Pokémon TCG: Sword and Shield—Brilliant Stars

Take a look at another country's metgame! List of all Norwegian Nationals Top 8 decks

Tego

Tego

New Member
Nationals was held Saturday June 10th here in Norway. With 151 players in total, we ran 7 Swiss rounds in 11-14, leading to a Top 16 cut, 6 rounds in 15+ with a Top 8 cut, and 5 rounds with a Top 8 cut. Norway's OP scene has just grown and grown during the last year and many new top players have risen up. Never before has it been so exciting to follow all these great players and their decks and see how they perform.

Norwegian players only get one travel award for each age group, so we only send 3 players to Worlds for free. However, Norwegian players are so devoted to the game that it's now looking like we'll have FOURTEEN Norwegians competitors at Worlds! Top 4 in each age category got an invite to Worlds, and many are going to travel to try their shot at the Grinder.

I thought it might be interesting for people outside Norway to take a look at our current metagame. It's very diverse, but you'll notice one thing very fast - a 2-2 tech line of Ninetales HL has become very popular. Petter Næss (2nd in 11-14) used it to swoop his Makuhitas to Vulpixes if he met Mewtrix (which crushes Hariyama ex), Fai Cheung (winner 15+) used it to counter the wast amount of Pokémon-ex filled decks in his age group, etc. In 10- Ninetales has been at its most popular this season, and we saw two decks in the Top 8 countering this trend. Emil Vestre (5th place) used Dewgong (RG) to counter a Ninetales with a OHKO w/ Boost Energy, and winner Daniel Chan used Lati@s d to stop Safeguard to be able to attack with Arcanine ex. But what's even more interesting is that he used Ninetales himself in any match where the opponent did not play Ninetales himself.

Also, notice the low number of LBS decks and the complete abscence of popular archetypes like LunaSol and Medicham ex in the Top 8. This is quite unique for Norway. There are two LBS decks here in the Top 8 lists, and only two other LBS decks performed well: 10th place and 20th place in 11-14.

Another unique thing about Norway is the ever-growing, gigantic 11-14 crowd. 15+ is quite small compared to other countries.

10-
Players: 30
1. Daniel Chan - Arcanine ex (w/ Ninetales tech & Lati@s d tech)
2. Vy Trung - ZapTurnDos
3. Andreas Thorkildsen - Flariados
4. André Helgestad - Speedrill
5. Emil Johann Vestre - Flygon ex (w/ Dewgong tech)
6. Markus Ausland Strand - Insanity (Blaziken EM/Houndoom/Tyranitar d/Pidgeot d/Camerupt EM)
7. Mathilde Uttersrud Hjelle - Mewtrix
8. Karl Oskar Larsen - Arcanine/Charmeleon/Armaldo

11-14
Players: 79
1. Axel Sjilov - LBS
2. Petter Kristian Næss - Hariyama ex (w/ Ninetales tech)
3. Mikkel Lindheim - Dragtrode
4. Didrik Lindberg Roest - MetaNite
5. Kenneth Nilsen - Arcanine ex (w/ Ninetales tech)
6. Kim Erik Eriksen - JynxFett
7. Christian Nilsen - Dragtrode
8. Wei Fang - Manectric/Zapdos ex/Rayquaza ex (w/ Ninetales tech)

15+
Players: 42
1. Fai Cheung - PowBlock (w/ Ninetales tech)
2. Simon Sigurdson Hjelle - LBS
3. Willy Cun - ZRE (w/ Ninetales tech)
4. Evens Cheung - LBS without S (instead, Rayquaza *, Blissey ex)
5. Jawad Benhammou - MetaNite
6. Tronn Are Bye Johansen - Dustox ex/Espeon ex/Lati@s d
7. Gio Chan - Queendom
8. Robert Leszczynski - Dragtrode

-Here's a full report in Norwegian from www.pokemon.no

-Here are the winner's decklists!
 
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interesting a pow block wins 15+ group.
everyone plays Ninetales, strange LBS on 4th place... dunno.
The brazilian nationals metagame was full of flariados, and there's just 1 flariados on 10- group, wow.
 
Black_Jirachi, of course that's their answer - Flariados is a luck-based deck. For the 7 rounds of Swiss 11-14 had, it was hard for Flariados to be consistent enough to win so many matches in a row. For 10-, which had only 5 rounds, making the top cut with Flariados was easier.

11-14 had a lot of Flariados decks, also good players playing them, but they didn't have the consistency to bring them to Top 16. And 15+ just had no Flariados.

Bohn said:
strange LBS on 4th place... dunno.
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Yeah, it is a strange deck. But the player, Evens Cheung, always refuses to go by the standard lists and creates his own strange decks. Evens did place 10th at Worlds 2004 (15+) and went 6-1 in the Grinder at Worlds 2005 (without getting invited to Worlds, though :[), so his strange decks work for him. More than strange they're just original. I think Evens does a lot of metagame research to come up with his new deck ideas.
 
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Norway has the most funne metahame ever. I played against lots of weird decks like Water deck based on Ludicolo Water Punch, Scizor ex with Blastoise ex, Dragetrode with Steelix ex and many other strange ideas. I'm just angry on the pairings, I met Mikkel in T8 instead of the finals :p
 
Thanks Eskil, for this great info! =D It's great to see such diversity in decks in all age groups, clearly people spend weeks preparing for this event. Good to see OP in Norway doing so incredibly well! GJ =D
 
The Powblock? The only thing that strikes me as weird about the list is Ninetales and Life Herb (which are metagame cards). Other than that, it's pretty similar to this one. It has jost dropped the Pidgeot line completely because it's too much countered (Battle Frontier is everywhere), the Energy list has been improved with a Holon Energy FF + Fire line to remove the deck's serious weakness to Queendom, and the whole blowing up concept has been made bigger with a 1-1 bigger Electrode ex line and one more Pow! Han Extension. Why the Cheung brothers then decided to drop Scramble Energy is beyond me, though. :S Ok, that makes three weird things. It's still a good list, though.
 
well, I was confused about this deck, so I built it and I'm 0-1, but I am gonna play with it more later today. I'm 4-1 with the 10- deck and 5-0 with the 11-14 deck.
 
Confused Poke Dad- the first post has a link to the decklist of the winners.

Update on my random playtesting:
10- deck:8-4
11-14 deck:10-3
15+ deck: 5-1

For some reason after the first game, teh 15+ deck just started to win.
Also, I am playing these matchups against archtypes, or deck that are pretty close tp archtypes( Flariados, Mynx, etc.)
 
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Ash_Van_Je: You need the fire Energies to remove your weakness with the Holon Energies.

MadHatter: I find it really great that you're doing research on the decks and trying out how they perform. :)
 
I used Fai Cheung's real deck and played with his bro in 10000 miles away from Norway lol. It was so cool. PRETTY solid thing, but I can never get electrode. =/

Innnnteresting.
 
cloud9tcg said:
Norway has the most funne metahame ever. I played against lots of weird decks like Water deck based on Ludicolo Water Punch, Scizor ex with Blastoise ex, Dragetrode with Steelix ex and many other strange ideas. I'm just angry on the pairings, I met Mikkel in T8 instead of the finals :p
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ROFL My brother was playing Steelix ex in Dragtrode for a cities i think. He droped the idea when Rainbow came back out.
 
Ash_Van_Je said:
I used Fai Cheung's real deck and played with his bro in 10000 miles away from Norway lol. It was so cool. PRETTY solid thing, but I can never get electrode. =/

Innnnteresting.
Click to expand...

Oh, so the Cheung brothers found their way to a Hong Kong League/tournament while they were on vacation there? :)

Finding Electrode ex, eh? I also wonder how he does that. He's got 2 Rocket's Poké Ball for finding T-Tar, but nothing for finding Electrode ex - he has no Quick Search either. Somehow it works out for him, though. ;)
 
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