Purrloin

Purrloin finds a niche in the LC metagame because of its great support movepool with moves like Thunder Wave, Encore, Knock Off, Taunt, and U-turn. In combination with its ability, Prankster, this allows Purrloin to act as a disruptive pivot with good utility. However, Purrloin is heavily restricted by its mediocre bulk, even when invested, giving it few opportunities to utilize its movepool. It also has low offensive presence, restricting it to a support set. Prankster's inability to hit Dark-types also reduces Purrloin's niche significantly, making it unable to paralyze or use Encore on common Dark-type setup sweepers like Scraggy and Vullaby. A poor defensive typing makes Purrloin susceptible to extremely common Fighting-type priority like Mach Punch and Vacuum Wave. Purrloin faces heavy competition from Cottonee, another Prankster user with access to Memento, better bulk, and a better defensive typing, as well as from Alolan Meowth, a Dark-type pivot with better Speed and access to Parting Shot. However, Purrloin's ability to use both U-turn and Prankster gives it a small niche over these two Pokemon.