So Sand Rush Garchomp was removed for being broken, even though it had legitimate answers (Cresselia and Togekiss in particular answer it well) but this kind of overcentralizing is healthy? Forcing offensive and HO teams to carrying clerics isn't too overcentralizing? Without a cleric or Heal Bell support you more often then not lose to a Liepard team, and there is only one viable HO Heal Bell user (Mega Lopunny). There are bans for mons that force HO teams to carry specific counters, that turn those teams into "shitty balance teams." I'm not trying to be rude or anything, but forcing HO teams to carry non-HO mons (basically any cleric) classifies as overcentralizing. Look at Sand Rush Exca. It had a decent amount of answers, but those answers really don't fit on offensive teams. Would you make the argument that offensive teams should have just carried Skarm? Because now you are asking offensive teams to carry Sylveon, Chansey or Clefable (or use the one Mega slot on Lopunny), who, outside of answering one mon, have no place on HO teams. Where does the line between Rush Mega Garchomp and DV Liepard fall exactly? You could make the argument that "if your teams doesn't have the bulk to handle Mega Garchomp, that's not a problem with Mega Garchomp, thats a problem with your teams bulk." Also, no ones acting like sleep or para kill something, but sleep in particular is a guaranteed sidelining for a few turns,and that's sometimes all you need. The real issue, especially with Dark Void, is that it has no type based immunity. Prankster Spore can be mitigated to a degree by just carrying a Grass type, Prankster T-Wave the same with Electric and Grounds types. Dark Void has no type based switch-in, which puts it into a slightly higher tier of brokenness imo.Okay so I want to talk about why my vote is almost certainly going to go to Liepard…
To everyone saying that it will centralize the metagame, you are most likely right. Liepard with Dark Void would very likely find a place on a LOT of teams simply because of Prankster sleep alongside Taunt and Thunder Wave. Hell--it even gets U-Turn to make itself hard to hit. Purely offensive teams would likely have an unfavorable matchup against this thing due to its fast-paced disruptive abilities. Liepard could very easily become a centralizing factor in the metagame.
However…I think it could have an interesting and reasonably healthy effect on the metagame.
I'd like to address one major issue before I continue. A lot of people think that once a Pokemon is put to sleep or paralyzed, it is useless for the remainder of the game. This is entirely false. The only thing rendering a Pokemon useless for the remainder of the game is KO'ing it. Last I checked, sleep and paralysis do not KO a Pokemon. They certainly make a Pokemon LESS useful, but they are still valuable to a varying extent (I say varying because defensive Pokemon care significantly less than offensive Pokemon). If your team is stopped short by status effects, that is not the status effects being broken; it is your team being poorly equipped to handle status effects. Last I checked, Stall and Balance don't care about status effects.
I do not have any problem WHATSOEVER as to the effects that would likely follow this centralization. I believe that if we had Dark Void Liepard in our metagame, we would see a significant change in team building. We would likely see successful offensive teams each carry some sort of cleric. Liepard's presence would simply necessitate Heal Bell/Aromatherapy on teams. Obviously Liepard would increase the importance of the use of powerful priority moves, so we would probably see more Talonflame and Dragonite. I think that forcing offensive teams to use a cleric is a great step for the metagame. Defensive and Balanced play styles would skyrocket in viability, as offensive teams would not be able to cover as much with less coverage. Additionally, this could actually add a cool component to offensive teams. They would now have a component of longevity--something that Stall and Balance teams have. Offensive players would now be able to mitigate the amount of damage their team sustains overall. I think that would be a really cool metagame to play in.
All in all, I think that the metagame effects of Liepard would be really cool; I hope that maybe some of you were previously bandwagoning, and now my post enlightens you to the fact that Prankster sleep is a really cool thing. It's the kind of thing this thread is all about: stirring up controversy so that we can better understand how our metagame works and the things that cause major shifts in it.