Lucario

Lucario is one of the most dangerous attackers in the tier, ready to sweep at a moment’s notice. Its fantastic typing, incredible movepool including strong priority in Extreme Speed, and excellent offensive stats make it one of the premier Swords Dance users in the tier that every team must be aware of. An immunity to sand and poison and a 4x resistance to Stealth Rock make it resilient to residual damage, allowing it to be one of the few Pokemon able to run Life Orb consistently without a lot of drawbacks. As a Swords Dance sweeper, Lucario can pick and choose its defensive checks with its coverage moves, whether it be Crunch for Rotom-A and bulky Psychic-types like Latias and Celebi; Ice Punch for Gliscor, Dragonite, Latias, and Zapdos; or Bullet Punch for Gengar and Choice Scarf Tyranitar. Lucario also is a premier Choice Scarf user due to outspeeding and KOing common Speed-boosting sweepers such as Dragon Dance Tyranitar, Gyarados, and Dragonite with its strong Close Combat and excellent coverage. Lucario also has excellent other sweeping options in Agility and Calm Mind that leave it with very different answers, potentially surprising standard counterplay.

However, Lucario is held back by its decent base 90 Speed stat and its inability to run all of its options at once. Lucario is unfortunately both frail and not very fast, meaning many offensive Pokemon such as Rotom-A, Gliscor, Latias, Jirachi, Gengar, and Flygon outspeed and threaten to KO it, especially after it drops its defensive stats with Close Combat. This is made worse by the fact that Lucario often wants the extra power from Adamant to break through Pokemon such as physically Skarmory at +2, meaning even more Pokemon such as offensive Suicune outspeed it. Even with good defensive typing, sweeping Lucario sets are often relegated to very aggressive teams, as it doesn’t provide much defensive utility due to its frailty and common weaknesses. This is exacerbated by Lucario being a Steel-type that doesn't check Latias and is itself checked by the faster Jirachi, typically responsibilities of a Steel-type. Lucario is also a victim of its own success, as defensive teams often have multiple checks, and more offensive teams almost always have multiple Fighting-type answers and a Pokemon resistant to Extreme Speed that can finish off Lucario, such as Fire Punch Jirachi or Scizor. Even with all of this, there are some Pokemon Lucario badly struggles to break unless it has a specific moveset, such as Gliscor, faster Jirachi, Choice Scarf Magnezone or Magneton, and faster priority users like Mach Punch Infernape. Choice Scarf Lucario struggles against defensive teams due to its relatively weak Close Combat and relies heavily on prediction, as its moves can be easily punished if not chosen carefully. Theoretically, Lucario could deal with a lot of these issues; however, it is limited by four moveslots and cannot carry everything it needs.