I'm really loving the suspect free metagame, especially when it comes to leads. I've run Electrode on my suspect free-rain team, which while it does have the sort of "free set up" thing Crobat had, it's pretty much deadwood and doesn't have the revenge killing capability Crobat has. However I've definitely seen at least 15 different leads. No Ambipoms at all yet, I'm not sure what's up with that. Lopunny with Magic Coat seems like a really great lead, in one battle it sent a Taunt back at my Electrode and then burned my Registeel by Switcheroo-ing a Flame Orb onto my Registeel. I'm really happy Frosslass is gone however, because it was an incredible lead, getting 2 layers of spikes up guaranteed, unless you had a faster Taunter. It was more of a problem then Crobat. I really hope niether come back, because I love the diversity we have right now.
The Rain team did pretty well, but most people know by now that Rain is beatable, pokemon like Slowbro, Shaymin, Registeel and Clefable can all really fuck with a sweep. I've been running Toxicroak to try and get by these big issues, but it requires a lot of predicition skills to begin with. Some people I've battled have said that Rain teams are "cheap" but they didn't use the words "broken". As much as I love my Rain team, I could very easily see Ludicolo fitting the offensive uber requirement, as being able to sweep through teams with ease, even though it does have it's counters. I'd say Ludicolo can be just as dangerous as Raikou, I'm not saying they are similar, but Ludicolo does sweep through teams very easily and so far it's one of the only things (maybe Typhlosion) that I would say might need to be taken out in the next round of suspects.
Eventually I decided to make a new team, one based around priority, and it's been wildely succesful, getting me out of some many different situations, were I let BP teams set up. Priority is really effective, and something you have to consider when building a team in this metagame.
I just wanted to list some suprising things I've encountered...
-No Ambipoms, which I find is completely shocking, even though I see that someone posted above that it's very effective
-Lots of Muk, I've seen at least five of these, and they are very hard to break down, they are a great fighting resist with all the fighting types running wild like Hitmontop, Hitmonlee, Toxicroak and Primape (who'se almost always a scarfed lead).
-Roserade is the primary spiker, and a good one at that. Not broken like Froslass, but you have to think when facing off against a lead version, because Roserade tends to be Scarf'd just as often as it is a Focus Sash-Spiker.
-Solrock, I've seen people experimenting with it, however it doesn't seem to be really effective.
-Way more Gastrodon then before the removal of suspects, it's a pretty strong wall to begin with, but don't switch it into Azumarril, it's 2hko'd easily by a CB Waterfall.
-Gilgar is a really great Baton Pass user, I haven't used it yet but it's set up easily on me many times. Taunt+SD+Agility+Baton Pass to Bibarel is hard to beat.
-Sandstorm teams are actually very effective. Hippoptas isn't dead weight at all, as it usually sets up Stealth Rocks no problem at some point in the battle. Also since in the grand scheme of most sandstorm team it is useless, it a great pokemon to throw at any sleep moves.
As far as the removed suspects are concerned, if I had to vote now I'd say Staraptor, Froslass, Crobat, and Abomasnow BL, while I would say Raikou is probably not. I'm up in the air on Gallade, because I can't see it sweeping with all the priority running around (especially since most of the priority preys on his weaker defense stat) but at the same time it really doesn't have counters in the classical sense. We'll see how I feel when the vote comes around.
I just looked at the Feb statistics, and I just realized Umbreon and Milotic are now OU. Are they going to be banned now and replaced with Yanmega (I'm scared) and Donphan (not quite as scary). I think we need to have guidlines for what to do in these situations. I feel pretty confident Yanmega will prove to be BL, while Donphan may end up being acceptable in UU.
I'd suggest this...
1. Play out the month with our current UU tier.
2. Vote on the previous suspects March 30th before the new information is released.
3. At the same time identify new suspects and remove them.
4. Add the pokemon that dropped from OU in the previous month (ex. Yanmega and Donphan from Feb. would go into UU at the beginning of March)
5. Test the month with the new round of suspects removed.
6. Identify new suspects. Here is were after a month of testing, we would then know if Yanmega and Donphan should be removed from suspect testing.
I'd also recommend that anything the had fallen from OU, but then returns another month be removed while it is OU, but if it falls again then it will be in whatever tier it tested into during it's first round of UU. However, pokemon that go into OU from UU, like Umbreon and Milotic, should be banned once they go into OU, but if they fall from OU should be put right back into UU, without a suspect period later on. This is a little complicated, but what I would do for anything that drops from OU into UU and vice-versa.