>>45255460In general, this is due to Fire types as a whole generally having quality problems that starters are mostly exempt from, and quality aside, it is generally a very consistent type. I think there's a perception that it's an "offensive" type, which to an extent is true, but people often undersell the useful resistances Fire has.
All water starters have to contend with the fact that Gyarados, and tons of other good water types exist, and Grass is extremely niche and generally shitty for single player, often having only one or two strong points in an entire game, if any at all (see Chikorita).
Any time a Fire type isn't the best is either due to an extremely polarizing region that is hard on Fire (X and Y comes to mind), the starter itself having serious problems (Gen 4 Typhlosion), or an extreme outlier for the other types (Swampert)
>>45265815Competitive takes aspects of the pokemon that are not relevant to the starter experience into account.
Overgrow Serperior =/= Contrary Serperior, as the most glaring example.
Your starter doesn't get its HA, egg moves, or even most of its TM pool.
Another good example of this is Greninja; Greninja is just too frail to be a good single player pokemon, especially since it also lacks the power to reliably 1HKO anything it isn't Stab SE against.
If you want to talk competitive, fine, but this is ingame, where different rules apply.
