Meta Mastery of the Arts - Greninja Matchup Thread Archive

[FullMoon]

I'm usually available for matches, especially since I'm on break from college. The distance might cause input lag though.

 

[Gamegenie222]

Brazil ughh man I'll try it tomorrow man and see how it is then we can follow up from there.

 

[ephOE]

I could play as well, USA east coast here.

 

[Gamegenie222]

I could play as well, USA east coast here.

What days are you free I'm good most days in the afternoon/nights that arn't Tuesdays?

 

[ephOE]

What days are you free I'm good most days in the afternoon/nights that arn't Tuesdays?

Weekday evenings and most Saturdays.

 

[Gamegenie222]

Weekday evenings and most Saturdays.

Hmm I can try tomorrow evening unless something comes up?

 

[ephOE]

Hmm I can try tomorrow evening unless something comes up?

Yeah, just send me a private message on here so we don't semi-off-topic-bump this thread anymore.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Greninja beats Ganon, not gonna disagree with that. Better neutral game and has fairly good options for juggling and killing Ganon that are hard for Ganon to avoid. Greninja's 50/50s off grab are pretty annoying for Ganon to deal with (usually can U-air Ganon before he can aerial Wizkick), especially since his dashgrab is really good. Greninja is also shorter than Ganon would like which forces Ganon to commit more to hit Greninja with aerials.

I find that recovery is rarely an issue for either character in this matchup. Greninja's low edgeguards are moderately limited, so he doesn't have a very easy time pressuring Ganon's normal recovery path compared to most characters. On the flipside, the raw distance on Greninja's Up-B gives him options to avoid a lot of Ganon's edgeguards with better consistency than most characters.

Somwhere between 55/45 and 6/4 Greninja's favor would be my verdict. Ganon can randomly win by clutching out with his high reward pokes, but it's one of his harder matchups overall.

 

[bc1910]

Again sorry for talking about MU that isn't on this week but I think this should be shared. I've just labbed a guaranteed OoS punish on Sonic's Homing Spin.

I find HS one of the most annoying moves to deal with in the Sonic MU because he can throw it out with impunity, it's strong when it does hit and it's safe on block and whiff. It will also kill eventually. When Sonic hits your shield with HS he will always bounce off in the direction he came from. He can also pull back in that direction after hitting your shield, usually pulling too far away to punish.

Greninja, however, gets a guaranteed Fair or Bair OoS punish on Sonic when he hits your shield with Homing Spin. Greninja has such a high short hop with and such good range on his aerials, he can actually hit Sonic with a properly buffered Fair or properly timed Bair no matter how far he pulls back, and the ending lag on Homing Spin is high enough for Sonic not to be able to jump, airdodge or attack before getting hit by Greninja's aerial. Having the 7th best air speed in the game helps too.

It can be tricky to pull off because of how the buffer works in this game. Basically, if you buffer jump and then something else, your jump input gets ignored. So if you try to buffer jump Fair OoS right after Sonic hits your shield, you will simply roll towards him. This is annoying, because the only way to make sure Fair or Bair hit Sonic even if he pulls back after hitting your shield is to jump in that direction straight out of jumpsquat, rather than jumping and then moving in this direction. Greninja's jumpsquat is 4 frames so you have to be strict with your timing. When Sonic hits your shield you need to jump (buffered or not) and input Fair during Greninja's jumpsquat frames and keep holding forward. If you input Fair too late, Greninja will be in the air already and you will not move forward far enough to hit Sonic if he pulls back from the homing spin. If you input Fair too early, you will just roll.

With Bair, you need to input jump and then direct yourself toward Sonic during the 4 frame jumpsquat window as before, but don't buffer the actual Bair. You need to delay the actual attack for a few frames to ensure you hit Sonic. Again, if you move toward Sonic too early you will roll, if you move too late the attack will whiff.

I hope I've made myself clear here. I'm basically saying that you need to be jumping towards Sonic to actually punish him, rather than jumping and then pushing the control stick towards him; the "towards" motion needs to happen during Greninja's jumpsquat frames. It'll take some practice to be able to Fair out of shield properly because of how the buffer works, but it's really worth learning. Greninja is one of the only characters to get a guaranteed OoS punish on Sonic's Homing Spin.

 

[Eureka]

I think in the Roy match up, whoever wins will be decided by a few key factors.

1. How much of an advantage Greninja can take on the defensive, and subsequently how effectively Roy can get in. Those fancy ninja stars you guys have aren't worth anything if they don't hit, and this is the state where Greninja is at the biggest advantage in the match.
2. How well Greninja can get away and how much momentum Roy can keep. This is a really big one. Greninja, on all the not silly stages, can not run away forever. Roy can catch Greninja eventually and Greninja will need to create space. Roy can push openings extremely effectively and can get a momentum swing if the match isn't going his way or increase his lead if it is. I think this factor above all the other ones can be what decides a game.
3. Punish game. Greninja has a strong punish game against Roy and is a major source of damage for him. Roy's no slouch though, possessing strong punish options himself. Comparing the two, Greninja has more opportunities to punish with quicker moves, a longer dash grab, and Roy's tendency to leave himself option more often. Roy on the other hand won't get as many punishes, but can potentially get a bigger reward of them. For example, I don't know if you've heard, but our f-smash is pretty strong (seriously people need to stop rolling behind Roy when he's not attacking).
4. If Greninja can kill Roy offstage. Roy really doesn't have any parallel to this one. Roy can edge guard well normally with fair, bair, and Flare Blade, but Greninja's recovery is just too long and unpredictable to gimp reliably. If Roy is going to get an edgeguard, it's going to be off the side blast line, not the bottom. Greninja on the other hand, has Hydro Pump. Hydro Pump can either bring Roy up above the ledge to get hit, or outright push him away. Roy can challenge most of Greninja's other edgeguarding options effectively, but Hydro Pump is something he doesn't have an answer to.

 

[Gunla]

Results:

• (?:?, lots of discussion on him but no consensus. Given his showing at EVO, it likely needs more.)
  
• (60:40)
  
• (50:50)
  
• (Impressions: Seems to be in the evenish range. Tough matchup!)

This Week, we're going to focus on Pokemon:

• (?:?) @ Swamp Sensei , any thoughts to share?
  
• (?:?)
  
• (?:?, recall Heavy Skull Bash)
  
• (?:?, presumed to be in the 55-60:45-40 range)
  
• (65:35)
  
• (50:50, but feel free to discuss the matchup.)

Next week, we will focus on revisions with EVO 2015's recent results.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

I haven't fought a competent Greninja yet, but I imagine that we don't have to change our playstyle in particular.

I don't think his tools shut Charizard down or anything, but again. I haven't fought a competent Greninja.

 

[FullMoon]

I've played a lot against Charizard myself and he's combo food, gets juggled a lot, Rock Smash can only do so much to help, etc.

Noteworthy is that we can mess with both of Charizard's recovery moves. Fly is messed up by Hydro Pump and Flare Blitz is stopped if Greninja drops in front of the ledge and uses Substitute, a diagonal downwards Substitute will likely kill Charizard off and we'll be able to recover.

The most Charizard can do to edgeguard us is Flamethrower but thanks to the lag on it if we see it coming we recover high safely. If we're forced to recover low it's still not too bad though you do have to watch for D-Air or a stage spike attempt.

His Up-Throw buff means you won't want to play Zard in a stage with high platforms so the best stages to go against him are T&C (somewhat), Smashville, Final Destination and Lylat. Definitely do not pick Halberd against him

Greninja's good damage racking from combos plus Charizard being such an easy target for combos means we can do a looooooot of damage to him if we get the chance. He can KO us early too, but the odds are against him I'm afraid.

55:45 or 60:40 in our favor. Water > Fire after all.

 

[Eureka]

His Up-Throw buff means you won't want to play Zard in a stage with high platforms so the best stages to go against him are T&C (somewhat), Smashville, Final Destination and Lylat. Definitely do not pick Halberd against him.

Adding on to this, you probably don't want to pick Duck Hunt either. Unless you enjoy dying at 50% off the top of the tree, then by all means go to Duck Hunt.

 

[Codaption]

A good note is that since Charizard flies up during his Uthrow, he'll land on any platforms that were above him- like Rob or Kirby.

Fairly obvious, but....yeah. Like @ E Eureka said, don't take him to Duck Hunt.

 

[FullMoon]

Yeah I've had the fun times of being caught in the tree with Up-Throw once in some friendlies.

Against Charizard you'll always want to ban Halberd and Duck Hunt. He probably will counterpick you to BF or Dreamland to abuse the top platforms.

Or just pick SV like how people do 90% of the time.

 

[SteadyDisciple]

I'm not a pro by any stretch, but here's what I have on the lucario matchup. We're much faster in terms of attacks and can combo him well, but I have yet to find a good way to kill lucario before he reaches high percents thanks to the range and speed of his recovery move. Once lucario does get to into high percents, many of his moves become possible kills,and thanks to Aura sphere he doesn't seem to need to approach much.

 

[FullMoon]

Yeah this MU is not fun for Jigglypuff.

 

[Codaption]

Yeah this MU is not fun for Jigglypuff.

Preeeetty much. :/

 

[Ludiloco]

While it doesn't really pertain to Pokemon week, I'd like to point out that this last patch made our MU with much easier. I never much agreed with the 60:40 ratio we slapped on the MU, because gimping Luigi really is not that easy and if he gets in we take way too much damage. Not to mention our good stages are also his good stages with the exception of Duck Hunt and probably Lylat. I always thought the MU was kind of even.

However, with faster shurikens and a little more lag on Luigi's fireballs, it's super easy to piss off Luigi players. Just run around, chuck shurikens until they get bored of blocking them and over extend on grabs, and then punish super hard. If you threaten a Luigi with time-out they will definitely make mistakes. I went to a weekly today and beat a couple Luigis, including one where I had a % lead and actually put my controller down on the table and just chilled for a bit because the guy just threw fireballs at a disance lol

 

[ephOE]

While it doesn't really pertain to Pokemon week, I'd like to point out that this last patch made our MU with much easier. I never much agreed with the 60:40 ratio we slapped on the MU, because gimping Luigi really is not that easy and if he gets in we take way too much damage. Not to mention our good stages are also his good stages with the exception of Duck Hunt and probably Lylat. I always thought the MU was kind of even.

However, with faster shurikens and a little more lag on Luigi's fireballs, it's super easy to piss off Luigi players. Just run around, chuck shurikens until they get bored of blocking them and over extend on grabs, and then punish super hard. If you threaten a Luigi with time-out they will definitely make mistakes. I went to a weekly today and beat a couple Luigis, including one where I had a % lead and actually put my controller down on the table and just chilled for a bit because the guy just threw fireballs at a disance lol

To piggyback on this, Luigi can't do much against FC WS at mid range because he doesn't have the aerial speed to approach over them, and they beat out fireballs. It's now also much easier to poke Luigi with WS if he tries to cover landings with fireballs.

It feels good to have a real projectile again.

 

[Gunla]

Results:

• (55:45)
  
• (?:?)
  
• (?:?)
  
• (?:?)
  
• (65:35)
  
• (50:50)

Intermission is now in effect. We've had buffs come to us and a balance patch, so we'll hold off for now.

 

[RedBeefBaron]

I guess I'm kind late but the buffs really help against Pikachu. Shurikens are good enough to force him to approach which means a lot in this matchup. Hydro pump can mess with quick attack and allow greninja to punish it and challenge Pikachu's recovery, unlike most characters. Greninja's recovery gets around pikachu's off stage game better than most. Greninja has better kill power but Pikachu is extremely hard to hit, and juggles greninja for days of easier confirms. The d throw buff gives greninja more reliable kill setups at higher %, which is great for this matchup.

So while I think greninja used to lose I'd say after the buffs the argument for even is much more legitimate. Thoughts?

 

[FullMoon]

Shurikens aren't going to matter much when Pikachu can skip them with Quick Attack. Thunder Jolt also still comes out earlier than shurikens as well so we aren't really going to be forcing Pikachu to approach.

 

[Coffee™]

Pikachu still wins the matchup something like 60:40.

Also some of these matchups are really conservative. Zard is either 60:40 or 65:35. A 55:45 might as well be even, which the matchup clearly isnt.

Also Duck Hunt is not that big of a deal vs Zard. Just avoid the section with the tree and you'll be fine. I'd honestly be happier that a Zard took me there as opposed to Dreamland or Battlefield where they have more opportunities to set up an early kill.

 

[FullMoon]

I don't think the Pikachu MU is that bad for us, going from my own experience with it. Buffed shurikens don't really make much of a difference here though.

I've seen that particular MU all over the place, from even to Pikachu's favor to our favor. It's quite a mess lol.

 

[Coffee™]

The buffed shurikens should help in racking damage

I don't think the Pikachu MU is that bad for us, going from my own experience with it. Buffed shurikens don't really make much of a difference here though.

I've seen that particular MU all over the place, from even to Pikachu's favor to our favor. It's quite a mess lol.

Yeah, the buffed shurikens don't make a huge difference, but they do help in racking damage as Pika lands at a distance and they help to combat his approaches to some degree. The issue is that Pikachu is one of they few characters that quite easily offset Greninja's neutral and get into advantage against him quickly. QA being the main problem move here. With that being said he's also one of the few characters that can consistently **** with Greninja's recovery via Bair. It's not a horrible matchup or anything but imo it's not even.

 

[FullMoon]

The buffed shurikens should help in racking damage


Yeah, the buffed shurikens don't make a huge difference, but they do help in racking damage as Pika lands at a distance and they help to combat his approaches to some degree. The issue is that Pikachu is one of they few characters that quite easily offset Greninja's neutral and get into advantage against him quickly. QA being the main problem move here. With that being said he's also one of the few characters that can consistently **** with Greninja's recovery via Bair. It's not a horrible matchup or anything but imo it's not even.

Hydro Pump in neutral messes up with QA a lot. Being HP'd messes with Pikachu's positioning and will most likely leave him vulnerable. If you know it's coming you can mess it up badly

To avoid being killed by B-Air you should just not recover low. Plus we also mess up Quick Attack pretty well with HP when he's recovering.

 

[Coffee™]

Hydro Pump in neutral messes up with QA a lot. Being HP'd messes with Pikachu's positioning and will most likely leave him vulnerable. If you know it's coming you can mess it up badly

To avoid being killed by B-Air you should just not recover low. Plus we also mess up Quick Attack pretty well with HP when he's recovering.

HP is really good against QA yes, but it's hard to use it as a tool to combat it in neutral as you have yo predict the QA. QA is best used against Greninja to intercept his landings or end lag and Pika is mobile enough to abuse this.

It also places him solidly in advantage each time it hits which is honestly kinda absurd for a movement option. Imo QA is the only reason the matchup is in his favor.

As for Bair it's not just with recovering low. Pika can literally wait to see where Greninja is going or force the position with Tjolts and just toss out the move as the hitbox is out for so long.

 

[TheRealDonquavious]

I figured that during intermission is a good time to ask, so how on earth do we play the Yoshi matchup? It's one of the few where I just don't know what is punishable or how I should be playing the neutral.
I know that I am messing up in letting him hit my shield for free with nairs and fairs and that I should probably try to avoid shielding very much at all, but I just don't quite know how to play the matchup. I've seen it listed as even, but I feel like I am always fighting an uphill battle.

Any tips?

 

[Ludiloco]

Yoshi is a character who thrives, I feel, on making you play the game he wants you to play.

Yoshi wants you to challenge his Yoshi stuff, and if you do that you're going to take on a lot of extra % and eventually be ripe for a KO setup out of jab or something like that. Keep Yoshi at a distance and just watch what he does. The key to this MU is understanding the way the Yoshi likes to play and keeping him in the air, so we can use our mobility to bait landing options and punish them.

And honestly, shielding is really pretty good against Yoshi. He really has no follow-ups out of grab and his neutral b is usually only performed from the air. And if you're just sitting there in shield right under Yoshi you're asking for a down B to pop your shield anyway.

Offstage, you need to not go deep and over-commit because Yoshi can use his double jump to get out of most hairy situations. Just wait for him by the ledge and try to trump him off if he egg snaps to it. If you feel ballsy, it can be effective to go out there and just not throw anything out to get Yoshi to burn his double jump, then retreat to the stage and try to knock him back out there. I've actually gimped a couple Yoshis with shurikens, they're really a pretty good tool in the mu if you know when to use them. But the major key is keeping Yoshi off the ground and holding tightly to stage control.

 

[Coffee™]

Hey guys, I just want to make a mention of the Ganon boards matchup thread. It has a pretty good format for the OP. It has a good display of relevant information and doesnt focus as much on matchup ratios which is good as it actually helps matchup discussion specifically instead of just focusing on the numbers. Might be something worth emulating.

Greninja beats Ganon, not gonna disagree with that. Better neutral game and has fairly good options for juggling and killing Ganon that are hard for Ganon to avoid. Greninja's 50/50s off grab are pretty annoying for Ganon to deal with (usually can U-air Ganon before he can aerial Wizkick), especially since his dashgrab is really good. Greninja is also shorter than Ganon would like which forces Ganon to commit more to hit Greninja with aerials.

I find that recovery is rarely an issue for either character in this matchup. Greninja's low edgeguards are moderately limited, so he doesn't have a very easy time pressuring Ganon's normal recovery path compared to most characters. On the flipside, the raw distance on Greninja's Up-B gives him options to avoid a lot of Ganon's edgeguards with better consistency than most characters.

Somwhere between 55/45 and 6/4 Greninja's favor would be my verdict. Ganon can randomly win by clutching out with his high reward pokes, but it's one of his harder matchups overall.

Greninja vs Ganon is terrible....

Ganon gets shuriken camped until he throws out a hitbox then gets grabbed for it until he dies.....that is literally the entire matchup. He cannot get in at all.

 

[Gunla]

This Week:

• (?:?)
  
• (?:?)
• (?:?)
• (50:50)

 

[FullMoon]

For the MK MU I think this post from the viability thread sums it up pretty well:

The foremost reason is the ability to escape kill setups. That **** is annoying. Beyond that he's quick and so doesn't care that much about MK's excellent mobility (where as in a number of matchups, MK mobility completely trivializes the matchup), and he has a decent projectile that can make it dangerous to play too defensively, which again frog doesn't care too much about anyways because he's really fast. He can fade in/fade out pretty effectively on our approaches, and punish if we get too hasty. If frog had better frame data than us this matchup would be really bad, but he doesn't. If the SS thing didn't exist, it'd be pretty close to even, but it does exist. What makes that part of the matchup so frustrating is that shuttle loop is the only non-read kill move MK has against Greninja, which is desperately needed because of how Greninja outpaces us in neutral, even when we get a confirm trying to go for the kill is just going to end with it being dodged and special falling to the ground where we'll eat a punish.

 

[Codaption]

I can't see Rob having as much trouble with Hydro Pump as other characters do, since he doesn't go into special fall from booster and can just use an aerial to get his air mobility/airdodge back. Bair in particular does all this AND pushes him closer to the center of the stage, which helps him a little to get away from the edge and try to slip past Greninja. It's not much, but its something to consider.

He can also use z-dropped gyro to try and cover your recovery low, then use his double jump to try and meet up with you should you go high to avoid it.

 

[FullMoon]

Hydro Pump can still place him above Greninja which is the worst position ROB could ever be in. His B-Air is also not hard to react to because of the start-up so if he uses it we can still punish him for it.

ROB's disadvantage state really sucks here, the best he can do is N-Air and even then he can still get hit by Up-Smash and especially Up-Tilt.

If we steal the gyro from him we also outcamp him now, his reflector can only do so much and the buff to the shuriken means we can hit him faster with it. I don't know how fast the laser fires but I figure it should be about the same time as the shuriken, plus it also has a recharge period

ROB can camp us out and force us to approach as long as he has his gyro, once he loses it, we get the edge. We also don't lose as many options from carrying the gyro if we do the Z-Drop -> Recatch with aerial thing and similarly to what you said, once we have the gyro we can also do the same thing to his low recovery that you mentioned.

The things to be most wary of from ROB is his throw game. He has a hoo-hah to kill us and also a kill throw, which makes approaching him really dangerous. If we catch the gyro though, we can camp him with shurikens and force him to come after us, which makes dealing with him a lot easier.

 

[Project_B]

I don't main Greninja, but from my experience playing as him, I know that he can't throw out too many aerials offstage, but with timing and discipline, it should be fairly easy to hit ROB while he is recovering. An important way of dealing with ROB's stocks whether you play Greninja like most people on this thread, or you play Pit like me, is doing things to him offstage. Greninja's aerials should connect easily with ROB's oddly shaped body, and so a big part of the match can be determined by whether or not the ROB techs stage-spikes. With such a slow and beyond-linear recovery, it seems like all ROBs should or would tech, but the truth is that many don't (especially against an offstage Greninja), and because of how Greninja's up air functions on stages with wide lips when stage-spiking, it will cause even more difficulty for a ROB to avoid getting knocked back down. As Pit, I enjoy trying to spike ROB players, but do NOT do this as Greninja, not even for style points!

Other than that, make sure to commit to a high recovery or snap to the ledge at a good angle from low under the stage or towards the corner. ROB will be annoying onstage for Greninja, there's not much that can be done about that, but then again, he is annoying onstage for everyone. Best of luck stealing his gyro!

 

[Ludiloco]

ROB is annoying in neutral but not a difficult matchup because we beat him literally everywhere else. Don't focus too much on his gyro but at the same time avoid it. Jumping over it is usually the best decision because it will bounce harmlessly to the other side of the stage or off the ledge and it will take some time before he can use it again (however be careful, a lot of ROBs like to throw Gyro then do upwards laser to catch jumps).

Other than gyro, ROB's tools to keep us out are laser and fade-away nair. Both are easily blocked and the latter can be punished if his spacing is slightly off. Just be patient and don't over extend, that's what he's looking for.

Once we get ROB in the air the matchup is cake. He's huge and doesn't have great mobility, and really has nothing to punish us super hard for juggling him like Bowser or Yoshi do. Dair hurts but it's not going to KO and it's not safe on block. Nair is an ok landing option so just keep an eye on what he does.

In disadvantage, we need to be careful recovering to the ledge. Gyro on the ledge to dair can be a true combo and will end our stock really early. Just get away from the ledge as fast as you can and don't fall for any of ROB's traps. In these cases recovering high is not a bad option.

Basically the matchup in a nutshell is don't get antsy and juggle hard when you get an opportunity. I think it's pretty even because ROB can wreck us with down throw -> up air or up smash, and we can catch his landings hard with up smash and put him in bad places with bair offstage since he can't do much out of his booster.

 

[shrooby]

Helloooo everyone. We're discussing the Greninja MU in the Dedede forum:

http://smashboards.com/threads/read...rrently-discussing-greninja-8-11-8-15.395045/

Input from your guys' side would be appreciated~

 

[Illusion.]

Any chance we can get a "Stages to ban/pick" section against other characters in the OP? It would help players like me who are new to the competitive scene that need to learn this stuff.