Now, here are some of my quick observations about the variety of tier one tanks:
For the tier 1 tourney, you have a few workable options:
-The Vickers Medium 1 mounting the 6 pdr and firing HE can at times one shot the other tier 1's. Guaranteed two shot kills on all tier 1's. Zero armor, and massive profile for a tier 1 make it unable to avoid return fire in many cases.
-T1 Cunningham. This has been a staple of tourneys for years, and should still be even after losing the 20mm auto-cannon. The 37mm auto-loading gun can still clip out a number of tier 1's with even a miss, and can clip out all of them if you land every shot (5 shot clip with 30 damage per shot= 150 damage per clip on average). Highly mobile and tiny, it can outmaneuver the other tier 1's and can play like a medium or light should.
-K-House: The little Czech tank has good alpha and fair accuracy and is even mobile enough. The drawback would be literally zero armor, but the tank could be successful regardless.
-The L. Traktor has always been one of the best tier 1's and while it favors ranged engagements, it has the best viewrange and in the toilet bowl known as Mittengard could very well get the first shot off every time due to good camo combined with the nice viewrange.
-The R. Otsu has good armor and great gun depression. Those two attributes could be used to good effect on the rubble piles and debris scattered around the map. The gun selection is far as well.
-The MS-1 is popular and while it has a fair gun, the lack of hitpoints and lackluster mobility could hinder it greatly. It is tiny and hard to hit, but once spotted you are at a disadvantage because something like the Medium 1's 6 pdr can one-shot you with HE fairly often, and the T1 Cunningham's auto-loading 37mm doesn't even need all 5 shots to kill you, so keep that in mind.
-Both the Renault FT and the Chinese variant called the Renault NC-31 are decent little tanks with a bit of armor, but fairly average in most areas. Both are slow enough you're not going to be flanking or repositioning to counter the enemy, so you basically will have to just roll towards them. The Japanese Otsu variant gets nearly double the armor to make up for the slower speed, but the FT and NC-31 don't. If you like the original French tank, I'd suggest the Otsu over the other two versions.
Hope this helps anyone interested in earning a bit of free gold!