(this thread is not currently linked in the policy review thread)
first, id like to emphasize that the current list of reqs is not good. there are multiple voters who have never (at least to my knowledge) played lapras uu, so they dont really have any basis to vote. on the other hand, there are players such as melbelle and mrsoup who have won a number of games in lapras uu including against qualified voters, but becuase the wins happened to take place in singles tours instead of team tours they did not make the reqs list.
suggestions for what reqs might be was discussed extensively in the rby discord, but it seems looking back that no council members were actually present for this discussion.
some possible suggestions for what the req list could look like were:
~ top 8 in ltc tour, or 3 wins in spotlight not counting act wins, or 1 win 3 games played in ATPL, or a strong qualifying result from a pre-lapras tour combined with at least one tournament game played in lapras uu
~ 3, or perhaps 4, total wins across atpl + spotlight + ltc combined, or a strong qualifying result from a pre-lapras tour combined with at least one tournament game played in lapras uu.
either of these would be pretty clearly better than the current req list
now as to the content:
~ hypno is extremely centralizing and always has been, to my knowledge arguments to keep hypno are pretty much always centered around hypno being able to use rest and rest hypno being able to keep the pace of the tier down. rest hypno pretty completely disappeared from the tier over 2022, first bc hypnosis was shown to be too valuable in the mirror even if u had another sleeper, and even after sleep was banned the tier was too offensive and hypno has bad physical bulk so rest never really came back.
i have one team currently with rest hypno, it uses hypno lapras haunter golem gyarados kadabra, and it def needs more testing but in theory haunter golem gyara can help keep the things that break hypno's rest in check. any haunter team perhaps has some potential for rest hypno tho, idk.
in theory id say this suspect is premature and the tier needs more time to develop, in practice i think most players are fed up with it and so any development has been kinda stalled, and is likely to remain stalled until something gets banned or etc.
as to the pre lapras tier, tho, for me it is rly very clear that these sort of balance structures were just not going to work without lapras's presence, due to #3 articuno. the closest you got was like the haunter + aa vaporeon team that won a game in rbypl (if u use dewgong instead u are very weak to elecs) but such a team is so extremely passive u are j going all in on walling stuff which means a crit can be gg, and u have no alternative winpaths. the haunter gyara golem team in lap meta is different bc it still has plenty of offensive power including double boom, there are plenty of lines where it can choose the offensive route instead altho it has to be careful in doing so eg booming haunter on kadabra too early can leave u very persian weak. but this team is only possible with lapras being an offensive check to articuno, and the team is still pretty cuno weak anyway its just a lot more manageable since cunos usage is way lower, and fwiw u do still have some potential paths to avoid the lapras mirror (haunter).
therefore my position on hypno is with lapras in the tier, u could argue for keeping hypno as it is plausible to build teams that support rest hypno, and rest hypno has some potential to benefit the tier by keeping the pace down enabling some defensive play etc, in general rest is good to have around. but if lapras were banned, hypno absolutely needs to be banned as well since using rest hypno in a tier without lapras comes with way too many liabilities and not enough advantages, rest hypno's usage and effectiveness was miniscule over 2022 pre lapras for the reasons discussed above.
~ lapras: honestly i think this needs more time / development too, there have been a number of games where lapras comes out too early and the player is punished for doing so, usually either by an electric/mr. mime, or by a early lapras trade and an endgame articuno. i do think there can be some reasons to use lapras early game, however, its generally even better in endgames. i think we need more time to evaluate lapras gameplay, to ban it at the moment feels a bit arbitrary. it obviously is a strong mon, but rarely can do significantly better than trading; and rest on lapras definitely has its uses but its hardly difficult to break lapras's rest, it usually needs para support to wake up. i think lapras having type matchups is good for the tier, since pre lapras the tier barely had any type matchups (since electrics are just as good vs normals as vs waters), the more type matchups u have the more u have to actually make plays rather than click click click, and lapras also pushes the tier a bit more toward special offense, tho obviously kang persian are still quite good but the entire tier doesnt revolve around them like it used to and there are a number of teams without any normal types nowadays, whereas pre lapras bringing 0 normals was throwing (not bringing kang was throwing tbh).
therefore, most likely i will be voting:
1-2 ban nothing, ban hypno in some order. (in theory i think ban nothing is best, but due to the dissatisfaction and lack of interest in the current tier ban hypno may be the better option.)
3 ban both
4 ban lapras only, as i said hypno is terrible to have around with lapras banned as u do not have adequate support to use rest hypno, and without rest hypno gameplay just becomes attack it and hypno mirrors bc the mon is too strong offensively.
