For most of its history, Ubers was simply defined as OU's banlist. This changed with Mega Rayquaza's ban and the subsequent creation of Anything Goes as detailed in this thread. While the decision was made to improve the tier's playability, Ubers has lost some of its identity in the process. It currently exists as this awkward in-between tier where it's not as competitive/healthy as OU yet not as pure and unrestricted as AG. It is trying to appeal to both ends here but in reality is falling behind in both. Ubers is at a low point right now and a change back to its roots would be a step in the right direction. As for when, there is no better time for a philosophy change than a new generation.
As a baseline, there should be 0 pokemon bans in Ubers and 0 clauses beyond the ones that apply to every official metagame (sleep, species, ohko, etc). There are some details to work out but the baseline should never be deviated from. Beyond this, the main decisions involve clauses and which Ubers should inherit from OU or remove akin to AG. For example, Ubers could potentially remove species clause to help balance out Mega Rayquaza. It can have less clauses than tiers below it but not more. Whether we still want AG to exist is secondary to how we define Ubers but a consideration nonetheless if Ubers becomes a near replica of it, as it could influence playerbase growth.
Looking at the bigger picture with all of Smogon's official metagames, OU will also be starting fresh in a sense when gen 8 rolls around. The size of Ubers (as OU's banlist here) is quite large right now and as the OU leader I want to do my due diligence in making sure it is not unnecessarily large. It's hard to predict in advance which currently banned pokemon can be balanced in the next generation of OU but with the banlist being so large there's bound to be a chance to let some of the pokemon free. OU is meant to be the highest tier with proper balance, and Ubers tiering above that conflicts with OU's purpose.
As a baseline, there should be 0 pokemon bans in Ubers and 0 clauses beyond the ones that apply to every official metagame (sleep, species, ohko, etc). There are some details to work out but the baseline should never be deviated from. Beyond this, the main decisions involve clauses and which Ubers should inherit from OU or remove akin to AG. For example, Ubers could potentially remove species clause to help balance out Mega Rayquaza. It can have less clauses than tiers below it but not more. Whether we still want AG to exist is secondary to how we define Ubers but a consideration nonetheless if Ubers becomes a near replica of it, as it could influence playerbase growth.
Looking at the bigger picture with all of Smogon's official metagames, OU will also be starting fresh in a sense when gen 8 rolls around. The size of Ubers (as OU's banlist here) is quite large right now and as the OU leader I want to do my due diligence in making sure it is not unnecessarily large. It's hard to predict in advance which currently banned pokemon can be balanced in the next generation of OU but with the banlist being so large there's bound to be a chance to let some of the pokemon free. OU is meant to be the highest tier with proper balance, and Ubers tiering above that conflicts with OU's purpose.
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