See, the thing that bothers me with a lot of the Pokémon community is how much people seem to think being a mono type Pokemon is the worst thing ever, including the starters. Not every Pokémon needs 2 types
@@EpicRandomness555 no one said its the worst thing and they need them. It's a disadvantage in this particular scenario for the purposes of this list that only takes into account a single Pokémon, of course it would be better in most cases to have dual typing when looking at a single Pokémon, just as it would be less of an advantage when looking at the typing of a team of Pokémon, but this isn't about teams, it's about specific individual starters.
@@TheLostVikingr Also, I'd assume this "secondary type" would be a regional form so it wouldn't matter competitively if you prefer the monotype anyway. Though i'd also add that it shouldn't just be for monotype mons, but for ALL the starters to be fair.
Another issue Charmander has in Red/Blue is that fire didn’t resist ice in gen 1, so Charizard is also weak to Lorelei’s ice moves in addition to her water moves.
Actually, that’s an error. This one poketuber called SmithPlaysPokemon talked about it and said that it’s just a text error. Charizard does take neutral damage from ice, but the displayed text says super effective
@@thegamedanalyst2169 I knew about the text error, where only the type effectiveness against a Pokémon’s secondary type is displayed. But Bulbapedia has the gen 1 type chart with ice neutral against fire. Unless that is a mistake.
@@SweetBananaDigitalit’s not a mistake, in gen 1 the type chart was a little different. For example, the aforementioned fire not resisting ice as well as bug and poison both being super effective against each other. There only one that was a bug was psychic being immune to ghost.
it's not surprising regardless since it's widely seen as the worst starter of all time due to how Chikorita is completely useless in it's home region having 0 winning match up's outside of Chuck's poliwrath and Bruno's onix. honestly i wouldn't be surprised if someone picked chikorita in a Johto game...and ended up either restarting their save or boxed it because of how it doesn't get a single chance to shine, in fact it would be a miracle if it's even a meganium by the time you reach the league as it's probably been a Bayleef the whole time with how little you get to use it
Chikorita deserves a fairy typing. It just deserves better after all these years. It deserves to be the cute little precious Princess it always should have been.
I think it's worth noting that mutual resistance actually works in one's favor. For example, one reason Wartortle can be good against Misty is that you force Staryu and Starmie to rely on weaker Normal-type attacks that run off their less-good Attack stat, while Wartortle can use Tackle or Bite. Just because you can't hit them neutrally with your STAB doesn't mean you aren't able to force the opponent to use less-optimal moves.
You also notably get access to the mega punch TM very early on in gen1 (I believe you find it in Mt Moon, or just after it, if memory serves), and there are 2 move tutors for mega punch and the stronger but less accurate mega kick just outside Cerulean City in FRLG as well. Both these moves are stronger than bite or tackle, but bite also hits Starmie super-effectively in gen3 since it's only a normal type attack in gen1
Chespin is unironically the best base starter evolution in a playthrough since rollout gives it coverage against 4 of its weaknesses Appreciate the likes and the engagement in the comments😂
@@eljordinio7647 and Vivillon cant do anything back, so unless rollout misses, its a free kill. Even then your gonna use rollout against Surskit, so its likely on its 3rd or 4th roll already
@@Sheenifier They gave that line metal claw in the remakes during gen 3 but in gen 1 steel type didn't even exist. It was introduced in gen 2 and Magnemite and Magneton were given the type retroactively.
9:20, on paper Chespin’s Viola matchup seems like it’s bad. But given that chespin learns rollout. It makes the gym an absolute cakewalk. Froakie actually has the hardest time with that gym
New ability just dropped for incineroar called “F*** You”. When incineroar enters the field, it drops all the opponents stats by 6 stages, sets up a belly drum, regenerates incineroar to full, sets up max spikes stealth rocks toxic spikes, leech infestation, burns the opponent, sets up desolate land, gives it sturdy and wonderguard, gives it stab on all moves, Huge Power, Good as Gold, Unseen Fist, Intimidate, protect never fails, neutralizing has for only opponents (but toggleable for regigigas), immunity to neutralizing gas, all items only apply buffs (ie choice items don’t lock moves), Harvest but 100% of the time, effects of mirror white mental herbs, regenerator bit to full HP, allows grass types to be hit by spore, all status can be applied on a Pokémon at all times, give opponents toxic, paralysis, sleep, freeze, frostbite, stops ghost types from switching, applies bind magmastorm whirlpool etc. able to use Z-moves on all turns without holding z crystal, tablets beads vessel sword of ruin on only opponents, friend guard, sets up aroura veil, multiscale for every turn, priority on all moves, makes all moves never miss, technician but works for moves up to 1000 BP, max evasion and drops accuracy of opponent to minimum, no EV limit, and why not, give it ball fetch.
"Strong Pokémon. Weak Pokémon. That is only the selfish perception of people. Truly skilled trainers should try to win with their favorites."- Karen, Pokemon Gold/Silver.
@@LittleAl016you can deal with it but it will be hard I played these games like 50 times and played with different starter each time and always venasur and makes my team go to sleep yeah I have fire types to counter it but it is annoying
@@Ruinousria It's not as hard as you think. Given that you'll likely be outspeeding Venusaur, and have enough coverage to get him in a few enough hits. In all honesty, Exeggutor is more annoying than Venusaur.
Victreebel and Exeggutor are better in gen 1. Victreebel has wrap spam and also has razor leaf and sleep spam and exeggutor is part psychic so obviously it’s broken
Tip for Yellow: trade the yellow rat to yourself in either Red or Blue, evolve it, teach it Body Slam from TM 08, trade it back to Yellow. Big upgrade and the only downside is Raichu doesn't walk around with you
Granted, you may wanna hold off on the evolution until lv.26, because then it can learn Thunderbolt without needing the tm. Aside from that, and getting the gift Bulbasaur, there’re no reasons to NOT force it to evolve, unless you literally lack the means of trading it. Edit: Also, the evolution will work even if you trade it to another copy of Yellow, so long as the trainer ID is different from the Pikachu’s OT ID.
@@urieldaboamorte Intentionally hanidcapping yourself with a mon that refuses to evolve doesn't sound like a joyful experience. Personally, getting to obtain all three Kanto starters without trading is the joyful aspect of playing Yellow.
Chespin is actually not as bad of a starter for the first Kalos gym because it gets access to Rollout pretty early on, making it pretty easy to sweep Viola. I've done it before and it was awesome
@@fadhilmulyono9230 no but the damage will add up and if U miss a rollout or surskit gets a crit with quick attack beforehand, chespin will be in trouble
Thing is with kanto squirtle, you learn bite right around the time you fight Misty and her Starmie, you then learn dig and can easily clean the electric gym. it can also learn ice beam and solo the elite four. It is the starter for a solo playthrough of firered or leaf green imo; Charmander struggles a lot more throught the game, only having one easy gym and two elite four members who either wall ( Lance) or threaten (Lorelei) i sadly agree that it's the only starter that's easily replaceable ( early magikarp, other grass/fire options weaker than the starter) this message was brought to you by the squirtlesquad
@@tOGGLEwAFFLES in gen 1 Misty's Starmie only has a single neutral move: Tackle. This battle is almost impossible to lose with Wartortle even with normal type Bite, let alone Mega Punch.
You correctly mention how well Dig helps against Surge as well as Koga too, but you're forgetting one thing: Charmander learns Dig too. With Dig Charmander's favorable gym matchups jump to 5 (Surge, Erika, Koga, Blaine, Giovanni). In fact the fastest Charmander playthrough is only about 3 minutes slower than the fastest Squirtle playthrough. Bulbasaur is a hopeless case though.
Yeah, I have a feeling Michael based this on a theoretical on-paper assessment rather than playing through the games. I'm sure he's played through the games, but I don't think he heavily relied on his experiences to come up with the list. For example: Squirtle does not belong on this list. On paper you say "weak to the 3rd and 4th gyms, that's too much of a struggle too early." Except: 1) The squirtle line has the best early coverage movepool once you account for TMs. It's the only one of the three that has a decent STAB move in bubblebeam and gets both body slam and dig. 2) Dig provides good coverage against Surge. Also, as long as you have ANY ground type on your team at all, Wartortle only needs to beat the Voltorb and the Pikachu. Surge's Raichu can't damage ground types, so even a Geodude from Mt. Moon auto-wins against it. More likely, you'll have a Diglett or Dugtrio from Diglett's Cave right there. We're assuming you're largely using your starter, but can use other Pokemon if it's little effort. You don't need to put any effort into training the Diglett or Geodude, just catch them and use them for that one battle. 3) Before facing Erika, you had to get through Rock Tunnel, and probably ventured into the Rocket hideout and/or Pokemon Tower. If you're not super-optimizing your run, Blastoise will likely be in the 40's by this point, so Erika's level 29 Victreebell and Vileplume will not be pertinent. If you are super-optimizing your run, you either know that Erika can be delayed or know to get/use Ice Beam. 4) The other starters have their own setbacks that are even worse. Venusaur gets ZERO coverage and can only learn grass or normal moves (well, and status moves). Also, around 70% of the non-gym trainer pokemon you face before leaving Vermillion are bug, flying, poison, or fire types, so your best damage-dealing move most of the time in the early game is....Tackle. Meanwhile, Charizard doesn't learn a STAB move better than Ember until either reaching level 46 or beating Blaine.
@@cathygrandstaff1957 But considering that Pikachu starts to fall off once you reach Koga, why would you want to use it at Mt. Moon? Like, the strongest foe Pikachu can handle by itself is Lorelei, and that's it.
@@LittleAl016 Hey I used Pikachu all through Pokémon Yellow and didn’t have a problem with it. Then again I used Iron to boost the heck out of its defense so it could take hits as well as boosting special. Besides, it’s worth having it along to talk to and interact with, you’re missing everything that makes Yellow special if you don’t keep Pikachu in your party.
To add insult to injury, Meganium doesn’t even get the full extent of its revenge when you go to Kanto, as Giovanni, the Ground Type specialist, is replaced by Blue, who has a Type diverse team that overall does slightly better against Meganium than Typhlosion.
You underestimate Sprigatito. Yes, grass has a lot of weaknesses, but a 70 power move that always crits on a Pokémon with crazy high speed is *busted.* Who cares if you have low defenses and are weak to the opponent? You're just going to one-shot it, anyway. I'd say that Quaxly is the worst of the Paldea starters. Physical water types are generally worse than special water types, and Aqua Step is only an okay move.
@@SassySceptile Ehhhh, yes, but actually no. Your starter Sprigatito defaults to grass tera type, and you can't reasonably change it until late/post game.
@@Celestia282 Larry gives you 50 Normal Tera Shards for beating his gym, Hassel gives you 50 Dragon, and Tyme gives you 50 Rock for completing their stories. Normal Tera for Meowscarada is terrible, but you didn't day anything about good Tera type choices.
Pokemon Yellow came out long before solo runs were popular. In order to beat Brock, they added Mankey to an early game route, and made Butterfree learn Confusion two levels sooner. They also gave Pikachu a lot more level up moves like Thunderbolt. We were mostly excited about being able to play the anime. We got all three starters, fought Jessie and James, and we could get the coveted Surfing Pikachu in Pokemon Stadium. Then when Gen 2 came out, they added held items and we got a Light Ball if we transferred over the partner Pikachu.
Technically, "solo runs" were popular since the first time a kid who either couldn't read or didn't like reading skipped the tutorial text and didn't know how to catch more Pokémon so just ran with their starter 25+ levels ahead of anything else they managed to get ahold of.
Funny you say solo runs weren't popular when yellow came out when people routinely destroyed the game with their starter. And in fact, I'd argue that until gen 6's exp share overhaul, the optimal way to play the game always was having 1-3 pokés max. No splitting experience, no splitting EVs/stat experience, no time wasted grinding, and before gen 5, didn't waste spreading good TMs between teammates. With one pokémon, without grinding you easily got to the 80s/90s with rare candies. With 3 pokémon, you barely crack the 60s if at all, meaning you'd be underlevelled or levelled against the champ. That's the difference.
Micheal's thumbnail's simplicity contributes a lot to the success of his videos. He is my Favourite poketuber and will always be. Thank you for everything
@@theamazingspooderman2697 this guy is an entertainer. He's a RUclipsr first. If his inaccuracies get him comments like yours, you're giving him one more comment he wouldn't have received otherwise. But you do you 🤷
@@theamazingspooderman2697 He also said "Wartortle isn't helping much in Misty's Gym" when HE LITERALLY KNOWS BITE BY THE TIME HE FACES MISTY. Also, did he just straight up forget that Blastoise can learn Ice Beam? And did he just straight up forget that Lapras requires grinding in order to be usable?
Justice for Meganium, man. She really had it rough in Johto playthroughs as well as people hating on her because they think she "sucks". I am NOT one of those, but she should've gotten some love like a regional variant or something. She also deserved the Fairy type! Imagine, if that were a reality, people would hate on her less. 😥
man i agree, i love it but it just needs a regional to give it a better stat spread and the fairy type then it will finally stop getting flamed by people
I'd still not really like it because, FAIRY TYPING IS COMPLETELY DUM AND UNNECESSARY!!! My first Pokemon game was Yellow Version, and I still easily beat Lance without Fairy types.
What's worse about Pikachu is that it doesn't have ability, meaning If you want to paralyze a speedy pokemon you just hope you survive a hit or outspeed it
@demarrionberry3676 op said pikachu doesn't have the ability, meaning you have to outspeed or survive a hit to use thunder wave. Pikachu doesn't have held items, so no light ball, and you don't have the same access to mankey, just nidoran. Even if you do, you still need to spend a ton of time lowering Onyx stats, because both are glass cannons. Onyx has bide exclusively as an attacking move, and you are pretty much locked into growl and tail whip because it also has harden. This means you have to depend on rng exclusively to beat Brock, because you don't get access to ANY water or grass types before this gym in yellow. Take the rose tinted glasses off, man. That game was sadistic to kids.😂😂😂
@@leohawk776”rng exclusive?” Get outta here. Just get nidoran to a decent level (I literally just get it high enough to learn double kick and that’s it) and 9 times out of 10 it 1 shots geodude and 2 shots onix also bide takes a random amount of turns in gen 1 instead of the solid 2 so he could literally bide first turn and never get the chance to unleash cause it’s dead before then. Plus (even though it may not apply here) ever heard of the badge boost glitch? Double team 6 times with pikachu and all stats are now at +6 till either pikachu levels up mid fight or the fight ends. I don’t care what Pokémon you’re using. At +6 everything you’re fine
@beyondawesomegaming3517 nidoran doesn't learn double kick until LATE in gen 1, my guy. Gen 2 is when it goes down to level 12. Take it down a notch, noob.
0:35 Wow. Firstly, I was simply not expecting that because it's really strong. But also, WOW. Starting the video with my favorite starter of all time? Bold move XD
Funny how you talk about Meganium getting bullied by your rival and didn't acknowledge Bulbasaur gets even worse treatment. Between Pidgeot, Alakazam, Eggsecutor, and Charizard being super effective against Bulbasaur and Gyarados resisting Bulbasaur, your rival exists to harass Bulbasaur.
You have no reason to keep using Pikachu once you get the eevee in celadon. Jolteon is often debated as to whether it’s better than Zapdos in gen 1. And with Surge giving you thunderbolt, you have great stab right off the bat.
There's also no reason to keep using Pikachu once you get your Nido up to snuff, I.E. once it learns Double Kick. And/or catch a Clefairy, make sure it learns Sing on level up, and then evolve it to Clefable. If having an Electric type is somehow a must, though, there's also Zapdos and Jolteon.
"Chikorita has no usefulness outside of the first two gyms" Whitney's Miltank says hi. I used a Bayleef against her and won fairly easily. Also something something Chespin learns Rollout.
Ok, so it's not just me. I played Silver when it first came out and picked Chikorita. And I don't remember having any problems with Whitney at all. (Granted, that was over 20 years ago now, but if it was as traumatic for me as it was for Mikey, I'd probably remember it. 😆)
@@AllenMS828Yeah Bayleef can definitely help against Whitney. Ideally Geodude and/or Muscle the Machop will help even more, but Bayleef can still contribute.
I actually did a Chikorita run a while back in Silver and beat Whitney on my first try, although that's probably because I had to overlevel to beat Bugsy. I leveled it up to level 29 to beat him by spamming Body Slam. Thank God for emulator speed up.
Yeah, the major issue with this video is that it only does a surface level inspection instead of a full deep dive. While it doesn’t actually matter which Pokémon you choose as your starter as each gym has a counter usually right next to it, picking Meganium is legitimately choosing to play on easy mode as it walls so many difficult fights. Especially Whitney and Claire.
When sprigatito got on number 10 I was dying laughing because I did a poll tournament on a Pokemon fandom wiki and sprigatito won the whole thing against mudkip
@@karthiksreeram1593 Doesnt matter meowscarada is too fast and hits too hard with flower trick. There is no world where it comes anywhere near this list. None of the gen 9 starters should.
I’m pretty sure he was ranking the weakest choice per starter options. (Including B2W2, XY Kanto starters, Legends, etc) That said, I’m not 100% on board that Sprigatito is the worst choice, but Fuecoco sweeps so weed cat is not the best either
Truuuuuuue while I am a chimchar fan more than a turtwig fan the bulk on that turtle boy is friggen awesome and when it gets the best ground type stab move on evolution means if it can tank infernapes flare blitz (which as I stated that Effin bulk) it can actually hard counter said infernape with eq. Just don’t put it anywhere near Candice’s gym and you’re good to go
@@La_Verge I mean, meh? Yea in diamond and pearl true but with platinum adding another few to the point where you could actually have flint have an almost full fire type team it’s a little easier to pick torterra. Not saying you’re wrong just saying it depends.
Squirtle can learn coverage moves like Dig and Ice Beam, and in FRLG Bite is a dark type move which it learns at 18/19 and makes it useful against Starmie.
But Ice Beam is a late TM move in some of the games (particularly Gen V Black and White). I'm pretty sure Mikey emphasized on the early gyms for his judgment for picks in this video.
@@ryanprjgamingchannel9437 To be fair gen 5 is a whole different breed of game in terms of scaling😅 But anywho, just cuz it's late doesn't mean it doesn't remain useful. water type also has awesome type coverage as well.
@@XAaronymousX But... Water types are so replacable... You could run Gyarados on any team for your water type. Except in the Unova games where it is locked to postgame, fo that one best water type is Seismitoad... who is part water and ground and is only weak to the uncommon grass coverage
@@ryanprjgamingchannel9437you could argue that literally ANY Pokemon is "so replaceable" because you could literally replace any Pokemon with one of the same type... Yeah, that's how the games work! So that point you tried to make is irrelevant tbh.
@@negligible_reality Yeah. You don't need to keep your Starter through all the way to endgame. Case in point as Unova region can attest, since I would rather have Darmanitan as my Fire-type, Lilligant (or Whimsicott) for filler Grass-type, and Seismitoad for Water-type.
Besides the fact that both Squirtle entries shouldn't be on here, I don't think you considered when mons learn moves enough. Gen III Treecko should be on here with Grovyle being stuck with Absorb or Bullet Seed as it's best STAB until level 29.
I was stubborn with my first playthrough of Scarlet and decided "If I can do all the battles in any order, I'm going to do them clockwise, starting at the bottom of the map" Needless to say, after the first gym, I felt no drawbacks to picking Sprigatito
Ah ah ah! Chespin wrecks the first gym as it learns Rollout, a ROCK move. In fact, Chespin breezes through the first two gyms that both Froakie and Fenniken struggle with.
Yeah Game Freak was just thinking "kids love the anime, Pikachu sells, and thus Yellow was tossed out and nobody gave it a second glance until they realized they do NOT get Ash's exact Pikachu like the anime XD
To be nice, they did enhance Pikachu's moveset by giving it early access to Double Team (15) and Thunderbolt (26). So it is better than it's counterparts from Red/Blue version.
@@CoralCopperHead - If I wanted a garbage electric type for a solo run I'd be talking crap about voltorb since it's a lot more limited in what it can do.
So you see Chespin ks technically weak to the first gym, it gets rollout within the level cap, which is more often than not enough to kill a 4x weak Vivillon
Mikey, I wanted to tell you thank you for your contribute towards me loving Pokémon so much. Your videos, new or old, always bring a smile on my face every time I watch them. Heck, even a video I rewatched 5 times from your channel is still so intriguing, no matter how much time has past. I loved Pokémon my whole life and wouldn’t have loved it the same if I didn’t watch your videos. Thank you so much and keep up with the great content. Hail Yeah!
Squirtle is the BEST Kanto starter and has the fastest speedrun. Dig will One shot Everything from Lt Surge. Ice Beam crushes Erika's gym. Squirtle has a high power super effective move for every leader but Sabrina, and on the remake his Bite is super effective LOL.
In kanto,the best one is squirtle, he can learn ice beam and earthquake, compare to bulbasaur and charmander, the game is a lot lot easier if you choose squirtle
Maybe later on. But the idea of “best starters” is usually gauges by the first third of the game difficulty. But best starter doesn’t mean your methods are wrong. :3
Kanto Squirtle did not deserve to be on this list, because it destroys Giovanni in every encounter with him. It also has the benefit that Surf is a very strong Special attack that every player will get in order to beat the game. Granted, that's probably part of the reason he was listed early, but I still think there's a huge gap between Squirtle and the other Pokemon here. (Maybe not Sprigatito, I picked one in Scarlet and have no idea how much better the other options are.)
Y’know, people always say Meganium is the worst in-game starter (and it is), but Serperior is right there. Especially without access to Contrary in Gen 5, it’s so underwhelming into everything. Probably not as bad as Meganium, but it’s basically got the same horrible overly tanky stat spread and poor coverage.
snivy/serperior can learn alot of useful tm's tbh what michael didnt cover in this video is tm's and moves in general.. for example charmander learns metal claw at level 13 which can beat brocks geodude with ease and definetly is not a dead weight. alot of pokemon here dont deserve what they got and if he actually checked movesets and tm's alot of these would not be here
serperior is better than meganium because it's more useful against the evil team, who don't usually carry pokemon that are strong against it. meanwhile team rocket's out here with houndour/houndoom and all the fucking koffing and zubat in the world.
I'd argue that Squirtle is the easiest starter to solo with, at least in FRLG. You get the Dig and Ice Beam TMs right before the two gyms that they're most needed for (Surge and Erika), which completely flips its bad match-ups in the player's favor.
@@aganbraganca4156 in modern games yes but gen 1 special stat had 0 counter so special attackers would break the game. thats why squirtle was true easy mode. was not till gen 2 (maybe even gen 3) they made special attack ad special def separate to balance this..
Do you think the worst part of Kanto is viridian forest? The forest wherein many tiles don't have encounters and most trainers are skippable and otherwise just have weedles and caterpies?
@@themattman9224 there is only a single mandatory battle in viridian forest, and that is the final weedle trainer who can be defeated by a level 6 Squirtle. With Charmander you need to be at least level 12 to beat Brock so you need to take all the optional trainers too, but with Ember that is easy.
Another thing against Pikachu in Yellow Version is that the electric type is virtually useless in Kanto. I mean, the only time electric is useful is against water/flying types (of which there is ONE in all of the major plot battles in Kanto, Lance's Gyarados).
@thesacredlobo Sorry, I forgot about his Aerodactyl in Yellow, but it still doesn't negate what I said. The electric is still virtually useless in Kanto.
@@awesomeandrew5266 - I disagree. While it doesn't hit that many types super effectively; it does hit most targets for neutral damage. And thunderbolt is a solid move that only gets better with stab. And Jolteon having a roughly 1 in 4 chance to score a critical hit in Gen 1 makes thunderbolt a pretty scary move.
@thesacredlobo I can understand that, but Jolteon, while getting the potential high crits in gen 1, is very vulnerable those other 3 times out of 4. Since ground types are fairly prevalent in Gen 1, Jolteon gets bodied by them, especially if it tries to go for double kick with its horrible physical attack. Also, its base HP is abysmal too.
@@awesomeandrew5266 - I'd argue Pikachu is better at countering ground Pokemon than Jolteon in Yellow. This is because Pikachu can learn Seismic Toss and if your doing a solo run you'll be able to easily body most ground types with two tosses. And ground type isn't as omnipresent as your implying either. You have Brock, a handful of Hikers, a trainer or two with cubone or marowak, Giovanni, and Bruno's onixs. I might be forgetting a few, but a lot of the trainers with ground types are optional. And many ground types in gen 1 don't learn ground moves until very late in the game or in some cases never learn a ground move naturally. A good example of this is rhyhorn which never learns a rock or ground move via level up. Sandshrew is also in the same boat. As a result the only time you'll see Sandslash as a major threat is during the championship battle with Blue. In fact, I'd argue the scariest hurdle to overcome is Giovanni, but he can be managed with some double team luck and badge boosts. Albeit I did have to reach level 79 in order to clear the final battle with Blue during my Pikachu run through Yellow.
Teach Wartortle Dig and Ice Beam and it suddenly has no issues with Lt. Surge and Erica. Charmander destroys Brock with Ember in RB, and Metal Claw in FRLG. Teach it Dig and/or wait until you get Slash in RB and it'll destroy Misty as well.
Where will Team Sky go to next? Another fan game or one of the main games like Unova or Kalos? I genuinely would love a main game video with Team Sky but that’s just me. Love ur vids man!❤🙏🔥👌
I mean, that’s why we have 5 other spots for Pokémon. Where your starter might struggle, you have a Pokémon that can cover for one’s weaknesses, same old same old
Except that some starters are so good they never need other mons to cover for them, and that makes them so good while the over reliance on other team members or level grinding is the telling sign of a bad starter. However ironically the two starters that can easily breeze through Kanto solo are on the list and the starter that struggles, Bulbasaur, isn't.
No, no Blastoise. Calm down. I’m sure the nice man on this video didn’t mean to put your evolutionary line on here twice. Let’s just put your cannons back in your shell, nice and easy. There isn’t that bett- oh no don’t use skull bash!
For quite a while before Nidoking routing was developed, speedrunners took Squirtle and used it for the entire game because it was the best. Even now they still pick Squirtle because it is the strongest starter up until the point where they can get a Nidoran.
@@nicolaistuhlmuller8718 Only possible through RNG manipulation isn't exactly true, more like only practical with RNG manipulation. I think it has something like a 2 percent encounter rate. Still, calling squirtle one of the top 10 worst starters remains an awful take.
@@Eternalwarpuppy yeah you're right, it is possible without rng manipulation, just not really feasible, but yeah for the regular player it is still the best mon to pick overall, and has no place on this list.
It’s such a relief to see a RUclipsr that just gets straight to the video. There are too many out there that spend the first 5 minutes with intros, references to other channels and sponsors. Love your content!
While Sprigatito might be the worst on paper for S&V it never felt that way for my playthrough. He was a champ and it was hard to even let other pokemon have a turn to shine.
I don't think it's even the worst on paper. Flower Trick is way better than Quaquaval's aqua step. a 70 power grass type move that never misses and always crits is really strong. It's nowhere near as strong as the beast that is Skeledirge, but I prefer it to Quaquaval in battle. It also has great speed and a fantastic movepool.
@@noahberan6498 Valid. I like Quaquaval in comp, myself, but in terms of a normal playthrough like the video... I like the move, i just think that it's massively outclassed by torch song and flower trick. I like Quaquaval, but there are better water types and fighting types in Paldea. I think Meowscarada is better in a casual playthrough as there are fewer good grass types or dark types in the main story that can compare to it (not counting legendaries) ...Then again, an argument could be made for either and Skeledirge is borderline broken, so I suppose it doesn't really matter lol
grass just really suffers in general as its got SO MANY weaknesses. and so much resist it if it doesn't get a 2ndary typing, it struggles so much.... idk why they don't do something for it to address how many weaknesses it has vs all the other starters. and seriously, in so many of the games, the first gyms always seem hostile to grass (not so much gen 1. but all others) wish they'd admit grass is a support type, not a standalone, and give grass types 2ndary typings (also special mention to Serperior. while its contrary ability gives it some life. its move pool is the definition of small, and monotype. it has the smallest movepool of any starter and the LEAST type diversity. it needs more non grass moves)
I wouldn't say 'so many' games. Only Johto and Kalos, all other games either have a Rock gym, something neutral, or are the Striaton gym. (I guess you could argue Paldea also has a bad matchup, but Paldea is a weird case)
hear me out, i’ve always thought grass should be good against fairy. while it would admittedly make more sense a resistance, one of fairy’s weaknesses (poison) and one of the types that resists it (fire) have something to do with harming plants, meaning they have some relation. so the literal plant type should reign over the other nature related type
@@patar00 honestly. Psychic should be strong vs fairy. finish that triangle cause fairy kinda replaced psychic xD as for grass...could be strong vs fairy, but i think they just need to reduce how many types resist it. cause it struggles so much offensively
@@patar00yeah.....fairies dont work that way. While its true some like Nymphs and Driads protect the forest, the rest like say Trolls, Gnomes, Dullahans (yes, dullahans), etc either are neutral or dont care And the fairy typing is based on ALL fairied, not just Thinkerbell😅
Im so glad i started with yellow because man im always learning about some jank that blows my mind. Its shocking that charizard cannot learn fly, he had to have been a fire/dragon and they changed it last second for balance reasons.
Funny thing is, the anime agrees with Mikey in Kanto. Pikachu initially refuses to battle and then gets beat when Ash does get it to fight. Ash rematches almost every gym, typically loses again but is gifted half of the badges for... being a good kid
Yellow was my first Pokemon game. It came with a GameBoy Colour with Pikachu on it. I remember I always had to catch a Caterpie in Viridian Forest and grind it so it evolved into Butterfree, which is actually quad weak to rock, but it out speeds all of the trainers and Brock's Pokemon and confusion hits for decent neutral damage.
Squirtle is awesome! It beats brock, ties with misty, and when surge comes up you should have a geodude, or a diglet by that point. Great againts all Giovanni fights, great against Blaine, bruno, teach it ice beam wrecks Lance!! Good against 3 of rivals pokemon!!
No need for another mon, just teach it Dig for Surge, also takes care of Koga, Agatha and the pokémon tower. With Ice Beam for Erika and Lance you're set. It even beats Misty because her Starmie has no other non water move than Tackle.
9:31 Chespin does learn Rollout at lvl 8 so its unironically the best starter against Viola, no way to nerf Rollout as Water Sport does nerf Fire type moves and Vivillion is 4 times weak to Rock
You still need at least 2 or 3 hits before rollout can do enough to win u the battle, and while vivillon does have a 4x rock weakness you can exploit, it's still faster and has a chance to either increase its defence with Harden, or weaken you with infestation before you can beat it And if U miss even once, which is still possible, then u HAVE to build up power again. If Chespin could learn defense curl, then rollout is much easier to work with cos it's already double in power
@@hinatashoyo1937 Squirtle's not hard to make work in major battles at all. You just need Bubble for Brock. Bite, Seismic Toss, or Mega Punch for Misty. Dig for Surge. Basically nothing for Koga and Sabrina. Surf for Blaine and Giovanni. Ice Beam for the Elite 4. And though Wartortle/Blastoise isn't sweeping Erika, he can do major damage to her.
To summarize, the worst starter for each region (spoilers for the video): Kanto: Charmander (unless playing Yellow) Johto: Chikorita Hoenn: 🤷♀️ Sinnoh: 🤷♀️ Unova: Snivy (both the original and sequel) Kalos: Chespin and Squirtle Alola: 🤷♀️ Galar: Sobble Paldea: Sprigatito Congrats to Hoenn, Sinnoh, and Alola. None of their starters even made the top 10👍 Also Grass types get screwed over a lot, jeez😅
charmander is not the worst in kanto its best in firered leafgreen stronger than squirtle and bulbasaur. bulbasaur is worst becuase it sucks aftr misty
Haven't checked your other videos so you might have done this already but ngl I would love a video where you layout which regions would be the best/worst for each starter pokemon to be available in. There would definitely be overlap for any single typers but still
You are so wrong about Squirtle especially in gen 3 remakes Brock: easy Misty: bite Surge: dig Erica: ice beam Sabrina: bite Koga: surf and great defensive stats Blane: easy Giovanni: easy
You're selling Chespin SUPER short. In terms of moveset-It has rollout for the first gym, giving you an easy sweep if you get a bit of luck. Tm coverage in hone claws, bulldoze and rock tomb, plus level up moves like bite and leech seed give it the most variety early on compared to the two special attackers. From repeat playthroughs, i've found Quilladin's general bulk more reliable in the midgame than the other two frail 'mons. The aforementioned learnset makes it the best for Grant's tyrunt. It falls off a bit after the electric gym, yeah, but i think a notable claim to fame is it being one of the best counters >in the game< for that Mega Gyarados Lysandre has. Id argue that Kalos has the best balance of usefulness of starters throughout the game, and id even say Chesnsught had more notable matchups than Greninja, who's only full team advantages are one late gym and one elite four member. It certainly deserves to be higher up than snivy, let alone some of the other options on this list.
I'm pretty sure Chestnaught potentially gets super effective coverage against everything but Dragon. Throw an Expert Belt on him and you can absolutely steam roll a majority of the fights. I'd say it's biggest hurdles are Flying-types, because of that Quad-Weakness, Dragons, and other Fighting types ironically.
@@theamazingspooderman2697 Roll-Out is 95 Acc, not that much luck needed. I fought Viola with Chespin a lot. I think I had one or two instances where Chespin missed its roll-out and even then, I still won the battle after. It's really not that hard to beat Viola with Chespin
![Noob To Max With DRAGON REWORK In Blox Fruits [FULL MOVIE]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/LnBMOinoOvA/mqdefault.jpg)
Still some time left to get a Team Sky t-shirt! Grab one before the preorder window closes! mandjtvmerch.com/
TEAM SKY 🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅
It's fine that you're bi, we still accept you.
Ok
@@Curruptedgaming3524 Michael is a total daddy and clearly secretly LGBT, a person's relationship status has nothing to do with their sexuality.
@@smb-c3po what and I don’t care because I am gay
Since not gaining secondary type was a big deal for this video it would be cool if you did a video where you gave all the starters a secondary type
See, the thing that bothers me with a lot of the Pokémon community is how much people seem to think being a mono type Pokemon is the worst thing ever, including the starters. Not every Pokémon needs 2 types
@@EpicRandomness555 no one said its the worst thing and they need them. It's a disadvantage in this particular scenario for the purposes of this list that only takes into account a single Pokémon, of course it would be better in most cases to have dual typing when looking at a single Pokémon, just as it would be less of an advantage when looking at the typing of a team of Pokémon, but this isn't about teams, it's about specific individual starters.
@@TheLostVikingr Also, I'd assume this "secondary type" would be a regional form so it wouldn't matter competitively if you prefer the monotype anyway. Though i'd also add that it shouldn't just be for monotype mons, but for ALL the starters to be fair.
That’s a pretty good Idea. I’d give Blastoise the steel type if I could.
Eh, but most of em have secondary types alteady
Another issue Charmander has in Red/Blue is that fire didn’t resist ice in gen 1, so Charizard is also weak to Lorelei’s ice moves in addition to her water moves.
Is this really true???? If so, thats just sad.
Actually, that’s an error. This one poketuber called SmithPlaysPokemon talked about it and said that it’s just a text error. Charizard does take neutral damage from ice, but the displayed text says super effective
@@thegamedanalyst2169 I knew about the text error, where only the type effectiveness against a Pokémon’s secondary type is displayed. But Bulbapedia has the gen 1 type chart with ice neutral against fire. Unless that is a mistake.
@@SweetBananaDigitalit’s not a mistake, in gen 1 the type chart was a little different. For example, the aforementioned fire not resisting ice as well as bug and poison both being super effective against each other. There only one that was a bug was psychic being immune to ghost.
@@biannualcube2704 That’s what I thought.
Saying we all saw Chikorita coming, I'm more surprised it wasn't in the top slot. I do really hate how Chiko got so done over. I do love its line
Then postgame 2x 1x for kanto gyms
it's not surprising regardless since it's widely seen as the worst starter of all time due to how Chikorita is completely useless in it's home region having 0 winning match up's outside of Chuck's poliwrath and Bruno's onix.
honestly i wouldn't be surprised if someone picked chikorita in a Johto game...and ended up either restarting their save or boxed it because of how it doesn't get a single chance to shine, in fact it would be a miracle if it's even a meganium by the time you reach the league as it's probably been a Bayleef the whole time with how little you get to use it
It sucks though because I love Chikorita
@@kittenoffire3325true, chikorita is my favorite pokemon and I'm really sad about how gamefreak has treated her over the years
Chikorita deserves a fairy typing.
It just deserves better after all these years. It deserves to be the cute little precious Princess it always should have been.
I think it's worth noting that mutual resistance actually works in one's favor. For example, one reason Wartortle can be good against Misty is that you force Staryu and Starmie to rely on weaker Normal-type attacks that run off their less-good Attack stat, while Wartortle can use Tackle or Bite. Just because you can't hit them neutrally with your STAB doesn't mean you aren't able to force the opponent to use less-optimal moves.
You also notably get access to the mega punch TM very early on in gen1 (I believe you find it in Mt Moon, or just after it, if memory serves), and there are 2 move tutors for mega punch and the stronger but less accurate mega kick just outside Cerulean City in FRLG as well. Both these moves are stronger than bite or tackle, but bite also hits Starmie super-effectively in gen3 since it's only a normal type attack in gen1
When choosing Squirtle as starter, just grab a Pikachu in Viridian Forest. It gets STAB with Thunderbolt, which it knows from the start.
"Chespin ain't do anything to Vivillion", one of the first moves it learns is rollout, it's 4x super effective against vivillion
Chespin is unironically the best base starter evolution in a playthrough since rollout gives it coverage against 4 of its weaknesses
Appreciate the likes and the engagement in the comments😂
It's not stab and requires multiple uses to make a difference
@@eljordinio7647 and Vivillon cant do anything back, so unless rollout misses, its a free kill. Even then your gonna use rollout against Surskit, so its likely on its 3rd or 4th roll already
@@eljordinio7647usually a 2 hit KO and even if you miss, infestation is not that strong. Even the residual damage.
@@TheGodIvy that's facts
You forgot to mention something about Charizard. That steel type wasn't even there in the original games.
Not that it matters (much)
Did they give it metal claw early bc of the first gym in that gen
@@Sheenifier They gave that line metal claw in the remakes during gen 3 but in gen 1 steel type didn't even exist. It was introduced in gen 2 and Magnemite and Magneton were given the type retroactively.
@@Confron7a7ion7 I was talking about gen 3
@@Sheenifier IDK, probably. They never really tell us why they do things but that would make sense.
9:20, on paper Chespin’s Viola matchup seems like it’s bad. But given that chespin learns rollout. It makes the gym an absolute cakewalk. Froakie actually has the hardest time with that gym
That's true 🤔🤔
I was just about to say that :(
It still can miss it though
@@buusinhojr.9555 I mean yeah but it’s not going to die in 1 infestation. And Vivillion has a deadly allergy to geology
The AI could also be dumb & go for Harden instead, not clicking Infestation every time while facing Chespin.
Hugs Squirtle "Don't listen to the bad man my precious wee guy"
Squirtle doesn't need to be sad. It could be Charmander, which has no advantages in the first gym and a massive weakness in the second.
New ability just dropped for incineroar called “F*** You”. When incineroar enters the field, it drops all the opponents stats by 6 stages, sets up a belly drum, regenerates incineroar to full, sets up max spikes stealth rocks toxic spikes, leech infestation, burns the opponent, sets up desolate land, gives it sturdy and wonderguard, gives it stab on all moves, Huge Power, Good as Gold, Unseen Fist, Intimidate, protect never fails, neutralizing has for only opponents (but toggleable for regigigas), immunity to neutralizing gas, all items only apply buffs (ie choice items don’t lock moves), Harvest but 100% of the time, effects of mirror white mental herbs, regenerator bit to full HP, allows grass types to be hit by spore, all status can be applied on a Pokémon at all times, give opponents toxic, paralysis, sleep, freeze, frostbite, stops ghost types from switching, applies bind magmastorm whirlpool etc. able to use Z-moves on all turns without holding z crystal, tablets beads vessel sword of ruin on only opponents, friend guard, sets up aroura veil, multiscale for every turn, priority on all moves, makes all moves never miss, technician but works for moves up to 1000 BP, max evasion and drops accuracy of opponent to minimum, no EV limit, and why not, give it ball fetch.
Don’t make Wolfeyvgc commit suicide
That's very balanced
Jesus😂😂😂
Sir this is a worst starters video
VGC players describing why they hate Gens 7 and 8
So what I've learned is that I instinctively gravitate towards the underdogs.
"Strong Pokémon. Weak Pokémon. That is only the selfish perception of people. Truly skilled trainers should try to win with their favorites."- Karen, Pokemon Gold/Silver.
Me with Snivy
Time to pick the weed cat.
(Note: Sprigatito (And By extension, Meowscarada) Broke SEVEN SCARLET / VIOLET SPEEDRUN RECORDS IN 1 DAY)
Jigglypuff ftw!
@@MoonlarkSpirits right i love snivy . i will always pick it in a unova game not matter what. its only beaten by spriggatito as fave grass type
You are clearly not on team Valor in Pokemon go. I'm guessing you are Mystic (Raven claw,) or team Instinct aka Hufflepuff.
Not to also mention by selecting Squirtle in Kanto, you give your rival Bulbasaur which will end up knowing a move that can put your team to sleep
It won't out speed your Squirtle. Plus, you'll have other measures of dealing with it.
@@LittleAl016you can deal with it but it will be hard I played these games like 50 times and played with different starter each time and always venasur and makes my team go to sleep yeah I have fire types to counter it but it is annoying
@@Ruinousria It's not as hard as you think. Given that you'll likely be outspeeding Venusaur, and have enough coverage to get him in a few enough hits. In all honesty, Exeggutor is more annoying than Venusaur.
@@LittleAl016 you ain't killing that ivysaur in one hit
Victreebel and Exeggutor are better in gen 1. Victreebel has wrap spam and also has razor leaf and sleep spam and exeggutor is part psychic so obviously it’s broken
Tip for Yellow: trade the yellow rat to yourself in either Red or Blue, evolve it, teach it Body Slam from TM 08, trade it back to Yellow. Big upgrade and the only downside is Raichu doesn't walk around with you
Granted, you may wanna hold off on the evolution until lv.26, because then it can learn Thunderbolt without needing the tm. Aside from that, and getting the gift Bulbasaur, there’re no reasons to NOT force it to evolve, unless you literally lack the means of trading it.
Edit: Also, the evolution will work even if you trade it to another copy of Yellow, so long as the trainer ID is different from the Pikachu’s OT ID.
Was going to say the same - Won't follow you after you evolve it though
@user-st7sl1xs4u but you can destroy everything with TM 08 so oh well if it doesn't follow 😉
that said I think this kills the joy and intent of playing Yellow
@@urieldaboamorte Intentionally hanidcapping yourself with a mon that refuses to evolve doesn't sound like a joyful experience. Personally, getting to obtain all three Kanto starters without trading is the joyful aspect of playing Yellow.
Chespin is actually not as bad of a starter for the first Kalos gym because it gets access to Rollout pretty early on, making it pretty easy to sweep Viola. I've done it before and it was awesome
Vivillon's Infestation is her only supereffective move against Chespin and it's not going to OHKO Chespin
@@fadhilmulyono9230 no but the damage will add up and if U miss a rollout or surskit gets a crit with quick attack beforehand, chespin will be in trouble
@eljordinio7647 rollout, even without stab and on the first turn, still does one 120 to vivillon, it's not really that big of a deal.
Mega Blastoise isn’t bad. Heck it’s a lot of fun shooting pulses and auras
Thing is with kanto squirtle, you learn bite right around the time you fight Misty and her Starmie, you then learn dig and can easily clean the electric gym. it can also learn ice beam and solo the elite four. It is the starter for a solo playthrough of firered or leaf green imo;
Charmander struggles a lot more throught the game, only having one easy gym and two elite four members who either wall ( Lance) or threaten (Lorelei)
i sadly agree that it's the only starter that's easily replaceable ( early magikarp, other grass/fire options weaker than the starter)
this message was brought to you by the squirtlesquad
You're typically not using another Water Pokémon other than Blastoise if you have chose Squirtle, though.
Blastoise was my starter in FireRed and it really came through in the tough moments its by far the best Kanto starter
Gen 3 bite is true, but Gen 1 bite is normal type, so that doesn't help.
@@tOGGLEwAFFLES in gen 1 Misty's Starmie only has a single neutral move: Tackle. This battle is almost impossible to lose with Wartortle even with normal type Bite, let alone Mega Punch.
You correctly mention how well Dig helps against Surge as well as Koga too, but you're forgetting one thing: Charmander learns Dig too. With Dig Charmander's favorable gym matchups jump to 5 (Surge, Erika, Koga, Blaine, Giovanni). In fact the fastest Charmander playthrough is only about 3 minutes slower than the fastest Squirtle playthrough.
Bulbasaur is a hopeless case though.
To be fair to the pikachu in yellow.... there is a HECK of a lot of pokemon between the gyms that are sensitive to electric attacks.
Yeah Pikachu can practically solo Mount Moon.
Yeah, I have a feeling Michael based this on a theoretical on-paper assessment rather than playing through the games. I'm sure he's played through the games, but I don't think he heavily relied on his experiences to come up with the list.
For example: Squirtle does not belong on this list. On paper you say "weak to the 3rd and 4th gyms, that's too much of a struggle too early." Except:
1) The squirtle line has the best early coverage movepool once you account for TMs. It's the only one of the three that has a decent STAB move in bubblebeam and gets both body slam and dig.
2) Dig provides good coverage against Surge. Also, as long as you have ANY ground type on your team at all, Wartortle only needs to beat the Voltorb and the Pikachu. Surge's Raichu can't damage ground types, so even a Geodude from Mt. Moon auto-wins against it. More likely, you'll have a Diglett or Dugtrio from Diglett's Cave right there. We're assuming you're largely using your starter, but can use other Pokemon if it's little effort. You don't need to put any effort into training the Diglett or Geodude, just catch them and use them for that one battle.
3) Before facing Erika, you had to get through Rock Tunnel, and probably ventured into the Rocket hideout and/or Pokemon Tower. If you're not super-optimizing your run, Blastoise will likely be in the 40's by this point, so Erika's level 29 Victreebell and Vileplume will not be pertinent. If you are super-optimizing your run, you either know that Erika can be delayed or know to get/use Ice Beam.
4) The other starters have their own setbacks that are even worse. Venusaur gets ZERO coverage and can only learn grass or normal moves (well, and status moves). Also, around 70% of the non-gym trainer pokemon you face before leaving Vermillion are bug, flying, poison, or fire types, so your best damage-dealing move most of the time in the early game is....Tackle. Meanwhile, Charizard doesn't learn a STAB move better than Ember until either reaching level 46 or beating Blaine.
@@cathygrandstaff1957 But considering that Pikachu starts to fall off once you reach Koga, why would you want to use it at Mt. Moon? Like, the strongest foe Pikachu can handle by itself is Lorelei, and that's it.
@@LittleAl016 Hey I used Pikachu all through Pokémon Yellow and didn’t have a problem with it. Then again I used Iron to boost the heck out of its defense so it could take hits as well as boosting special. Besides, it’s worth having it along to talk to and interact with, you’re missing everything that makes Yellow special if you don’t keep Pikachu in your party.
@@cathygrandstaff1957 I didn't say anything about taking Pikachu out of your party, now did I?
I bet the thumbnail will change
It better (or else)
It already did
Yes
Facts
And to Chikorita probably
To add insult to injury, Meganium doesn’t even get the full extent of its revenge when you go to Kanto, as Giovanni, the Ground Type specialist, is replaced by Blue, who has a Type diverse team that overall does slightly better against Meganium than Typhlosion.
Me sitting here knowing now I chose the worst starter yet it carried my team just smiling.
True
Chikorita: "sighs" here we go again
Based battles 2 pfp
Maybe if you learn some moves, you wouldn't be in the box!
Muuuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrr Stake
You underestimate Sprigatito. Yes, grass has a lot of weaknesses, but a 70 power move that always crits on a Pokémon with crazy high speed is *busted.* Who cares if you have low defenses and are weak to the opponent? You're just going to one-shot it, anyway.
I'd say that Quaxly is the worst of the Paldea starters. Physical water types are generally worse than special water types, and Aqua Step is only an okay move.
Also tera type exists in paldea so u can just change meowscarada's typing.
@@SassySceptile Ehhhh, yes, but actually no. Your starter Sprigatito defaults to grass tera type, and you can't reasonably change it until late/post game.
@@Celestia282 true. But you can technically grind for tera shards if u want and change tera type in Larry's town once u beat the gym
@@Celestia282 but at least pure grass type is better than Grass-Dark
@@Celestia282 Larry gives you 50 Normal Tera Shards for beating his gym, Hassel gives you 50 Dragon, and Tyme gives you 50 Rock for completing their stories.
Normal Tera for Meowscarada is terrible, but you didn't day anything about good Tera type choices.
Pokemon Yellow came out long before solo runs were popular. In order to beat Brock, they added Mankey to an early game route, and made Butterfree learn Confusion two levels sooner. They also gave Pikachu a lot more level up moves like Thunderbolt.
We were mostly excited about being able to play the anime. We got all three starters, fought Jessie and James, and we could get the coveted Surfing Pikachu in Pokemon Stadium. Then when Gen 2 came out, they added held items and we got a Light Ball if we transferred over the partner Pikachu.
They also gave Double Kick to the Nidos (which are early game along with Mankey)
Technically, "solo runs" were popular since the first time a kid who either couldn't read or didn't like reading skipped the tutorial text and didn't know how to catch more Pokémon so just ran with their starter 25+ levels ahead of anything else they managed to get ahold of.
Ash’s Pikachu has the stats of a Raichu so it won’t evolve into one
@@luisvelez1952 also it ate light ball i am preety sure
Funny you say solo runs weren't popular when yellow came out when people routinely destroyed the game with their starter. And in fact, I'd argue that until gen 6's exp share overhaul, the optimal way to play the game always was having 1-3 pokés max. No splitting experience, no splitting EVs/stat experience, no time wasted grinding, and before gen 5, didn't waste spreading good TMs between teammates.
With one pokémon, without grinding you easily got to the 80s/90s with rare candies. With 3 pokémon, you barely crack the 60s if at all, meaning you'd be underlevelled or levelled against the champ. That's the difference.
“Chespin ain’t doing anything to Vivillion”
Rollout:
Micheal's thumbnail's simplicity contributes a lot to the success of his videos. He is my Favourite poketuber and will always be. Thank you for everything
if only he put actual research in his videos as well, like saying Chespin is bad in the Bug gym when it literally learns Rollout at lvl 8
@@theamazingspooderman2697 this guy is an entertainer. He's a RUclipsr first. If his inaccuracies get him comments like yours, you're giving him one more comment he wouldn't have received otherwise. But you do you 🤷
@@theamazingspooderman2697 He also said "Wartortle isn't helping much in Misty's Gym" when HE LITERALLY KNOWS BITE BY THE TIME HE FACES MISTY. Also, did he just straight up forget that Blastoise can learn Ice Beam? And did he just straight up forget that Lapras requires grinding in order to be usable?
@@abrarkadabrar7829 he is just plain wrong, that's what I'm saying, also 1-2 comments won't boost him that much as I didn't used to comment until
Justice for Meganium, man. She really had it rough in Johto playthroughs as well as people hating on her because they think she "sucks". I am NOT one of those, but she should've gotten some love like a regional variant or something. She also deserved the Fairy type! Imagine, if that were a reality, people would hate on her less. 😥
man i agree, i love it but it just needs a regional to give it a better stat spread and the fairy type then it will finally stop getting flamed by people
I'd still not really like it because, FAIRY TYPING IS COMPLETELY DUM AND UNNECESSARY!!! My first Pokemon game was Yellow Version, and I still easily beat Lance without Fairy types.
Maybe it'll get into Legends Z-A and also get a Mega Evolution. Then we'll get to say Mega Meganium.
@@montyeggman3075 yeah i hope they do that for the gen 2 starters. and mega meganuim is fun to say
aRe YoU aSsUmEiNg ThEiR gEnDeR?!
Ok no but I’ve always loved meganiums design and I wish it was better.
What's worse about Pikachu is that it doesn't have ability, meaning If you want to paralyze a speedy pokemon you just hope you survive a hit or outspeed it
I feel like y'all hating on Pikachu but this pokemon yellow so ability and the special and physical state just special so yeah
@demarrionberry3676 like I said, cough, he's a Pikachu hater, 😢😢 cough, LOL 😆 😂 🤣
@demarrionberry3676 op said pikachu doesn't have the ability, meaning you have to outspeed or survive a hit to use thunder wave. Pikachu doesn't have held items, so no light ball, and you don't have the same access to mankey, just nidoran. Even if you do, you still need to spend a ton of time lowering Onyx stats, because both are glass cannons. Onyx has bide exclusively as an attacking move, and you are pretty much locked into growl and tail whip because it also has harden. This means you have to depend on rng exclusively to beat Brock, because you don't get access to ANY water or grass types before this gym in yellow. Take the rose tinted glasses off, man. That game was sadistic to kids.😂😂😂
@@leohawk776”rng exclusive?” Get outta here. Just get nidoran to a decent level (I literally just get it high enough to learn double kick and that’s it) and 9 times out of 10 it 1 shots geodude and 2 shots onix also bide takes a random amount of turns in gen 1 instead of the solid 2 so he could literally bide first turn and never get the chance to unleash cause it’s dead before then. Plus (even though it may not apply here) ever heard of the badge boost glitch? Double team 6 times with pikachu and all stats are now at +6 till either pikachu levels up mid fight or the fight ends. I don’t care what Pokémon you’re using. At +6 everything you’re fine
@beyondawesomegaming3517 nidoran doesn't learn double kick until LATE in gen 1, my guy. Gen 2 is when it goes down to level 12. Take it down a notch, noob.
0:35 Wow.
Firstly, I was simply not expecting that because it's really strong.
But also, WOW. Starting the video with my favorite starter of all time? Bold move XD
Funny how you talk about Meganium getting bullied by your rival and didn't acknowledge Bulbasaur gets even worse treatment. Between Pidgeot, Alakazam, Eggsecutor, and Charizard being super effective against Bulbasaur and Gyarados resisting Bulbasaur, your rival exists to harass Bulbasaur.
If only Aurorus existed, Blue would be in trouble.
Bulbasaur is still useful. Meganium isn’t. :0
In gen 1 and remakes bulbasaur is useful. In gen 2 and remakes chikorita doesn’t have anything going for it because of both gym and rival battles.
@@DarkEclipse23 Meganium is pretty decent in gen 2 due to its bulk and eveyone using weak moves. It gets destroyed in the gen 4 remakes tough.
In both blue/red and fire red leaf green exeggutor doesn't have a psychic move and is weak to poison.
You have no reason to keep using Pikachu once you get the eevee in celadon. Jolteon is often debated as to whether it’s better than Zapdos in gen 1. And with Surge giving you thunderbolt, you have great stab right off the bat.
There's also no reason to keep using Pikachu once you get your Nido up to snuff, I.E. once it learns Double Kick. And/or catch a Clefairy, make sure it learns Sing on level up, and then evolve it to Clefable.
If having an Electric type is somehow a must, though, there's also Zapdos and Jolteon.
"Chikorita has no usefulness outside of the first two gyms"
Whitney's Miltank says hi.
I used a Bayleef against her and won fairly easily.
Also something something Chespin learns Rollout.
Ok, so it's not just me. I played Silver when it first came out and picked Chikorita. And I don't remember having any problems with Whitney at all. (Granted, that was over 20 years ago now, but if it was as traumatic for me as it was for Mikey, I'd probably remember it. 😆)
@@AllenMS828Yeah Bayleef can definitely help against Whitney. Ideally Geodude and/or Muscle the Machop will help even more, but Bayleef can still contribute.
I actually did a Chikorita run a while back in Silver and beat Whitney on my first try, although that's probably because I had to overlevel to beat Bugsy. I leveled it up to level 29 to beat him by spamming Body Slam. Thank God for emulator speed up.
@@dawnsbunearyoh wow you suck
Yeah, the major issue with this video is that it only does a surface level inspection instead of a full deep dive. While it doesn’t actually matter which Pokémon you choose as your starter as each gym has a counter usually right next to it, picking Meganium is legitimately choosing to play on easy mode as it walls so many difficult fights. Especially Whitney and Claire.
16:38 Ash has a pseudo legend Pikachu
Ah yes, those pesky steel types in gen1. Not as annoying as dark types, but sheesh! At least you can counter the fairy types with them.
Lmao
I could also theoretically counter the fairies with a Nidoking
Yknow, they're useful for more than just taking down fairy types in gen 1!
Speedruners are gonna be pissed as soon as soon as he says Squirtle for Kanto
And he's flat out wrong for doing that.
@@LittleAl016 indeed
@@LittleAl016 Squirtle is the best starter
@@Wesfiton No 💩, Sherlock.
@@Wesfitoni thought bulbasaur was the best starter for kanto
Finally, Chikorita is 2nd. Work hard for dat 3rd place ma boy.
😡🤬MR. STAKE IS NOT BAD!! 😂😂 13:59
As TFS has said, "You can't kill him!! We've tried!" 😂😂😂
When sprigatito got on number 10 I was dying laughing because I did a poll tournament on a Pokemon fandom wiki and sprigatito won the whole thing against mudkip
it probably people who dont care about the pokemon being good in game cuz (maybe unpopular opinion)sprigatito looks cooler then mudkip
@@karthiksreeram1593 Doesnt matter meowscarada is too fast and hits too hard with flower trick. There is no world where it comes anywhere near this list. None of the gen 9 starters should.
@@jacksonmunro1925 yup
I’m pretty sure he was ranking the weakest choice per starter options. (Including B2W2, XY Kanto starters, Legends, etc)
That said, I’m not 100% on board that Sprigatito is the worst choice, but Fuecoco sweeps so weed cat is not the best either
@@jacksonmunro1925 average glass cannon enjoyer :
Turtwig fans: "WOOO!!! NOT US!!"
Truuuuuuue while I am a chimchar fan more than a turtwig fan the bulk on that turtle boy is friggen awesome and when it gets the best ground type stab move on evolution means if it can tank infernapes flare blitz (which as I stated that Effin bulk) it can actually hard counter said infernape with eq. Just don’t put it anywhere near Candice’s gym and you’re good to go
I love torterra but with 2 fire types and a gazillion water types. You'd be dumb not to take chimchar
@@La_Verge I mean, meh? Yea in diamond and pearl true but with platinum adding another few to the point where you could actually have flint have an almost full fire type team it’s a little easier to pick torterra. Not saying you’re wrong just saying it depends.
WHY MEEE WHYYYY ME
@@beyondawesomegaming3517Infernape gets Overheat.
*When Michael realizes that Chespin is the best starter in Viola because it gets Rollout*
Fr like he doesn’t even mention the moves they’re able to learn and is just going off of types
@@adrianhandley9895 coverage is great but it's stab moves that get more damage in
@@eljordinio7647 if the move kills, it doesnt metter if they do not have stab
@@Joao.Ramiro sometimes it does
Sure, Chespin beats Viola, but does that make Chesnaught better than Delphox or Greninja?
Squirtle can learn coverage moves like Dig and Ice Beam, and in FRLG Bite is a dark type move which it learns at 18/19 and makes it useful against Starmie.
'the gym matchups barely matter at this point' was the best line
He forgets about water types access to ice beam which is a significant help for coverage
But Ice Beam is a late TM move in some of the games (particularly Gen V Black and White). I'm pretty sure Mikey emphasized on the early gyms for his judgment for picks in this video.
@@ryanprjgamingchannel9437 To be fair gen 5 is a whole different breed of game in terms of scaling😅
But anywho, just cuz it's late doesn't mean it doesn't remain useful. water type also has awesome type coverage as well.
@@XAaronymousX But... Water types are so replacable...
You could run Gyarados on any team for your water type. Except in the Unova games where it is locked to postgame, fo that one best water type is Seismitoad... who is part water and ground and is only weak to the uncommon grass coverage
@@ryanprjgamingchannel9437you could argue that literally ANY Pokemon is "so replaceable" because you could literally replace any Pokemon with one of the same type... Yeah, that's how the games work! So that point you tried to make is irrelevant tbh.
@@negligible_reality Yeah. You don't need to keep your Starter through all the way to endgame. Case in point as Unova region can attest, since I would rather have Darmanitan as my Fire-type, Lilligant (or Whimsicott) for filler Grass-type, and Seismitoad for Water-type.
Squirttle is my favorite Kanto starter. I watched farther on and he is basically naming all my favorite starters 😢
I like squirtle too
you just like hard mode. And it's Pokemon so hard mode is still easy so....
Worst of all is that smith plays analyses the game and he pick squirtle as the best starter
I like squirtle bulbasuar and charmander.
@@doodle1488I’ve been doing the math myself for my own project and Squirtle is fundamentally the best Gen 1 starter by far
Besides the fact that both Squirtle entries shouldn't be on here, I don't think you considered when mons learn moves enough. Gen III Treecko should be on here with Grovyle being stuck with Absorb or Bullet Seed as it's best STAB until level 29.
lets not forget anything from Sinnoh that isn’t Infernape
Idc how bad snivy is in his games.. i will always love and protect my boy
I was stubborn with my first playthrough of Scarlet and decided "If I can do all the battles in any order, I'm going to do them clockwise, starting at the bottom of the map" Needless to say, after the first gym, I felt no drawbacks to picking Sprigatito
Ah ah ah!
Chespin wrecks the first gym as it learns Rollout, a ROCK move. In fact, Chespin breezes through the first two gyms that both Froakie and Fenniken struggle with.
Fennekin struggles in a Bug gym how?
He's probably referencing surskit being an issue for fennekin but to be honest any of the starters do good against the gym
@@zeusoi2854 Viola's first 'mon is Surskit, which has water STAB, and is hit by fire for neutral instead of super effective.
@@tamarjaeger It also has Water Sport
@@zeusoi2854 bcz of Water Sport but the wording was wrong as Fennekin doesn't struggle
My sister had Pokémon Yellow, so I can imagine how often she must have cursed at that yellow rat.
Yeah Game Freak was just thinking "kids love the anime, Pikachu sells, and thus Yellow was tossed out and nobody gave it a second glance until they realized they do NOT get Ash's exact Pikachu like the anime XD
To be nice, they did enhance Pikachu's moveset by giving it early access to Double Team (15) and Thunderbolt (26). So it is better than it's counterparts from Red/Blue version.
@@thesacredlobo Yes.
@@thesacredlobo It's not hard to improve on garbage.
@@CoralCopperHead - If I wanted a garbage electric type for a solo run I'd be talking crap about voltorb since it's a lot more limited in what it can do.
So you see
Chespin ks technically weak to the first gym, it gets rollout within the level cap, which is more often than not enough to kill a 4x weak Vivillon
Mikey, I wanted to tell you thank you for your contribute towards me loving Pokémon so much. Your videos, new or old, always bring a smile on my face every time I watch them. Heck, even a video I rewatched 5 times from your channel is still so intriguing, no matter how much time has past. I loved Pokémon my whole life and wouldn’t have loved it the same if I didn’t watch your videos. Thank you so much and keep up with the great content. Hail Yeah!
Squirtle is the BEST Kanto starter and has the fastest speedrun. Dig will One shot Everything from Lt Surge. Ice Beam crushes Erika's gym. Squirtle has a high power super effective move for every leader but Sabrina, and on the remake his Bite is super effective LOL.
If miltank ever became a starter pokemon, our boy will have a breakdown
Grass/Normal calf pokemon based on the soy plant with the Protean ability
14:26 I always thought Meganium looks like it could be Fairy Type so I really hope it gets a regional variant where it becomes a Fairy Type.
Could have a Grass/Fairy mega evolution
Mega Meganium?!
@@jeffreygao3956 There was a leak last month that showed a possible mega meganium for legends ZA.
In kanto,the best one is squirtle, he can learn ice beam and earthquake, compare to bulbasaur and charmander, the game is a lot lot easier if you choose squirtle
Maybe later on. But the idea of “best starters” is usually gauges by the first third of the game difficulty. But best starter doesn’t mean your methods are wrong. :3
@@DarkEclipse23 even if its the first third of the game, charmander is the hardest one to use, gym leader are rock,water,electric
@@MrPanaz It's actually Bulbasaur that's the hardest to use.
Kanto Squirtle did not deserve to be on this list, because it destroys Giovanni in every encounter with him. It also has the benefit that Surf is a very strong Special attack that every player will get in order to beat the game. Granted, that's probably part of the reason he was listed early, but I still think there's a huge gap between Squirtle and the other Pokemon here. (Maybe not Sprigatito, I picked one in Scarlet and have no idea how much better the other options are.)
Meganium: "Oh boy, here we go again"
Y’know, people always say Meganium is the worst in-game starter (and it is), but Serperior is right there.
Especially without access to Contrary in Gen 5, it’s so underwhelming into everything.
Probably not as bad as Meganium, but it’s basically got the same horrible overly tanky stat spread and poor coverage.
Yeah, but scarf contrary leaf storm is one hell of a drug
@@ismael8391 Scarf Contrary Leaf Storm Serperior has scarred me on Pokémon Showdown
snivy/serperior can learn alot of useful tm's
tbh what michael didnt cover in this video is tm's and moves in general.. for example charmander learns metal claw at level 13 which can beat brocks geodude with ease and definetly is not a dead weight.
alot of pokemon here dont deserve what they got and if he actually checked movesets and tm's alot of these would not be here
@@sheenakr7616he's just going by type matchups because if you know strategy, you can pick any starter you want lol
serperior is better than meganium because it's more useful against the evil team, who don't usually carry pokemon that are strong against it. meanwhile team rocket's out here with houndour/houndoom and all the fucking koffing and zubat in the world.
I'd argue that Squirtle is the easiest starter to solo with, at least in FRLG. You get the Dig and Ice Beam TMs right before the two gyms that they're most needed for (Surge and Erika), which completely flips its bad match-ups in the player's favor.
Which means he doesn't belong on this list.
in gen 1 with how broken special was squirtle was brokenly OP
Squirtle is also the second best choice for a playthrough other than nidoking in gen 1.
you have to remember its offensive stats sucks
@@aganbraganca4156 in modern games yes but gen 1 special stat had 0 counter so special attackers would break the game. thats why squirtle was true easy mode.
was not till gen 2 (maybe even gen 3) they made special attack ad special def separate to balance this..
He forgets the worst part of Kanto is the forest at the start of the game which gets slammed by charmander
Pidgey exist for a reason
Do you think the worst part of Kanto is viridian forest? The forest wherein many tiles don't have encounters and most trainers are skippable and otherwise just have weedles and caterpies?
@ yes poisoning is so annoying and you can’t do any damage to the bug types with bulbasaur
@@themattman9224 there is only a single mandatory battle in viridian forest, and that is the final weedle trainer who can be defeated by a level 6 Squirtle. With Charmander you need to be at least level 12 to beat Brock so you need to take all the optional trainers too, but with Ember that is easy.
if chikorita in here i will not be surprised but i will cry. that’s my green bean
Same❤
Same❤
Please world, give fairy type to Meganium
Agreed.
I clicked the video and said this hahaha
Michael, how dare you start with Sprigatito... I LOVE SPRIGATITO
At least he said sprigatito isn't bad it's just that he has few options
( I have sprigatito in Pokemon Violet )
The measure are relied on early fight since that is where starter mater the most
Meowscarada will still be pretty busted later anyways
Sprigatito is best stater for speedruning
Even Sada and Turo has a huge advantage against it.
9:21 chespin learns rollout pretty early on so it can deal with Vivillon pretty well
True but it's not stab and it could just miss with 90 accuracy.
Mine OHKO’d vivillon with rollout
@@mercedestrenz1881And it will still struggle with a lot of the gym fights, and have trouble with even some Team Flare members
So in other words... I've been making 90 percent of my runs harder since 90 percent of the pokémon in this video are my favorite starters? Huh.
Another thing against Pikachu in Yellow Version is that the electric type is virtually useless in Kanto. I mean, the only time electric is useful is against water/flying types (of which there is ONE in all of the major plot battles in Kanto, Lance's Gyarados).
It's bit weird you'd specify Lance and not mention his Aerodactyl as well.
@thesacredlobo Sorry, I forgot about his Aerodactyl in Yellow, but it still doesn't negate what I said. The electric is still virtually useless in Kanto.
@@awesomeandrew5266 - I disagree. While it doesn't hit that many types super effectively; it does hit most targets for neutral damage. And thunderbolt is a solid move that only gets better with stab.
And Jolteon having a roughly 1 in 4 chance to score a critical hit in Gen 1 makes thunderbolt a pretty scary move.
@thesacredlobo I can understand that, but Jolteon, while getting the potential high crits in gen 1, is very vulnerable those other 3 times out of 4. Since ground types are fairly prevalent in Gen 1, Jolteon gets bodied by them, especially if it tries to go for double kick with its horrible physical attack. Also, its base HP is abysmal too.
@@awesomeandrew5266 - I'd argue Pikachu is better at countering ground Pokemon than Jolteon in Yellow. This is because Pikachu can learn Seismic Toss and if your doing a solo run you'll be able to easily body most ground types with two tosses.
And ground type isn't as omnipresent as your implying either. You have Brock, a handful of Hikers, a trainer or two with cubone or marowak, Giovanni, and Bruno's onixs. I might be forgetting a few, but a lot of the trainers with ground types are optional.
And many ground types in gen 1 don't learn ground moves until very late in the game or in some cases never learn a ground move naturally.
A good example of this is rhyhorn which never learns a rock or ground move via level up. Sandshrew is also in the same boat. As a result the only time you'll see Sandslash as a major threat is during the championship battle with Blue.
In fact, I'd argue the scariest hurdle to overcome is Giovanni, but he can be managed with some double team luck and badge boosts.
Albeit I did have to reach level 79 in order to clear the final battle with Blue during my Pikachu run through Yellow.
A little saving grace for Chespin is that it can sweep Viola in 3 turns with rollout, which it gets a level 8
I have NOT gotten a recommendation from you in a while holy
9:32 Ah yes, a jumping dandelion in a circus and a plant shooting acid.
Teach Wartortle Dig and Ice Beam and it suddenly has no issues with Lt. Surge and Erica.
Charmander destroys Brock with Ember in RB, and Metal Claw in FRLG. Teach it Dig and/or wait until you get Slash in RB and it'll destroy Misty as well.
Forgot to say fire didn't resist ice in gen 1 meaning those water ice pokemon can hit with super effective blizzard
Where will Team Sky go to next? Another fan game or one of the main games like Unova or Kalos? I genuinely would love a main game video with Team Sky but that’s just me. Love ur vids man!❤🙏🔥👌
I hope he goes to Orre next.
He will suffer in the grueling deserts of Pokemon Arizona!
I mean, that’s why we have 5 other spots for Pokémon. Where your starter might struggle, you have a Pokémon that can cover for one’s weaknesses, same old same old
Except that some starters are so good they never need other mons to cover for them, and that makes them so good while the over reliance on other team members or level grinding is the telling sign of a bad starter.
However ironically the two starters that can easily breeze through Kanto solo are on the list and the starter that struggles, Bulbasaur, isn't.
@@nicolaistuhlmuller8718 there’s no such a thing as a worst starter pokemon.
@@247_______ yes there is for each game, you just need to make the effort to look more in detail.
No, no Blastoise. Calm down. I’m sure the nice man on this video didn’t mean to put your evolutionary line on here twice. Let’s just put your cannons back in your shell, nice and easy. There isn’t that bett- oh no don’t use skull bash!
I11 saw it too
A MandJTV video has been posted. My happines stat has incresed.
Same
Same here
*an
@@teriso1793 Pretty sure "an" is used for vowels, but I dont have english as my native language, so you may be right
@@GGLVIGG0 its more abt the pronunciation
For quite a while before Nidoking routing was developed, speedrunners took Squirtle and used it for the entire game because it was the best. Even now they still pick Squirtle because it is the strongest starter up until the point where they can get a Nidoran.
Nidoking is also only possible through rng manipulating, so for the average player Squirtle remains the best choice altogether.
@@nicolaistuhlmuller8718 Only possible through RNG manipulation isn't exactly true, more like only practical with RNG manipulation. I think it has something like a 2 percent encounter rate.
Still, calling squirtle one of the top 10 worst starters remains an awful take.
@@Eternalwarpuppy yeah you're right, it is possible without rng manipulation, just not really feasible, but yeah for the regular player it is still the best mon to pick overall, and has no place on this list.
It’s such a relief to see a RUclipsr that just gets straight to the video. There are too many out there that spend the first 5 minutes with intros, references to other channels and sponsors. Love your content!
16:31 yes.. we can be copycats of Ash but... THAT PIKACHU IS THE SON OF ARCEUS OKAY?.. HE IS THE GOLDEN CHILD OF HIS..
While Sprigatito might be the worst on paper for S&V it never felt that way for my playthrough. He was a champ and it was hard to even let other pokemon have a turn to shine.
Not even. With that high speed, good coverage, and u turn, she will almost always go first! Not the worst.
Not even. With that high speed, good coverage, and u turn, she will almost always go first! Not the worst.
I don't think it's even the worst on paper. Flower Trick is way better than Quaquaval's aqua step. a 70 power grass type move that never misses and always crits is really strong. It's nowhere near as strong as the beast that is Skeledirge, but I prefer it to Quaquaval in battle.
It also has great speed and a fantastic movepool.
@@JamesTheCelestialAqua step is so good, especially with Moxie. It's my favorite one to use in battle (and overall)
@@noahberan6498 Valid. I like Quaquaval in comp, myself, but in terms of a normal playthrough like the video... I like the move, i just think that it's massively outclassed by torch song and flower trick.
I like Quaquaval, but there are better water types and fighting types in Paldea. I think Meowscarada is better in a casual playthrough as there are fewer good grass types or dark types in the main story that can compare to it (not counting legendaries)
...Then again, an argument could be made for either and Skeledirge is borderline broken, so I suppose it doesn't really matter lol
my favorite starter is the car thing from pokemon snap
Wow
Me at 14:30 OOOOOOHHHHHHH DUUUUUUH Pikachu in yellow, yeah, that's a rough time and a half.
grass just really suffers in general as its got SO MANY weaknesses. and so much resist it
if it doesn't get a 2ndary typing, it struggles so much....
idk why they don't do something for it to address how many weaknesses it has vs all the other starters.
and seriously, in so many of the games, the first gyms always seem hostile to grass (not so much gen 1. but all others)
wish they'd admit grass is a support type, not a standalone, and give grass types 2ndary typings
(also special mention to Serperior. while its contrary ability gives it some life. its move pool is the definition of small, and monotype. it has the smallest movepool of any starter and the LEAST type diversity. it needs more non grass moves)
I wouldn't say 'so many' games. Only Johto and Kalos, all other games either have a Rock gym, something neutral, or are the Striaton gym. (I guess you could argue Paldea also has a bad matchup, but Paldea is a weird case)
hear me out, i’ve always thought grass should be good against fairy. while it would admittedly make more sense a resistance, one of fairy’s weaknesses (poison) and one of the types that resists it (fire) have something to do with harming plants, meaning they have some relation. so the literal plant type should reign over the other nature related type
Maybe that is why game freak originaly made so many grass poison types including the starter to help it's wealnesses
@@patar00 honestly. Psychic should be strong vs fairy. finish that triangle cause fairy kinda replaced psychic xD
as for grass...could be strong vs fairy, but i think they just need to reduce how many types resist it. cause it struggles so much offensively
@@patar00yeah.....fairies dont work that way. While its true some like Nymphs and Driads protect the forest, the rest like say Trolls, Gnomes, Dullahans (yes, dullahans), etc either are neutral or dont care
And the fairy typing is based on ALL fairied, not just Thinkerbell😅
Im so glad i started with yellow because man im always learning about some jank that blows my mind. Its shocking that charizard cannot learn fly, he had to have been a fire/dragon and they changed it last second for balance reasons.
Funny thing is, the anime agrees with Mikey in Kanto. Pikachu initially refuses to battle and then gets beat when Ash does get it to fight. Ash rematches almost every gym, typically loses again but is gifted half of the badges for... being a good kid
No wonder he got knocked out of the League tournament.
6:21 surf with a confuse chance sounds pretty useful TBH
Yellow was my first Pokemon game. It came with a GameBoy Colour with Pikachu on it. I remember I always had to catch a Caterpie in Viridian Forest and grind it so it evolved into Butterfree, which is actually quad weak to rock, but it out speeds all of the trainers and Brock's Pokemon and confusion hits for decent neutral damage.
at least in Gen 1 none of Brock's Pokemon have a Rock move. In Gen 3 it's risky because his Onix has Rock Tomb
Squirtle is awesome! It beats brock, ties with misty, and when surge comes up you should have a geodude, or a diglet by that point. Great againts all Giovanni fights, great against Blaine, bruno, teach it ice beam wrecks Lance!! Good against 3 of rivals pokemon!!
No need for another mon, just teach it Dig for Surge, also takes care of Koga, Agatha and the pokémon tower. With Ice Beam for Erika and Lance you're set. It even beats Misty because her Starmie has no other non water move than Tackle.
I like how this video came a day out around two days after Wolfey’s video
I dread the idea of Michael doing a video focusing on Pokémon Yellow, where he's forced to have his Pikachu in his party.
9:31 Chespin does learn Rollout at lvl 8 so its unironically the best starter against Viola, no way to nerf Rollout as Water Sport does nerf Fire type moves and Vivillion is 4 times weak to Rock
You still need at least 2 or 3 hits before rollout can do enough to win u the battle, and while vivillon does have a 4x rock weakness you can exploit, it's still faster and has a chance to either increase its defence with Harden, or weaken you with infestation before you can beat it
And if U miss even once, which is still possible, then u HAVE to build up power again. If Chespin could learn defense curl, then rollout is much easier to work with cos it's already double in power
@@eljordinio7647 Infestation doesn't hit that hard though, my starter is like lvl 15 before that fight or during that fight
Bro did ny boy squirtle dirty😭😭
Especially when considering just how good Squirtle is.
@@LittleAl016 he is good BUT its so hard to make him work in major battles
@@LittleAl016 Garry gets the Bulbasaur line if you choose Squirtle, and oh boy...
@@hinatashoyo1937 Squirtle's not hard to make work in major battles at all. You just need Bubble for Brock. Bite, Seismic Toss, or Mega Punch for Misty. Dig for Surge. Basically nothing for Koga and Sabrina. Surf for Blaine and Giovanni. Ice Beam for the Elite 4. And though Wartortle/Blastoise isn't sweeping Erika, he can do major damage to her.
@@BlameSnowy Which isn't really too bad to deal with. At best, he's a minor nuisance.
"Number 10, Sprigatito"
Switches off video. "We're done here."
15:04 now i get why ash only used thunderbolt in the anime
6:47 I checked and I subscribed
To summarize, the worst starter for each region (spoilers for the video):
Kanto: Charmander (unless playing Yellow)
Johto: Chikorita
Hoenn: 🤷♀️
Sinnoh: 🤷♀️
Unova: Snivy (both the original and sequel)
Kalos: Chespin and Squirtle
Alola: 🤷♀️
Galar: Sobble
Paldea: Sprigatito
Congrats to Hoenn, Sinnoh, and Alola. None of their starters even made the top 10👍
Also Grass types get screwed over a lot, jeez😅
charmander is not the worst in kanto its best in firered leafgreen stronger than squirtle and bulbasaur. bulbasaur is worst becuase it sucks aftr misty
About chespin, it gets rollout before the first gym leader. Don’t know if this changes anything, but I wanted to point that out.
Haven't checked your other videos so you might have done this already but ngl I would love a video where you layout which regions would be the best/worst for each starter pokemon to be available in. There would definitely be overlap for any single typers but still
You are so wrong about Squirtle especially in gen 3 remakes
Brock: easy
Misty: bite
Surge: dig
Erica: ice beam
Sabrina: bite
Koga: surf and great defensive stats
Blane: easy
Giovanni: easy
You're selling Chespin SUPER short.
In terms of moveset-It has rollout for the first gym, giving you an easy sweep if you get a bit of luck. Tm coverage in hone claws, bulldoze and rock tomb, plus level up moves like bite and leech seed give it the most variety early on compared to the two special attackers.
From repeat playthroughs, i've found Quilladin's general bulk more reliable in the midgame than the other two frail 'mons. The aforementioned learnset makes it the best for Grant's tyrunt. It falls off a bit after the electric gym, yeah, but i think a notable claim to fame is it being one of the best counters >in the game< for that Mega Gyarados Lysandre has.
Id argue that Kalos has the best balance of usefulness of starters throughout the game, and id even say Chesnsught had more notable matchups than Greninja, who's only full team advantages are one late gym and one elite four member. It certainly deserves to be higher up than snivy, let alone some of the other options on this list.
100% agreed. Chespin’s high risk high reward but man that reward is so worth it
I'm pretty sure Chestnaught potentially gets super effective coverage against everything but Dragon. Throw an Expert Belt on him and you can absolutely steam roll a majority of the fights. I'd say it's biggest hurdles are Flying-types, because of that Quad-Weakness, Dragons, and other Fighting types ironically.
bulk doesn't matter either way as Kalos is so easy
Emphasis on luck
@@theamazingspooderman2697 Roll-Out is 95 Acc, not that much luck needed. I fought Viola with Chespin a lot. I think I had one or two instances where Chespin missed its roll-out and even then, I still won the battle after. It's really not that hard to beat Viola with Chespin
I always pick mine based on what I think is the cutest I really just don’t care about the typings or overlap on my team
To be fair to snivy and oshawatt, EVERY starter is weak to the first gym in Unova, that’s the whole point of that gym 😂
Oshawott is spelled with 2 O's, NOT 2 A's!
@ okay omg cool bro thanks for that VERY IMPORTANT information!!