Never before in this game have I seen so many 'good players' when faced with the choice to lead, follow, or get out of the way to choose to follow.
Idk what you're talking about. In that respect, this format is exactly like all the past formats. When looking at high level players, about 95 percent "follow" and the remainder "lead". What I mean by this is that regardless of the format, great players are going to choose established decks. Just like now, the bdif's are being played and won with. Just like in the past with plox, speedrill, luxape, gengar nidoqueen, rock lock, lbs, BAR, dragtrode, metanite, whatever. This year, so far, there have been around a dozen well-established, contending decks, along with a handful of succesful rogues: scizor, magnerock, vilechamp, yanmega magnezone, viletar, and wierd lost world varients.
Also, idk how you can think that playing a proven deck is automatically "following" or "getting out of the way". All the best players I know test out creative ideas all the time, but 99 percent of the time, well-known decks win out over slightly-lesser rogue possibilities. You can be creative and a leader even if you play luxchomp. For example, I played luxchomp all through cities with luxchomp, but I played a completely different version each tourny. Just this year I've played in a cities with several decks, including luxchomp with ERL, banette, multiple expert belts, stadiums, BDK, dialga, 3+ junk arms, 2-2 uxie x, 3-1 uxie x, 2 seeker, multiple looker's, mesprit, chatot md, 3 vs seeker, 4 collector, no uxie x, no q, smeargle, chatot md, sp honchkrow, 4 egain, 4 power spray, no aaron's but one palmer's, 3 prem ball, blaziken fb, sableye, multiple judges, drifblim, drifblim fb, mewtwo x, 3 poketurn, I think that's enough....
I'm sure there's plenty more, but my point is that I never consider myself a follower if I'm playing a well-known deck. This is because I am always going to build it my way, creatively, no matter what other people say. I got third in worlds with lbs. Why did I play it? Because after testing all summer with secret and known ideas, it was still the best choice in my opinion. So, I just built it my way to fit my playstyle. I did the same thing when I got 4th in nats with plox. Both of those tournaments I was the last remaining player of the deck I used. That's because I took the known best deck and put 100 percent into it.
It's frustrating when all these self-righteous rogue-players rant about how much they hate netdeckers. Don't group everyone who plays luxchomp into one "follower" category.
Btw, if you play rogues all the time and don't win, you aren't leading anything.