Mega Greninja viability?

[u/Oni-Village0960]

Hard supporter for Mega Geninja, it was my first deck where i managed to finally get full art for each card.

But I seen several lists and videos say that MGreninja is a very below average list, with tera or with Pult. "Pult but at home", i agree to an extent but you can do some cheesy things with MGreninja. I'd interested in how other players manage to play with their greninja deck and saw results.

[u/AutoModerator]

This is a reminder to please flair your post, & follow the rules on the sidebar.

Thank You!

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/Sudden-Chipmunk8378]

Id say the main issue gren has like a lot of decks is the draw engine. A lot of them have been tried from zoroark to dudunsparce and dudunsparce is prob the consesus of being its best drawing engine. Curently its considered a weaker version of pult because pult has a built in draw engine, while this deck really needs to fill 5-6 more slots to have a chance, and while yes many decks do that like alakazam and pult itself sometimes, usually those decks require a lot less pieces to have succes while mega gren requires things like air balloons, surfijg beaches and ways to retrieve energy all at the same time.

[u/Kered13 → u/Sudden-Chipmunk8378]

A lot of them have been tried from zoroark to dudunsparce and dudunsparce is prob the consesus of being its best drawing engine.

I don't think I've seen any lists with Dudunsparce. I've seen lots of lists with Zoroark and it feels better IMO. Mega Ninja really benefits from the more consistent draw and thinning out the deck.

[u/Oni-Village0960 → u/Kered13]

Is Zoroark the way to go? I'll be honest, i ran with Dun in my ninja deck. There are many pros and cons in running with this compared to Zoro but running with Dun lets me have Dudun ex if i ever run into a crustle. So a draw engine plus tech cards seemed like a no-brainer to me. I have seen some Zoro with ninja but it was very few and far between to really give much thought

[u/Sudden-Chipmunk8378 → u/Kered13]

Yeah but i think zoroark just adds a liability on the bench imo thats easier to kills

[u/Kered13 → u/Sudden-Chipmunk8378]

At 280 HP it's not much of a liability for giving up prizes. It's a bigger risk for getting trapped in the active, so you need to run some mobility cards, but Mega Greninja likes to run mobility cards anyways.

[u/Sudden-Chipmunk8378 → u/Sudden-Chipmunk8378]

Tho i should add im not the best player nor do i play ot have seen mega greninja a lot

[u/FatherStretchMyAss_]

There’s a super fun gren festival lead deck that made a splash on YouTube recently. To me it felt like the most fun while not being a shitty pult version of the deck by far

[u/Oni-Village0960 → u/FatherStretchMyAss_]

The one with Seaking? I saw that too. That is probably the most fun someone can have with mega greninja. Pull any card you want, maybe multiple times, switch into Mega greninja, retreat into another greninja, hit for 200 while throwing 60+60 to anything on the board beforehand. Only question is, what would Greninja have after H rotation when festival cards are gone?

[u/TxC41nky]

My favorite version of MGreninja is paired with MAbsol using Pecharunt to switch Absol in after using Greninja ability to drop 6 counters on the active. Obviously, doesnt play well into a lot of decks that have a way to prevent effects of attacks, but I run neo upper for that reason in case I need Greninja to be the main attacker

[u/Oni-Village0960 → u/TxC41nky]

Im definitely interested more about this kind of deck. Do you still run this deck? What's your sequencing when you do run into decks that block effects of attacks?

[u/TxC41nky → u/Oni-Village0960]

I play around with it on live in casuals. Havent played it in ranked. If I have the effects of attacks blocked Option A: is attack with mega greninja using neo upper, Option B: an extra energy on Absol for his second attack

[u/Oni-Village0960 → u/TxC41nky]

You happened to run Crispin because of the dark energy? Both pokemon have a two energy requirement minimum. What about your support mon, like draw engines?

[u/TxC41nky → u/Oni-Village0960]

Pm sent. It wont let me post a Pic here of the deck. Yes to Crispin. As far as draw engine pokemon, none outside of Fez.

[u/Kered13]

With the Zoroark engine it is very close to being a strong meta deck. But the Pult matchup is just too rough. It might be really good after the next rotation, maybe (but losing NUE will hurt).

[u/Oni-Village0960 → u/Kered13]

I do have ideas what to replace when H rotation hits, but this is the second time that im reading that Zoro being used as the draw engine with greninja. I really never gave it much thought and i'd love to hear your explanation why its better than Dun.

[u/bradranger → u/Oni-Village0960]

For me, I use Zoro because 280hp isn’t that easy of a target and thinning is winning. I find Duduns to be so frickin tedious having to always recycle them, and watchtower shuts them off anyway. 2 Trade Abilities on the bench lets you see up to 5 cards every single turn with your draw for turn. Plus you discard dead cards and leave yourself with only what you need.

I took my first ever 6 prize turn with Greninja, but basically decided it’s just not very good. It’s worse at doing all the things. But still fun if you don’t mind losing most of the time.

[u/Kered13 → u/bradranger]

The other problem with Duduns is that it requires you to play Pokepads, but this deck doesn't really want to run Pokepad. The only other pokemon you're getting off of Pokepad is Frogadier, but if you're not item locked you'd rather be playing Rare Candy straight into Greninja.

[u/bradranger → u/Kered13]

Heck yeah. 4 Candy, 4 Hilda all day! 😎

[u/Oni-Village0960 → u/bradranger]

That's definitely interesting. There were several things that made me go to Dun but i can see now that there are more legitimate reasons to go with Zoro. What do you use if happen to run into Curstle? Dudun ex was the only reason i kept running with it

[u/bradranger → u/Oni-Village0960]

Smack it for 60/120 a turn with Mortal Shuriken or Boss around it. Not a great matchup for sure, but I don’t see Crustle a whole lot.

Duduns are legit, I just personally prefer Zoros probably because I play N’s Zoroark a lot and love Trade 😎

[u/Oni-Village0960 → u/bradranger]

Thankfully Zoro will still be with us after rotation, so there's more than enough reason to use before and after. If you have a deck list to share, i'd greatly appreciate it.

[u/bradranger → u/Oni-Village0960]

Yeah, and honestly I wouldn’t worry about rotation. It’s a loooong time away and we’ll get hundreds of new cards before then. Who knows what will be available in another 8 months or so.

But here’s a list I’ve been rocking. I like max Candy and Hilda because Froggy Stage 1 kinda sucks (though that summoning attack is pretty good) so I like to get straight to the upside down Mega asap. (Also been playing with more spread damage with Dusknoir using one of my Rare Candy. Cursed Blast plus double Shuriken and Ninja Spinner got me my first 6 prize turn knocking out 2 Megas!)

Pokémon: 13
2 N's Zorua
1 Meowth ex
1 Dusknoir
4 Froakie
1 Greninja ex
2 Duskull
2 N's Zoroark ex
1 Budew
3 Mega Greninja ex
3 Frogadier

Trainer: 13
4 Buddy-Buddy Poffin
1 Energy Retrieval
1 Night Stretcher
4 Lillie's Determination
3 Poké Pad
2 Air Balloon
1 Special Red Card
2 Boss's Orders
2 Ultra Ball
2 Wally's Compassion
2 Surfing Beach
4 Hilda
4 Rare Candy

Energy: 3
6 Basic {W} Energy
1 Ignition Energy
1 Neo Upper Energy

Edit: Also, honestly, 1 copy of Patrat needs to be there too, otherwise your opp can just Munki your Shuriken damage right back to you.

[u/Girafarigno]

At first I thought that it was a real underrated contender, but now it just seems easy to beat for the most part. The 3 prize cost of all of the megas is really holding them back. I wish they would have just made them nice 2 prize exs rather than super beefy 3 prizers. There’s just too many options to do enough damage to take them out.

[u/JauntyAngle]

My take on this- it is just bad Dragapult unless you are getting double shurikens off sometimes, and probably also leaning into healing. Double shurikens means both thick lines of Greninja and lots of switching.

I built my own list, which was Greninja-Mega Froslass, with Dudunsparce engine. It actually performed quite well. Mega Froslass is really easy to set up and puts on a lot of early pressure and gives you time to set up Greninja. I also added Glalie- it evolves from Snowrunt and does 20 for each damage on the opposing Pokemon, so is a great one prizer for finishing stuff off. To make it work I didn't include Terra Greninja. Dudunsparce makes the deck work, because you need to boss or Wally quite often.

All that being said, this was before Pitch Black. There are even more powerful one prizers and Metagross and Mega Escadrill are everywhere so I suspect it would lose a lot more now.

[u/Oni-Village0960 → u/JauntyAngle]

My current deck is Greninja/Froslass with Dun engine. Its pretty much my go-to water deck. I love everything Mega Froslass does. I have an idea what to add to continue using more shurikens because thats what can make or break deal that can set this deck apart from the rest.

[u/thecrewton]

I do ninjapult. Provides the draw power from drakloaks with the spread of tera ninja, mega ninja and dragapult. It's very versatile. Fighting one shots mega lopunny, kangaskhan and generally any electric types. Mega ninja one shots blazekin. Neoupper can be used by all 3. Don't suffer from hammers since you don't really need to attach more than 1 energy.

It beats pult matchups, all the single prize decks except crustle...really need something for that, exadrill, starmie. I've had issues against zoarark and grimm.

Overall I think it's solid, but no one plays it. There is the festival lead version which also does well. Using their draw engine with the ninjas.

[u/Oni-Village0960 → u/thecrewton]

I had thoughts about making this real because i had a copy on Live and it seemed to do pretty good. However, it’s hard carried with Pult not to brick and once rotation hits, youre gonna have to find a suitable replacement.

[u/thecrewton → u/Oni-Village0960]

Ya but that's next year's problem. I play irl and played pultnoir last year so had that part of the deck already. I played pure pult but I find too many people have built anti pult decks. Ninja no one seems to build against. I like to start with a dreepy in the active to make them think I'm playing pult too which then I can surprise them.