perhaps you'd share your thoughts on the Catalan meta in the SSG forums? Obviously that meta is radically different from ours (e.g. its no-proxy
This is something I always wonder about when I look at european results as well. I'm interested to hear Steve's thoughts, especially since I believe he's played in some events while traveling there. What I've put together from observing lots of T8's over there and looking at how some dynamics play out in my local meta is the following:
When there's a large concentration of decks that attack the manabase (aka 'hate' decks like Fish and Stax), the strongest upper tier decks are those with high mana counts (slower combo control, TPS). This type of meta would cause trouble for decks that run fewer than 20 sources and play lots of inexpensive spells (GAT, Flash, some storm combo).
In NE, increases in decks like TMWA, Goblins, Fish, etc right before Gift's restriction had a similar effect. The slower, more resilient Bomberman became the strongest control deck. Of course, one of it's worst matchups was Gifts and more efficient drain decks.
