Meta Leaving the Pond: A Weekly Greninja Tournament Match Analysis Thread

[Y2Kay]

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This is not the Weekly Match Up Discussion thread or the regular video critique thread, those can be found below:

http://smashboards.com/threads/tracking-the-ninja-greninja-video-thread.368765/unread

http://smashboards.com/threads/mast...ead-s3s10-bayo-mewtwo-4-11-4-25.369356/unread

Welcome to my new weekly series! The Match analysis thread was created for three purposes,

1. To further Greninja's Metagame.

2. To help us and the players we are critiquing through thorough analysis.

3. To analyze the possibilities and options showcased in the critiqued matches.
What Use is Match Analysis for Me?

Match Analysis is a great way to find out what a top player is doing, why a top player is using it, and should you use it. From analyzing matches, you can find new combos, new frame traps or knowledge about a tech or combo. You can learn more about optimal move usage and recovery tactics as well as general MU knowledge. All-in-all, it is extremely helpful.

Another thing that this does is help you develop the fundamentals of analysis. The ability to look at another player and find flaws in their game plan is important. On the flip-side, this also helps you analyze your own play and find out what is wrong. This also equips you with the ability to successfully critique matches that show up in the video thread.


How to Analyze:

There are many points to consider in your analysis, such as:

1: Movement/Movement Options

2: Playstyle

3: Combos

4: Habits (Good and Bad)

5: MU specific things

6: Interesting tidbits you noticed

7: Greninja specific things

Now, you don't have to cover all of these things. Simply watch the video and focus on one or two sections. As you get better at analysis, push up the amount of categories you analyze.

Rules:
No overly harsh criticism. Remember, these are real people too, no need to hurt each other's feelings over a game.

No cursing and other generic rules

Critique the match, not the analysis unless specifically asked. Feel free to comment though. Ask the person why they came to that conclusion or where they saw that.

 

[Y2Kay]

Week #1: FILIP vs Lea

 

[Derpnaster]

First match, He kept DIing away from the throw which set up for the dunks. I'd suggest DIing slightly down and/or in general a really odd place because he just got read and dunked.

His neutral was also a little predictable and somewhat static. He could benefit from more movement overall rather than just waiting and letting Mario take back lost ground.

Game Two, more of the same, his playstyle is one of patience but it also is one of little movement which is where Grennja has an edge over pretty much anyone in the game.

I honestly think movement is really where this player needs to work on the most.

Then again I'm the guy who will literally do nothing but hit and run for an entire match. Heck that's how I fight ROB if I have to.

 

[Galaxeon]

Game 1 :

Start of the match was good. Lots of bair to approach that actually worked, beat fireballs and hit, maybe we should do more of that (personnally I barely use bair except offstage).

About the neutral : he had the right behavior against Mario being a little bit defensive while trying some approaches, I think, but indeed probably not enough movement. Not many retreating fair either, and throughout the set Mario landed more fireballs than Greninja landed shurikens, which shouldn't happen since it's way easier to shield the fireballs, and we have overall a better projectile game (despite the cape) and mobility.

About the stage and those awful platforms : i noticed some nice utilt/uair to put pressure that lead to follow-ups. H-Pump horizontally then diagonally up to land safely on the top platform was a nice touch.
SS is not the ideal mindgame when juggling here though, becase if it misses, the paltforms give a way for the opponent to land quicker and punish us hard with aerial strings (and this is exactly what happened). Honestly, to punish an airdodge SS really doesn't work a lot from my experience... it shouldn't be used imo (delayed uair spike has lower risk and potentially high reward).

He landed those nairs really well though, got blocked sometimes yeah but the way he did it on shield felt pretty safe to me. Maybe he could have mixed it up with more empty hops (baiting a shield for a nair) -> dashgrab ? It didn't feel like he grabbed enough.

Game 2 : Got bodied on stock 1 (I think he could have airdodged to escape some combos with Mario's dair) but I can't really explain what happened honestly, the Mario was agressive and it worked, that's it...

 

[Y2Kay]

NonSpecificGuy you think you could tag this as Meta?

 

[Nameless Pariah]

1. He made some very interesting choices when it came to movement, going as far as throwing off the Mario and making him whiff some very big punishes towards the beginning. As far as the rest of the game(s), he didn't really utilize Greninja's speed/ability to escape close quarter combat. On top of that I don't think he knew how to land without getting hit or how to optimize Greninja's Hydro Pump when it came to escaping the Mario. His movements were very linear and thus predictable.

2. Playstyle wise, I think he was pushing Greninja's versatility to the max (not in a bad way). He knew to space himself and the Mario with the shuriken, knew when to use shuriken, and kept mixing up his bait 'n' punish playstyle with some bursts of aggression and knew how to juggle his opponent for the most part. His constant attempts to push Mario off stage while commendable were lackluster due to his inability to capitalize on Mario's attempts to recover. Instead of going for any kind of stage spike he opted for poorly spaced bairs that didn't land. His spots of aggression weren't bad choices, however his lack of grabs through out the whole game cost him a lot of potential combos and percent that he could've doled out on his opponent.

3. His jab-jab-fsmash attempt was great, however that was easily telegraphed by his jab speed the earlier two times he caught Mario in a jab combo. His platform usage during the first game for his uair strings were good and the attempt to finish it with a shadow sneak was very smart despite it whiffing. I think he knew about Greninja's Dash attack to fair combo but failed to utilize it for what I thought was a fear of attacking on shield (again, he should've grabbed more). He also didn't utilize Shadow Sneak Hitstun Cancel for any of Mario's constant uptilts, and I think he just panicked whenever he got combo'd and failed to DI or attempt to do anything for that matter.

4. One of his great habits were to run up to Mario and shield. He however failed to note any of Mario's reactions and consistently approached and shielded, Mario of course picked up on this and began to punish him for it.
Again, he kept panicking when Greninja got hit. I know there isn't much that can be done when Greninja is combo'd in the air other than SSHC which can even then become predictable, but he didn't even attempt to DI or jump out of any of those combos in game 2. His Hydro Pump was also very linear and needed a bit more mixing up. Also he was way too anxious to get an up air after knocking Mario into the air which he then picked up on. It's great for juggling, but he needed to bait out an airdodge and then punish.

5. NEVER let Mario get in on his own terms. He should've tried to have kept some space between him and Mario which he thought about in game 1 but completely forgot about it in game 2. (I'm getting lazy so I'll just wrap it up)

6. His short hop to crawl in game 1 was pretty cool, I think I'm gonna start using it in my own gameplay to throw off opponents/catch them with a surprise d-tilt. And I really liked his recovery/pushing Mario with his windbox in game 1.

7. I'd just say to put in more time with the character. He looked like he knew Greninja's basic playstyle but failed to utilize all of Greninja's tools (No spaced fairs on approach, absolutely zero d-tilts in game, and no u-throw combos). Definitely has potential to do good if he kept at it tho

 

[Y2Kay]

good first week guys!

Week #2: Shinjoebi vs MVD

 

[Derpnaster]

Match One: OK it happens to everyone sometimes but honestly Greninja got bodied. He lost momentum early and made a mental slip that caused that SD.

Now to gameplay.

He was not making full use of shurikens after that first SH Shuriken Stall that got punished pretty hard. A grounded shuriken would have probably worked or just not using them.

Neutral, his neutral game was good, but he was fishing for combos rather than adapting his playstyle to match Diddy, in that first match he started a pattern that Diddy abused and destroyed.
Movement, for the second week in a row movement could use a little work, he has the idea but he's not exactly changing position much, just moving enough to fish for a combo. He certainly knows how well Greninja can move, and at times started to show it, but then he got predictable and Diddy hit him.

Match Two, This was much better. Though he was outclassed by the Diddy player he managed to take a stock and he got him to kill percent's.

This time around his neutral was much better. Rather than blindly running at Diddy which got him grabbed he looked for a hole in the wall. I saw quite a few but I think here he was respecting Diddy's air game too much and outright fearing that banana, A good idea would to view Diddy Throwing out banana as a nice little gift as out Dahs attack or even Dtilt is fast enough to grab it.

His Combo game was good, if a little standard, he knows the value of uair and utilt and he sed it well. Later on he started going for other strings rather than true uair combos, which is a lot of what attributed to his taking that game back so close. He still should look less for utilt and uair combos and more for greninja's othe ramazing combo moves.

Movement here was much better. Though again it was more or less Graninja moving in a box that was aproximatly in front of Diddy, part of that was Diddy doing well, but Greninja outmaneuvers everyone in the cast so though it might be difficulte he could have gotten behind DIddy and tried to change the situation. There were a few times he did and Diddy had a good amount of trouble dealing with it.

Overall I think he should work more on his neutral game and how to deal with walls, even if the wall is a banana fence, Movement is there, just apply it more fully and watch the opponent closely, I saw a few patterns on Diddy's side that could be punished pretty hard.

 

[Fampy707]

Mvd was airdodging a lot and shinjoebi finally punished him hard with shadow sneak.

I wanna see more utilization of crouching because I dont believe diddy can hit greninja when he crouching besides dash attack and dashgrab

 

[Y2Kay]

Week #3: Dark Aura vs Holy

 

[Derpnaster]

So what I saw throughout was a lot of the same, as such I will comment on the player's overall performance.

Movement, This has been by far the best example I've seen with what Greninja can do with movement. Overall the player did well in maximizing Greninja's options for getting around ROB's zoning tactics. I would suggest looking at making some approaches less predictable and slightly better application as far as following opponents, but it would not be necessary as the very patent playstyle works well with Greninja's tools.

Neutral, I think the player was being too cautious in his approaches. He had the neutral advantage overall because of his ability to move in on even the smallest mistakes and get over ROB's "fence". He teneded to approach from the same angle rather than crossing up on occasion which while it does condition the opponent to shield, does make approaches unsafe. That said the neutral play was still overall solid.

Offstage play, in my opinion this is where the player lost the match, he failed to perform in offstage situations, primarily because he was just too cautious and held too much fear for ROB's airgame, fun fact. ROB can't deny Greninja a dair with his uair, it trades which is bad for rob offstage. All in all his offstage play needs to ramp up the aggro a lot, sitting on ledge and tapping shield only gives your opponent time to recover and think about how to beat you. Keeping up the pressure, even just by jumping off the ledge and throwing out a bair can terrify a ROB (or anyone for that matter) because he can't guarantee he can deny it.

Overall the player is very solid and knows Greninja well. But he needs to know when to transition between a quick hit and run style, and going HAM because he has totall advantage and can get away with it.

 

[NonSpecificGuy]

Hopefully we'll get to see more Greninja's at EVO. That's typically where people bring out huge surprises in the game mechanics.

 

[Y2Kay]

Sorry for the wait guys

Week #4: Oisiitouhu vs Kie

 

[Derpnaster]

OK let's get back into this.

Firstly that was a very good set, all mistakes aside the two players were most certainly about on the same level of technical skill.

Movement: Greninja's movement was par for the course. He tended to spend perhaps a little too much time in the air, which is a bad idea vs. Peach who absolutely destroys Greninja (And most of the cast really) in the air.

Neutral: Given that playing Greninja is something close to a 90% neutral game with about 10 total seconds of some crazy combo game (Joking of course), Neutral Play was solid, though I think that Greninja was respecting Peach's air game a little too much, better safe than sorry though, A thing to keep in mind is that Peach, while her aerials are literally five of the most terrifying moves in the game, she has no reach or real speed, Greninja can run circles around her and get away with it if the player is aware enough. A lot of why neutral game ended in that match was what appeared to be a lack of Greninja anticipating Peach's approaches, or approaching and not anticipating her counter attempts.

Biggest takeaway here, Anticipation along with overall playing it safe, but fast.

Recovery: Wow, first time I ever had to make a comment on a Greninja''s Recovery.
The player was quite frankly, predictable, they only used jumps and Hydro Pump from either an even level or below the ledge. AND HE GOT REKT FOR IT, plain and simple, Peach took that game because Greninja did not use his tools to make his recovery safer against Peach.

If Greninja had used Shadow Sneak (Which he used a grand total of twice with only one working) from farther out he could have done one of two things. First, cleared the ledge, Shadow Sneak just below the ledge is deadly, and with good reason, the disjoint on that move is amazing and hits through the stage enough to stop most, if not all on stage gimp attempts, Secondly, saved Greninja's jump for much later in recovery, which can be devastating as Greninja can with reasonable success use just about any aerial attack (Except NAir) to reverse the situation form being the edge gaurded to the edge guarding player.

Another point to make is that His use of Hydro Pump was also predictable and in many ways unsafe He often went high over Peach, which while she can't get you there, she can catch you in end. Another issue was how he often used Hydro Pump from below the ledge, it's not safe at all and a better option is to not put yourself between Peach and the stage as that is asking for death.

Honestly I can't really think of many other things that stand out, though I did learn a lot from that match.

 

[Y2Kay]

One whisper I've heard from fellow ninjas is that Hydro pump on stage really screws with her floats. I've never tried it tho.

 

[Derpnaster]

One whisper I've heard from fellow ninjas is that Hydro pump on stage really screws with her floats. I've never tried it tho.

It can, but it's really hard to hit with Hydro Pump and there are better ways to screw with people (Down Taunt is still a personal favorite, got five of 'em off on a really good Falcon the other day, it was glorious, I had no intention of winning that match of course)

 

[Guimartgon]

-When you realize this thread exists a month too late rip me- This is a sweet thread idea!

Game 1:

Spoiler

So FD vs Peach is in my opinion good for us since we get to outrun peach and she doesn't get platforms to approach us, she has to float towards us flying above our shurikens which can be punished with greninja's great anti airs.

Playstile: The Greninja player opened in a very aggressive fashion, he would throw 1 - 2 shurikens as peach would approach to immediately try to stuff out her approach with something like dash attack. He got punished heavily for it, taking the first few big chunks of % as well as losing all stage control(and with no platforms it's hard to get it back). He kept trying to be super aggressive so he kept getting stuffed by peachs aerials which are honestly pretty good. He eventually takes on a more defensive stand point, taking the first stock by anti-airing float with utilt to uair and playing the spacing game for the second stock but it was way too late.

Recoveries: it was fairly obvious when he would go to the ledge and when he'd go on stage since he used his double jump a little too often out of stage, which makes it very easy for peach to edgeguard the frog(hence him losing the game by having his super straight forward angle read). He could've also used shadow sneak to the ledge every so often. Also too many jumps from the ledge.

Combos: he got pretty much nothing out of them. comboing peach can be weird sometimes because of her floatiness but he could've really used nair into PP utilt there.

Movement: super jump happy vs peach, he'd land way too close to her which lead to free % for Peach. I wished he had stayed grounded more and tried to zip in and out of range to bait peach into committing.

Game 2:

Spoiler

Going back to FD, this time with walls. He had a better recovery angle which I will recognize was much better than all his angles G1. I would've liked to see him cling onto the wall sometimes for better recoveries.(still too many jumps from the ledge)

Playstyle: he managed to keep stage control better, when peach was on the ledge she was in trouble (minus that one time he randomly did FF Uair which covered nothing).
He got better at covering Peach's landings by the end of stock 1(dtilt from a distance to fair rather than get on your face shield and try to jab vs frame 2 jab and no lag nair) which was good. Stock 2 we saw a very similar playstyle, more cautious than G1.
I didn't like the lack of Fairs, but I think the player just doesn't really space them well(hence him losing a stock due to miss spacing Fair and eating a slap) so I think he should definitely work on his retreating Fairs to wall out peach.

Movement: his movement improved, still maybe too aerial happy but definitely keeping his distances more, again I would've liked to see him be more in and out while harassing with shurikens on FD, peach doesn't have the speed to keep up with the frog.

Combos: still nothing, dash attack to shadow sneak was cute I guess. And if we wanna call nair to read air dodge Usmash a combo then there was also that but nothing out of the ordinary tbh, lots of wasted nairs if you ask me.

G3:

Spoiler

Smashville gives Greninja less room to run around but a nice platform to recover onto sometimes.

Playstyle: he harassed more with shurikens which was great and he had very nice bair usage to call out floats which definetely helped. But his timing on anti airs and Fairs is very poor, I appreciate the effort in using them more but I feel like he really needs to polish his understanding of Fair and utilt since a lot of the time he'd use them in the right situation but he didn't know how to use them. This time around jumping off the ledge destroyed him, so I'd say he definitely needs to mix those up much, much more. He had worse positioning when peach was at the ledge so he couldn't cover peach's drop off DJ fair, which peach used a bit too often.

Recoveries: Again, still super linear and against peach that's just doom.

Movement: nothing new.

TL;DR: Too much jumping. Needs to mixup recovery. Needs to learn how to space and time Fair and Utilt. Could use more combo labbing. Could use more slippery movement. Good understanding of bair, and there was an improvement of shuriken harassment.

 

[Y2Kay]

Alright, our next week will feature Illusion.

Week #5: Illusion vs Megafox

 

[Derpnaster]

All I can say is Greninja failed really only on two fronts for that entire match.

1: Neutral, Though Greninja can play a super aggressive game, he is better at just keeping neutral for as long as possible then punishing mistakes such as jumps or holding shields too long. This player was way to aggro at times when he should have chilled out and waited. A change of pace is often the best way to throw off an opponent.

2: The Ledge, I saw several mistakes made when on the ledge, the most notable was often going for something offstage then a Ledge Regrab, which gets you killed.
Most of the time it is better to just get up then go after them. Greninja has the best movement in the game, he's more than fast enough to get up normally AND punish/ gimp offstage play.

 

[NonSpecificGuy]

I noticed a whole lot of whiffed B-airs. B-air is a good way to rack up some damage but relying on it to get you that damage is a bad idea. It's very easily punishable if whiffed. B-air should be used as a confirm due to these things and you could tell Illusion wasn't really doing to well at that.

In other news I saw some damn good Greninja matches at Super Smash Con. Can't wait to go through those. Saw a lot of F-air confirms and F-throw confirms.

 

[Y2Kay]

In other news I saw some damn good Greninja matches at Super Smash Con. Can't wait to go through those. Saw a lot of F-air confirms and F-throw confirms.

Venia beat Rango, Gomamugitya, and WaDi during SSC and got 25th. But not a single one of those matches where on stream .

 

[Guimartgon]

G1:

Spoiler

Not much, even when ignoring the first 2 stocks, Greninja got fox'd, it's a bad match up for a reason, he outspeeds us in the ground, out frame data's us in the air, catches our landings with dash attack, Utilt OOS can beat cross ups... His regular playstyle counters a lot of greninja B&B Honestly I would avoid Smashville since it's super tiny and that just makes it easier for Fox to get up on your face and say "I'm gonna click fast buttons have fun not being able to run away from me". It's certainly not the worst place to go by a longshot (hi DL64, nice platforms we can't reach you've got there, also tiny af). I guess he could try to implement the platform as a way to escape at times and maybe the few times he tried to play the boxing game with fox it would've been wiser to reset your grounds and get some room.

G2:

Spoiler

Smashville. Again I don't agree with the stage choice but it's certainly not the worst, if they have full DDR in effect then I guess it makes sense, but I'd either go to DHD or FD depending on what megafox banned, it gives us room to run away from him and try to space him out, but that's just my opinion.

Illusion did a splendid job at being slippery, running away and putting a pivot ftilt on megafox's way to keep him at bay, the moment megafox jumped Illusion immediately reacted with a bair as a call out, which since the first hit is angled upwards caught fox all the time. That was some great adaptation and amazing play, only playing the boxing CQ game as a mixup and very reactive as to megafox's teching option into shield. Very well played!

G3:

Spoiler

Lylat makes sense for Fox in the Fox - Frog MU, since smashville didn't work out he'd rather have more platforms to abuse our landings, they can also get in our way for combos. If DL64 was banned that left BF and Lylat open and Megafox probably doesn't want to go to BF where he struggles to take stocks because of the blastzones as well as the size of BF meanwhile we kill later as well but we don't mind because of Uthrow with rage killing fox early enough.
I noticed some instances where megafox would bait illusion with his movement, forcing illusion to go for bairs as he ran away and then covered that with something like dash attack. Illusion lost a stock from trying to box with fox(second stock) as well. It was really rough for Illusion to keep megafox in the neutral game and megafox used his advantage state really well. My soul low key cried when the commentators were like "hurp dup frog Utilt definitely not a disjoint harp darp"

G4:

Spoiler

Similar to G2 but now with breathing room! Illusion did some really good uptilts when Megafox was approaching which I found super good. Definitely made a great deal out of every time Megafox jumped and I think that's what made this game more one sided than G2, specially cause Megafox just couldn't find how to land vs the frog.

G5:

Spoiler

Don't ask why they have PS2 as a legal stage. I still don't get why it was legal in brawl.
Megafox did 1 thing super well: mixing up late nair(hitting with the sweetspot low to the ground) with early nair, since Illusion wasn't shielding much(as you should with Greninja) Megafox was just in the air and then catching illusion running away with late nairs, then mixed it up with rising nair which leads to Usmash. Illusion did catch onto that and got back to throwing out hitboxes to meet Megafox in the air and maybe if he kept it like that he could've won but had that unfortunate SD.

Short overall:

Spoiler

Movement: really smart movement, he knew when it was better to go through the whole pivot animation rather than jumping out of it. Could've been crispier with some tech skill thrown into it to increase Greninja's potential range of things like utilt.

Combos: mostly the safe stuff, which is what you should do cause looking for a Nair vs frame data like fox's is not wise.

Playstile: somewhat flexible, maybe he could've used more water shuriken to keep distances and force Fox to find different angles of approach.

.

 

[Illusion.]

Appreciate all of you who took the time to watch and critique, hopefully I'll come out with the W next time!

 

[Derpnaster]

I'm hoping I can get better by learning from others games!

 

[Y2Kay]

Alright, a returning guest is here!

Week # 6: Tasty Tofu vs HIKARU

(I call him tasty tofu because that's a translation of his name and it sounds funny)

 

[Derpnaster]

This to me looked like a matchup failure.

Tofu stayed n DK's grab (and therefore everything else) range way to long. Sad because he had solid neutral play and overall frog play down.

The best way to fight DK is to poke and build damage. DK gets an unholy amount of rewad off of grabs and spending more than two seconds in reach of his tree trunk arms is like asking to get grabed.

 

[Y2Kay]

Alright, another returning guest is here!

Week # 6: Earth vs Lea

 

[Derpnaster]

This was a game of punishing mistakes. Which this time Earth did better,

Once again I would like to point out that Lea still seems to lack understanding of just how good Greninja's movement is/
That said he was much improved this time around, he was keeping his space a lot better and overall doing a better job of moving to avoid Earth, but that is where his improvement ends.

Using mobility offensively means using both the ground and air, as well as walking and dashing. If you can get the player to attack one direction then Greninja is mobile enough to hit from the other. For example Earth kept going for Up Smashes whenever Lea jumped at him. One thing Lea could have done is stopped short with a Neutral Air Auto Channel and grabbed to punish the lag, or done really any other move. This is possible becasue Greninja can stop and reverse his direction really quickly in air and thus weave his way through a lot of hitboxes or clutch out a few edgeguards.

Which brings me to my second point. Lea got rekt over the edge, Earth had his number during the edgeguarding and a lot of it was Lea had his getup attempts read. Really the only improvement there would be try to read the edgeguard and mix up your getup attempts accordingly.

 

[Y2Kay]

Is there still any interest in this thread? I'll bring it back, but participation really dwindles at times.

 

[NonSpecificGuy]

Is there still any interest in this thread? I'll bring it back, but participation really dwindles at times.

I enjoy threads like this. Sadly, though all threads that aren't Social Threads are dwindling due to the lack of any Smash news whatsoever. So, if you want to keep it up, do it. I'll enjoy it but there won't be too much traffic through here.

 

[Igneo]

Is that I think everyone is in disagreement or Skype

 

[Y2Kay]

OK, let's try to bring this thread back! Let's end SSB4 on a good note!

Week # 6: DA Venia vs HO3K Gen