"Starter Thought Experiment"

Professor Pine (disclaimer: Professor name was totally pulled out of my Ultra Wormhole) approaches you, a new trainer, with a special catch to the starter choice trope. Pine has a box with a touchscreen on it. The first screen has a big red button where, upon pressing it, a random Pokemon type is generated. Once that type is generated, the screen changes to a list of all Pokemon of that type for you to choose as your starter with the below listed caveats. Once you've chosen your starter, the box flashes, opens, and presents you with a Pokeball containing your chosen starter (with a randomly generated gender, if applicable). Don't limit yourself to what's competitive, contest-ready, able to fit in your studio apartment, etc. Have fun with it!Caveats (I've tried to future-proof this as much as possible):1) Your starter must evolve at least once. For the sake of this experiment, families with baby 'mons as their second (i.e. Smoochum) or third (i.e. Magby), are game. If you choose Mega evolutions do not count towards the total (sorry Pinsir, Mawile, etc.).2) You start with the lowest stage of that family. So if you choose the Marill family, you start with an Azurill.3) They can't be a "typical" Fire/Water/Grass starter from the known main-series regions. So the Pikachu family is okay, but the Piplup family is not.4) The 'mon must maintain your randomly generated type throughout its entire family. So, in the case of Fletchling, it does not qualify for a Normal starter nor a Fire starter but does qualify for a Flying starter since it goes from Normal/Flying to Fire/Flying once it evolves. Similarly, since the Ralts line can diverge, Fighting and Fairy qualifiers are off the table, but Psychic is game.5) For Pokemon that evolve via Item and/or Trade, assume Professor Pine will help you facilitate said evolution when the time is right. For Pokemon that evolve based on environment (such as Charjabug or Burmy line), you are responsible for facilitating the evolution. For Pokemon that evolve based on stats (looking at you Tyrogue), assume you have anything needed to help train to that stat spread before evolution. Obviously, Friendship/Affection-based evolutions are on you.6) No Legendary/Mythic/Guardian/UB/etc. Pokemon.7) Use your favorite RNG to generate a number 1-18 that will correspond to the type you've been deal when you press the big red button.RNG Type Chart:NumberType1Bug2Dark3Dragon4Fire5Flying6Ghost7Electric8Fairy9Fighting10Grass11Ground12Ice13Normal14Poison15Psychic16Rock17Steel18WaterMy big red button gave me a Dark-type. I think I'd go with Inkay since I've loved the little squid since its reveal. I wonder if I'll have to do a handstand in order to evolve it.Edit: Caveat 5.1) If the Pokemon only evolves when it is a specific gender (Salandit, Combee) or any similar limitation, the box will give you that gender.Edit 2: Thought I'd break down the number of options you have for each type and why, when I was juggling whether to do only 3-stage families, allow 2-stage families as options, or allow the typical starters, I chose to allow 2-stage families. The short of it is that 3-stage only gives only 2-3 options for a few types and the starters only add, on average, a little over 1 choice per type. Adding 2-stage families added more than 14 choices per type on average.Type3 Stage Only3 Stage w/2 Stage Allowed3 Stage w/StartersBug7287Dark2172Dragon7107Fire2139Flying7277Ghost4134Electric7117Fairy5125Fighting2132Grass72614Ground6226Ice3123Normal103710Poison8249Psychic5225Rock6216Steel5115Water53812Average5.4419.836.67 via /r/pokemon http://ift.tt/2p5koF4