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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bulbasaur gets less attention than it deserves

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?

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

There are so many things wrong regarding about the Charmander line that my silly fingers couldn't resist. Let's start off by stating most fully evolved Pokemon can learn Hyper Beam, so that's nothing special. As for types, Charizard is actually weak to Ice-type moves in Gen 1. It's also worth mentioning that pure Water-type is a great defensive type in spite of not having an immunity whereas Charizard is very weak to Rock-type moves and it serves more as an offensive Pokemon. As for HM moves, Charizard doesn't even learn Fly until Yellow. Now for the main point: In Gen 1, special attack stat doesn't exist. Instead, the special stat calculates how much a Pokemon can deal damage and take damage from special moves. And Charizard special stat happens to be 85 in Gen 1, which became its special defense. As all Normal-type are classified as physical until Gen 4 introduced the physical/special split, Hyper Beam is actually a physical move here. And the fact that Hyper Beam's accuracy being higher than Hydro Pump doesn't really matter when the move requires the Pokemon to recharge when it hits unless Hydro Pump misses twice in a row. Also, why bring up Hyper Beam in the first place? With a few exceptions, you don't see Normal-type attack on non Normal-type Pokemon.

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.

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.

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

MatPat : Charmander vs Squirtle Comments : Bulbasaur

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Ok, for the Bulbasaur fans, here's an argument that PROVES Bulbasaur is subjectively the best starter-mon out there. Let's start with history; water was present since the beginning of the Earth's life cycle, and is required to live today, while fire was discovered being controlled roughly 600,000 years ago, plants were dated back to around 700 million years ago, 694,400,000 years before controlled fire, and similar to water, was required for herbavoresnd also being the main part of all the regions in all of Pokemon. Next is popularity; in the competitive scene, there are 8 tiers. From the highest tier to the lowest tier, it goes uber, OverUsed (OU), UnerUsed (UU), RarelyUsed (RU), NeverUsed (NU), and PU, along with little cup and doubles. Venasaur is placed into the OU tier along with charizard, while blastoise is placed in RU.eep in mind that these tiers are made and used by the best players in the world, along with those who are the best in tournaments. For the casual players, Bulbasaur is good for 4 gyms, super effective for 3, and resistant to one, while blastoise is good for 3 gyms and charizard is good for a measly one, and this is all not counting the elite 4, which venasaur has an edge for 2 battles, while charizard and blastoise have an edge for one, along with going through many tunnels within the game. The natural moveset for bulbasaur is phenomenal, since it gets 2 grass type moves before ivysaur, vine whip and leech seed, vine whip allowing it to get STAB (same tpye attack bonus), and leech seed, one of the best moves in all of pokemon, a move that, when used, leeches life poff of the opposing pokemon, healing your own in the process, while it happens every turn after leech seed is used, making it so you can use vine whip along with the benefit of leech seed, all before level 16. Since venasaur is two types, grass/poison, it also has a range of poison type moves, such as toxic and sludge bomb. training venasaur up to a high enough level provides it solar beam, one of the strongest moves in the game at 120 power. Venasaur can also learn 3 of the most useful hms in all of pokemon; stregnth, rock smash, and cut. Not to mention, it is a DINOSAUR. Finally, for the rock-paper-scissors part. Grass beats water, and while fire beats grass, Venasaur's mega evolution provides it with thick fat, giving it more resistance towards fire and ice types.

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

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

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.

The quick answer: Bulbasaur is the best for the Kanto region because of the gym leader types. Charmander has the best offense, Squirtle has the best defense, and Bulbasaur is balanced. Your welcome, I saved you 17 minutes.

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!

*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.

Talks about speed affecting crit, a gen 1 exclusive, albeit impossible to avoid, 'glitch' & then special defense, something which was gen 2 onward due to the special stat being split into special attack and special defense for gold silver crystal and every generation since. I dislike the inconsistency as to when you are referencing, and I have to continue to agree with my water starter bias. Besides, anyone battling with more than one pokemon is likely going to be switching out against unfavorable matchups.

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

ugh why is Bulbasaur always ignored, He was my first choice as a kid and i do not regret it. The underdog with me every battle!

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).

"Charizard loses over 80% of matches" This just means u have the wrong moveset on charizard. A single move that charizard uses that can easily change this number (this number is clearly based on hydro pumps accuracy) Fissure. Fissures accuracy was based on speed in gen1. With a decent speed charizard, i easily won more than 50% of my matches with my friends blastoise, due to how high the chance was to land it before he got a turn.

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

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

Technically wouldn't bolth fire blast and hydro pump be more powerful than hyper beam due to the fact that they would both get a 1.5x damage boost, putting their damage from 120 to 180 due to typing which charizard would not get with hyper beam and wouldn't suffer a 1 turn cool down? That kinda makes the hyper beam point moot.

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!

I usually picked Charmander when I was younger, (since it was the only Fire type you could get before reaching Celadon city), but Austin's arguments are...kind of weak, to put it mildly... 10:20- "Charizard is better because it can learn Hyper Beam." 2 problems with this argument- 1. Blastoise can learn it too. 2. Normal type moves were all classed as "Physical" in Gen 1 and Gen 3, thus not even using Charizard's Special Attack stat.

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.

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

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

Professor Oak- "you can pick charmander the fire type, bulbasaur the grass or Squirtle the water type" Ash- >:/ "I CHOOSE PIKACHU" :D Every other trainer - >:|

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.

I almost always choose Charizard simply because it looks the coolest and fire types aren't great until you get Arcanine. But objectively speaking Blastoise is the most OP because it can learn ice moves which destroy it's counter Venusaur that is grass.

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

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

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.

Bulbasaur in gen 1 is the best. Toxic and leechseed were stored on the same location on the cartridge. Which causes them to both stack on toxic’s worsening gimmick. Razor leaf was a stab boosted almost guaranteed critical hit 55 base power grass move. Venasaur. Bodyslam, growth, or sleep for powder for the 4th move. Charizard didn’t become useful until after gen 2 with the special stat and split. Blastiose at least could have surf, Icebeamn, bodyslam/confusion, earth quake

A really old video well i prefer Charmander but the very first i tried as a trained for competitive was Bulbasaur in Pokémon Y because i thought it would be easiest to train for competitive and i even won right the next with a casual player without needing another Pokémon then Venesaur and he even used fire Types. Bu hey competiive VS casual isn´t a fair battle and i still prefer casual because i just want fun.

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

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

Also you can't use Charizards high special Attack for Hyper Beam because before gen 4, EVERY Attack of a Type used specificly one type of Attack (special or not) meaning Charizards Hyper Beam power would (use Attack(not special!!!) and) do EVEN LESS to Blastoise than a Hydro Pump from Blastiose to Charizard. Also Hyper Beam is not the most powerful move in the Games (it's Explosion(and later on Self Destruct)).

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

Stop talking about special defence and special attack if you are talking about gen 1. Gen 1 has only special.

:| I'm disappointed.

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

Why are all of Austin's videos on Game Theory Unlisted?

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

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

When it comes to the game it literally tells you easy mode is bulbasaur medium is squirtle and hard is charmander because of gym placement however if you are patient the rewards for charizard far out way the rewards for blastoise I've always gone with the fire starter until x where you get to pick a second starter from generation 1 so rather than double downing on fire i went for the water type to start so i could get charmander later because he has always been and will always be the best

bulbasaur is by far the best it gives you a huge advantage against the first two gyms and you cant get poisoned by the third gym and once bulbasaur is at a disadvantage there are other options

You forgot that Blastoise can learn Ice moves.

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

Bulbs what is good against the first two gyms and is anime to poison

14:10 actually, hyper beam is a normal move, which is psychical before gen 4 and the premise of this video. Plus, it’s off of blastoise’s amazing defense. Your charizard doesn’t stand a chance

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

“*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

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

Also Pokémon is not about any individual but as a team composition. Yes bulbasaur is good early game but plant is pretty bad late game and electric or water usually do the job a plant could. Blastoise is great but there are lots of good water Pokémon to choose from. Gyrados, lapras (also part ice!), even vaporeon hits hard and is very tanky too. There are some good fire Pokémon too but far less options and most are LFR game. So as far as a team comp goes charmander is by far the most useful. Sure there’s Brock but an over leveled charmander or a butterfree with sleep powder and confusion will take care of him. Misty isn’t that bad especially if you got a pikachu in the woods early game

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

Bulbasaur is one of the only staters with 2 types and has advantage against the first two gyms. It's good against several elite 4 members and good against team rocket members. Charmander and squirtle may seem the best scientifically, but in the real game, bulbasaur is the best

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.

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

MATPAT, Loyal theorist here, I have some critics for you. 1. I didn't like how Austin's power was drained to 16 very early in the episode and then stayed there for the rest of it, until Charizard attacked him. Especially since you kept having good points that never brought down his hp because it was already too low. You should have edited it so that it drained slower to match your avatar's attacks and your debate points. 2. On the same lines, Austin had some good points that didn't drain your hp, when the attack animation clearly showed him attacking. -- basically, the whole system needed to be more consistent this episode. 3. This episode made you look like a jerk. Which we all know you're not. The two of you should have played this better and not scripted it to make you seem like a bully the whole time. 4. I really enjoyed how Charizard and Blastoise turned on you two at the end. It was fun to see a new twist on how you reached deadlock. Keep writing witty things like that. Oh, and I choose Bulbasaur. 😂

Bulbasaur is technically the best starter via how it fares in gyms, elite 4, team rocket and it's stats are almost equal if not better

Please do a video on the rest of the starters from pokemon from pokemon the curiosity of me city of me wishes to know the answer also I enjoy poker

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

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

6 minutes in and they didn't even talk about Pokemon yet in the debate.

The BEST is almost always the water types. Water crushes fire and they can learn ice moves which take care of the grass types. Speaking for just starters, they win. In Gen 1, the dual types didn’t help too much either (save for Charizard’s new immunity to Earthquake, but a 4x weakness to rock now).

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.

Well I mean, in smogon competitively venusaur has been the best of the three starters even before blastoise and charizard got mega evolutions.

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

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

Bulbasour is the best in the first game. It has to types at the first evaluation making it resistant to poison. It has the advantage over most of the gyms, and is only weak to two. It also evolves from ivysour to veanasour at lvl 32 rather then lvl 36 like the others