Aggressive attacking tactics have always done well on FM, but you can dominate on lower mentalities as well, ESPECIALLY this year. They've tweaked how mentalities work. Whereas before you had no reason to play on anything other than Positive, you can now play on Cautious/Defensive and still be attacking with the right roles roles/duties.
Every new FM has a learning curve for me. What seems like a small change often proves important long term and requires subtle adjustments in approach year on year. Once I've come to grips with the ME, I feel in control of what my team is doing. There's an element of playing to the meta since it is just a game, at the end of the day, but every year it comes down to simple football logic.
I'm playing as Braga right now. I started out using a high block 4231 but the performances were patchy and things just didn't seem right. Turns out a bunch of my attackers had low work rate, teamwork and bravery, so we simply could not maintain a high press, on top of low composure and decisioms, so we couldn't camp and keep the ball well. Switched to a mid block and everything clicked into place. It's not because mid blocks are meta or OP or any other gamey thing like that, but because it suited my team better. Now they're more solid and have space to attack during transition when they have fewer decisons to make.
Once you've settled on an approach that works, it's then just about making small adjustments depending on game state.
I look at those "magic" tactics and just think half of those instructions are unnecessary.