Cyndaquil, Quilava, Typhlosion (SM)

Sonic The Hedgehog drowns in contact with water. Cyndaquil, also a hedgehog/porcupine/whatever is weak to water. Coincidence?

Location: Route 3 (Island Scan on Sunday)

Stats, Evolutions.
Cyndaquil has decent stats for a first-stager, but you'd think they'd be higher. Unlike Johto, where it is your starter, you get it when you beat your first trial, so it's good, but not great. You have stronger pokémon already.

Its evolution level may change your mind. It evolves into Quilava at the impossibly close level 14. Level it up twice, and it's evolved. If only every Pokémon in the game could evolve this quickly. Quilava has an eh physical defense and decent attack, but its special defense is good and its speed and special attack are pretty good. This means that if Quilava meets a Pokémon that has a type disadvantage, Quilava WILL win.

But to make up for its quick evolution level, it evolves at 36, 22 levels later. That's much later than the other Johtonian starters (Feraligatr: 30, Meganium: 32), and a bit later than the Alolan starters, but still manageable. Plus, Quilava kicks a lot of grass. Typhlosion merely gets a much-needed stat update, but still good. It has a lot of special attack, very good speed and manageable defensive stats as well as average attack.

Movepool, Abilities, Typing.
Its unique move is Double Kick. I can only guess they gave it that fighting move to cover up against Rock-types, but even when hitting supereffectively and twice, don't expect it to do a lot of damage. The best it also has is Ember. At level 13 it gets Quick Attack, which isn't a very good move since all it does is hitting first, but it's useful for finishing opponents off. It evolves at level 14.

Quilava doesn't get any moves until Flame Wheel. Decent, but it doesn't hit hard. The next noteworthy move it gets is Swift, which won't hit too hard either but it has perfect accuracy. The last it gets before evolution is Flame Charge at 35, a rather weak attack that boosts its speed every time it's used.

Typhlosion gets Lava Plume at level 43, Flamethrower at 48 and Inferno at 56. Inferno always burns, but Lava Plume has a 30% chance of burning and it's far more likely to hit. Flamethrower only has a 10% chance of burning. That's all it gets before the league, although it gets Rollout if it levels up to level 61.

Typhlosion gets A LOT of coverage via TMs, and I mean A LOT. It gets stuff like Brick Break, Aerial Ace, Sunny Day + Solar Beam, Shadow Claw, Earthquake, Rock Slide, Wild Charge... A shame that most of them are physical, but you can always teach it Overheat, Fire Blast or Focus Blast, or Hidden Power if you're desperate: just make sure Typhlosion's hidden power has a convenient typing. Oh, and Hyper Beam.

Its ability is Blaze, the bland ability all Fire starters get. Easy to take for granted, but not terrible.

Its type is pure Fire, and it doesn't change at all with evolution, just Fire. Not a bad typing, Typhlosion is only weak to three types￼ and resists six of them.

Important Battles
Quilava will most likely be evolved before the first Hala battle, and is a good choice for that since it's faster than everything and it also has a good special attack. Aside from that, not much until Totem Lurantis, although Totem Lurantis hits very hard and its boost in speed has it outspeeding Quilava. Then it's decent against Totem Vikavolt (despite having the Berry that weakens Fire-type moves) and Nanu in Ula'ula, the Poni battles are NO, and the Pokémon League is decent outside of Olivia.

Conclusion
The best of the 3 Johto starters. Chikorita, Bayleef, Meganium (SM) have a movepool that leans way too much on defense, while Totodile, Croconaw, Feraligatr (SM) don't have a reliable STAB move. Typhlosion has an average movepool, but it doesn't have it as bad as the other two, and it has a lot of coverage via TMs, but it's mostly physical, which sucks since it's a special attacker (but its physical attack stat is not bad), and its level-up movepool has little outside of Fire-type moves. Still, Typhlosion is very fast in Aslowla as well as having a lot of special attack and evolving from Cyndaquil to Quilava pretty fast, and unlike similar Pokémon, it can take more than a hit. Just don't get it close to the types it's weak to.

Rating: 81%