Ash's Greninja vs Flint's Infernape

[KorpiklaaniVodka]

After Greninja's recent feats against Diantha's Gardevoir and Alain's Charizard it's pretty safe to assume he can easily keep up with extremely strong Pokemon, belonging to the best trainers in the region.

Would Gren be able to defeat a Sinnoh E4's ace?

 

[pkmin3033]

Not a chance. Because the Sinnoh E4 are in a whole other league (Ha! See what I did there?) when compared to Kalos' Elite.

Ash and his Pokemon both underwent far more character development across Sinnoh than they have in Kalos thus far, and in Sinnoh the E4 were used to show just how far he still had to go, not as random punching bags. Type advantage means very little to the Sinnoh E4 - Bertha curbstomped Ash, after all - and Ash himself is nowhere near good enough to take out an Elite Four member even in ideal circumstances. If we're using length of time as a measure of experience, Flint has the edge over Ash as well, and his battle style is such that his Infernape probably wouldn't feel very much of Greninja's attacks at all: he blocks everything.

 

[KorpiklaaniVodka]

Not a chance. Because the Sinnoh E4 are in a whole other league (Ha! See what I did there?) when compared to Kalos' Elite.

Ash and his Pokemon both underwent far more character development across Sinnoh than they have in Kalos thus far, and in Sinnoh the E4 were used to show just how far he still had to go, not as random punching bags. Type advantage means very little to the Sinnoh E4 - Bertha curbstomped Ash, after all - and Ash himself is nowhere near good enough to take out an Elite Four member even in ideal circumstances. If we're using length of time as a measure of experience, Flint has the edge over Ash as well, and his battle style is such that his Infernape probably wouldn't feel very much of Greninja's attacks at all: he blocks everything.

Idk. Wouldn't really scale the Kalos E4 to the Sinnoh one especially since the latter can't yield mega evolution yet - in fact, there hasn't been a battle between a Sinnoh E4 and a Kalos E4, or between Diantha and Cynthia. So I generally assume the Kalos E4 is just as strong as the Sinnoh one.

 

[donavannj]

Not a chance. Because the Sinnoh E4 are in a whole other league (Ha! See what I did there?) when compared to Kalos' Elite.

Ash and his Pokemon both underwent far more character development across Sinnoh than they have in Kalos thus far, and in Sinnoh the E4 were used to show just how far he still had to go, not as random punching bags. Type advantage means very little to the Sinnoh E4 - Bertha curbstomped Ash, after all - and Ash himself is nowhere near good enough to take out an Elite Four member even in ideal circumstances. If we're using length of time as a measure of experience, Flint has the edge over Ash as well, and his battle style is such that his Infernape probably wouldn't feel very much of Greninja's attacks at all: he blocks everything.

IIRC, Ash's Sinnoh team was less fully evolved at the time than Ash's current Kalos team happens to be at present.

His current team is also short a slot, though.

 

[pkmin3033]

Idk. Wouldn't really scale the Kalos E4 to the Sinnoh one especially since the latter can't yield mega evolution yet - in fact, there hasn't been a battle between a Sinnoh E4 and a Kalos E4, or between Diantha and Cynthia. So I generally assume the Kalos E4 is just as strong as the Sinnoh one.

Well, they don't come across as equally competent, at least not to me. Malva was curbstomped by Alain in the Mega Evolution special, and Diantha was utterly disgraced by Ash-Greninja more recently. Sure, Siebold did well, but when you consider every member of the Sinnoh E4 put up a strong front, the Kalos E4 don't feel insurmountable as much as they do moderately stronger when compared to regular trainers.

You have to assume they'd have access to Mega Evolution if they were to appear again, though - if nothing else, Cynthia would have Mega Garchomp. The only reason they didn't have Mega Evolution is because it wasn't around at the time.

IIRC, Ash's Sinnoh team was less fully evolved at the time than Ash's current Kalos team happens to be at present.

His current team is also short a slot, though.

Evolution doesn't necessarily equate to an increase in power in the anime, though...I mean, how many times has an unevolved Pokemon beaten a fully evolved one, especially in Ash's case?

 

[FireSnow]

Taking everyone's thoughts into consideration, I do think Greninja would put up a helluva of a fight. Though the E4 of the two respective regions might differ, they are still considered the strongest in their regions, especially the champion. Now might Diantha technically be weaker than Flint? Yes that is possible and would help moderately explain Greninja's success, but one cannot take away the fact that Greninja did amazing in that battle and thus would be able to give any E4 or Champion a strong battle.

Now in terms of Flint and Infernape against Ash and Greninja, I would say it would be a very good battle with both sides getting in their punches but in the end I'd say Flint would win. I say this because Flint showed when he outclassed Ash before how much better he was and well I would assume Flint has continued to improve since then. Not to mention the strong battle Infernape gave Cynthia's Garchomp before succumbing to a simply better Pokemon, who not to forget had a type advantage. I assume, Flint learned from that battle on how better to deal with those Pokemon who match Infernape in skill and who have type advantages, such as Greninja. In the end, I think Flint's experience and expert strategy of blocking hits so well and turning that defense into powerful offense would be just a bit too much for Greninja. Now if Ash-Greninja occurs, then things get a little more complicated and it'd be difficult to say who would win, but I would have to lean a bit more towards Ash-Greninja in that case.

 

[imtnt]

Ash and his Pokemon both underwent far more character development across Sinnoh than they have in Kalos thus far

Donno about that.
Ash's current team is a much better one, plus most of them are evolved at the time than Ash's sinnoh's team happened to be.
Plus, Ash worked on his own stamind, with his pokemon, and had few breaks when he was all about evolving his pokemons.

Edit: Plus he got one more slot on hand (And if you consider Goodra over there, this is not comparable anymore)

 

[Lizardo]

It's hard to say. Mega Evolution makes most non-legendary Pokémon look unimpressive in comparison. Thus, many of the strong trainers of the anime's past retroactively look weaker than they were meant to be because the concept didn't exist back then. As we've seen in the anime, Megas are essentially in a tier above most regular Pokémon. Satoshi-Gekkouga isn't a Mega Evolution, but it's just as powerful as one, so it definitely comes across a lot more impressively that Ōba's Goukazaru did six years ago. XY and XY&Z have also, on two occasions, brought the Elite 4 and the champion "down to Earth", so to speak. TSME Act IV had Alan and Mega Lizardon outright defeat Pachira's Mega Hellgar, and XY&Z025 allowed Satoshi to go head-to-head with Carnet and actually get the upper-hand.

In comparison, Diamond & Pearl – as well as the OS, AG, and BW – presented Shirona and the Elite 4 as invincible as far as Satoshi and co. were concerned. Satoshi was destroyed in battles with Kanna, Genji, and Ōba. He "did well" in comparison against Kikuka and Kikuna simply by virtue of being able to land a solid hit on their Pokémon once. Shinji and Shooti were both destroyed by Shirona and Adeku, respectively, and they were Satoshi's main rivals. It was pretty clear that Satoshi was nowhere near their level, and when a champion or an Elite 4 member came around, it was just to teach Satoshi and co. a lesson of some kind.

If I had to choose, I'd take Ōba's Goukazaru over Satoshi-Gekkouga. Even with XY&Z025 in mind, and even though Satoshi-Gekkouga will probably defeat Alan's Mega Lizardon (who beat Pachira's Mega Hellgar) at some later point in time, I still can't see Satoshi defeating a member of the Elite 4's ace Pokémon. He'd probably land some hits and take Ōba and Goukazaru off-guard (I imagine they'd be wondering what the hell Satoshi-Gekkouga even is :p) at some point, but at the end of the day Ōba would win pretty handily.

Donno about that.
Ash's current team is a much better one, plus most of them are evolved at the time than Ash's sinnoh's team happened to be.
Plus, Ash worked on his own stamind, with his pokemon, and had few breaks when he was all about evolving his pokemons.

Edit: Plus he got one more slot on hand (And if you consider Goodra over there, this is not comparable anymore)

I think what Meloetta meant by "more development" was that there was more focus towards their growth. Most of Satoshi's DP Pokémon had at least a couple episodes based on them learning to overcome their individual hurdles, learn new moves, or improve their relationships with other Pokémon or trainers. Goukazaru and Glion are the best in that regard, but Pikachu, Bouysel, and Dodaitose also had episodes centered around them. Only Fukamaru and Mukuhawk feel left out in that regard.

Satoshi's XY Pokémon may be stronger and more evolved, especially so if Satoshi gets Numelgon back for the Kalos League, but they didn't have the kind of focus the Sinnoh team got. Satoshi's most developed, best-characterized Pokémon in XY is the Numelgon he had for about 15 episodes.