
Do we ever face a more important, challenging question in life than 'Which Starter Pokémon would you like?' That age-old conundrum has been giving new Pokémon Trainers a headache for decades, with the start of any main series adventure having you choose between a new Grass-, Fire-, or Water-type buddy to kickstart your journey.
With eight generations of Pokémon out there in the wild, a whopping 24 Starter Pokémon now exist. We imagine most Poké-fans have their favourites or least favourites of the bunch, and it just so happens that almost 4,000 people have jumped at the chance to rank their personal favourites online over at Tiermaker.
At the time of writing, 3,942 tier lists have been submitted. The cumulative average rankings from each and every voter have been displayed in the chart below – do you agree with this order?

As you can see, it appears that the original set – Bulbasaur, Charmander and Squirtle – are still very much the most adored Starter Pokémon on the planet. We hear people like Mudkip, too.
We actually ran our very own set of polls just over a year ago, asking Nintendo Life readers to vote for their favourite Starter Pokémon of each different type. The results show a similar story, with the original Kanto monsters being super-popular across the board.
How would you rank the Starter Pokémon? Do you have a top – and least – favourite? Let us know in the comments below.
[source tiermaker.com]
Comments (85)
Scorbunny in D?
POPPLIO IN E?!
Chikorita is my favorite but I'm honestly kind of sick and tired of using starters though, I've been boxing all of them since like Gen 4.
@TimLatshaw this list is hereshy! All starters are S tier. Especially torchic, tepig, fennekin, rowlet and grookey!
Squirtle is love
Torchic is S++
At least
What's being ranked here? Popularity, or efficacy in the games?
Gen 1 starters at the top who would have believed it eyeroll
This list is almost pure garbage. Although they did get Tepig right.
C'mon, Fennekin deserves better.
@Kyloctopus What do you expect? Genwunners are everywhere contaminating the internet with their Nostalgia blindness.
Gen 1! Gen 1! Gen 1! Best ever! Wooo! 😎
Chimchar #1 come on
I personally prefer Piplup from Gen 4 because i like Water Pokemon and Empoleon.
Scorbunny belongs in S, and I will die for him. Also Squirtle is in his rightful place as greatest starter of all time
The fact mudkip, one of the dorkiest starter pokemon to ever exist is at the top rank implies they asked 4000 of the wrong people.
How is Totodile worse than that?
@Anti-Matter Piplup’s great too. I actually really like all 3 Sinnoh starters.
@RadioHedgeFund Mudkip in S tier also confused me quite a bit
Charizard can take over 2000 damage from rocks in the Mystery Dungeon games and a lot more in the event of a Critical Hit. So strange how people love Charmander so much when it eventually becomes one of the worst Pokemon known to exist.
I didn't vote, but I could have only named the Gen 1 starters. I recognize the ones from Sw/Sh, but I couldn't have named them to save my life.
Suspect that may be true for the others who voted.
Gee, Kanto Starters at the top. Who could've predicted that? As for my most favorite to least favorite:
Treecko
Froakie
Cyndaquil
Squirtle
Sobble
Turtwig
Piplup
Mudkip
Totodile
Snivy
Litten
Popplio
Chespin
Oshawott
Tepig
Scorbunny
Bulbasaur
Charmander
Rowlet
Grookey
Torchic
Chimchar
Chikorita
Fennekin
Best starter is Pikachu (Yellow, Let's Go Pikachu), Eevee is number 2.
Poor Popplio ... He is my favourite Pokemon ...
All 3 Kanto starters at the top...checks out 👍🏼
Glad to see my guy Treeko so highly rated. I didn't expect that. Gen 3 starters are my favorite.
@sanderev Too bad Blue (Gary) took Eevee away from the Player in the original Pokemon Yellow.
I suspect some of the votes were influenced by their evos. Maybe if they did the poll and emphasized that the votes are for the starters in their base forms it'd help things? Cause Fennekin's final evo is terrible, but I don't think Fennekin itself is a C-Tier design. More like A-Tier
Aw, I like Chespin and Poplio enough that I used them in their games.
Mudkip is likable.
There is my boy, Charmander!
My list based on looks is way different than battles
I'm sad for Scorbunny, I don't like the evolutions that much but he's just so cute and cuddly!
Oh and I would never have guessed that mudkip would be as popular as the original 3 🤭
Oshawott!
That is all.
when your 4 favorite starters are in the bottom 4 tiers, 1 each per tier
Only starters i dont like are gen 5.
Yeah starters kinda suck in my humble opinion. I usually drop them in my box
After the first or second gym. That's goes for first gen as well.
Torchic, Cyndaquil, and Piplup are my favorite. They are a good mix of adorable and useful, without having funny looking evolutions, especially Torchic. I don't dislike the first gen starters, but they wouldn't end up on any of my fav lists.
@Brydontk I don't think that was really the point though. We tend to like specific starters because of our playtime with them, and a lot of that is their evolutions. Think of this more as an overall sort of thing
Wow chespin can't be the absolute worst. These people have terrible taste.
Nowhere to be seen, my boy munchlax doesn't get much love. I don't even know if is a starter, I just know it's my favorite pokemon ever
Tepig deserves better!
Why is Tepig and Poplio so low!? They have some of the best starter lines!
I feel like this is less about the best starter, rather the most nostalgic starter. Notice how most of the top pokemon are from gens 1 to 3. People vote for whats familiar
@Thundertron55
A lot of people might not know them. Most likely the people who voted grew up with gen 1,2,3.
The list is just about perfect lol The only things I would change would be moving Snivy to E tier and Sobble up to C.
This...actually reflects my feelings somewhat well, though I still haven't played Sw/Sh and can't really comment on those starters yet. The main thing is I'd move Chimchar down to tier E, put Tepig in C, and move Litten up to A. I'd also swap Mudkip and Cyndaquil's spots.
Also, while I love Greninja, I've never been into Froakie and Frogadier's designs at all.
Squirtle, Cyndaquil, Totodile, Torchic, and Oshawott have always been my favorite starters. Kinda cool to see that Squirtle is so high up, I'd have figured it'd be all about Charmander.
So top tier is gen 1 and memes. Even though they're in the top half, Rowlett and Torchic deserve better. Especially Torchic
Froakie, Squirtle and Totodile would be my top 3. Charmanda i like but its Charizard what makes that line while the likes of Squirtle and Froakie are cool in their own right next to their final forms.
I like torchic best
Dunno why Rowlet isn't S tier but I agree with the Gen 8 rankings. Easily the worst starter trio in any of the games.
It's gotta be a popularity contest...there is no way that Fennekin would be ranked that high in an effectiveness contest (FFS, it's a magic-user-type and it can barely learn non-Fire, non-Psychic moves...it can't even learn Thunderbolt, which can be taught to multiple non-Mages; Thunder Punch and Shock Wave, though, are allowed...which is just as baffling).
Okay, WHAT? Who the HELL made that tier list!?
Squirtle deserves to be in first, of course, but seriously? Sobble in D? Popplio in E!? Whoever made this is my worst enemy.
@TheLightSpirit of course all the passion of the developers went into the first generation. As the series goes on, it just becomes a chore for the developers to churn out more designs.
Im sorry if your favorites are uninspired generic designs with no soul. You dont have to cry in public about it though.
Sorry but Gen 1 ftw. Goes beyond nostalgia.
Poor Tepig and Chikorita, they'd be much higher in my list, Totodile is my fave starter though, Oshawott is easily my least liked, though that could purely be because i found it so annoying in the anime lol
My boy oshawott is top tier! No one can deny it
How dare youuuuuuse!!! Chikorita is perhaps my favourite starter of all (Meganium is beauuuutiful), but I also LOVE Scorbunny. So bloody adorable. But Chikorita ultimately wins out because I hate Raboot (yuck) and am indifferent to Cinderace, though its signature attack animation is quite cool.
I am also a Popplio lover. Come at me, h8ers.
@TheLightSpirit : The base set Charizard trading card wasn't very useful competitively either, but it is perhaps the most popular card of all.
You're just asking to get flamed with this one 😂
Here's mine: https://i.imgur.com/NFhlSN2.png
Truth me told, I'm just straight-up neutral on lot of them. If we were taking into account later evolutions, the list would look a lot different. (Incineroar would require me to bring back the F tier lol)
Fixed it :
https://tiermaker.com/list/pokemon/starter-first-form/1070444
@RupeeClock
Popularity.
Mudkips final Evolution is the only one that could compete.
@Tim_Vreeland Lad if you think rocks with faces and arms magnets and screws with eyes and piles of purple slime along with Grenades with eyes and exploding Pokeballs are good designs then there is something wrong with you and the entire Pokemon fandom.
Perhaps you and other Genwunner kids like you can come up with some designs of your own then seeing as you never stop hating on the rest of the series. I bet you worship Verlisify don't you.
Squirtle and Mudkip S tier.. I approve of this 👌
@TheLightSpirit yep a rock with arms is definitely more charming than digimon.
I thought there was a law enforced by the UN that prevented people from liking bulbasaur.
@Tim_Vreeland Lol sure if you say so. I was joking with my response to you as I like all generations but it's pretty obvious Nostalgia plays a major role as to why so many people cling onto gen 1. I don't mind that what I do mind is the way people go around stirring things up for no other reason than to annoy everybody else. This is the reason gen 1 grates on my nerves, not because I don't like them.
@TheLightSpirit don't forget the pokemon I like to call 3s company. Dugtrio, three diglets put together. Magneton, three magmites put together. Dodrio is just doduo with an extra head and feathers.
Gotta wonder if a large part of the reason for the gen 8 starters being so low is residual hate for the games they come from? (Given the first gen are at the top, I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case.)
Oh well, at least Cyndaquil and Rowlet are pretty high up, so that's something.
@TheLightSpirit I knew you could find it in your heart to love Gen 1
yay piplup and squirtle are my favs
Daaang they did the homie chikorita dirty
Bulbasaur is still my favourite after all these years.
I would love to see the same for final evolutions, and compare the charts.
Gen 1 bias is a thing, so it can't be helped. I'm just pleasantly surprised that MY first Pokémon pal, Cyndaquil, ranked so high.
@Blarbeltharp To be fair, they never entirely abandoned that concept. Look at Binacle (Gen 6). Its evolution into Barbaracle is essentially seven Binacle combining together like some kind of bio-organic Megazord.
@Expa0 Just curious, but why do you box your starter? In Single Player, they are all a decent option to always have around.
I always keep my starter in my party and I generally pick a fire type which is harder to find in the wild.
Replace bulbasaur with litten. Then we're good
Gen 8 should be a tier lower.
TEPIG IN E!!?!?!?! WHAT
oshawott should be s teir
Do you like mudkips?
@Kappatea Chikorita is amazing but its evolutions are garbage. I think that put it on the bottom.
Squirtle, Totodile, and Litten for me
Fennekin, Rowlett, Mudkip, Totodile and Cindaquail. Favourite starters that also have pretty cool final evolutions... Except Totodile, not a Feraligator fan but that first evolution is my favourite of all!!
(I haven't played Sw/Sh)
Best to Least
Water Pokemon:
Squirtle Line
Totodile Line
Piplup Line
Mudkip Line
Poplio Line
Froakie Line
Oshawat Line
Grass Pokemon:
Treecko Line
Turtwig Line
Bulbasaur Line
Rowlet Line
Chespin Line
Chikorita Line
Snivy Line
Fire Pokemon:
Fennekin Line
Charmander Line
Cyndaquil Line
Tepig Line
Litten Line
Torchik Line
Chimchar Line
Imagine putting Chespin and Tepig at the bottom. Glad Turtwig and Totodile are pretty high up tho
ugh, the fire monkey is high, but hot ham is low? now i know this is biased, snort
@Anti-Matter same
Makes sense seeing as how the Pokemon designs have gone dowhill With each generation
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