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You see, I've been away for awhile and I saw that effective 1/4/2015 he was Uber. Lol, whut?

Never seemed that bad, I could always deal with it pretty easily...

I know, it was a speed demon, but I could easily kill it.

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It was so damn versatile. Had a move for every Pokemon. Had STAB on every move, so 4 STAB moves in the same moveset that are of different types. Was unpredictable and slashable in almost every single team; wherever you use it, you couldn't go wrong with it. It was a joker, a jack-of-all-trades.
I probably just got lucky killing it then.....?

2 Answers

4 votes
 
Best answer

It wasn't considered truly overpowered, but a large part to why it is banned comes from its enormous coverage that makes it extremely centralising in the metagame. Depending on its set, Greninja can effectively deal with almost any Pokemon outside of Porygon2 or priority , which forces teams to pack more than one counter/check for Greninja. If you predict the wrong moveset, you are bound to lose one or two Pokemon.

Azumarill and other Fairies used to put a complete stop to it, but now with 40 Atk EVs and Gunk Shot they are toast. Even Chansey gets 2HKOed by 252 Atk Low Kick 93.8% of the time after Stealth Rock. The fact is that all its moves are viable options. One can just slap a Greninja on his team, give it 4 moves that patch up his/her teams weakness and it will work.

Greninja pretty much renders offense much harder to play with that crazy speed stat. People found its presence unhealthy in the meta and thus a suspect test was held. In my opinion, blocking teambuilding is one of the biggest reasons to ban a Pokemon. The fact that people had to bring up weird Pokemon like Tentacruel or Empoleon to try walling it is absurd.

Moreover, due to how centralising it is, the entire metagame revolved around it and if you try to adapt to it, it will adapt to you in return -Quoted from Smogon

Lets go through the Pro-Ban arguments and Anti-Ban arguments of Greninja.

Pro-Ban
-Large movepool, giving it near perfect coverage
-Protean granting STAB on every move
-Able to go mixed
-Little to no safe switch ins
-Has a very good matchup against Balanced and Offense
-Fantastic Speed
-Heavy pressure on teambuilding
-Unpredictability (If you predict X move and Gren has Y move, you lose a Pokemon.)

Anti-Ban
-4 moveslot syndrome
-Frail
-Worn down by Life Orb recoil
-can be revenged with Scarfers and Priority

No doubt that Greninja is probably one of the weakest suspects to date in XY to ORAS, but whether you feel that it deserved to go is your opinion.

Cheers!

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There's also the anti-ban of what if that Greninja was Spec'd? You could just switch into a Poke that resisted it. I've seen plenty of Specs Greninja in my day.
I never tried going mixed on Greninja. That probably confused me the most on why it's Uber.
Honestly speaking, putting a Choice Specs on Greninja is actually not very good as Greninja heavily appreciates the ability to switch moves and it already has plenty of power from Life Orb. Greninja's main strength is in using its good power and STAB coverage to deter switch-ins and punch massive holes in teams. Using Choice Specs will lock it into one move which is a huge waste of its potential and coverage in my opinion.

The argument goes both ways. What if the Greninja was using an Expert Belt instead? By not seeing Life Orb recoil you assume its Choiced in some sort, send in your pokemon resisting the move just to be utterly destroyed by a coverage move- That is the danger of Greninja, you never know what set it is running, and it keeps you guessing, which may cost you the game.

The mixed set is dangerous because with Gunk Shot and 40 Atk EVs, Greninja can OHKO Azumarill which previously put a complete stop to it. Low Kick 2HKOes Ferrothorn. Basically what the mixed set did is to allow Greninja to OHKO/2HKO even more Pokemon in the game with the appropriate coverage move. If you are facing a Special Wall, hit on its weaker Defense. If its Physical, hit on its weaker Special Defense.
1 vote

That's the problem. It was a demon

The only way to actually kill it of was with a scarfer, Talon (and even sometimes this doesn't work) or a bulky as hell Pokemon. Even Fairy-types can't safely switch in because it got Gunk Shot with gen VI tutors. Even Tyranitar has something to fear. Low Kick. Before, because of that 50% sp.def boost no special moves could kill it. But in came Low Kick. Many think Ferro can deal with it, but there are those sets that have Hidden Power [Fire]. Its ability Protean allows it to get STAB on every friggin move.
Hope this helps!
gets back into closet

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Dafuq? GUNK SHOT Greninja? PHYSICAL Greninja? Man, I missed out....
Gunk Shot was reliable to beat Azumarill and Clefable lol