Meta Mastery of the Arts - Greninja Matchup Thread Archive

[MartinAW4]

Here`s a good post from Chuva, a Rosalina player :

Having quite a bit of experience against this one (sparring with one of the better players in my local scene, who mains Greninja) and labbing this MU a lot because of it, I must disagree with Rosa having a clear advantage for reasons similar why she is not beating Pikachu.

Rosalina has more effective range but she is very susceptible to Greninja's good spacing moves (FAir and BAir) which are not hard to hit due to her tall hurtbox, furthermore she has a blind spot against those moves unless you're going for a risky anti-air FAir or Starbits, both easily punished because of Greninja's speed. NAir is a good option but Greninja has the mobility to be patient around it. Greninja's properly spaced FAir is also safe on shield (almost sure it is) and can potentially kill Luma on hit.

Fully charged Shurikens are easily GP'd with proper spacing but any other Shuriken mixup is a considerable risk and your best option is powershielding because Greninja's ground speed can catch up with most of your options. Once Greninja manages to get in Rosa it can be very hard to shake him off with his mobiity specs and his mid-range mixups, specially dash-grab (people are underrating that move, probably one of the best dash-grabs in the game).

Due to Rosalina's hurtbox, Greninja has better access to his combos and kill-setups coming from NAir since it's a lot easier to connect on her (However, his NAir -> FAir and NAir -> USmash follow-ups are more % specific because of Rosa's floatiness) which is quite a big deal for a very lightweight character like Rosa. Greninja's overall kill power is also very threatening, one sweet-spotted USmash can kill ridiculously early and is not that impossible to land due to the below:

Once at disadavantage, Rosalina is juggle material for Greninja due her floatiness and his aerial mobility. Frog's UAir will cleanly beat most of her options due to frame advantage (including DAir unless you use it preemptively, which is risky due to baits). Air-dodge too much and you're risking getting hit by his FAir because of it's delayed start-up covering most of the air-dodge active frames. Greninja can react to most of her landing options accordingly, with his ground speed and the abovementioned strong dash grab, which Rosalina has little answer against (best option being Dtilt). Offstage she is prone to hydropump and BAir stage spike due to her hitboxless, predictable recovery.

On the plus side for Rosa, she can wall him effectively on the ground at Starbits' range (Jab, Ftilt, Dtilt, NAir and Starbits being her best friends), FSmash (Luma hitbox) can mess a lot of Greninja's optimal spacing and he doesn't have many truly oppressive ways of killing Luma easily other then Jab3 (usually Luma dies due to HP, not offstage KO). Greninja is also prone to Rosa's juggling and edgeguard just like 90% of the cast. I'd go into more details but I'm not interested in making this a bigger wall of text than it already is.

If anything it's probably an even matchup.

 

[David Galanos]

I can agree.. Kinda. Cause I mean, he's diddy, and he can do diddy stuff, and he's still a better character, but yeah there is some strange advantage I see against Diddy I can't explain it either

And for Rosalina I completely agree. I think it's an even matchup for the most part, cause they each have advantages over each other

 

[TTYK]

Diddy is extremely overrated, Greninja handles diddy's really well with well spaced f-airs. Everybody was asking about how aMSa did that at apex, but honestly, that was my initial approach option when I first started with Greninja.

 

[Gunla]

Week 8 begins with both Pits, Pikachu and Meta Knight.

 

[Jaguar360]

I can't say that I'm too experienced with this game yet, but Pits seem like hard matchups for Greninja.

Greninja's Water Shuriken game is very limited in these matchups thanks to the speed of the Pits' arrows and the fact that they have reflectors in orbitars. Water Shuriken is almost nullfied in this matchup and can only be used in short bursts. Greninja's neutral game is essentially reduced to dash attack and short-hop aerials, all of which are punishable aside from b-air and well-spaced f-airs. Pit's disjointed blades along with his arrows and high-priority side B put the neutral game in his favor.

Greninja has a slightly easier time killing. He pretty much kills as he usually would in this matchup aside from offstage gimping since Pit is hard to gimp. Pit may struggle to kill Greninja at times since the frog is so mobile, but Greninja's unsafe options may eventually get him f-smashed, u-smashed or side B'd on a good punish or read. Pit's forward throw also kills near the ledge, making for another scary punish.

It seems to me that both Pits have a great advantage against Greninja and might be his worst matchups. 35:65 for both.

I've faced a few solid Pikachu's and Meta Knights, but I'm not sure about those matchups quite yet.

EDIT: The worst matchup claim was a little bold. I probably do need some more experience after all.

 

[TTYK]

I think Pit's are too slow and floaty for them to be our worst matchup. I think we have an advantage over pits in projectiles, uncharged shurikens are too fast for pits to react with, especially with the starting lag for guardian orbitars, now THAT gives us easy punishes. We edge-guard and juggle so well against pit because of our speed and his floaty wings. 65-35 Greninja.

 

[bc1910]

Can't see the Pits being Greninja's worst matchup, that honour should go to someone like Fox or Sheik.

 

[Shack]

What beats Pit's DAir? I try to time USmashes and that only trades. My only defense from a falling DAir is to Hydro Pump downward so the bubble pushes him away.

And I think Pit is a tough matchup, all sword wielders seem to be. They out range most of Greninjas moves so it makes it hard to approach with NAirs, BAirs, FAirs. Pit's FSmash's speed disjointed hitbox is kinda of annoying to deal with. He also has a lot of hitboxes that he can just put out there while you have to plan your moves a little more. His fast grab and kill potential with it is something to look out for as well. His recovery sucks though, really easy to gimp with a BAir stage spike or Hydro Pump. Try to bait out his long hit boxes so you can get around them while he's recovering.

 

[FullMoon]

I've played a good Pit player before who seemed to be at the same skill level as me and I think the MU is pretty even.

We need to be more defensive against the Pits because going full offensive is gonna result in us getting punished. Pit does have issues getting kills, so in this MU we can make more use of rage to kill him earlier if given the opportunity. Shurikens and arrows kinda result in a trade a lot of the time though we can hit with shurikens before Pit can fire an arrow due to their speed. Orbitars can reflect our shurikens, but it leaves Pit very open afterwards so they probably will only use the orbitars if we're using fully charged shurikens, which we shouldn't do.

Pit's aerials can be problematic due to the fact that they have lasting hitboxes but they're not too bad. For the most part we want Pit above us so we can juggle him around, Pit's d-air comes out fast, but if he tries to use it while we're grounded, we can shield it and he'll leave himself open for a jab. Don't quote me on this one, but since our Up-Tilt outranges our Up-Smash, we might be able to hit Pit with it and follow up with an up-air.

Offstage, they both have amazing recoveries, but Greninja's is more versatile and so harder to gimp. Pit's Up-B leaves him vulnerable to b-air gimps or stage spikes, so we have a slight advantage on that front.

Watch out for Side-B, it can catch you off-guard and make you lose a stock, but if you block it, then you can very easily make them lose a stock too. Be wary of it since Pit is more likely to use it while we're using shurikens, as long as he's not too close we should still be able to shield it.

In short, Greninja has the advantage of better mobility and an easier time gimping Pit, as well as having a better kill power in his moves. Pit has a better neutral game and his multiple jumps can make it harder to catch his landings, his moves are also safer than ours which makes punishing him rather complicated, he does have trouble killing, but a well-timed F-Smash can very much kill us early.

So, 50:50 for the Pits is where I stand. Most of the time I played against the one Pit I've played against a few times, the end was basically both of us at high % where we were both one hit or grab from killing each other, so it can't get much more even than that.

 

[CHOMPY]

Once of the things Pit has to avoid in this matchup you have to play very safe and not get caught in Greninjas grabs. Otherwise, you will get comboed pretty hard. Greninjas Fsmash comes out slow, so they try to bait you into either sidedodge to frame trap you, or hope that Pit airdodges to Greninja's well timed/spaced fsmash. Greninja is very light, so landing the fsmash can kill Greninja at earlier percentage, especially when Pit is in rage mode. Pit has to respect Greninjas nair, since it has no ending lag. The only time Pit can punish Greninjas nair is when it hits Pits shield bubble. Since Pit has two ways to recover back on stage, Greninja will have a very hard time gimping Pit, especially when Pit can recover from below the stage. Greninjas Fair can go right through Pits nair, forcing Pit to throw out something else to space Greninja. Most of the time, your going to see Greninja be aggressive, so using dtilt can shut down Greninjas approach and will force Greninja to toss out an aerial instead. One thing Pit has to watch out for is Greninjas usmash, since it covers so much range. Fortunately, Pit has multiple jumps, so he can bait out the usmash and punish it with a fair or bair. If Greninja gets to aggressive to the point where your standing on your heels, just use Guardian Orbitars until you slide off the edge of the stage to ensure safety. Greninjas will never charge up their Shurikens because it gets reflected from the Guardian Orbitars, and will deliver twice the knock back. One of Greninjas weaknesses is approaching, in which comes Pits biggest strength, which is playing defensive.

I would say its 45:55 in Greninjas favor, due to the fact that Greninja is faster, slightly better range, and has an easier time punishing than Pit does.

@ FullMoon Why won't we do some matches and see how the matchup goes?

 

[FullMoon]

@ FullMoon Why won't we do some matches and see how the matchup goes?

Sure, my NNID is INFullMoon.

 

[pinkdeaf1]

As a dark pit main, I wanna see how I matchup with greninja. I also want to see how samus works since she is also a main of mine. Anytakers? I might just go all out.

 

[TTYK]

Sure, my NNID is INFullMoon.

How did it go?

 

[FullMoon]

How did it go?

I think we played about 3 matches and I won 2 of them. One was pretty close, other I got two-stocked, and another I two-stocked him. Still, the input lag made it a bit hard to really use it as evidence of anything. Most of the things I said do apply though, I even managed to get a stage spike once.

Though Pit's Side B kills a lot later than I thought, I managed to survive one at 100% while Pit was also at 100%

 

[CHOMPY]

@ TTYK : I want to face you and see how our connection is between us, and hopefully get better evidence of the matchup.

Greninja should not be able to get guarantee percentage on Pit from a uthrow to uair after 70%. Like @ FullMoon said, the button lag really hinders not only Pits ability to effectively bait/punish Greninja, but more importantly we weren't able to apply the things that were mentioned before.

 

[TTYK]

@ TTYK : I want to face you and see how our connection is between us, and hopefully get better evidence of the matchup.

Greninja should not be able to get guarantee percentage on Pit from a uthrow to uair after 70%. Like @ FullMoon said, the button lag really hinders not only Pits ability to effectively bait/punish Greninja, but more importantly we weren't able to apply the things that were mentioned before.

Yes, just a minute. I am not very good online though, after coming off of all offline play, lag really hurts.
Edit: added.
Edit: hosted.

 

[CHOMPY]

Okay I'm coming! You and me are both going to struggle big time....

Wait a second, it shows that we played before. Where have we played before?

Trying to join your room, by the way

 

[TTYK]

*embarassed*
GG's.
Dont blame it on the character though blame it on the player, and the lag.

 

[CHOMPY]

The lag was pretty bad, I admit. How about i'll play either @ David Galanos @ Marilink or @ Shack on Thursday. Hopefully, between the three players, we can get a decent lag.

 

[TTYK]

The lag was pretty bad, I admit. How about i'll play either @ David Galanos @ Marilink or @ Shack on Thursday. Hopefully, between the three players, we can get a decent lag.

Chompy do you go on smash ladder much? That might explain where I saw you.

 

[Marilink]

Thursday is not the best for me, I'm pretty busy. I'd love to play sometime though, maybe this weekend?

 

[Coffee™]

Pit has issues dealing with Greninja's mobility, he gets in on Pit way too easily. Greninja also outcamps him. As long as you respect Pit's ground options Greninja should win. His aerials aren't really a threat on stage either as most of them have issues hitting his small frame.

I could talk way more in depth if necessary but I'd say it feels 60:40ish ninja's favor.

Also, just a thought at the moment but concerning matchups what do you guys think about discussing them in terms of the state of play.

For example I'm thinking: The Neutral, Advantageous, Disadvantageous and Edgeguarding as the "states". How each character plays in these states is pretty much what defines the matchup, and breaking down each part would be quite helpful in terms of trying to figure out how to go about fighting the opposing character's kit as a whole in comparison to the random information spewing most matchup threads come down to.

Thoughts?

Also...any more thoughts about this ^

Really feel like it'll be a more effective way to discuss matchups.

 

[FullMoon]

I must say the Pit MU is seems to be the one where nobody seems to agree on a rating =P

Also I think we have a very slight advantage over Pikachu and I think Meta Knight can give us a lot of trouble, but I'll have to gather my thoughts before going in detail about them. For now I'll just say that I think Pikachu is 55:45 Greninja's favor and Meta Knight is probably either 55:45 or 60:40 in his favor.

 

[CHOMPY]

Chompy do you go on smash ladder much? That might explain where I saw you.

Your name did sound familiar and as soon as I was about to join your room, I noticed we played. Do you go on Anthers Ladder?

The matchup itself can really dictate on the player, in terms of how much they know the matchup, as well as who ever has the better fundamentals. If you were to compare the characters by themselves, it would be 55:45 in Greninjas favor, due to better mobility as well as easier kill potential.

 

[Shack]

The lag was pretty bad, I admit. How about i'll play either @ David Galanos @ Marilink or @ Shack on Thursday. Hopefully, between the three players, we can get a decent lag.

Sure, the main person I play against is a Pit main so it will be nice to see some different techniques. I should be around after 9pm EST.

 

[pinkdeaf1]

Sure, the main person I play against is a Pit main so it will be nice to see some different techniques. I should be around after 9pm EST.

Dark pi main here looking to help figure out the matchup as well as get some practice.

Separate styles of play can help find an average matchup rather than a greninja vs specific style of pit with one pit. Seriously though, I want to learn the matchup for both side's sakes.

 

[TTYK]

Sure, the main person I play against is a Pit main so it will be nice to see some different techniques. I should be around after 9pm EST.

Shack, I see you are a ninja main, rock on.

 

[Shack]

Dark pi main here looking to help figure out the matchup as well as get some practice.

Separate styles of play can help find an average matchup rather than a greninja vs specific style of pit with one pit. Seriously though, I want to learn the matchup for both side's sakes.

Cool, add me (ShackShack). I will do my best to go on tonight after 9pm EST

 

[pinkdeaf1]

Cool, add me (ShackShack). I will do my best to go on tonight after 9pm EST

Sure. Shoot me a pm when you are available. I might already be online then.

Nnid: crunchydogfood

 

[CHOMPY]

@ Shack we'll play right after you play @ pinkdeaf1

 

[Drexel]

If we're talking about both Pit and Pitwo here, then my take is this.

While I do think this matchup goes to Greninja, Pit does fare better against him than Dark Pit due to the better flexibility in his arrows. Dark Pit has a harder time camping because he can't change the arrows direction as much. As I do play Dark Pit some, both have good combos, but not enough mobility to keep up with constantly mobile Greninja like myself. Greninja's Shadow Sneak works wonders also punishing a campy Pit as proper timing can bypass both the arrows and hit Pit during his cooldown phase. Hydro Pump works wonders on their recovery so gimping off stage against them is pretty effective.

But because Pit's arrows have more mobility, range and power than Greninja's projectile, Pit does have the advantage when you trade hits with the shuriken and the arrows. That why he fares just a little bit better than Dark Pit does. My Scores:

VS Pit: 60:40
VS Dark Pit: 65:35

As for Pikachu and MK I am still contemplating.

 

[pinkdeaf1]

If we're talking about both Pit and Pitwo here, then my take is this.

While I do think this matchup goes to Greninja, Pit does fare better against him than Dark Pit due to the better flexibility in his arrows. Dark Pit has a harder time camping because he can't change the arrows direction as much. As I do play Dark Pit some, both have good combos, but not enough mobility to keep up with constantly mobile Greninja like myself. Greninja's Shadow Sneak works wonders also punishing a campy Pit as proper timing can bypass both the arrows and hit Pit during his cooldown phase. Hydro Pump works wonders on their recovery so gimping off stage against them is pretty effective.

But because Pit's arrows have more mobility, range and power than Greninja's projectile, Pit does have the advantage when you trade hits with the shuriken and the arrows. That why he fares just a little bit better than Dark Pit does. My Scores:

VS Pit: 60:40
VS Dark Pit: 65:35

As for Pikachu and MK I am still contemplating.

If greninja and the pits are trading projectiles, since dark pit's arrows do more damage, grading with dark pit is worse for greninja than trading with pit.

And I don't think the arrows really make the matchup that much different for the two pits.

 

[FullMoon]

And I don't think the arrows really make the matchup that much different for the two pits.

Pit's arrows being very easy to control makes Greninja have more trouble both returning to the stage due to the arrows trying to intercept him and potentially putting him in a bad position, and also they help Pit cover himself when returning to the stage and make it harder to gimp him.

Dark Pit's arrows go pretty much straight and as such are much less versatile in what they do. I do think Dark Pit's arrows not being capable of much movement hurts him significantly since it makes it easier for Greninja to both return to the stage and also gimp him.

 

[pinkdeaf1]

Pit's arrows being very easy to control makes Greninja have more trouble both returning to the stage due to the arrows trying to intercept him and potentially putting him in a bad position, and also they help Pit cover himself when returning to the stage and make it harder to gimp him.

Dark Pit's arrows go pretty much straight and as such are much less versatile in what they do. I do think Dark Pit's arrows not being capable of much movement hurts him significantly since it makes it easier for Greninja to both return to the stage and also gimp him.

That may be true. However, this must entail that greninja has a hard time avoiding arrows when recovering,pit needs those arrows to cover himself when recovering because greninja can edgeguard pit rather effectively, and that edge guarding really defines the differences in these matchups between pit and dark pit.

I can't really see the arrows screwing with greninja's reovery that much. I also don't see how an arrow can cover pit's recovery against greninja.

 

[TTYK]

Your name did sound familiar and as soon as I was about to join your room, I noticed we played. Do you go on Anthers Ladder?

The matchup itself can really dictate on the player, in terms of how much they know the matchup, as well as who ever has the better fundamentals. If you were to compare the characters by themselves, it would be 55:45 in Greninjas favor, due to better mobility as well as easier kill potential.

I go on smash ladder every now and then, yes. You do sound familiar, but I have not played a pit on there.

 

[Marilink]

Yo @ CHOMPY , you around? I could hop on for a Bo5 if we start within the next half hour or so.

 

[pinkdeaf1]

Yo @ CHOMPY , you around? I could hop on for a Bo5 if we start within the next half hour or so.

Hell. I'm on if you wanna fight a dark pit.

 

[Shack]

Sure. Shoot me a pm when you are available. I might already be online then.

Nnid: crunchydogfood

@ Shack we'll play right after you play @ pinkdeaf1

I'm on in 5-10 mins. Just getting my laundry from the dryer

 

[David Galanos]

Chompy I don't mind playing sometime today, the Pit/Dark Pit matchup is a little weird. I somewhat feel like it's in pit's favor if not equal, cause of shurikens and I can't seem to get out of his throw combos most of the time but I don't really think that has anything to do with Greninja.

 

[pinkdeaf1]

So in the matchup, whoever controls the pace first can rack up huge damage. The way I would describe it, this matchup is almost melee-esque in terms of how fast things can really go bad for either character. Greninja has throw combos and a good time chasing pittoo in the air. And pittoo has throw combos on greninja and can punish landings and missed spacing much better than greninja. In this matchup, pittoo must make use of those multiple jumps to escape combos, feint approaches, and recover in a way greninja can't use that hydro pump cheese. Greninja must be ready to catch pittoo with those up smashes and up airs, and be a proactive edge guarder. The speed on both characters is pretty fast, so projectiles won't be a super big part of the neutral game. Rather, it depends on who whiffs and who punishes.

Greninja can up throw up air, or d throw up air pittoo. Read an air dodge and you get up tilt to up smash. Up air catches thr jump. Either way, pittoo is in the air and greninja can air chase, but there is a problem here. Pittoo has mhltiple jumps, and a wide sweeping disjointed dair. With this, pittoo can just jump dair away to the ledge or to the ground. Greninja must make use of those really quick jumps to attack in between the legs of those dairs. Or greninja can approach from the side, but this is less effective for juggleing and whiff on this usually means pittoo get down for free. Not to mention that pittoo can cover himself with a fair if you come from the front. The greninja air chase dynamic versus pittoo is tough on greninja, making a large part of greninja's strengths harder to utilize.

Pittoo throw combos are just down throw to up smash at low percents, or down throw to up air or fair. There is also f throw to dash attack to up smash, but this works only on low percents and stales f throw which is bad. Pittoo can also up throw to upwards angled neutral b, but thisIis only useful at high percents when greninja isn't low enough to punish. I am not sure if pittoo's back throw can actually kill unless the greninja di's bad, but I have killed with it once or twice. F throw is the primary kill throw though. Since greninja is pretty light, unstaled f throw can kill around 110 percent when greninja get up attacks off ledge and gets shield grabbed.greninja must be wary about how they recover on stage.

Pittoo has an easy time recovering if he goes low and utilizes his air dodges well. Greninja must be at the top of their edgeguard game in order to catch pittoo. The hydro pump trick to push pittoo only works when pittoo is far away from ledge, or if you can get the strong wind box right on pittoo as he side bs or up bs. But pittoo will aware of this cheese and wait it out, drifting ever closer to the ledge with those jumps and air dodges. Greninja should mix up hydro pump and bair edge guardsto throw off the pittoo's recovery tactics.

Greninja doesn not have enough kill moves to fit the matchup, I feel. Up smash is good. F smash will not hit often. Up air is good, buthard to get. D smash reads at ledge can beat out sideb if timed to hit when super armor isn't active. Bair edge guards can kill. But that is kind of it. Correct me if I am wrong.

Dark pit has f smash, f throw, and the rest only work at super high percents. But when pittoo can apply these moves makes all the difference. First off, a kill throw is godly. One read on your ledge roll or ledge attack and greninja dies. F smash is a punish that pittoo can use to punish a misspaced move. Pittoo will land these punishes more often than not due to the way pittoo plays and the way greninja plays.

The way I seeit, greninja has the tools of an aggressor, but pittoo can punish rather well to make the greninja rethink approach options.

The matchup seems to be a 50:50.I