Type 1 in a Nut Shell

[FireFall26]

Note:  This is not a flame on Type One, I love the format, so don't just respond by telling me to play type two.

         Poker and blackjack.  What is the main difference between the two? Poker takes lots of skill, and some luck, while blackjack takes a lot of luck and a little bit of skill.  How hard is it to decide for the dealer to "hit you" when your total adds up to 11.  Though this may seem irrelevant, poker and blackjack are a lot like type 1 and type 2,  Poker being type 2 and blackjack type 1. Type 1 is highly dependent on luck, and the brokenness rather than play skill.  This is not a complaint about it, but just a discussion.
   
        The reason I bring this up is because of a recent loss at a tournament, and I have discussed it with other people. The format is so dependent on hand drawing, and drawing brokenness.  Cards like Thirst for Knowledge, Goblin Welder, Intuition can change games around in seconds.  I know this is part of the format, but the annoying part is when you know you are a better player then your opponent, but since it is type 1 they just draw more broken so you loose.  It is one of the most frustrating feelings.
   
         Type 1 is not so much skill reliant because cards have such ridiculous synergy and power.  For example, Mindslaver and Goblin Welder.  Thirsting the Slaver into your graveyard is not hard to do, but is commonly done.  Welder is ridiculous with a Slaver.  The synergies that cards have with each other are VERY over powered.  This is one of the reasons DCI doesn't even like to deal with t 1 because of the insane amount of over power in card interaction. Other examples are simply the most powerful cards in Vintage, Yawgmoth’s Will, Ancestral, etc. if many these cards fall into a bad players hand, they will have a tough time losing, either way.  Play skill can be such a little factor because matches can just rely on your opponent getting his/her overly broken cards before you do.  An example of this is the mirror Tog match.  Experience helps, but it comes down to who resolves intuition first, but not who plays it best.  One can have played tog for years, and somebody can pick up the deck with no past experience and beat you because they out broken you with a first/second turn backed Intuiton.

       I know Type 1 is broken, and there is no way it can be stopped. If cards are restricted,  other broken cards will be made. It is just how the format is in general, and sometimes very frustrating. What do you think?

[jpmeyer]

A little while back I was thinking about a similar topic.  The difference was that Type 1 is in a way both the most and least skill-intensive format.  Like you said, it doens't take much to Thirst for Knowledge, Weld Mindslaver back into play, and win.  It does however take a significant amount of skill to try to keep yourself from losing to broken starts or to win out of complicated board positions.

[Eastman]

I agree with JP
Skill is intensely important in type 1 games. It takes skill to come back from your opponents brokenness and perform some of your own.

In tournaments, 'luck' in what you get paired against is much more of a factor than luck in draws.

[rakso]

We mostly complained when it no longer took skill to make the most of brokenness, with a wistful eye back at mono blue and Growing 'Tog.

[The Atog Lord]

There is certainly a large amount of skill involved in Type One. Sure, some individual games will come down to luck. And yes, you will lose games to players who are not as good as you. Yet, over time, play skill is going to factor into how well you do. You will have a difficult time winning a large Type One event without some luck; but you cannot win a large Type One event without some skill.

[Smmenen]

The more you truly understand Type One tournament dynamics, the more you will realize it is skill based.  

The two most important keys to winning right now are:
1) Consistency - this means SKILL in choosing and designing a deck to play that is highly consistent
2) Knowing the matchups.  This may not be skill per se, but it certainly requires mucho experience.  Which is just as effective a barrier to success as skill - but is often more desirable because its more democratic.

Steve

[thecapn]

I have a few things to add.  First of all, I think skill comes into play more in role assignment or deciding a play strategy in certain matchups.  If you have a strong control hand but testing shows you need to be the aggressor, then your draw may not be as broken as it would initially seem.  Another thing is really understanding the format and deck interactions - I've won a lot of games with drain slaver where I side in Flametongue Kavus for Mindslavers and a Goblin Welder and my opponent is left with tons of marginalized hate.  

I think the skill to luck ratio also varies between decks.  The best example is combo: I'll use draw7 because that's the deck I know best.  It is easy to figure out how to combo out with draw7 when goldfishing, and most who have done that would agree that the deck is amazing.  However, there is a lot more to the deck when playing against a real opponent.  One must calculate the order in which to play spells, accounting for any relevant hate in the deck, when to continue to invest in a turn and when to pass the turn, whether to drop a land or try for academy later, when to brainstorm first or play a draw7 first, and also when to mulligan.  When playing combo you beat your opponent by playing your deck optimally, and this is a lot more relevant than the small percentage of games where you just can't lose.  I think this is why draw7 and belcher are highly underrepresented in large tournaments - the majority of the hands are a lot more nuanced than they might initially seem.

I agree that in type 1 most decks can and do have draws where they totally outbroken you.  I also think that this is fairly infrequent - maybe you get it 1-2 games in a tournament and lose to it 1-2 games in a tournament.  Honestly this one of the things that makes type one really fun.  The rest of the time, you need to focus on how to maximize the power of your cards - this is how you win the games where your opponent's hand had more power potential.  Don't forget that the "poker" formats often have decks with broken draws - Fires, Ravager Affinity, Sligh, etc.  I've watched bad players in the top 8 at a Grand Prix and countless PTQ's and it isn't too hard to figure out how they got there, and most of the time - like in type 1 - they don't win.

[SliverKing]

Over the very very long haul, the skill in choosing and optimizing a deck and sideboard for an event, and the skills of mulliganing and playing will tend towards better players winning more games.  However, Type1 is sufficiently swingy/luck-based that its entirely possible for a player to play perfectly and get smashed out of the tournament by a slightly bad case of luck(god hands, double mulligans, pairings cheese).  
I think thats what the original poster was getting at, at least thats my take on it.   I think the subsequent posts do make a good point of not blaming too much on luck.   If you get screwed in 1 tournament, let it go, if you get screwed in 2 tournaments, take a 2nd look, and then let it go.  If you are constantly getting screwed by "luck" you may want to reconsider your decks' consistency, and your testing vs the metagame's various archetypes, because something is clearly amiss.
Nobody learns except through mistakes (either their own or someone else's), so dont get prideful, just look for the lesson.

[walkingdude]

I think people underestimate the just lose hands in type 2.  Playing mono white control there simply isn’t much you can do if goblins or affinity gets its best hand.
Going a few years back, when fires got its “the fix” draw you were basically dead. And of course “the madness draw” going first would overwhelm the best mono black could throw at it. The fact that the “I win” hands end the game on turn 4 instead of turn 2 doesn’t mean that their victim actually had any more of a chance in the game.
I think the main key distinction (at least in regards to this type of randomness) is that in type two only the best aggro decks have unbeatable hands. In type one every (good) deck has “i win” hands. Even the slow control decks can mind twist/balance away your hand before you start. This makes it more common, but its not a fundamental difference, just a matter of degree.

[ELD]

Type 1 has no skill at all.  I am just really lucky.  That's why I win.  It has nothing to do with running the best deck, or being the most prepared person in the room.  My rating, my winning moxen all of it is random luck.  Sorry, I couldn't help it.  

All sarcasm aside, I cannot blame any of my few losses on "luck" in the last few months.  Going back to my tournament losses, I can place the blame squarely on myself.  At the cape I lost in the top 8 due to a poor muligan decision.  An uniformed observer would have thought that I got unlucky, but that was not the case.  At Newington I lost to some really bad misplays that I made in the top 4.  An uniformed observer would have ridiculed me mercilessly for making such obvious errors.  When I lost to Rich Shay a few months ago in RI, he was playing the better deck.  That's all of my losses in major tournaments lately.  

As far as Tog goes, I can only remember 1 loss in all the countless tournaments that I've played in the mirror.  I love the mirror.  It's like....scrumtrelecent.  I know I'm going to either out play or get out played.  I'm certain I only lost one match of the GAT mirror back in the day.  Let's not kid outselves, skill decides who wins.  Especially in the long term.  If you find yourself always in the top 8 no matter what, then you understand type 1.  In either case, I'd recommend changing the attitude.  

There is no reason to be frustrated when you lose, it's just a game.  Even still, it's just a match.  You can lose a match and still top 8.  I have to ask what you were doing when you lost the other match.  If you're a solid player, you have nothing to prove, just win the mox next time.  One match proves nothing, that's why I split in the finals so often.  

One note on Type 2, it's easily the most match dependant format.  There are some matches that you just have to hope and get lukcy to win.  In type 1, there are no viable decks that can boast that dominace over Hulk or Control Slaver.

[Dr. Sylvan]

One note on Type 2, it's easily the most match dependant format. There are some matches that you just have to hope and get lukcy to win. In type 1, there are no viable decks that can boast that dominace over Hulk or Control Slaver.

I believe this can also be phrased thusly: The power cards in Type One narrow the comparative advantage of one deck over another so that even a poor matchup between decks with powerful cards has a significant chance of victory for the disfavored side. This forces more matchups into the 50/50, 55/45, and 60/40 range, and creates situations where players can dig themselves out of a hole with the right swingy cards, which they can search for thanks to restricted tutors. One of the real skill tests of a T1 match is to use the superabundance of search cards to get the right targets for the situation. As a bad technical player, I can assure everyone that it's not obvious what to tutor for if you don't have significant experience in a matchup and with the deck. I think this abundance of searching removes some of the luck by increasing consistency of decks.

That said, there's a lot of times when the nuts draw crushes one of the players and there isn't a damn thing anyone could've done about it.

[Vegeta2711]

One note on Type 2, it's easily the most match dependant format. There are some matches that you just have to hope and get lukcy to win. In type 1, there are no viable decks that can boast that dominace over Hulk or Control Slaver.

Ok, so because 2 decks tend not to have -horrible- matchups against anything, that's the basis of this statement?

I know my own pet deck FCG gets utterly crushed by combo, barring a literal turn 1/2 god hand on my part. I know Fish tends to have horrible matches vs. decks packing larger creatures. You can go on like this for quite a few of the decks in T1. So really there doesn't seem to be much of a difference.

[FireFall26]

 
As far as Tog goes, I can only remember 1 loss in all the countless tournaments that I've played in the mirror.  I love the mirror.  It's like....scrumtrelecent.  I know I'm going to either out play or get out played.  .

How does the hulk match have people getting out played?  All it is is who draws more aks, gets the better aks, and resolves intuiton.  Resolving intuition is SO game breaking.  Getting 2, or even 3 anals in your graveyard is ridiculous vs the mirror.  It really is about who goes more broken.

[rvs]

@firefall: and thus who manages his resources better, in order to go broken. Discussions like this are endless. You have to play well, and get a little lucky sometimes to win. It's a fact of life, and also a fact of magic.

edit true jacob style, I'll just say that what Eld is going to say about the Hulk Mirror, is right on.

[ELD]

I would say that in reality, you need to play the best decks to win consistantly.  No one is saying that FCG should be able to beat combo, but no one is saying it's an amazing deck.  It's a fun deck, that can do ok if you don't want to have to think too much.  It is good enough to win a tournament, but isn't going to cut through a field of good belcher players.  If one wants to reduce elements of luck, one must play a deck that allows for the elemements of skill to be the determining factor.  Cards drawing makes draws less random, and disruption prevents your opponents good draws from winning.  It is true that a deck without a draw engine has to top deck like a champ to win.  They of course do not, and then people whine because they did not draw the perfect cards of the top.    

I played Control Slaver this weekend against a wide range of decks.  FCG, Belcher, Gr Madness, Hulk and then in the top 8 Sligh x2 and UrPhid in the finals.  My skill and the skill of my opponents was without a doubt the factor that determinded everything.  I could have lost a match had my opponent not made a mistake, and I certainly would not have won if I wasn't prepared for every deck I faced.  

About Hulk Mirror

I'm not going to address this one any more as most people play the deck in a completely different style than I do.  AK should almost never be cast for one.  If you and your opponent are going nuts resolving AK's for 5 or 8 or whatever, I cannot even comment.  I find Hulk mirrors to be rather one sided.  Who ever flinches with AK first usually loses as well.  AK is essential to losing the mirror, not winning it.  I shuffle AK back with brainstorm/fetch all the time.

[FireFall26]

About Hulk Mirror

I'm not going to address this one any more as most people play the deck in a completely different style than I do.  AK should almost never be cast for one.  If you and your opponent are going nuts resolving AK's for 5 or 8 or whatever, I cannot even comment.  I find Hulk mirrors to be rather one sided.  Who ever flinches with AK first usually loses as well.  AK is essential to losing the mirror, not winning it.  I shuffle AK back with brainstorm/fetch all the time.

Yes, I side out my aks, except 1....Anals are game breaking though, which makes intuition too.  Also to adress what you said about GAT...(I'm certain I only lost one match of the GAT mirror back in the day. Let's not kid outselves, skill decides who wins. Especially in the long term.) That is good, but doesnty prove much.  My friend put the deck together the night before, got 4 hours of sleep, doesnt play magic too often (back then anyways) and he went undefeated in swiss, even beating exerpeinced people with the deck like Kerz.  GAT was just ridiculious and can't realy say much about your play skill.

[Vegeta2711]

It's a fun deck, that can do ok if you don't want to have to think too much.

Are you kidding me? There's a reason why we enjoy mocking the dumber FCG players in IRC...

Anyways though, so if you mean only the BEST decks, then really how is it any different than T2? Affinity and Goblins have no -horrible- matchup's and they clearly are the best decks in T2. So either way your statement doesn't make a lot of sense.

Oh and you mean skill was a factor in control slaver beating Sligh? I think you might've wanted to leave those out there.  

[ELD]

As far as the skill it takes to run FCG, I understand that there are terrible players who don't understand the deck.  That is not my point.  My point is, compare running FCG to running Keeper, or even Long vs a solid control deck.  Skill is the most important factor, as every decision is critical.  

Anyways, I'm done with this thread as it is rather frustrating for me to respond to and I fear I will start flaming people.  The best players find their way to the top 8, regardless of luck, consistantly.  They are the ones with the sick ratings, and the pile of earned moxen.

[Eastman]

 The best players find their way to the top 8, regardless of luck, consistantly.  They are the ones with the sick ratings, and the pile of earned moxen.

He's right.

[Mykeatog]

Come on ELD and Eastman...

It's just that the same people get lucky all the time.

*dies*

[The M.E.T.H.O.D]

I agree with Steve, in that vintage is very skill intensive because there are so many varying aspects that one has to be good at.

1. Good deck construction
2. Metagaming-
     A. Choosing the Right Deck
     B. Tailoring your deck to meet the required needs of your metagame.
3. Knowing not only how your deck works, but how others work including the strengths and weaknesses of every deck.
4. Knowing the rules, errata, card interactions, etc.
5. Play Skill- There are so many different aspects of Play skill it would take forever to talk about. Play Skill not only includes being a good player, but being able play off the strengths and weaknesses of your opponent and his deck.  A skillful player can react accordingly to every "broken play" by handling it accordingly.

Yes you might think that this is applicable to every constructed format, and it is.  The big difference in vintage is that the card pool is completely different. It’s like t2 and vintage are different games. You need skill to play magic, but in T2 there are only 3-4 "good" decks and the variation that exists between each archetype is very little to none.  Therefore one can believe because of the major differences of this format and players that type one is one of the most skill intensive formats ever.

[jpmeyer]

I believe that Type 1 is both the most and least skill intensive format.  It's the most skill intensive because there are tons of situations where if you just buckle down and look at your cards, there is probably a way for you to win.  It's just up to you to find it.

The reason that it's the least skill intensive format is because the cards can be incredibly forgiving.  There are a lot of cards in Type 1 that can just win a lost game out of nowhere.  Furthermore, there are a lot of draws in Type 1 that are just next to impossible to beat.

Oh, and the other thing that makes it less skill intensive is that people rarely have to deal with creature combat.

[PucktheCat]

The skills needed are different, as well.  T1 tends to emphasize the kind of optimization/calculation skill that traditionally goes with combo decks.  Other formats feature more people skills in the form of reading your opponent, bluffing etc.

Every format has some of both, of course, but the mix is different.

Leo

[Smmenen]

Oh, and the other thing that makes it less skill intensive is that people rarely have to deal with creature combat.

I think that just speaks to other skills that magic has to offer.  I am absolutely *atrocious* at combat.  I can do the necessary calculations, but it takes me far longer than most people.  You do not want to draft with me if I have drafted a slow deck becuase it will take me enormous amounts of time to figure out what to do alot of the times.  

My problem is that for as long as I have played Type One, I have never played decks with many creatures that attack, or combat oriented decks.   Oshawa Stompy I find very difficult to pilot, but Long.dec relatively simple.  

Steve

[FireFall26]

Come on ELD and Eastman...

It's just that the same people get lucky all the time.

*dies*

I never said ANYTHING the the whole format is based on luck, but I definettly agree with what JP just said.

[dicemanx]

I have one problem with magic. It's far too easy for players to reach a level that is sufficient to compete in high caliber T1 events. Once they reach that certain level, the game becomes *much* more dependent on luck than skill.

This is why I can never take magic that seriously, compared to a game like chess, which I have played competitvely throughout my life. Chess is an extremely difficult game to master, and the ranges in skill levels are huge compared to magic. It is, for instance, inconceivable that a master-strength player would ever get beaten by an amateur; this is far from the case in magic, where the luck element is considerable.

[Dante]

I have one problem with magic. It's far too easy for players to reach a level that is sufficient to compete in high caliber T1 events. Once they reach that certain level, the game becomes *much* more dependent on luck than skill.

This is why I can never take magic that seriously, compared to a game like chess, which I have played competitvely throughout my life. Chess is an extremely difficult game to master, and the ranges in skill levels are huge compared to magic. It is, for instance, inconceivable that a master-strength player would ever get beaten by an amateur; this is far from the case in magic, where the luck element is considerable.

That is why I think of Magic more as a long-term game like Poker.  In both games, there are factors out of your control (the way the cards come off).  Over the long term, good players win and bad players don't, but on any given match/hand, luck can play a considerable influence.  Chess doesn't have any outside variables like that....

[dicemanx]

Over the long term, good players win and bad players don't

For now that might be true, but bad players, with enough desire and effort, could easily narrow that gap in play skill; this is not true of Poker or Chess or any other competitive game. We could conceivably have tournaments some time in the not so distant future where 20-30 players entered in a tournament could win it all; those that end up winning or making top 8 will do it mainly due to being lucky in their games or have fortuitous match-ups rather than outplaying their opponent(s). As others mentioned, T1 cards are very forgiving, so it's easy to bridge skill gaps; furthermore, deck selection is not as big of a factor as it might have been 2+ years ago, because all of the tier 1 or 2 decks can beat any other tier 1-2 decks. There are few lopsided match-ups apart from some obvious ones like certain combo vs aggro. If you take something like Hulk or GermBus to a tourney for instance, any competent player with any top tiered deck has a decent chance to beat you (whether its aggro, combo or control or some hybrid), no matter how skilled you happen to be.

[Dante]

Over the long term, good players win and bad players don't

For now that might be true, but bad players, with enough desire and effort, could easily narrow that gap in play skill; this is not true of Poker or Chess or any other competitive game.

That's not true at all.

In poker, if we're talking about a "mid-range once a week slightly losing or break-even-ish player" becoming a "semi-pro who consistently wins 1-2 BB (big bets)/hr playing 20 hrs/week", that can totally happen within a 6-12 month timeframe if you are dedicated to it.  I've seen it happen a couple dozen times at the $10-20 and $20-40 holdem levels (it happend with myself).

When I played Chess in high-school, I had a lot of books, practiced with the team and somewhat outside and I was a 1800-ish player.  One of the guys started taking it seriously, got a IM level coach, trained, won Nationals his senior year and had a competitive game amongst master-level players in Chicago.  All this took about 2 years to accomplish for him to accomplish, going from good amateur to master-level competitive.

In type 1, the way I see it, if you have a good grasp on the rules and cards, if you put your mind to it, you can become a "good" Type 1 player in 6 Months if you playtest regularly and have a group to bounce ideas off, whether it's here at TMD or a playtest group/team otherwise that has skilled players.  I keep hearing this "playskill" word used and what I define "playskill" as is:

Knowing all the top decks' gameplans
knowing matchup details
knowing how to sideboard for important matchups

Bill

[dicemanx]

In poker, if we're talking about a "mid-range once a week slightly losing or break-even-ish player" becoming a "semi-pro who consistently wins 1-2 BB (big bets)/hr playing 20 hrs/week", that can totally happen within a 6-12 month timeframe if you are dedicated to it. I've seen it happen a couple dozen times at the $10-20 and $20-40 holdem levels (it happend with myself).

A 6-12 month time frame seems optimistic, but in any case, for magic I was thinking of considerably less time and dedication that is required to achieve competency.

Same goes for your anecdotal evidence regarding reaching master level chess, which I do want to point out falls far short of being good enough to compete in top tiered chess events. Plus, the amount of time required, the diligent study of books and databases, and hiring a high level coach (IM strength) comes at a fairly considerable price moneywise and timewise unless you have natural talent that can see you through to a certain level with some degree of ease.

In my opinion, the amount of time and level of dedication required to be competitive at high levels are vastly different in most sports/games compared to magic.  

keep hearing this "playskill" word used and what I define "playskill" as is:

Knowing all the top decks' gameplans
knowing matchup details
knowing how to sideboard for important matchups

These are part of it, but lets not forget something more fundamental - understanding how to play your deck effectively and without error.