On the side of the american players, when the japanese have had to play in our format at worlds, they have only played decks that americans were playing already. Americans knew of Team Magma before worlds since it came out in March of 04. Someone in my hometown was playing Magma and doing well before Worlds that year. Magma just wasn't the popular deck that year.
I'll respectfully diagree.
One or two people may have been playing some kind of Magma deck before worlds, but I think it is fair to say that the "Metagame" was unaware of the deck and it took the American players by surprise. There was no presence of the deck in lists of winners or runners up for any Premeire events. It took the US players time to figure out how to play against the deck, and by then it was too late.
Both builds differed significantly from US/European builds.In 2007, Yamato was playing Empoleon (although with a surprise infernape tech, which was inventive) and the 1st place 10- player was running Flygon/Eeveelutions which had been known to the americas for a while.
Taking Yamato, for example, the crux of the deck was his Corsola opening which let him get his Water evos out fast. It was amazing that no one in our Metagame had seen the worth of the card. No one was using it!
But Yamato was a genius with his Infernape tech in Empoleon. [/SIZE]
The Infernape tech was for Scizor/Metagross matchups.
I don't think he would have kept it in if he has known that those matchups were going to be so few and far between. But I'm just guessing there.