Got a 2 year MEV for Denmark from India, tourist

Honestly, was super stressed when I first read on this forum (after submitting my application) that apparently Denmark has completely stopped issuing tourist visas to people from Main Category 3 countries including India, unless they have a sponsor in Denmark or under ‘exceptional’ circumstances where you can prove your ties to home ‘beyond doubt’. Read about so many refusal stories here

To my surprise, applied and received my visa within 12 calendar days! A few things I think that made the difference (and hence made me eligible for a Denmark tourist visa) -

1. Extremely strong travel history - have received multiple individual short validity visas from other Nordic countries including Iceland, Finland & Norway. Also had a previous Denmark tourist visa. Plus other strong visas like Japan etc. No history of overstays, refusals, and mainly no visa-shopping (always mostly stuck to my itineraries previously)

2. Most recent Schengen visa was a 1 year MEV from Greece; so the new cascade regime generally allows you to apply for a 2 year MEV if you used the 1 year visa as intended (multiple trips in 1 year). So I guess I was technically eligible for a 2 year. I explicitly asked for a 2 year visa quite confidently on my cover letter, but clearly mentioned it was ‘upto their good discretion’

3. Strong ties to home - self employed, family business background, strong financials and ITR. My savings itself didn’t have any significant amount when I applied, so I just added my CC statements and MF portfolio statements. VFS folks will try to convince you not to attach additional docs outside the checklist, but you need to insist in a confident tone that you know what you’re doing.

4. Most important- COVER LETTER. Please don’t listen to people who say it ought to be just half a page lol, I wrote a very detailed 3-4 page cover containing - purpose of travel, occupation details, table of previous travel history for easy reference, source of funds, & detailed travel itinerary. All self-written, not generic AI travel plan. Why do people assume visa officers just want a snapshot of you, while it’s obvious they’d like a full picture of your background to prove beyond doubt you’re legit? At least for Nordic countries where visa officers are not flooded with applications, they take their time to read through every word carefully (trust me I know, I’ve received a couple of embassy calls before clarifying the tiniest of details)