Official Character Competitive Impressions - Tourneys, Tiers, Theories, Tactics

[Djent]

How is / vs. ? Ranai always bodies Komorikiri so I suspect it's at least close, but it's not clearly even or advantaged either. With Villager doing well vs. Ryu and OK vs. ZSS, I think this could determine whether or not (s)he makes top 10.

 

[Y2Kay]

Small point, but Nakat has an amazing Pika as well. Esam has gone so far to say that Nakat's Pika is better then his, though Esam is still better fundamentally.

Yeah no disrespect aimed to NAKAT. I always think of him as Ness main @_@

 

[Mario766]

Ike won't be taken seriously in Japan until Noji starts bopping people.

IIRC he drowned in the latest tournament but I don't put much weight into it...


Because

Bo1s man


THEY CRRRRAAAAZZZZYYY.

 

[Antonykun]

Doesn't her Nair help against an opponents assault?

sometimes but she can't really n-air AND set up her stuff at the same time plus that range is pretty bad and it can't beat dash shield 100% of the time

 

[Ghostbone]

There's just too much competition for the top 10 for villager to make the cut.

Sheik, ZSS, Rosalina, MK, Ryu, Mario, Sonic, Pikachu, Fox, Diddy: there's no way you could call him better than any of them. And then he's in the section with Falcon, Ness, Yoshi, Ike, Peach, Pit, and Dark Pit for the next grouping, some would argue ROB and/or Luigi belongs in there as well. He's somewhere between 11th and 20th.

Villager might be better than Pikachu tbh.
At least they have the same justification for being top 10 and you can't really place one over the other.

 

[LancerStaff]

@Ffamran

Pit probably has more then a few ways to lead directly into the spike... But having bad base knockback and meh growth kinda limits the effectiveness of said combos and setups. Unless it put the opponent low enough to where they either had to Uspecial into another Dair or die, which would be hilarious. (FAF of 37 is pretty fast for a spike right? Has the recovery to back it up anyway.) Or against Ike or Luigi... Yeah, should probably look into that.

 

[LiteralGrill]

Small point, but Nakat has an amazing Pika as well. Esam has gone so far to say that Nakat's Pika is better then his, though Esam is still better fundamentally.

I really am unsure why folks say ESAM is the only Pika with results either. There aren't TONS but compiling data for a Smash 4 top 100 names like Z and Captain L come to mind. Both power ranked in regions will VERY good players, both taking top placements when traveling.

For Villager it's a bit weaker with Felix, SS, with a bit stronger folks like MJG and Villyness maybe. Ranai at G3 will proably end up being big for the character and how viable he is in people's eyes as well as Captain L who's going if he manages to do well for Pika.

 

[Pazzo.]

Someone mentioned that the Japanese and American meta could be radically different.

How is this so? What do foreign players prioritize?

 

[DunnoBro]

Someone mentioned that the Japanese and American meta could be radically different.

How is this so? What do foreign players prioritize?

Well, the stages are a bit different. Their stages favor more defensive play due to big blastzones, aside from SV. This is why I suspect defensive characters are perceived stronger by the Japanese.

But I wouldn't call it a "radical" difference. It's also entirely possible the West's more esports, and entertainment-oriented culture leaked into our perceptions to over-value easy, hype kill confirms.

(Though how japan still underrates prepatch luigi and current ness leads me to believe they are, as disrespectful as some might find this, just a more casual base. There's no money on the line and thus they simply play for the love of the game. Prepatch luigi and ness were not fun)

 

[wedl!!]

From what I can gather, the Japanese meta is more methodical, with an emphasis on optimization. It's why characters like Mewtwo are more highly regarded in the East; most Japanese players are more prone to playing with their brains and thinking. The Western meta opposes this. Characters like Ness and Pikachu are far more common, both of which don't require too much "strategy" and allow you to play off reactions and be in the opponent's face.

It's also the stagelist. In Japan the stagelist is even more conservative, with the traditional three starters being the only common stages (SV/Battlefield/FD) and sometimes the entire stagelist.

 

[thehard]

Someone mentioned that the Japanese and American meta could be radically different.

How is this so? What do foreign players prioritize?

The gist of it is that Japan plays the game "optimally"; mid range zoning and pressure, and regards certain characters like Villager and Duck Hunt more highly than we do, whereas Americans play more "extreme" (on both ends of the spectrum). This is a super basic comparison but it works. Also, recent tournaments suggest both countries are learning from each other in how they approach the game.

 

[C0rvus]

Different stagelist could have an effect, however minor. Japan's tends to be more conservative. (FD/BF/SV, T&C/Lylat iirc)
The "gaming culture" of Japan seems to be more focused. The average player seems to be better, which may have something to do with the age of their average player. I could be wrong, but in order to pursue a game competitively in Japan, you basically need to be an adult. Kids and high school students are likely too busy to put the requisite time into it. As a result, the people who do play competitively are all pretty serious and dedicated to it.

This mentality and level of dedication could definitely lead itself to developing different characters. It's likely just a matter of who the top players play, though.

 

[DunnoBro]

The gist of it is that Japan plays the game "optimally"; mid range zoning and pressure, and regards certain characters like Villager and Duck Hunt more highly than we do, whereas Americans play more "extreme" (on both ends of the spectrum). This is a super basic comparison but it works. Also, recent tournaments suggest both countries are learning from each other in how they approach the game.

Duck hunt perception has been steadily on the decline the past few months in japan. He's 2nd to last among their "viable" list now iirc.

 

[Sonicninja115]

I really am unsure why folks say ESAM is the only Pika with results either. There aren't TONS but compiling data for a Smash 4 top 100 names like Z and Captain L come to mind. Both power ranked in regions will VERY good players, both taking top placements when traveling.

For Villager it's a bit weaker with Felix, SS, with a bit stronger folks like MJG and Villyness maybe. Ranai at G3 will proably end up being big for the character and how viable he is in people's eyes as well as Captain L who's going if he manages to do well for Pika.

Ahhh, yes! Captain L didn't do too bad against ZeRo right?

Someone mentioned that the Japanese and American meta could be radically different.

How is this so? What do foreign players prioritize?

ZeRo made a vid about it. But the gist is that the japanese players are more optimal and methodical, thus defensive

 

[LiteralGrill]

Yes Sonicninja115 . The closest I can say for Villager on that would be Villyness against ZeRo in S4W. She won game 2 and both games were last stock scenarios against PRE-PATCH Diddy.

 

[Luco]

Maybe there is something I'm missing with Marth, but he honestly just seems like a bad character that always gets lumped with mid tier. I'm actually pretty convinced he is solid low tier, but like I said I'm not all knowledgeable about him.

It's mostly that his advantage state is so underwhelming, grab game in particular. I don't feel threatened when I lose neutral to Marth. Maybe it's different for characters with exploitable recoveries, but I don't think edge guarding would make a big enough difference either. I don't feel threatened in the neutral either, so moral of the story... I just never feel threatened when I'm playing Marth. He sort of falls in this very narrow category of doing well against characters who can't break his spacing or characters who can't out zone him, which means he ends up struggling with a lot of characters. And not having a solid approach is IMO a huge detriment in Smash 4. It's like he struggles to get things going in the neutral and his advantage prevents him from ever really getting things going even if he wins neutral.

I played a Marth online recently who entirely changed my perception on him. He utilised Marth's walking like I'd never seen before and his spacing and timing on things like Jab, Ftilt and the like were so impeccable it was really difficult to break neutral positively against him. I feel like Marth needs to be played in the kind of way that anyone else would look at and think the person behind him is some cold, calculating machine. He's a beautiful artwork when he's played this way, or at least it seemed to me. Thank goodness Ness' punish is so strong when he gets in, but good gawsh that neutral.

I was just about to ask this thread why was never considered a top 10 threat right now. People call Ranai Japan's ESAM, but he frankly does too well for to be top tier w/ only ESAM but can't. I know Villager does have actual weaknesses to me, but I find it super odd, that we don't take results from countries foreign to us less seriously than native results. America doesn't take as seriously as Japan does, and Japan doesn't take and as seriously as we do. Not to mention how well does in Australia. I can understand that this mild centrism on their home countries is part of human nature, but all you have to do is google "Ranai" and find an awesome villager player using his character at an optimal level. This is the main reason I'm so hyped for Genesis 3, so many players from all over the place are coming.

Or maybe my logic is flawed? Maybe our metas are just so radically different? But then again we are all playing the sme game though. I don't even know any more...

It's hard for the American scene to notice everything else that's going on in the smash world, and its been this way for a long time. Back in Brawl days there wasn't smash news, big tournaments were talked about in threads but only select players kept up to date with the Japanese scene, even when they came over for big tournaments most people didn't really know that much about what was happening in their regions, or at least not to the extent that we know of stuff now (like we knew a few basic things like their tier list and how and were 2 spots away from each other on their tier list but less as to the day to day, week to week tournament results). In these kinds of environments it was easy for scenes to be more isolated and have their own 'metas' distinct from each other.

Enter smash 4 period, the boards especially (which happen to be probably the biggest central hub for competitive smash 4 in the West) undergo massive changes, suddenly you have smash news with people actively trying to promote inter-connectivity between regions and the boundaries that seperate scenes blur and fade. This has been the biggest 'globalisation' of smash since before I joined the boards - now suddenly people are looking at the Australian meta and the EU meta (more) and the Japanese meta.

In this sense, our scene is expanding on an immense scale. It's not just America anymore, the rest of the world is really getting on board. Now people have to start looking at what's going on in the smash world more holistically. You could argue this makes the construction of tier lists and MU charts even more difficult than they already are. But I think it's a positive step, it brings more people into the fold, allows more scenes to feel 'relevant' in the grand scheme of smash. It also means the US and Japan especially may collaborate and share more of their metas than they did before.

So yeah, I live on a continent far away from the majority of you people posting here, and it's really nice to hear people referring to my scene and the people I play with on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. Keep doing that and I think all scenes will benefit, I think the community in general will continue growing as it has been, or accelerate its growth.

... And in the meantime, we get more data to keep track of!

 

[Big-Cat]

ZeRo made a vid about it. But the gist is that the japanese players are more optimal and methodical, thus defensive

I wouldn't call that defensive. That's simply strategic.

 

[Pazzo.]

How do we as a community define between "defensive" and "strategic"?

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I once heard Japanese vs. American Smash characterized as "optimization" vs. "efficiency" and I think it works on a basic level.

Japanese players go for crazy combos and strings that require tons of effort to practice and implement. American players don't seem to bother if they have something that's "good enough" for a fraction of the effort. I think Greninja and Ike emphasize this difference rather well -- Japan loves Greninja from what I understand, and hates Ike. The opposite is true in America, we regard Ike highly but I don't think Greninja is too popular here. (The "better nerf Greninja" meme didn't exactly help...) And their respective playstyles seem to match optimization (Greninja) and efficiency (Ike) rather well.

Disclaimer: The above is meant to be "in general" and on a basic level to boot. I'm sure exceptions exist and there are nuances I'm missing.

 

[Big-Cat]

Excellent question. I think it actually lies in how we define "offensive". To a lot of people here, that's using your aerials and pressuring like a mofo. Except not everyone is Sheik (lol).

I once heard Japanese vs. American Smash characterized as "optimization" vs. "efficiency" and I think it works on a basic level.

Japanese players go for crazy combos and strings that require tons of effort to practice and implement. American players don't seem to bother if they have something that's "good enough" for a fraction of the effort. I think Greninja and Ike emphasize this difference rather well -- Japan loves Greninja from what I understand, and hates Ike. The opposite is true in America, we regard Ike highly but I don't think Greninja is too popular here. (The "better nerf Greninja" meme didn't exactly help...) And their respective playstyles seem to match optimization (Greninja) and efficiency (Ike) rather well.

I don't know about the Smash scene, but I don't see this with the Japanese players for other games. I think what's a HUGE difference is actually creativity and patience. Characters like Duck Hunt are massively underrated because of the creativity required for them. Likewise, Greninja is someone with no easy mode tactics.

 

[DunnoBro]

Duck hunt isn't underrated. No amount of creativity solves his primary issues of keeping people out, and killing.

If he was better at keep away/out like pac, or villager it'd be fine. But there's a gigantic deadzone directly in front of him that none of his projectiles cover, and only below average frame data moves like jab and tilts do cover it that have next to zero kill potential.

And we all know he has no kill set-ups or reliable punish game.

Sometimes characters are just bad AND hard to play. (And the two issues aren't mutually exclusive either)

 

[Big-Cat]

He's not really meant for keep away IMO. He's about limiting so he can get in - hence the deadzone.

 

[DunnoBro]

He's not really meant for keep away IMO. He's about limiting so he can get in - hence the deadzone.

I'm aware, but the "getting in" is weak as all hell too when he gets no reward for it. Even his ledge coverage options are completely inferior to those with actual kill confirms.

It's great he can limit some options and get some random pokes, but he has no way to actually win the game. He functions great along the way but when it's time to finally decide the winner, he doesn't have any consistent way to ensure it's him. That's why he's bad.

 

[Sonicninja115]

I'm aware, but the "getting in" is weak as all hell too when he gets no reward for it. Even his ledge coverage options are completely inferior to those with actual kill confirms.

It's great he can limit some options and get some random pokes, but he has no way to actually win the game. He functions great along the way but when it's time to finally decide the winner, he doesn't have any consistent way to ensure it's him. That's why he's bad.

I think he really needs a Bthrow that kills and possibly less lag on side b.

 

[outfoxd]

Duck Hunt kos end up being outlasting an opponent until something dumb like fthrow kills as much as landing an upair at reasonable percent. Having to win neutral three times as much as other characters while also pressing advantage as much as his tools will allow is a miserable but necessary experience.

 

[DunnoBro]

I think he really needs a Bthrow that kills and possibly less lag on side b.

Would be kinda dumb for a technical, multi-character to just kill with a throw but it would help a lot.

Personally, I think trickshot should just be made stronger and go higher per shot to give him pseudo-kill throw and a better kill-fishing game.

And frisbee needs the deadzone removed/start-up increase mostly imo, if it could hit directly in front of him it'd be fine since it could be the airdodge punish he needs. But as it is, it has 17 frames of start-up lag (and frames 1-17 it can be broken but not hit the opponent) and a FAF of 66. There's also pseudo-cooldown in that you can't bring out or shoot the can until you've shot the frisbee.

Endlag isn't a big issue if spaced/timed right, but the deadzone just lets them roll in or land in front of you. That's duuumb.

 

[Rizen]

Excellent question. I think it actually lies in how we define "offensive". To a lot of people here, that's using your aerials and pressuring like a mofo. Except not everyone is Sheik (lol).


I don't know about the Smash scene, but I don't see this with the Japanese players for other games. I think what's a HUGE difference is actually creativity and patience. Characters like Duck Hunt are massively underrated because of the creativity required for them. Likewise, Greninja is someone with no easy mode tactics.

Creativity is more rewarding in SSB4 than Brawl because it's more balanced. In Brawl you could be very creative with Link but all the opponent had to do to beat it was power shield. SSB4 is also more geared to zoning/passive play with shields being less effective.

With that said, a solid, low risk/good reward option no matter how simple still beats creativity. Link can do all the setups he wants with bomb planting, projectile zoning, frame traps, etc but it only goes so far. He doesn't have an effective game plan like say CF with dash grab>throw combos, MK with Dash attack>Uair, etc.
I admit Link's not a great character and some high tiers like villager can be very creative but s/he has effective options. I think underwhelming characters like Duck Hunt, Link, Samus, etc can be extremely creative. They won't get too high in the tier list regardless because they simply don't have good options.

 

[outfoxd]

Creativity is more rewarding in SSB4 than Brawl because it's more balanced. In Brawl you could be very creative with Link but all the opponent had to do to beat it was power shield. SSB4 is also more geared to zoning/passive play with shields being less effective.

With that said, a solid, low risk/good reward option no matter how simple still beats creativity. Link can do all the setups he wants with bomb planting, projectile zoning, frame traps, etc but it only goes so far. He doesn't have an effective game plan like say CF with dash grab>throw combos, MK with Dash attack>Uair, etc.
I admit Link's not a great character and some high tiers like villager can be very creative but s/he has effective options. I think underwhelming characters like Duck Hunt, Link, Samus, etc can be extremely creative. They won't get too high in the tier list regardless because they simply don't have good options.

It's hard to play chess when your opponent came ready for a boxing match.

 

[Rizen]

Similarly in chess rooks are better than knights. Solid, effective options>creativity.

 

[LightLV]

im not sure, isn't smash one of the few games where the west just outperforms the east during tournaments? I never really hear of too many Japanese players in Smash, but then again they just may not have the incentive to travel for tournaments

But if there was some hypothetical West vs. East smash tournament, I wouldn't have much faith for the east...unlike if you were to say something like Tekken or SF east vs. west.

 

[Sonicninja115]

Would be kinda dumb for a technical, multi-character to just kill with a throw but it would help a lot.

Personally, I think trickshot should just be made stronger and go higher per shot to give him pseudo-kill throw and a better kill-fishing game.

And frisbee needs the deadzone removed/start-up increase mostly imo, if it could hit directly in front of him it'd be fine since it could be the airdodge punish he needs. But as it is, it has 17 frames of start-up lag (and frames 1-17 it can be broken but not hit the opponent) and a FAF of 66. There's also pseudo-cooldown in that you can't bring out or shoot the can until you've shot the frisbee.

Endlag isn't a big issue if spaced/timed right, but the deadzone just lets them roll in or land in front of you. That's duuumb.

I was hoping that the throw could kill at the ledge at 140%ish. So that the point of the game is to get them to a high enough percent that you can either get the Bthrow or a Frisbee-Uair.

L LightLV In Sm4sh, the East is actually better then the west right now. There was a crew battle at EVO? and the east won. The reason is that the East has Nairo, Esam, Dabuz and False/Vinnie while the west only has ZeRo, Ito, Xzax and a couple of others.

 

[NegaNixx]

L LightLV In Sm4sh, the East is actually better then the west right now. There was a crew battle at EVO? and the east won. The reason is that the East has Nairo, Esam, Dabuz and False/Vinnie while the west only has ZeRo, Ito, Xzax and a couple of others.

I think it was in regards to Japan vs US.

At Umebura the Japan won I believe. But it wasn't the best vs the best.

Nairo along with Vinnie and Ally were present against Ranai and two others though, but No Zero, Dabuz, ESAM, Anti.

Edit: Here's hoping there's a crews tournament at Genesis. With Mexico, Japn, Canada, East/West/South US, Europe... It would be beautiful.

 

[thehard]

I was hoping that the throw could kill at the ledge at 140%ish. So that the point of the game is to get them to a high enough percent that you can either get the Bthrow or a Frisbee-Uair.

L LightLV In Sm4sh, the East is actually better then the west right now. There was a crew battle at EVO? and the east won. The reason is that the East has Nairo, Esam, Dabuz and False/Vinnie while the west only has ZeRo, Ito, Xzax and a couple of others.

East as in Japan and West as in America, lol.

I see it as Zero/Nairo > Japan's high level > America's high level

 

[Mario766]

Similarly in chess rooks are better than knights. Solid, effective options>creativity.

Knights are the core place of strong strategies in chess. Think again.

 

[Emblem Lord]

I played a Marth online recently who entirely changed my perception on him. He utilised Marth's walking like I'd never seen before and his spacing and timing on things like Jab, Ftilt and the like were so impeccable it was really difficult to break neutral positively against him. I feel like Marth needs to be played in the kind of way that anyone else would look at and think the person behind him is some cold, calculating machine. He's a beautiful artwork when he's played this way, or at least it seemed to me. Thank goodness Ness' punish is so strong when he gets in, but good gawsh that neutral.


It's hard for the American scene to notice everything else that's going on in the smash world, and its been this way for a long time. Back in Brawl days there wasn't smash news, big tournaments were talked about in threads but only select players kept up to date with the Japanese scene, even when they came over for big tournaments most people didn't really know that much about what was happening in their regions, or at least not to the extent that we know of stuff now (like we knew a few basic things like their tier list and how and were 2 spots away from each other on their tier list but less as to the day to day, week to week tournament results). In these kinds of environments it was easy for scenes to be more isolated and have their own 'metas' distinct from each other.

Enter smash 4 period, the boards especially (which happen to be probably the biggest central hub for competitive smash 4 in the West) undergo massive changes, suddenly you have smash news with people actively trying to promote inter-connectivity between regions and the boundaries that seperate scenes blur and fade. This has been the biggest 'globalisation' of smash since before I joined the boards - now suddenly people are looking at the Australian meta and the EU meta (more) and the Japanese meta.

In this sense, our scene is expanding on an immense scale. It's not just America anymore, the rest of the world is really getting on board. Now people have to start looking at what's going on in the smash world more holistically. You could argue this makes the construction of tier lists and MU charts even more difficult than they already are. But I think it's a positive step, it brings more people into the fold, allows more scenes to feel 'relevant' in the grand scheme of smash. It also means the US and Japan especially may collaborate and share more of their metas than they did before.

So yeah, I live on a continent far away from the majority of you people posting here, and it's really nice to hear people referring to my scene and the people I play with on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. Keep doing that and I think all scenes will benefit, I think the community in general will continue growing as it has been, or accelerate its growth.

... And in the meantime, we get more data to keep track of!

So Marth needs to play like some..intelligent master swordsman who comes from a long line of master swordsmen? Using his brain to methodically shut down advances with oppressive footsies. Kinda like..a strategy game?

Yo this is crazy stuff mang.

Mind = BLOWN!!!!

 

[CHOMPY]

I was hoping that the throw could kill at the ledge at 140%ish. So that the point of the game is to get them to a high enough percent that you can either get the Bthrow or a Frisbee-Uair.

L LightLV In Sm4sh, the East is actually better then the west right now. There was a crew battle at EVO? and the east won. The reason is that the East has Nairo, Esam, Dabuz and False/Vinnie while the west only has ZeRo, Ito, Xzax and a couple of others.

I love how U.S. defines only the east and west. As if any other part of the region is non existent.

For Midwest, we have Zinoto, Akiro, MJG, JJROCKETS, Rayquaza, and Triple R

 

[Mario766]

They kinda just lump us into East even though Midwest beat both MD/VA and FL at Big House.

Midwest doesn't have the huge streams so we have less exposure.

 

[FullMoon]

I once heard Japanese vs. American Smash characterized as "optimization" vs. "efficiency" and I think it works on a basic level.

Japanese players go for crazy combos and strings that require tons of effort to practice and implement. American players don't seem to bother if they have something that's "good enough" for a fraction of the effort. I think Greninja and Ike emphasize this difference rather well -- Japan loves Greninja from what I understand, and hates Ike. The opposite is true in America, we regard Ike highly but I don't think Greninja is too popular here. (The "better nerf Greninja" meme didn't exactly help...) And their respective playstyles seem to match optimization (Greninja) and efficiency (Ike) rather well.

Disclaimer: The above is meant to be "in general" and on a basic level to boot. I'm sure exceptions exist and there are nuances I'm missing.

I don't think Greninja is that loved in Japan, it's just that the best players of the character are there. He is generally seem in a more positive light there though, but that's probably because Greninja actually exists there to begin with.

I find it really unlikely that Greninja will get very popular in our meta anytime soon because of some of the stuff said here about him taking a lot of effort, dumb memes and just general misconception of the character being spread around. I often go around to see people saying what boils down to "Greninja was amazing before, now he's trash" and others agreeing to it because people can't be bothered to actually learn how to play the character instead of spamming Up-Smash all day or something.

I think of all characters in this game right now Greninja is probably the biggest victim of stigma from the community that resulted in the character being completely overlooked because he got nerfed once and a dumb meme sprouted out of it that he's never going to live down.

 

[Megamang]

I actually see (and rep) a fair amount of greninja on ladder/FG/my scene, he just doesnt have any top level rep (which i personally think is because of his worst MU being shiek, its why he isnt my main).

 

[Wintropy]

I don't think Greninja is that loved in Japan, it's just that the best players of the character are there. He is generally seem in a more positive light there though, but that's probably because Greninja actually exists there to begin with.

I find it really unlikely that Greninja will get very popular in our meta anytime soon because of some of the stuff said here about him taking a lot of effort, dumb memes and just general misconception of the character being spread around. I often go around to see people saying what boils down to "Greninja was amazing before, now he's trash" and others agreeing to it because people can't be bothered to actually learn how to play the character instead of spamming Up-Smash all day or something.

I think of all characters in this game right now Greninja is probably the biggest victim of stigma from the community that resulted in the character being completely overlooked because he got nerfed once and a dumb meme sprouted out of it that he's never going to live down.

It's interesting, because in theory and in practice, he has a hell of a lot going for him. He's just a very solid character with a stable gameplan, interesting tech and (excepting Sheik) a respectable matchup spread - there's nothing that should be holding him back, except maybe the technical understanding required to master him. Even then, it's not like you get so-so results for the work you put in: he's a very technical character, but equally rewarding when you know how to use him.

Yet you still have people who don't know what he's capable of and grimace in confusion when you say he's a solid high-tier. I've seen people maintain that he's definitively mid-tier and, yes, that he was good but he's been trash ever since the 3DS days. It's disconcerting, and I wonder if these people have ever seen good Greninja play or if they just think he's underwhelming because that seems to be the general opinion (abetted by the "better nerf Greninja" meme, which was fine initially, and then was very quickly run into the dirt). Good Greninja play, while relatively rare compared to other high-tier characters, does exist and it is very impressive.

It's not the kind of thing that's going to change overnight, though. If it's true that the Japanese meta prefers optimisation over efficiency, then I can see why he's popular there, but I understand equally why he isn't popular in the west if the inverse is true. I can empathise to a degree, since Pit is kind of in a similar situation, but Greninja seems to be a more extreme example - very few people underestimate what Pit can do, and that's probably because it's easy to tell what his strengths are and what his gameplan is. Greninja is more esoteric. Yet short of a very good US player doing work with Greninja and taking names at big regionals (if not nationals), I don't think the sentiment is going to change in the immediate future. It's definitely possible, and we've seen time and again how a few good players doing work with under-appreciated characters can change people's opinions of them, but the interest doesn't seem to be there to the same extent as it is with others. Being a shady ninja full of shady ninja secrets isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Out of interest, who're the best US Greninjas right now? I honestly can't think of any of note.