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Contest Blaziken vs Empoleon vs Decidueye

Envoy

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All images found using teh Googles. I claim to have made none of these. Credit to the artists, whom I believe posted the originals on Tumblr, Deviantart, and Pintrest respectively.

Okay, with the disclaimers out of the way...

So, with the introduction of Decidueye, we now have ourselves a full set of flightless bird Starter Pokemon. Decidueye is based on a now extinct flightless owl and is Grass/Ghost. Blaziken is based on a cockfighting chicken and is Fire/Fighting (the original Fire/Fighting. Infernape and Emboar are posers.) Empoleon is based on a penguin and is Water/Steel.

So, which one is your favorite?

I'm torn. I love all three so, so much. Decidueye is a Grass type archer, and that combines two of my favorite things in ever. Plus its typing is super boss. Blaziken is my favorite Fire Starter and my third favorite Fire type in general. Empoleon is also super awesome. Love its typing and design.

Eh....I'm going to choose Decidueye out of my loyalty to Grass types, but it's an arbitrary metric that is just there to help me make a decision. I love all three of these so much it hurts.
 
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I'd proably say....everyone execpt Blaziken. While I picked water in gen7, I still think Decidueye has a really amazing design as well as an interesting concept to boot. It's movepool seems quite interesting as well, and as a result I am confirmed to pick it when I play SM the second time. Empoleon too, is pretty good in battle, and also has a really solid design. I've used it once and it didn't fail me, and I'll go far to say all the ge4 starters are amazing in their own ways. So I guess that means Blaziken is my least fav of the 3, but I would still like to use one some day.
 
Empoleon, that Water/Steel typing is really neat. I'd choose Piplup for a PMD game almost all the time.
 
All three of them are fantastic, but my vote goes to Decidueye. It warms my heart that the Grass-type starter is finally the fan favorite. You could arguably say that Snivy/Servine/Serperior were the fan favorite starter of Gen V because it became the "meme" starter, but the Gen V starters were considered pretty subpar until they finally released Contrary Serperior.
 
All three have very nice designs and are fun to use in battle, but I'm going to have to give this one to Decidueye. Rowlet is in the running for my favorite starter Pokémon and I absolutely adore the design of both the first and final stages (Datrix is ehhhh but it's fine enough). The only downside to Decidueye is its stats make it significantly less viable in battle than the other two, but it's not really "weak."

But do have a special connection to all three. Blaziken was my first ever starter Pokémon when I got Ruby, Empoleon was the first I used in Pearl and I originated the name Enzap for my Piplup, and as Decidueye is just fantastic conceptually and aesthetically.
 
Empoleon. Great design, typing and theme. Literal Poseidon emperor penguin. The first two stages are rather meh, but it makes up for it at the final stage. I remember being so hyped when I saw DP's starters and one of them was a penguin. It needs to learn Roost though, if Mantine can get it I hope they will one day let Empoleon, flightless bird be damned.

Blaziken's design is a bit too bizarre for me (its Mega looks better than its regular form) and as much as I adore Rowlet, Decidueye threw my care for it out of the window when it swapped from Grass/Flying. I wanted a really awesome Grass/Flying starter before Rowlet existed, so when Rowlet was revealed I was so hyped. Adorable design and the type I wanted. So it felt like a total tease that was snatched away. (Decidueye would probably be worse as Grass/Flying with that stat spread it has, but that's not the point). Also a Ghost owl should look way more spookier than Decidueye does. It looks like it's someone off to a fancy dress party.

I do agree with the earlier post that it's nice to see the Grass starter being so popular though, it feels like a long time since that happened (Sceptile?).
 
Empoleon, as I like its unique typing and design. Decidueye is good, too, but Blaziken is ugly and overrated.
 
Can't choose between Decidueye and Blaziken.
 
I used to really like Blaziken, but now I just think its design looks awkward and jarring. Like, normally I don't have a problem with humanoid starter Pokemon, but Blaziken doesn't even look like a chicken aside from having a beak and talons. Shamo chickens are weirdly humanoid compared to other chickens, yes, but Blaziken's neck isn't long enough to look like one.
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Like, people complain about humanoid Fire starters from recent gens, but at least you can look at Delphox, Incineroar, Cinderace and the like and say "Yeah, that sure is an anthro fennec fox/tiger/rabbit." Blaziken is the most jarringly human humanoid starter; like, I get what they were going for, but like, at least give it a longer neck, and maybe arms made of clawed wings.

Empoleon's my favorite Water-type starter, and was my main Pokemon in my playthrough of Brilliant Diamond. They managed to make a penguin of all things genuinely imposing. It's great.

And then you have Decidueye. Rowlet was my favorite of the three Alola starters from the moment it was revealed. Then the starter evolutions leaked, and while I liked all of them quite a bit, I fell in love with Decidueye from the moment I saw it. It was such a cool Pokemon, and being based on a stilt owl makes it even cooler. Decidueye's probably my favorite starter of all time, so yeah, going with Decidueye.
 
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Decidueye looks imposing but is just lame in battle. Empoleon still has a unique type combo, but has been struggling with power creep for years (at least give it Roost or something). Blaziken still looks imposing, is genuinely imposing, and is still going strong (although not quite as strong as before).
 
I like all three, so I'm kind of torn. I'd probably go with Empoleon due to it's typing(s) and it being a penguin, plus it's the only one of the Sinnoh starters I actually really like (including the whole line). Blaziken would be second favorite, I really like it's design and always found it to be pretty cool looking, and whenever I replay a Hoenn game it's almost always a MVP. Finally, Decidueye would be third favorite, being a cool owl archer is... well cool lol, though I have nothing else to say about it tbh; it's the second Alola starter I like after Popplio and it's evo's, so I don't think too much about it often.
 
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