A small essay on Lucas' UpB

Often I see players praise the creativity and outside the box thinking of the PK Thunder Loop (or whatever it is called).

For those unfamiliar with the technique, it is to ring the PK Thunder around you to hit your potential edgeguarding opponent and secure a safe way back to the stage.

Here, HyperFlame performs it to get StrongBad out of the way to UpB safely:

https://gfycat.com/DigitalFantasticAustrianpinscher

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However cool and smart of an idea it may look, it is actually one of the worst ways of coming back to the stage Lucas has at his disposal.

Let me explain:

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The way recoveries work, is that if you get hit by a move, you get it back.

However, a few characters, Lucas being one of them, are different in the sense that they can get hit out of their recoveries without getting them back. If they hit PKThunder, you begin free falling to your doom.

The way this is circumvented is by having Lucas put his PK Thunder behind him to recover, that way, Lucas acts like a human shield for the PKThunder.

If you aim for PKT, Lucas will take the hit, and if he is hit, he can UpB again.

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So, when you purposely put the PKT between yourself and your opponent, you are turning the PKT into your human shield.

You are making it EASIER for your opponent to snipe PKT, and unlike if they hit you, if they hit PKT, you're not given a second try.

Any non-transcendent hitbox can break PKT, so when you PKT Loop, you gamble on your opponent not pressing any buttons.

Here, Malachi attempts to repeatedly needle HF's recovery in Sheik fashion, however, without even trying, snipes the PKT Loop and HyperFlame dies:

https://gfycat.com/BadImprobableBordercollie

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If you're learning this to add mix-ups to your arsenal because you think Lucas' recovery without tether is limited, you are literally adding the only option that can easily get you killed at 0% against any character that isn't MetaKnight.

If you're that scared of fast and bold edgeguarders that will jump out and banish you to oblivion before you can hit yourself with PKT, one of the best ways to survive this predicament is ironically, to get hit.

https://gfycat.com/WhichAlarmingChrysomelid

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All those clips were taken from the same set.

When you're hit, PKT continues on a straight line following the direction it was facing before you lost control of it, and, while you can't get launched the way you would in a regular UpB, you can still get hit by the PKT.

If Lucas hits the tail of the PKT, he will be given minimal hitstun and therefore can try from the same position again immediately after getting hit.

And if Lucas hits the head of the PKT, he will be launched in the opposite direction, successfully landing onstage, while his opponent is still offstage.

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In any position you would be able to do the PKT Loop, you can put the PKT trail on the path the opponent's move you're scared of would send you to.

Be it diagonal launching moves like Sheik's fair or Falcon's knee, or spikes, you can position the PKT in a way that you will bounce off it if you're hit, and due to the way PKT is aimed, it usually is the most natural movement.

https://gfycat.com/WeirdJointAlbino

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You can always stall the PKT behind you in case you expect to get hit a bit after, so you can avoid most offstage gimps with a bit of forward planning.

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Hopefully this could help you improve your Lucas recovery or at the very least, as a commentator, made you not scream "what happened?! what was that?!" the next time you see someone bounce off the PKT.