As to how skill-testing a format is, the length of games must be considered...rrectly picking your spot over the course of many grueling turns will be the difference between winning and not.
He doesn't directly say Vintage takes less skill, but he does mention the relatively short duration by the count of turns in a Vintage match. If you assume that the same number of decisions made per turn, you're much more likely to screw up over the course of the game if you play 10 turns instead of 3.
However, what he does not consider is what goes on each turn. According to the DCI Personal Information Center, in the past 6 months, I have played in 53 Vintage matches, and 6 or so of those have gone to time and ended in a draw (~11%). I have played 44 constructed matches, and not one of those has ended in a draw as a result of time. I've played a lot more of both in unsanctioned events, but I'd imagine that the numbers would play out as similiar. So, why is it that the format with all the turn 2 kills goes to time a lot more than the "slow format with the long games"? Why is it that games with less turns take so much longer than games with 4-5 times as many turns?
Here's a Turn 1 in Standard:
Player 1: Land, go.
Player 2: Land, go.
Occasionally, things get "dicey" and someone plays a Chrome Mox and something that costs 2 on the first turn, but Affinity is really the only deck that consistenly does something other than play a land on the first turn.
Consider a Turn 1 in Vintage:
Player 1: Land, some Moxes
Player 2: Mox, Land, Duress. In response, player 1 casts Brainstorm, spends 2 minutes figuring out what to put back. Player 2 spends 2 minutes examining Player 1's hand to figure out what is the best card to take, figuring all the possibilites and what each card there can do.
One thing I've noticed is that there's not a lot of responding in Type 2. You do stuff on your main phase and play very little on your opponent's turn. While in Vintage, you almost spend as much time casting spells on your opponent's turn as you do on your own. When I play T2, I constantly have to tell my opponent's to slow down and give me a chance. It's almost assumed that no one will ever respond to everything. On the other side, my opponents always look at me strangely when I give them like 10 seconds before I actually carry out the resolution of my spell. When I played Ironworks combo in T2, it wasn't uncommon for me to cast Thirst for Knowledge in response to something, then Mana Leak their spell afterwards. I think I was the only one doing that. My opponents' would look at me like "Oh, yeah, I forgot you can
do that." This gets into ground that we don't need to get into, but, in general, Standard players are as bad at manipulating the stack as Vintage players are at combat.
The number of decisions made in a Vintage turn is a lot higher, and that makes things more complex. So much more just happens. Add in the fact that the format does not forgive mistaks as much, and I think we've made our case that Vintage is terribly difficult to play. You can screw up on turn 3 in Standard because you're going to get 10 more after that to correct your mistake. If you screw up badly on turn 10 in Standard, you're going to lose. Similarly, if you screw up on turn 2 in Vintage, you're in trouble, because you're only looking at getting 3-4 more turns after that. Mr. Flores seems to neglect this. He assumes that more turns equals more decisions. In addition, he also fails to consider that over the course of more turns, you get more chances to correct your past mistakes. Your opponent is also just as likely to make as many mistakes as you over the course of that game as well.
To address the luck/brokenness issue, yeah, it happens. But it happens in other formats as well, but it's not as extreme because the cards aren't as powerful. Affinity is regarded as a very difficult deck to play, but it's all too common to see turn 1 Disciple, turn 2 Ravager, turn 3 Plating, game over 4th turn. Despite being terribly broken a lot of the time, Affinity has a reputation for complexity. Now tell me, how is what I just described any different from turn 1 Workshop, Trinisphere? It's not. Our game breaking play was compressed into the first turn instead of spread out over the course of 4.
EDIT:
After reading the comments from Jacob on the Star City Thread, I'd like to simultaneouly agree and disagree. I think that Vintage
can be the most forgiving format at times. If you screw up and then topdeck something amazing the next turn, you can more than make up for it. However, this takes several things into account:
1) Your opponent didn't make you pay dearly for your mistake with something broken of his own.
2) You actually draw that something broken.
Granted, with all the broken cards floating around, the probability that #2 occurs is decently high. Whether or not it can correct for your mistake depends on what you did and what you drew. However, that probability works against you just as much as it works for you. Your opponent is just as likely to draw something broken the next turn, and the probabilty that he holds something that makes you suffer horribly for your mistake is also quite high. In that respect, the format does not forgive mistakes.
In addition, if you can screw up 20% of your turns and still win, Vintage allows you to screw up once, assuming a game of 5 turns. Standard allows you to botch 2-3, assuming a game length of 10-15 turns. It's a lot harder to screw up twice than it is to screw up once.
