Matthew
I love weather; Sun for days
While this is a radical idea at first, having two separate metagames (weather and non-weather) could actually be a route for Smogon as a whole to take with 5th Gen. Basically what we have right now is this:
People who love weather wars, love the current metagame, it's just awesome.
and:
People who think the metagame is trash, think weather wars are dumb, weather needs to go.
Obviously, at this point, it's impossible to please both parties with one single OU metagame. However if we decided to split OU into two different categories we can see the long-term effects of a metagame without weather (yes this includes hail!) and people can pick whichever one appeals to them most. Obviously it would be best to not make this anything other than non-weather OU, meaning that non-weather UU wouldn't be brought into existence, however it could prove insight into the game which we wouldn't get to see for a long time, if not forever, with the current suspect process.
The way the non-weather OU meta would work is we would originally start with the current OU banlist -- there would be a voting process where people can balance the metagame if there is an over-powering threat. However I think it'd be good for people to vote to also bring down pokemon they see as no longer Uber. For example people could vote to bring down Blaziken if they feel that it is no longer broken without the sun shining.
EDIT:
I'd also feel better with complex bans in the non-weather metagame. For example Ninetales and Politoed aren't banned when they aren't carrying Drought and Drizzle respectively. Unfortunately that means we can't have Hippo, Tyranitar, or Abomansnow until their DW abilities are released. This means either we just unban them when they're released, or we just ban Ninetales and Politoed with them. I'm for either option.
DOUBLE EDIT:
I mean permanent weather abilities, not moves like rain dance and sunny day by the way
People who love weather wars, love the current metagame, it's just awesome.
and:
People who think the metagame is trash, think weather wars are dumb, weather needs to go.
Obviously, at this point, it's impossible to please both parties with one single OU metagame. However if we decided to split OU into two different categories we can see the long-term effects of a metagame without weather (yes this includes hail!) and people can pick whichever one appeals to them most. Obviously it would be best to not make this anything other than non-weather OU, meaning that non-weather UU wouldn't be brought into existence, however it could prove insight into the game which we wouldn't get to see for a long time, if not forever, with the current suspect process.
The way the non-weather OU meta would work is we would originally start with the current OU banlist -- there would be a voting process where people can balance the metagame if there is an over-powering threat. However I think it'd be good for people to vote to also bring down pokemon they see as no longer Uber. For example people could vote to bring down Blaziken if they feel that it is no longer broken without the sun shining.
EDIT:
I'd also feel better with complex bans in the non-weather metagame. For example Ninetales and Politoed aren't banned when they aren't carrying Drought and Drizzle respectively. Unfortunately that means we can't have Hippo, Tyranitar, or Abomansnow until their DW abilities are released. This means either we just unban them when they're released, or we just ban Ninetales and Politoed with them. I'm for either option.
DOUBLE EDIT:
I mean permanent weather abilities, not moves like rain dance and sunny day by the way