These are just my opinions, not the actual changes lol.
A- ---> A: Agree/Indifferent
A ---> A-: Disagree
A- ---> B+: Agree
A- ---> B+: Strongly Agree
A- ---> B+: Agree
A- ---> B+: Indifferent
---> B+
---> B
This Pokemon has been extremely underwhelming to me lol. While I've been using it/watching others use it, the amount of match-ups where its actually been useful has been far and few. Ladder might be a bit different because that tends to have more Webs which Lopunny obviously is good against, but in like a tour environment or outside of ladder where I run into more of the standard Mew/CelePex/Clefable builds Lopunny does basically nothing. It's also complete deadweight vs stall as well for obvious reasons. Without Ice Punch fat Lando is a huge nuisance, and without PuP it wont even have a chance to break through something like Mew/Clef. I just really dislike it atm, the meta is way too unkind to it, and it's nowhere near as useful as it was last gen.
B ---> B+: Agree
While I agree with almost all of these, the one I really wanna talk about and elaborate on is the status of lopunny in the current meta. (I obviously don't wanna speak for Gary but from that little blurb it seems like he and I think similarly to one another about lopunny rn more or less)
In all honesty, I couldn't wait for lop to come out. In ORAS it was a personal favorite mon of mine, and I really really love her as a mon and as a whole. However, it is straight up undeniable that the meta is incredibly unkind to it right now. It requires a whole lot of support before it can start putting in work. It is dependent heavily on match up, and needs a lot of support from teammates to wear down/ lure its checks before it can start doing work. I do think B is a little bit harsh, but certainly nothing above B+ would be appropriate. I suppose I should bold that huh.
---> B+
Its checks are not only common, but also hard to wear down.
Toxapex is a full on stop to it, and it's got recover, regenerator, and often black sludge to shake off the minimal damage that lopunny can throw at it. It can just get up toxic spikes, fish for scald burns or do whatever it wants. Additionally,
max def bold Clef has seen a whole lot of use, and that thing doesn't care about lop at all. It can get rocks up, t-wave it if it's carrying it, or just straight up moonblast it. And don't even get me started on
Defensive Mew, which is a full out counter to lopunny and one of the single most common and viable mons in the meta rn who can chunk it with psychic, burn it, get rocks up/ defog away their own rocks. Those three are certainly the most common and hard counters to lopunny, but there's plenty more good answers to it, or at least things that are definitely hindrances - skarm counters it, zapdos does if no rocks are up, mega venusaur and amoongus both do as well (More common in tournament matches than ladder, but definitely still relevant threats), tang is sort of annoying, and can eat a hit or two and heal up with giga drain if it's AV (If it's phys def it hard counters), celesteela forces mind games because HJK is a really close 2HKO, but with some protect shenanigans you can force lop to take damage and heal up with lefties/ leech seed, magearna can stomach a hit and OHKO in return... You guys get the idea.
HOWEVER, I do think that there are lots of mons that synergize extraordinarily well. Ash-Greninja helps out a lot, SD Bulu with fightinium Z, along with stuff like spikes support all go a long way with lop. It absolutely cleans up vs offense teams, it is a really nice cleaner, and a lot of its checks can be trapped (Toxapex is trapped by duggy, Mew can kinda sorta be pursuit trapped) or lured sorta easily by some common mons that don't really like force you into using sets that are too too unorthodox.
Fortunately, it still has ridiculous speed unboosted, and almost perfect coverage. I definitely think its better than some of the B threats, such as like niheligo and non-mega zam, and even just
as good (if not better) than stuff like fini, torn-t, and alolan marowak. It's by no means a perfect pokemon who destroys the majority of the meta right now, but that's why it wouldn't be like A+ or anything. I think B+ is a fine rank for it. People tend to point out a mons flaws and never talk about their strong suits to justify their sitting in a rank, but I mean not every mon is absolutely perfect or uncounterable or else they wouldn't be OU. Keep in mind that lop doesn't have a hard time being brought in, can provide a very strong STAB fake out, power-up punch can even be used to surpass some of it's would be checks like tang. It forces a whole lot of switches, and the fact that it can absolutely destroy the vast majority of offensive threats has gotta be worth something. Just Fake Out + Return/ High Jump Kick can kill Zard Y, Both Ash-Gren and Protean Gren, Zygarde (If ice punch), Tapu koko, Mega Mawile, and a bunch more. It outspeeds a +1 Mega T-tar and takes that out, gets the 2HKO on stuff like tapu Bulu, volcarona, Lele, Fini, and a crap ton more I can't even go into rn. Bottom line is it's totally still good, but very match up dependent/ requires a little help from teammates to wear down or beat its checks. ATM its checks just happen to be very common, so that's really its problems. I think B+ is a good rank for it, and I hope you guys do too. This is just what I've thought from the last few days of spamming mega lop teams on the ladder and watching high level play. Let me know what you guys think.
Edit: lol sniped, keeping this up though cause we kinda made different points