fine, i'll bite!
i think it's pretty much universally understood that kingdra should go. i havent seen a single person arguing no ban (if i've missed it im sorry!), so it feels pretty cut-and-dry. its set versatility and its power once it's set up is nearly unstoppable, despite its choice-locked sets being extremely healthy options for the tier.
set versatility means each version has a different set of answers, and if you guess wrong, youve given it too much momentum. critdra is just an absolute powerhouse that blows through teams, especially if you can get behind a sub or get to +2 speed with agility. i've even seen kingdra with flash cannon to hit alcremie and tera fairy mons meant to answer it. dd sets are similar, but even those have variations: is it outrage or scale shot? is it iron head or rest last? steel coverage can devastatingly ruin your answer, and then you just get mowed down.
even if you do guess the set correctly, you then have to get past kingdra's offensive prowess and surpassable bulk, its ability to tera out of a bad type matchup, and its likeliness to boost its speed. with an excellent base 95, it outspeeds at +1 hisui electrode and common scarfers like passimian and mesprit. i've even ran critdra with agility and enough speed to still outpace jolteon if i have webs on my field after an agility, and can marginally invest in further bulk.
i didnt get reqs
but i would vote ban.
a lot of folks want alcremie gone, and im inclined to agree with them. again, this monsters set variability can make it hard to handle. calm mind is a given, and then for fairy stab you run either draining kiss or alluring voice (dont run gleam it's outclassed now), stored power, and either acid armor (if kiss) or recover (if voice). cremie sets up so, so easily with max hp and max defense, and either tera poison (to block toxic and super effective poison-type moves) at the expense of being weak to mesprit and hoopa or tera steel (for the aforementioned reason and for super effective steel-type moves also) for a better defensive typing at the cost of now not answering fighting-types like passimian and primeape. no matter which combinations you choose, cremie will always put in work.
its ability neuters attempts to taunt, encore, or even heal block it (meaning psychic noise is not a path to success), so it sets up with impunity. even uninvested, 110 base spatk and 121 base spdef make you a formidable foe, which then get bolstered by calm mind until you win. its item slot is flexible too: leftovers and boots are standard i'd say, but even covert cloak has its merit to 1v1 foes fishing for paralysis with snorlax or dudunsparce body slams, spdef drops with psychic, etc.
the best counterplay i've seen is passive walls like articuno with haze that get the job done slowly, slowly, slowly, or to hazard stack and have a phazer in the back (after youve its boots, if applicable), but the latter requires taking hits because of roar and whirlwind's negative priority. ive found myself opting for tera steel on a LOT of mons in hopes of stopping its sweeps short, but that doesnt always work, especially when it can just keep boosting and smack you with stored power. i guess tricking it a choice item works too, but it's often telegraphed and therefore not the most reliable.
how have you all been handling alcremie in your experience, if at all?
last, i wanted to bring up snorlax. sitting as our sole s-rank mon, snorlax is similar to alcremie in that it functions as a defensive wincon with curse, body slam, rest, and a coverage move. earlier in the meta it ran heat crash last, but i dont find that all that useful any longer. i find that lax is pretty health in the current state of the meta, personally. i think it's exploitable prior to setup by strong physical attackers and wallbreakers, even with one or two curses under its belt; tera poison, fairy, and ghost can all be quite predictable and therefore played around; and its passivity, particularly once it clicks rest, makes it even more easy to handle.
however, it can certainly snowball and be unstoppable at times, but a good player should know to prevent this from occuring. counterplay to lax is similar to that of cremie—haze, phaze, and trick all work nicely—but taunt, encore, and heal block work this time, making it even less of a struggle to answer. the threat of body slam paralysis is real though—as is the damage off its base 110 attack, even uninvested—so you should never underestimate it.
what are your thoughts on lax's current role in the metagame?
