Meta Mastery of the Arts - Greninja Matchup Thread Archive

[FullMoon]

I don't think vs Sheik is 70-30, 60-40 seems about right to me. While Sheik definitely attacks really fast, we're not exactly slow ourselves and we can keep up with her. Not only that but if we're careful, it'll take a lot more for Sheik to KO us than it will for the inverse and I'm pretty sure we deal more damage to her in fewer hits than she does to us.

Sheik in neutral is a huge pain, there's no doubt about it, her attacks come out much faster than ours as well so we need to be extra careful around her since it's so hard to land a hit, but I think once we get control it becomes a lot easier to take her out. I've played against a really good Sheik in Anther's ladder a few times (Phuzix for those who frequent it) and even though I always lost, most of the time I could still get him down to one stock even though he's clearly a better player than me, so I don't think this MU is that much in favor of Sheik.

She's probably the hardest MU for us though, either her or Sonic.

I'm also curious about Fox because the one time I went against one I got completely wrecked, so I want to know if we really have a disadvantage in the MU or if it was just inexperience showing.

 

[Coffee™]

[/spoiler]

To summarize:
- the matchup is definitely in her favor, somewhere in the 70-30 to 60-40 range
- needles beat Water Shuriken
- Sheik`s Ftilt and Fair pressure is very strong against our weak out of shield options
- our best answer is shield drop -> Jab, which beats Ftilt shield pressure
- in the neutral, our Ftilt and SHFF Nair/Fair -> Jab are also useful for spacing
- we need to play aggressively
- we can SS hitstun cancel out of her Fsmash and punish it, but it is hard to react in time, so you have to anticipate it in advance.
- our Ftilt can be used to answer Sheik`s aerial approaches

* This matchup isn't anything close to a 70:30 either. If anything it feels evenish or slightly her favor. I've played this matchup with Ed a good set, both in tournament and practice and our games always tend to go to final stock last hit. Definitely one of the games more exciting matchups for sure.

* Her pressure game isn't as strong as other characters against Greninja. He has the mobility to deal with her and Jab is really really good in this matchup against her approaches if they hit your shield. Shadow Sneak OOS is also a good option if you know they're approaching with Fair. Free punish if you can predict it.

* Sole aggression in this matchup will get you some quick losses as Shiek does have faster moves. A passive aggressive playstyle is probably better. There will be times where Greninja will decide the flow of the matchup and vice versa. It's very back and forth and tbh one of his easier high tier matchups.

 

[MartinAW4]

* This matchup isn't anything close to a 70:30 either. If anything it feels evenish or slightly her favor. I've played this matchup with Ed a good set, both in tournament and practice and our games always tend to go to final stock last hit. Definitely one of the games more exciting matchups for sure.

* Her pressure game isn't as strong as other characters against Greninja. He has the mobility to deal with her and Jab is really really good in this matchup against her approaches if they hit your shield. Shadow Sneak OOS is also a good option if you know they're approaching with Fair. Free punish if you can predict it.

* Sole aggression in this matchup will get you some quick losses as Shiek does have faster moves. A passive aggressive playstyle is probably better. There will be times where Greninja will decide the flow of the matchup and vice versa. It's very back and forth and tbh one of his easier high tier matchups.

All 3 of those points were taken directly from @ BlinkIV `s first post about the matchup (the first one listed in the spoiler of my previous post), so I think he`ll be able to reply to you better than me. He has also practiced with a very good Sheik (Denti`s Sheik if I remember correctly), so you`ll be able to compare your experience.

 

[BlinkIV]

Yep, Denti is my main practice partner and teams partner.

The MU definitely isn't in our favor, but it feels like it's getting better while we figure out more things. 60:40 may seem a little better. But Diddy is still an easier MU compared to Shiek for us. I stay with 60:40 for now..

Yeah, I remember you talking about doing drop shield jabs to interrupt her pressure game. Utilizing that is a BIG key against Shiek in neutral. We can't get past needles either. Run and shield is our best way to approach. Use f-tilts as anti airs. Also don't go to BF, her U-smash will hit through platforms and always sweetspot if we are on the platform.

Different playstyle for different player. I play aggressive against Denti because he has a really good defensive game. When I played against Eazy I mixed it up. So just be ready to play both kinds out.

Also..Fox is rough...Idk what to think about Falco tbh. He's my secondary, but I've never played against a good Falco haha.

Zss I have mixed feelings on. I typically just go Falco against her tbh from playing with Dakpo. But I tried Greninja a few times and it went alright. The main thing is just being able to fall out of her up-b (I think Greninja can too?) which takes away her significant kill option away. If Greninja can fall out too, then it's def our favor.

 

[FullMoon]

I've played a good ZSS a lot today and I'd say the MU is even. ZSS's grab has a bit of start-up and due to being a tether grab also leaves her pretty vulnerable to our attacks, so we have an easier time approaching her overall, I'm pretty sure you can stop a grab from her after a shield SHFF Nair with a jab at least. In the air both Greninja and ZSS are very dangerous to each other, both are very hard to gimp properly though ZSS slightly less so and both are very quick characters.

The main things to remember in the MU is that Water Shuriken has more range that the stun gun and if you charge it a bit you can cancel it as well, so we can apply pressure to ZSS better with them. ZSS also seems to have a hard time to score kills outside of her Up-B and some of her aerials at higher percentages, not to the same extent as Sheik's but it still kinda noticeable. I even managed to survive the up-b at about 105% before.

I also believe Greninja can fall out of the up-B when he's at a higher percentage, so if we can survive long enough we take out one of her KO options from her, not sure if that's possible to do otherwise.

Overall I'd say the MU is either 50:50 or 55:45 in Greninja's favor just because we can pressure her with shurikens a lot better which gives us an edge in the neutral.

 

[BlinkIV]

I also believe Greninja can fall out of the up-B when he's at a higher percentage, so if we can survive long enough we take out one of her KO options from her, not sure if that's possible to do otherwise.

Yeah, that's the main thing why I go Falco against her. Falco (and Fox too) can both consistently fall out of her Up-B just by holding left or right. Zss can also go in certain directions with it, but at that point it becomes a 50:50 guess. We require testing to see if Greninja can do the same thing

 

[FullMoon]

Oh, when I tried to dodge it I tried to hold down instead of left or right. Considering Falco has the 5th fastest fall speed and Greninja has the 3rd, I'm going to assume he's able to drop out of it as well.

 

[BlinkIV]

Oh, when I tried to dodge it I tried to hold down instead of left or right. Considering Falco has the 5th fastest fall speed and Greninja has the 3rd, I'm going to assume he's able to drop out of it as well.

I can dig. Does down work too? Or just left and right? o o

 

[FullMoon]

I can dig. Does down work too? Or just left and right? o o

It didn't work for me so I assumed you couldn't escape, I would need to do some testing in order to see if it's possible or not. But if Falco can do it then I assume Greninja can too.

 

[BlinkIV]

It didn't work for me so I assumed you couldn't escape, I would need to do some testing in order to see if it's possible or not. But if Falco can do it then I assume Greninja can too.

Testing neeeded then! This could be a big change for the MU. That's her strongest kill move and kills very early. If we could consistently avoid it like spacies then it's DEFINITELY our favor.

 

[FullMoon]

Testing neeeded then! This could be a big change for the MU. That's her strongest kill move and kills very early. If we could consistently avoid it like spacies then it's DEFINITELY our favor.

Testing done, Greninja falls out of Up-B when DI-ing to the opposite side ZSS's facing unless she moves the up-b back.

So that's another advantage Greninja has over ZSS, her main kill move may completely fail against him, though I'm not sure if Greninja can punish her for missing since I'm not sure if he can get to the ground before her. Still that means ZSS's will have to rely on her aerials and F-Smash (which can be Shadow Sneak hitstun canceled) to kill us. I'm not sure how early those kill but it's still quite the game changer.

With that I think Greninja has probably either 55:45 or 60:40 in his favor against her.

 

[Space thing]

Simply holding towards ZSS during her up-B seemed to be the easily and most reliable way of escape, as long as you're caught in the middle of it and you start holding early enough (not hard at all imo). If you're hit in the air from below, you can also pop up out of it by hitting up I think. I don't think percentage or even character makes a huge difference (maybe if you're Bowser idk).

Notably, if you don't/can't escape for some reason, DI down seems to massively increase survivability.

But yea, you guys should check for yourselves.

Edit: Greninja'd

 

[David Viran]

If you don't know yet there there is no reliable way for any character to DI out of up special because the zss can catch it. Well unless the zss sets it up wrong.

 

[FullMoon]

If you don't know yet there there is no reliable way for any character to DI out of up special because the zss can catch it. Well unless the zss sets it up wrong.

Huh, so back to my initial statement about the MU then.

 

[BlinkIV]

So you're saying there's absolutely no way we can effect it? It's only dependant on the ZSS player?

@ Dakpo has told me otherwise from the times we played. So there's something we're missing here.

 

[David Viran]

You can affect it and get out but only if the zss does not manipulate up b at all or correctly. And the best DI at the ledge is holding into zss while from the middle is holding down to survive the final kick.

 

[MartinAW4]

Don`t forget guys, we don`t need DI to escape multi-hits. We`ve got Shadow Sneak hitstun cancelling for that and I can confirm that it works to escape the last hit of ZSS` up B. We might be even able to punish her from it, but it`s hard for me to test on the 3DS.

 

[David Viran]

Watch out for zss's Bair especially with rage. It can kill, when zss is at 100 percent, and will kill you near the ledge at 80 or so percent. At that point it will also kill from the center at about 105 to 110 percent.

 

[BlinkIV]

Hum..well alright. I'd like to look into it some more..im not 100% convinced tbh. But it's a pretty interesting thing.

 

[Dakpo]

You can only get out of her up B if Zss doesn't follow the DI or starts the move incorrectly. As far as I know, only the space animals get out for free

 

[FullMoon]

Huh, I don't see a reason why Falco can but Greninja can't.

 

[Tobi_Whatever]

The main things to remember in the MU is that Water Shuriken has more range that the stun gun and if you charge it a bit you can cancel it as well, so we can apply pressure to ZSS better with them. ZSS also seems to have a hard time to score kills outside of her Up-B and some of her aerials at higher percentages, not to the same extent as Sheik's but it still kinda noticeable.

ZSS has a pretty easy time killing. We have fAir, uAir, bAir, uSpecial, dSpecial and fSmash. We can combo into all of them.
Every hitting nSpecial, charged and uncharged, dSmash, grab and potentially SH nAir FF means heavy damage if we don't mess up.
Also a correctly placed uSpecial kills below 100% and a dSpecial kick somewhat near the ledge kills below 80%.

Anyway, I feel that the matchup is pretty even. Your Shuriken is great for poking and punishing/nullifying our nSpecials.
I played a pretty good Greninja yesterday and the only problem I felt he had was actually killing me. As soon as my % got dangerously high I tried to go on distance and wait for mistakes and I felt like he had a hard time dealing with it.

 

[Dakpo]

Huh, I don't see a reason why Falco can but Greninja can't.

Because they are different characters? Seems like a good reason to me. Unless you think that their weight and character models are identical

 

[Tobi_Whatever]

Because they are different characters? Seems like a good reason to me. Unless you think that their weight and character models are identical

Was it tested yet? if not I'd do it later today.

 

[FullMoon]

Because they are different characters? Seems like a good reason to me. Unless you think that their weight and character models are identical

Well, I imagined fall speed would have something to do with it and Falco actually falls slower than Greninja. But the frog also weights more so I'm not sure if that comes into play. I dunno, it just feels odd that Fox and Falco would be the only ones to be able to do it.

ZSS has a pretty easy time killing. We have fAir, uAir, bAir, uSpecial, dSpecial and fSmash. We can combo into all of them.
Every hitting nSpecial, charged and uncharged, dSmash, grab and potentially SH nAir FF means heavy damage if we don't mess up.
Also a correctly placed uSpecial kills below 100% and a dSpecial kick somewhat near the ledge kills below 80%.

Anyway, I feel that the matchup is pretty even. Your Shuriken is great for poking and punishing/nullifying our nSpecials.
I played a pretty good Greninja yesterday and the only problem I felt he had was actually killing me. As soon as my % got dangerously high I tried to go on distance and wait for mistakes and I felt like he had a hard time dealing with it.

Huh, funny, when I played a ZSS the exact opposite happened, she was the one that had trouble killing me so that gave me the impression ZSS had a hard time getting kills. Granted that sometimes I also struggled to score a kill on her as well.

But yeah I feel the MU is pretty even overall.

 

[Coffee™]

Greninja's crouching is broken vs ZSS. He avoids practically all of her moves, even fully charged paralyzer shot. Dtilt vs ZSS is also amazing as it throws out a hitbox while crouching.

Seriously just randomly crouching/dtilting makes this matchup so silly for ZSS....lol

She kills earlyish, but Greninja doesn't really have trouble avoiding her kill moves. Her aerial playstyle also just begs for Usmash and SSneak punishes.

 

[FullMoon]

Oh yeah I was wondering about whether crouching could be of use but forgot to mention it.

 

[David Viran]

Greninja's crouching is broken vs ZSS. He avoids practically all of her moves, even fully charged paralyzer shot. Dtilt vs ZSS is also amazing as it throws out a hitbox while crouching.

Seriously just randomly crouching/dtilting makes this matchup so silly for ZSS....lol

She kills earlyish, but Greninja doesn't really have trouble avoiding her kill moves. Her aerial playstyle also just begs for Usmash and SSneak punishes.

Are you 100% sure he can duck under attacks and which ones. Most of the time greninjas usmash punish cross ups but zss can actually fake a cross up by wave bouncing. I don't see how else he would screw with zss's air approaches.

 

[Coffee™]

Are you 100% sure he can duck under attacks and which ones. Most of the time greninjas usmash punish cross ups but zss can actually fake a cross up by wave bouncing. I don't see how else he would screw with zss's air approaches.

Yeah I'm 100% on this. I tested it out against a few of her moves a few days ago. I didn't check every move that's can possibly be avoided but off the top of my head I know he avoids Paralyzer shot, Fsmash, Jab, Utilt, Ftilt not angled down and obviously it makes most aerials pretty hard to hit as well. Not sure if there's anything else.

As far as Usmash goes it's a option for a read. She has options to avoid it. I'm just saying her playstyle leaves her more open to be punished by it as opposed to more grounded characters.

Pikachu has alot of the same characteristics with his low profile and crouch as well. I know for a fact he ducks under some of her moves with the first part of his Usmash animation as well. So silly....lol

 

[David Viran]

I honestly don't see the use other than if you are directly in front of her maybe to crouch under paralyzer when you could PS it.

 

[Coffee™]

I honestly don't see the use other than if you are directly in front of her maybe to crouch under paralyzer when you could PS it.

You're not always going to be able to PS it. Crouching is simply another option.

The real annoyance for her is his Dtilt. It's a move that allows Greninja to duck under most of her attacks while throwing out a hitbox that positions her for followups. Combine that now with perfect pivoting and Greninja's overall mobility then throw ZSS's generally poor OoS options vs the move in the mix and you can see how this can be problematic.

 

[David Viran]

How safe is his dtilt on sheild? Zss has up b as an oos option and ftilt angled down which is also good.

 

[FullMoon]

I just tried it and I don't think Greninja can duck under ZSS's F-Smash or u-tilt unless I'm missing something.

 

[David Viran]

I'm going to have to test this whole ducking thing when I get home because I never heard about this and it never happened to me.

Edit: I just tested it. Greninja can only duck under attacks if is crawling literally into zss. He has to crawl to or else it doesn't work. I also tested up b with every DI possible and he could not get out of it for free. Then I tested it on Fox with all DI and he couldn't get out either. The percent to start DIing out of up b is based on zss's percent because rage is the only thing that can increase the sdi on the first and last hit.

 

[BlinkIV]

Then we need to test it with Falco. Something is causing him to fall out for free. It happened at least 99% of the time when I played against Dakpo with Falco.

 

[FullMoon]

So we've discussed Sheik and ZSS plenty already, what about the spacies? I want to give some input on them but I can't figure the Fox MU no matter how hard I try.

 

[bc1910]

Fox is one of Greninja's worst matchups in my opinion, although I wouldn't dream of suggesting it's worse than 65-35 and I personally think it's about 60-40 Fox. Greninja gets completely outcamped which forces him to go in, and Fox's close range attacks are significantly faster. Greninja has to play very carefully in neutral (his terrible OoS options are pretty debilitating in this MU) and abuse one of his only true advantages over Fox, his mobility, to avoid being overwhelmed by Fox's attacks. That said, Fox's fast falling speed makes it hard for him to escape some of Greninja's juggles and combos. In particular, Nair -> Dtilt and Up Throw -> Uair -> Uair work for a lot longer on Fox than they do against others. When you land a hit on Fox, you can usually get a lot of mileage from it.

It's probably worth noting that Greninja getting outcamped is mostly down to Fox's reflector ruining shuriken pressure. If Fox gets careless with the blaster you can easily run in and grab him because Greninja's dash speed is so good.

Fox's throws are pretty lackluster so if you don't space SHFF Fair properly and get shieldgrabbed, it's hardly the end of the world, whereas doing that against Sheik or Diddy is a good way to die.

Finally, Hydro Pump seriously messes with Fox's Up B recovery, although a good Fox will almost always use Side B to recover in this matchup because Greninja has a hard time hitting him out of it. Whereas someone like Sheik or Luigi can just throw a long-lasting aerial in front of Fox, Greninja needs to time any attempt to hit Fox out of it very well since his attacks generally don't have many active frames. Shurikens work nicely to edgeguard if the Fox tries to Side B straight into you, and if he does it above the stage there's a fairly significant amount of punishable ending lag, but a good Fox will recover slightly below the ledge (to avoid shurikens) and auto-snap to it.

 

[Coffee™]

65:35?

bruhhh.....

 

[bc1910]

65:35?

bruhhh.....

and I personally think it's about 60-40 Fox

 

[Coffee™]

Sorry...too early in the morning. I'm blind -_-

I haven't played a good fox yet but just based on how both of them play and from what I've experienced so far even 60:40 feels like a bit of a stretch.