Squirtle Only - Pokemon Yellow 

On the fourth day of December, Scott's Thoughts gave to me: A tiny turtle's bubbles The fire starter digging A garden lizard's leech seed And those three weirdo mons punching

Scott: "Squirtle, the final starter." Pikachu: "Hold my light ball."

I have a confession to make. I obviously was too young, and I didn't know WHY moves with 100% accuracy sometimes missed in Gen 1. Now, I know that it's because of an oversight that is exclusive to Gen RBY. I didn't know that it wasn't a thing that was still in the games until I started watching these solo-challenges in 2020. I played 7 generations of Pokemon, I played Smogon competitive pretty heavily during Gen 4, I dabbled in VGC during Gen 6. That entire time I always thought to myself, while using a 100% accurate move, and not having my accuracy lowered, or my opponents evasion raised in any way, I still would always think to myself "I hope that this doesn't miss." I assumed that whole time, that no move, aside from Swift, Aerial Ace, etc, was actually 100% accurate. I never once verbalized this to someone, so that they might correct me. I never once looked it up to see if it was still in the game. I never noticed that it hadn't happened to me in like... 20 years. Nope, I just assumed that it was an intended mechanic designed to "spice things up" just like tripping in Brawl or something. From 1999 all the way until 2020. That's my story.

Squirtle went super saiyan against Oak. Its +6 defense stat was its lowest non-hp stat and I think that's just hilarious.

Charmander lover here! I think its fair for squirtle to be ranked higher, just as you said its more consistent. That being said, this is way closer than i thought! Thanks for the amazing runs!

As a charmander main i think you did great, and the fact that chamander beat either of the other pokemon in any metric is something to be celebrated! I feel like online discourse makes it sound like charmander is the worst and that your gonna have a terrible time if you use it him. turns out, nah. if you use him, sure your gym fights will be hard, but you're gonna make up for that with all the the trainers that you can burn you way through. the fact that you only really struggled on one pokemon says A LOT about charmander's viability. third place is third place and we all knew that we were gonna be here, but we put up a great fight.

I'm so happy to see how these runs turned out!! The optimization was fantastic and it was great to watch. Seeing first stage Pokemon able to push into these ranges is really cool to see.

The times between the 3 turned out pretty much how I expected, Sleep is just to busted in Gen 1 especially when you have setup moves. Also feels good for Bulba to win since it's my favorite mon.

I really enjoyed this mini series a lot and I'm excited to see Crystal come back tomorrow, with the return of the dapper gent Pryce, as well!

That Professor Oak battle was absolutely insane 😂

Bulbasaur: Bulba Charmander: Char Squirtle: Bubble Love it 😂

Excellent video as always

I'm really looking forward to the Donphand vs Ursaring video ^^

Looking forward to see their mid stage evolutions. Love the vids, keep it up! :)

For anyone wondering, the odds of that reset in Erica's gym (at 18:50) are very low, and Scott got incredibly unlucky. For Bellsprout to win the battle, Ice Beam needs to miss (1/256). 0.3% Then, Stun Spore needs to hit. Stun Spore has 75% accuracy, and the enemy AI in Gen 1 has a 75% debuff on hitting status moves, so this is 75% * 75%, which is 56.25%. 0.3% * 56.25% = 0.22% Wrap does 2 damage per hit and Squirtle has 120 HP. Wrap has a 15% chance to hit 0 times, a 37.5% chance each to hit 2 or 3 times, and a 12.5% chance each to hit 4 or 5 times. On average, Wrap will hit 2.55 times per accurracy roll and deal 5.1 damage to Squirtle, again, on average. So it needs to hit 24 times in a row on average, or for Paralyse to proc when it misses (25%), or for Ice Beam to miss when it misses (0.3%). Since Wrap hitting is more likely than those other outcomes, I'll estimate an upper bound and just go with that probability. 85% chance for Wrap to hit, 24 times in a row, is (17/20)^24 = 2.02%. Multiply that by the 0.22% chance for Ice Beam to miss and Stun Spore to hit, and my upper bound estimate for how likely Bellsprout to win this battle is 0.0045%, less than half a pecent of a percent. One in over 22,000. Note: Bellsprout has a 7.81% chance to crit in Gen 1. Crits do less than double damage but as Scott always notes, multi-hit moves continue to crit if any of the hits crit, which compounds the additional damage. I didn't factor crits in because I'm not that smart but I imagine I'm less than an order of magnitude off. The real shocker for me is that there's a 2% chance to hit 85% odds 24 times in a row. That's far more likely than I would have guessed.

18:36 18:46 shout out to the bellsprout missing Wrap only 2 times, and both of those turns squirtle gets fully paralyzed, what an absolute trooper of a plant they are 😅

The proper order of the Kanto starters is the finish. Good stuff! Two of my favorite in a showdown tomorrow! Scott’s bringing it this month!

Excellent performance for Squirtle, but we all know that deep down Bulbasaur would weed out the competition.

Really impressed by the optimization in the second run. Great vid

Squirtle’s back sprite always looked like an old man to me

Thank you for the great videos and happy new year

I'm happy for the turtoise to get it's video and benchmark, would've love for it to be the best around, but sometimes just beating the Char line is good enough for me. Also, kudos to the Saur line, they deserve to be number 1 at something!, also Ivysaur is the best middle stage, but we are not ready to get that convo started.

A fan favorite. For good reason too, such an incredible pokemon. And fun to use, too! I think it's gonna do a pretty good job. I could see it beating charmander

As a charmander fan, I definitely don’t have an ill will towards your ranking it lower. In fact, I’m super impressed you got it to do as well as it did. And I’m super proud of charmander too ❤

Scott, love the videos keep it up !!

It doesn't feel like a Scott's thoughts video if there isn't an instance of going for ice beam trying for a freeze.

Bulbasaur Run: Bulba Charmander Run: Char Squirtle Run: _Oh, come on!_

Oh Look. its the actual best Starter in the entirety of pokemon. Let's goooooo

Loved the starter mini series! No matter the results I'm here for squirtle. Also I predict that ursaring will destroy donphan in the vs video tomorrow.

Can't wait for the results, Squirtle is probably gonna end up between the other two starters but i wonder how is it going to perform overall anyway

I think that a good way to weigh in the attempts per Pokémon would be to take them as a time average. i.e. (sum of attempt times)/(number of attempts), which would show the Pokémon's consistency in achieving a given time, good luck outliers would balance out with poor luck outliers. Anyways, love your videos a ton and your data collection, I am truly excited for this month of thoughts.

Jeeeeez that Squirtle vs Oak battle was insane: 999 in every non HP stat except a +6 defence!

This was expected. Can't wait for tomorrow!

1 minute in and I feel a need to write a comment out of appreciation. I like the added text boxes of info about the things being mentioned.

Can we just talk about the fact that freakin Squirtle can learn DIG but Bulbasaur a Pokémon literally meant to be bulb as in plant and dinosaur a Pokémon all about being buried in the ground cannot learn DIG. Good old Pokémon logic

Sraring at squirtle's back sprite throughout this video, the all blue palette makes its shell look so much like crystal and making me imagine it as an ice type.

I really enjoy the widmanstatten pattern in the bottom right, it’s a special crystalization that happens to iron minerals in the absence of oxygen, exclusively in meteorites. An excelent way to tell if a rock you’ve found formed in space

As a Charmander stan, I have to admit that Squirtle is way more consistent. If anything, I was surprised the final times were so close. I weighed Withdraw too heavily and didn't really account for Sleep Powder or Swords Dance in my Squirtle>>Charmander>Bulbasaur prediction. I really enjoyed this series! Hopefully the middle evolutions and reruns of final forms are coming soon!

that loss to the bellsprout wrap cheese made me physically wince in pain, yeesh

Squirtle looks so happy in the thumbnail 🥺🥰

Out of all the starters, i don't actually have a preference I assumed Squirtle or Bulbasaur would be the best. Looks like Bulbasaur took it. Which makes sense in the spirit of the game. So many playthroughs though, I gotta give you props for that.

Using dig while paralyzed has a chance to turn you invulnerable! Edit: ah, you knew that

Somewhere in the time of Squirtle being paralyzed and wrapped to death by that Bellsprout, I noticed that the Bellsprout actually does miss at least 1 wrap, it just so happened that on the same turn, Squirtle was immobilized due to paralysis. Just another pain-layer on the giant pain-onion.

I think I prefer the Squirtle line the best from gen 1, Bulba 2nd Charmander 3rd as it's always a fan favourite

It would be really interesting to see what time Bulbasaur (and others) would have without sleep. Would love to see a comparison as you did with Butterfree a really long time ago.

Nice to see you figured out a way to make Koga easier in the 2nd Playthrough with Mimic. I wonder though with that strategy, would Sleep Powder be better so you can get by Koga at a lower level?

I just noticed the options for the trainer's name are Scott, Shawn and Sarina. Such a nice little detail :D

Getting rid of Ice Beam for Mimic?! You absolute mad lad

20:19 You can't freeze Venomoth, because it's an ice-type. :) I love your content.

Diehard Squirtle fan. I decided to make a gen 1 playthrough with just water types... man, it's crazy how many great Pokemon are water!

Guessing its second best it can safely badge boost vs physical attackers with withdraw also has good coverage.

I didn't expect charmander to have the fastest brock split.

Squirtle for the win! Definitely the best starter

Talking about the dig glitch when fighting Agatha made me think of something. Does removing the paralysis remove that state if you were to heal with a full restore?

Kind of fits in line with the old ideal, easy = Bulbasaur, normal = Squirtle, hard = Charmander

That wrap did miss once, but you got fully paralyzed

I am loud and proud a Bulbasaur fan so I am quite pleased with these results. They are exactly as I would expect. Bulbasaur supremacy for the win!

I feel like we missed an opportunity to have Squirtle with sunglasses in the art.

Hi, Charmander lover here. I think you did right by the fire boi :)

This algorithm boost was sponsored by turtle pokemon gang 😎

Squirtle is my boy, stats be darned

Bulbasaur was exactly as expected ; slow to win fights but never really struggles and just consistently gets through the game. Charmander surprised me; with a decent amount of extra training it can muscle through everything up to Lance, which is just a roadblock and all that extra training hobbles it. Squirtle just fucking wrecks the whole game.

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Squirtle

This is interesting when compared to the final evolution run. Perhaps the evolution stat changes have a bit to do with it. Am just guessing. I had some thoughts for naming trainers in yellow, so hope you like them Misty’s gym; the mandatory trainer with Goldeen could be named Meena, which is a Sanskrit name for “fish” and “precious stone”. Nina and Ninette are both Russian names meaning “fish” and “little girl” (also “fire”, but 2/3 ain’t bad). Personally, I like Ninette for her. Brock’s gym; I found a good name for the Lightyears trainer; Braxton, which literally means “Brock’s Town”. I found this while looking for a name for the self-destructing hiker. There are a lot of common and unusual names meaning rock, so couldn’t really choose. Hope you like.

Finally my favorite gen1 starter

I just love how bulky Squirtle is.

I had an eerily similar moveset when I did my solo Squirtle line playthrough

I really enjoyed this comparison. Your result mimics the advice from a game guide I had as a child :). Question though - have you started mixing your audio differently recently? I watch RU-vid at 1.5x and your voice has recently gained some audio clipping (within the last couple of months). I know you aren't mixing for people playing at 1.5x but I was just curious if it was a change you'd chosen to make. I remember you had some vocal health issues recently, so maybe it's because your voice is lower when you talk in more recent videos. I'm a big fan of your videos either way :) thanks for making such great run videos.

My favorite!! Woot!!!!

Don't be scared of change. Nothing exists without change.

I think, it didn't matter but is there a reason why you used 7 rare candies before Koga to Level 57 and right after 2 for Blaine so the Exp from Koga didn't count. Did you want to prevent a possible Mid battle level Up against Sabrina after that or was there another or just no reason to not use all 9 rare candies at once?

Daily December is kicking my rear having to play catchup!

Have you considered doing blackout training against non-E4 trainers apart from the Brock's gym trainer? For example, when you were walled by Koga, would it be worth doing it with Koga himself?

I am a charmander die hard. That said I don't care that he underperformed. I don't love him because he is the best, I love him because he is awesome. Plus C tier is green and that's my favorite color. He wins in my eyes.

Charmander fan here. Would love to see this battle take place in Gen 2. Kanto is set up to hurt Charmander in almost every way.

Just imagine if Skull Bash had it's defense boost effect in Gen 1. Badge boosts alone...

Go bulba! You can fend these imposters off!

Squirtle in leafgreen was good as bite became a dark type move...

no one: absolutely no one: scott: “BulbaSARRRR”

I'd like if the overlay indicated opponents' Types (and the Venomoth would display random Types).

I think missing Mega Punch in Mt. Moon slowed down some of the early game.

The champions team makes me curious about a Magneton run.

You think of bulbasaur as a frog? I always thought of it as a sort of dinoSAUR.

Skull Bash is so disappointing, because I remember using that in Gen 1, and I was like "Why wouldn't I just use Strength of Double-Edge instead of this?", not to mention that this was the only time Skull Bash was ever a TM, so I just always wrote it off as a less-useful version of Strength.

256 miss with icebeam...gets wrapped for eternity... hahahahaBAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

thanks to gen 9 i am a major donphan simp in support of great tusks so im saying it now team donphan taking the W tomorrow

How do you think Pikachu will perform in pokemon Yellow/GSC(even more so with surf in the latter?)

squirtle squad rise up

How could you not comment on that excellent back sprite?

❤ amazing

I'm a little sad squirtle didn't place first, but I'm going to say sleep powder gave bulbasaur an advantage. As unevolved pomemon they have a harder time outspeeding or getting one hits so cheese strats make a big difference and squirtle's moves are just too straightforward.

Incoming Wall of Text: For incorporating the number of runs, at the baseline, my first thought is some kind of penalty function with the runs and time as input which generates a _third_ tier list. Two ways I can see the argument going: 1. An exponential or logarithmic penalty function, something like... `adjusted_time = final_time_seconds * f(runs - 2); // Subtract because there's ALWAYS at least two runs` ...where `f(0)` is 1.0 and by the time you get to `f(10)` it's something like 1.25 or even 1.5. You might argue it should be `f(run - percentile(25, all_run_counts[]))` or even `f(runs - median(all_run_counts[]))` under the assumption that maybe, say, Bulbasaur shouldn't be punished harshly because it took four whole runs. That's not implausible; do tests until you think it matches how you feel. You know your dataset and what you're trying to make it confess to! (Clamp your lower bound to 1.0 in that case unless you want things that only do 2-3 runs to get _bonuses...)_ 2. Bucket it with more granularity and apply flat penalties. Time or Tier or whatever your gut says. This would require a lot more "gut feeling" and is harder to justify than misusing algebra to throw a fit, but it'd still probably be interesting. 2a. Actually, there are some possible interesting visualisations you can generate relatively simply to start getting a better understanding of the data: - Bucket run count by the the number of tiers, then order by time within that tier as a very simple example. - Then, yet another tier list can be generated by penalising the original final time by half of the tier range as calculated by the run count tier (e.g. S-tier time but D-tier attempts? That's a five minute penalty.) These kinds of _ad hoc_ analysis can sometimes be helpful clues for finding useful trends. Come to think of it, I wonder what the distribution of attempt counts is? Is it normal? Flat? Bimodal? Something weird? That can help inform your approach. Another thing to keep in mind is how you figure rerankings into it and the simple matter of your own skill improving. Your evolution as a player has pushed times lower on replays, which shifts all of the above metrics in weird ways. So you'd be forced to either make arbitrary decisions about cutoffs for pentalty thresholds or come up with some kind of metric for your own skill level. Actually, thinking about it from that angle... I suspect the _"proper"_ solution would involve going *much* deeper into the actual run data. See, the number of runs to achieve a given result is a measurement that arises from the compound probabiity of all output randomness across the run. There are intangibles, of course -- hesitation, menuing, bonks, Churro, _et al._ -- but your raw play logs can probably be leveraged to to get you close to something like a "luck/consistency factor". *In theory,* this is general enough that it doesn't matter what your skill level is at the time because the amount of luck you need for a time is reduced by better stats/moves and better decisions around e.g. XP routing and move learning. Another neat thing is the calculation can be applied to _every_ run, which can give inroads to a better sense of "luck-per-time" crossover points, what consistency looks like numerically, and even more concrete effects of your own improvement. I realise it'd be a *lot* of time and effort to implement (I suspect there a fair bit of opportunity to trade complexity for accuracy, but even still), but I think it's something worth _thinking about_ even if it can't happen/get farmed out right now.

Mimic mid way through the route 😮 that’s new

There! Bulbasaur is easy mode, Squirtle is medium, and Charmander is hard.

Clearly Squirtle is a Sea tier Pokemon

Hey scott. I discovered something about the gen 1 games, and i think you would love to make a video about it. I can donate, but cant subscribe to any services, is there any way we can talk?

Baby get the candles, Scott just dropped another one.

Go Squirtle

So grinding in Blaine's gym is so inefficient that even a water-type is better off getting the Power Plant rare candy instead? Dang.

I'm not sure I understand how AI Mod 3 works. When you battle Misty with Squirtle, the AI won't pick a water move against you, but Surge doesn't pick an electric move against Squirtle. What's the deal with that?