Heliolisk - Once a relatively common pokemon in ORAS, now nearly irrelevant in USUM, Heliolisk barely finds a niche in the modern normal metagame on HO teams. It is able to act as a fast pivot that can deal with water types and deal with the likes of many defensive Water-Type Pokemon like Mantine, Swampert, and Toxapex. Its ability in Dry Skin, also allows it to completely wall some of the aforementioned Pokemon, and also allows it to force out choice-locked pokemon like Choice Scarf Keldeo locked into Hydro Pump or Scald. While its niche is rather small, Heliolisk is still useful for dealing with troublesome types like Flying and Water for HO Normal teams that struggle to break their walls effectively.
Smeargle - The face of HO normal. Thanks to smeargle's infinite movepool, it is able to use Sticky Web and Stealth Rocks and be able to use moves like Nuzzle, Magic Coat, Spore, and Rapid spin to help keep these hazards up before it dies. While seemingly a linear role, once it gets these hazards down, many usually lesser used Pokemon on normal like Bewear and Meloetta are able to use these webs to outspeed most of their usual checks, and potentially sweep opposing teams with ease. Thanks to its ability to do this, Smeargle's niche is very helpful for normal teams that want to have a more offensive edge than its balance counterpart.