Genaller
Silver Soul
The topic of Ash-Greninja is one that permeates across several different threads on this forum. Since practically everyone is probably sick and tired of the endless discussions across multiple threads involving the frog, let’s all collectively agree to mostly limit such discussions to a single thread namely this one! Anything from Ash-Greninja vs Pokémon X (so don’t use the versus thread for A-G matchups since that’s what lead to the first one getting closed) to how strong Ash-Greninja is in general to opinions about how Ash-Greninja was handled narratively to even the meta opinions on Ash-Greninja (e.g. Ash-Greninja is the most overrated Pokémon in anime history). Whenever fellow PAD members start up a major discussion that heavily involves Ash-Greninja, please direct them to this thread where they may discuss ad nauseum to their hearts’ content 
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I’ll start; this is how strong I think Ash-Greninja is:
VA-G = Veil Ash-Greninja, MA-G = Mastered Ash-Greninja and MG = Mega Gardevoir.
The Main Argument
1. Prior to starting his battle with Diantha, Ash states “Greninja, in our last battle with Diantha, we got defeated even before Gardevoir mega evolved” while we see a clip of Gardevoir wrecking Pikachu after which he says “But we’ve gained a lot of experience since then”.
2. After Gardevoir dodges Greninja’s first attack, Clemont states “They really are amazing” and then Serena states “They can communicate via mere eye-contact!”. Gardevoir then dodges several more attacks after which Ash says “At this rate, this is going to end up like last time. Gardevoir is too fast; we can’t get a hold of it”. We then cut to a worried sweating Pikachu and then Serena says “I expected nothing less from Diantha” and Clemont says “Dealing damage to the Champion will not be that easy”. Ash also says “she predicts our every move” after Gardevoir dodges a flurry of Water Shuriken and then Greninja gets flung back hitting a tree from the mere shockwave of Moonbalst. Since they have seen Gardevoir perform before, the above statements wouldn’t be made if Gardevoir was severely suppressing her capabilities.
3. Due to (2.) Greninja being able to land a hit on Gardevoir is both an impressive feat on Ash’s part for coming up with using the steam from Water Shuriken as cover for a surprise Cut and on Greninja’s part for causing actual damage on Gardevoir indicated by her flinching and moaning. Furthermore (2.) provides support for all later mentioned A-G feats in this battle also being impressive.
4. After the initial Cut vs Shadow Ball clash between VA-G and Gardevoir, Gardevoir (via momentum) is pushed back while moaning after which Diantha states “Had that hit, we wouldn’t have stood a chance”. This indicates that VA-G was capable of dealing substantial damage on Gardevoir. Later on when VA-G goes in for a Cut Diantha for the first time visibly calls out “Dodge!” indicating a shift in how seriously she’s taking this battle. After VA-G is able to strike Gardevoir with Cut, Diantha visibly gasps in surprise and then Serena says “They caught up...” with Bonnie finishing “...to Gardevoir’s speed!”
5. Due to (4.) Diantha used ME because VA-G proved itself to be an opponent warranting its use and based on (1.) this narratively symbolizes Ash being good enough as a trainer for making a Champion resort to ME. Note that warranting ME needn’t mean that VA-G > Base Gardevoir, but it does mean that VA-G was sufficiently close to her in strength a.k.a there’s a cap on how much better than VA-G Base Gardevoir could have been. These conclusions are further enforced right after Gardevoir MEing by Ash saying “She finally mega evolved it!” and Serena stating “They’ve got Diantha and Gardevoir backed into a corner!”.
6. Mega Gardevoir is able to fully block VA-G’s Aerial Ace upon MEing, then MG again fully blocks another Aerial Ace with Reflect, but after Clemont says “I have never seen these waves before”, VA-G uses Cut (that may or may not have been augmented by Double Team) and the Reflect barrier collapses indicating that MG could not fully block this attack.
7. After achieving MA-G, it launches the Water Shuriken on its back and MG responds by launching an especially strong Shadow Ball which is depicted as the fusion of several smaller Shadow Balls (which indicates that the attack was far more dense in addition to having greater volume). It’s safe to say that this was significantly stronger than any regular Shadow Ball MG has used including those used both later and in XY 28 to send TRio blasting off and break through their barrier cage respectively. Despite this Water Shuriken outright overpowers this “multi-fused” Shadow Ball and strikes MG with her moaning both at the moment of contact and when the Water Shuriken explodes; the sheer force then flings MG back with her then falling on the ground, and we see visible bruises on her (while she’s in the air at least). Note that shortly after Gardevoir MEs, MG and VA-G have a Shadow Ball vs Water Shuriken clash and cancel each other out. While this doesn’t mean that they were equal, it does mean that 1 move could only be so much stronger than the other. Let’s call this “max ratio” X. If we consider VA-G’s Water Shuriken to be the stronger move in that clash, then we have Pow(VA-G WS)/Pow(MG regular SB) =< X and Pow(MA-G WS)/Pow(MG multi-fused SB) > X which implies Pow(MA-G WS)/Pow(MG multi-fused SB) > Pow(VA-G WS)/Pow(MG Regular SB) <=> Pow(MA-G WS)/Pow(VA-G WS) > Pow(MG multi-fused SB)/Pow(MG regular SB) where Pow() is the power function that takes a Pokémon’s damaging move as an input and returns a positive real number (a.k.a the power of the move) as an output. For the record, if we had instead assumed that MG’s regular Shadow Ball was the stronger move, then we would obtain an even greater disparity between VA-G and MA-G’s power (try working it out!). Based on this we can conclude that MA-G at the end of the battle was significantly stronger than what VA-G was right after Diantha MEed Gardevoir. The strength progression during the battle is supported by (6.).
8. After battling Ash-Greninja and sending TRio blasting off, Gardevoir falls to her knees panting in exhaustion with Diantha saying “That really was a bit too much, wasn’t it?” to her. This state was primarily caused by the Greninja/A-G battle with the evidence being the sheer amount of time spent battling A-G in addition to the number of moves used against it relative to TRio where only 2 moves were used and they were dispatched quickly. Also “full power” was MG emitting a full power blast of Psychic energy (a.k.a Psychic) to break her shackles rather than her merely “powering up” since in Pokemon (unlike say DBZ) destructive energy isn’t emitted by merely powering up unless you’re going from 1 state to another (e.g. Ash’s Infernape going from Base to Blaze). There have also been other instances where “full power” has been used after which the Pokémon has shown no signs of exhaustion whatsoever (e.g. Pikachu using full power on his Thunder when facing Juan in order to overpower the 5th Ice Ball). The interaction with TRio did push her over the edge in terms of stamina drain, but primary credit for her accumulated stamina drain unequivocally goes to (Ash-)Greninja.
9. Intuitive Conclusion: The boost from initial VA-G -> MA-G based on (7.) would more than compensate for the cap mentioned in (5.).
10. Therefore, Mastered Ash-Greninja >= Diantha’s Base Gardevoir as of XYZ 25
Supplementary Argument
11. In XYZ 38; right after the A-G transformation Alain states “Thank you, Ash. I’ve been waiting for you to show that full power of yours. Take me to even higher stages!” After a while of intense battling, Alain says “I’m having a lot of fun right now. I’m grateful to you for making me feel this way” and Alain again thanks Ash at the end of their battle. Finally Alain says “Through this battle, Ash and his Pokémon made us grow” when talking to his Charizard’s Poke Ball. Based on this Ash and A-G pushed Alain and MC-X the most since they went through their rigorous training between ME Acts 3 and 4. In addition this low key confirms that Ash-Greninja > Kalos League Pikachu since despite Pikachu’s performance, it is only Ash-Greninja whom Alain acknowledges as Ash’s full power.
12. We know that Alain and MC-X lost to Siebold in ME Act 1 and got owned by Primal Groudon in Act 3; however, believe it or not people don’t have scouters in Pokémon (unless you’re Clemont)! By this I mean Alain can’t go “Pokémon A was this much stronger than my MC-X and my MC-X’s strength has increased by so and so, therefore that Pokémon would now beat/loose to MC-X with X difficulty”. Alain needs to actually have a proper battle with a Pokémon to discern how well that Pokémon would fare against the now stronger MC-X and of all the opponents he’s faced, Ash-Greninja gave post ME Act 4 MC-X the best fight. This is further supported by MC-X stumbling against A-G and not against MDoom, and while Alain’s Zard was previously damaged by Pikachu in the KL finals, it had substantial stamina drain from facing 9 ME Pokémon and we also know it wasn’t at full health despite healing between some battles based on its visible bruise marks prior to facing MDoom in ME Act 4.
13. Based on (11.) and (12.) Ash-Greninja >= Malva’s Mega Houndoom as of XYZ 38
Additional Conclusion
14. Based on the progression of A-G’s max power WSs from vs Diantha to vs Sawyer KL semis to vs Alain KL finals, XYZ 38 A-G > XYZ 25 A-G.
Note: If anyone believes that Malva didn’t go all-out agaisnt Alain because when Mega Houndoom had MC-X on the ground Malva chose to tease/provoke Alain rather than continue attacking, then note that Alain was also not battling optimally since he had a major falling out with Marin which would unquestionably affect his mental state. Matter of fact MC-X performs noticeably better after Alain gives a speech about reaffirming his bond with Charizard which ties into Ash’s statement in XY 75 about the attitude of the trainer rubbing off on the Pokémon. When facing Malva, Alain’s mental state was initially still reeling from him yelling at Marin (a person important to him), but after finding his resolve to be the strongest with Charizard, he became fully focused on the battle (a.k.a Malva’s provocation ironically helped Alain battle optimally).
.I’ll start; this is how strong I think Ash-Greninja is:
VA-G = Veil Ash-Greninja, MA-G = Mastered Ash-Greninja and MG = Mega Gardevoir.
The Main Argument
1. Prior to starting his battle with Diantha, Ash states “Greninja, in our last battle with Diantha, we got defeated even before Gardevoir mega evolved” while we see a clip of Gardevoir wrecking Pikachu after which he says “But we’ve gained a lot of experience since then”.
2. After Gardevoir dodges Greninja’s first attack, Clemont states “They really are amazing” and then Serena states “They can communicate via mere eye-contact!”. Gardevoir then dodges several more attacks after which Ash says “At this rate, this is going to end up like last time. Gardevoir is too fast; we can’t get a hold of it”. We then cut to a worried sweating Pikachu and then Serena says “I expected nothing less from Diantha” and Clemont says “Dealing damage to the Champion will not be that easy”. Ash also says “she predicts our every move” after Gardevoir dodges a flurry of Water Shuriken and then Greninja gets flung back hitting a tree from the mere shockwave of Moonbalst. Since they have seen Gardevoir perform before, the above statements wouldn’t be made if Gardevoir was severely suppressing her capabilities.
3. Due to (2.) Greninja being able to land a hit on Gardevoir is both an impressive feat on Ash’s part for coming up with using the steam from Water Shuriken as cover for a surprise Cut and on Greninja’s part for causing actual damage on Gardevoir indicated by her flinching and moaning. Furthermore (2.) provides support for all later mentioned A-G feats in this battle also being impressive.
4. After the initial Cut vs Shadow Ball clash between VA-G and Gardevoir, Gardevoir (via momentum) is pushed back while moaning after which Diantha states “Had that hit, we wouldn’t have stood a chance”. This indicates that VA-G was capable of dealing substantial damage on Gardevoir. Later on when VA-G goes in for a Cut Diantha for the first time visibly calls out “Dodge!” indicating a shift in how seriously she’s taking this battle. After VA-G is able to strike Gardevoir with Cut, Diantha visibly gasps in surprise and then Serena says “They caught up...” with Bonnie finishing “...to Gardevoir’s speed!”
5. Due to (4.) Diantha used ME because VA-G proved itself to be an opponent warranting its use and based on (1.) this narratively symbolizes Ash being good enough as a trainer for making a Champion resort to ME. Note that warranting ME needn’t mean that VA-G > Base Gardevoir, but it does mean that VA-G was sufficiently close to her in strength a.k.a there’s a cap on how much better than VA-G Base Gardevoir could have been. These conclusions are further enforced right after Gardevoir MEing by Ash saying “She finally mega evolved it!” and Serena stating “They’ve got Diantha and Gardevoir backed into a corner!”.
6. Mega Gardevoir is able to fully block VA-G’s Aerial Ace upon MEing, then MG again fully blocks another Aerial Ace with Reflect, but after Clemont says “I have never seen these waves before”, VA-G uses Cut (that may or may not have been augmented by Double Team) and the Reflect barrier collapses indicating that MG could not fully block this attack.
7. After achieving MA-G, it launches the Water Shuriken on its back and MG responds by launching an especially strong Shadow Ball which is depicted as the fusion of several smaller Shadow Balls (which indicates that the attack was far more dense in addition to having greater volume). It’s safe to say that this was significantly stronger than any regular Shadow Ball MG has used including those used both later and in XY 28 to send TRio blasting off and break through their barrier cage respectively. Despite this Water Shuriken outright overpowers this “multi-fused” Shadow Ball and strikes MG with her moaning both at the moment of contact and when the Water Shuriken explodes; the sheer force then flings MG back with her then falling on the ground, and we see visible bruises on her (while she’s in the air at least). Note that shortly after Gardevoir MEs, MG and VA-G have a Shadow Ball vs Water Shuriken clash and cancel each other out. While this doesn’t mean that they were equal, it does mean that 1 move could only be so much stronger than the other. Let’s call this “max ratio” X. If we consider VA-G’s Water Shuriken to be the stronger move in that clash, then we have Pow(VA-G WS)/Pow(MG regular SB) =< X and Pow(MA-G WS)/Pow(MG multi-fused SB) > X which implies Pow(MA-G WS)/Pow(MG multi-fused SB) > Pow(VA-G WS)/Pow(MG Regular SB) <=> Pow(MA-G WS)/Pow(VA-G WS) > Pow(MG multi-fused SB)/Pow(MG regular SB) where Pow() is the power function that takes a Pokémon’s damaging move as an input and returns a positive real number (a.k.a the power of the move) as an output. For the record, if we had instead assumed that MG’s regular Shadow Ball was the stronger move, then we would obtain an even greater disparity between VA-G and MA-G’s power (try working it out!
). Based on this we can conclude that MA-G at the end of the battle was significantly stronger than what VA-G was right after Diantha MEed Gardevoir. The strength progression during the battle is supported by (6.).8. After battling Ash-Greninja and sending TRio blasting off, Gardevoir falls to her knees panting in exhaustion with Diantha saying “That really was a bit too much, wasn’t it?” to her. This state was primarily caused by the Greninja/A-G battle with the evidence being the sheer amount of time spent battling A-G in addition to the number of moves used against it relative to TRio where only 2 moves were used and they were dispatched quickly. Also “full power” was MG emitting a full power blast of Psychic energy (a.k.a Psychic) to break her shackles rather than her merely “powering up” since in Pokemon (unlike say DBZ) destructive energy isn’t emitted by merely powering up unless you’re going from 1 state to another (e.g. Ash’s Infernape going from Base to Blaze). There have also been other instances where “full power” has been used after which the Pokémon has shown no signs of exhaustion whatsoever (e.g. Pikachu using full power on his Thunder when facing Juan in order to overpower the 5th Ice Ball). The interaction with TRio did push her over the edge in terms of stamina drain, but primary credit for her accumulated stamina drain unequivocally goes to (Ash-)Greninja.
9. Intuitive Conclusion: The boost from initial VA-G -> MA-G based on (7.) would more than compensate for the cap mentioned in (5.).
10. Therefore, Mastered Ash-Greninja >= Diantha’s Base Gardevoir as of XYZ 25
Supplementary Argument
11. In XYZ 38; right after the A-G transformation Alain states “Thank you, Ash. I’ve been waiting for you to show that full power of yours. Take me to even higher stages!” After a while of intense battling, Alain says “I’m having a lot of fun right now. I’m grateful to you for making me feel this way” and Alain again thanks Ash at the end of their battle. Finally Alain says “Through this battle, Ash and his Pokémon made us grow” when talking to his Charizard’s Poke Ball. Based on this Ash and A-G pushed Alain and MC-X the most since they went through their rigorous training between ME Acts 3 and 4. In addition this low key confirms that Ash-Greninja > Kalos League Pikachu since despite Pikachu’s performance, it is only Ash-Greninja whom Alain acknowledges as Ash’s full power.
12. We know that Alain and MC-X lost to Siebold in ME Act 1 and got owned by Primal Groudon in Act 3; however, believe it or not people don’t have scouters in Pokémon (unless you’re Clemont)! By this I mean Alain can’t go “Pokémon A was this much stronger than my MC-X and my MC-X’s strength has increased by so and so, therefore that Pokémon would now beat/loose to MC-X with X difficulty”. Alain needs to actually have a proper battle with a Pokémon to discern how well that Pokémon would fare against the now stronger MC-X and of all the opponents he’s faced, Ash-Greninja gave post ME Act 4 MC-X the best fight. This is further supported by MC-X stumbling against A-G and not against MDoom, and while Alain’s Zard was previously damaged by Pikachu in the KL finals, it had substantial stamina drain from facing 9 ME Pokémon and we also know it wasn’t at full health despite healing between some battles based on its visible bruise marks prior to facing MDoom in ME Act 4.
13. Based on (11.) and (12.) Ash-Greninja >= Malva’s Mega Houndoom as of XYZ 38
Additional Conclusion
14. Based on the progression of A-G’s max power WSs from vs Diantha to vs Sawyer KL semis to vs Alain KL finals, XYZ 38 A-G > XYZ 25 A-G.
Note: If anyone believes that Malva didn’t go all-out agaisnt Alain because when Mega Houndoom had MC-X on the ground Malva chose to tease/provoke Alain rather than continue attacking, then note that Alain was also not battling optimally since he had a major falling out with Marin which would unquestionably affect his mental state. Matter of fact MC-X performs noticeably better after Alain gives a speech about reaffirming his bond with Charizard which ties into Ash’s statement in XY 75 about the attitude of the trainer rubbing off on the Pokémon. When facing Malva, Alain’s mental state was initially still reeling from him yelling at Marin (a person important to him), but after finding his resolve to be the strongest with Charizard, he became fully focused on the battle (a.k.a Malva’s provocation ironically helped Alain battle optimally).
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