Specialist or Generalist?

[Buttons]

That makes no sense. A specialist, by definition, is good at playing the deck he specializes in. While it's true that specialists can usually do a better job of fine-tuning their list, they also make fewer direct mistakes. Their incomplete understanding of other decks could lead to indirect mistakes, but since their understanding of those decks is in the context of the specific matchup they have, they'll usually be fine (eg a specialist Dragon player probably couldn't do well with Gifts, but he should be able to play Gifts pretty well against Dragon).

I should have explained better, sorry.

I was trying to say that because I might not know a Gifts deck as well as a Generalist, I might put down a Chalice for 3, and then I play an Uba Mask, instead of a Chalice for 2, when I should have known because they played a Rushing River Main that they brought in Hurkyl's Recall as well.

That's a very basic mistake, which a pure Specialist would have made.  Pure Specialist, as in, he knows virtually nothing about other decks.  Everyone knows that Gifts runs both 2cc bounce and 3cc bounce, but I'm trying to make that point in my previous post.

A generalist can play a deck with a good amount of skill, and be completely up-to date on those kinds of choices, although he might not understand the perfect intracicies of, for instance:

Whether to use bazaar on his upkeep, before his draw step, sac the bazaar to stax, draw, replay bazaar from his graveyard, and then not use it again until his next turn.

He might just draw the card.

One thing I'd like to point out is that being a specialist doesn't mean being ignorant of other decks. It doesn't mean that you only know how one deck works, or that you're familiar with only one deck. Rather, it means that there is a single deck on which you focus the vast majority of your time. However, part of that focus requires playing with other decks and learning how other decks work. You can't very well expect to get your Control Slaver deck to beat Grim Long unless you play some games with Grim Long and understand how it works.

How do you sideboard? Which spells do you counter? Which hands do you keep? These are questions that you can best answer by playing a match from both sides of the table. So, in fact, being a specialist requires that you follow other decks in the metagame, if only in order to defeat them.

I think we all agree to that point.

However, someone who would spend all of their time on just their own deck, and wouldn't play other decks at all would be more of a specialist than someone who's been playing the same deck for 5 years, who plays other decks to see how they fare against his own.

Someone who never plays the same deck twice *Smennen* would be almost purely Generalist.

[Komatteru]

Pure Specialist, as in, he knows virtually nothing about other decks.  Everyone knows that Gifts runs both 2cc bounce and 3cc bounce, but I'm trying to make that point in my previous post.

Such players tend not to exist as they lack any understanding of anything.  They can't even win with their "specialist deck" because they don't know how to play against anything.  You are completely wrong if you are trying to describe specialists such as myself or Rich Shay.  I know more about those decks than most people in the format.  I know exactly how to pick them apart when I play against them. I know exactly what they should be doing to stop me, and how to capitalize when they don't do that.  In short, I know how all the decks in the format function, I guarantee that I can play any Mana Drain deck or Stax better than most of the people who bring those things to tournaments.  I cannot T8 with just anything (that would make me a generalist), but I likely know how the deck works better than 80% of the people who are playing it.

[Jacob Orlove]

My understanding of a "specialist" is that they're going to be really good at playing their deck against anything, and anything against their deck. JD may not have much practice with the Fish mirror, but if he was piloting it against Belcher, he'd do better than most Fish players could. Likewise, Rich Shay could probably play Fish pretty well against Control Slaver. They understand the matchup from both sides of the table. Being a specialist requires that level of knowledge.

Being a generalist is also a lot of work, though. Smmenen, for example, could do fine playing pretty much any deck in the format against any other, but the real advantage of his breadth of knowledge is that he can temporarily specialize in one deck for a specific event. With a few weeks of practice, he can learn the list and fine-tune it for the expected metagame. This ordinarily wouldn't compare with full specialization, but if the deck is new then he'll have a huge relative edge over his opponents, even if they're specialists in their own decks. This is why decks like Doomsday and Grim Long don't usually do well after he unveils them--no one specializes in them, but the real specialists test against them enough so that temporary specialists won't have an edge. Meanwhile, Smmenen has moved on again. This is a risky strategy, and it can be time-intensive (it would be almost impossible without a team, certainly), but the rewards are impressive.

Most players, though, are neither specialists nor generalists. A few can get by on raw skill and good metagaming (Pros sometimes fall into this category), and some are just lucky (although Vintage is a great format for that), but Sun Tzu said it best:

And so in the military –
                     Knowing the other and knowing oneself,
                     In one hundred battles no danger.
                     Not knowing the other and knowing oneself,
                     One victory for one loss.
                     Not knowing the other and not knowing oneself,
                     In every battle certain defeat.

[assassin]

I think in this format is is absolutely crucial to have experience playing a variety of decks.  However, being a specialist is very important too.  As JD says oneness with your deck is very important when you get into a jam.  The reason i think you should still play a wide variety of decks is because it will give you the knowledge of what their ideal hand is when they are playing you.  I think Steve talks about this when learning to pilot grimlong.  You need to know what their best hand is.  The other benefit to having experience playing a variety of decks is in the deck building process.  It is easier to gage how strong a card is when you know how it actually effects you when you are playing against it.

[Buttons]

Wouldn't your definition of specialist be almost strictly inferior to your definition of generalist, then?

EDIT:The above is to Jacob's response.

Pure Specialist, as in, he knows virtually nothing about other decks.  Everyone knows that Gifts runs both 2cc bounce and 3cc bounce, but I'm trying to make that point in my previous post.

Such players tend not to exist as they lack any understanding of anything.  They can't even win with their "specialist deck" because they don't know how to play against anything.  You are completely wrong if you are trying to describe specialists such as myself or Rich Shay.

Okay.  Obviously.

No one is a pure specialist.  I never said anyone was.  You are not a pure specialist.

[Jacob Orlove]

Wouldn't your definition of specialist be almost strictly inferior to your definition of generalist, then?

No, because without a new deck, the generalist is at a disadvatange against the specialists.

[Buttons]

Makes sense.  I'd agree then.

Is Smennen the only Generalist on TMD then?  heh.

[JACO]

Makes sense.  I'd agree then.

Is Smennen the only Generalist on TMD then?  heh.

No. I'd consider myself a Generalist. To me, and I think Smennen will attest to this, one of the biggest benefits of being a Generalist is that you have the opportunity and abililty to play any deck against an expected field. Your unexpected choice of a deck can often be enough to get by a Specialist, playing Control Slaver for example, who hasn't tested the match against your deck enough. As Jacob Orlove alluded to in the post above, playing a deck that has not been seen or discussed much is a huge tactical advantage for the Generalist, and I think this is why you'll never see Smennen play the same deck in back to back tournaments. This is also one of the reason why he tries to be on the forefront of developing new deck technology. Following this line of thought, the 'best deck' is usually not the one with all of the 'best matchups,' but rather the one that will allow you to outplay and/or outwit your unprepared opponent.

I play different decks, in the role of a Generalist, because I want to challenge myself to play technically perfect under pressure. It's not a matter of ego, but rather of using my skills of critical thinking and analysis. With such huge swings of tempo in Vintage, there is most often only one correct play at any time. Not optimal, but correct, or one that will seem small but in actuality will win you the game or lose you the game on the spot without you realizing it. If you assume the role lof Generalist, and also test enough to know how the majority of matches will play out, then you will also be at a strategic advantage because you have figured out the intracies of all of the matches you are likely to see in a given tournament, and you can then choose a deck or strategy that will best exploit the other deck's weaknesses.

To me, the biggest disadvantage of playing the same deck over and over is complacency. When you grow to have a symbiotic relationship with a deck, you will often play it like you breathe air. But you may also make mistakes because you have fallen into a pattern of almost always doing action Y when your opponent does action X. If you were a Generalist instead, and were intimate with both perspectives of how action X plays out, then you will more likely be able to think like your opponent, or to see through what your opponent is doing, and as a result be able to make a better in-game decision.

[pyr0ma5ta]

the 'best deck' is usually not the one with all of the 'best matchups,' but rather the one that will allow you to outplay and/or outwit your unprepared opponent
To me, the biggest disadvantage of playing the same deck over and over is complacency. When you grow to have a symbiotic relationship with a deck, you will often play it like you breathe air. But you may also make mistakes because you have fallen into a pattern of almost always doing action Y when your opponent does action X. If you were a Generalist instead, and were intimate with both perspectives of how action X plays out, then you will more likely be able to think like your opponent, or to see through what your opponent is doing, and as a result be able to make a better in-game decision.

I agree here.  The best deck is one which is powerful enough to win, and yet hard for your opponent to play around.  This can mean a number of things: bringing unexpected decks or tech, for example, or a different deck that beats other decks because they have no effective sideboard.  Rogue decks, usually slightly less powerful by virtue of being less polished than established archetypes, have that element of surprise and can often pull out victories in bad matchups because the opponent is clueless as to what's going on.  I played a 7-land belcher deck in standard this last year, and I beat 2 mono-blue permission decks, even though I only had 4 Belchers in the deck as a win condition, and countering them would guarentee victory.  Not once did they think to counter it, until I belched them dead.  Then game 2 I brought in Defense Grid and Dosan, the falling Leaf, and they didn't have a prayer.  It was a bad deck with terrible matchups if the opponents have perfect information.  But magic isn't like that, and you can win because the opponent doesn't know what's going on.

Also, I find that playing CS helps a lot with the Generalist thing.  You turn on a slaver, and now you have to play your opponent's deck.  Often he just loses because you consult for Solkanar the swamp king, or necro for all his life, or something obvious, but sometimes it's hard to see the best way to wreck him.  It's like playing a different deck every time you turn on a slaver.

[Zias]

If a person has subpar play skills then being a "specialist" is likely more suited for them (I am not saying that all "specialists" are sub-par players). Specialists (the kind who are not very developed or skilled players) seem to depend entirely on the knowledge of their deck, when to mulligan, and what do deal with. Knowing your deck well, the extent of its capabilities, is a highly important aspect of winning. You can pick up a "bad" deck and do well with it if you know your deck well enough.

I am not a good player, I do admit it, because of this I tend to fall into the specialist category. I realize, that since I do not have the time or resources to test the metagame and each deck thoroughly, that my best chance at winning is to know my deck as best as possible.

When I decided to actually attend my first vintage tournament, my cardpool was small for the format and I was on a low budget. I picked up Meandeck Tendrils and for the months preceding the tournament I would first attend, I goldfished the deck approx. 500 times and played an innumerable amount of times: I wanted to become so greatly familiar with all of the aspects of my deck that I would make very few mistakes. Meandeck Tendrils is likely one of the most "specialistic" decks of the game, your opponent's deck matters little (all you must do is learn to play around Force of Will), it requires you to know it well. I was able to top 8 four times in the next five tournaments with the deck. I was able to accomplish this, I believe, because I knew my deck so well (though some argue I've made a human sacrifice or two)

[Anusien]

Above all else, the mentat must be a generalist, not a specialist. It is wise to have decisions of great moment monitored by generalists. Experts and specialists lead you quickly into chaos. They are a source of useless nit-picking, the ferocious quibble over a comma. The mentat-generalist, on the other hand, should bring to decision-making a healthy common sense. He must not cut himself off from the broad sweep of what is happening in his universe. He must remain capable of saying: "There's no real mystery about this at the moment. This is what we want now. It may prove wrong later, but we'll correct that when we come to it." The mentat-generalist must understand that anything which we can identify as our universe is merely a part of larger phenomena. But the expert looks backward; he looks into the narrow standards of his own specialty. The generalist looks outward; he looks for living principles, knowing full well that such principles change, that they develop. It is to the characteristics of change itself that the mentat-generalist must look. There can be no permanent catalogue of such change, no handbook or manual. You must look at it with as few preconceptions as possible, asking yourself: "Now what is this thing doing?"
The Mentat Handbook

Um, I think you'll find that it's a mix between generalists and specialists between Vintage players in terms of consistent results.  Compare Justin Droba and Rich Shay's results to Stephen Menendian and Jacob Orlove.  I think the difference is the kind of work the two are putting in.  When JD goes into a stax heavy field with belcher, he's going to be looking for specific hate to beat Null Rod and Chalice.  When Jacob comes into a Stax field, he's going to be looking for a deck to beat that field.  I don't think there's intrinsically some benefit to being a generalist or specialist, as long as you can play the game well.

[unicoerner]

I would say if you want to play a control deck at a tournament it s better to be a generalist than a specialist, because you must know which key spells your opponnents have. As a Combo player it s much more important to know what your deck can do.

[Smmenen]

If a person has subpar play skills then being a "specialist" is likely more suited for them (I am not saying that all "specialists" are sub-par players). Specialists (the kind who are not very developed or skilled players) seem to depend entirely on the knowledge of their deck, when to mulligan, and what do deal with. Knowing your deck well, the extent of its capabilities, is a highly important aspect of winning. You can pick up a "bad" deck and do well with it if you know your deck well enough.

I am not a good player, I do admit it, because of this I tend to fall into the specialist category. I realize, that since I do not have the time or resources to test the metagame and each deck thoroughly, that my best chance at winning is to know my deck as best as possible.

When I decided to actually attend my first vintage tournament, my cardpool was small for the format and I was on a low budget. I picked up Meandeck Tendrils and for the months preceding the tournament I would first attend, I goldfished the deck approx. 500 times and played an innumerable amount of times: I wanted to become so greatly familiar with all of the aspects of my deck that I would make very few mistakes. Meandeck Tendrils is likely one of the most "specialistic" decks of the game, your opponent's deck matters little (all you must do is learn to play around Force of Will), it requires you to know it well. I was able to top 8 four times in the next five tournaments with the deck. I was able to accomplish this, I believe, because I knew my deck so well (though some argue I've made a human sacrifice or two)

How did you end up doing with it?

I will say one or two other things:

Trying to learn every deck in the format has huge benefits over long stretches of time.

Since I learned Stax intimately in 2003, I can pick it up in 2005 and it takes me only a short time to get back up to speed with it.

I played mono blue exlcusively for the entire year of 2002.  That's how i could pick it up at Gencon in 2004 for one tournament and top 8 with it.  Mono blue control is the one deck that I believe I know most intimately.  Along with Long, that is the one deck that I truly became a specialist in the Rich Shay sense of the word. 

The point though - by having tried my hand at nearly every deck in the format, I can pick up modern variants and play them without having to go through the whole learning curve. 

I think this is important:

One of the reasons I think being a generalist is really good is this:  You know thy enemy.  For example, as a combo player, I can't imagine how I could be half as good if i didn't have alot of experience with Mana Drain decks.  Having played nearly every single manner of Mana Drain deck, I know what kind of hands the Drain player is likely to have.  I can make base assumptions about the cards they have in hand at various points in the game.  Now, a combo player can learn certain things just by testing alot against Drain decks, but you don't see the whole picture. 

I advocate two fisted testing as a means of learning the kinds of hands your opponent is likely to draw.  Magic is a game of probabilities.  Some cards will show up a certain amount of the time.  Knowing those probabilities and knowing what sort of risks you need to take to win the match is as important as knowing what your optimal strategy is in any given match. 

For example, if I have alot of play experience with Uba Stax, I will know that turn one Welder, turn two Bazaar will come up a certain amount of the time and that turn one Workshop and a threat will come up another percentage of the time. 
the probability discussion can now be found here. It is no longer a part of this thread.
-Jacob

[Mordred]

If you want to think of yourself as a "specialist" or "generalist" great.

I've always believed in playing the deck you're most comfortable with.

I think it's important to know the major styles of decks and their stradegys, but I don't think it's imporant for any player to say, "Yes, I've top-8'd with every deck invented, and that's why I'm going to win."

If you think knowing every deck inside out will make you a better player, you're absoulutly right.  However, it's not the kind of stuff that wins tournaments.

Unless you find time to go around and write down what everybody's playing, you must instead develop the skill to identify your opponents stradegy quickly.  Some prior knowledge to the type of deck he's playing is vital here, but knowing every card choice and tactic is not.

The simple fact that people build decks differently than the lists provided on the internet proves that nobody can ever have enough experience with Magic to be ready for every match.

Instead of working with other people's ideas, work on your own.  If you do this enough, you'll have more of an immediate advantage than anybody.

[Juggernaut GO]

I advocate two fisted testing as a means of learning the kinds of hands your opponent is likely to draw.  Magic is a game of probabilities.  Some cards will show up a certain amount of the time.  Knowing those probabilities and knowing what sort of risks you need to take to win the match is as important as knowing what your optimal strategy is in any given match. 

this is one of the reasons i love MWS so much, I can just test my deck in solo mode and play against something else I'm expecting to face.

[TheUprisal]

I'm a specialist.  I know you might be saying "who the hell is this kid" but hey, haha

I play combo, and combo more or less exclusively.  Why? because I find it a blast to sit down in front of a guy w/ Drains and Forces and say "Im Dangerous"

Then I beat him through his hate and say "Im entirely Reckless"

You have to find a balance between stupidity and geniusness to play combo.  Walking that line is the most exciting thing i have found in this wonderful game.  It fits me as a person, because as a history major with a minor in law, I've seen some things in the past that have done the same.

Why be boring?

[jazzykat]

For the regular player I think that whether you are a specialist or a generalist, the deck you take to a tournament should be the one you feel most comfortable playing (of course the deck has to be somewhat competitive: i.e. no lich deck for T1).

There are some players who are innately just better than average and/or practice so much their experience dwarfs that of the average player. Those superstars  will have the understanding to play their pet deck to perfection, or play the most promising deck better than most but with a lot more insight into their opponents than most of their opponents will have into them.

So while Steve asks a great question I believe that the best way to be better is "intelligent play testing" either two fisted testing, or going through a gauntlet, recording the results and decisions that led to the results and analyzing the play afterwards. I find that analysis after a game has made me a much better player than just playing a lot of games without any thought to what happens.