While I've always been an advocate of a high Pikachu placement, I think that he has some limiting factors that people don't often consider. Seeing him 3rd makes me a little skeptical given that ESAM is the only top-level representative (whereas characters like Fox and Ness have multiple). ESAM is great, and even he doesn't tap into Pikachu's full kit/options just yet, but Pikachu does have problems. And it's not just "range and kill power," as many people cite (remember that Pikachu has quite a few disjoints, and one of the strongest up-smashes in the game).



Quick Attack is amazing, but it has limitations. It doesn't start moving until frame 16-17 (though the hitbox appears on f15 iirc), so while it's good for getting away from juggle situations before they can even occur, it's not nearly as good for getting out of disadvantage immediately. If you're already being juggled, you have to rely on your jump->airdodge like everyone else. This makes Pikachu vulnerable to characters like Luigi (and to an extent Fox/ZSS, though he likely wins those MUs) who have tight, high-damage strings. Compare his f17 QA to ZSS' f4 flip jump and you'll see what I mean--13 frames is a world of difference.



His mobility overall is reliant on using Quick Attack. While he's fast on the ground in terms of run speed and walk speed, his initial dash is really mediocre: he doesn't stop fast enough so he has to commit to shielding when he dashes, and though his aerial acceleration is good his airspeed (as well as fall speed) is garbage, which makes it hard to avoid things like Megaman up-air sometimes.



Without Heavy Skull Bash, Pikachu will never kill you off of a throw or off of an aerial outside of an edgeguard. Period. You should not be dying to up-throw Thunder shenanigans, so shielding against Pikachu is very safe (heck his grab range isn't good, so you can shield pretty close to him). He doesn't even have a frame-2 KO setup move like Fox, in fact all of his KO setups involve trapping landings or edgeguarding. He may be better at KOing than Sheik when your opponent moves enough to allow you to make reads, but if your opponent is just cleverly dashing and shielding at opportune moments and punishing your own movements, getting the KO can be hard--really hard. Pikachu would love a 50:50 Vanish mixup or a Bouncing Fish setup (though reminder: Heavy Skull Bash makes this irrelevant).



Pikachu has had a major nerf that people are not considering fully, too; his ledge hang frames were increased (almost doubled) to be normalized with other characters'. Why was that huge? Because ledge trumping was one of Pikachu's biggest strengths--you had a huge window of time to do anything you wanted before that patch--as well as quickly getting back to (and subsequently off of) the ledge after an edgeguard attempt. Getting stocks as Pikachu using a combination of trumps and lightning-fast edgeguards was almost comically easy; your opponent had to buffer a ledge getup option all of the time, and that led to nice 50:50 mixups that ended with an up-smash or f-smash read. And while Pikachu isn't particularly vulnerable to edgeguards himself, the nerf also allows opponents to set up a good position against him when he's recovering or has reset to the ledge.



Pikachu is good, but he isn't Sheik. Sheik's weaknesses don't matter (low KO power doesn't matter when you have a million kill confirms, some off of a grab), Pikachu's weaknesses matter quite a bit and you can see the effects in many of his matchups that tend toward even (e.g., Ike, Mario) despite his impressive frame data.