Wow Matt, you're really letting the rankings after Cities really go to your head. Alot of the best players in the world either don't play till States/Regionals, or they just wait to grind in to worlds.And saying you're 45th in the world doesn't say much, look at those rankings again, look what country is missing.
Now on topic, I've turned against sp this year, and now I'm yet again turning to SP again. While the decks a more inconsistent than years past due to the loss of Rosy and Night Maintenance, all other decks loss more consistency by losing claydol. So it was really more that SP had less of a loss from rotation than any other deck.