Board Thread:Super Smash Bros. Discussion/@comment-25746059-20141125004354/@comment-26223583-20150319183526

Murderous PuffBall wrote: Now that you say that, I am pretty sure that Pichu and Kirby are tied because Kirby does have some good attacks. (Eg. Hammer and Kirbycide). Pichu also is a good match-up against Kirby (though that doesn't really matter). Pichu, like you said, has some strong aspects. So maybe, I am wrong. Anyways, if it was tied, then why did they change the positions of Kirby and Pichu on the tier list?

In your opinion, they are tied. Pichu is higher on the tier list because generally, Pichu makes it much farther in tournaments than Kirby does. Pichu also has more competitive potential- the 20XX metagame for SSBM. Kirby falls out of the meta game easily and is easily gimped. Kirby has a predictable recovery and is easier to combo (much more so) than Pichu is. Kirby does not have many KO moves, less than Pichu and in fact, has useless grabs. Kirby is easily gimpable and his moves have too much start-up times and lag in comparison to Pichu. Kirby can not combo well at all and especially if it's a player that can DI. Pichu is much quicker and can follow up for better combo potential.

See, Kirby is just extremely disadvantaged in comparison to Pichu in the metagame. Because of this, Pichu is actually used much more than Kirby and can make it much farther against opponents. It's not impossible to have a good Kirby (Triple R has an amazing Kirby and almost has beaten Mew2King, one of the gods of Melee), but generally you can't go far with him.

This answers all of your questions as to why Pichu is better than Kirby and why they are not tied.