Farm 1 analysis (vanilla FM)

I was looking through some old strat discussion posts in the FM Discord, and I saw a lot of criticism of Farm 1 for vanilla runs that aim for a low time/WR. Vanilla runs have become less popular in recent years, so these criticisms are among the most recent strat discussions that have occurred for the category, and I would like to address them.

The prevailing community logic for Farm 1 is that it is used to make the deck ready for Farm 2. This makes sense in the context of our natural way of thinking about speedrunning strategy. Speedrunners only do things in the game that are needed. The only drops you need to beat the game occur during Farm 2, so by that logic, you should start Farm 2 as soon as your deck is capable of doing it.

A deck can be capable of farming Isis, the primary Farm 2 target, with a weak deck. You only need 3-4 beasts and 3-4 pyros/winged monsters, plus maybe a few machines, to win 80% of the time. And about half of your deaths come from Isis playing B. Skull -- a monster that cannot be consistently beaten with any deck that would still be on Farm 2.

Because of this, many speedrunners have concluded that it is worth trying to skip Farm 1 by resetting for a deck with a lot of beasts and pyros/winged monsters (or the rare deck with 4+ dragons/thunders). And if farm 1 is needed, it should be short -- 5 duels or less.

I believe that this strategy is suboptimal, and that Farm 1 should typically last until the deck has 6-7 total dragons/thunders. My reasons are as follows:
- Although bad decks win 80% of the time, many of those wins are slow, especially when Isis plays Swords.
- Although bad decks win 80% of the time, many of those wins are C-POWs or D-POWs, which lose star chips.
- Isis plays THTD in about 10 percent of duels. Being able to make your own THTD saves you from dying and losing star chips.
- Better decks may be able to rely on Kaminari Attack to beat Isis. This is the best non-THTD monster for Farm 2, since it usually dodges Swords and can beat all of Isis' normal mode monsters on the Umi field.
- World tournament is faster after an extended Farm 2 (especially duels where THTD might be needed, like Bakura and Pegasus).
- The good Farm 2 monster drops are almost all dragons, with few to no thunders. Decks that end Farm 1 early may end up with awkward monster counts such as 8 dragons/3 thunders, which play slower and have a lower chance of beating the Final 6 than decks with even dragon/thunder counts.
- A long Farm 2 makes it more likely to win a useless 4th copy of a common dragon such as Yamatano or Petit.
- The primary Farm 1 target, Rex, commonly drops big dragons, which are more valuable than little dragons and less likely to be duplicated.
- Even if a longer Farm 2 gives you more good magic cards, you can't benefit from them or move on from Farm 2 until you have enough monsters. You shouldn't end Farm 2 or start A-TECs until you have about 6 dragons and 4 thunders. You reach this number faster on average when you extend Farm 1 to 15-20 duels.
- I have had many runs that started Farm 2 early, won 1-3 good magics, and then spent an hour farming solely for dragons and star chips. These runs would have been able to leave Farm 2 earlier if they had farmed Rex for longer.
- I have had many runs that started Farm 2 early, won 0-1 dragons in the first 10 duels, and lost significant time because I kept getting slow duels and C-POWs. These runs would have lost less time if they had farmed Rex for longer (or could have been reset earlier if the farm 1 drops were comparably unlucky).

I agree that Farm 1 should be shorter if you are strictly resetting for a great time (sub-2:45). However, I don't see much purpose in resetting like that unless you have a stream audience that demands it. You will either be resetting the vast majority of your runs on Farm 2 or frequently ending Farm 2 with decks that have a less than 1% chance of beating the game in time. It seems much more sane to accept runs that fall in the 2:45 to 4:00 range (still an extremely good time!) or to run less grindy categories like 5-card and 15-card.