Why NO ONE Plays: Greninja | Super Smash Bros. Ultimate 

Greninja main here. His main problem is his lack of out of shield options, followed by how different he feels to other characters.

as a Greninja player, my friends usually tell me things like ''I dont understand how u make him work, he feels weird when I play him'' or '' when I fight your greninja, I dont feel like im fighting a weird character''. I thinks this sums-up greninja pretty well: very awkward character to pilot, but expresses basic smash neutral concepts like footsies or landing aerials which is why hes underplayed. When I was a beginner, it was legitmitaly hard for me to try other characters because no other character feels like him in terms of movement/moves used for certain situations.

As someone who's mained Greninja since Smash 4, it's a mix between his terrible out-of-shield game and the fact that he has such a big learning curve to properly use him. It takes a lot of work to be even somewhat DECENT with this character. You have to really sit down in the lab and grind out so much with him. But once you get the feel for him, you feel damn near unbeatable!!

i main him too. eventually ppl start predicting you moves because his good ariels come out too slow

I remember when Leo trained with him for like 2-3 months, and came up with an absurd, untouchable ninja. I feel like once you get muscle memory on the setups, and know how to flow the combo game, you can focus on the ninja, evasive part. I never actually sat down to test it, but I feel pretty tempted

He's one of those characters where if you stuck someone in a hyperbolic time chamber for like 3 years they'd come back and be top 5 in the world.

Greninja main here. I've mained this character since the release of Smash for Wii U. Greninja is mixed bag, because he has the highest short hop in the game, and since he jumps so high, he wasn't intended to have rising aerials. Movement is Greninja's biggest attribute, because he's top 10 in every category, jump height, air speed, air acceleration, fall speed, fast fall speed, et cetera. Since he focuses on speed, movement and positioning more than other top tiers, as opposed to having an out of shield game, people don't use him, because everyone is so focused on shielding and retaliation out of shield. That's what makes him "weird" or harder to play than other top tiers, that and he's not a pick-up and play character. You need to actually commit to playing and mastering Gren in order to be solid.

In order to effectively play Greninja, you HAVE to onetrick him, getting comfortable with the smash concept of defense puts you at a major disadvantage, you HAVE to play by Greninja's concept of defense. As somebody else in these comments stated, he's a strange character to use, but not a strange one to fight, just an intimidating one. Greninja forces you to play a very different game than your opponent, but your opponent is in no way forced to play any differently than fighting high tiers with similar kits.

I’d like to see one of these about Lucas. He is a fairly workable mid-to-high tier with a very versatile kit, but he gets almost no representation. He even gets forgotten when people make “forgotten characters” lists.

Pretty much hit the nail on the head, his unconventional pressure and lack of defense really clicked. I like how you dive into how the mix of attributes influences how people feel while playing the game, it’s something tier lists can’t do justice to

A couple of things to note: Oos options are definitely a big weakness, but it’s not his only weakness, and it can be made less of an issue by playing with more focus on movement, in general (Venia is a great example) Arguably a larger weakness, and one of the reasons I have such a love-hate relationship with my main, is how inconsistent a lot of his moves and especially his kill options are. USmash will often whiff or send in a random direction and can be teched out of on a platform. DTilt into USmash is VERY precise, and only works for a small percent window, not to mention the already stated inconsistency with USmash. He can’t do a lot at ledge without running off, and his options off-stage are just as likely to get him killed, due to being in a bad position. We quite literally use the inconsistency in his UAir to get drag down combos, and that’s when we’re controlling it. NAir is difficult to place properly, FAir is also difficult, the list just goes on and on Love the character, but the precision he requires makes me feel like I’m fighting with a scalpel while everyone else is using a sledgehammer

when I started playing with my friends with 1 sideways Joy-con, the shield & grab buttons barely worked due to how the shoulder buttons work. This pretty much ingrained in me the habit of not shielding and using movement to avoid hits, which made Greninja perfect for me. I believe that if a really good player is able to use Greninja's defensive movement properly, the character can easily get consistent top placements

i didn't think this was an unpopular character

I’ve played a lot of incredible Greninja players over the years, and I can confidently say this character is highly underrated.

Can we just appreciate that Sakurai LITERALLY designed Greninja's moveset to represent actual Ninja tactics? Its insane! For me its the short hop that really gets me. I usually lead with aerials (I'm a casual player, calm down) but with Greninja his aerials are unreliable for how tall his jump is.

Ninjas tend to avoid confrontation entirely. The typ eof ninja Greninja is named after is meant to be a pre-scout, causing chaos in the backline so the army can move in.

As a brawler player, would love to see videos for each of the miis. Most people would just group them up together, but they are all wildly different characters with different playstyles.

Shoutouts to you for using Pokemon Conquest Music for the vid 🙏 Greninjas lack of oos also hurts him in other situations where it can be awkward to anti air at short hop height. I also think his high jumps can be a huge weakness as it makes all his shield pressure is super reactable. Why try and oos a safe option when I can just preemptively up smash oos before the aerial comes out and catch him landing on me

Thank you for this video! I never quite could put my finger on why, but I was always so exhausted playing him in a tournament setting just after a few rounds. I always thought it was me, so glad to hear I am not the only one

As a beginner, Greninja feels really powerful I main Banjo and I feel strong with him but Greninja feel like he can get SO much more value out of his entire kit. And at lower ranks you can hard abuse his side special on unaware players and abuse his water shurikens as a disruption

As a fellow Chrom main, I'd love a video about him. Really such a great character with one, very large weakness that keeps him out of the conversation

I *finally* found my main, Mewtwo this year and had been looking for a good secondary to counter the weakness to swordies. I had somehow overlooked Greninja all this time, but I think I've found my answer, so thanks for the video. This series is fantastic!

My practice partner/friend mains Greninja and i have some thoughts on him. For context I main Wolf. -He is a fast faller so he is easy tocombo. -While he can pressure you from distance only his charged shuriken could be considered a good projectile - Yes he has good mobility put his poking tools are not that great - the only way he can secure kills is either by conditioning you into his attacks or by executing really specific kill confirm options. - lack of aproching options. - a fast close range grab is better than a slow ranged one. - and as everyone says he doesn't have any put shield option

As a greninja main the most problematic thing about greninja is that even though he’s fast, his moves are hard to land sometimes and there’s a lack of ways to defend yourself

There's a local greninja in my city that kicks everyone's ass

loving the insight of this video. im quite late to this but i agree with most points surely. greninja is a very mentally taxing character and making long tournament runs with the problem of taking stocks (when playing against experienced players) is the worst.. thank you for this

Even more then him having no easy out of shield, because he does have foot stool out of shield it’s just really hard, his main problem is that his forward air is the slow hit and his back air is the fast one. And his jump is so high that he can just miss a lot of short characters. With the fair vs bair it’s the opposite for ROB he has the fast swatting fair and the powerful killing bair. So the Greninja if your face to face with someone in the air you only have nair which is slow and can be outranged so you just lose scrapping situations a lot more then a ROB or a Roy and thus have to think a lot about positioning. I think the bigger problem with the no out of shield option is that it means you just can’t really safely shield like other characters so you just have it move and stay evasive and that’s hard to do over the course of an entire tournament.

Another really good greninja player is venia, he's really good at using movement options and taps the shield like once per stock. Also he can go toe to toe with Zomba

12:33 Footstool dair OOS is real and has kill confirms at around 100%. He’s definitely top tier, but I can understand how awkward he is to most people, I used to be one of the people who said, “oh yeah, I guess high tier, I don’t know”

As a Greninja main I can say he is probably around the 35 best character in the game but one little change could make him so much better like a faster forward air, nair or grab would really improve him although if Nintendo doesn’t want to do that can they at least make his up smash connect on ps2

Character is also a bit inconsistent. His up smash sometimes fails to connect, his up air sometimes fails to connect, his kill confirms are very particular on when they will connect AND kill. Just kinda adds to how frustrating he can be to play. In addition to being light and a fast faller; so he dies early and gets comboed hard.

Greninja if anything is probably overrated. He's a good character overall but not only does he lack oos options, but he generally has two types of moves. Moves that are slow but have a lot of range (but only in one direction so he has to be precise), or moves that are fast but have horrible hitboxes. This makes him actually pretty linear in neutral, and a lot of people who rate him highly I'd argue also have underdeveloped tactics against whiff punish in general. The fact his moves are generally like this also means he gets mashed on really hard in basic juggle situations so despite his solid recovery and weight class, his overall disadvantage state is actually a lot worse than it looks especially when you consider his very bad ledge getups. Also because you went out of your way to say Water Shuriken is good, I'm going to point out that move is garbage in neutral. That move is not actually good at all for camping (f21 point blank is TRASH for uncharged version), and its applications really just come down to using it as a stalling/wavebounce movement option or as an extension of advantage state.

I love playing as Greninja but that fatigue you mentioned really wrapped up all my feelings towards the character I couldn't out into words. Thank you for that!

I main greninja and have even gone to a few local tournaments and gotten pretty good placements with him. As you said, the lack of out of shield options mixed with the lack of shield pressure options makes it a necessity to know your parry timing and how to follow up that parry. You have got to get the idea into their head that you're going to parry every move that they throw at you, it really throws your opponent for a loop, especially when your opponent doesn't have many mixup options. That being said, multihits are your downfall, even if you practice parrying multihits, there is no guarantee that you will actually pull it off in a live match. Which is why you need to know how to follow up a parry immediately. For example, if you parry a repeating jab, and you know the next jab is coming, you have two options: follow up the parry with a dodge to get out of harm's way, or you can shield. Shielding is not a viable option as stated before what with the lack of follow ups and general vulnerability when shielding. If you want to play Greninja in any competitive setting, you have to get parry timing down and know how to follow up the parry depending on the situation.

Honestly I'm just satisfied that Greninja became a viable character at all. Still one of the most interestingly designed fighters in the series. I always feel like I'm learning when playing as Greninja.

I’ve never had as many people either shield camp, rage quit, and leave after one game than when playing Greninja.

I started maining him 3-4 years ago because I love Greninja, he's my favorite pokémon, and ya he was tough to learn a bit but I stuck with him all this time and now I'm debatably one of the best players in my school, I'm the best Greninja for sure. Rather than exhausting, I LOVE playing him the way you gotta play him. I find it extremely fun rather than tiring

Greninja is very reminiscent of sheik imo, except I would argue he's more consistent since he has more reliable kill confirms. His OOS are non existent, but the key to dealing with that is just to stay mobile and avoid having to sheild as much as possible. He has amazing whiff punishing options and good neutral.

As someone who rarely ever even thinks about shielding, this character feels pretty good to play

Having a really high short-hop makes Greninja suffer

Kazuya's non existent disadvantage 💀

As a Greninja player I share your opinion on him being underrated and in need of more attention

Greninja has always been one of my favorite Pokémon, so it hurts me that he is not being utilized as much, but it makes total sense. When it comes to Greninja, people like me who main him can’t stand still. Shadow Sneak and Water Shuriken are my main moves and I like disorienting my opponents with them. Smash 4 made him one of the most annoying to deal with, and while I’ve been having a decent time in Ultimate with him, his flaws became more prominent despite how minor some of them may appear at first glance. Like his actual stats in Pokémon, Greninja’s mainly a fast special sweeper, but calling him frail is an understatement that’s hard to work around without setting up. I’m one of those people who consider myself a casual Smash player, but I also just like attacking as much as possible. Just like Sheik, Greninja is pretty paper thin, but to any person who is getting into Smash for the first time, sees them, and is told they are both ninjas, they’ll immediately decide to make use of what ninjas are famously great at - hitting hard and, more importantly, moving fast as hell. That said, I’ll never stop loving Greninja for what he’s best at, and his flaws never bothered me; saw them coming and made the best of them.

as a former greninja man who used to play and main greninja, in my opinion, greninja was pretty damn good, when u play him alot you can get used to how wacky he can be with the jump, speed, etc

I wouldn't say Greninja got "Buffed" or got Buffed individually, his thing is that the change from Smash 4 to Ultimate was the thing that helped him most, but his problems were never adressed or given something that compensated for those problems. Add to that the powercreep and the easier characters to play and yeah....

Yo let’s get lucario next so we can be almost done with the Pokémon

The odd bit is that it's much easier for me to play as greninja than any other character with the exception of Little Mac Playing greninja is also a matter of being unpredictable, like a ninja imo. He is especially good in co-op.

Ironically, the French name for Greninja, doesn't use the French word for frog. The French name is Amphinobi. Which is infinitely cooler than Greninja

Wow that clip of riddles getting flawless three stocked is just insane to watch

Fast forward to the future, gren has footstool out of shield with die air that combos into fair or nair that can kill or give you advantage

The moment I realized Pokémon Conquest music was playing at 0:35 I just... the nostalgia hit hard man Also an ad hit while you were saying "projectiles" and it cut you off at such a moment my brain said "project on deez nu--"

why no one plays lucas would be interesting to see, his kit is actually insane

Greninja main here. I find it absolutely criminal that he is *objectively,* and *officially* voted as the most popular *Pokémon* of all time on two separate occasions, but he is not only the least played Pokémon in Smash, but is also most likely the least played *character* in Smash. He’s actually *much* more popular of a character to play in Japan, because Japan’s playstyle is not only more patient, but also more aggressive *overall.* Another thing that keeps people from playing him is the fact that he is one of the hardest characters to master. He is incredibly broken, but you won’t be able to gain that level of broken just by picking up your controller. I’m not saying people who play Pyra & Mythra aren’t skilled, but the skill floor *AND* ceiling for Greninja are infinitely higher, and we all know that most people who play fighting games want instant success. Or at least as fast as they can get it. Not that I can blame them. The moment I saw Greninja was in Smash, I chose him. He is one of the coolest Pokémon of all time, and I don’t care that it would take me a lot of effort to get better. It was all worth it. Now, I’m not saying I’m great lol. Not at all. But I am incredibly proud of how far I’ve come. I used to be a noob that spammed nothing but Shadow Sneak, but I’ve learned so much since then (shoutouts to Apolotion for *all* of his guides!!) Sorry, I ranted. I tend to do that ehehe… Especially when discussing Gekkouga~ 💜💜💜 I honestly fear that, if they make a Smash 6, Sakurai might get the idea to cut him just because, “oh, western players don’t play him. bye frog”. But I then remind myself that, so long as Japan plays him, I have nothing to worry about lol. Especially since he’s been voted as the most popular Pokémon in his series.

The problem with greninja is he has a very much unique play style, or as I like to say, his playstyle is very linear not in terms of learning curvature but in terms of attack moves, his playstyle doesn’t revolve around keeping distance while damaging like ike sword, or bowser Ariel’s, most of it is direct hits and timing, and most people find it weird to play with because it’s not the “typical” smash move set if that makes sense

Ahh, this brings me back, one of my friends had brought a Switch to an event and asked us to choose a character, me, being the only one who didnt have or wanted to play a Switch, chose greninja, so then he tried beating up our choices without giving us a chance to play, three lives each. Greninja survived after said friend got hurled off the stage by an unknown force (since we couldnt play). That was years ago. Also still havent played smash ultimate.

Ayyy, I know the Pokemon Conquest soundtrack when I hear it 😊

Greninja had a Killer of a Trailer in Smash 4

The pokemon conquest music makes me mad nostalgic

As someone who tried to play Greninja, he's pretty hard to master. I only use him in a very last emergency situation when I have nothing else left. The way he plays is slippery and fast, but he's no slouch to take out necessary opponents. He plays similarly to Joker, for I main him more, but I find Joker more easier to pilot than Greninja. His toolkit is great, but he takes time, effort, and dedication to master him. Still wanna see why no one would play Isabelle. She was pretty hype to play during the first years of Ultimate, but drop to low to mid tier. I still play her to this day, but I need to know why.

I LOVE the Pokémon conquest music used

By the way the music at the beginning is from the ost of pokemon conquest. I felt the need to point that out because it's one of my absolute favorite games of all times.

The one thing that’s stuck with me is what my friend once said. Greninja mains moan when they take a shit

When I first started playing Smash I rarely shielded or grabbed idk why I just didn't. I have learned to grab more but that lack of shielding really helps my greninja now

I saw a Greninja main in a tournament once but not for long after he knocked off the stage a few times

Greninja also has really inconsistent multi hits which are most of his moves. Greninja is more a top 35 or even 40 character

“For kazuya it’s his nonexistent disadvantage” actually true

I am a graninja main and already suck at using shild plays, but I am great at parying and evasion, so it works great for me

There's a Greninja main who goes to my local in Maryland. GoofyGoober. He happens to be in the top 10 Smash Ultimate players in the DMV region.

I never played smash beyond 64 on an emulator But iStudying really inspired me to look into Greninja whenever I had a chance (at a con or something like that) and no matter how hard or mid tier he is he will always be the coolest fighter in ssbu

Back then on the 3DS I mained him - I had no understanding of meta and didn‘t know it existed and I played against bots. The twist is I played 3 vs me and I felt so confident about my Greninja but sadly nobody played smash in my area. I played him exactly like you explained (without the shurikens) and all makes sense. A month ago I tried to pick him up again but it turned out that he feels too different from other characters for me now.

The funniest think about the video is when he was guessing why greninja get more play in the east and boiling it down to a playstyle diff knowing damn well it’s cuz he’s the most popular Pokémon in Japan since 2015

Hey, I play greninja in smash. I literally one with him the first day I played the game at a friend's house

DDD main here and I can relate to you Greninja guys on having no "get off me" tool or oos options, on top of having no reliable means of shield pressure or kill throws. Feels bad man...still you guys got a pretty honest character tho, Greninja can't just play the game and be rewarded with a win condition for doing so

Glad Marss is starting to play him again and bring him out in tournaments, really like watching Greninja.

Definitely feel like his grab should've been a grapple. Come on Sakurai, should've shown us that long tongue of his.

Greninja is very underrated, and while his out of shield is obviously a flaw I do think it's a bit overstated. Footstool into down air is a legitimate option, a hard one to do precisely and can be out spaced but if you're spacing on him he can just easily get away with his mobility. He also can parry into shadow sneak vs a lot of moves and that can kill surprisingly early. Furthermore Joker also has a terrible out of shield game, it's slightly better with his dair and up smash but it's still pretty terrible, yet he makes up for that because he's so mobile he realistically almost never needs to shield. Greninja's the same, he has all the mobility to be nigh untouchable at a high level, while also having consistent kill setups and moves that can kill from stray hits. His hydro pump is also really hard to two frame if used at the right angles and abusing his multi directions. I think Greninja is underused because like you said America loves it's shield options and doesn't feel as comfortable playing patiently. But also because he's a very hard character to play, on a similar level as Joker and can be similarly exhausting. Although personally I find him more approachable and having more forgiving options than Joker. I actually play him as a secondary to Joker because of this. When Joker gets too tiring, I can rely on Greninja with his great punishes for out of shield spam, his absurdly oppressive edge guarding, and his powerful fair for easy stock kills. Both are high effort but I think Greninja has more "when in doubt" tools than Joker. While also having more dangerous camping. I think he'll probably rise in the meta in the years to come.

Litteraly everyone who plays greninja: w- wha 👁️👄👁️

FINALLY!! someone understands how big greninja's pivot grab is. It might as well be a tether

I just practiced clicking shield over and over vs holding shield against hits and I got parries 75% of the time when just clicking shield button including multi hit parries. It made playing greninja very satisfying

Well it’s because the introduction of paradox mon and the nerfing of proetean and another, even faster starter with protean means that grenija has fallen out of the OU meta game in gen 9. While I don’t think he will drop to UU he might sit in UU BL for most of the gen. As for smash idk funny frog

Nah bro, there’s too many Greninja mains that are in my soon-to-not-be-my-friend circle

Indeed is basically like Mewtwo: Broken moves and physics overall but a defense so bad it's not worth playing for the most part. Mewtwo is even worse on that regard due to being taller, lighter and floatier, while Greninja is busted and has good everything but shield.

As someone who plays a lot of Rivals of Aether, where there are only parries and no shields, I feel pretty comfortable playing Greninja

I haven’t seen a lot of people talking about this but Greninja and Joker feel like almost the same character to me. If you compare their movesets and mobility they’re extremely similar. Which means that Joker is basically a slightly better version of Greninja with actual out of shield options and arsen. Because of that there’s not a lot of reason to ever choose Greninja now that Joker exists.

The pokemon conquest music go crazy

I picked up Greninja recently and his OOS game is so painful. Everything else about him is so cool though

It took forever, but someone actually accurately described why Greninja is so unappealing, but I still love him. I've been ridiculed for saying that shield is a strong option, and this dissertation confirms it. Shield is essentially an option to land a hit while also being immune to attacks from all directions. Greninja doesn't have that, and I think that's why Greninja mains, whether they want to believe it or not, are more attune to this fact. Take Link's plethora of OoS options. Essentially, when he shields it acts like a counter (he avoids taking damage in return for dishing out massive damage or hard punishes). I guess this is why I feel that shields should behave differently, but I digress. Point is, shield is a strong option, and I'm tired of people denying it.

You should do why NO ONE plays Mega Man or why EVERYONE PLAYS Mario. That would be interesting to see especially as a Mega Man main.

The moment you mentioned Sheik briefly in your video, I was reminded my disappointment when I played first as her. She had the coolest moves but I had to hit my opponent 50+ times to kill. Who nerfs a character so ridiculously much?

So glad you finally made this lol MKleo is so fun to watch using greninja i wondered why more people didn't play him.

The main thing about Greninja that was weird for me is foward air for some reason. I feel like I can't get used to it.

Greninja in this game and even back in Smash 4 has Melee Yoshi syndrome. Even though Yoshi is finally starting to get the shine he deserves in the meta. But he’s in the “has huge potential” category.

I’m gonna main Greninja just because you posted this.

His disadvantage is also bad. He doesn't have any landing options (down-air isn't a disjoint) and if he is forced to tech any low angled moves his tech roll is criminally bad. It's almost as slow as Bowser's. And since he is a fast faller he gets combo-ed easily

I feel like you didn't talk about how janky he feels enough. Huge initial dash which also makes him less precise on a character that has such precise gameplan

What crazy timing. I just recently had the urge to start feeling out some new characters in Ultimate just for fun, today i started trying out Greninja (just against CPU9s) and then i come across this video. And a lot of what you said in this video is stuff that i think i realized kinda intuitively, without consciously realizing it until seeing it discusses in this video. Like in the first few matches with him i was timing out a lot because i couldn't rack up enough damage fast enough. And if not timing out then just flat out losing badly. It's a serious adjustment playing Greninja compared to other characters for sure. The biggest thing imo was learning to avoid attacks, like mentioned in the video. Lots of dashing in and out, drifting back and forth in the air to make opponent attacks whiff, effective use of sidestep dodge. Gotta get real good at timing your (fastfall) aerials too. It really is a kind of focused, patient aggression. Being unable to fair, bair, or up B OOS like i'm used to with Zelda completely changes things. Interestingly, i feel like learning this playstyle with Greninja has made me a little bit better with Marth, because before i was too laser focused on trying to stay at "tipper range", but that hypermobile playstyle kinda works for him too. I also feel like it's improved my microspacing for my tippers as well. Interesting video! Great food for thought that has helped me change how i consciously perceive Ultimate.

So the English name for Greninja is made of the French word Grenouille for frog and the word ninja In German its name is Quajutsu which is made of the word Quak which is how the sound of a frog is written in German like wuff for a dog or miau for a cat and the word Ninjutsu or just Jutsu I really love these language changes they're so interesting

We all no that Olimar is the least played character in history and we know it’s because he requires a PHD to figure him out but a video on him would be cool

Duck hunt is probably the best character no one plays even though duck hunt has won majors and placed high. I'd love to see them in this series

as a casual player who (basically) has no concept of a shield and loves greninja, if i ever get a switch and get smash ill go ahead and main him this video seems to describe what i think abt greninja pretty well tho. like a ninja. huh..