What it does on the ladder
Greninja appears on 0.18% of Regulation M-B teams, which
is 153rd of the 282 Pokémon with enough games to measure.
The move it almost always carries is Dark Pulse, on 62.1% of sets.
The item is usually Life Orb at 31.9%.
The ability is split: Protean on 86.3% and Torrent on 13.7%.
Those are Smogon's published usage figures, not anything measured here, and they describe what
the ladder plays rather than what is strongest. The full set is in the panel above.
The Pokémon itself
Greninja is number 658 in the National Dex, a Kalos Pokémon, Water and Dark
with a base stat total of 530 — 40th of the 234 Pokémon
legal in this regulation. Its best stat is Speed at 122, 8th
in the format; its weakest is Defense at 67, 181st.
It can have Torrent, Protean and Battle Bond.
The Champions module tiers it UU.
It sits in a 3-stage line: Froakie → Frogadier → Greninja.
Not all of that line is legal in this regulation — Froakie and Frogadier are not.
What gets through
As Water and Dark, 5 of the eighteen attacking types do extra damage to it. It
resists 6 and is immune to 1. The board above
has all of it. 2 other legal Pokémon share the same typing and the same board: Samurott-Hisui, Sharpedo.
What threatens it
Smogon publishes no head-to-head checks-and-counters data for doubles formats, so this list is
computed, not measured: the most-played Regulation M-B Pokémon carrying a damaging
move of a type Greninja takes extra damage from.
- Charizard-Mega-Y — Solar Beam (Grass, ×2), on 82.2% of its sets
- Sinistcha — Matcha Gotcha (Grass, ×2), on 97.9% of its sets
- Whimsicott — Moonblast (Fairy, ×2), on 93.9% of its sets
- Sneasler — Close Combat (Fighting, ×2), on 99.7% of its sets
- Farigiraf — Thunderbolt (Electric, ×2), on 59.2% of its sets
- Floette-Mega — Dazzling Gleam (Fairy, ×2), on 95.9% of its sets
Speed and weight
At level 50 with a boosting nature and full investment, Greninja reaches
191 Speed; left uninvested with a neutral nature it sits at
142. Invested, it outruns 18 of the 20
most-used Pokémon in the regulation when they are invested too — which is the comparison that
decides who moves first.
It weighs 40 kg, so Grass Knot and Low Kick hit it for 60 base
power. That is a real consideration in a format where both are common.
Its move pool
Greninja learns 95 moves in the Champions data.
62 of them do damage, across 13 of the eighteen
types, and 19 share a type with it and so get the same-type bonus.
Its hardest-hitting same-type move is Hydro Cannon at 150 base power.
It also has priority: Upper Hand at +3, Quick Attack at +1 and Shadow Sneak at +1.
That pool is what the team builder reads from when you seat it, and the
damage calculator will take it as the attacker with
the form already chosen.
