np: ORAS OU Suspect Testing, Round 1 - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles [Greninja is Uber]

[Holiday]

hey you fuckbois. here's my reqs proof.

reqs proof

went 48-18

shoutouts to Arikado for lurking and being an RU dude, Draeden for helpful advice throughout the day, and MattL for tolerating my bitch ass

uhm, the meta is definitely different without Grenigga. Saw a large rise in MGardevoir and Hawlucha, but tbh most of it was the same. It is a breather to not have to worry about the frog during teambuilding, which let me use a Birdspam team to greater effect. I can see both sides to the story. Greninja hits like a mack truck, with a pretty much unpredictable movepool. Only way to stop it is super obscure shit like Cresselia and P2, which calcs have shown to be only semi good at stopping it. However, it is frail, susceptible to hazards, and lacks solid priority. It's looking like it will be banned, but it all really depends. Personally, I am still undecided with my vote.

Side note, good luck to all who are aiming for reqs. it can be a long process, but just stick with it.

 

[AM]

"Zero drawbacks" is simply the definition of S Rank, which Greninja is, and all S Ranks force people to play around them and also punish those who don't - hence why they are S Rank. I really don't see what you are trying to argue here, in just about any situation with any pokemon you don't play around, you will pay consequences for not taking appropriate action; and, as I've pointed out in another post, "There is not a problem with making aggressive plays and facing 50/50s, that is, well, what makes Pokemon the game that it is." Because you can connect Greninja with unfavorable match ups and 50/50s doesn't mean you have to plead 'BAN BAN BAN', it means you should either adapt to the new metagame trends (in this case, don't play balance anymore), or simply play better to prevent your opponent from outplaying you.



The loss of a playstyle is not a sign of an unhealthy metagame, it's a metagame trend. I've highlighted this many times in my previous posts.

it means you should either adapt to the new metagame trends (in this case, don't play balance anymore), or simply play better to prevent your opponent from outplaying you. The loss of a playstyle is not a sign of an unhealthy metagame, it's a metagame trend. I've highlighted this many times in my previous posts.

I'm specifically quoting these lines in particular because this right here is an extremely poor argument and one that is the opposite of what striving for a balanced tier would be.

"Don't play balance, simply play better" is this really suppose to be an argument that holds some weight to your points? First off invalidating play-styles to such extremes that Greninja does with its profound effects on the metagame is not healthy and this isn't exactly a new concept in regards to Greninja's presence in the metagame so no adaptation makes no sense for a Pokemon that has adapted with the tier since its XY days and hit the breaking point with ORAS. Simply play better is not even an argument, if not borderline ridiculous to even mention when experienced players accept Greninja's very powerful presence in the tier right now regardless of their views whether or not they are for or against a ban. Acrobatics Gliscor for M-Heracross, Doublade for M-Medicham, Jirachi on XY Stall builds for M-Garde were meta-game trends. Greninja is not a meta-game trend it's Greninja who plays around the current trends and in a way puppeteers itself to change some of these trends as shown with the increased usage of Tentacruel on stall builds as one example. So no using the argument that 50/50s and unfavorable match-ups are some sort of aspects that we should endorse and as such makes Greninja balanced in the tier is false.

 

[zbr]

I'd like to bring up a list of counters besides P2, since a lot of people say you have to run P2...

Chansey/Blissey unless you poison with gunk shot and never miss
Porygon2
SDef Mega Sableye
Gyarados
CM Manaphy
Klefki
SDef Cresselia
SDef Alomomola (not grass knot)
Bulky Mega Scizor (non-HP fire)
Ferrothorn (non-HP Fire, low kick ninja will kill itself)
Mega Venusaur (No Extrasensory)
Slowbro (non-Dark Pulse)
SDef Jirachi (non-Dark Pulse)
Suicune (non-Grass Knot)
Empoleon (non-Low Kick)
Tentacruel (non-Extrasensory)
All spdef fairies (non Gunk Shot)
Nobody really runs hp fire anyway since the speed drop is crucial.

Then Offensive Checks:
Keldeo
Mega Bee
Mega Bunny
Mega Man
Mega Zam (also protean zam o.0)
Mega Sceptile
Scizor
Breloom
Talon
All scarfers >= magneton

There are a lot of things usable on any one of the playstyles that can check/counter greninja. Uncounterable is a stupid, ignorant argument. The only argument that remains is "unhealthy", but I don't personally think that argument makes sense.

Uhm, this would only work if you were born a clairvoyant and you know 100% what the Gren was running. You mention "no this" and "no that". DUH, if we KNEW it didn't carry that then of course it would be a check. But the thing is, we don't. This is why the 4MSS argument works against the anti ban argument rather than the pro ban argument. Simply because Gren is losing 10% to chip your team bit by bit (and when I say bit, I mean to say potentially chipping off 50-60% of your health. Not to mention the added pressure of SR). Everytime you send your check in, you have to switch out because you don't know if it carries said coverage move. By the time you scouted the whole set, you would've had your team weakened to the point where it could easily be cleaned up by something else.

Not to mention it has such a godly speed that it doesn't need to use a Scarf to function well. With LO, it is capable enough to pressure offensive teams and with Spikes/Tspikes in it's set, it can pressure Stall. Tell me again, how is this not a big ass headache when you team build?

 

[Steel With It]

Alright, I've never felt the need to butt into a suspect argument before, but the obstinate anti-ban side doesn't seem to be getting other people's explanations of what 4MSS is, so I'm going to have a shot.

By definition, 4MSS means that something essentially requires more than four moves to do its job. Defensive Eeveelutions are a good example - they'd love to have all of Wish, Protect, Baton Pass for slow switches, Heal Bell and an attacking move, but they can't and have to drop either Baton Pass or Protect (usually Baton Pass), which makes them less effective overall (still useful, but not as useful as they would be otherwise).

This doesn't apply to Greninja in any way, shape or form. It doesn't need four moves. It doesn't even need three moves. You could run only Ice Beam and Gunk Shot and still shit all over 4/5ths of the damn meta. The rest of your moveslots are only used to lure in and take out whatever troubles the rest of your team, and if you don't need to do that, you can just spam U-Turn or set up Spikes instead. That's not 4MSS, that's insane, Deoxys-S levels of versatility.

I never thought I'd see the day when gaining Poison coverage would send a Pokemon from Borderline Land to Brokenville, but here it is. Gunk Shot Greninja might as well be the bastard child of Deoxys-S and Genesect and it has to go.

 

[56k]

Subjective:

I think it's important to have a non-mega option that not only outspeeds the 108-110 tier but hits those pokemon extremely hard. After light hazard damage Greninja can kill off latios, latias, metagross, keldeo, diancie, terrakion, and other such popular pokemon in that realm. I think greninja's presence is a powerful downside to running those pokemon and acts as an (offensive) counterbalance to them.

You don't need to sacrifice your mega slot on something like beedrill or sceptile to outspeed and deter that tier -- you can use greninja as a catch-all revenge killer for those otherwise extremely bothersome pokemon that are difficult to outspeed and also bulky enough to be difficult to kill with something like raikou or starmie. With those threats somewhat covered meanwhile your mega slot is free for something more interesting and doesn't necessarily need to be fast.

I didn't notice any significant playstyle changes on the ladder. I used my old team that was designed around handling greninja (and the rest of OU) and it still functioned exactly as well.



Objective:

Greninja is under fire for fullfilling a few of the possibly-uber prerequisites; mainly being able to sweep a significant portion of OU without support, or, being able to support another 'mon to sweep by weakening things to a point. Furthermore he may be overcentralizing to an unhealthy extent.

All too often we've seen hazards rack up, our scarfer got cornered, and in the end greninja can cut like butter through whatever's left because he always hits first and hits weaknesses with STAB and even a neutral hydro pump can do the job if something got too weakened.

However: he only sweeps through teams like that if you build a team like that. There ARE pokemon that can switch in and slow-voltturn out to something that can kill ninja with a free turn. There ARE direct counters and moveset-dependent many, many checks. There ARE scarf or priority pokemon that can switch in a couple times and threaten it. There ARE bulky pokemon with strong Pursuit to really close the deal on it and remove it.

Whether he restricts teambuilding to an unhealthy extent strays out of objective territory but I am leaning towards "no" because there are enough answers to him that not only function as dealing with greninja but have plenty of good use otherwise -- building a team that can handle greninja in 2 different ways is not somehow super weak to any other team matchup, and there are a wide enough variety of possibilities that many pokemon and team types have a chance to see use.



Final:

I am not really decided at all on whether he is overcentralizing or not, but I don't think his ability to sweep the metagame is significant enough to ban it because making a team weak to it could be categorized as just plain a bad decision instead of thinking "my team and playstyle is good but greninja needs to be banned first". If he is putting a particular stranglehold on a certain playstyle, that's still not enough for a ban because that playstyle has more responsibility to evolve than the tier has responsibility to change to accomodate it. For the moment I see him just barely riding the line between what is broken and what is just plain oras ou effective by modern standards. He exists in a category alongside pokemon like azumarill, metagross, kyurem, gardevoir, and charizard that are honestly just too good at their jobs, are really annoying to switch into or worse give a setup turn to, and feel broken when you don't have the answer but honestly just represent the power level and intrinsic issues that pokemon as a game has and will always have.

 

[Numera]

Final:

I am not really decided at all on whether he is overcentralizing or not, but I don't think his ability to sweep the metagame is significant enough to ban it because making a team weak to it could be categorized as just plain a bad decision instead of thinking "my team and playstyle is good but greninja needs to be banned first".

I don't understand what you're talking about. Teams and playstyles are weak to Greninja because it's really hard for balanced and offence to build accordingly to Greninja, and it certainly bends teambuilding to revolve around it when I try to build these teams. Even then, while this might be seen as "metagame adaptation" Greninja will just adapt to that and start using some of his other coverage moves more often. Making a team weak to Greninja isn't something that is done on purpose, it just happens so often, and preventing it is really hard but also a priority for teambuilders; you can prepare for a Ninja set, but it can either a) run a coverage move and therefore destroy the team or b) get into a situation where it picks up free kills multiple times and beat you anyway. It influences teambuilding so massively that I deem it unhealthy for the metagame.


If he is putting a particular stranglehold on a certain playstyle, that's still not enough for a ban because that playstyle has more responsibility to evolve than the tier has responsibility to change to accomodate it.

The problem with this is that Greninja is threat to all playstyles. Balanced and offence are affected the worst, having their building heavily influenced by it's omnipresence and being utterly destroyed by it. Stall builds, when worn down, can also lose to this monster. Also, again, if the meta evolves, Greninja will too. For example, if a situational counter like Tentacruel became extremely common, Greninja can adapt by running Extrasensory more often. This boils down to Greninja having so many situational counters that it can adapt to the ones that become more common as a result of adaptation in the first place, completely freezing the metagame in it's current state: an endless cycle of adaptation to Greninja. This, again, is extremely unhealthy for the metagame.

For the moment I see him just barely riding the line between what is broken and what is just plain oras ou effective by modern standards. He exists in a category alongside pokemon like azumarill, metagross, kyurem, gardevoir, and charizard that are honestly just too good at their jobs, are really annoying to switch into or worse give a setup turn to, and feel broken when you don't have the answer but honestly just represent the power level and intrinsic issues that pokemon as a game has and will always have.

If you have no answer to a Greninja, you simply wouldn't survive the metagame full stop, so that last argument literally adds nothing.

Replies in bold. Basically, due to everything I've said in this post, I deem Greninja extremely unhealthy for the metagame and believe it should be banned.

 

[Steel With It]

I typically never use git gud arguments, but in the underlined part of the quote above is where it was appropriate to respond with one.

While I'm here, I might as well answer this one too...

The thing is, there's no "Gitting gud" against something as versatile as Greninja. There's just not. I know from experience that it's entirely possible to pack three natural checks to the broken-ass frog's usual sets and still get counterteamed by it (Klefki, Gastrodon and Empoleon, meet all of HP Fire, Grass Knot and Low Kick - as rare and suboptimal as it is, the guy had correctly assumed that I'd be expecting Gunk Shot). That's ridiculous.

 

[kiloments]

One argument that I've seen both on various forums and on YouTube, (and one that gets to me more than it should) is the "get better" argument. People would something along the lines of "get better Greninja is not broken. Prediction, scarfers, hurr durr, etc." This kind of insulting to a lot of players who have years of tournament and laddering experience. Its as if to say their 2 months of ORAS somehow trumps the experience of multiple metagames and playstyles and then say, "fuck what you know." Obviously if the top ranked players are saying something is broken, then hey, it might be. /rantover

Now, on to my position on this lovely issue. At the beginning of ORAS, after Mence got the boot, I was convinced of Gren suspect potential as well as how it could be perceived as a broken mon. However, I continued to build teams, and used gren on some. At times I felt like I was just ripping through teams and others, not so much. I also began to look (or at least try) to look at it objectively. One one hand it has been a staple since X/Y as an offensive check to a lot of common mons like Latis, Thundy, Lando, etc. On another hand I think I sorta need to understand what these new buffs mean for what gren now does. This is different from a lot of the other bans I've seen. This is a mon that was seen as broken in transition to a remake in the same gen, which is crazy. This now means that staple of many offense/balance teams must now be eliminated with a void left for a decent replacement. So what I'm saying is, I see what gren does in terms of teambuilding and how it sorta constricts what you can use. But I also see a mon that was almost integral in checking certain threats a few months ago so I'm on the fence as to whether banning it will truly be the best move for the metagame. I've seen some good arguments from both sides, but none has left me super convinced that it either needs to go or stay. Anyways right now I'm saying, NOT SURE.

 

[chimpact]

The meta without Greninja is just full of fairies or speed ties. Clefable is the most simple pokemon to use and it literally just wins games. you have to play so meticulously to beat it and even then it can still win. it has so many opportunities to come in. i need ninja!

 

[manodelrey]

The meta without Greninja is just full of fairies or speed ties. Clefable is the most simple pokemon to use and it literally just wins games. you have to play so meticulously to beat it and even then it can still win. it has so much opportunities to come in. i need ninja!

Excadrill outspeeds with adamant nature and 2hko a fully defensive and hp invested clefable without the clefable able to do anything. Adamant Bisharp is the same and is the clefable is 1 point faster if its fully invested in speed and runs timid nature

 

[Numera]

The meta without Greninja is just full of fairies or speed ties. Clefable is the most simple pokemon to use and it literally just wins games. you have to play so meticulously to beat it and even then it can still win. it has so many opportunities to come in. i need ninja!

I know Clefable isn't broken, but broken checking broken isn't a good metagame, so even if it was banning Greninja would be the right decision anyway. There are plenty of checks to Clefable in the current metagame so it should be fine. Certainly means it'll be even more fantastic on balanced though.

 

[chimpact]

The checks to clefable are mons with no recovery or ones that don't appreciate status. Because clefable cannot be beaten by burn/toxic or hazards it can recover off any direct damage it takes.

My post wasn't about clefable entirely so I'm not going to go deeper in that discussion.

I just feel that you can be so much lazier when building balance teams. Pivoting with lando or heatran is so easy and frustrating when you're going up against them.

Maybe I need to get better but I definitely enjoy a meta with the inclusion of greninja more. I don't really use greninja that much but the presence of it is evident in team building. You can think of that negatively and say it's over centralizing but it's not like people would start using porygon or vaporeon ( which is actually really good ) on their teams.

 

[Numera]

The checks to clefable are mons with no recovery or ones that don't appreciate status. Because clefable cannot be beaten by burn/toxic or hazards it can recover off any direct damage it takes.

My post wasn't about clefable entirely so I'm not going to go deeper in that discussion.

I just feel that you can be so much lazier when building balance teams. Pivoting with lando or heatran is so easy and frustrating when you're going up against them.

Maybe I need to get better but I definitely enjoy a meta with the inclusion of greninja more. I don't really use greninja that much but the presence of it is evident in team building. You can think of that negatively and say it's over centralizing but it's not like people would start using porygon or vaporeon ( which is actually really good ) on their teams.

I know teambuilding is going to get a hell of a lot easier for balanced and HO teams, but my problem is that with Greninja it's far too Greninja influenced. It's impossible to make a balanced team that some variant of Greninja doesn't beat, putting the metagame in a stalemate in which adaptation cannot occur because Greninja will always adapt back in some way. People WILL start using some of the conditional counters (eg Alomomola), and then Greninja will constantly adapt to that, meaning it will always end up on top. I don't want a metagame where this continuously happens. As a HO and balanced player, it's a bleak metagame for me where Greninja completely governs what is and isn't used on balanced, HO and even stall.

 

[master_marshmallow]

One argument that I've seen both on various forums and on YouTube, (and one that gets to me more than it should) is the "get better" argument. People would something along the lines of "get better Greninja is not broken. Prediction, scarfers, hurr durr, etc." This kind of insulting to a lot of players who have years of tournament and laddering experience. Its as if to say their 2 months of ORAS somehow trumps the experience of multiple metagames and playstyles and then say, "fuck what you know." Obviously if the top ranked players are saying something is broken, then hey, it might be. /rantover

Now, on to my position on this lovely issue. At the beginning of ORAS, after Mence got the boot, I was convinced of Gren suspect potential as well as how it could be perceived as a broken mon. However, I continued to build teams, and used gren on some. At times I felt like I was just ripping through teams and others, not so much. I also began to look (or at least try) to look at it objectively. One one hand it has been a staple since X/Y as an offensive check to a lot of common mons like Latis, Thundy, Lando, etc. On another hand I think I sorta need to understand what these new buffs mean for what gren now does. This is different from a lot of the other bans I've seen. This is a mon that was seen as broken in transition to a remake in the same gen, which is crazy. This now means that staple of many offense/balance teams must now be eliminated with a void left for a decent replacement. So what I'm saying is, I see what gren does in terms of teambuilding and how it sorta constricts what you can use. But I also see a mon that was almost integral in checking certain threats a few months ago so I'm on the fence as to whether banning it will truly be the best move for the metagame. I've seen some good arguments from both sides, but none has left me super convinced that it either needs to go or stay. Anyways right now I'm saying, NOT SURE.

@first part
So, some players opinion based on old meta games makes their opinion on the current meta game more important because of the glory they had in the good old days? It's a new game with new rules.

Second part
I agree with the team boosting aspect. Ninja was often one of if not three only special attacker you saw in the meta game. Granted there are some newer ones like Megascept but losing such a crucial tool in team building will cause a large shift imo.

The other issue is that he isn't as omnipotent as the first few posts want you to believe. Reading the beginning of the thread and anyone on the pro ban side makes it sound like the meta is "run Ninja, 6-0 all enemy teams, profit."

 

[Celticpride]

The meta without Greninja is just full of fairies or speed ties. Clefable is the most simple pokemon to use and it literally just wins games. you have to play so meticulously to beat it and even then it can still win. it has so many opportunities to come in. i need ninja!

If Clefable is broken in a non-Greninja meta, then we ban Greninja and we ban Clefable if we deem Ninja banworthy. The same extends to Mega Diancie, Mega Gardevoir, and Azumarill or any other Fairy. However, it's not like XY Greninja was keeping Clef in check before either. But please, let's not turn this into broken checking broken becuase then we have people asking to unban Mega Mawile, Gene, Mega Luke, Deoxys-D and Aegislash becuase "they all check each other."

 

[BCE]

you guys pro ban talk like greninja is a pokemon that can enter, ohko exactly any poke and switch out in safety and can redo this 8x times until he finally dies with life orb. Many pokes are faster ( mega beedril, mega loppuny, jolteon, noivern, aerodactyl, weavile, mega alakazan and many things that people love to use choice scarf can ohko him back), there are pokes that simply can be faster than him (sharpedo, scolipede and yanmega with speed boost can ohko him back), many pokes simply dont give a fuck about what is his movepool and ohko him back or cripple ( talonflame, jirachi with assault vest, klefki, conkeldur with assault vest, rotom-w )

 

[Cogito]

So from what I can take it the individuals who don't want this speed ninja banned have these arguments

-Learn to scout bro
-It has many checks and counters, so just bring them in noob.
-4mms. End of argument
-It wouldn't be very good in ubers. *writes down extensively long post about why it would suck in ubers*

And I thought Aegislash had terrible don't ban arguments. If this is the best the other side can do then let us just ban thing and save us the trouble. The thread has had the mods clean it up to an extreme extent and this is mostly from inexperienced players going off on smogon.

Once again for the 10 billionth time, the suspect test is here for allowing the metagame to be more open and allowing it to be more positive in team building. Bringing in these odd sets, passive pokemon that have main usage of taking care of Greninja is limiting to a lot of players. The suspect test has brought in a new life this metagame has not seen in a while. Seeing some great diverse teams and interesting sets being run on here makes me actually excited to play OU again. The ninja is just too hard to consistently be stopped like Pangoro and Mega-Glalie were in NU.

 

[Holiday]

So from what I can take it the individuals who don't want this speed ninja banned have these arguments

-Learn to scout bro
-It has many checks and counters, so just bring them in noob.
-4mms. End of argument
-It wouldn't be very good in ubers. *writes down extensively long post about why it would suck in ubers*

And I thought Aegislash had terrible don't ban arguments. If this is the best the other side can do then let us just ban thing and save us the trouble. The thread has had the mods clean it up to an extreme extent and this is mostly from inexperienced players going off on smogon.

Once again for the 10 billionth time, the suspect test is here for allowing the metagame to be more open and allowing it to be more positive in team building. Bringing in these odd sets, passive pokemon that have main usage of taking care of Greninja is limiting to a lot of players. The suspect test has brought in a new life this metagame has not seen in a while. Seeing some great diverse teams and interesting sets being run on here makes me actually excited to play OU again. The ninja is just too hard to consistently be stopped like Pangoro and Mega-Glalie were in NU.

If you wanted terrible anti ban arguments, read mega Mawile.

Yeah also I don't really have authority but standard Greninja is like 40 Atk/216 SpA/252+ Spe. Don't post calcs about shirty spreads. Like you're not convincing anyone that Greninja is broken or not by using a 252 ATK/ 252+ Spe spread and honestly why are you using that to begin with? Guarantee 9/10 people who are using these bad spreads and calcs aren't aiming for/getting reqs.

Onto Fairies being broken, there's only like 3 defining fairies right now (correct me if I'm wrong ;-;) those being MGardevoir, MDiancie, and Clefable. Greninja getting banned boosts these three, and other pokemon (think Hawlucha, Diggersby) are getting much more common alongside them. I can't really see any of these pokemon being broken/suspect worthy bar MDiancie, but 160/160/110 offensive stats and you can't be statuses is rather ridiculous; however, I feel like Greninja's suspect is one of a few where a new power emerges after one is taken out. Once Mega Lucario was banned, Mega Kang rose up. After Aegislash, Mega Mawile got huge. After Greninja... What? Nothing glaringly seems like it will be too good for the meta game.

 

[Nix_Hex]

Attention
Just because you are pro-ban doesn't mean you are exempt from following rules like "no one-liners." I just deleted about 20 posts in the past 5 minutes and a majority of them were people responding to no-ban posts with one-liners. We all know this thread is a disaster but honestly, what did you expect from a "starter" Pokemon getting suspected? No need for you to add to the eye sore.

 

[TaBuu]

Just a little sidenote : I've been running through the suspect ladder with CM Clefable and just like chimpact pointed out, it's strong and difficult to stop. However, Clefable isn't entirely self-sufficient as Pokemon such as Heatran and Bisharp either counter or check Clefable ( but should you run LO EQ Latios, then it's easy $$$ ). So Clefable becoming the next "Greninja" of OU, is simply unrealistic. But to be fair, Mega Gardevoir will become much more difficult to stop with the removal of Greninja, as Greninja was one of the most reliable answers to Mega Gardevoir.

 

[JMach]

The meta without Greninja is just full of fairies or speed ties. Clefable is the most simple pokemon to use and it literally just wins games. you have to play so meticulously to beat it and even then it can still win. it has so many opportunities to come in. i need ninja!

I can't say I've noticed this to the same degree. Speed tiers are still varied enough, and while it's possible the metagame is just somwhat unprepared for Clef, that doesn't mean it completely steamrolls everything. Between powerful wallbreakers, good predictions and status / hazards (depending on UA or MG) I haven't had a problem beating it once.

Besides, that doesn't make an impact on whether Greninja is broken or not. I feel the pro-ban arguments have done a pretty good job so far of answering that, but if it turns out post-ban (assuming Ninja is banned), that Clef is OP we can cross that bridge when we reach it. It's like the "will it do well in Ubers though?" argument. We should be dealing with the here and now in this tier, not speculating about how Ninja's departure will affect the viability of other Pokemon.

 

[master_marshmallow]

So from what I can take it the individuals who don't want this speed ninja banned have these arguments

-Learn to scout bro
-It has many checks and counters, so just bring them in noob.
-4mms. End of argument
-It wouldn't be very good in ubers. *writes down extensively long post about why it would suck in ubers*

And I thought Aegislash had terrible don't ban arguments. If this is the best the other side can do then let us just ban thing and save us the trouble. The thread has had the mods clean it up to an extreme extent and this is mostly from inexperienced players going off on smogon.

Once again for the 10 billionth time, the suspect test is here for allowing the metagame to be more open and allowing it to be more positive in team building. Bringing in these odd sets, passive pokemon that have main usage of taking care of Greninja is limiting to a lot of players. The suspect test has brought in a new life this metagame has not seen in a while. Seeing some great diverse teams and interesting sets being run on here makes me actually excited to play OU again. The ninja is just too hard to consistently be stopped like Pangoro and Mega-Glalie were in NU.

So what would good counter arguments look like? If the Pokemon in question has counters, shouldn't you bring them in to counter the Pokemon?

4mss comes more from there not really being too many solid special sweepers out there with good coverage and speed. Greninja fills a very rare team building niche that I'm pretty sure very few Pokemon can compare to. Top of my head I have Starmie though it typically serves a much different role than ninja does.

I do believe that is one of the big factors in ninja's popularity is the fact that not enough Pokemon can do what he does, even if they were less versatile.

For instance, let's say Greninja was split into two Pokemon with half of his move pool going to each, with the same stats and everything. Would we even be having this discussion? The only thing that makes Greninja bad for the meta is how unpredictable he is. Even that said, he's not that unpredictable as there have been many Pokemon that carry lure coverage moves. There really isn't a standard set outside of a couple moves so mostly team prediction is the biggest factor in countering him.
Insulting people's arguments by mocking them doesn't make your side look correct, it just makes you look like a jackass, especially when they have decent points.

 

[mertyville]

I know a lot of people had touched the anti-ban argument of 4 Move Slot Syndrom but I feel like the reason people don't get it is simply they haven't get a good example for a pokemon that has 4 attack syndrom.

Lets take the most obvious example in Mew or mainly offensive Mew. It has a large amount of coverage it can abuse to bypass its counters. It can go physical or special.

But the reason Mew does not work out so well is, that it just does not hit as hard without many boost so you need a boosting move like Nasty Plot.
Ok, now you need take a STAB move of choice, lets take Psyshock because it can bypass Special Walls. Awesome right?
Now Psychic is not really the best offensive typing and no other move gives you really good coverage with it, so you are going to waste the last 2 moveslots with coverage moves that hit the most amount of the tier for a neutral amount of damage, lets take Ghost+Fighting coverage with Shadow Ball and Aurasphere.
Now just give it a life orb for immidiate damage, because you won't get a lot of situations to boost and all attacking moves have at most 90 base power not counting STAB.

Great, but wait a minute, Life Orb is wearing you down quiet a bit...maybe put something like Roost over one of its moves? Hmm, it can't, because you lose on important coverage? Maybe take away life orb and replace it with Lum...oh, you lost important damage output compare to other Nasty Ploters.

You are seeing where this is going at? Have you wondered why most Mew you see on the ladder or the viable movesets that are posted on this forum are about the stallbreaking abilities or supportive abilities such as Hazard Removal?

Greninja has not the same problem as Mew because of multiple reasons:
- has better STAB or rather STAB on everything hence it having more immediate damage than Mew without any Nasty Plot boosts and can choose what it wants to run. Mew needs to run Psychic or Psyshock to have somewhat of offensive pressure, but because Greninja has STAB on every move, it does not need to run Dark Pulse, Scalt or Hydro Pump but run just coverage. If Mew had Portean for instands, it could run Shadow Ball + Aurasphere and had more space for its last 2 slots.
- Because Greninja has so much immediate offensive pressure, it can just run 4 offensive moves and does not rely on moves like Nasty Plot, Roost, Will-O-Wisp (which it can't even learn but that wouldn't change anything anyways)
- Greninja's movesets are decided on what your team needs to be taken care of the most or can't handle. Mew can't fullfill those roles even considering its huge movepool because of decent speed and the need to set up in order to be threatening.

Besides those reasons, Greninja has an amazing speed tier that is only matched by scarfers such as Latios and few Megas like Mega Sceptile, Mega Aero or Mega Beedrill.

Offense has a tough time switching in while Balance and Stall have to put constant offensive pressure so it can't come in, losing momentum at some point and the Greninja player can exploit those and can decide the match for himself.
In case nobody has noticed, while people claim that Greninja is so frail, it finds a lot of oppotunities to switch in on any playstyle not named HO. Even even against HO Greninja can find a lot of free switch ins through double switches, VoltTurn or when something that is locked into a move like Latios in Psyshock or Draco Meteor after its SpA drop.
That is really something that makes no sense to me even considering that Frail is not considered a viable argument since otherwise we had Deoxys-A in OU, but Greninja can be considered far from frail.
Even without Portean it finds oppotunities to switch in and Portean can sometimes be used to avoid getting revenge killed by opposing Piority users such as Scizor and Conk like others and I have posted in this thread already.

 

[Aelsorm]

I know a lot of people had touched the anti-ban argument of 4 Move Slot Syndrom but I feel like the reason people don't get it is simply they haven't get a good example for a pokemon that has 4 attack syndrom.

Lets take the most obvious example in Mew or mainly offensive Mew. It has a large amount of coverage it can abuse to bypass its counters. It can go physical or special.

But the reason Mew does not work out so well is, that it just does not hit as hard without many boost so you need a boosting move like Nasty Plot.
Ok, now you need take a STAB move of choice, lets take Psyshock because it can bypass Special Walls. Awesome right?
Now Psychic is not really the best offensive typing and no other move gives you really good coverage with it, so you are going to waste the last 2 moveslots with coverage moves that hit the most amount of the tier for a neutral amount of damage, lets take Ghost+Fighting coverage with Shadow Ball and Aurasphere.
Now just give it a life orb for immidiate damage, because you won't get a lot of situations to boost and all attacking moves have at most 90 base power not counting STAB.

Great, but wait a minute, Life Orb is wearing you down quiet a bit...maybe put something like Roost over one of its moves? Hmm, it can't, because you lose on important coverage? Maybe take away life orb and replace it with Lum...oh, you lost important damage output compare to other Nasty Ploters.

You are seeing where this is going at? Have you wondered why most Mew you see on the ladder or the viable movesets that are posted on this forum are about the stallbreaking abilities or supportive abilities such as Hazard Removal?

Greninja has not the same problem as Mew because of multiple reasons:
- has better STAB or rather STAB on everything hence it having more immediate damage than Mew without any Nasty Plot boosts and can choose what it wants to run. Mew needs to run Psychic or Psyshock to have somewhat of offensive pressure, but because Greninja has STAB on every move, it does not need to run Dark Pulse, Scalt or Hydro Pump but run just coverage. If Mew had Portean for instands, it could run Shadow Ball + Aurasphere and had more space for its last 2 slots.
- Because Greninja has so much immediate offensive pressure, it can just run 4 offensive moves and does not rely on moves like Nasty Plot, Roost, Will-O-Wisp (which it can't even learn but that wouldn't change anything anyways)
- Greninja's movesets are decided on what your team needs to be taken care of the most or can't handle. Mew can't fullfill those roles even considering its huge movepool because of decent speed and the need to set up in order to be threatening.

Besides those reasons, Greninja has an amazing speed tier that is only matched by scarfers such as Latios and few Megas like Mega Sceptile, Mega Aero or Mega Beedrill.

Offense has a tough time switching in while Balance and Stall have to put constant offensive pressure so it can't come in, losing momentum at some point and the Greninja player can exploit those and can decide the match for himself.
In case nobody has noticed, while people claim that Greninja is so frail, it finds a lot of oppotunities to switch in on any playstyle not named HO. Even even against HO Greninja can find a lot of free switch ins through double switches, VoltTurn or when something that is locked into a move like Latios in Psyshock or Draco Meteor after its SpA drop.
That is really something that makes no sense to me even considering that Frail is not considered a viable argument since otherwise we had Deoxys-A in OU, but Greninja can be considered far from frail.
Even without Portean it finds oppotunities to switch in and Portean can sometimes be used to avoid getting revenge killed by opposing Piority users such as Scizor and Conk like others and I have posted in this thread already.

You cannot be more wrong.
First of all, my arguments were never "4MSS"

My arguments were more like:
My point is - yes, Greninja has STAB on everything but his STABs are not comparable to STABs of other Pokemon. His STABs on coverage moves outweights his not so good stats and his strongest STAB is not as strong as for example Gallade's Close Combat because it simply is not different from power of his coverage.

Greninja usually forces to some easy predictions, thats right, but there are still many situations you can switch out against Greninja and survive and possibly Revenge kill it.

THE OTHER FACT is that you say "Greninja gets kill everytime it comes out" - thats not right, it might fail to kill if it fails to predict and those are not rare situations, imagine using Ice Beam while Scizor switch onto him... then you did not get the kill because of prediction. And you cannot forget that same as you cannot switch onto Greninja reliably he cannot switch onto anything as well... well actually to be honest, you may switch some Pokemon into majority of his attack, but with residual damage from SR and LO Greninja can basically switch into nothing. That means BEST CASE SCENARIO revenge killer that gets 1 for 1, worst case scenario 0 for 2 (Scizor situation if you dont switch - predicting for example roost, using HP Fire, wore down by Bullet Punch).
So I cannot see really point why it should be banned.

You could as well consider that there is Mega Metagross and Slowbro, quite OP now, that Greninja can counter and those are really powerful threats.

SPEED
I feel like you want to ban him because you can't deal with him... because otherwise somebody would react to my arguments... but there are only arguments "It is not 4MMS, so BAN HIM".
"Greninja has an amazing speed tier that is only matched by scarfers such as Latios" - you don't need Scarfer that fast like Latios to match his speed, so he is not outspeed by only Pokemon like that, he is outsped by almost EVERY SCARFER in the metagame
"and few Megas like Mega Sceptile, Mega Aero or Mega Beedrill." - I feel like there is more than 7 Megas that can outspeed him... + there are megas like Scizor and Pinsir with priority attack included.
+ there are non-megas that can outprioritize him (Scizor, Talonflame, Bisharp) and also Pokemon faster than him, like Noivern
Many DDancers like M-Altaira and M-Charizard X can outspeed him after +1 DD


STABS
"If Mew had Portean for instands, it could run Shadow Ball + Aura Sphere* and had more space for its last 2 slots." - maybe, I think Mew would be uber because Modest Protean with Rock Polish would break the whole Meta... but Greninja must be Timid with his low stats. His STABs are powerful ONLY when they're super effective, when they're not, they're pretty weak.


I feel like Greninja is not different from Azumarill... tell me, what Pokemon can reliably switch into Azumarill? Tentacruel... ehm... Amoonguss? Okay, but since most of your arguments are "but my mommy said that Tentacruel isn't effective in OU" and Amoonguss is lower in the ladder that makes Azumarill more powerful than Greninja, doesn't it?
Yeah, it is not that fast, so it can be revenge killed ... but Greninja can be EASILY Revenge killed by 90% of REVENGE KILLERS.


SO TELL ME, WHATS BAD ABOUT GRENINJA? WHERE IS HE "BROKEN" and "UNHEALTHY"?

I think he is not different from other REVENGE KILLERS.


EDIT : almost forget. Deoxys-A is like 2x stronger than Greninja. I explained that earlier (Page 8 - http://www.smogon.com/forums/thread...ant-ninja-turtles.3525033/page-8#post-5939174 )

 

[Aelsorm]

Greninja > balance from a purely match up standpoint which is bad. There is more gravitas to that statement if you stop and think about what balance is and how wide a spectrum of teams can fall into that category.

nice one-liner that explains absolutely nothing

OK, is there any "PRO-BAN" that wants to post actual "REASON" for him getting banned?
It would be nice to see reaction to my post. Not just another "Hey, he has a lot of moves usable, so ban him", "hey, none of my other Pokemon like Ferrothorn and Slowbro can outrun him, so ban him".