The Nationals analysis and farewell to the HGSS-on -era

In the U.S. Nationals Klinklang didn't need
to Grind its way through (pun intended)

Hello everyone!


The last Nationals were played this weekend and what a weekend it was. A huge variety of decks took the top spot of the last 4 National Championships of this season. These 4 tournaments include Portugal, The United Kingdom, Canada and of course The United States. In this entry, I’ll mostly focus on the results of the U.S. Nationals and to all the past Nationals before it.

Also, as you know, I asked you to vote if you want me to write about BW-on decks or HGSS-on decks after last Nationals. The consensus among readers was pretty clear, over 80% of you want me to write about BW-on decks. However, some of you wanted me to make a breakdown of the U.S. Nationals, so players going to Worlds can get something out of my blog as well. I thought it was a great idea, so this will be my very last entry of HGSS-on format (excluding my Worlds report of course). I’ll be doing 1-2 entries for SixPrizes UG before Worlds, so if you are going to Worlds and want to learn about my opinion about World Championships metagame etc., tune into SixPrizes. 

Before Worlds, I’ll only probably make 1-2 entries per week, because I’ll spend so much time play testing for Worlds (all my free time that is). I will go to Hawaii 4^th of August, so after that you’ll probably only hear from me once in a while in Facebook or Twitter. It may be that I’ll sometimes update my status on my blog as well. But if you aren’t yet following me on Facebook/Twitter, now it’s the time to join, if you want to hear about my Worlds experience in real time.

Anyways, let’s get on-topic. The results of National Championships and how do I see them.

First weekends – Darkrai domination

Everyone remembers how Nationals started in most parts of Europe and how Battle Roads started in the United States – Darkrai was THE deck. It really didn’t matter what you played with Darkrai, it had the best chance of winning and Darkrai won EVERY official Nationals in the first two weekends and almost 50% of first weekends’ Battle Roads.

Is Darkrai so good?  Everyone kept asking. Most people believed what they saw and said that: “Yes it is”. And when most people think that one card is better than everything else, it becomes a reality. People start to play it more and more and the amount (and price) of Darkrai increases all the time. People start to believe that playing Darkrai is the only way to win the tournament. In fact, for a while before my own Nationals I really thought that Darkrai was a overpowered card and that you HAD to have it in your deck in order to win. However, as I’ll explain shortly, there was a reason why I thought so.

Anyways, in the first weekends Darkrai seemed unstoppable. When Darkrai/Terrakion/Mewtwo EX won the Norwegian Nationals, it seemed that there was a Darkrai deck that had all the answers against the metagame and more. Also, after I won Nationals with Hammertime and released the list in my blog, people became aware of one more Darkrai variant. The buzz, which all these Darkrai variants caused online, caused the upcoming shift in the metagame, which I’ll explain next.


Learning Curve

As you may know, I have studied Economics in a university for a year now (applied to the best School of Economics of Finland this year). The term learning curve is used to explain how the employees get used to doing their work and how this increases the productivity of every single worker. The longer a person does the same job, the faster and more efficient he will become over time doing the same job. This happens in Pokémon TCG as well, but in a bit different manner.

Whenever a new card (like Darkrai) is released, the hype is huge. Everyone wants to hop onto the hype train and a stale metagame is ready. However, metagame is just like market economy, it heals itself over time (yes the financial crisis won’t last forever). Counters are made and the dominant Darkrai will start struggling. Here is how it went with Darkrai (and how it goes with most hyped (and broken) cards.

1) The Hype Train

I explained The Hype Train earlier. Everyone believes that one card is superior to everything else and the image becomes reality.

2) Teching

In this step, people start to tech against the dominating deck. As well all know, unlike against Mewtwo EX, against Darkrai EX there is a great counter in the current metagame. That is of course Terrakion. Terrakion is very easy to put into any deck because it requires only 1 fighting and 1 colorless energy to OHKO Darkrai EX. Thanks to Darkrai, even decks like Eelektrik began to run Terrakions in their lists.

3) Learning

This applies to every little thing in your life. You must learn anything, in order to do it correctly in the future. It’s no different in the Pokémon TCG. In order to play correctly against everything, you must play a lot of games before learning the correct way. Darkrai EX is a good card and since it was a new kind of card to the format, no one knew how to play against it. The best thing about Darkrai EX is that it takes advantage of an inexperienced player. The reason for this is Darkrais Night Spear, which hits the bench. As well now know, you must be very careful while playing things on your bench when playing against Darkrai decks. You can’t just play every single Celebi on your bench because they’re only free prizes for Darkrai. The bench damage combined with humongous hype caused Darkrai EX to be THE dominant deck.

After a while, people started to understand how to play against Darkrai. This combined to correct tech cards lead to results like Germany’s Nationals, where CMT won Nationals. It also lead to increasing number of other decks in the top cuts of the tournaments, even though Darkrai decks still won most Nationals. However, a change was already at hand. That’s what leads us to…

4) A Balanced Metagame

It has been a while since I’ve been able to think the metagame as balanced. Balanced metagame is always  a good thing, but it doesn’t’ necessarily mean that the game itself is in good shape. The first turn rule is still bad and sudden death matches decide too often the winners of big tournaments. However, when it comes to the balanced metagame – let’s look at the results of last weekend’s Nationals.


The United States (and the last weekend)

So, let’s look at the results. Thanks to Pokegym.net for gathering this info.

The United Kingdom

1. Alex N. (Zekrom/Eelektrik/Terrakion)
2. Karl B. (Kumis.dec)
3. Matt B. (Vanilluxe)
4. Sami S. (CMT)

Canada

1^.  Curtis L. (Entei/techs)
2. Mike M. (Eelektrik)
3. Adrian L. (Darkrai EX)
4. Zach L. (Darkrai EX)

Portugal

1.  Igor C.  (Darkrai EX/Terrakion/Tornadus EX/Mewtwo EX)
2.  Gonçalo F. (Darkrai EX/Terrakion/Tornadus EX/Mewtwo EX)
3.  Rute M.  (Terrakion/Mewtwo EX/Tornadus EX w/Exp. Shares)
4. Filipe C.  (Hammertime Darkrai)

The United States

1. John R. (Klinklang/ EXs)
2. Kevin N. (Eelektrik/Max Potion)
3. Chris M.(CMT /w Terrakion and only 4 supporters)
4. Jay H. (Darkrai EX/Mewtwo EX)


Just a quick look at the results makes thing pretty clear – the metagame is very balanced and versatile. Entei and Klinklang winning proves it. Both of those decks have autolosses (for example against Hammertime), but still they ended up winning two biggest Nationals’ of the season. This only strengthens the argument of a balanced metagame. The field has so many different decks that one autoloss doesn’t really matter at all. For anyone playing in the Worlds and next season, this is good news. Just play whatever you like the best, and you might just win the tournament. Last, here are a few main points, which I think are the most important points and my thoughts about them when it comes to the results of these Nationals.


1) Klinklang winning Masters in the U.S. Nationals

For this I would like to directly quote my SixPrizes UG article, which was released just before Nationals.

“If Klinklang succeeds in avoiding every single deck that runs a lot of Hammers, it can have a decent chance of winning a tournament.”

And that is exactly what happened. I don’t know how popular Hammertime was in Masters division, but either it wasn’t very popular or the winner got just lucky avoiding them in the top cut games. I think it’s very cool that Klinklang won, but to be honest I still don’t think it’s the BDIF. At least Nationals proved to all Klinklang haters that Klinklang is a serious deck!  Klinklang winning proved that anything is possible in the World of Pokémon.

2) Entei EX won Canadian Nationals

Ok, I know Entei is a viable deck and the winner run some techs in the deck, but I still don’t get it. I’m waiting to see the explanation of the deck to understand how Entei managed to win Nationals. It’s a good deck and has a good match-up against Darkrai E, but other match-ups are pretty 50-50.

3) There were four different decks in the top4 of the U.S. Masters

This once again proves that the metagame is healthy, versatile and any deck can win when it faces the right decks. I think this situation was last time in the 2006-2007 season, but the sad fact is that in order to win you needed more skill in the 06-07 season than in the current metagame. Luck is still a huge factor in the games since the games are so quick.

4) The top4 lists of the U.S. Nationals were “new” builds of old decks

Klinklang ran Kyogre EX. Eelektrik ran 3 Max Potion. CMT ran only 4 supporters (3 Juniper and 1 N). This is something that I enjoy  a lot. It proves that playtesting is really worth it. All the topping decks included surprising and new cards and took the decks in to a whole new level. As a deck builder I was very excited to learn about that and it sparked the creativity for my Worlds deck as well!

5) Juniors were won by Hammertime in the Netherlands, Germany and the U.S! Not to mention it won Seniors in Portugal too!

This naturally makes me very happy. It means that my blog does matter and affects the metagame all over the world. Also, I’m very happy that Junior players have been succeeding with them. I know all of them have read my articles about the deck, so they have probably learnt something from them as well! For me it tells me that I’ve succeeded with my blog – I’ve been able to help people to learn about decks and how to play them. I hope, I’ll be able to continue that next season as well!




Conclusion

To conclude, I would like to say that I really enjoyed the last weekend of Nationals and all the surprises they brought. I think no one anticipated Klinklang to win or someone to play with only 4 supporters to the top4. However, this leaves it all open for the World Championships. There is no dominating deck and anyone and anything can do well. I’ll choose my Worlds’ deck probably already next weekend in the 7^th annual “Miska-camp”. One thing is for sure – I’ll have tough time choosing, even though I’ve narrowed my choices down to 3 decks.

Anyways, as mentioned earlier, this will be my last entry of the HGSS-on format. I hope you enjoyed it! Also, my next entry will be something very special (at least for me). Can you guess what it is?


Thanks for reading and feel free to comment on anything and leave requests for my upcoming entries. Also, remember to vote on the poll, there is still time!