Team

A team is defined as a collection of players who combine their knowledge to score points during a game of quizbowl, as well as one or more coaches.

Most formats allow four players to play at once - there may also be substitutes, but for simplicity most tournaments will limit teams to either six or eight. In some places like Illinois, a fifth player can be active.

In Knowledge Master Open format, there does not appear to be a limit on the number of players that can be on a team at once, so long as they are all students at the same school.

Types of Teams

While the knowledge base and composition of each team is different, there are general archetypes that teams follow. Coaches and other people who determine team composition for tournaments are encouraged to look at the personnel available to them and decide which archetype best suits their players' strengths.

One-person teams

See: One-person teams

A one-person team consists of one player who scores the vast majority of the team's tossups, with some number of other players. Literal "one-person" teams are typically referred to as solo instead.

The term is both laudatory and derisive - while it celebrates the skill of the "one-person" in question, it minimizes the contributions of their teammates (which are often significant) and carries with it the implication that the "one-person" is succeeding in part because of their lack of support.

One-person teams are frequently successful at the local high school level and occasionally competitive nationally.

Generalist + Specialists

A team which has a single generalist as the primary point scorer and three specialists which provide support. In many cases, national competitiveness is limited by the depth of the generalist.

This is the most successful team archetype at the college level, with virtually every modern champion fitting this description to some degree. At the high school level, this type of team also meets with success with the generalist and top-scorer often being the team's captain.

Historically, the most common type of generalist has specialized in humanities (Andrew Yaphe, Matt Bollinger, Matt Jackson, Jordan Brownstein), and so many of the top teams have had a skilled science specialist. There have, however, also been science-oriented generalists (Mike Sorice, Seth Teitler, Auroni Gupta).

The #2 Player

The #2 player is an excellent complementary player to the #1, who specializes in multiple categories and supports the #1 with strong buzzes in these areas. On many championship-level teams, the #2 player is also a solid generalist and plays more like a co-#1.

The #3 Player

The #3 player is a weaker version of either the #1 or #2 player. On some teams, the #3 player is a generalist with less depth than the team's #1 but has good instincts and buzzer speed. On other teams, the #3 player fills a specific need by specializing in a category that is a relative weakness for both the #1 and #2 players. In this case, the #3 player is often a solid science player on a team with two strong humanities players.

The #4 Player

The #4 player is a wild card. Most #4 players have command of one or two niche subjects and often fill in glaring weaknesses in a team's knowledge base. At NAQT events, the #4 player is often a trash/current events/general knowledge specialist, due to the large amount of emphasis placed in those categories. The #4 sometimes fulfills the same role as the #3 player, but with a different focus.

Even if a team plays a consistent lineup at every tournament, the roles of players within this paradigm may change. For instance, the 2008 Maryland team featured Jonathan Magin as the team's typical #1 player; however, ICT catered more to Charles Meigs' strengths, and it could be argued that Meigs was the #1 on the ICT team while Magin moved to a #2 role.

Occasionally, the #3 or #4 player serves as the teams' primary winner of buzzer races on giveaways; this "assassin" role is vital among teams where the #1 and #2 are just a hair slower, and it makes these teams that much more aggravating to play against. A good example is MIT 2008's Jason Trigg.

Four Specialists

Extremely common among top-tier high school teams, less common in college. Three of the four specialists are almost always a literature specialist, and history specialist, and a science specialist. The fourth specialist is often a computation specialist in high school formats that place emphasis on computation questions. Other common specialties for the fourth specialist are arts, pop culture/current events, or providing overlap in literature, history, or science.

Whoever Shows Up

This team is made up of whoever can come to a particular tournament, without regard for balancing team strengths. Team members may significantly overlap in their strengths and lack knowledge in one or more major categories, leading to an imbalanced and often weak team.