The Super Smash Bros for Wii U Back Room has a wide variety of personalities, including top players from around the globe, community leaders, and even some Staff Writers like myself and our own Editor-in-Chief. With such a big number of players around the globe, it is not difficult to find different kinds of players.
Featured in this Backroom Pass Caleb "Illusion" King, a Greninja main from Texas, ranked 3rd in his region. He has placed well in different major tournaments, such as 9th at Low Tier City 4, 7th at Impact, and 13th at Clutch City Clash. Let's get to know him better, how he inspired to main Greninja and some personal background.
"The first Pokemon game I ever played was Pokemon Emerald when I was a Sophomore in high school because I wasn't allowed to play it as a child. I loved the game and it made me want to play the newer ones and finding out that a new version of Smash was coming out for the 3DS sparked my interest even more of purchasing one. I played through Pokemon X and Froakie was my starter. Greninja quickly became my favorite Pokemon because his design is just, to put it simply, awesome: blue's my favorite color, frogs were my favorite creatures as a child, and I also loved ninjas as a child. I played other Pokemon games as a result and it became my favorite Nintendo series, behind Smash, of course. Then the Smash Direct was released and Greninja was announced... 'OH MY GOSH, that is the first character I am playing when this game comes out.' Months later the game comes out, I played him, I loved him, but I thought he was kinda awkward to play so I had set him aside for the time being and mained Charizard instead for like the first week or so. I went back to him when I felt like I understood how the game works more, and now I've been maining the character ever since.
First tournament I went to was in July of 2015 and it was a weekly with only 25 entrants. My only experience at that point was playing For Glory; my goal was to get in the top half of placements. I won my first round, then lost in round 2 of winner's bracket to a Peach. After winning the next two rounds in loser's, I ended up having to play a Sheik. When I found out my next opponent was a Sheik, I was really worried because I knew that was Greninja's worst MU to the point where it was considered borderline unwinnable. I tried my best, but it just wasn't enough, though I did accomplish my goal of placing in the top half just barely. Playing against the Sheik however, was discouraging and I was tempted to never attend a tournament again simply because of how horrible the MU was on top of how common the character is. But instead of doing that, I decided to just put in the extra time to improve as a player, and I'm glad I did rather than just give up."
Getting into greater depths of the character itself, Illusion has developed some pros and cons for Greninja after putting in countless hours into the character.
"Pros: Greninja has some of the best movement in the game. He's really good at weaving in-and-out of the opponent's comfort zone due to this. However, he's not a rushdown character (I'll touch on that later). His advantage state is also good due to his juggling tools, and his recovery can be used to gimp others and goes a long distance. His neutral is underrated: he possesses a projectile that forces others to approach, some of his tools for safe shield pressure, assuming they're all properly spaced, are his F-air, Ftilt, B-air, Dtilt that works on certain characters and his great movement attributes as I touched on earlier. He's a footsies, hit-and-run style character that excels at pushing his advantage state once he gets in.
Cons: His disadvantage is bad, due to the fact that he's a mid-weight fast-faller that lacks any sort of combo-breaker such as Luigi's N-air. Sure, he has Shadow Sneak Hitstun Canceling, but it's situational and can be punished if read/used carelessly. His frame data is mediocre, but has range to somewhat make up for it, F-air being the primary example. His recovery lacks a hitbox, so characters with any effective offstage presence can take advantage of this, but they must also keep in mind that Hydro Pump can be controlled to go a wide variety of angles. For some reason, the developers decided to make his Usmash not work while an opponent is standing on a platform above him, so his earliest kill option is basically gone. His Out-of-shield options are almost nonexistent also."
A confusing piece of Greninja tech may have popped up while reading Illusion's Cons section, Shadow Sneak Hitstun Caneling. You may be asking yourself, what that is; Illusion has that covered:
"His most famous tech would have to be Shadow Sneak Hitstun Canceling. What this allows Greninja to do is potentially avoid death from certain multihit kill moves or avoid being trapped in certain combos. Zero Suit Samus' Boost Kick is the best example for multihit kill moves:
To finalize, Illusion shares his thoughts of Greninja's current spot in the meta and where he could be placed in tier lists.
"I think Greninja is in a good spot considering his strengths and weaknesses. Depending on the way you look at it, he could go up or down in the future: he can go up if Greninja players can improve upon mastering his movement, tools and the way MUs are played out. Although, he can go down if other opposing players improve their combo-game through maximizing it to their advantage and exploit his weaknesses.
Yes, he is a high tier [in my opinion]. Greninja's results have significantly improved recently, he is currently #16 on Das Koopa's scoring project. Elexiao and iStudying have both won regionals in Europe and place highly at regionals. Eddy has placed high at a couple European regionals as well. Japanese Greninjas such as Some and Osiitofu have been racking up results and wins in their country. P2P with Gibus and myself placed highly at every big Texas tournament we attended. Venia and Stroder placed high at nationals, with 25th at Super Smash Con 2016 and 33rd at EVO 2016 respectively. You don't see Greninjas at nationals often though, this is due to the top U.S. Greninjas not traveling as often. His MU spread is also decent, but struggles with common threats in the metagame such as Sheik, Sonic, and Fox. He can't win a national by himself, he will need a secondary and that is why he is a high tier and not a top tier."
So, with this second Backroom Pass concluded, who would you like to see next? What other character would you like to be featured? Let us know in the comments! Be sure to follow our interviewee @calebking_97, our interviewer @DiosdiSSB, the 4BR @Smash4BR and Smashboards @Smashboards on Twitter. Stay tuned!
