Help General questions about the Greninja BREAK Deck

KnightofDust

KnightofDust

your future past waits
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Hello, I'm trying to get into the TCG and I'm quite interested in the Greninja deck currently in the meta. I don't have any actual experience at the TCG (the most I could do is theory crafting), so I need your help!

Here's a few questions:

1) What exactly elevates this deck above countless others? (not just "what makes it good?", but also "why would you choose this deck instead of other decks in the meta?")

2) What are this deck's weaknesses? (hard counters? lack of HP? clogging up your hand due to the amount of draws? etc.)

3) How would you improve this deck? (which card(s) would you switch out in favour of a better card?)

A response to any of these questions is much appreciated!
 
1) When it is set up it is a force to be reckoned with. With 2 Breaks on board it does up 220 damage a turn (which can be spread out), it can lock your opponent's abilites with shadow stitching, and is a 170 HP 1 prize pokemon so very easily wins on the prize trade.

2) The deck's biggest weakness is itself. It is trying to set up multiple effectively Stage 3 pokemon which will take a couple turns and makes the deck very clunky. It gets slapped hard by grass decks because of weakness (namely Golisopod which is meta relevant). Also there is a card (promo Giratina) that happens to be a direct hard counter as it shuts off Break pokemon abilties so if you happen to run into someone teching it you pretty much lose (although very unlikely to run into it unless Frog is popular in the meta)

3) Not a lot you can change from the builds that have done well at tourneys already. The deck needs a lot of specific cards to be a greninja deck, and then a lot more cards to make it as consistent as possible. There aren't options to tech in for dealing with its hard counters (especially ones that don't hinder consistency) and generally your loses out side of hard counters will be due to bricking and nothing else.
 
Greninja is very much a "go big or go home" deck. Set up right, it's very hard to take down. Gone wrong, it's horribly clunky and easy to win against. It also effectively auto-losses against most grass decks, like Golisopod or Vikabulu. And as mentioned above, there's not much variation possible with the deck, making it highly predictable.
 
Hi.

1. All the one-prize-attackers, and most pokemon can't one shot it.

2. Kind of like @Attix said, grass decks like Golisopod, VikaBulu, the new Leafeon GX, and Decidueye GX. I have some experience playing this deck and like @Attix said (again) this deck can either wreck your opponent, or it can completely dead draw and you will defiantly lose.

3. use Tapu Fini GX, Espeon EX, and I personaly play 4 Talonflame from steam Seige witch lets you start it in the active if it's in you starting hand on your first turn (you can look it up) and 3 froakie to help you start with Talonflame.

Hope I helped. :)
 
  1. Its a great pick for an ability heavy metagame. Also, GWS removes those pesky 60 HP basics, plus, you can combo with Starmie EVO to recur GWS with just 1 card in hand. Its also fairly N proof, and not very guzma reliant.
  2. Giratina Promo, Golisopod GX, Turbo Volcanion EX (To an extent going 2nd). Maybe Bulu, but that is fairly shaky in its favour. Oh, and itself, since it bricks a lot. But when it goes, its nasty.
  3. Play the standard Michael Long list, and you'll find out what you feel you can remove and not. For example, tons remove Espeon, but I swear by the card in 90% of my games. I also removed Lillie from mine, since it was a poor supporter card, and generally was Starmie fodder. I've tried: Guzma, Gladion, Zoroark GX (Different archetype, but solid nonetheless), higher counts of E Hammer (2 is generally enough), etc. Cyrus PS is a decent addition to the deck, since it can help stall out the opponents. Cynthia is nice in the deck, as it helps draw the needed cards
 
Greninja wins cuz once set up it only loses to golisopod and even that's a possible matchup. Other wise it crushes Volcanion,bulu(Yes bulu),gardevoir,metagross(sucks anyway),and zoroark variants aside from golisopod. The reason for it not being o so amazing is that it's hard to set up and can be toppled somewhat easily with the proper annoyingly timed Guzma play on a starmie.
 
P3DS said:
  1. Its a great pick for an ability heavy metagame. Also, GWS removes those pesky 60 HP basics, plus, you can combo with Starmie EVO to recur GWS with just 1 card in hand. Its also fairly N proof, and not very guzma reliant.
  2. Giratina Promo, Golisopod GX, Turbo Volcanion EX (To an extent going 2nd). Maybe Bulu, but that is fairly shaky in its favour. Oh, and itself, since it bricks a lot. But when it goes, its nasty.
  3. Play the standard Michael Long list, and you'll find out what you feel you can remove and not. For example, tons remove Espeon, but I swear by the card in 90% of my games. I also removed Lillie from mine, since it was a poor supporter card, and generally was Starmie fodder. I've tried: Guzma, Gladion, Zoroark GX (Different archetype, but solid nonetheless), higher counts of E Hammer (2 is generally enough), etc. Cyrus PS is a decent addition to the deck, since it can help stall out the opponents. Cynthia is nice in the deck, as it helps draw the needed cards
Click to expand...

When you say that it bricks a lot, what do you mean exactly? Is it difficult to set up, or is it something else?
 
KnightofDust said:
When you say that it bricks a lot, what do you mean exactly? Is it difficult to set up, or is it something else?
Click to expand...

"Bricking" in this case is TCG slang for the deck falling to set up properly, all but guaranteeing a loss, and is derived from the electronics slang for when a device just stops working completely (often in an irreparable manner).

Something else to note is that some of the answers exaggerate a little; there are single Prize attackers that can OHKO Greninja BREAK but out of what sees competitive play and isn't overly reliant upon Abilities... yeah, you're not seeing them pull off the three R's for OHKO (rapid, reliable, repeated).

Finally, since you say you're new, understand that Greninja BREAK is an older deck, which brings two problems:
  • Power creep/shifting metagame can render it obsolete (it has actually had multiple comebacks already - maybe they keep happening, maybe this is its last hurrah)
  • Its time is already limited by the next rotation, granted that's probably not until September 1st. Now, do you know what I mean by "rotation" or does someone need to explain that?
 
Otaku said:
"Bricking" in this case is TCG slang for the deck falling to set up properly, all but guaranteeing a loss, and is derived from the electronics slang for when a device just stops working completely (often in an irreparable manner).

Something else to note is that some of the answers exaggerate a little; there are single Prize attackers that can OHKO Greninja BREAK but out of what sees competitive play and isn't overly reliant upon Abilities... yeah, you're not seeing them pull off the three R's for OHKO (rapid, reliable, repeated).

Finally, since you say you're new, understand that Greninja BREAK is an older deck, which brings two problems:
  • Power creep/shifting metagame can render it obsolete (it has actually had multiple comebacks already - maybe they keep happening, maybe this is its last hurrah)
  • Its time is already limited by the next rotation, granted that's probably not until September 1st. Now, do you know what I mean by "rotation" or does someone need to explain that?
Click to expand...
Please do explain rotation! Thanks for the insight
 
KnightofDust said:
Please do explain rotation! Thanks for the insight
Click to expand...

The rotation is a yearly update after the World Championships, where The Pokemon Company takes several sets (and the cards within them) currently in the Standard format and renders them unable to be used in that format thereafter, though they can still be used in the Expanded format (which currently runs as far back as the Black & White set).

Greninja currently lies within the Breakpoint set, which unless TPCi decides to either only rotate one set or none at all, is all but certain to leave Standard.
 
A pretty common thing in TCG's are "Formats", basically the allowable card pool to use for things like tournaments. The two major divisions are
  • Constructed, where you build a deck with your own cards and bring it to the event.
  • Limited, where you build a deck from the cards provided by the venue.
It is really easy to forget that these are the core two because the only real major Limited Events are "Pre-Release" tournaments for each core TCG expansion and they are designed to be very beginner friendly.

Most are familiar with some of the Constructed Formats, and may not even know they are collectively known as such. They include

  • Unlimited, where all local language cards are legal.
  • Legacy, built out of all cards from the HS-series, Call of Legends, and BW-series (PTCGO exclusive - official events IRL don't use it).
  • Expanded, which allows cards from the Black & White Expansion and later (as @Perfect_Shot already said).
  • Standard, which allows cards from XY - BREAKthrough and later (again, as Perfect_Shot already told you).
New cards join the Unlimited, Expanded, and Standard Format the third Friday of the month in which they are released. The oldest cards leave the Standard Format once per year, almost always after the World Championships. The most common date for "rotation" is September 1st, and we'll usually know what is going one to three months ahead of it happening. Once they cut zero sets, but it kind of caused problems down the road, which lead to the most sets ever cut at once (seven, I think). All the other times, it has been three, four, or five sets. Black Star Promos also rotate, with a certain number serving as the cutoff point. Most cards enjoy a Standard Format lifespan of about two years.

The reason for rotation is because it is that or have a massive Ban List. For years, Pokémon didn't even have a Ban List. In fact, the reason the Standard Format was created (then known as the "Modified Format") was because too many cards from the earliest sets would have to be banned to balance things out back in the day. Instead, the first four sets (one being a reprint set) were all left out of the initial Standard Format... plus one card was immediately banned. About a year later, another card was banned. The Pokémon TCG officially released in January of 1999. Standard was adopted approximately September of 2001. The set containing both banned cards left Standard play about September of 2003, and nothing is banned in Unlimited, so we didn't have anything banned again until June of 2015. So the game went almost 12 years before the third card banned for Standard Format play became a thing. Since then we've had (I think) three more cards banned, but one of those came off the banned list.

The currently banned cards in the Expanded Format are
  • Archeops (BW - Noble Victories 67/101; BW - Dark Explorers 110/108)
  • Forest of Giant Plants
  • Lysandre's Trump Card
Finally, there is a rule that prevents you from running both Professor Juniper and Professor Sycamore in the same deck for Expanded Format play. Otherwise, even if two cards have the exact same stats and effect but have different names, you may run both up to the maximum allowed copies (usually four). Some cards have rules text printed on them that reduces how many you can have in your deck. This isn't an overly common mechanic, however.
 
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