np: ORAS OU Suspect Testing, Round 1 - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles [Greninja is Uber]

[bsu]

psst where do we post the screenshots?

 

[Firebird101]

I'm more in favor of waiting a few months to see how things turn out for G-Nin. Theoretically speaking Gren's diverse movepool and stellar offensive stats make it seem unstoppable but we haven't necessarily been playing on ORAS long enough to see how things fan out in practice. In time we will see the clarity of the desicion and most likely make a much more amicable decision.

Most people here have already come to the consensus that Greninja has had enough time in OU. We've had XY to deal with Greninja to find the best checks against it and then it got moves in ORAS that invalids most of these checks and some magical pokemon nobody noticed before isn't gonna pop it's head and full stop Greninja cause we would have discovered it by now. And even then it wouldn't necessarily be viable beside just countering Greninja. Greninja staying any longer would direct the metagame into straight up ho vs stall metagame, something smogon has been doing it's best to avoid as that kind of metagame is way too matchup reliant and Greninja is undoubtedly the main reason why balance has had such a hard time and it leaving would give everyone much more freedom in teambuilding and we can see more variety. The suspect ladder has shown that, so I think we can safely give Greninja the boot.

 

[Bedschibaer]

Appareantly I have to make a post in here for my vote to count (or i don't, it's really hard to actually look through the suspect requirements), despite basically everything being said on the past 29 pages already. So here is my humble opinion, don't expect anything groundbreaking.

Greninja is extremely obnoxious to play against, because whenever it gets in for free, you are basically forced into a guessing game that will usually leave you in a disadvantage. The fact that with ORAS and the two new moves Gunk Shot and Low Kick even the before common switchins to Greninja turn to checks leaves this thing with barely any counters, apart from niche mons like Porygon 2. The really low amount of switchins is basically defines the "overcentralizing" aspect why certain things are deemed as banworthy these days. What seperates Greninja from other hard-hitters though is the sheer unpredictability of it's movepool and the fact that coverage moves aren't simply coverage moves but stab moves, that's why greninja sets on specific teams are unpredictable. What i meant earlier with the disadvantage is that in a scenario where the greninja player gets a free switch it's almost impossible to create situations where you do not get the worse end out of the turn. If you stay in and get killed off you might be able to revenge or force it out later on, but at the cost of a mon (not to mention that killing greninja might just not happen because of a switch). If you switch you have to predict around to get anything in without taking alot damage, which is almost impossible to do if you don't know the greninja's movepool yet. Then again only if you get the prediction right and get something in safely you can force out or revenge the greninja. Greninja's odd speed tier makes it actually really hard to revenge it to begin with. The thing is that i can barely think of any scenario where the not-greninja player manages to punish a switch or a wrong prediction as hard as the greninja player does, because greninja is just easily punishing and weakening integral parts of any defensive core or backbone of a team - the reason why Greninja is considered to be so great against slower offensive and balanced playstyles (aka the most common playstyles). The limiting playstyle thing might actually not be a reason to ban, because certain playstyles have alyways been good/bad because of the presence of certain dominating pokemon, but this just adds up to what i listed before, especially because it's not a playstyle specific problem, it's just that stall happens to handle greninja better than offense. Here the overcentralizing aspect comes in again, since certain playstyles appareantly have to rely on niche mons to have reliable greninja answers.

 

[ssjjynx]

I've been playing around on the suspect ladder, and I noticed that with ninja gone, dragon spam + heatran functions surprisingly well. Most people think that the decline of dragon spam was solely due to fairy, but ninja actually played a rather large role in it. It outsped half the team, and could ko every single member. For fairies, dragon spam could use heatran, but for ninja, dragon spam would have had to use random 1-purpose-only mons, that would take away from the team. In a ninja-less meta, I can see a lot of old and fun playstyles resurfacing, along with possibly new, innovative ones.

 

[fail_at_battling]

Most of what I have to say about why greninja should be banned has already been said by everyone else. However, one thing I want to note is that nearly everyone was using clefable, a pokemon that was severely held back by greninja's new move. I assume that mega sableye (which also takes heavy damage from greninja in my experience, although it wasn't held back nearly as much) plays some role in clefable's usage, and this got me wondering how a team with both mega sableye and greninja could function; this adds to the argument most people have been saying that greninja essentially can cover the weaknesses of most teams to form a core with no counters. I didn't have time to see much of the pre-suspect meta, but at the moment I am in favor of a ban.

 

[Muk]

Greninja is literally unhealthy for the metagame. First off, it's overcentralizing, because a lot of Dragon Dance and Choice Scarf users run enough speed to outspeed it. Greninja is overpowered in this regard, though, because it can simply run a Choice Scarf of its own to circumvent the problem. Greninja is also Uncompetitive™, because it forces unhealthy 50/50s due to its wide array of coverage moves. However, Greninja will always win these 50/50s, because the user can simply run the appropriate coverage moves to suit his/her team's needs. This exacerbates the team matchup problem that runs rampant in the current metagame. Moreover, Greninja is impossible to check or counter outside of obscure lower tier Pokemon like Porygon2 that contribute literally nothing else to a team, let alone the metagame (in fact, the overuse of Porygon2 does not make the metagame healthier, but rather overcentralizes it further). It also frequently runs Ice Beam, which is inherently Uncompetitive™ in and of itself. Therefore, Greninja impedes the progression towards a healthy metagame and should be banned to Ubers without delay.

 

[Cloyster Chowder]

Greninja is literally unhealthy for the metagame. First off, it's overcentralizing, because a lot of Dragon Dance and Choice Scarf users run enough speed to outspeed it. Greninja is overpowered in this regard, though, because it can simply run a Choice Scarf of its own to circumvent the problem. Greninja is also Uncompetitive™, because it forces unhealthy 50/50s due to its wide array of coverage moves. However, Greninja will always win these 50/50s, because the user can simply run the appropriate coverage moves to suit his/her team's needs. This exacerbates the team matchup problem that runs rampant in the current metagame. Moreover, Greninja is impossible to check or counter outside of obscure lower tier Pokemon like Porygon2 that contribute literally nothing else to a team, let alone the metagame (in fact, the overuse of Porygon2 does not make the metagame healthier, but rather overcentralizes it further). It also frequently runs Ice Beam, which is inherently Uncompetitive™ in and of itself. Therefore, Greninja impedes the progression towards a healthy metagame and should be banned to Ubers without delay.

good post

 

[Dirty Hunt]

how do you vote once you get 2700 coil?

 

[Méndez]

I have to agree with the statements about Greninja serving the meta as a very healthy offensive check to many big Mons who cause problems. Lando, Heatran, and others are also toxic elements who I now have to find ways to play around.

There also aren't a lot of special sweeping Pokemon out there. At least not fast ones. I have been trying to run a Starmie to fill that gap in, but it just doesn't cover the right bases.

I think the move pool argument is much over stated, and over exaggerated. Lots of the moves listed are truly unviable when you really look at the meta. Moves like Grass Knot, Low Kicks, Hidden Power Grass, and a lot of the other low usage moves really don't help much.

Protean is a problem because it always makes Greninja at +1, being a special attacker that means he bypasses Intimidate. This is a good quality because the meta needs more fast special attackers.

When it comes to checking him, I really see a lot of shallow arguments and that makes me angry. It's as if the only way to check him is by switching in only one Pokemon and that Pokemon must resist all possible sets. Also we are under the assumption that Greninja will always predict what you are going to attack with.
It's a joke. Switch in Conk and you force a switch. How is that not a check? Switch in Ferrothorn and he has to hit you with low kick and take Iron Barbs damage plus Life Orb which puts him in range to be killed by a Power Whip because you are slower. Send in Rotom and unless he runs HP Grass (and this is the only check in the meta that makes that move viable) and you can absorb a hit, then volt switch into a priority user or scarfer to either KO or force a switch.

Not only are all of these possible ways to play around Greninja, but they are all viable on balance. Let's also not forget you have the option of double switching to bait him into using a move that let's you set up to KO him.

I won't bring back up usage stats specifically, but remember that Greninja is a lot less unpredictable than the omnipotent attacker he is made out to be.

Another point is that Greninja holds some teams together that would otherwise be garbage without having something fast that can run the specific moves that Greninja has access to.

Also I'm really fucking sick of seeing Lando on every fucking team ever.

I think Grass knot and Low quick help the team a lot, grass knot can KO Slowbro-Mega easy, quagsire and other bulky waters. Low quick is very important too, it KO Magnezone and Tyranitar assault vest, who can resist all your moves but Low quick. Low quick isn't principally for Ferrothorn, HP fire is for Ferrothorn. And when you talk about Ferrothorn and Rotom can kill greninja it's false. I think that greninja isn't going to play with them with 100%, Rotom and Ferrothorn aren't going to play with greninga by switching because greninja can KO them. 252 SpA Life Orb Protean Greninja Hidden Power Grass vs. 252 HP / 212+ SpD Rotom-W: 156-187 (51.3 - 61.5%) -- 93.4% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery [You can't sent Rotom] 0 Atk Life Orb Protean Greninja Low Kick (100 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Ferrothorn: 159-190 (45.1 - 53.9%) -- 3.5% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery [With a few extra damage (like Stealth rock or spikes), Greninja 2KO it with LOw quick, an KO it with HP fire]

 

[eden]

Ok guess I gotta state my views? Greninja is ass, it forces me to make suboptimal, easily predicted plays that break a team's defensive backbone, leaving it primed to be swept by threats on the opponents team, if it sin't obvious...PLEASE BAN! (I'm SunnySuspect btw)

 

[master_marshmallow]

I think Grass knot and Low quick help the team a lot, grass knot can KO Slowbro-Mega easy, quagsire and other bulky waters. Low quick is very important too, it KO Magnezone and Tyranitar assault vest, who can resist all your moves but Low quick. Low quick isn't principally for Ferrothorn, HP fire is for Ferrothorn. And when you talk about Ferrothorn and Rotom can kill greninja it's false. I think that greninja isn't going to play with them with 100%, Rotom and Ferrothorn aren't going to play with greninga by switching because greninja can KO them. 252 SpA Life Orb Protean Greninja Hidden Power Grass vs. 252 HP / 212+ SpD Rotom-W: 156-187 (51.3 - 61.5%) -- 93.4% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery [You can't sent Rotom] 0 Atk Life Orb Protean Greninja Low Kick (100 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Ferrothorn: 159-190 (45.1 - 53.9%) -- 3.5% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery [With a few extra damage (like Stealth rock or spikes), Greninja 2KO it with LOw quick, an KO it with HP fire]

I know I'm supposed to be barred from posting here anymore, but the point of sending in rotom is that he is bulky enough to absorb a hit on the turn after the switch and can volt switch in your scarfer or revenge killer safely either securing the KO or forcing a switch, either way checking Greninja.
We can talk about why HP grass is conditional, but I don't think it's relevant anymore.

 

[asad rana]

Hey there guys, the OU Council has decided to suspect test Greninja this round. Greninja got a few interesting toys in ORAS, namely Gunk Shot and Low Kick, which allow it to get past some of its best checks in XY, like Azumarill and Chansey. Its formidable Speed along with the boost from Protean and Life Orb make Greninja incredibly hard to play around for both offensive and defensive teams and it puts a massive strain on team building. On the other hand, Greninja is incredibly frail and, in a such offensive based metagame like the current ORAS OU one, it has hard times switching in and is relatively easy to revenge kill. It should also be noted that it suffers from 4th moveslot syndrome, being unable to run: Hydro Pump, Gunk Shot, Low Kick, Ice Beam, Dark Pulse and Hidden Power Fire/Grass on the same set.

Use the suspect thread to discuss the suspect and your thoughts on the suspect metagame. If you have any questions, then feel free to contact McMeghan, Aldaron, gr8astard, M Dragon or myself through a PM. These threads tend to get derailed so please make extra effort to stay on topic. Future suspects need not be discussed in the thread.

In order to vote, you'll need to achieve a COIL rating of 2700 or more on the OU Suspect Test ladder, in which Greninja will be banned, that will be implemented very soon. Please note that this rating may not be the final rating required, and we reserve the right to increase or decrease the requirements based upon the first week of laddering. The suspect test will last approximately 2 weeks and will end on Sunday 4 January 2015, 11:59pm EST. The vote will take place in no more than a week after that.
Remember that this is a Suspect Test and that, as of right now, nothing is set in stone. Whether Greninja will continue to be OU or not is entirely up to the playerbase.

We would like to stress that we never have nor ever will claim these are Nintendo-official rules; they are Smogon-official rules that are ONLY enforced in OUR environments. We feel there are many ways to enjoy Pokemon, whether singles, doubles, online, or wifi, and we don't feel any one method or metagame is "better" than another (though we obviously emphasize certain ones).
Finally, it's extremely important to note that YOU have the DIRECT ability to influence these changes; simply play on the suspect ladders, qualify, and vote. The algorithm that determines qualification credentials emphasizes BOTH experience and quality of play, so you don't need to be a "smogon elite" with a 90% win percentage to qualify (if you have a lower win %, you just need to play more games).

Good luck and have fun laddering!

Addendum:
as with the previous OU tests, the B value for this test is 17.0. To figure out how many battles you'll need to have in order to achieve reqs, first determine your GXE (shown on the ladder and when you type /rating) and plug that into the following formula:

N=17.0/log2(40*GXE/2700)

(Google calculator is awesome for this kind of thing).

Here are some sample values:

GXE N
100 30
90 41
85 52
80 70
75 112
70 324

Credit for the illustration goes to anundeadboy.

Keep the discussion in this thread civil and avoid making one liners or uninformed posts. Failing to comply with this request will result into your post being deleted and infracted. Thanks for the cooperation.

READ THIS THREAD BEFORE POSTING

http://www.smogon.com/forums/thread...ad-before-posting-in-suspect-threads.3522684/

Hello, so yeah its my first time posting on forums and this shows my hate for greninja , it should be banned as it has viable checks but not counters, we cant be forced to use alomomola in all our teams,So yea, i vote ban, Also its can run diff sets, and also now has access to gunk shot which completely pulverizes sylveon its best counter, so yeah i vote ban,heres my rating! http://gyazo.com/a897b41bce28e7da69f5ca2cb88b6f05

 

[Fafnir]

I know I'm supposed to be barred from posting here anymore, but the point of sending in rotom is that he is bulky enough to absorb a hit on the turn after the switch and can volt switch in your scarfer or revenge killer safely either securing the KO or forcing a switch, either way checking Greninja.
We can talk about why HP grass is conditional, but I don't think it's relevant anymore.

DARMANITAN!

 

[silver97]

I want to express my thoughts about this even if i'm not going to say anything original after 30 Pages of discussion. The frog is not broken, it won't sweep teams with the same ease some real broken things like megamence do, it is easily revenge-killable and not difficult to wear down. However this thing is a huge pain in the ass when teambuilding and very centralizing, while it is not difficult to kill, it will almost always get at least one kill before dying or anyway cripple many mons of the opposing team; everytime it gets a free switch-in the opponents shits his panties because there is no real safe switch-in and with the right moves greninja can 2HKO the entire metà.
I got the reqs and i'm gonna vote BAN

 

[Cronenberg]

*Reqs Pic here*

I agree on Banning Greninja, its coverage is incredible, backed by a great firepower and excellent speed, Protean being the icing on the cake, it was already problematic back in XY, gaining Gunk Shot and Low Kick only made him much more problematic, Azumarill who found place even in Hyper Offense teams in order to act as a check for him found itself completely useless against him now with Gunk Shot, and Greninja became without counters, easily slappable on teams destroying majority of Balanced and Offensive Teams, people are even forced to run something like Porygon2 in order to feel safe against this thing... the overcentralization it brings it's incredible, and I believe that by banning it, the Metagame will become better with more usable pokemons, an example atm is Clefable on the Suspect Ladder.

 

[Riahi]

I'm going to post the req here since I can't see any Identification thread. Just in case.

Hide

 

[silver97]

I'm going to post my the req here since I can't see any Identification thread. Just in case.

Hide

View attachment 32857

The thread is not up yet, they'll probably do it within a couple of days

 

[mlgkkk]

Alright lets get this straight, Greninja is way too OP for OU
It adapts to anything you throw at it. Throw a fighting type at it, it changes typing by using extrasensory. It wasn't a huge problem until ORAS was introduced. ORAS gave Greninja Gunk Shot and Low Kick, which makes Greninja DEADLY. Even though Greninja is frail, it makes up for it with a huge speed stat, making Greninja impossible to beat unless you sacrifice something and then revenge kill it, which makes the metagame not enjoyable

Overall: BAN THE FROG
#BanGreninja2015

 

[Virdelet]

So guys I am new here and sorry if I violate any rules, please tell me :D
Here is my Coil and I vote NO BAN.(Even though I assume the voting is in a different thread, this is just in case)

 

[Bundy300]

I'm going to post the req here since I can't see any Identification thread. Just in case.

Hide

View attachment 32857

So guys I am new here and sorry if I violate any rules, please tell me :D
Here is my Coil and I vote NO BAN.(Even though I assume the voting is in a different thread, this is just in case)

This is the thread --> http://www.smogon.com/forums/thread...-1-voter-identification-thread.3526011/page-3

 

[ArchPhantom]

After just coming back from a 10 day vacation, I was able to achieve voting reqs in less than one day (around 12 hours to be exact) with a very nice w/l ratio and got #12 on the suspect ladder. In my opinion, Greninja is a top tier threat especially for offensive teams, but I'd still have to say to NOT BAN greninja.

In all honesty, I like Greninja's impact on the metagame. Pre ORAS, near the end of XY, the best playstyle by far was balance by a large margin. The ladder and tour battles alike were both infested with balance vs balance games, and both full HO and full heavy stall were pretty rare in the metagame. The "we should strive to create a metagame in which all playstyles are equally viable, like in late XY" statement is incredibly false because everyone and their mother knows this isnt true. Not all playstyles were equally viable in late XY, because balance was way more common and dominant than stall and offense combined. Now enter ORAS, and with the introduction of new powerful + bulky megas, and the improvement of Greninja's expansive movepool, the metagame has shifted away from a balance dominated metagame into a more offensive metagame where stall has also become increasingly popular, and that's a good thing. Now these playstyles are more common, leading to a greater variety of teams. My thoughts on the "we should totally ban Greninja because it makes balance an unviable playstyle!!!" (looking at you MegaScizor and you -Clone-) is that this is such a silly, wrong, concept. First off, we don't ban things just because they destroy a playstyle. Kyurem-b broke stall in BW2 but we didn't ban that. Similarly, Gothitelle destroys many common stall builds today and invalidates a basic game mechanic called switching, but we're not doing anything about that either. Just because Greninja completely destroys balanced builds (which isn't even true at all. Sure, HO and full stall have a much easier time against Greninja compared to balanced teams, but still, balanced teams aren't helpless; they have some checks like the common Ferro, gyarados, rotom-w, keldeo, etc) doesn't mean it should be banned. In order to ban something, the pokemon should either be "broken" or "uncompetitive", and Greninja is neither, which is why I think it deserves to stay.

Theres also the argument that "Greninja overcentralizes the metagame as much as Aegislash and promotes lazy teambuilding, and if you don't pack at least 3 checks, you're dead" which is also untrue. Greninja isn't even remotely as overcentralizing as Aegi was. Aegi made like 10+ pokemon unviable, or rather lackluster choices in the OU metagame which otherwise would be top tier threats (medi, garde, hawlucha, alakazam, celebi, starmie, heracross). These pokemon were all uncommon at high levels of play JUST because of Aegi. Greninja doesn't do that. Sure, ninja now beats clef and azu and all that but the point is these mons are still very common. Greninja doesn't overcentralize the metagame like Aegi because it can't even fit on any type of team. If you're running a Greninja on any playstyle that isn't offense, you're probably doing it wrong. On the otherhand, Aegislash fitted on every single team out there ranging from HO to heavy stall. Now for the "you should always pack 2-3 checks for greninja otherwise you're dead" argument Destiny Device , this isn't even true most of the time. Sure, balanced teams might think about this commonly but I can bet you that Greninja isn't a major concern at all for stall builds who don't even consider Greninja a threat. Offensive teams aren't even that pressured by Greninja and don't consider it a major threat either due to the prevalence of scarfers, hard hitting priority, and faster, stronger attackers. They're much bothered by other things like mega lopunny and sand excadrill. Another point is that just because you require checks in order to not get destroyed doesn't mean you're automatically broken. If you don't have like 2 thundurus checks it steamrolls you. if you dont have a keldeo switch in it gets a kill each time it comes in. It's all the same concept.

Now lets go over how Greninja fares against all common playstyles. First, against offense. heavy offense actually fares quite well against Greninja. Sure, offense teams probably don't have any direct switch ins against Greninja, but who the fuck cares? It's heavy offense, it's not supposed to have switch ins to anything. There are tons of things in which offensive teams don't have a switch in for. A good example is CB azumarill in the XY metagame, or even mega garde which basically got a kill everytime it got in safely. offensive teams dont need a switch in to Greninja to beat it; they have tons of offensive checks to it, and they are able to pressure it immediately and limit the number of times it can come in safely. Greninja will be hard pressed to beat offensive teams because of the absurd number of checks on the other team: mega sceptile, mega lopunny, talonflame, exca in sand, breloom, bisharp, scarf lando-t/chomp, thundy can paralyze, mega aero, mega beedrill, dnite espeed, not to mention all the rain HO teams that just shit on it. You might use the argument that "well greninja can always switch", but think about it, can it always really switch against HO teams? switch against a talonflame and it'll SD and sweep your team. same thing against bisharp, and it even has pursuit to trap you. switching vs scarf lando-t just makes things harder for you cuz then it can just u-turn and regain momentum. HO fares very well against Greninja.

Now against stall, Greninja really struggles to put in work. Stall, quite simply, does not give a fuck about Greninja at all. The most standard stall build (sableye/chansey/tenta) walls ninja to hell and back, even sableye can check it with priority CM + recover. you can sugarcoat it all you want by saying greninja 2hkoes chansey after 3 layers of spikes and you can extrasensory tentacruel, but the fact is greninja isn't getting past stall. how are you gonna get 3 layers of spikes down when tentacruel spins on your face? how are you keep going to fire move after move when LO and hazards damage are taking your toll? and even if you do have extrasensory to beat tentacruel, it only 2hkoes at best, and you have to drop dark pulse. and against stall, there are always bulky psychics to take advantage of that fact, such as jirachi, slowbro, cress, etc.

Balanced teams undoubtedly have the worst matchup against Greninja, which kinda sucks and they'll be forced to adapt, but hey what can you do about it. Similar to how stall had to adapt to the increasingly common wallbreaker megas after the Aegi ban, balanced can also adapt to greninja and not be a shitty style based on fat mons + 2 powerful attackers. balanced teams arent helpless against ninja, they just have the most difficult matchup. ferro and specially defensive rotom-w are good checks, and if you get scarf lando-t in safely you pretty much get a free u-turn against their team. one less common and unique pokemon that actually works really well on balance atm is klefki, which also has the perk of walling and crippling greninja with thunderwave. specially defensive mega scizor is also a really god switch in, and you can even run some other cool stuff like scarf/chople berry kyurem-b.

Becuase of all these factors and my reasoning, I will vote DO NOT BAN on the suspect test.

^ This right here is a great, detailed anti-ban post that took me out of the wagon and off doubt-Ville to fully supporting the frog, once again. I know what I'll vote now. Thanks WECAMEASROMANS

 

[Nix_Hex]

This thread has served its purpose. No new points have been discussed in days. Voter identification is linked in the post above. Thank 60% of you for keeping your cool. Ending this just in time for first week back to work.

 

[haunter]

Voting thread is up.

 

[haunter]

Greninja is officially Uber.