Gen 5's starters were clearly all shit to balance out gen 5s new hidden abilities even though you couldn't actually get them until gen 6.
Serperior is fast but has shit attacking stats because they didn't want it to be too broken with contrary.
Emboar has high hp to make use of reckless and all the recoil moves they gave it
and samurott was mixed and just mediocre all round because clearly it was meant to get shell smash with shell armour there to prevent an unlucky crit taking it down and stopping it from sweeping
also its an otter, they smash shells