Do people really think the SubSwarm Set is good? I've played around a bit with it and I just think it's mad gassed for the sake of innovation and exploiting a metagame trend that's probably going to slow down in a couple of weeks if not earlier when people realize its mostly hype. Some of the bulkier builds I see where the arguments come from in terms of the viability of that set and other mons like SubKartana (little hyped to but a bit better in the long run) I think stems from people relying and using fat shit pre-dominantly, which will always have issues with breakers. These sets rely on specific matchups to really do some serious work and in the case of Volcarona and that set the presence of Haze Toxapex (this mon is super cancer btw holy shit I regret downplaying it) alone seems to deter it in the long run. I was a big advocator of Volcarona, at least still am in terms of threat management in the pool of 40+ threats, but it seems way harder to support in the current environment, especially if you're facing an offense which I think is the better archetype with bulky offense coming second in the tier. They pack priority, Greninja, and are normally good at keeping SR on the field making set up a lot more difficult.
Indigo made a valid point above of certain mons seeing less usage but I would argue that some of these like Zygarde and Keldeo are still good and can be utilized on a lot of teams with little effort while providing both offensive and defensive utility for a team. One of the biggest factors on why I don't think Volcarona should rise back anytime soon is the emphasis on hazards in the tier, more specifically the combination of SR + TSpikes thanks to the presence of Toxapex. The tools used to keep hazards on the field is a lot stronger than those to keep them off from what I've noticed. Rapid Spin is kind of dogshit sort of has been with the minor exception of Excadrill on a specific archetype and all the viable defoggers are easy to punish and drain tons of momentum a lot of times. Although the comparison is a weird one, I think it's valid when saying this is a similar issue Charizard Y faces when faced with the Hazard game. It has a lot of great traits on paper but mandates specific support that let's be real, nobody generally wants to use in the first place but are forced to make these two fires work. I think Volcarona is alright in its current placement as of now considering this VR follows the alphabetical approach and not specific rank placement like other VRs like Ubers does.
I feel Mega Mawile is only good on Trick Room to be honest however I haven't seen too many good Mawile teams outside of TR or ones like Veil where the viability is more about something else than Mawile itself to make a proper judgement. Would love to be proven wrong here.
On the Volcarona part, I do see how Toxapex being everywhere is a nuisance for it, but it can still find ways to viably break it, especially since a lot of teams are either using this or Greninja as their reliable answer to it. I think the big part is that in the end, Volcarona can still find a way to adapt its movepool to fit the need of the team and break past what would be opposing counters - think Toxapex and Mantine or whatever else it may be. Hazards have always been something that plagued Volc and you still have viable users of it like Latios, Mew, Scizor (4, 13, and 15 respectively in Snake), and even Mantine has been used to good extent. Don't forget your own Toxapex can absorb TSpikes if need be. Volc and Zard-Y aren't comparable in the fact that Zard-Y can't break past Toxapex period and also doesn't have QD, plus Zard-Y takes up your mega slot which you could use for something like Scizor to help bring Volc in vs the likes of Celesteela or whatever is switching into Zor. Zygarde and Keldeo aren't hard to fit on teams, but Keldeo has been seeing more usage for its CM + Taunt instead of Scarf to have a way to deal with Toxapex and Zygarde really doesn't want to take a Bug Buzz so unless it's at +1 already it's not a reliable answer. I think though that you meant this as a point to me saying that it had less usage overall, not to the Volc point. I quickly found some replays to showcase what I mean, and I'll briefly touch on them below:
blunder vs starmaster
I'll touch on this one a little bit less since blunder did a really good job at touching on this one in his vid, describing his thought process and how to exactly circumnavigate starmaster's Toxapex. This adequately shows how to surpass TSpikes and Rocks continuously being on the field, and with the appropriate timing, blunder's Volcarona was able to break through enough of starmaster's team (even with Papaya and Toxic+TSpikes on Pex) to the point where Celesteela comfortably won.
Updated Kanto vs Kickasser
I like this one bc it showcases SubSwarm Volc, which you mentioned as possibly being a hype thing. To be fair Kickasser didn't have a good mu vs Volc, but this can happen when you have so many other metagame threats to prep for. Kanto did a good job at keeping Spikes and SR off the field with Mew until he was able to Sub on Ferro, which again shows that proper hazard control isn't annoyingly hard, especially with the TTar on Kickasser's team. Haze Pex is a good answer, but like you see in the battle, Sub + QD forces Pex to stay at a reasonable amount (above 63-75) to not die vs Swarm Bug-Z. The crit was unfortunate, but I'm pretty sure Volc went on to win even without the crit as Pex would've been low and Ferro is basically setup fodder whenever it comes in. Basically, you need something else as even Pex won't manage to 100% stop Volc in its track all the time.
Sabella vs Snow
I briefly mentioned that I've been using Koko + Volc to good success, and this replay shows that. After removing rocks, Sabella took advantage of Snow bringing in Tangrowth as the answer to Koko and after he U-Turned on the Mantine, all Volc had to do was get to +1 to be able to break past Mantine with HP Electric. Although it's not the most common of moves, it again shows Volc's versatility as Sabella had both Koko and Mew to be able to deal with the possible Toxapex. After Mantine went down there wasn't anything stopping Sabella from winning.
Again, I mainly brought Volc up because I can see it moving up in the future and I'm glad you threw your input in on it. I really do think that it's a bit underprepared for with people usually slapping on a Toxapex and calling it good. Even stuff like Zard-X takes minimum 56.5% from unboosted Bug-Z (for the life of me I can't find the replay of someone killing a Zard-X with unboosted Bug-Z at half but I remember it happening). I don't think it's enough to say that Toxapex + hazards can keep Volc in check, as a good player will find a way to play around these, which is shown in the replays. Sorry for not being able to look for more n_n
Prior to the recent VR Update I talked to several VR Council members re: Mega Mawile so I feel obligated to chime in.
The council wasn’t originally split on Mawile and was leaning A+ so I want to talk about why Mawile should stay in A.
Mawile is a good pokemon, and I don’t deny that. Mawile is probably the best Mega Evolution at the moment, although thats not a very impressive achievement. People realizing that Ice Punch is actually a good option has churned a lot of favorable opinion. Honestly, several weeks ago Mawile was probably one of the worse mons in A.
Now it’s one of the better ones. I’d dispute that it’s better than Kartana or even Tyranitar that garnered 26% usage in the latest phase of Smogon Snake Draft, tying with Magearna.
My schpiel about A+ aside, going back to Mawile you hopefully see what I do - Mawile is not metagame defining. For what its worth, I think it’s a better Pokemon than Protean Gren and Zygarde but neither of those are benchmarks for A+ anymore. Mawile doesnt clean both early and late game without having to choose like Ash Gren. Mawile struggles with popular trends like Mega Venusaur and Mega Charizard X. It needs Ice punch to touch defensive Landorus-T who is nearing 70% usage in the latest snake phase- many competitors are even dropping Sucker so that Mawile can fit all the coverage (Ciele in olt I believe and ABR somewhere, he mentioned it in pms). Bandtar outspeeds and clicks earthquake, another recent popular trend. Mawile is ridiculously hard to switch in to, but mawile finds it stupidly hard to switch into anything at all either - even the offensive threats in A+ still come in on shit like Ash Gren on Mew or Tapu Koko / Lele on Toxapex. Penultimately, Mawile doesnt show the same consistency of results. Mawile usage is incredibly spotty and results are mixed compared to many mons in A+ that consistently perform in the games they show up in. Finally, Mawiles lack of defensive presence and inability to switch in on shit means you need to carry another steel (Kartana has a similar problem, unless run with something like tang bandtar, but kartana can come in on several physical attacks or grass type moves and scare shit out like a weakened lando trying to get em up or ferrothorn whos complete kart bait, and kart also has 109 speed unlike maw meaning it probably doesnt have to take a second hit if it comes in on something like psyshock locked lele)
TL;DR maw is better than before but simply went from a bottom 3 A Rank to a top 3 one, and doesnt touch the 7 titans in A+ atm viability wise
E: typo
I see your point with the rest of the mons in A+, but I also don't think that Mawile sitting in the same rank as the two megas and several pokemon that it's better than is fair either. To briefly hit on your last points - Mawile by no means holds a ton of defensive utility but it's not utter deadweight either. Having an extra steel is never a bad thing and yes, Kart can switch in to things like Ferro and defensive Lando, but Mawile can also switch into things like Clef, Ferro, get a Sub up vs Pex, Latios, and defensive Scizor (if fire fang); not to mention that you always have the option of running U-Turn support on things like Koko alongside it. Defensive Lando dies with Rocks up to a PR + Sucker if it switches in on regular Mawile with Hyper Cutter, and Zard-X also dies with one layer of Spikes to a +2 SP meaning it's not a safe answer unless they're both in at the same time. You can't really compare Ash-Gren's cleaning capabilities to Mawile as those are unparalleled and not comparable to any other mon. I'm not sure what recent trends have made Mawile worse after Duggy got the boot - you only mentioned Venusaur and Zard-X but again, Iron Head or simple SD Knock can break past Venusaur without HP Fire and Zard-X can't beat it unless it comes in vs unboosted Maw. Lando-T has always been popular so that really isn't recent and BandTar is almost always clicking its stab (bar vs Heatran and Mage off the top of my head), so if anything that benefits Maw. Way back in this thread Bludz mentioned that comparing a mon to the other mons in its ranking tier is important, and at the end of the day I personally think that Mawile would be a better fit at the bottom of A+ since it's better than almost everything else in A.
I have some Maw replays (there's two where it breaks past Venusaur each time, once with SD and once with Iron Head) but I'll edit those in later if I find the time. It was a bit hard to find ones where Play Rough or Fire Fang weren't missing every time they were used throughout the battle which obviously affected the battle lol.