I played Leo in tourney/casuals against a multittude of great competition yesterday, and honestly the character is great. You guys are shiting on his movement options, but his normals and specials completely make up for it. Backturned stance is actually kind of immaculate. When you condition the opponent to start looking out for certain things, Leo always has another option to make them regret it, and they ALWAYS do big damage.
Getting restand in the corner with him is the best thing ever. No one wants to risk reversal DP when a parry goes into 50% life combos. His backturned fireball is a zero frame super, so people can't be too hasty even when they're a good distance away from backturned Leo. Backturned K is throw invincible, so his mixup shenanigans aren't even "shenanigans" really. His backturned backdash has some good invincibility on it, so there's that too. Honestly, I've never been in a situation after are 236 HS where I felt like I was the one under any sort of pressure. Even when the opponent happens to block, they aren't really at an advantage at any point and their guard bar is crying for help.
You guys are right about it being hard for him to get in, but I find that the range and suction on HS make midscreen neutral a breeze. His c.K also has pretty good range, and canceling/roman canceling his guard points help you out a lot. HS into basically any of his dash specials starts up the mindgames, and puts Leo into a position of advantage easily. His anti air recovers ridiculously fast, and his J.S is really good for catching people mid jump.
One matchup I did have a pretty hard time with was Ramlethal, but, with careful use of J.D you can actually dodge A LOT of her dangerous traps. Even the sword blender. And as was said above, YRC'ing j.D gives you a really good high low mixup.
There's still plenty to be explored with him, but I think he's upper mid-tier for sure, if not higher.
