We all know that Bulbasaur wasn't in this because it would be the obvious winner First off, Hyper Beam is not the most powerful move in the first generation. Sure, it has the highest base power, but the user has to wait a turn after using it. Bulbasaur can learn the true most powerful moves in the first generation: Leech Seed and Sleep Powder. Leech Seed deals fixed damage to your opponent every turn (regardless of type except Grass) and then heals your Bulbasaur the same amount. Sleep Powder had pretty much 100% accuracy and, unlike in later Pokemon games, it took your Pokemon the entire turn to wake up. This means that if Bulbasaur is faster than your opponent, they don’t get to move at all. To counteract Charizard’s high special stat, Venusaur learns the move growth, which will power up Venusaur’s Razor Leaf attack and its Special Defense at the same time (in the first generation) making Charizard’s special attacks deal less damage. In later games, Bulbasaur can learn Synthesis and Giga Drain, healing more than Charmander can deal out. Thanks to Bulbasaur’s Poison type, it doesn’t have to worry about being poisoned, which is an excellent ability for a tank Pokemon. It also gives it access to the Black Sludge, which allows you to give the Leftovers to another member of your team. When Venusaur mega evolves, its ability Thick Fat reduces Charizard’s STAB attacks. All the while, Leech Seed is sapping away more health from your opponent. Although Charizard learns more HM’s than Venusaur, that doesn’t make it better. That just makes it more “useful” OUTSIDE of battle. And Austin, just because Charmander goes up against Ground types in the beginning of the game doesn’t mean that it gets stronger because of it. It just means that the trainer has to become more skilled, not the Pokemon (that’s not how EV’s work). Although Venusaur is weak to most of your rival’s team when He becomes the champion, you can work around that with sleep powder. Even though it’s not the winner of the popularity contest, it doesn’t mean that Bulbasaur isn’t the best Pokemon. I’m sorry it had to come to this. I got REALLY triggered that Bulbasaur wasn’t even in this, but then again, it would win too easily. #bulbasaurmasterrace

Austin: * brings up the Pokédex * Matpat: * fails to say :if we followed the Pokédex, bulbasaur would win this discussion *

Dude, bulbasaur is strong against the first 2 gyms, learns leech seed for healing, and gets a dual type from the start, and is SO ADORABLE!

I think you both are forgetting that grass types absolutely demolish rock types. He can literally wipe the floor with most rock types since most of his moves are grass based and on top of that grass types ko water types pretty quickly and he is the only pokemon that can heal while do doing damage that means you literally can not lose with Bulbasaur if you play your cards right and have less time going to shops to buy potions and more time to buy things that can increase damage and learn new moves.

Video: charmander or squirtle Comments: bulbasaur Moms: pikachu?

Austin gets at 16% halfway through the vid, the editors: lets not move that

Just realized rewatching this. The entire hyper beam argument is completely useless due to the fact that in gen 3 and before, the main games they are talking about, hyper beam is a physical attack because all normal moves before gen 4 are normal.

Always fire. Usually easier to level up early game which means you can get more moves in later game, you can also always go back and level up just because you want to be even more overpowered

Charmander: weak to the first two gyms Squirtle: strong to the first gym then weak to the next two Bulbasaur: beats the first three gyms with ease Who wins now?

"As if no Pokémon were perfect for every situation" Ash Ketchum: Hold my non alcoholic beverage

I always chose bulbasaur. Make the early game simple. And by time you need other main types you can easily catch something that fits the bill.

I generally find the water type starters to be my favorites.

:| I'm disappointed.

question: -fire or water? the entire coment section: -GRasS

you forgot that bulbasaur has like so many skills. gym 1:rockgrass and then prob koba(that his name??) poison=poison. then sabrina and that means poison> psychic ( i think), then well your gyarados will kill Blaine and then grass = oof to Geovanni( i always forget gen 1 names T_T

Watching this for the first time in 2021 and hearing Pat say that he's looking forward to the next season of Game of Thrones made my brain glitch a little bit

MatPat : Charmander vs Squirtle Comments : Bulbasaur

If you have never had a Mega Venusaur with thick fat tanking all your attacks slowly killing you with toxic/ leech seed and healing itself with synthesis... well you have never felt true despair.

Matpat: Bulbasaur is trash Bulbasaur Who is super effective against the first two gyms and resists the third: 👁👄👁

If you think about it in both games and anime the two first gyms are Brock and Misty so bulbasaur can wipe them easily as well as later on the psychic gym because it can learn poison moves through tms or by level though it is mostly poison powder I think so it's better having yourself a ghost or sth then eventually you can wipe Giovanni as he is ground

I feel like Austin is more calm here than in his science videos

Mom: Son we need more salt! Me: Okay mom! Me: *Goes to comment section*

Charmander deafeted by squirtle and squirtle defeated by bulbasaur it's always a cycle

I always go with Charmander as my starter, I find a Pikachu to add to my team. Venusaur for my grass type and garadose for my water type. I tend to also have an onyx. Depending on how I'm building my team, I typically have several other I can switch out for the rest of my team.

This looks like when the 2 smart kids in class argue which answer in the test is right.

You can’t grow weed on a charmanders or squirtles back 🤷🏾‍♂️🤷🏾‍♂️🤷🏾‍♂️

poor Bulbasaur.. they did my starter dirty, i'll just sit in the corner quietly destroying everything solo with my buddy

This is not talking about which is best in the game. The two are just arguing on which element is more important to humanity.

You forgot that Blastoise can learn Ice moves.

austin: Charizard has a major stat boost over Blastoise PIc: shows literally 4 more stat points

I find that each starter is the best in their own particular niches. -Bulbasaur is the best strategic choice for a play through in Kanto. -Squirtle is the optimal choice for Pokémon Red and Blue speed runs. (Kind of ironic now that I think about it considering it’s a turtle) -Charmander (at least now) is the most competitively viable in Pokémon battles as Charizard.

I think the editors forgot to decrease austin's life half way

bulbasaur is #1 in pokedex .... so he beats both by Austins logic

You guys forgot: In Gen 1 (Until Yellow) Charizard cannot learn any flying moves. At all. Not even Fly.

*Charizard:* Has a higher base stat total, 2 Mega Forms both of which outclass Mega Blastoise, Is more fan beloved. *Blastoise:* Is usually better without Mega forms, is better of a choice in generation 1 because of type advantages early game giving you more time to pick new team members, is nowadays appreciated more because Charizard gets a lot of underserved attention.

The best part is when they got to who would win out of 100 battles i got a commercial that gave me the answer before the video did. Thank you Fiji water lol

The comments: Yes but technically [Pokemon] can do this thing, proving that it can clearly defeat [Pokemon] Me choosing Squirtle: *I like turtles* :)

Although Bulbasaur wasn't the best starter in Red & Blue, it's technically the best starter in FireRed and LeafGreen.

Charmander has always been my favorite. While others may think that it's "overrated" or "weak", I personally don't think this is true, and charmander will always have a special place in my heart.

While I prefer Squirtle I will say I'm confused why Mat brought up the primordial nature of water as requisite for life and it was not rebutted with the Sun (effectively a mass of fire) being needed for the Earth, with its water, to form to begin with.

Legends chose squirtle Hero's chose charmander But God's chose bulbasaur

Except Bulbasaur is super effective against the first two gyms, resists the third one, by the time you get to Erika, which Bulbasaur can still beat because it's part poison but most of the stuff in there is part poison anyways, but by the time you get there you'll probably have other Pokémon to deal with Bulbasaur's weaknesses, also in Gen 1 Toxic and Leech Seed stacked very well. Toxic damage doubles each turn and it also doubles the damage of Leech Seed, which will recover HP to help its evolution Venusaur tank even better. Not related to that, but Hyper Beam was physical until Gen 4, so Charizard isn't gonna make much use of it, not to mention the debut of Stealth Rock in Gen 4, Charizard's Nightmare

Growing up with 2 brothers and a link cable, this question was never a problem for me.

Oak puts it the best with how he describes the Pokémon when you first choose, bulbasaur is easy mode as he let's you breeze through the first 2 gyms collecting a more rounded team on the way, squirtle is medium as he is generally useful through different spots in the game, and charmander will struggle a lot in the early parts but does become very strong at the end. In my opinion Squirtle is the most consistently useful throughout the game. He is able to sweep through brock, blane, giovani, Koga (the Nido lines are his best pokemon and they are ground types) and Bruno. He is also the only one to learn ice moves which were the only way to easily defeat Lance in gen 1. He only struggles in 2 spots, Lt. Surge and Erika but by the time you reach Lt. Surge you will have been handed dig which his line can learn and you can also buy ice beam to deal with Erika in her city.

Bulbasaur gets less attention than it deserves

8:58 Based on the context of this video it would actually be Bulbasaur since he’s the “weakest” (I love you Bulbasaur)

There is only one right answer Bulbasaur Need I say more

*kicks door in* Bulbasaur *walks backward through the broken doorway*

Austin: more science & documentaries Matpat: more realistic theorist.

Meanwhile, I'm just here sitting here wondering why everyone hates Bulbasaur... -3-

13:29 is where things got weird and just plain old funny

Charizards most popular, with maybe Blastoise in the middle, but leaving aside competitive play, and limiting ourselves to the gen 1 games, Bulbasaur is mechanically the best starter for a playthrough both because it has advantage in the first two gyms and continue to have pretty decent mechanical moves after that. Beyond that there are still some pretty decent fire type pokemon in the likes the arcanine or ninetales, and a sheer plethora of water type pokemon that can fill Blastoises role. Ultimate it depends on what you want your teams balance to be like.

Ok but we all know bulbasaur is the best. Reasons are simple: First, he's definitely the best for the first couple of gyms, but also he evolves to be a pretty powerful and useful pokemon Second, he's the best grass pokemon to have in Kanto, so why would I get the fire or water starter when I basically don't want a bellsprout or oddish in my team but would definitely take a seadra or gyarados along with a ninteales or arcanine in my team? No reason to not choose bulbasaur.

well going back to pokedex as austan said charmander was before squirtle well while charmander is before squirtle bulbusaur is before both of them.

Hi, I'm from the future to tell you that in pokemon go, Mega venusaur has the highest cp cap between the 3 starters and in the latest game that the 3 are playable in(pokemon sword and shild). venusaur has both damage and deffence going for him as well as a more varied move pool, not to mention it's the only one who can put you to sleep, poison, and paralyze. Lastly, Bulbasaur is frog, Bulbasaur and its evolutions are partially based on arboreal (tree-living) frogs belonging to Hylidae (tree frogs) and Dendrobatidae (poison dart frogs).

Nothing you said till the end would say which would be better

“Easily the cutest one of eevee’s possible evolutions.” *stabs in umbreon*

Remember when I first watched this debate, I was sure it was Squirtle; turns out, after Jrose11 has uploaded all of the starter runs, it's Bulbasaur!

Every pro pokemon trainer be like: IT'S BULBASAUR IT CAN DEFEAT THE FIRST 2 GYM!!!!!!

One word for Bulbasaur SLEEP POWDER

The first real argument: 7:45 You made me watch 7 minutes of irrelevant chatter...

What am I doing with my life? It's 1am and here I am watching 2 grown men fight about bubble turtles and fire lizards Also Bulbabuddies where you at?!

BULBASAUUR! At it's 1st stage, it is already a grass AND POISON TYPE! When it evolves to Venasaur, it can also learn good moves like Solar Beam, and the cooldown can be shortened by Sunny Day! It can even learn Sludge Bomb and also learn some psychic moves, if i'm not wrong! And ALSO, it can learn the AWESOME MOVE SYNTHESIS! Which allows it to heal HALF OF ITS HP! As well, HYPER BEAM, as Austin said, was a GOOD MOVE! And also AWESOME Grass moves like Petal Dance and Petal Blizzard that can deal INCREDIBLE amounts of damage!

Picking charmander is the move of true gamers. Rather than having bulbasaur to get through the first two gyms or squirted to make it to Cerulian City, charmander trainers need a more complete set of pokemon that are stronger.

I know no one’s gonna see this.... but it’s Charmander vs Squirtle, not Charizard vs Blastoise

Strategically bulbasaur is the best but im a charmander guy Edit: I used bulbasaur in lets go and omg i loved it. I named it bubasuar

That Game of Thrones excitement didn’t age well lol

For me, it's squrtile. Not only is the name and character adorable, but he's also useful in the 1st, 2nd, and 8th gym.

you should’ve mentioned bulbasaur's number in the pokedex

The comment section is mostly full of people who think Bulbasaur needs more attention

Bulbasaur is super effective against the first two gyms, resists the third one, and starts as a dual type

The coolest/my favorite of the three/most popular/Go Team Sky! is Charmander. The most useful in real life is Squirtle. The most useful in game is Bulbasaur. So that is four points for Charmander and Squirtle and Bulbasaur each have one. Let’s give Charmander one more point for being able to pick up the others and drop them on a mountain, breaking the plant on the back and the shell. Enjoy your retirement MatPat! We will miss you!

12:07 chramander is higher in pokedex so its more important than squirtle? well i guess than bulbasaur is the truly most important pokemon of the entire franchise according to national dex

Y'all wrong Magikarp is the best

In indigo league, orange islands, and gold and silver bulbasaur helps ash the most with saving Pokémon with its vine whip. In his battles his razor lead also cuts through opponents (depending on type ofc,) and it’s a very fierce warrior, not to mention its cute as anything

It never mattered who won or lost, because i will always choose my little candle-lizard.

This is the nerdiest fight I’ve ever seen😂

Its so crazy coming back to this in 2021 and seeing baby Austin and pre dad-bod MatPat 😂

How does bulbasaur get counted out from a popularity contest? Where's the data matt pat? THE DATA!

I have never chosen charmander in my Pokémon fire red game boy cartridge on my Nintendo DS lite. I always chose bulbasaur because... I’m not actually sure. I think I just likes grass the most and I still do and also he can learn cut so...idk. I have played that game a dozen times and I have just recently tries using squirtle.

Not changing the format a little bit to fit 3 host one for each of the 3 starters was a mistake.

Statistically Bulbasaur is actually the best starter. **sips tea** Bulbabuddys unite!

Should remaster this episode(with Austin if possible still haven't finished the shoddy cast episode to why he left) or just in general try a remake of the series I wonder if it would do better in the new age of KZfaq

Venosaur being the best of the 3 in competitive: I'm a joke to you?

Damn I was expecting bulbasaur to come out of no where and destroy both of them

Going by austin's numbers... Bulbasaur is better than both of them.

Whoa that's the time travel portal graphic from Chrono Trigger

Grass beats rock and water, so why wouldn't you start with Bulbasaur. 🎤⬇️

I always chose Bulbasaur. He was resistant or strong against EVERY gym but Blaine's, Razor leaf for crits at 27, and with sleep powder/stun spore he was a good choice for catching other mons. Charmander was my close second. I never picked Squirtle because water types are EVERYWHERE and some of them like Lapras and Cloyster were superior choices because of their dual-typing.

“*CHARIZARD IS A BEAST IN THE LATE GAME*” Sheath rock: that’s a nice dragon you got there it would be a shame if I were send it in uu for the next 4 generations

DUDE! AUSTIN! YOU COULDA MENTIONED STEELCLAW! I ABSOLUTELY TEAR THROUGH THOSE GEODUDES WITH MY CHARMELEON!

When blastoise got hit by a hyper beam it looked like a human That means you shoud do a part 2 proving that blastoise is a human or that everypokemon is a human

(Bulbasaur gets left out) Bulbasaur:am I a joke to you

Me:reads title Me:I like charmander Everyone else:BULBASAUR Me:well s--t

Charmander line might be my favorite (because fire type) but the Squirtle line definitely has the advantage. As for Bulbasaur, it's kinda in between the two.

If I were to defend Charmander, I would just say, “Charizard beat blastoise in Pokémon origins.” That’s all I need

Isn't it old news that Bulbasaur is the most useful of the Kanto starters? He's effective against first, second and eighth gym and resists the third, fourth and fifth gym. I thought the pokemon community proved ages ago that Bulbasaur=easy mode, Squirtle=medium difficulty and Charmander=hard mode.

Next time get people that know about Pokemon. That charmander defense was pathetic.

Water beats fire. Ice beats flying. Fire doesn't resist ice in Gen 1.

Fun fact: although squirtle learns more HMS than charmander and bulbasaur, it can get the least way through the game, as it can't learn cut