc >mario from my experiences *shruggs* i suggest just going to tournaments..... I personally am bad vs doc, but i do think the MU does have an effect on it. Theories on moves and combos are great, but when it comes to actual playing, doc > mario.

 

[Gea]

***Doc's cape reaches below the stage, meaning even if u sweetspot ur up-b, the cape hits you and ur dead, Mario's cannot do that. ***

Lucky....the only move that Doc lacks range in is the f-smash, so if ur basing the entire matchup on this one move, ur very wrong, not to mention when u said " all he has is *list" ...u basically proved that Doc > Mario in the matchup, if mario cant get him off the stage...what good does his bad recov do? BTW Doc is like BARELY slower than mario, the only noticable difference in speed is the jab combo, in which doc's 2nd hit is slow and worthless.....

I would say Doc does very well vs Mario just due to the pill/pill f-air combo ( if u cape, he capes or the 2nd pill cancels), Doc has a better back-throw, and the cape difference. The F-smash and Recovery (and the ability to wall kick....) are the only things mario has on Doc. Doc's b-air sends people down at a lower trajectory, meaning 2 b-airs near the edge = dead basically anyone... Mario could b-air doc 2x and he can prob still get back lol.

To answer ur question Maelstrom i would put doc vs mario not under the "****" section, but its a tough MU so does well vs Mario section should suit it fine, cuz its far from even.....

Mario can easily cape Doc if he is slightly off, jump off to cape, angle an fsmash, EASILY just hog, etc. Mario can come back from further, so in all fairness Mario actually has more of a chance to make it back than Doc does. Not much of one, but its there.

Mario still has to get pretty close to Doc, so both do have opportunity for the fsmash. Yes Mario has more opportunities and its a much more solid killmove in this matchup. As for aerial speed... not too much difference in lag. Two frames ish. Not enough to break the matchup. Doc's jab jab speed is awesome against sheilders and for mindgames. Plus jab -> downsmash works better for him than it does Mario.

Pill pill fair? What the ****? Here's what you do if Doc tries to pill pill fair. You cape the first pill and sheildgrab. You wavedash or just WALK backwards. If he fulljumps the pill you walk under it and uair combo the Doc. That is such a rickety piece of crap combo you have there... And Fireballs are actually worth more than pills in this matchup. Doc is short and fireballs can skip under pills... Fireballs also can take away Doc's second jump easier than Pills can Mario's (off the edge anyways)

And lemme go into the bair thing. Mario/Doc/Luigi all **** each other with their bairs. Doc's trajectory doesn't make too much of a difference because of their crappy recoveries. Sorry. As a Doc player I've always thought Mario barely edged out here, but not by much. Honestly, thinking about it now, I'd rather play as Mario against Doc than ditto. I just find it easier... and I don't even play Mario on a regular basis.

 

[Twig]

Pill pill fair? What the ****? Here's what you do if Doc tries to pill pill fair. You cape the first pill and sheildgrab. You wavedash or just WALK backwards..

No good doc spaces the f-air in space of a shield grab.

 

[Gea]

so sheild wd grab. Or wavesmash. Or jump out of your sheild with a nair. Point is that isn't some sort of God combo.

Hell, if you wanted to fulljump the pills Mario could step back just enough so they go over him and angle an fsmash for you...

Also: one last note. Fair as a killmove for Doc just isn't as useful in this match. Yes you can net KOs with it... but the quickest way to kill Mario or Doc is horizontally. That and I'm pretty sure if you wanna discuss kill setups Doc can be faired -> fsmash. Yes Doc can KO in more ways... but its not as glaringly obvious in this matchup how KO ******** Mario can be.

 

[Twig]

Errrr ok, i really dont care, just saying from my experiences from tournaments doc > mario. Im not saying its a god combo, its just tough to approach. Experience > theories. Im a noob, so w/e.

 

[Eggz]

Yeah I have no experience in tournaments...Wait what?

Doc and Mario are basically even. Tournament and extensive friendly experience.

 

[Gea]

Yeah I have no experience in tournaments...Wait what?

Doc and Mario are basically even. Tournament and extensive friendly experience.

I'll agree with "basically even"

 

[Silent Wolf]

Doc and mario=even, plus, mario can sweetspot REALLY low so i dont think docs cape would go all the way down for an uber mario sweetspot. and doc's ko moves arent really better, and if they are, its not by much or enough to make a difference in this being an even match up. btw, i didnt read basically and previous posts really, so sorry if im wrong or posted what sojmone else said, LOL. basically even for the truth. there moves arent much different and docs only one place higher than mario on the tier list, but theyre in the same tier. i don think a doc can cape marios recovery every time either, cause mario can change it up quite a bit, like WJ up-b and stuffs.

 

[PacStrife]

I like this topic, a lot of good information. However i can't help but say somthing about the Fox vs. Mario match-up. I have always believed that this match up was somewhat even with Mario's grab combos evening out fox's shines and strong smashes. But I think to say that Mario has the advantage in this match-up is just..... wrong.

The thing that makes this match-up such a ***** is that Mario can't mess up. Fox is simply too fast. Anything that the Mario messes up (l-cancel, edge guarding, missed grabs, etc.) Fox can immediatly counter and sometimes for an easy kill.(if the mistake was made close to the ledge) Also, I really don't see caping as much of an option either. I mean I used to think it was ****, but after seeing how proficient that fox players are getting at sweet spoting the edge from literally any distance, I just don't know. Finally, fox doesn't have to only kill with edge gaurding at all. Most of the time Mario is about two small combos away from getting up smashed or up aired off the stage. Oh and don't forget that like most characters Fox can **** mario's recovery. It's ugly.....

Now I'm not saying that Fox ***** Mario either. I mean grab combos alone give him the edge he needs on most stages. That coupled with an o.k. edgegaurding game make this match about even IMO. It's just to me this fight always seems like an up-hill strugle. Fox isn't the best character in the game for no reason.

 

[maelstrom218]

Silent Wolf, Doc's up-b has a larger sweetspotting range than Mario's--basically, he can grab the ledge from even farther away compared to Mario. Doc's notorious for his "magnet hands," so caping a Doc tends to be difficult if the player knows how to sweetspot well enough. Whether or not a properly sweetspotting Mario can evade Doc's cape is another question entirely; Doc's cape goes below the ledge quite a bit; I think that in most cases, Mario is screwed even if he does sweetspot.

Plus, Doc's d-smash is pure ****. But Mario has his f-smash, so it mostly evens out, even though Mario's d-smash is sort of mediocre here. Recovery-wise, they perform the same. Pills can really screw over Mario's edgeguarding opportunities, and Mario has enough versatility with his recovery to deter some edgeguarding attempts.

WTF Mediocre Man, I didn't even notice that you put Fox and Flaco in Mario's favor. I know that tons of players think that Mario counters the space animals, but I've always firmly believed otherwise. The matchup is even, for a variety of reasons. . .Pacstrife listed some of them. Explain yourself churl, so I can understand your reasoning.

 

[Twig]

Mario does very well vs Fox due to the n-air cancelling any of fox's aerials, and at worst causing both of you to get hit. Before u flame me, like 2 weeks ago i played chillin's fox in a MM mario vs fox... No chaingrabs. I ***** him the first/second life with just simple stuff as up-throw to up-smash and f-air to n-air. The third life b-throw off the edge, and he over-b'ed into the stage, got caped, and fell with an up-air, messing up. My 4 stock- 100%+ about (mario) vs Chillin's Fox (1 stock)....i lost because i choked (up-smash, shine spike, up-throw u-air /me choking). No johns, but if a noob like me can get chillin's fox down to one stock ....the matchup must be pretty in mario's favor. (The reason i got ahead was due to mario, not skill, and the reason i lost was to my sucking).

Mario vs Falco is even purely based upon stage, Chaingrabbing, and how much the falco camps/if u can grab him (Falco's such as KM/PC Chris are nearly impossible to grab).

 

[Lucky_Sharmz19]

Wow, this topic is great. This lasted way longer than other topics here. Good job MM.

 

[Eggz]

Thankies ^__^

Yeah...I've been fighting foxes lately and its just a much harder matchup. In favor for fox fo sho. Falco however is too easy to kill and combo. Mario has too much going for him for it to be not in his favor, so I guess its even.

 

[PacStrife]

Ok, so I thought I would add one to the list. Pikachu!! This match-up is deffinatly in mario's favor. (In fact a quick glance at the Pika forums states mario as a "hard" fight for pika)

Anyways, why?? Well, basically it all comes down to three things. First, is pika's range.....he doesn't realy have any, which plays a big role in why some characters are hard for mario to beat. Since Pika is also a close range fighter, it is almost inevitable that he will give some easy opening for mario's combos. Which leads to the second reason why mario is good against pika, pika's comboability. Quite frankly pika just feels fat in the air. Meaning that and up tilt usually sends him just high enough for another or maybe an up air chain to a f-smash. Simply put Mario can reck Pikachu with his combos, they just kinda happen against pika and they are bad for him.

The final reason is really a combination of other factors that lead to pika's downfall. Mario can't really be comboed too well by pika due to his weight. Mario's down smash is just bad news for pika in general. The cape takes away pika's rush down capeabilities using the thunder jolt. Mario's n-air has decent priority against all of pikas attacks. Also mario can edgeguard against pika fairly well, while pika actually may have some trouble against mario's recovery.

Finally, just to add a bit more to this, in my personal dealings with pikachu I have found him to be a pretty easy win. (with the exception of tope, a VA pika who pretty much ***** me >_>) I find the combos come easy and all of mario's tricks are there to be fully utilized, grab combos, easy juggling, and edgeguarding are all there to be used. So yeah i guess that's about it, hit me with some feedback if anyone thinks anything a bit different or that i'm wrong. This thread is too good. lol.

 

[maelstrom218]

Not much to add on the Pikachu front, mostly because I don't know anything about it. However, it's interesting to note that Pika's u-smash tends to be pretty strong. . .so if you're caught in that (especially on a stage with a low ceiling) it's a safe bet that you're pretty much screwed. I've also found that Pika's u-air juggling can actually be pretty dangerous for Mario. Constant u-air juggling can be possible, and tailspiking is pretty deadly, on or off the stage.

Otherwise, I don't know too much else about the matchup. I think that Mario would do well though.

 

[Twig]

Tope's pika ftw. Up-air spikes = too deadly

 

[Gea]

Pika's main two things in the match: usmash and tailspikes. This gives pika more choice on which way is best to kill (stage and all) and I personally don't think Mario is REALLY hard to tailspike.

Other than that Mario does better than for reasons already stated. Can't Mario chainthrow pika ot some degree with downthrows? Also Pika loses all approach pretty much... but Mario has to get close. I think a top Mario v a top pika, the Mario wins out.

 

[Eggz]

Pikachu
+Good grab game
+Good combo game
+Chu is light
+Chu can be throw-chained
+Chu has a semi-predictable recovery
-Usmash kills Mario good

 

[The Cape]

Mario is Pika's 2nd hardest match.

His first being Sheik.

D throw chain to 90% into F smash FTW!

 

[Lucky_Sharmz19]

I don't think Pika's recovery is very predictible. He can jump twice in any direction and his recovery is pretty fast and hard to hit.