I...play pikachu

“They can’t just stand there and take the thunder jolt” Me, a Lucario main: aha, free damage!

“In a battle of stray hits, Pikachu will always lose” I think that’s a succinct summary of the major problem with Pika’s gameplan. Smash isn’t a game about racking up damage, it’s about landing knockout blows. The damage is just a means to an end, and that end is fundamentally where Pikachu struggles to cash in against characters who have the mobility and/or tools to avoid being overwhelmed.

Moral of the story: esam has a horrible gambling addiction

Pika is the unique case where he doesn't need cheese to beat you because all of his moves were simply designed much better than yours

I would argue that pikachu's "dirty trick up his sleeve," comes passively in the form of his absurd hurtbox shifting in literally all of his landing animations. Even on a normal landing, pikachu's body flattens out on the ground making him near impossible to hit, especially with out of shield options, and even more especially for out of shield options from jump. This trick is especially dirty when you take into account that the way shields and parries work in this game means that you effectively cant parry his landing aerials, and you cant punish them when he hits shield because out of shield options in ultimate are heavily centered around jumping to bypass the 11 frame shield drop window. This effectively lets pikachu swing aerials at his opponent essentially risk free as only a small number of characters have an out of shield option that can reliably connect on pikachus landing animations. Combined with his aerials having good frame data, and tjolt being a strong tool to condition jump and shield in neutral from his opponent means he can pretty safely tjolt, follow it in and smother jump and pressure shield at the same time with a landing aerial. If they get caught out of shield they eat a combo and if they stay in shield they cant punish pikachu for swinging unless they have something like a GnW up b, which is not a common thing among the cast.

I think Pikachu **DOES** have at least one exploitable weakness and that's his reliance on tjolt as a neutral tool. This is evidenced by the fact that the characters that are often considered his worst matchups, like Game & Watch, Ness, Samus, Snake, Mario and Pacman all have ways to neutralise tjolt, and if you're able to do that consistently you're on the right path to beating him.

This should be titled “why ONE plays pikachu”, there’s great reasons to play him and even better reasons to not…

If you look at who is used by the top players, a lot of them have at least 1 reliable explosive option. Something that if they catch you will just kill you outright. It allows for explosive turn arounds that can negate being outplayed for a long time in one instant. Stuff like Steve Diamond/Anvil, Cloud Back Air, Byleth up B, Rob Back Air, Pyra Down Air, the entire design of Kazuya. These characters still have many of the required other tools to do well in neutral or combo or whatever, but the explosive factor means they are never far from catching back up or closing out the match. This is the one thing Pika really lacks. Pika can get sudden kills (as can any character), but they aren't free and easy. They typically require the right setups and execution, which is hard to get when you're on the back foot. Conversely, Pika's lightness means he can get blown up suddenly at even really low precents and a game he's been winning with his superior tools can suddenly flip back, invalidating all your work.

Love the why NO ONE / EVERYONE plays series. All the analysis and commentary is always super on point and concise. Can't wait to see who's next in the series.

0:32 just a note, Raichu actually was in the team that won the pokemon world championship in 2016, and while that was sort of the perfect moment that came once, it's really not that bad

I've always known pikachu to be a top-tier and had a general knowledge of why but this video explained it very well and I have a much better understanding of WHY pikachu is so good and actually gave me some ideas of what to look out for when fighting one. Excellent video 👌

Someone really needed to say all this man, Pikachu is very good but the whole nerf-the-rat campaign felt like complaining about a character in the absence of someone who genuinely needed nerfing, a default pick - well what do you know, now we’ve got some truly nerfable characters

I definitely see what you're trying to say with Pika's downsides. I think he does have amazing option coverage, consistent kill setups, and straightforward ways to close out stocks at higher percentage though (dash attack, Up Smash out of shield, and dash back F Smash come to mind). I think the main issue is what you alluded to earlier in the video about the skill and mental stamina required to pull all this stuff off consistently at top level. Similarly to what you said in the video, the best analog for this would be Sheik in my opinion. Perfectly executed Pika/Sheik (maybe add Joker to that list) would be the most unstoppable force in the game, besides maybe Steve (but we'll have to see how that goes with tech and counter play). To be clear, while I follow the Ult meta religiously, I am certainly not a top or even high level player. But I think that perhaps a lot of pro players don't want to admit that they don't have the ungodly level of skill and mental stamina required to play Pika in this way, so you hear things like, "Pika is broken, but he just doesn't click with me." Which is honestly understandable. It may end up that the so called "perfect Pika/Sheik" that I'm talking about is unattainable by human players to the extent that it isn't consistently viable versus top players playing characters that get results without as much extreme effort, skill and consistency. The technical ceiling for Pikachu and Sheik particularly is probably higher than any other character in my opinion though.

I was hoping he'd do one on Kirby or Pyra Mythra but this works, i feel with pikachu it's because of the stigma combined with how hard he is, why would you spend ours learning the combos of a character only for everyone to hate or rage quit your games

That Temporal Tower music brought back a lot of memories. If anyone reading this hasn't played Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky, DO IT! (you wont regret it!)

To make an analogy with how Pikachu is viewed in Ultimate despite lacking results, this would like if nobody played Fox in Melee, with most players playing Marth and Jigglypuff because they're significantly easier to play, yet Fox was still viewed as the best character in the game.

I’ve never been as happy as Pikachu is while doing a back-air 2:52

Shout out the the Pikachu main I encountered online. Chained an ungodly amount of short hop back airs without messing up once, edge-guarded beautifully, and ended up three stocking me. I was incredibly salty at the time, and temporarily blocked them out of frusteration, but looking back, I unblocked them, and can't help but respect the skill.

Awesome video!! Would love to see a Why No One Plays Villager/Isabelle in the future. Personally I think villager is underrated and both AC reps have the most creative move sets.

Something I find genuinely interesting. I keep track of the character data from the coinbox tournaments, and most characters in the agreed upon top five are pretty commonly played. Steve (1) Aegis (3) Joker (7) Wolf (8) R.O.B. (10) and fellow top tiers like Snake (11) and Kazuya (12) being played about 2% of the time. Pika, is just barely in the top 20. King K. Rool and Dedede get played more than Pika at the coinbox. I just find it interesting that a character so unanimously know as one of the best in the game gets played less than low tiers.

Do one of these on Bayonetta. I think it's pretty funny how people considered her top tier in early meta but no one played her.

I have always been confused about this one. Pikachu is undoubtedly one of, if not the strongest character in the game with no clear flaws yet many people don’t play him. This proposition of always having to think and think hard certainly is interesting but I wonder how true pros would find it.

You're making me want to see a Sheik/Joker/Pikachu meta show up in a few years.

That whole part of fear being a huge part of pikas game plan reminds me of Esam taunting to cause MVD to air dodge due to the sound clip being similar to thunder.

Great video overall! Just a couple of things. 1. Pikachu can circumvent most guess > take your stock situations with amazing combo game. On the majority of the cast, he can combo into uair bridges which is reactable on DI mixups and SDI. So, in theory, grab, or landing nair, rising uair > nair, bair > uair > nair, utilt > utilt > IDJ uair > nair, and dtilt (trip) all lead to nair loops on Joker. Since nair loops are reactable to DI and SDI, pikachu can true combo into uair bridges and take Joker’s stock. While being to circumvent the need to guess and condition to take a stock is an advantage, it creates a HUGE time sink and execution check that is almost unparalleled by any other smash character. The inputs themselves are fairly difficult, but it’s the reacting to DI and SDI and adjusting/knowing the exact combo route to still guarantee the kill, that is a level of mastery, not even ESAM demonstrates in bracket consistently. TLDR; I think your description is a great reason for why the character relies on his execution, which taking into account human error and the time needed to develop necessary execution skills, is inconsistent at best or simply not worth most players’ time. Super TLDR; super high skill ceiling (both in terms of execution and expression of fundamentals), super high skill floor (fundies and execution)

Before premier: People don't play Pika for a reason another commentator pointed because of the stigma that he is hard to play. He's not that hard but people are afraid to play him or simply choose not to. Edit: After watching the video I do agree, the only dishonest thing about him is the hurt box shifting but that's more physics than kit. It reminds me of Lucina, she's not busted because of kill power or foresight, she too needs the step 1 and 2 to win the game. Hence why people dropped her, a little too boring.

Pikachu is actually kind of notorious for his great option coverage, mainly because of thunder. He can cover low recoveries and high recoveries at the same time with thunder. His ledge trapping is also amazing due to his ability to force options and condition. Throw out fairs to cover jump, t jolt to pressure ledge hang, and forward smash for everything else.

“Pika has no dirty trick up his sleeve” Pancaking and up B disadvantage breaking option would like to have a word with you

>If you lose the "I know you know that I know that you know" WOW just like in actual pokemon comp where switching and predicting a switch can be massive momentum swings.

The way I look at Pikachu is, rather than having one or two cheese moves and a bunch of okay moves, he has all good moves and no cheese moves.

“Pikachus honest” and “one button neutral” don’t belong together

I get frustrated when fighting Pikachu in all honesty, but thinking back on it I can't really call any of my losses against pika as cheese or BS. I was just genuinely outplayed

Good translation of him describing a lot of Ultimate players: carried by their main or support characters you don’t have to work hard to understand. Can’t wait to hear your thoughts on Peach/Daisy.

I remember getting into Pikachu a bit often around the mid-late end of Smash 4 and when I was getting a bit more into MvC2. Pikachu's combo game felt fun and yet so familiar considering the way he combos was like that of a MvC character to some extent,but as you mentioned countless times in the vid,Pikachu just didn't have that kill throw,kill confirm,or even a powerful aerial that would get the job done at least on stage,and that's what arguably led me to losing most of my matches combined with my already poor skill level. Compared to my mains and even my secondaries,Pikachu needed to clinch his wins with more thought on how to get to kill and/or good edgeguarding. Still,great vid though.

would've liked to see some stats on how much pikachu is played compared to the rest of the cast

Pikachu was my main in Smash 4, because Smash 4 had like no combos and very slow movement, and Pikachu was one of the few characters that could combo and wasn't too badly hindered by being slow. And I dropped him for Palutena, a widely considered low tier in that game. Funny enough, Palutena became a top tier by simply reducing the landing lag of her attacks.

I would argue Pikachu’s back air is absolutely a dirty trick up his sleeve. It comes out super fast, combos into itself, and most egregious of all it pancakes underneath everyone else’s moves!

Why would you even wanna nerf a character you only see in bracket once in a blue moon?

hmm that a very interesting take i always kinda thought that about pikachu but i was never able to put it in words

that temporal tower theme

So basically, Pikachu is like the Terran race from Starcraft: Brood Wars, where if you can play really well, you can dumpster most everyone else, but if you slip up once and give you're opponent an opening and they exploit it, you're pretty dead. Players like ESAM and Flash makes the game look easy, but keeping that perfect defense is incredibly taxing to most people.

Pikachu is honest? I almost choked on my pancakes. XD

Sort of correction. Fox is also one of the original 12, and is a usual in the high-top tier area. Brawl is arguable, but he only really picked up at the end as a good character. False Swipe Gaming have made a video on Fox, too, if you're interested.

I thought no one played him because of the stigma. I've heard a lot of pros say he's broken bs character. Gets away with stuff for free because his size. I could go on, but it just seemed that people didn't have any respect for the character and people that played him. However people play the hell out of Steve and I think that characters disdained even more so maybe I'm off.

Ah, the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon music in the background. Vars has good taste.

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon really has lovely music

What do you mean! We have lots of Pikachu players like uhh [thinks for a bit] Esam, r-right? And uhhh ummm E-Es-Esam

I don't really think that Pikachu is really needing or even wanting the opponent to be scared of him (even though it helps). The problem with Pikachu is that he's hard, really hard and can't rely on stray hits. The reason why Esam is so good with him is because he's stuck with the character for 3 games now and takes the time to lab out EVERYTHING he can and even with an encyclopaedic knowledge of the character, it's still hard to get every piece of damage out of every interaction. Pikachu is the biggest time sink to main and that's why I think people don't play him.

I really like this series. I think an episode on Greninja could be really cool because I think Gren is a viable character but I don't see anybody playing him. I would love to see an episode on him.

... actually, Pikachu isn't that hard now that I think about it for more than 2 seconds. All of his smash attacks are strong and have great utility, his aerials can carry opponents around the stage *with ease* (and I really emphasize *ease* because they are all fantastic), an incredible recovery that also has combo potential, and an up throw that not only kill-confirms into Thunder at early percents, but also kills outright later. And let's not forget his infamous HURTBOX SHIFTING, basically giving him a chance to have his aerials go completely unpunished. The community thinks he's hard because he has a lot of difficult tech, like up air bridges and lightning loops. But besides the loops, that tech isn't 100% needed to do well with him. Honestly, after playing him for about two months, I think he's an easy character! Pichu is much harder. (Made before watching the video)

Raichu was a key part of the team that one the Pokémon VGC world championship in 2016, so it’s actually pretty good.

The difficulty of execution is another thing that heavyly hinders Pikas success. You could kill with one hit at 0% if you execute the Nair loop into Upair Bridge perfectly but none of his combos are autocombos, of which you only need to learn the inputs to pull of, like Rob for example. You need to always concider the DI and environmenr while threading a needle.

I did a 12-CPU tournament in SSBU including Pikachu who just missed the playoffs by one spot. The top eight advanced. Pit was dead last, do him next please!

fantastic video, points are well made and presented in an easy to understand manner even made accessible to newcoming Smash players with the in-depth explanation of fundamentals. 10 out of 10

Can you do “why nobody plays duck hunt” I feel like he’s a cool character that I see almost never

Nice taste in video game music btw

honestly, i'm still waiting for why no one plays banjo. i do have some of the ideas why no ones plays him. i'll write them here in a brief text, so that the comment isn't long. 1) his design: banjo is a Trapper and a Hit and Run character (yes, he is not a zoner) who excels at conditioning his oponent, keeping a constant presure and escaping any situation that he is in pretty easy. he also has a pretty good ledge trapping game and has a really high recovery, with a pretty fast and disjointed down air that makes him fall down, alongside good kills set ups and pwerful kill options that you can set up without problem. in exchange he loses the ability to make combos relaiably, banjo loses the ability to combo reliably. his combos are powerful when they connect but they depnd completely on tha stages he is in and his combos are most of the times 2 hits in a row, it is hard to do 3 or 4 combo with banjo and the combos are strings, meaning that they are not true. 2) banjo's DLC privielege: banjo is a DLC character to begin with. meaning that you need to spend 6 more dollars to actually play him and many players will not do that, so they need something that call their attetion to buy him and banjo is sold mostly for his nostalgia factor and his moveset reflects it. banjo lack any DLC privielege, he only has one gimmick that is wonderwing. wondering is good because it powerful and invencible, meaning that wonderwing can't be challenge buy anything, but you can only use five times per stock. this makes wonderwing balance but takes away some BS and makes him more honest. Compared to the character that was revelead alongside banjo, hero, banjo seems far less of a DLC character. 3) banjo is a mid tier/low tier: Banjo and Hero are not as good as the other DLC characters, often considered the 2 worst DLC characters. hero for his incosistency, but our focus is banjo. he is a pretty exploitable character once he is unable to presure with anything, he becomes easy to predict. and while he can run away, if he can't come back to fight he just won't be able to play his neutral. this hurts his game plan, because when is predictable, he loses so much presure so quickly because he uses his wonderwings and without them he loses the game. 4) banjo is boring: banjo's game plan is boring for many players. he set up traps to condtions his oponents, then makes a shorts string to pnish his conditioning and repeats. when he is not in advantge, he needs to run away. but when he is back in neutral he repeats the same pattern until you make trap that leads into death. this how banjo is played optimally and for many is not fun. if you ever wondered why people play hero and not banjo, here is why. hero luck factor makes him always fun and enjoyable to play and watch, banjo is sometimes fun to play and really hard to have fun to watch. this the reason last point is the main reason why no one plays banjo. he is not fun to play optimally for many, and as a banjo player myself, i can confirm that. i do enjoy play banjo because i found to make him more fun for me, but is not his optimal strategy, and i do not enjoy playing that type of games all the time. i like banjo but i know that that how play it is not the way intended to play him.

At the end you said that the only one step plan that pika has to close out a stock is up throw, but that’s not true. Pika dash attack is deceptively hard to punish if thrown out in neutral as it is fast, has low end lag and pika can run away or rely on his small hit box to dodge any whip punishes. It doesn’t kill super early, but I think I heard Esam say that it kills at 140 with good DI. It is a pretty good stock ender if you can’t find an edge guard or combo.

As a casual with Pikachu as my main, I 100% agree with the force the opponent to react strategy. It works pretty well, and feels like a natural way of playing the character.

W video thanks for the insight

Good video

I am once again asking for a why no one plays ridley

Spamming thunder jolt on ledge makes it for tether recoveries impossible to snap to ledge. That’s the one and only non honest part of him.

“He has no cheese.” *quick attack noises in sm4sh ensue*

You gotta do young link. I still remember tweeks legendary run with him couple years back

I wouldn’t have suggested Pikachu for a “Why no one plays” but yeah, as it turns out, I do get outpaced a lot by the competition when I play as him though.

Back in the day thunder jolt, was called thunder shock.

Great vid, Could you possibly do a "Why everyone plays Steve"?

“Everything that makes him good does not explicitly and totally undermine any other member of the cast. Essentially, Pikachu is a very honest character”. Um excuse me? The edge guards? Pikachu vs every heavy ever?

I was hoping for an episode on Duck Hunt

I think also a thing that affects pikachu is that he has to always think when playing a decent player, this can be mentally exhausting.

Dash attack is also a silly move that I just start throwing out at kill percent sometimes. Dash attack is busted.

You forgot to add this to your playlist

A Why no ones play Ike could be insteresting, I feel like it would be cool to see how his revelance in the meta progressively disapperead

When a no one plays turns into everyone plays

Kinda funny how you said t jolt was one of the best projectiles in the game but then say it's honest. I mean, it can still take stocks by gimping recoveries with it's great angle and pika's pressure is incredible solely because of it. It's his "when in doubt, do this" move because it lets him do everything. The fact that it has zero knockback makes it even better since he can combo into it at any percent.

Pikachu has an special item that doubles it's attack/special attack. He's not a weak pokemon at all.

Aaaaaaaa the Mystery Dungeon music :')

pmd music go crazy

Cant wait for why nobody plays duck hunt

FYI this video is missing from the playlist, would be cool if it is added!

Honestly I’d really like to see a why no one plays Hero and Corrin, they’d be interesting to see.

POKEMON MYSTERY DUNGEON MUSIC

You should do one of these on marth or meta knight next!

Hoping for a Cpt Falcon video soon!

As a Pikachu main since Melee, you were speaking facts the whole video 🤣

i had a dream last night that i picked up pikachu is was so weirdly out of place never even thought about it in my life…

I’m a pikachu main and basically spamming the lighting rain move makes you invincible

His recovery is very hard if it wasn’t for that he’d be my main just don’t feel like taking the time to get it consistently

I honestly still enjoy playing Pikachu as a “secondary”. I’m by no means a pro, I’m just a casual who plays with friends online and offline. But I love his movement and how you can get into a good rhythm with him. I do think the whole pancaking thing should have been fixed but so it goes

I'd say Fox is also another character that's been consistently good in every iteration. Even in Brawl which is probably his worst incarnation he was still upper high tier and one of the few characters that was considered to have an even MU against Meta Knight.

Ain’t no way that tier list at the beginning at Snake as #1

Whats the song at the end?

I feel like you did raichu a little dirty. Raichu is a solid pokemon, not the best, but it does have some great tools. Lightning rod + Fake out and volt switch are all excellent tools to have on doubles especially since weather like rain is more prevalent. It always seems to find a niche of sorts.

I would really like to see a why no one plays Zelda video

You should do why nobody plays Marth next

You'd think with how everyone complains about Pikachu being broken, unfair, and stupid (good), they would play the broken, unfair, and stupid (good) character and win. (Then again, no one plays Joker, so....) But anyways, before premiere: I think it's just because there's this weird collective agreement that Pikachu is really hard to play. His combos, like the Lightning Loops and 0-Death near-ledge combo, take some practice to get in a real match, but everything else he's so privileged in. I personally think it's weird there aren't many Pikachu players even at low levels because Thunder Jolt, N-air, B-air trains, and deep edgeguards are so easy to be comfortable with. At top level, you do have to master his combos which again, takes some labbing, but outside of that, Pikachu is just easy to pick up and play. Perhaps it's just the whole "Pikachu is really hard to play" mentality that pushes people away, when in actuality, "Pikachu is busted." At least, until you run into a Game and Watch, Samus, Ness, or Mario--who is fairly common at lower levels. That's my take, though. After premiere: "Pikachu is honest." That's one controversial take, I tell ya lol Anyway, I didn't really think about how Pikachu doesn't have a "win button" outside of B-air trains, unlike G&W and Mario, and Pika pretty much covers only one or two options at best. Also, it's true that many top players aren't really afraid of Pikachu because they're prepared for him (Marss beating Esam several times in what should be a terrible matchup for ZSS, comes to mind), so Pikachu players have to be absolutely on point with everything to take the set. I guess that's where the "hard to play" comes in, huh?

Controversial opinion but You should do a video on the miis that would be awesome due to me playing all 3

I agree with most of this but pika can very easily cover both high and low recovery at the same time against most of the cast due to t jolt and thunder