Hi!
First of all, welcome!
If you're looking for tournaments, your best resource is
this. You should also check the
Tournaments section of this forum, where details for the tournaments are announced. You might be interested in the tournaments in Verberie and Pontpoint, which should be closer to you than Paris, and where many good players gather, both from the Paris region and from the north of France.
As for the current metagame : the format is BW-on, so the legal sets are Black&White, Emerging Powers, Noble Victories, Next Destinies, Dark Explorers, and Dragons Exalted (and promo cards since Black&White but there's nothing amazing in there).
The main decks to know are :
- Eelektrik decks, which use
Eelektrik as an energy accelerator. It can be played with Mewtwo EX, Zekrom EX and Double Colorless Energy; or Rayquaza EX and Fire Energy; or a mix of these. Raikou EX is a staple, and other attackers such as Zekrom, Thundurus or shiny Rayquaza can be played too.
- Darkrai EX/Hydreigon (the Dark Trance one from Dragons Exalted), which is a slower set-up deck which uses the combination between the Dark Cloak ability and Dark Trance, and benefits from cards such as Sableye, Dark Patch, and Max Potion. It can use a variety of attackers and techs, such as Terrakion (Noble Victories), Shaymin EX, Mewtwo EX, Sigilyph (Dragons Exalted)... Hydreigon himself is also a good attacker.
Those two got most results but there's also :
- Ho-oh decks, which use Ho-oh EX's unique ability to use him as a powered-up attacker, as well as other attackers such as Tornadus EX, Mewtwo EX, Terrakion mainly. These can be powered with Double Colorless Energy and the Ho-oh EX/Energy switch combination.
- Fighting decks, mainly using Terrakion, Terrakion EX, sometimes Landorus... their power come from the fact that they hit Darkrai EX and electric Pokemon for weakness.
- Garchomp/Altaria, which benefits from the Dragon Call Gabite, allowing the deck to set up quickly an army of Garchomps and supporting Altarias.
- Accelgor (Dark Explorers) decks, Empoleon decks, Ninetales/Amoongus, Garbodor decks, etc.
That being said, assuming you don't know anything about the format, you should know a few things :
- The only playable supporters are draw supporters : Professor Juniper, N, Cheren and Bianca (and Random Receiver which is an item but gets you a supporter).
- Pokémon tend to be searched with items: Ultra Ball, Level Ball, Heavy Ball, Pokémon Communication sometimes.
- Pokémon Catcher is played as a 4-of in basically all decks.
- Other important cards: Skyarrow Bridge, Eviolite, Tool Scrapper, both Blend Energies, Double Colorless Energy, Super Rod.
Also, if you haven't played for a while, you should be aware that there were some modifications in rules since Black&White :
- "Trainer" cards now include supporters, stadiums, and items (what were called trainers before).
- Poké-powers and Poke-bodies no longer exist, Pokémon only have Abilites now. Abilites also tend to be usable even when the Pokémon is affected by a Special Condition.
- The player going first can play trainer cards (including a supporter). There's no downside to going first.
- Rare Candy has been errated and can now no longer be played on the first turn or on a Pokémon which just got into play. (It has been reprinted in Dark Explorers if you want to check the new text.)
As for tournament life, I'm not sure what you mean by that and I don't kow where you're from but you should know :
- Tournaments happen in a few select cities, where there are leagues and organizers (see the resource I linked above). We have Battle Roads in autumn, then Regionals/SPT, Cities, Regionals/SPT and Spring Battle Roads. I say "Regionals/SPT" because we didn't really make a distinction until now. (We have to now, because they don't give the same amount of Championship Points, but I don't know when each will be.)
The difference between these tournaments is not huge. Typically there'll be 18 players at a Battle Road, 24 at a City and 28 at a Regional in a place like Nanterre - nothing like the US. Though this year, some players who hadn't played since years have come back, and there's already been a 41-masters Battle Road, which is a record (I don't think there's ever been a tournament with more than 35 players in Master Division in France, apart from the National Championship), so we can expect great things.
There's also a lot of new players recently. Actually, most top players in France have only been playing for a year or two.
Also we have top cuts at Battle Roads, unlike the US.
If you have any questions, don't hesitate to drop me a PM ("MP" in French). I have the spare time to type long messages like this one, and unlike most people here, typing in English doesn't bother me.
EDIT : By the way, you should check out the TopCutPokemon Youtube channel if you want to see recent games with great commentary. It should help you to get more familiar with current decks and metagame.
EDIT FOR FRENCH PEOPLE : Oui je fais aussi des posts de cette longueur en anglais.
hock: zarma ... dans tout les cas ...
