★ 1v1 Suspect #2 - Greninja

[clerica]

​

Following the results of our first SV 1v1 playerbase survey, the 1v1 council has voted to suspect test Greninja. The return of Greninja has brought forth a new challenge to players as this is the first time we get to see it used in a tier without megas and has so far proven itself to be quite potent despite the nerf to Protean. It's currently tied with Annihilape as the highest ranked mon on the 1v1 Viability Rankings, sitting in the top 3 of last months usage stats, and the most used mon so far this round of the 1v1 Global Cup.

What makes Greninja so strong this generation is its incredible versatility due to its ability Protean and deep movepool. No longer shackled into certain sets to beat Mega Charizard, Greninja can finally use its tools to their full potential. Choice Specs sets are a classic and can run Hydro Cannon, Grass Knot for Dondozo, Extrasensory for a decent Iron Hands matchup, Dark Pulse for mons like Skeledirge and Sableye, Water Shuriken for speed boosted Great Tusk and a decent Donphan matchup, Chilling Water for Donphan, and you get the idea it can basically pick and choose to beat whatever it wants. Scarf sets have become popular this generation as well and are good for mons such as Iron Valiant and Dragapult which outspeed other sets, and Sub Petaya is still usable to beat bulkier mons like Bellibolt. Greninja isn't locked into just special sets either with Band and other mixed sets featuring moves like Gunk Shot for fairies or Low Kick for Tyranitar or Kingambit. All of these sets make Greninja challenging to build against because you have to account for every move in its arsenal, and it applies immense pressure both on team preview and in game forcing the opponent to constantly try and guess Greninja's set. For instance, mons like Iron Hands are forced to try and predict if they should Wild Charge on Greninja clicking Gunk Shot or Extrasensory for the fighting resist, or if they should Close Combat on Greninja using Grass Knot for the electric resist.

Of course however, Greninja isn't unbeatable. It is limited to just four moves and as such cannot cover everything it wants in one set. There are many pokemon that can beat some Greninja sets like Dragapult, Sylveon, Bellibolt, and so on. These all lose to certain Greninja sets but are able to beat others. On top of that, with the addition of the new mon Walking Wake, Greninja now has new competition as Walking Wake has a favorable matchup vs it. Is this enough to keep Greninja in check or is the frog too much for a post Charizard world? That's what we hope to answer with this suspect test.

For this suspect test, we will be using the regular 1v1 ladder, so you must create a new account that begins with 1GREN to qualify. Greninja will be legal on the ladder. The Deadline for the Greninja Suspect is Thursday, March 16th, 11:59 PM EST GMT-4 (Daylight Savings March 12th)

This suspect shall be reusing the sliding scale system from the prior suspects, being:

Minimum Games Needed

GXE	Minimum Games
75	50
75.3	49
75.6	48
75.9	47
76.2	46
76.5	45
76.8	44
77.1	43
77.4	42
77.7	41
78	40
78.3	39
78.6	38
78.9	37
79.2	36
79.5	35

The way this works is that the minimum game requirement is reduced by 1 game for every 0.3 GXE you have above 75 GXE, down to a minimum of 35 games with a GXE of 79.5 or above, with the absolute minimum GXE requirement being 75%, with at least 50 games played.

As always the normal rules of suspect tests apply. Disallowed behaviors include things like boosting other accounts, attempting to vote with multiple accounts, intentionally losing against suspect participants, coercing an opponent to lose, playing games in a voice call, sharing accounts, and trading/buying/stealing/selling/giving away suspect ladder accounts. Cheating will not be tolerated and anyone caught cheating will be disqualified and potentially infracted.

You must use a fresh account registered after the posting of this thread for your reqs. This alt must begin with 1GREN, e.g. 1GREN smely

Additionally, we will be implementing a procedure used by other tiers where suspect reqs will be verified by the 1v1 Tier Leader / forum moderators. With this in mind:

• DO NOT LOAD UP MORE GAMES AFTER GETTING REQS UNTIL YOU HAVE BEEN VERIFIED!
• Once verified, your post will be edited with you being notified of the verification.
• If you load up more games before being verified and end up losing your qualifying GXE, your post will be deleted and you will have to qualify again.

If you have achieved the voting requirements, CLICK HERE.

When posting in this thread, please keep in mind these rules:
1. No one liners or uninformed posts
2. No discussion on other potential suspects or the suspect process
3. Be respectful

Your post will be deleted and possibly infracted if you fail to follow them. Good luck and have fun!

Tagging Kris to implement the suspect please!

 

[fruan]

Just wanted to talk about gren sets and their counterplay.

Sub Torrent (Greninja) @ Petaya Berry 
Ability: Torrent 
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe 
Modest Nature 
IVs: 30 HP
- Substitute 
- Taunt 
- Grass Knot / Dark Pulse / Chilling Water etc...
- Hydro Cannon

Stallbeater + beats anything slower that doesnt have an AV.

calcs

+1 252+ SpA Torrent Greninja Hydro Cannon vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Bellibolt: 417-492 (98.8 - 116.5%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO

phys scarf (Greninja) @ Choice Scarf 
Ability: Protean 
EVs: 248 Atk / 52 SpA / 208 Spe 
Hasty Nature 
- Gunk Shot 
- Low Kick 
- Hydro Cannon 
- Blizzard

the standard scarf set, can usually drop some speed for spdef which helps vs WP/Specs Sylveon cause no one runs max speed booster valiant or run zoom for max speed roaring moon.

calcs

248 Atk Protean Greninja Gunk Shot vs. 248 HP / 180+ Def Iron Valiant: 260-308 (74 - 87.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
248 Atk Greninja Struggle vs. 248 HP / 180+ Def Iron Valiant: 37-44 (10.5 - 12.5%) -- possible 8HKO
52 SpA Protean Greninja Blizzard vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Dragapult: 324-384 (102.2 - 121.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO
248 Atk Protean Greninja Low Kick (120 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Roaring Moon: 420-494 (119.6 - 140.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO

scarf antibundle (Greninja) @ Choice Scarf 
Ability: Protean
EVs: 252 SpA / 160 SpD / 96 Spe 
Timid Nature 
- Hydro Cannon 
- Blizzard 
- Dark Pulse / Extrasensory 
- Hyper Beam

what the name says. extrasensory for valiant, dark pulse for espathra.

calcs

252 SpA Iron Bundle Freeze-Dry vs. 0 HP / 160 SpD Greninja: 240-284 (84.2 - 99.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 SpA Protean Greninja Hyper Beam vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Iron Bundle: 315-372 (99.6 - 117.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Specs Anti-Ground (Greninja) @ Choice Specs 
Ability: Protean 
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe 
Modest Nature 
- Grass Knot / Hyper Beam
- Hydro Cannon 
- Ice Beam 
- Water Shuriken

beats speedbooster tusk, treads, donphan, talonflame with shuriken. Can run timid and hyper beam to ko non speedbooster walking wake.

calcs

252+ SpA Choice Specs Greninja Water Shuriken (15 BP) (3 hits) vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Talonflame: 288-342 (96.9 - 115.1%) -- approx. 87.5% chance to OHKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Greninja Water Shuriken (15 BP) (3 hits) vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Donphan: 312-378 (96.8 - 117.3%) -- approx. 93.8% chance to OHKO

LO (Greninja) @ Life Orb 
Ability: Protean 
EVs: 252 Atk / 40 SpA / 216 Spe 
Mild Nature 
- Ice Beam / Grass Knot
- Low Kick 
- Gunk Shot 
- Hydro Cannon

kos sylveon, rest in spa. is basically choice band but u ko spdef frail things like skeledirge.

pokemon that beat greninja

viable answers
needs to run speedbooster snarl + draco
scarf
first impression
first impression

sus answers
petaya dgleam
passho
sack bulk for Spa but WP should do ok
WP/specs does pretty okay i think? prolly loses to a wrong prediction tho.
scarf prolly
some bulky set? ?
some bulky speedbooster? ?
scarf? ? ?
cb mach
u can run super unoptimal sets and win

There are two factors that make me lean towards a greninja ban.
The first is that while a team CAN beat greninja, its hard counters are few and are pokemon one needs to build around. Most of them do not easily fit into teams unless you go out of your way to accomodate for them.
This leads to the second point which is that if you don't run a hard counter, and you face a greninja, you need to in real time guess its set. It's easy to in the builder to say "x pokemon beats specs, y pokemon beats scarf, z pokemon beats choice band" but when it comes to actually facing the pokemon it does not follow that even its item of all things is discernible at preview, to not even begin to talk about its moveset.

A pokemon that has near infinite coverage to me is an unhealthy presence for the tier. Greninja itself isn't overpowered but its sheer versatility of sets decrease the quality of teams as they either have to run niche pokemon/sets to beat it or gamble that their opponent won't bring the right greninja set at the right time. Greninja's also decrease the quality of play as teams without a hard counter may as well /pick.
For these reasons I think greninja should be banned.

 

[delemon]

Hello humans and lizard people I would like to share this epic gren set that fraun made himself and forgot to post.
This thing runs bulk allowing it to snipe some counters like av hands, talon and av dondozo because gren is broken and beats all of its counters with viable and realistic sets.
Greninja @ Choice Specs
Ability: Protean
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 4 HP / 188 Def / 232 SpA / 84 Spe
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Extrasensory
- Hydro Cannon
- Grass Knot
- Dark Pulse

av dondozo

Girlboss! (Dondozo) (F) @ Assault Vest
Ability: Unaware
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 216 HP / 128 Atk / 4 Def / 160 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Wave Crash
- Avalanche
- Heavy Slam
- Surf

 

[clerica]

it's late and i'm tired but I plan on voting ban on Greninja.

First off, I don't find gren as annoying as others seem to in the builder. There are a lot of mons that can beat "normal" gren sets and I find it fun to try and make new sets that can cover them like WP Espathra or Giga Impact Iron Hands. Don't get me wrong standard sets are still very good and can cover a lot depending on what moves they run, but I don't think they alone make gren too overwhelming. My problem comes once people realize that a bunch of gren answers can pretty easily be teched without that much cost.

viable answers
needs to run speedbooster snarl + draco
scarf
first impression
first impression

Take for instance fraun's list here. Scarf Meow and Haxorus both can lose if gren runs protect + hyper beam while bulking tflame. This seems like a lot but it only really sacrifices speed and still leaves you with plenty of room to cover standard matchups while luring 3 common gren answers. Greninja can do this with a variety of its answers like sub petaya for bellibolt and corv as well while still being a good mon, and once people start actually abusing this gren gets out of hand pretty quick.

anti scarf meow, hax, tflame (Greninja) @ Life Orb 
Ability: Protean 
Tera Type: Water 
EVs: 8 HP / 236 Def / 224 SpA 
Serious Nature 
IVs: 0 Atk 
- Protect 
- Hyper Beam

40 evs + nature + 2 moveslots left

My other main gripe againt gren is how painful it is to play against in game. On preview gren already provides insane pressure due to its versatility, and you usually are forced to try and set guess in some capacity to try and figure out how just many gren answers your team has each game with the answer never being clear. Once you make your pick you're now forced to try and guess which type it's going to change into because that could drastically change how the game goes. You never really feel safe clicking against gren and team preview often feels heavily tilted in the gren user's favor each game. So while I don't think gren is necessarily over the top broken by any means I think at this point of the meta with how few mons we have a mon that can tech virtually anything doesn't really have a place in the meta. Once home comes around and we get mons like melo and drago i'm sure gren will be fine but for the time being we're better off without it.

 

[pokemonking12345]

Greninja @ Choice Specs
Ability: Protean
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Extrasensory
- Hydro Cannon
- Brick Break
- Ice Beam

 

[DripLegend]

Most other arguments have been said at this point but I think the most important part of this suspect, and even ban votes towards Greninja is how unhealthy it is for the metagame. Sure, on ladder you won't be seeing most, or maybe any of the sets listed in this thread considering how niche they are. However, this pokemon is able to take out an entire tournament usage by itself most of the time, providing little counterplay if it can lure the few consistent counters it has at the moment. Protect + Hyper Beam like mentioned previously deals with First Impression and Choice Scarf Meowscarada, arguably the best answers to this Pokemon. Even if Greninja seems underwhelming on the ladder, it is shown to have reliable counterplay to the answers it does have, and due to this versatility it isn't even obvious on preview what it could beat. This Pokemon has too many options to be healthy in this metagame with the current power level, and overall warps the tier into its favor in every preview, which is why I will be voting ban. My opinion is not going to be changing regarding this, but I think it would be interesting to see more discussion on DNB as the outcome for Greninja, since most people with that opinion only want to express it in the 1v1 room chat instead of the forums.

 

[clerica]

Following the suspect vote Greninja is now banned!