We're now discussing Greninja and Ike, along with Fox and Ganon.
Personally, I think Greninja is one of our hardest match-ups, if not our hardest. At the very least I'd say it's 35:65, if not 30:70. But yeah, my friend who I used to play with a bunch and mains both TL and Greninja wrote this up a while ago, and even if it's pre-1.0.4. most if not all of it is still relevant (the changes to Greninja from 1.0.4. can be found
here):
"
TOONNINJA
(That is the cheesiest name ever)
Hey! I'm gonna point out some Greninja stuff we need to watch out for now that I'm on a computer and it's so much easier to write here instead of my tiny iPhone.
First off, one big problem Toon Link has against Greninja is being offstage. We can't recover properly because of numerous reasons:
- If you're in the upper corner without your second jump, the ninja can just 1) Hydro Pump you off the stage OR... use U-Air... *shivers* the U-Air... anyways, yeah. It's hard up here.
- If youre in the middle, even at low percentages, 2) F-Air kills, and if not, gimps you.
- If you're down below the ledge, Greninja sees no issue in just Hydro Pumping outwards/downwards.
The Z-Air isn't really doing much to improve our situation either:
- If you're above the ledge when you use it, Greninja can use Up-Smash and hit hard. Fresh sweetspotted Up-Smash deals 20% worth of damage. Ouch.
- If you used it horizontally from the ledge, Water Shuriken says hi.
- If you grabbed it from below (somehow. I NEVER get this to work, lol), a good Greninja player (unlike me ) can gimp you with D-Air, or just Hydro Pump you.
In general, if you're just hanging from the ledge, Greninja can still do well with Shadow Sneak. It uses Shadow Sneak about a character length from the ledge in case you roll. Here is what it does to you:
IF YOU CHOOSE TO ATTACK: Shadow Sneak will "clank" with your sword strike, and the ninja will Jab and deal some damage. And it's back into the air again.
IF YOU CHOOSE TO ROLL: Shadow Sneak will simply make Greninja kick behind it. Though this one is safer than attacking since it will probably knock you into the stage, it makes you take more damage.
IF YOU CHOOSE TO SIMPLY GET UP: S
hadow Sneak will hit you and you can wave (or maybe not...) bye-bye to the stage, because you're back in the air.
There is one more alternative:
IF YOU CHOOSE TO JUMP:
Shadow Sneak won't hit you, provided you jumped at the right moment. This is maybe the safest alternative.
Alright so now, we'll get into some combos Greninja does very often. Keep in mind all of these are done in Training Mode, so no moves are Stale:
(SS- Sweetspot)
(PP- Additional two Pummels. Possible at lower %'s.)
(PPP- Additional three Pummels. Possible at higher %'s.)
(Red Font - Low % Combo)
(Blue Font - Mid-High % Combo [KO'S])
3) U-Throw > U-Smash (SS) = 24% (28% PP)
U-Throw > U-Air > U-Air = 23% (27% PPP)
U-Throw > U-Air > U-Air > Hydro Pump = 31% (35% PPP)
U-Tilt > U-Tilt > U-Smash (SS) = 28%Til
4) D-Tilt > D-Tilt > Dash Attack > U-Smash (SS) = 40%
5) D-Throw > F-Tilt = 12% (16% PP)
6) D-Throw > F-Air = 20% (26% PPP)
N-Air > F-Tilt = 17%
Alright so here's another big issue particularly you and I have against Greninja: our stage selection.
As you know, we [my friend and I] commonly pick one out of three stages (Green Hill Zone, PictoChat 2, Balloon Fight) to reduce lag. However, two of these stages (PictoChat 2, Balloon Fight) are a serious issue when fighting Greninja. On these stages, particularly PictoChat 2, the shadow from Shadow Sneak is almost (in the case of PictoChat 2, completely) invisible. This means that every time Greninja walks forward, you have to watch out for a Shadow Sneak. Keep this in mind!
Alright, finally, here's some things a lot of Greninjas will do commonly:
- If it misses a 7) D-Air, it
can will be cancelled into a Shadow Sneak.
- Water Shuriken.
- Sometimes Shadow Sneak behind you a fair distance and get away from your projectile insanity.
- It will almost NEVER use Counter.
- It will recover with unpredictability by using Hydro Pump, so don't try to gimp IT. If you miss your attack and end up behind it, you can easily be pushed to the edge of the screen by a shot of Hydro Pump.
- It will wall cling to the side of the stage to wait for you to let your guard downand go onstage and hit you with a B-Air or something. To avoid this, you could pick a stage with an Omega form that has no walls such as Magicant, Rainbow Road, or Prism Tower, BUT this will also cost you your Wall Jump to improve recovery, along with tossing bombs into the wall and hitting yourself to gain height (this can still be done to an extent.).
- If they get the opportunity, they will use U-Air as much as they can. Throw a Bomb down but not always. Mix it up with D-air or just Air Dodge and U-Air THEM.
- After they land a D-Air and they bounce off of you, they will either follow up with another D-Air which CAN be hard to dodge, since you don't see Greninjas doing that very often, or follow up with B-Air if youre behind them."
Here's a thing I wrote up, also pre-1.0.4., but again it's mostly still relevant:
"Greninja
Pros:
-
8) You can usually combo him with utilt until at least around 36%-39% if he's in front of the move.
- TL's utilt seems (emphasis on "seems"; I don't have much evidence to back this up) to come out faster than Greninja's. It seems to be true from my experience, since I've found when Greninja and TL show their utilt animation at the same time that TL's is the one that ends up hitting.
- Your Hylian shield blocks his water shuriken, including when fully charged. Keep this in mind, as Greninja's water shuriken can cause trouble for TL with its good speed and priority.
Cons:
- He can combo you with his utilt just as easily as you can combo him with yours because his utilt has the same range but less knockback. Being close enough to start a utilt combo on him puts you at the very same risk.
- TL's uair doesn't always beat his dair, and Greninja can combo one dair into another if you miss your techs, so uair isn't worth the risk if you see him dair.
- Greninja's recovery is hard to gimp, and attempting to gimp him can put you in a bad position because of hydro pump.
- His air game is much better than yours.
- His
9) water shuriken cancels out your boomerang and arrows, and it comes out faster than them.
- A lot of his moves outrange zair.
Strategy:
Toss bombs and maybe the boomerang if he gets above you. Bombs and the boomerang are your only hopes of trying to gimp him, though you still shouldn't get your hopes up on gimping him. If Greninja keeps recovering above the stage you can gimp him or at least scare him by using the boomerang and tossing a ton of bombs upwards, making it unsafe to recover above the stage. If he safely recovers above the stage despite the projectiles, his landing should be much easier to predict so you can punish. His water shuriken (or however it's spelled) clashes with your arrows and boomerang, so camp him with bombs. He hates bombs. Watch him carefully when you end up above him, as depending on what he does you should either dair if he tries to jump under you and uair you, or make it rain bombs if he stays on the ground. It's very common for Greninjas to jump under you and uair a few times in order to bait you into dairing later on, while they stay on the ground and wait so they can punish your dair. Do not let him bait you into fighting him from the air, since he'll win that every time. Watch out for the shadow of his shadow sneak. Even at low percents he can fast fall and uair you to the bottom of the stage so you can't recover. If you see the shadow from shadow sneak, shield it and dsmash. His water shuriken comes out faster than all of TL's projectiles. He still hates campers, though, so keep trying to camp. Just be unpredictable, don't spend too much time on the ground or in the air. Greninja mains loathe campers. Unfortunately, TL seems to be one of the campers that Greninja has an easier time dealing with.
Stages:
Greninja likes stages with a dark background or floor (especially floor) since it's hard or even impossible to see his shadow sneak. Avoid stages with platforms, since he can easily juggle the crap out of you on them. On Yoshi's Island watch out for Greninja dairing by the edge when you're on there, since it will hit you because of the slanted ground."