i think Greninjas biggest change is the existence of Ash-Greninja
Think about how threatening Ash-Greninja is once it gets Battle Bond off, people will go out of their way to stop it. You cannot Sack against Greninja until you know it is Protean, where sacking is a very common play to get your revenge killer in safely. So the most common play against a unknown Greninja is to switch in Toxapex or Tapu Fini...who then get promptly smacked by Extrasensory or Gunk Shot.
Of course this element of surprise is lost once the Ability is revealed but the point stands. Greninja this gen is like Charizard early last gen, where its really hard to tell what variant you are facing and if you guess wrong, you lose a key player on your team. the issue is, unlike the Zards, the Greninjas can be slotted into similar, if not exactly the same roles on teams, cleaners and Revenge killers that can sweep if you give them an inch, making it, as of now (Who knows in the future), really hard to tell which is which. Guess wrong and there is suddenly a very exploitable hole in your team.
Is it S Rank? It was S Rank last gen and nothing has changed for it in the negative bar swapping one Revenge Killer (Talonflame) for another (Tapu Koko) so I don't see why not?
Think about how threatening Ash-Greninja is once it gets Battle Bond off, people will go out of their way to stop it. You cannot Sack against Greninja until you know it is Protean, where sacking is a very common play to get your revenge killer in safely. So the most common play against a unknown Greninja is to switch in Toxapex or Tapu Fini...who then get promptly smacked by Extrasensory or Gunk Shot.
Of course this element of surprise is lost once the Ability is revealed but the point stands. Greninja this gen is like Charizard early last gen, where its really hard to tell what variant you are facing and if you guess wrong, you lose a key player on your team. the issue is, unlike the Zards, the Greninjas can be slotted into similar, if not exactly the same roles on teams, cleaners and Revenge killers that can sweep if you give them an inch, making it, as of now (Who knows in the future), really hard to tell which is which. Guess wrong and there is suddenly a very exploitable hole in your team.
Is it S Rank? It was S Rank last gen and nothing has changed for it in the negative bar swapping one Revenge Killer (Talonflame) for another (Tapu Koko) so I don't see why not?