# So Smogon has banned Greninja now?



## strongarm85 (Jan 19, 2015)

Look. I get that Geninja is the arguably the best pokemon in 6th generation, but its a frail pokemon that can 1 for 1, and maybe 2 for 1 other Pokemon before it goes down.

Lets compare this to the banning of Mega-Kangaskhan. Mega- Kangaskhan has some counters, but  it was a legit threat that could 6-0 your oponent's entire time if it wasn't stopped.

Greninja on the other hand is is a very versatile pokemon to be sure, but it 2 hit or even 1 hit koed by any pokemon  that can land a not very effective attack against it. That it to say it can loose pretty hard to any other pokemon that happens to be faster than than it, or any pokemon that has a strong priority move that could bring to use against it.

To put Greninja out on the field,1.) you have a either perfectly predict your opponent's next move into something Geninja can take with little to no damage, 2.) You have to your active pokemon to die so you can switch in Geninja without it being attacked. So then, if Geninja does manage to kill the threat that you've brought it in against, all you've done is evened the game back out. 

Bad banning.


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## Island (Jan 20, 2015)

I agree entirely. They're centralizing the meta game by trying not to centralize the meta game. If people used more priority moves, this problem wouldn't exist, both diversifying the meta game and stopping Smogon from banning anything that it doesn't like.


Smogon is getting a pretty bad rep these days for its ban policies. I really hope that a dip in its popularity or enough people speaking out will convince them to loosen the rules and revise the ban list.

I need something between VGC and Smogon, really. Maybe these rules are in place for a reason and I'm just dumb, but you're right, they seem kinda dumb.


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## Aduro (Jan 20, 2015)

I'm pretty glad TBH, its the one OU pokemon my team never seemed to counter properly, I even had plans for zapdos rotoms and garchomp but Greninja with protean was just too versatile for me to bother learning its moveset. Maybe my sun team I'm halfway through making would have done better though.


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## Xiammes (Jan 20, 2015)

Ubers is no longer a banlist, so you can't say Greninja has been banned, he has been moved up a tier.

Still Greninja is now the weakest Uber in history, would be nice to see a middle ground tier where Aegis slash, Blazikan, Mega Lucario, Deoxy's speed/defense/normal, genesect, Kyruem-white, Shaymin-sky, Mega Mawile, giritina and Mega Kanga can be played without worrying about the heavy weights of the tier.


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## Catalyst75 (Jan 20, 2015)

Pretty much.  The only Pok?mon that is truly banned now is Mega Rayquaza, which they declared so broken that the only thing they could do is stuff it in a tier where "Anything Goes".


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## Ghost (Jan 20, 2015)

Greninja is not even that hard to deal with it. 

Smogonfags gonna smogonfag


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## Aduro (Jan 20, 2015)

Catalyst75 said:


> Pretty much.  The only Pok?mon that is truly banned now is Mega Rayquaza, which they declared so broken that the only thing they could do is stuff it in a tier where "Anything Goes".



There are counters to him in anything goes, namely prankster swagger users... I think Primal Groudon might need to go up too. Too few pokemon can counter him even in ubers and he has plenty of access to boosting moves in hone claws, swords dance, rock polish and bulk up and he doesn't take a mega slot, and he can support sun teams with desolate land or act as a physical wall. Not to mention he's one of the "fastest" if you build him a trick room team, besides aegislash and mega mawile.


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## Xiammes (Jan 20, 2015)

The reason Mega ray left was because he was too absurd, he would have been s rank even if he had to use a item, but the fact he was a base 780 pokemon that could hold a item and had amazing defenses, he had too go he was too centralizing.


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## Aduro (Jan 20, 2015)

Xiammes said:


> The reason Mega ray left was because he was too absurd, he would have been s rank even if he had to use a item, but the fact he was a base 780 pokemon that could hold a item and had amazing defenses, he had too go he was too centralizing.



When was the last time you saw an uber team without primal groudon?


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## Xiammes (Jan 20, 2015)

Thats not the point, you needed to run several checks to Mega Ray since the only "counters" where based on you predicting which of his amazing array of movesets he would try to sweep you with.


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## BiNexus (Jan 20, 2015)

I'll preface this by saying that I was completely indifferent about this banning. I rarely used it because I couldn't use it well, but of course I knew it was good. That's the thing; Greninja was really good in X/Y and this was undeniable. It has amazing speed and it never had a 'weak' move. But there was this thing that always held it back: it could not, try as it might, get past bulky fairies. Sylveon, Azumarill, Clefable, etc. These were all good pok?mon in their own right, so people used them and Greninja remained just good. This all changed when it got Gunk Shot and to a lesser extent Low Kick. Then things got a bit weird as those were amazing additions for it. 



strongarm85 said:


> Look. I get that Geninja is the arguably the best pokemon in 6th generation, but its a frail pokemon that can 1 for 1, and maybe 2 for 1 other Pokemon before it goes down.
> 
> Lets compare this to the banning of Mega-Kangaskhan. Mega- Kangaskhan has some counters, but  it was a legit threat that could 6-0 your oponent's entire time if it wasn't stopped.



You're comparing something with subpar offenses to something that effectively held a choice band and could set up, had priority, didn't care about substitutes, etc. the list could conceivably go on. The comparison to Mega Lucario is more apt because they served similar roles (but again lucario could set up, and had priority, which is always an important distinction). But they had similar defenses, they were both extremely unpredictable etc. A combination of Lucario being empirically stronger and having access to priority made Lucario go far before Greninja or Mawile for that matter.



> Greninja on the other hand is is a very versatile pokemon to be sure, but it 2 hit or even 1 hit koed by any pokemon  that can land a not very effective attack against it. That it to say it can loose pretty hard to any other pokemon that happens to be faster than than it, or any pokemon that has a strong priority move that could bring to use against it.
> 
> To put Greninja out on the field,1.) you have a either perfectly predict your opponent's next move into something Geninja can take with little to no damage, 2.) You have to your active pokemon to die so you can switch in Geninja without it being attacked. So then, if Geninja does manage to kill the threat that you've brought it in against, all you've done is evened the game back out.
> 
> Bad banning.



You are severely underplayed Greninja's actual bulk. It's nothing close to exemplary but it is something. Very few not very effective hits can KO it from above 60%. I'd provide you with calcs here but I'm on my phone. If anyone wants them later, I would be happy to oblige. It could take few, but admittedly some neutral attacks. And then you have to account for protean, as it can cause some discrepancies. 

But what is more important is the fact that Greninja is faster than a lot of the things that could kill it. Greninja's primary role on a team is to clean up weakened 'mons. It's not a sweeper that can knock things down from 100% with impunity, but if your mon is below 75% and is your Greninja check, more often than not it can and/or will get KO'd or 2hko'd. 

Greninja is also actually not as hard to bring in as you posit. Commonly used tuners or volt switches pair extremely well with it as they are either slow so Gren comes in for free or threatening so they force something out themselves and again Greninja comes in for free. Common examples of this are Lando-T, Rotom, Raikou, Talonflame etc. They also serve to allow Greninja multiple opportunities to switch out thanks to their own bulk, immunities or typing.



Island said:


> I agree entirely. They're centralizing the meta game by trying not to centralize the meta game. If people used more priority moves, this problem wouldn't exist, both diversifying the meta game and stopping Smogon from banning anything that it doesn't like.
> 
> 
> Smogon is getting a pretty bad rep these days for its ban policies. I really hope that a dip in its popularity or enough people speaking out will convince them to loosen the rules and revise the ban list.



I have trouble grasping your 2nd and 3rd sentences because they contradict with your overall conclusion (that smogon aren't doing the right things to decentralize the metagame). You'd ask people to run priority to combat a perceived fast metagame (or a metagame filled with fast threats) but you'd just be forcing people to do something solely because X exists. Now this wouldn't be out of the question if the priority users themselves were good, which some are and some aren't. It also hurts the priority argument if the Gren user just...switches out. The common priority uses, with the exception of maybe Banded dragonite are all handled by common Greninja partners, and few can actually switch in on it more than once.

The problem ironically lies with the community. A great majority of the posters are Yesmen that will unequivocally side with the high profile tournament players. For tournament players, I can easily see Greninja going away being one less worry for them in team building. Now, I'm not saying there's a conspiracy that they posit this stance, just that it makes their matchups easier and they may be more inclined to think that way.



Xiammes said:


> Still Greninja is now the weakest Uber in history



And that should have no relevance to its position in OU and what to be done with it.

Also, regardless of if Ubers is a ban list or a tier, Greninja has been restricted from use within the tier, and I see that as being banned. We obviously have differing opinions on that matter but I believe it just comes down to semantics.



Aduro said:


> There are counters to him in anything goes, namely prankster swagger users... I think Primal Groudon might need to go up too. Too few pokemon can counter him even in ubers and he has plenty of access to boosting moves in hone claws, swords dance, rock polish and bulk up and he doesn't take a mega slot, and he can support sun teams with desolate land or act as a physical wall. Not to mention he's one of the "fastest" if you build him a trick room team, besides aegislash and mega mawile.



It doesn't help sun teams at all--Desolate Land ends as soon as it switches out.

Anyway, as I said, I was pretty indifferent on this ban, but I wanted to play the devil's advocate as the topic was quickly becoming purely negative on the ban choice.

I do agree that bans have been increasingly suspect; Aegislash, Mega Mawile and Baton Pass especially, but that will never change until the community changes, because the community has a lot of say in the bannings (i.e. they request them, discuss them, vote on them etc over a period of weeks and months).


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## Yami Munesanzun (Jan 20, 2015)

I only refer to Smogon for ideas for potential movesets.

Even then, I only use one or two of the recommended moves.

_And even then_ it's for in-game play only.


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## BiNexus (Jan 20, 2015)

Xiammes said:


> By that logic, we can assume OU is just a bunch of banned pokemon from the UU tier. It does matter if Greninja performs well, Ubers is literally filled with pokemon that were "too strong for OU" to the point there are more ubers then there are OU pokemon.
> 
> The whole fucking point of the Smogon tiering system is being able to use preferred pokemon in a tier they can have some success in. Greninja doesn't even have a gimmick that another Uber doesn't perform better.
> 
> Aegislash has the ghost/steel typing along with Kingshield, Genesect has download, Mega Lucario is pretty fucking powerful, Blazikan can protect for speed boosts and sword dance, Mega Kanga is just fucking awesome, Shaymin-Sky can paraflinch, Mega Mawile hits like a truck and has fairy/steel typing, the deoxy's are great entry hazard setters. Greninja has nothing, its too weak to be a clean up sweeper and its far to frail to survive even the weakest of uber hits, it doesn't do anything that another uber doesn't do better.



Taken from the UU Tier Page on Smogon:



			
				Smogon said:
			
		

> UU (Underused) is Smogon's second usage-based tier. All Pok?mon that are not OU by *usage* and are not *banned to Ubers* or BL (Borderline) can be used in UU, including Pok?mon from RU and NU. While any of the aforementioned Pok?mon can be used in UU, only those Pok?mon that make up at least ~3.41% of total weighted usage in the tier are designated 'UU.' A Pok?mon is truly 'UU' if a typical competitive player is more than 50% likely to encounter that Pokemon at least once in a given day of playing (20 battles).



Ubers is not a tier defined by usage stats, although it has them. OU is the highest tier defined by usage stats, so if you move above, you are banning it. This comes about because Smogon still haven't clearly defined what makes something Uber. They created AG, said Ubers was a tier now, and left it at that. Taken at face value, sure I guess you can go along with it, but if you look at it fundamentally, they simply changed some terms and asked you not to look at the burning pile of shit that Mega Ray caused.

And by your logic, if a Pok?mon is going to do poorly in a higher tier, we should just leave it in the tier its potentially causing problems in. To me, that doesn't make sense.


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## Xiammes (Jan 20, 2015)

> And by your logic, if a Pok?mon is going to do poorly in a higher tier, we should just leave it in the tier its potentially causing problems in. To me, that doesn't make sense.



Fair enough about usage stats.

Thats not the point, it wouldn't be a problem if Greninja was just a one off case, but you can practically make a new tier consisting of the pokemon that don't really have a place in Ubers outside of some weird niche, Greninja is just the point where it doesn't even have a niche in ubers and is only there because it was too strong for OU play.


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## BiNexus (Jan 20, 2015)

Xiammes said:


> Fair enough about usage stats.
> 
> Thats not the point, it wouldn't be a problem if Greninja was just a one off case, but you can practically make a new tier consisting of the pokemon that don't really have a place in Ubers outside of some weird niche, Greninja is just the point where it doesn't even have a niche in ubers and is only there because it was too strong for OU play.



I even agree here with you, even though I haven't explicitly said so. I think their hands are tied because there are a large portion of 'weak' Ubers, but if they were to make a tier (I use tier loosely here) it would have, at most like 10-20 Pok?mon. If they decided that ok, you can use other Pok?mon, then it's 1) essentially what the old Ubers was, a banlist for OU, albeit a smaller one with a bit of a distinction 2) OU+ a  tier where people just use OU 'mons along with some of their favourite Ubers.

With the first point, you're basically designating a group of Pok?mon in Limbo; they're too weak for Ubers and too strong for OU, so they'll essentially be NU--the very definition of the term.

Or with the second point, you essentially regurgitate the OU problems with these things being over centralizing in OU+ and are forced to either ignore the tier, or ban them...again? To either Ubers or a tier inbetween Ubers and OU+ which would be fucking hilarious. But at that point we'd just be making tiers to make tiers. 

Mega Ray fucked up so much and set a precedent that won't be challenged for a long time to come, I think.


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## Naruto (Jan 20, 2015)

This greatly saddens me


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## Xiammes (Jan 20, 2015)

BiNexus said:


> I even agree here with you, even though I haven't explicitly said so. I think their hands are tied because there are a large portion of 'weak' Ubers, but if they were to make a tier (I use tier loosely here) it would have, at most like 10-20 Pok?mon. If they decided that ok, you can use other Pok?mon, then it's 1) essentially what the old Ubers was, a banlist for OU, albeit a smaller one with a bit of a distinction 2) OU+ a  tier where people just use OU 'mons along with some of their favourite Ubers.
> 
> With the first point, you're basically designating a group of Pok?mon in Limbo; they're too weak for Ubers and too strong for OU, so they'll essentially be NU--the very definition of the term.
> 
> ...



I think a great way to begin fixing things is to stop thinking of the current pokemon as OU, begin testing some OU+ tier and see which pokemon shine and which pokemon don't, then begin working from there. 

The problem with this method also means reworking the lower tiers, pokemon that were previously OU are now UU and UU would have to be reworked by dropping former UU pokemon to RU and eventually NU. It would take some work, but it would be better in the long run imo.


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## strongarm85 (Jan 20, 2015)

Or, people could just admit that Smogon's current tier system is flawed in the 6th gen.

There are a lot of changes that happened to pokemon in 6th gen.  Under the hood a lot of mechanical changes to the game happened, and a wide range of Mega-evolutions were introduced. Furthermore Nintendo is stepping up efforts in official competitions, and increasing prize pools. 

Its clear that Nintendo was intent on Pokemon changing in this generation.

What didn't change much was Smogon. They're still acting like we're back in the Diamond and Pearl days when they needed to swoop in and add balance to a 6v6 battle scheme that were supporting.


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## Alita (Jan 20, 2015)

This IMO was one of the few bannings that smogon did right. Greninja has a very diverse movepool and with each of the moves he uses getting STAB thanks to protean he can hit very hard even with his base 104 special attack and 95 attack respectively. And when you take into consideration all the moves he can learn including stuff like gunk shot, low kick, ice punch, night slash, waterfall, ice beam, hydro pump, hidden power fire, grass knot, dark pulse, and so on it's pretty much impossible to predict what set he will run and there few pokes out there he can't hit for super effective STAB.

His speed tier though on top of that is what really makes him ridiculous. At base 122 speed there are more pokes in the game he is faster than than those he is not. He also has priority moves which make him even faster including his own unique move water shuriken along with stuff like shadow sneak and quick attack.

I honestly have a easier time dealing with mega lucario and mega mawile than I do greninja.


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## BiNexus (Jan 20, 2015)

strongarm85 said:


> Or, people could just admit that Smogon's current tier system is flawed in the 6th gen.
> 
> There are a lot of changes that happened to pokemon in 6th gen.  Under the hood a lot of mechanical changes to the game happened, and a wide range of Mega-evolutions were introduced. Furthermore Nintendo is stepping up efforts in official competitions, and increasing prize pools.
> 
> ...



The thing is that Nintendo does not give two shits about 6v6. They did away with it in major competitions because I heard-tell that they disliked how good stall was, and that stall in general was boring to watch (of which I can realistically concede can be true for some).

It's just that a lot of the Megas that have caused problems in 6v6 are just straight up mediocre in VGC. I won't talk about it like I'm well versed, but the environments, playstyles and strategies are extremely different.

That said, Smogon separates the 6v6 from the doubles and VGC formats. There are far fewer things banned in the latter two--I'd guess almost identical with what Nintendo/GF have. What Smogon have been trying to do is provide the most realistic battle sim for Pok?mon, and while their flagship is 6v6, they have others as well. It's just that what Smogon is well known for, is exactly what Nintendo is distancing itself from in their events.


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## Jυstin (Jan 20, 2015)

I don't do clauses or tiers, so I don't have to worry. I prefer it unrestricted and mixed.

Greninja's fun though. The mind-games he promotes... no wonder Smogon doesn't like him.

I mean, it's not only fun to pick what offensive type moves you want for him, but also what moves you want to give him that can be used defensively to cover the weaknesses of his other moves' types, but it also leaves the opponent guessing as to what you're gonna do.

But nope. Too much thinking to get around it. Easier to ban it.


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## Xiammes (Jan 21, 2015)

> Greninja's fun though. The mind-games he promotes... no wonder Smogon doesn't like him.



Its not the mind games, its just the only pokemon that can reliable switch into him are obscure as shit or all locked in ubers. Genesect, Mawile, and Aegislash would be amazing counters to Greninja but they don't exist in OU. He resistricts team building by not having conventional counters and its a huger opportunity loss by not running him.


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## Jυstin (Jan 21, 2015)

See now, if you don't play by tiers, there's a number of shit that could safely switch into him. In OU, a Greninja player can expect what the opponent might switch into, but in mixed tier, all bets are off.

Not saying this is a good example, but I saw a Squirtle legit take down a Deoxys. It's not to say Squirtle is good or that Deoxys is bad, but Squirtle would definitely be NU in competitive play and as far as I know, Deoxys is Uber, but that doesn't mean shit.


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## Xiammes (Jan 21, 2015)

Jυstin said:


> See now, if you don't play by tiers, there's a number of shit that could safely switch into him. In OU, a Greninja player can expect what the opponent might switch into, but in mixed tier, all bets are off.
> 
> Not saying this is a good example, but I saw a Squirtle legit take down a Deoxys. It's not to say Squirtle is good or that Deoxys is bad, but Squirtle would definitely be NU in competitive play and as far as I know, Deoxys is Uber, but that doesn't mean shit.



Deoxys is also frail as shit, being taken down by a squirtle doesn't mean shit because 90% of the deoxy's sets are suicide leads, only deoxy's attack and defense is supposed to last more then 1 switch in.

OU is mixed, you can play any pokemon from UU, NU, and RU in OU. The problem being, only really obscure shit can switch in, you have a problem. For a pokemon to be OU, you have to be able to conventionally deal with the threat without having to sacrifice your team for it. A OU threat should be able to be handled by a OU pokemon. Right now the best counter for Greninja is eviolite porygon 2.


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## Jυstin (Jan 21, 2015)

Actually, Squirtle would have an easier time killing Deoxys-A than Deoxys-N, mainly because of its frailty. Focus Sash + Fake Out + Flail + Aqua Jet + Mirror Coat is a pretty unpredictable and boss set.

OU _can_ be mixed, but it's still its own tier with specific Mons in said tier. The point is, playing in specific tiers makes the Pokemon choices more compact and predictable, and Greninja was simply too unpredictable for them to deal with apparently. Meanwhile, there's a plethora of NU Pokemon who are... actually not that bad.

I don't know what tier Chansey's in, and I don't really care, but if Greninja goes against my Chansey, something on the opponent's team is gonna die.

If it U-Turns to get out, Chansey lives and kills whatever comes in with Counter. If Greaninja tries to Gunk Shot to dodge the predicted Toxic (since its special moves won't do much of anything), Chansey tanks it and kills with Counter. If it tries Low Kick for super effective damage, Chansey eats it up and kills it with Counter.

There are probably more instances of things that can take it, but really the only issue with Greninja is its unpredictability. If people ran something more creative than the cookie-cutter standard training wheels sets, it wouldn't be so much of an issue. Greninja can run Water Shuriken to counter Gale WIngs Talonflame, unless people switch it up and actually invest in Speed for Talonflame instead of max Atk and max HP while just spamming Brave Bird.

I mean, Greninja's good and easy to use, but overpowered? Eh... I've never seen anyone really have trouble dealing with it, and the players using Greninja still had to do a lot of thinking and predicting with him for him to work.

I mean, the things that can take it out, yeah the player can just swap out Greninja to avoid losing it, but then the same could be said for any Pokemon.

I just think it's easy to use, and having STAB on all its moves is really nice. Plus its movepool is pretty diverse, making it unpredictable, but that doesn't make him OP. It means he doesn't have just 1 or 2 cookie-cutter sets that everyone uses, and has a ton of options that people can't predict, so instead of setting up contingency strats, they'd rather just ban it :/

But it's not like it bothers me. I never actually took Smogon seriously anyway. They have no authority.


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## Jυstin (Jan 21, 2015)

[YOUTUBE]G97qRPb3J0I[/YOUTUBE]

Pretty much my exact thoughts on why putting Greninja in Ubers is ridiculous.

It's more outclassed in Ubers than it was "OP" in OU.

Greninja can do almost anything, but it can't do everything. They just don't like wild cards; No unpredictability.


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## Asriel (Jan 27, 2015)

I got on the Greninja Protean bandwagon early and it's been one hell of a ride trying to figure out a moveset I want on the thing... that said, it's rare it can take more than a single hit from a decent sweeper, even if it's neutral damage. It has rather mediocre attack stats, but despite that my experience has shown people will "pick 4 and go" with the guy, similar to how Rayquaza works, except that Ray's base stats are beyond abhorrently strong and Greninja's only solid stat is speed. The frog's powerful enough to sweep an average ratio of 1:2, but only if the opponent's really frail to begin with. There are plenty of bulky hard-hitters out there (like the less conventional Chansey mentioned above) who can take a few hits from Greninja, it's just understanding your meta-game and developing a team that's not so one-sided as to be overtaken by an unpredictable Pokemon. Unusual Pokemon, or unpredictable choices on teams isn't a bad thing either, I'd encourage shifting the meta-game to compensate for the impact Greninja adds -maybe some of those UU, RU or NU will find a spot on someone's team? It's not like they're bad Pokemon by default due to their tier, simply less popular by choice considering the meta (which is always and ever changing).


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