>>55682777I would say stage 1s are competitive, and maybe even better these days. Fuecoco, Rowlet, Scorbunny, and Sobble are all pretty good designs. Especially given Gen 4s really weak 1st stage lineup, the early games have their fair competition.
It's just the final stage of new starters that are absolute dogwater. Going from you definition of 5-9, I think only Serperior and Greninja are the only passable final stage evolutions, where as Gen 1-4 the only bad final stage I can think of is Infernape and Sceptile. Maybe Blaziken is a bit out there?
