Pikachu Matchup - 1-9 or what?

[TechnoMonster]

Pikachu is coming out as a very good character; amazing recovery, fast on-stage options, good tournament placings, good combos and great edge guarding. I think we can expect to see a few of them in most regions considering that 1) It's Pikachu and 2) Pikachu is actually pretty good in this game.

I feel like our matchup against the rat is abysmal. Jab misses. Grab often misses. Forward smash misses. SH aerials miss unless timed perfectly at the bottom of the jump. Zair is almost completely worthless, and without these many options, our other moves consist of tilts (admittedly pretty OK, but not great) and ... down air?

Any tips/research on this yet? I'm going to do some work on it when my WiiU copy arrives, but I can't see any positives.

What would you do against a pika that just crawls around and grab/spotdodge/downtilts?

 

[TeaTwoTime]

It's not a great matchup (ZSS has issues hitting small characters in general), but let's not exaggerate numbers here. The matchup was supposedly 50-50 in Brawl, so I'd be surprised if it was any worse than 40-60 in Smash 4. It's too early to know, in any case.

 

[DeLux]

Disadvantage for sure.

 

[TechnoMonster]

I'm not trying to be sensationalist... but this is a new game with a new bag of tricks, and Pika has more tricks than us by a lot.

 

[David Viran]

This match up doesn't look good but I know that it's not 1 to 9. That means it's such a bad match up that the opponent can put his controller down and still win.

 

[Cancel]

I havent played any pikachu that in that level yet but when i do i will see how hard that match will be.

 

[Demna]

It's not a great matchup (ZSS has issues hitting small characters in general), but let's not exaggerate numbers here. The matchup was supposedly 50-50 in Brawl, so I'd be surprised if it was any worse than 40-60 in Smash 4. It's too early to know, in any case.

Pretty sure the Brawl ZSS vs Pikachu was 40-60. Regardless, I'd like to see Esam vs Salem in Smash WiiU to get a little more knowledge about the MU and what not.

 

[David Viran]

Pretty sure the Brawl ZSS vs Pikachu was 40-60. Regardless, I'd like to see Esam vs Salem in Smash WiiU to get a little more knowledge about the MU and what not.

How do I watch a video of Salem. I've been looking for one.

Edit: Just looked at the brawl pikachu boards and they said the matchup was 50 50

 

[David Viran]

Here is a pikachu (Hinata) vs zss (choco) match
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJ6KM6Nbei8
I don't know what a good pikachu lookes like but this one seemed decent.

 

[Demna]

How do I watch a video of Salem. I've been looking for one.

Edit: Just looked at the brawl pikachu boards and they said the matchup was 50 50

I watched Salem live in Sky's stream, but irrc he didn't play vs Esam on stream.

MU is either 55:45 or 60:40

Ugh...I really don't wanna start because of how much I posted in that other thread, but I guess I have to since it is "outdated"

Pikachu is one of the 2 characters that can effectively gimp ZSS. T-jolt controls space which forces her to either DJ or down-b, and then pikachu's nair can do the rest. THe long lasting hitbox that doesn't send ZSS anywhere is perfect because it won't send her far enough to restart the mindgames (Hitting us off the ledge, being able to land on the ledge) and we can grab the ledge before she tethers. The only other person who can effectively gimp her is MK, with the same style nair.

This is Esam's PoV regarding this MU, which still hasn't changed. Both V115 and I think that this MU isn't even due to the info and gameplay that Esam displayed when playing against top ZSSs (Salem, NR, V115).

 

[David Viran]

I must have been looking at the outdated post.

 

[NickRiddle]

Pikachu is about as hard for ZSS in this game as he was in Brawl.
The MU is slightly in Pikachu's favor. We get VERY early kills because he's light, but his vortex is VERY strong against us considering we don't have a grab that's good against pressure.

 

[pichuthedk]

Since we all can agree we have a hell of a hard time hitting him maybe thats something that we need to think of a way to change.
While I'm generally bad at my supposed oh so cleaver strategy for small characters maybe some of you might succeed where I fail all the time.

Get rid of as much flat stages as possible I started thinking that stages with curves and bends can be used to our advantage for example: Pikachu can generally always avoid uptilt because of his aerials bringing him so low on the ground right?

Well that trait he has is eliminated when you take him to a stage like castle siege and only try to up tilt him when you are on lower ground while he is on higher ground due to the slants in certain parts of the stage, Further more things like down smashes that tend to come up just short vertically become the opposite and instead of just a small fence they can jump up over and punish it allows it to have a stronger threatening presence.

What sucks is it is sometimes easy to forget this and still use the wrong move or place your self to high/low causing salt.

 

[DeLux]

Unfortunately for the nonflat stages, while we gain the ability to hit them facing one way, we lose the ability to hit him facing the other way >_>

 

[pichuthedk]

yeah but that just forces you to be aware of
positioning because if you think about it having an idea of the times your guaranteed to hit him will halt the panic up tilts.