How GOOD was Greninja ACTUALLY? - History of Greninja in Competitive Pokemon (Gens 6-7)

it's the first Sunday of the month and you know what that means it's the patient's turn to pick the Pokemon and through a narrow voting process against vileplume greninja already huh yeah okay so greninja has won the patron pick and so I guess I'm covering a Gen 6 Pokemon even though we haven't finished yet one ok whatever next up we have greninja although it debuted in the 6th generation it quickly made its mark among Pokemon fans as one of the most popular Pokemon of all time rivaling even giants like Charizard and Mewtwo it also established itself as possibly Ash's most powerful Pokemon of all time doing what fans had predicted for years and actually fusing with him to become the fearsome ash greninja and you know a pokemon is popular when it gets its own exclusive form but today we're going to examine if this ninja fraud could carry over this kind of success into the competitive scene and so we asked how good was greninja actually and in this video we'll be going over these competitive formats greninja was instantly one of the most defining important and dangerous offensive threats in the x and y ou u meta game it was ridiculously fast it was the fastest non mega Pokemon around and even then it was only beaten out by Megaman Ettrick and mega Alakazam after they had mega evolved safely since they retained their original speed stat on the turn they became a mega technically it was naturally out sped by talonflame blood talon flames brave bird was priority so it didn't really count not to mention that talonflame only occasionally ran the jolly nature required to actually out speed greninja anyway speed was not the only factor in determining if a Pokemon was good or else accelgor would be top-tier oh you so what made greninja so good well it also had a quality special attack set of a hundred and three making it naturally poised to be a fast strong water type attacker like an improved version of star me from the previous three generations of oh you however there was one more factor that truly made greninja amazing it wasn't just a water attacker it was actually an everything attacker thanks to his hidden ability protein a word introduced to many through Pokemon which means versatile are frequently easily changing greninja took on the type of every single attack in youth meaning that it received stabbed on every single one of its attacks giving it incredible power ice beam which would normally never come close to ko and latias even with stealth rock up suddenly easily cleanly one-hit ko Larios from full HP this was an unprecedented level of threat and was compounded by greninja expansive coverage move pool extrasensory utterly destroyed the mega venusaur looking to shrug off ice beam with its thick fat ability while also letting it threaten out Keldeo which was crucial given how dangerous Keldeo was dark pulse mauled the MU bulky enough to withstand its hydro pumps as well as aegislash while Aegis last was stolen to tier greninja even got stabbed on its hidden powers fire slammed Ferrothorn and mega sizzler while grass dumpster to zoom arrow and Rotom wash now greninja couldn't run all of these moves but just running four of them made it able to threaten the vast majority of if not the entirety of most common teams as if that wasn't enough greninja had u-turn to keep momentum whilst applying stealth rock and additional light ship damage against chancy could also substitute to potentially grab to chaos as the opponent attempted to sacrifice a slower pokémon like Landorus incarnate in order to safely bring in their revenge killer and greninja could even support its own offensive assault as well as its teammates by softening up the other team via using spikes as the opponent's wished in fear of its attacks being able to change types also made greninja harder to deal with since it changed what moves it was week two at will it was still fragile but the extra turn to gain when turning a potential one-hit ko into a 2 hit ko was potentially huge the most notable example was spiking in front of Rotom wash and becoming immune to its vaults which the only Pokemon that could safely shrug greninja off regardless of its coverage or hazards Plus clefable who always invested enough special defense to avoid being to hit KO by two life orb hydro pumps however even clefable couldn't prevent its teammates being affected by the spikes greninja would lay as clefable came in so despite its frailty greninja was a top-tier pokemon and already considered to be on the brink of being too good for o you by the end of x and y and then omega ruby and alpha sapphire came around gifted greninja dunk shot now it could wipe out even its one true Czech clefable with ease and azumarill stood absolutely no chance greninja became incredibly overwhelming to deal with as some players even resorted to the otherwise underwhelming noivern just because it could revenge kill it without a choice scarf as such and didn't take a long time for greninja to be banned from oh you becoming the second starter Pokemon to do so after Blaziken greninja was the quintessential offensive pokemon blazing fast strikingly powerful and a diverse move pool boasting a cornucopia of coverage and even spikes there was nothing that could come close to taking its place it was truly one of a kind and was one of the most important facets of X&Y before it became unequivocally considered to be too much to handle so one may wonder did greninja have any use in the uber tier and the answer is kind of but not really it certainly wasn't going to be overpowering a tier full of bulky monstrosity such as primal Groudon primal Kyogre and the Arceus form so it had to rely on guile sonic boom it could use its high speed to set up both spikes and toxic spikes while taunting the opponent preventing them from de fogging its hazards away as it was faster than even arcus or setting up stealth rock it could even use shadow sneak as its last move to turn itself ghost-type thus blocking rapid spin attempts from excadrill while toxic spots were potentially lethal against many common threats such as the primal xerneas and nearly every Arceus greninja was a bit too hit or miss to carve out a real niche it struggled against common leads like dark rye and deoxys speed and attack that said it technically did have a roll it could fill for the enterprising uber player so at least there's that greninja strengths translate very curiously into the realm of VGC while fast and frail cleaners don't always translate well into doubles due to the burden of facing down multiple opponents that could threaten them greninja is just so incredibly good at what it does that there's still an argument for putting it into many teams proteans type shifting lets greninja adapt to whatever specific situation its team requires of it forgoing typical stat boosts to become a preeminent dragon killer with ice beam and answer to opposing water types with grass knots or even a designated aegislash removal tool if it does choose to stick to its dark type roots once more doubles lets greninja flex the second of its unique signature moves Matt blocked which can only be used the first turn greninja is on the field but blocks all damaging attacks against your side of the field for a turn Matt block let greninja play a pseudo supporting role enabling set of sweepers such as garchomps crafty Dragonite or hard-hitting but vulnerable pokémon like chandelure however matt block comes with a caveat unlike other protect style moves it doesn't actually have priority of course greninja speed frequently meant it would be the first pokemon to move anyways but the fact that Matt blog has normal priority then it didn't do a great job of showing up grinning just two biggest weaknesses which were just the same as in singles priority and scarf users and what did she know at the 2014 meta game was riddled with strong priority users such as mega Kangaskhan mega Mawile and talonflame as such greninja also greatly accepted having those priority users on its team since they were able to protect greninja against fast Pokemon that might snipe it off greninja thus also encourage the use of other less-common priority users such as extreme speed Dragonite and aqua jet azumarill greninja was so varied in its coverage that it's still hard to prep for it that block was fine but the threat greninja exerted meant that protect was often the better choice especially since it would let teammates handle the opposing Pokemon that could out speed greninja greninja sets were almost always life orb and timid for maximum speed and damage although a select few opted for hasty or naive to utilize rockslide as well if it was any other item it was expert belt or focused ash what this all boils down to is a Pokemon that can be remarkably hard to use in certain situations and exert a hugely potential threat in others but maybe most important is that greninja is a ton of fun to use your opponents have to constantly be on their toes for the random extra century or rockslide you might be running as such greninja saw a good amount of usage even though it had to be scared of the powerful priority in the format and because of the large amount of placements we found will only be including the top eight placements or introductions of new strategies to start off the season Patrick were Prader ik may top eight at the Virginia regional is using greninja in a starter trio alongside venusaur and Charizard a nice fire water grass court that let chlorophyll venusaur take advantage of Charizard Sun and also let your water type frog magically become another type whenever I wanted however that trio also allowed for greninja to take advantage of other signature move and with the amount of signature it's this thing has someone should investigate it for identity fraud as you might know starter Pokemon have near exclusive access to the pledge moves which are doubles exclusive attacks that can combine to create unique terrains in green ninjas case pairing up with grass pledge made a swamp to slow opponents and thus worse greninja serve a dual purpose it's fast ice beams let it take out opposing garchomps while the swamp let warzone Garchomp and mega Charizard wreak havoc against faster Pokemon were also handed his greninja of focus ash increasing the likelihood it was set up the swamp come winter regionals e'en Packer used the core of Dragonite mega kangaskhan and a surprise hidden power fire greninja which he would use throughout the season and took 9th place at Salem regionals introducing the Dragon Knight greninja pair that would come to perform quite well greninja also saw immediate international success in Japan as it made top 8 at to battle Road Gloria qualifiers a player known as torune the top eight in the GaN u qualifier using it a long side help out on annoy burn along with this usual partner mega kangaskhan while player known as how made top eight at the touhou cool off by putting it on a pseudo hail room team well there was no word that loved greninja more than Oceania at the Melbourne fan event Luke Bradley used mac block for a distinctly different purpose protecting cliff cage so it could set up dual screens giving him a top four at the event in this region the ninja frog was a common sight in top eights the entire season long as I guess I liked warm waters in Perth a senior's player known as Matthew finished 3rd with their greninja team meanwhile in Adelaide's masters division Ethan aka Ethier finished six and the Brisbane senior saw Michael take 3rd using greninja while Dennis placed 4th by using the klefki greninja combo to set up mega Tyranitar ml born James D also used greninja and smeargle on a dual mega team of Charizard y and Kangaskhan to play 7 New Zealand's first-ever regionals saw a surfeit of greninja it continued its string of seniors appearances alongside another strong priority user in azumarill and a rogue bar Burkle on the team of bronze medalist thomas and it also saw two top eight appearances and masters son put it with mega venusaur to play six and josh used both priority users in the Zoomer row and Dragonite to finish top for Australian nationals also saw greninja used alongside azumarill on the team of ty the blue fox Power who used a unique set with scald dark pulse rocks light and matte to place top 32 greninja also saw three top eight placings at South Africa's first-ever Nationals on the teams um and I'm sorry if I butchered name's Nicola Radovic Adnan Amman daeun and Nikhil Gokul who plays fourth sixth and seventh respectively back in the US Ian Packer used the same greninja Dragonite Angus encore to play six at the Athens Georgia spring regionals meanwhile Salt Lake City regionals saw chase library used the usual greninja venusaur czar trio to place fourth greninja didn't see the same love in the US Nationals as it did in Oceania as only a single greninja made top 32 on the team of Brian gens who finished 30th as Jen's used a usual cast of suspects to support greninja including mega Kangaskhan mega venusaur and talonflame however that drop in usage forecasted greninja's future as it didn't have a single notable placing at worlds where the meta game had shifted even more towards using and countering kangaskhan am on that greninja has always struggled with however that didn't stop players from using greninja after worlds as greninja actually did quite well at the fall regionals that capped off the 2014 season it had one last ride with dragon eye on Kyle Tim Burke stopped a team at Fort Wayne and two top 16 finishes in Philly worth mentioning for their unique styles Jeremy Rodriguez brought a pledge team with venusaur to enable his Chandelure and Haxorus well Jonathan Hillier inspired by sage in part use greninja with a roster of other electric weak Pokemon such as mega arrow and talonflame to fully utilize the squirrels potential 2015 saw greninja nominally buffed with the addition of junk shot to its move pool allowing it to effectively hit ferry types which were previously one of the few obstacles to its near omnipotent coverage while this addition was absurd enough to propel greninja to ubers and singles 2015's more defensive meta games made a even harder for greninja to get the one-to-one trades or kills that made it worth its weight in 2014 not all get me wrong gun shot was still good especially for chunking the common sylveon's and greninja's coverage was still amazing as its ice beans were invaluable against the ubiquitous Landers T also gun shot wasn't its only new toy low kick was quite useful for dealing with mega Kangaskhan greninja had about one good tournament per region in the early days of the season as Indonesia's first or as tournaments saw two green ninjas in the top three credit of and I apologize if I butcher your name you Rosie Suleiman and Jonathan Romblon who both put it together with mega Mawile in South Africa if followed up as good performance in the previous year's inaugural tournament with three top eight placements at the GAO chang regionals Stephen Botha used it on a trick room team with Jellison and mega bomb Sultan placed eighth law ruin Ponson Grove used it with heavy redirection and heavy hitters to play seven finally Nicola Radovic placed third using greninja with his own Charizard wife and Europe greninja had a singular good performance with Matteo genie using it with quite a few of the format's top threats including mega King mega Charizard y Heatran Silvia and Landers teeth and saw good success placing 7 at the German nationals over in Southeast Asia John King Liu also used it on a team of good stuffs swapping out Heatran and Charizard for amoonguss and talonflame to finish top four at the Taiwan regionals and finally Alberto Lara made top 32 at the US Nationals with a team adapted from his SoCal and Utah regionals winning hyper offensive build which used a spread move combo of Sylvia and Charizard wife as well as a bulky set of sweeper Salamis while greninja wasn't on the SoCal and Utah versions Albertson swapped out his con calendar for greninja in order to deal with thunderous and Zapdos Alberto maintained that greninja was one of the most underrated pokemon in the format allowing its unpredictability above all who ninjas ice beam and grass knots were a huge factor and letting it eliminate specific threats such as suicune and Zapdos however that unpredictability could also mean inconsistency as greninja once again saw no worlds usage in 2014 as the meta settled amoonguss became a bigger and bigger problem and sure greninja was functionally an ice type but players started specking there among gases to live ice beams and if there's anything greninja hates more than priority its redirection reneges frailty meant it saw no use in 2016 and it ended gen 6 without a world's appearance to its name a unique pokemon whose low bulk meant being consistent with it was always a difficulty greninja was released in - oh you once again with the release of Sun and Moon the addition of Z moves made it even more threatening as the power boost was welcomed especially since unlike many Z users it would always have stabbed on its Z moves thanks to protein plus it could even increase its coverage with dig since ones eat up into tectonic rage it would remove the charge turn absolutely destroy would be walls toxsa pecs and magaña z moves also helped it bypass even chancy low kick the move it would use for z-fighting would normally almost never even three hit Kayla the pink blob thanks to its low base power corresponding to chancy's low weight however when boosted until all-out pummeling it had a great chance to straight-up one-hit ko chancy after stealth rock or other slight chip damage such as its own spikes that said greninja was still a huge threat even without Z crystals attached life orb was as powerful as ever and even the downside of its recoil was now offset by the passive recovery of highly common taboo bulu and the grassy terrain its summit this was another point in greninja favour as it thrived in three of the four new terrains besides grassy terrains recovery it also provided a boost for greninja potential grass coverage letting it really plow through Rotom wash and the occasional gastro Don psychic terrain boosted greninja's extra century which led it absolutely Moll tox effects as well as amoonguss and mega venusaur finally misty terrain met greninja couldn't be status notably protecting it from here and as if that wasn't enough it preyed on the rest of the meta game since it speeds that remain top tier allowing it to out speed and offensively check opposing threats already considered fast such as Cortana mega latias and tornado styrian the only common non scarfed non mega pokemon faster than it was topo cocoa which was not a safe switching in addition to being a major threat itself greninja continued to set up spikes making itself and its teammates even more difficult to deal with as a bonus it reliably threatened the de foggers allowing the spikes to stick around although I usually focus on simply being as much of an offensive threat as possible gen 7 so green ninja become capable of taking on more of a supporting role with a choice scarf set while it may seem counterintuitive to put a scarf on Pokemon with speed as high as greninja it helped its team deal with the many Pokemon who could boost their speed to higher levels it outran every other of opposing choice gar first such as cartina and top boules lee protecting its team from getting cleaned up by their stabs late-game it also checked monsters like quiver dance Volcarona and dragon dance mega Charizard X with rockslide and even out sped the Pokemon that commonly doubled their speed like shift gear majora and swift's win mega Swampert in rain in addition to its unmatched speed a kept momentum with u-turn and even pressured the opposing team with spikes or toxic spikes making it a diver easy-to-use scarf ER now while regular protein greninja was a tremendous Pokemon the seventh-generation had blessed it with an even better ability battle bond this may seem lofty as not many abilities can match proteins use for offensive Pokemon and losing it as a blow but battle bonds benefits were absolutely incredible upon tailing an opposing Pokemon greninja would evolve into ash greninja a Pokemon that would without question be Boober if it started the match in this form as it boasted a speed stat eclipsing even top of Coco's and even more impressively a special attack stats oppressing that of the mighty Kyogre it also had Landorus Tyrians Massive Attack stat but it didn't even need it on most occasions as it only sparingly used gunk shot or u-turn with the latter being more of a momentum tool anyway ash greninja used choice specs which gave it the power in needed to muscle through as many Pokemon as possible maximizing its ability to brute-force its way to a KO its main stab attacks hydro pump and dark pulse provided excellent powerful coverage and though it had its fair share of answers such as grass types tox effects and assault vest mogera those could be exploited with spikes on the swish which would wear them down throughout the game and made greninja significantly more difficult to check later in the game allowing it to evolve and finish the opposing team off as if all that wasn't enough greninja was not only capable of checking opposing threats naturally with its excellent speed but it could check even faster Pokemon with its powerful priority water shuriken that also got a base power increase once greninja evolved and sometimes even fit ice beam over spikes it paired with spiking Ferrothorn making it even more difficult to check with Pokemon like top abbulu or assault vest tangrowth it could also potentially be even stronger as rain teams bolstered its hydro pump and water shuriken to life-giving ash greninja and even easier time to evolve and sweep ash greninja shaped the entire tier and one had to go out of their way to be incredibly safe against it defensively or they would just get crushed this wasn't just another offensive threat like top alele or cure in black that one could just cut their losses against and then revenge kill with more often this was the offensive threat to end all offensive threats and it was merciless it required care in both the team builder and even the battle because if given even a slight bit of leeway such as its sole check being put in rain of two dark pulses and opening itself up to that nasty 20% flinch rate then greninja would take it and run away with the game plus players didn't initially know whether the greninja on the opposing team was protein or battle bond and battle bond had to be accounted for more so because if left unchecked it was snowball like nothing else so once switching to an ash greninja check like topo fini could potentially find themselves getting utterly crushed by Pro T and gunk shot both variants of greninja were a defining feature of generation 7 oh you and ash greninja in particular revolutionized the meta game while ash greninja made a ridiculous singles Pokemon even more amazing it was banned in VGC and given how frail greninja is and the fact that Astron injur relied on choice specs frequently it honestly probably wouldn't have been that great anyways but that's just speculation nevertheless greninja still saw some uses in gen 7 once it was allowed back into the format its protein gunshots were incredibly useful in removing the tapas that dominated the format save for taboo coco who could out speed and KO it beforehand z moves also meant that greninja unpredictability was ratcheted up a whole nother level enabling it to pick off surprise chaos the high amount of fire types in the format also let it return to using water type coverage something that wasn't as frequent in Gen 6 however it was matte block that really saw a good amount of usage if you wanted a water type you use top Ruffini greninja was primarily used to remove fairy types and let its partners set up starting off the year Nicolas no compo use greninja to do just that alongside one of the best setup sweepers in the game Volcarona greninja didn't just let Volker on a set up with matte block though it was also tailored to remove Volker ona's biggest checks such as heat rant Landorus t and in sinner or Nicolas ended up placing seven at the chale special event a similar version of this Volcarona greninja duel also gotten the Manchus on Dec 5th at the Dreamhack regional championship in Germany where he used cart honest crafty mega Kangaskhan and Landorus therian in addition this team would prove attractive enough that multiple other players used it in the season Emiliano Reyes Castro rock greninja back to chile by using the team to play second at both the chile and hop of mechs special events and Joaquin Reyes then used the team to finish fifth in the Santiago regional championships in addition as Stefan Valder bonito used a Charizard y greninja to to finish behind Emiliano at the first special event green ninjas Latin American uses wasn't limited to chill a either the dual of Nicole Wong Kar Bebo and Sebastian Escalante placed second and third at the Argentina special event on a team of mega Gengar in sinner or taboo bulu clefairy and como oh this scene was predicated on using green ninjas mat block to let coma all set up and sweet a strategy also used by Fabian Brown at the prog special event with gunshot ice beam and dark pulse greninja handled the fairy Salamence Assante Landorus therian that might have threatened ko Mahal but wait you say greninja gets out sped by top of cocoa you just said that and that's why Fabian ran scarf greninja and with the extra speed he was able to move speed Eevee's to attack letting him invest in both his physical and special moves this strategy paid off getting Fabian third at the special event another example of greninja being used for support came from Jerry Myers who used it alongside extreme evil boost Eevee at the Salt Lake regionals with Matt Block in place Eevee was more likely to get its boost off and baton pass greninja also carried time which led us shut down opposing spores or other strategies to stop evil boost Jerry's usage of this strategy netted him a $600 nun Durr as Australian grandmum Eddy placed 9th at the OSHA international with his unique greninja team and this one didn't feature mat block grams other Pokemon were mega lopunny Zapdos topo Lily blue Cephalon and trampa the basic idea was that his mega lopunny could use fake out and fake tears to serve up opponents for his strong special attackers including scarf + f Alon specs lele and fast tailwind Zapdos and you may notice that I didn't list greninja there that's because grandmum Eddy's was mostly physical with full attack investment powering it slow kicks and dunk shots although Graham still included ice beam for Landorus therian this is a perfect picture of what greninja was capable of using its versatility to fit an unexpected role and fill in the gaps for the rest of its team that roll player status continued into 2019 while green ninjas paper-thin defenses still make it an awkward choice for an unrestricted format it had use as a targeted removal tool in 2019 one of the first players to show his potential was none other than grandmum eddie graham first placed top four at brisbane regionals in the sun series then a at his team for the moon series but what didn't change was his focus on greninja Graham's team mostly focused on establishing speed control with his tailwind crobat and scarf electro web taboo cocoa to allow his unrestricted bonds Groudon and xerneas to fully unleash their potential however cocoa and crow that both struggled against similar Pokemon like Lou Nala sole galell and zygarde greninja was chosen specifically to deal with those Pokemon ice beam threatens eye guard while its darkanian's II boosted dark pulse obliterated the Sun and Moon mascots even through Lu Nala shadows shield of course Gong shot was still a great tool as the fairy roster had expanded even further with xerneas as re-emergence gran was able to repeat his performance from the previous year bringing greninja to top 16 once again but pretty much all of greninja's notable placements happened during the Sun and Moon series when the need to remove Lu Nala and Sol Galil was highest but there still weren't that many Esteban Almeida may top a at the Guayaquil special event on a team with necrosha thus main zygarde taboo lele Zapdos and in sinner are and juan pablo nar had a pair of his own top a finishes in Ecuador second at the Lost Libertas special event and fit at the sea dmx special event both with the team consisting of Groudon xerneas and sinner are bronzong and smeargle but come ultra series greninja was utterly useless against the punt of weather that dominated the format but that it was even used at all in 2019 was surprising so hey greninja hold your head high for that ocean ax internationals performance I hope you're vacationing in Australia and soaking up the Sun and that's it so how good was greninja actually well despite only existing in two generations thus far it has established itself as one of the most dangerous offensive pokemon of all time its debut generation saw it run over just about everything in its path with its tremendous speed good special attack and excellent coverage bolstered by one of the most incredible offensive abilities of all time Protea which was enough to get it banned once a game dunk shot and was able to one-hit ko its sole reliable check it returned to oh you in generation 7 once again pulling its protein tricks what also equipped with an ability somehow even better than protein the incredible anime inspired battle bond which upon grabbing a KO let's turn it into one of the most menacing pokemon to ever grace oh you now it's frailty meant it couldn't bring its single success over to the doubles format at VGC at least not in all of the formats but it could still definitely pull some tricks as evident by its many placements in Gen 6 especially 2014 overall greninja has been an absolute terror and if and when it returns to Gen 8 it will almost surely be a top tier oh you threat once again thank you so much for watching everyone and a huge thank you to our patrons for continued support of our videos and voting for this Pokemon super early whatever floats your boat I guess and as always if you liked the video and you want to see more be sure to subscribe to fall swag gaming for more weekly Pokemon content and in the comments I want to know what do you think about competitive greninja do you think it's too powerful how would you make it better for VGC whatever it is let me know in the comments also thank you to everyone else watching this video as well and follow my crew on these social media platforms and that's all I got see you next time everyone [Music]

Channel: False Swipe Gaming

Views: 1,711,419

Keywords: Pokemon, Greninja, Ash-Greninja, Ash's Greninja, Ash Greninja, Pokemon Go, Pokemon X, Pokemon Y, Pokemon Ultra Sun, Pokemon Ultra Moon, Pokemon Sword, Pokemon Shield, Competitive Pokemon, Smogon, VGC, False Swipe Gaming, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

Id: 2sSu_oIjRsw

Length: 27min 47sec (1667 seconds)

Published: Sun May 03 2020