PFL Archetypes — How The Deuce Do I Pick One?
Welcome back Sports Fans. For those who missed the first blog on how to approach building a net new stable in PFL, a link is contained below.
In this blog, we are going to delve into and assess each individual Preference Archetype of horses in PhotoFinish Live; I’ve collated the views of numerous experienced PFL stable owners to pull this together; shoutout in particular to the key contributors (you may not remember as it was many moons ago!); Stenz, Ghost, vjj, MonkeTennis, fillyshell, apologies if I’ve missed anyone.
Credentials and Bag Disclosure
Why should you listen to me, and what conscious or unconscious biases might I have?
I am Peeb, co-owner and manager of the YSM Racing Club. You may remember me from such films as “Bride, The Greatest Unmarried Filly Of A Generation” or “Honey, I Created A 26 Page PDF Investment Portfolio For A Virtual Horse Racing Stable Before The Game Even Started”.
My biases are very important to take note of for this blog — we are firmly rooted in the LD archetype; mostly soft horses with a sprinkling of firm. I’ve tried my best to be objective, and have incorporated a wide range of views to try and achieve objectivity; regardless, you’d maybe expect this article to be more sympathetic about the LDS and LDF archetypes, so just be aware of this as you read through.
We are also focused heavily on high grade horses — mostly S and S- grades. This bias will almost certainly play out in this blog, which is predominantly looking through the lens of how easy it may be for anyone to compete at the top Grades of any given Archetype, either immediately, or through breeding in future generations.
What Do We Mean By Archetypes?
Each horse has one preference in each of these 3 different categories;
Direction (Left/Right)
Surface (Dirt / Turf)
Condition (Firm / Soft)
There are therefore 4 types of race — Left Dirt, Left Turf, Right Dirt, and Right Turf. Within each of these 4 types of race, there are Soft condition and Firm condition preference horses, making 8 Archetypes in total, commonly referred to by their acronym;
RDF; LDF; RTF; LTF; RDS; LDS; RTS; LTS
Below is a graphic which shows the distribution of the horse population across all archetypes, which we will continually refer to throughout this blog. It is very important to note that LTF was not possible to make during the Gen 0 PFP breeding — so none of them exist. This creates a few interesting dynamics, which I’ll also explore more below.
The Famous Five — The 1 of 1 Stylish Studs
This blog will also often cite the Gen 0 tickets borne from 1/1 Stylish Studs, referring to the famous 5 PFP Stylish Studs who have made the biggest and best performing Gen 0s in the game. The male and female Gen 0 tickets created by these Stylish Studs are some of the most powerful in the game; these are particularly relevant to discuss about these horses within archetypes, because;
- Each Stylish Stud was only able to create horses within certain Archetypes
- Each Archetype therefore only has certain 1/1 Stud bloodlines contain within.
- Archetypes with high concentration of strong 1/1 breeds are likely to see tougher competitive for racing at Gen 0 and beyond.
- But these archetypes are also likely to have more breeding options going forward.
An entirely separate blog on the impact of these 1/1 PFP breeds, and what to look out for in Gen 0 and beyond will be incoming from the YSM Racing Medium account, hopefully before the game goes live — it’s going to be a banger of a blog, don’t miss it.
Jargon Busting
Just to help you understand some of the key lingo;
Grade — each Generation Zero horse has a baseline performance which is denoted by its Grade. The grades range from B to A to S, with plus and minus marks in between. Future generations will be able to grow both stronger and weaker, based on breeding. For aggregation in this blog, we refer to S+ S and S- horses as “Purple Tickets”, A+ A and A- as “Green Tickets” and B+ B and B- as “Orange Tickets”.
Future horses can breed higher than S+, up to SSS. Horses can be bred down to grade C and below.
Boosts — the number of cumulative stat points on any given ticket, derived from PFP breeding.
Why Should I Care About Archetype?
It’s a totally fair question. Here’s a few general factors I think you should be considering about archetypes;
- The most topical reason — maybe you want to win the Virtual Kentucky Derby, which will be run on Left Dirt. Perhaps you think a Royal Ascot partnership deal is coming, and those Right Turf horses are going to have their day in the sun (or rain, let’s not discriminate)
- You may want as many in-house synergies as possible for breeding purposes; therefore you could decide the best strategy is to focus on one niche, be that one of the 4 types of race (RD, RT, LD, LT), or one step further and focusing on a specific weather condition within one of the race types — YSM Racing are a good example of this, focusing primarily on the Left Dirt Soft niche.
- You may have identified that you think you can race and breed more competitively in a specific archetype, given the relative competition within the population.
- Or maybe you have identified an archetype that you would like to cross-breed into and have a strategy around that. LTF is the classic example of this given the point made above about there being no LTF horses, but also low population archetypes like RDS.
- You might see positive and negative points in low population archetypes; maybe you think you have the chance to be the best? Maybe you are worried about races getting cancelled all the time, especially to start with?
- Maybe you don’t really care about Archetypes at all — you just want the best horse available in your budget, whatever its preferences. This would probably lend itself to value hunting owners who focus on fillies, and who plan to pay for external covers.
- And maybe — you just like the aesthetics visuals of certain archetypes. Not going to lie — sunny turf races look sick, and being and Dirt Soft niche stable does play havoc with your feng shui — I’ve been conditioned to want to see sloppy mud tracks, which is pretty miserable for my mental health. Especially when it bleeds into real life, and I get a strange buzz when my garden turns into a wintery mudpit.
Analysis By Archetype
With that said, let’s try and delve into some specific assessments of each individual Archetype;
Below we build on the basic distribution statistics between archetypes, and delve a little deeper into what this might mean for Gen 0 racing and beyond;
This graphic will help us determine the levels of competition at various parts of the racing and breeding ecosystem; in particular, the concentration of Purple Tickets is vitally important for determining these competition levels of the top. Previous breeding Metas in V1 and V2 were that it was reasonably straightforward to breed up to S- and S grade, but more tricky to develop beyond that. This graphic and this overall blog can give lower grade owners and understanding of what the Purple Ticket landscape looks like above them, once they are ready to join the party.
At risk of stealing some of the headlines of my next blog; of the 526 Purple Tickets across the Gen 0 ecosystem, 52.9% of these derive from the 1 of 1 Stylish Stud PFPs. Removing S- from this picture shows the stark impact of the 1 of 1 Stylish Studs at the very top of the chain; 157 of the 187 S and S+ horses in the game derive from these same 5 Stylish Studs — this is a whopping 84.0%. Given the paramount importance the 1 of 1 Studs have at the very top of the game, and given that the avoidance of inbreeding is strategically vital to ensure your best horses produce the strongest possible foals, the distribution of 1 of 1 horses across the Preference Archetypes is an important factor in determining the merits of any specific Archetype.
Given the Beta V3 meta suggests that the most successful Green and Orange Grade Gen 0s from tickets with high boost count, I have included some analysis around the distribution of these high boost tickets within Archetypes, as well as average Boost values across the entire grades.
All of this analysis should help you make your own conclusions around which archetype feels right for you, and we are leaving you plenty of room to do so — the choice of archetype is a personal one, and the factors listed below may be more important to some people than others. I have called out some observations and conclusions based on the data for each individual archetype below, in a proforma response for each Archetype, just to aid objectivity and to ensure each Archetype gets the same airtime, as free from bias as humanly possible.
Note - references to “Sibling Archetype” refer to horses within the same track type, but with the opposite track condition (firm/soft). I.e. LDF and LDS are Sibling Archetypes.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
LDF
Overall Racing Population:
- Moderate
Risk of Small Racing Fields and Race Cancellations:
- Moderate
Competition from Sibling Archetype:
- Moderate
Purple Ticket Concentration:
- High
Average Boost of Horse Population:
- Moderate
Volume of High Boost Horses Present in Archetype:
- Moderate
1 of 1 Colt Breeding Options:
- High
# 1 of 1 Studs Present Within Archetype Bloodlines:
- 3
Presence of Specific Unique Gen 0 S horses:
- 20.0 Boost 0 match S Colt bred by Ziggy Filly
- 17.0 Boost 1 match S Colt
Price Considerations:
- Premium
Demand Levels:
- High
Sentimental / Other Reasons
- Virtual Kentucky Derby to be ran over this archetype.
- Associated with American Racing
Interesting Gen 0 ticket fact
- No 9/9 preference horses at S- or above
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
LDS
Overall Racing Population:
- Moderate
Risk of Small Racing Fields and Race Cancellations:
- Moderate
Competition from Sibling Archetype:
- High
Purple Ticket Concentration:
- Moderate
Average Boost of Horse Population:
- Moderate
Volume of High Boost Horses Present in Archetype:
- High
1 of 1 Colt Breeding Options:
- Low
# 1 of 1 Studs Present Within Archetype Bloodlines:
- 2
Presence of Specific Unique Gen 0 S horses:
- None
Price Considerations:
- Slight Premium
Demand Levels:
- High
Sentimental / Other Reasons
- Virtual Kentucky Derby to be ran over this archetype.
- Associated with American Racing
Interesting Gen 0 ticket fact
- Only 1 horse in the whole Archetype with 3/3 Stamina
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
RTF
Overall Racing Population:
- High
Risk of Small Racing Fields and Race Cancellations:
- Low
Competition from Sibling Archetype:
- Moderate
Purple Ticket Concentration:
- Low
Average Boost of Horse Population:
- Moderate
Volume of High Boost Horses Present in Archetype:
- Very High
1 of 1 Colt Breeding Options:
- Very Low
# 1 of 1 Studs Present Within Archetype Bloodlines:
- 2
Presence of Specific Unique Gen 0 S horses:
- 19.5 Boost 3 Match S Filly
Price Considerations:
- Normal
Demand Levels:
- High
Sentimental / Other Reasons
- Aethetics look better than dirt.
- Associated with European Racing.
Interesting Gen 0 ticket fact
- No horses in whole Archetype with 3/3 Speed
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
RTS
Overall Racing Population:
- Moderate
Risk of Small Racing Fields and Race Cancellations:
- Moderate
Competition from Sibling Archetype:
- Moderate
Purple Ticket Concentration:
- Low
Average Boost of Horse Population:
- Moderate
Volume of High Boost Horses Present in Archetype:
- Moderate
1 of 1 Colt Breeding Options:
- Low
# 1 of 1 Studs Present Within Archetype Bloodlines:
- 3
Presence of Specific Unique Gen 0 S horses:
- 12.0 Boost 5 match S+ Colt
Price Considerations:
- Slight Premium
Demand Levels:
- Moderate
Sentimental / Other Reasons
- Aethetics look better than dirt.
- Associated with European Racing.
Interesting Gen 0 ticket fact
- No horses in whole Archetype with 3/3 Speed
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
LTF
Overall Racing Population:
- None
Risk of Small Racing Fields and Race Cancellations:
- High
Competition from Sibling Archetype:
- Very High
Purple Ticket Concentration:
- None
Average Boost of Horse Population:
- None
Volume of High Boost Horses Present in Archetype:
- None
1 of 1 Colt Breeding Options:
- None
# 1 of 1 Studs Present Within Archetype Bloodlines:
- None
Presence of Specific Unique Gen 0 S horses:
- None
Price Considerations:
- N/A
Demand Levels:
- N/A
Sentimental / Other Reasons
- Aethetics look better than dirt.
- Associated with European Racing.
Interesting Gen 0 ticket fact
- No horses in whole Archetype. At All.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
LTS
Overall Racing Population:
- Moderate
Risk of Small Racing Fields and Race Cancellations:
- Low
Competition from Sibling Archetype:
- None
Purple Ticket Concentration:
- High
Average Boost of Horse Population:
- Low
Volume of High Boost Horses Present in Archetype:
- Very Low
1 of 1 Colt Breeding Options:
- Very High
# 1 of 1 Studs Present Within Archetype Bloodlines:
- 3
Presence of Specific Unique Gen 0 S horses:
- None
Price Considerations:
- Slight Discount at top end (colts in particular, which are abundant)
- Slight Premium at lower end.
Demand Levels:
- High
Sentimental / Other Reasons
- Aethetics look better than dirt.
- Associated with European Racing.
Interesting Gen 0 ticket fact
- No horses in whole Archetype with 3/3 Start
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
RDF
Overall Racing Population:
- High
Risk of Small Racing Fields and Race Cancellations:
- Low
Competition from Sibling Archetype:
- Low
Purple Ticket Concentration:
- Very High
Average Boost of Horse Population:
- Low
Volume of High Boost Horses Present in Archetype:
- Low
1 of 1 Colt Breeding Options:
- Very High
# 1 of 1 Studs Present Within Archetype Bloodlines:
- 4
Presence of Specific Unique Gen 0 S horses:
- 2 x S+ Colts, 0 boosts 0 matches;
- 1 x S26 4 Match Colt; and
- 1 x 26 4 Match Filly.
Price Considerations:
- Discount
Demand Levels:
- Low
Sentimental / Other Reasons
- Associated with American Racing
Interesting Gen 0 ticket fact
- Lowest Average Boost of All Archetypes — driven mostly by high volumes of indiscriminate breeding with 9930
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
RDS
Overall Racing Population:
- Low
Risk of Small Racing Fields and Race Cancellations:
- Very High
Competition from Sibling Archetype:
- Very High
Purple Ticket Concentration:
- Very Low
Average Boost of Horse Population:
- Moderate
Volume of High Boost Horses Present in Archetype:
- Very High
1 of 1 Colt Breeding Options:
- Very Low
# 1 of 1 Studs Present Within Archetype Bloodlines:
- None
Presence of Specific Unique Gen 0 S horses:
- 12.0 Boost 5 match S+ Filly
- 19.5 Boost 3 match S Colt
Price Considerations:
- Premium
Demand Levels:
- Moderate
Sentimental / Other Reasons
- Associated with American Racing
Interesting Gen 0 ticket fact
- Only 1 of 1 is the S+.
- Despite the low population, no stats within archetype where it wasn’t possible to get 3/3.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
That is basically it!
I have tried to remain as factual and objective as possible, leaving you to analyse these features and quirks to decide what Archetype is right for you. I’m giving you a few of the tools to formulate your own opinion, hopefully without giving you too much of my own.
This blog should be used as a starting to spark some thoughts in your own brain — there are 100s of considerations not included. Start to think about what might be important to you, assess the market and tickets available for purchase at any one time, and strategise how you might be able to carve out your own successful vein of breeding and / or racing within the PFL ecosystem.
That’s all for now. See you next time for the 1 of 1 blog.
Other Resources
Here’s some further resources that will add context and depth to this article. You can get lost for days in this project, and it’s a great use of your time quite frankly.
Feel free to give me a shout on Discord. Peeb — YSM Racing.
OFFICIAL PFL VITAL BLOGS
PART 1: https://thirdtimegames.com/pfl-inside-track-genes-matches/
PART 2: https://thirdtimegames.com/pfl-inside-track-part-2-gen-0-traits/
PART 3: https://thirdtimegames.com/pfl-inside-track-part-3/
GETTING STARTED:
HOW TO BUY A HORSE (GEN 0):
INVESTMENT THESIS & $CROWN:
BREEDING: