How Do You Define Skillful Play?

Brigby

New Players. Veterans. Beginners. Experts. 

Even at a glance, it's easy to tell that one group is more adept and skilled at the game than the other, and a big part of that is simply their sheer length of exposure to the game and practice within it. But when you get down to the granular details though, what exactly determines skill?

Is it...knowledge of all the cards and Planeswalkers? Adeptness at pairing certain cards in certain combinations? Experience traversing certain events?

How would you personally define skillful play?

Laeuftbeidir

Skillful play.. In the context of this game..

Being able to use your collection at hand to be able to adapt to changing circumstances (different objectives /situations etc) and build winning decks and to be able to play them well. And - to break what you give us. You've made it too easy recently, by the way.

We sometimes challenge ourselves to make decks using specific restrictions, or help new players build effective decks using their collection.

That's why I dislike cycling. Winning decks without any thinking required

Unknown

This content has been removed.

Larz70

This was from a QB game (that wasn't quick at all, I think it lasted 30 minutes) from Jan 2017.  Back then my collection was poor (0 mythics) and so I had to rely a lot on skill - gem matching, hand arrangement, calculating how much mana I can get and adjusting the cards in my hand, and anticipating what my opponent's next move could be.  It was a very close match as the screenshot indicates and it was exciting and I loved it.  I ultimately won when I got enough loyalty to cast Chandra's first ability.  We have no creatures in play at this point but I believe he has Hixus and i hated that card so much.  In order to defeat it, I had to carefully choose my gem swaps to increase the odds of getting white gems next to it so that I can destroy it.  I think those were the times when I felt my skill was as at its peak.  Nowadays, with a good collection, it's either you win easily or lose because of a crash or a loop deck that Greg was able to trigger because of a massive cascade.

True skill is all about the decisions you make during the game that would turn what seemed like an impending loss into a win.  Unfortunately back then, QB only rewarded the players who can win games in 1 minute and rack up points quickly.  But I'm hoping that in the future true skillfull play will once again abound, when the game would be more even and that we would be playing against real players instead of Greg.  If that would happen, then I would be so glad that the devs introduced the 25 18-second timer! 

EDIT: I didn't see @starfall 's comment until I posted and I could say my experience is as he said (wow, we even went back to the same year, 2017!)

Matthew

I have to agree with Larz and Starfall here, in that it seems like the skill required to do well in this game has been whittled away down to only a few things. Way back when I first started playing this game, if you had asked me this question, I would have told you that it had to do with how well you matched the gems on the board, the order of the cards in your hand, and just what the other guy might be trying to cast. This all might still be the case now at the lower mastery tiers, but I can't say with certainty because it's been ages since I reached platinum.

However, at the platinum level of play, I think things are quite different currently. Skill at this level has to do with one thing: deck building. As Starfall pointed out, matching gems isn't necessarily something that requires skill at this point. Quite frequently, if you leave a match-5 on the board, Greg will just ignore it and do something else. I'd much rather be punished for making a stupid move than play the "What will Greg do this time?" lottery with every swap. If I actually have to consider what Greg will do, then I'll have to pay more attention and things will be more challenging, thereby requiring more skill.

To my point though, it's the deck building that will help you go the distance. Even though Greg has been lobotomized several times in this game, he still has luck on his side from time to time. If you want to do well in an event, you have to be able to find ten cards that will all synergize well enough with each other that you'll meet your objectives and come out with a win. There are only a few exceptions in the vast and growing library of cards that can tank any single objective. Knowing what those are and how to prepare for them is how to do well.

Unknown

This content has been removed.

Brakkis

To what end does this discussion serve? Will it alter the immensely poor course the 3.3 patch is taking with the turn timer? We're calling it a loop timer but really, it'll apply to every turn and so it's a turn timer. Is this thread an attempt at a distraction to the issues that have come up in recent weeks? It's not going to work if that's the case.

To the question at hand, the current measure of skill in this game is twofold. The first is knowing what Planeswalker and deck combination would work best to achieve not only a victory, but the secondary and tertiary objectives along with it, in the quickest and/or easiest fashion. To that end, you need a solid understanding of a Planeswalkers abilities, mana gains, and deck capabilities to determine which one fulfills what role the "best". 

The second is, as has already been mentioned, deck building. Knowing which cards can combo best with other cards and putting together a solid 10 card deck that can achieve objectives and answer threats in the easiest manner. That includes understanding them enough to help other players with a smaller collection overcome harder obstacles with barely a combo to throw together. I joined FtA's slack early on and got some amazing advice on how best to utilize origins Gideon and the cards I had to succeed in numerous events and story chapters that were utterly devastating me. Because others could see the functionality and combo potential of the cards I had at the time that I simply could not. Now, nearly 2 years later, and being one of those players at over 2500 mastery in all colors, I try to pay it forward and help other new players do the same thing.

Some level of skill can still be applied to how you match gems, aiming for the best match and the most gains. But Greg's a derpy buffoon and you can't account for his random choices or a sudden cascade that dumps his whole hand at you without even some BSZ loopy goodness involved.

Mburn7

There are 2 aspects of skillful play (how I look at it):  Deckbuilding Skill and Game Management Skill.

Deckbuilding Skill is pretty self explanatory.  It takes time to figure out how to make winning decks in MTGPQ, since the strategies that work or do not work are incredibly unintuitive and differ wildly from paper.  Knowing how to assess the power level of a creature, how it will interact with other creatures/the board, and knowing just how many of each type of card to include for each type of fight takes skill.  For example:  Cards with Anthem effects (all your creatures get +X/+X) are incredibly powerful in paper, but almost completely useless in PQ since you can only have 3 creatures out.  Creatures that make tokens are also much more difficult to use, since they effectively take up 2/3 of your board.  Tribal strategies are also difficult to work, since those usually work best with a multitude of different creatures out together with combining abilities.  Only having 3 creature slots limits that.  Setting up a good combo deck may seem easy, but there is a lot of fine-tuning that needs to go into it.  There are some cards that seem like they would be perfect in a deck but end up hurting it more than they help it.  Other cards will super-charge your combo even though they seem completely useless.  Knowing which is which, both before making a deck and after running it a few times is a part of Deckbuilding Skill.  Another Deckbuilding Skill is knowing how much removal you need and what type.  There are the obvious differences between Standard and Legacy, but you also need to know how to tweak your strategy based on the secondary objectives in the event you are in (and how to counter other players playing for those same objectives).  Deckbuilding skill is very difficult to get used to because of the 10 card limit (and each individual walker's limits and abilities), but once you get used to it you can make decks that are much more consistently able to win against a large variety of decks.

Game Management Skill is mostly what we seem to be talking about here, and is how well you play your deck and match gems.  Sometimes you need to make lesser matches in order to prevent your opponent from making a good match (think focusing on Red gems against a Koth) or to activate certain strategies you have or to aim for good cascades.  Its knowing when to cast that kill spell or wait one more turn just in case that creature gets reinforced.  Its knowing when to use an ability now or save up for another one, or just wait to use it until next turn.  Its knowing when to have a charged spell in your hand or when to focus on getting creatures out or your combo set up.  Its guessing what your opponent might do and planning your moves to possibly counter it.

On one level Game Management is very easy to grasp, since most people have some experience with match-3 games and card games, and combining the two isn't incredibly difficult to figure out.  And if your deck is good enough, poor Game Management Skills won't stop you from winning 80% of the time.  But for the other 20% it is absolutely the difference between winning and losing a close match.  I have lost a ton of games because I cast a spell too early or charged the wrong card, and I have also won a ton of close matches because I was able to read my opponent's strategy and stop their key card while I waited to draw a better answer.

There are a ton of Infinite and Semi-Infinite loop decks out there right now, but many of them are extremely complex to run.  Casting a single card in the wrong order or at the wrong time will prevent you from getting the loop going, which will usually result in a lost game.  That's why Greg the AI is very bad at playing loop decks.  He doesn't know how to use them properly, and can only win through sheer luck. And of course there is the obvious skill of spotting cascades and match-5s which sounds obvious but is sometimes really hard to do.

A lot of this knowledge is gained just through playing the game a lot, and that's fine (its how it works in everything else too).  Some of it can be learned from others, which is why the Coalition system is so important.  Some of it you learn through doing it wrong and losing a couple events.  Anyway, I know this is super long, but I hope it helps @Brigby!!

Stormcrow

To me, this game involves 3 separate skills:

1.) Deckbuilding. This is not just about knowing the mechanics but understanding the implications of those mechanics, as well as being familiar with your own collection. Being able to build a deck that achieves difficult or bizarre secondary objectives on the first attempt of a battle you've never tried before is a sign that you're probably pretty good at this deckbuilding thing. Of course, you can skip this and just netdeck/find out what other people are running, and not every battle will require you to make a new deck for it, but it's still a pretty big part of the game. And it needs to be a big part of the game, because for the most part, this is the part of the game where "getting new cards" and "getting new Planeswalkers" really matters, a/k/a, it's this part of the game that drives your monetization and keeps this game financially viable.

2.) Playing the cards. This is the skill of making good decisions in-game, on the fly, adapting to what the board state is and what cards you've got in your hand, knowing what order to play things in or when to hold them, when to exile cards from your hand, and so on. This is probably the most important skill in the game although great play skills won't help if your deck is totally outmatched, and good matching skills are an asset.

3.) Match-3 skills. Probably the least important aspect of skill in this game, but recognizing and making good matches, denying your opponent good matches, and so on, does still help! It's the one skill that is most easily trumped by sheer randomness, though, and Greg being, as others have noted, kind of a random idiot sometimes really just draws attention to that randomness and reduces the importance of this skill.

ZW2007-

I still consider gem matching and card cast order to be the most important skills. If a player has exceptional gem matching skills and takes time to evaluate which cards are the most valuable at any given time, that player will likely do well even if he/she does not have a very strong card collection. Deck building obviously goes hand in hand with card cast order. You need to build a solid deck to anticipate what the opponent may or may not throw at you and you need to do so in good balance. Once you start the game, the same concept is applied to what cards to fill with mana and which gems to swap. What can I expect the AI to do on its next turn? How much mana has it gained in the first card? What will the board look like if I make this move and what move will the AI likely take after I do that? Making optimal moves so that you maximize your mana gains while also minimizing the AI's is the first step to success. Filling the cards you need and might need so that you are ready to respond to whatever the AI does is the second step.

Kinesia

As the others have said deckbuilding and card prioritisting and gem matching are all different skills, even different mental states. (I know I'm in very different mindsets when playing versus deckbuilding, one is very wide open to possibilities, one reduces down to tunnel vision "I have just these things, what can I do?") and people could easily be better at one than the other.
But there are also playstyles and preferences, decks that require totally different priority structures than normal. I've seen so many cases of people copying someone elses deck but then being as bad as Greg at playing it and claiming the deck was dumb rather than asking why things were there, what it all meant, how it worked together, what the different aims were.

Deck design I can do idly in the background of my mind while doing other things, thinking about combinations and having flashes of ideas, then putting the deck together requires focussing on the specific "trick" and casting about for things that fit with it, I often end up going through my cards and chucking in about 20 possibilities before whittling them down. Finetuning a deck after playing it, working out the optimal tweaks, is a different level of inspiration and knowledge than making it in the first place.

Priorities in play can often be like Triage, is anything urgent? What's the biggest threat? Can I spare some time to set myself up better?

Matching... After watching some videos of other peoples games I realised I had a long way to go. I hadn't realised just how much better I could become, but now the blinkers are off I know I'm much better than before but that I can still improve. It's so much more complicated... Start making matches based on "Ok, there's a 1 in 6 chance that the gem falling here will be this colour but the result if that happens is actually my only chance of..."
To some degree you can make your own luck.

There are also crazy tricks from synergy between walker abilities and cards and things that turn up occasionally because of what your opponent plays rather than what you have, being able to use their own tools against them.

Different skillful players could have different strengths, maybe even still be bad at some parts of this because other skills are strong enough to overcome their limitations. The flexibility and complexity level of the game is the most awesome part.

(This is a bit rambling and I don't feel like editting it right now!)

madwren

There are a lot of skills in the game:  Picking good planeswalkers, assessing card strength and value, building card synergies, identifying how Greg is going to play your deck, building decks to achieve objectives while still being competitive, etc.  We have a lot of skillful players in this community, and I've seen a lot of brilliant decks. However, I'd like to pivot a moment.

I've said this before, but Magic is an inherently skill-based game and Puzzle Quest is an inherently random/luck-based game.  Yes, mana screw exists in paper, but by and large there are strictures in place that limit the sheer amount of potential randomness.   The fundamental underpinnings of the game are equitable:  You play land, you get mana, and the progression to more mana is scaled.  Of course, players can break this; that's their goal, isn't it? To break equilibrium. However, it's a sound foundation.

Compare that to Puzzle Quest, where on turn 1, with the same number of cards in hand, I can be forced to take a match for 3 mana, while Greg can manage to generate, say, 54 mana, drop his ultimate, and get another swap for good measure.  We've all had those games.  This is a fundamental inequity.

Now, one could say a basic paper strategy is to minimize opponent interaction by limiting the number of turns taken, cards drawn or cast, or mana generated—and rightfully say that it's the same in PQ. However, in PQ mana inequity is built into the game, while paper players need to utilize specific cards and combos to do it. I mean, they had to make Greg stupid just to reduce his luck-based advantage.

Ultimately, while you can still skillfully employ paper strategies, such as card advantage, mana curves, and so on, being able to properly leverage mana inequity is what I would consider to be the foremost strategy in PQ, because it dominates games.  It isn't enough to draw 6 cards or Nissa's Revelation would be broken. Drawing them and quadrupling the mana expended is. Dropping a support that converts enough to fill your hand each turn.  Casting  a 5-mana spell that converts 20 gems.

Why is that the best strategy? Because if you lose too many points, you drop precipitously in the rankings and get poor rewards. Because if you lose, half the time it's because of sheer mana inequity rather than because your deck was outbuilt/outplayed.  Because we spend half our time watching animations that don't need to happen and people have limited time to finish their nodes grinding arduous objectives against tedious opponents, so we want to play decks that simply overwhelm with brokenness.

Unfortunately, that isn't skill. Not really. Yes, there's skill in putting together our most broken decks, but it's also playing the game on easy mode, with cards that never should have been printed (hah) in the first place.  If you don't play it on easy mode, then you become a victim to Greg randomly generating tenfold more mana every turn and crushing you.

Ultimately, the game is about winning and achieving rewards—and if that means building 5 cycling decks (or Beacon Bolt, or Omniscience, or Sunbird, or Kiora ramp cheese into your threat of choice) for every event, then by the gods, that's what we'll do so that we aren't punted down to 118th place for losing a single game.

Thus, I'm not sure what the timer is going to accomplish. Loop/combo has arisen because the game "evolved" to that being the optimal state based on the cards available to us and the inequities endemic to gameplay. This just makes it feel like you're trying to remove the best tool we have in our belt. There are other, more elegant solutions that aren't nearly as restrictive.

MomirQaViggy

These posts are very interesting, but a little blind-eyed. Skillful play in mtgpq consists, in ascending order of importance, of:

1) Gem matching ability. Yes, it is slightly more complicated than bejeweled. But bejeweled takes a casual gamer about 2 hours to thoroughly master. Add in the nuances of destroying supports, playing your colors offensively or your opponents colors defensively, or (once-upon-a-time) triggering overloads, and we'll allot 8 hours to becoming a world-class expert. As a medium-competitive platinum player, I've logged maybe 500 hours of play, so they've been devoted to something else. (Read between the lines: if you are trying to justify a decision that wrecks some aspect of this game on the grounds that it makes this aspect more interesting, understand that you are throwing out the baby and keeping the bathwater.)

2) Deck-building. I am a deck-building freak! I love deck-building, the weirder the better. If there were one complaint I would make about paper magic, it's that competitive play leaves too little room for creative deck-building, since the well-trodden best strategies tend to dominate my home brews. And, of course, there's never a reason to adapt a winning deck-list. If you want to compete, you copy a deck-list card for card. Maybe that's why I like playing EDH so much, because it's so wild that you can really have fun and go for novelty and there's a chance not only that you'll win, but that you'll really piss off your playgroup, which is the equivalent of receiving a trophy. But mtgpq does two excellent things to make creative deck-building a must: secondary objectives and slow collection building. I tend to dread having to craft a new deck for secondary objectives I don't like, until I actually start. Then it's amazing! Even playing familiar challenges that require me to rotate my planeswalkers for different events makes me feel proud of the different decks I've tweaked. And not being able to trade or buy most singles is a great blessing. I was an online reseller of mtg cards for a while, and that was fun. But it ruins the really well-defined formats. In mtgpq, I have Blue Sun's Zenith and Storm the Vault. I want Stitch in Time. I'll do anything to acquire. But if it were easy, I'd quickly find training grounds crammed with identical decks. The other 7 card slots would be filled in too.

3) Avoiding crashes. Entire weeks can go by without me having to build a new deck. I might want to build a new deck, but I rarely have to. And when I do build a deck around a new card or for a new combination of objectives, I might find that the difference in expected value (of points for victory + secondary objectives) between my shiny new deck and my best off-the-shelf leftover deck is maybe the difference between 97% and 95%. But every coalition event and even every Trial of the Planes, I remind myself of all the ways crashes and freezes might occur. A few months ago I moved up to platinum and crack bsz in the same week. But no single card has improved my win-rate as much learning how to escape the card-overlay-bug on iOS. (I don't know the best way to describe it; a video is worth a thousand words, unless you're filing a ticket with mtgpq customer support, because they "can't" view video for some reason. https://youtu.be/um6FgBrVFxY ) And while I was willing to share this technique with my coalition, and although I quite a bit of warnings about how to avoid it, I did not find anyone else claiming to have also learned this technique, making me feel quite skilled indeed.

Now, lest anyone conclude from the snark that this is merely another one of my attempts to criticize Oktagon for its abysmal programming and issue-tracking, I stand by this list and the rankings here. Avoiding crashes requires more skill than any other aspect of this game, by far. Which should, probably, raise the question, "Wait, are we asking the wrong question by narrowly focusing in on skillful play?" The only fair answer to that question is, "It took you long enough." MTGPQ may or may not ever require the same level of skill as paper MtG. Paper MtG will never require the same level of skill as contract bridge. And no sizable community of humans will ever play a strategy game that requires as much skill as Go. The more nuanced, and therefore vastly superior, question is, "Inasmuch as skill contributes to fun in a game, which aspects of skillful play are fun or could be fun in mtgpq?" Introducing a timer will definitely require additional skills. It might even pose a net increase in the required skill to play this game. But so would adding two dozen new idiosyncratic bugs. Seriously: more bugs requires more skill. But nobody would seriously expect that to make this game better. As for the timer, it has everything in common with a bug. Will it be more difficult to predict what will happen on your turn, even though you have the text of all your cards memorized? Yes. Will this uncertainty and confusion occur without your opponent having to get lucky? Yes. Will this make it less intuitive which actions contribute to your goal and which actions detract? Yes. And will all this require more skill? Yes. But will the typical player who finds this game fun enjoy this change? No.

[Deleted User]

Brakkis said:

To what end does this discussion serve? Will it alter the immensely poor course the 3.3 patch is taking with the turn timer? We're calling it a loop timer but really, it'll apply to every turn and so it's a turn timer. Is this thread an attempt at a distraction to the issues that have come up in recent weeks? It's not going to work if that's the case.

To the question at hand, the current measure of skill in this game is twofold. The first is knowing what Planeswalker and deck combination would work best to achieve not only a victory, but the secondary and tertiary objectives along with it, in the quickest and/or easiest fashion. To that end, you need a solid understanding of a Planeswalkers abilities, mana gains, and deck capabilities to determine which one fulfills what role the "best". 

The second is, as has already been mentioned, deck building. Knowing which cards can combo best with other cards and putting together a solid 10 card deck that can achieve objectives and answer threats in the easiest manner. That includes understanding them enough to help other players with a smaller collection overcome harder obstacles with barely a combo to throw together. I joined FtA's slack early on and got some amazing advice on how best to utilize origins Gideon and the cards I had to succeed in numerous events and story chapters that were utterly devastating me. Because others could see the functionality and combo potential of the cards I had at the time that I simply could not. Now, nearly 2 years later, and being one of those players at over 2500 mastery in all colors, I try to pay it forward and help other new players do the same thing.

Some level of skill can still be applied to how you match gems, aiming for the best match and the most gains. But Greg's a derpy buffoon and you can't account for his random choices or a sudden cascade that dumps his whole hand at you without even some BSZ loopy goodness involved.

very much similar to this

[Deleted User]

Mburn7 said:

Game Management Skill is mostly what we seem to be talking about here, and is how well you play your deck and match gems.  Sometimes you need to make lesser matches in order to prevent your opponent from making a good match (think focusing on Red gems against a Koth) or to activate certain strategies you have or to aim for good cascades.  Its knowing when to cast that kill spell or wait one more turn just in case that creature gets reinforced.  Its knowing when to use an ability now or save up for another one, or just wait to use it until next turn.  Its knowing when to have a charged spell in your hand or when to focus on getting creatures out or your combo set up.  Its guessing what your opponent might do and planning your moves to possibly counter it.

On one level Game Management is very easy to grasp, since most people have some experience with match-3 games and card games, and combining the two isn't incredibly difficult to figure out.  And if your deck is good enough, poor Game Management Skills won't stop you from winning 80% of the time.  But for the other 20% it is absolutely the difference between winning and losing a close match.  I have lost a ton of games because I cast a spell too early or charged the wrong card, and I have also won a ton of close matches because I was able to read my opponent's strategy and stop their key card while I waited to draw a better answer.

this also

[Deleted User]

Honestly, i feel like this is another waste of my time as it may fall upon deaf ears again; hence, the reason i stopped participating in the forums and turned casual as opposed to competitive. But here goes:

1. Gem matching (skill). This is the foundation but its complex - it requires situational analysis. Its not about just matching on-color matches. Its about making the right matches at the right time and taking chances when necessary - to cascade or not to cascade, so to speak. Sometimes its about AI match denial - i.e. Koth, Elspeth. Other times, its about going off-color to prevent giving the possibility of matches.Other times its about going off-color to get a chance at multi-cascades. And other times, its about just going for on-color. The key to this aspect is knowing all the different strategies and possibilities for gem matching and making the best choice suited for the situation at hand. But the most end-game is almost foreseeing the gem drops/match possibilities through past experience and trends in addition to matching the best gems without much thought or time invested as if its habit.

2. Efficiency (deckbuilding/skill). (This is more end-game) Getting the most done in the shortest amount of time. Its not about building a good deck that meets objectives; its about building the best possible deck that meets all objectives in the shortest amount of time. This is particularly important later on as you don't have much time to play all events or grind for hours a day - I simply don't have the time, especially with the slow load times and animations. For instance, using a path of discovery deck for any event, esp. TG, is a no-no for me. Why? Too much wasted time. Instead, I use a suicide Summoners, Chords, Viviens, Quasi, BSZ, commune, StV, Swindle, Ghalta, and Gaea Kiora deck (for standard TG). Why? Least amount of time, overall - no extra swaps, no defense, no drawing tons of cards, no crazy loop animations. Its not always consistent since I do lose games but my objective is to win ASAP so overall its the most consistent for speed. Even taking a loss, popping a potion, and hurrying to another game is faster than other decks... but I haven't really built a new deck in a while...

Additionally, the skill aspect is not taking needless actions. My goal is speed, so there is no point in hitting a 5-match, casting an extra creature or spell, or even looking for a match; but rather, turning off auto-casting for cards in hand when I already have lethal on the board. Overall, its about being the most efficient towards the goal you have.

3. Consistency/minimizing risk (deckbuilding/skill). The best is having both consistency and efficiency in one. Nevertheless, this is about building a deck that has the highest possible win ratio, particularly the 98-99.9% win ratios. And that doesn't mean only when the gems or cascades are good, I am talking worst case scenarios included. What do I mean? We all know, there are select games where the gem layout is bad, gem cascades/drops are terrible, draws are horrendous, and the AI is cranked out on perfect draws, cascades, etc. Well, this means you design a deck that overcomes even these situations (and I rarely sideboard cards). I build a deck that has enough draw, dual/multi-usage cards (i.e. discovery - surveil to correct deck draws, cantrip, and have the option to remove a creature in a non-targetting way for 4/9 mana! this is value!), gem conversion, and the cheapest most effective cards available. It's not only about dropping 20+ mana cards because if you don't get the mana, well.. they are dead cards - utterly useless. Anyhow, its about tailoring the deck to have the least amount of useless cards, most value, and cheapest cost.

The skill aspect of this is almost predicting, foreseeing in addition to past game trend analysis and current situational analysis. For instance, from my past experience, I know that during a coalition event, I have a streak of bad games usually correlated with bad draws, gems, etc. Therefore, I take this into account and minimize the risks through my PW/card selection. Another option I rarely use but seems to be somewhat effective is play a different event and run out your bad streak. Overall, its about awareness and taking all possible measures to put luck on your side.

4. Research/Limited resource allocation (skill/card pool): The first part is simply studying. Its about knowing all the cards like the back of your hand; not just the great cards. The combos, bugs, exploits... EVERYTHING. You looked at them enough to know all the possible options you have available. From this, you will begin to see what each color has, their strengths, and what type of cards are available in order to build the most efficient and consistent deck. A simple example is we know that black has a lot of removal, blue has bounce, and white has exile - this simple yet profound distinction determines the colors and type of deck you will use for a particular objective, as each essentially does the same thing but very a meaningful difference. In order to be the best at anything, you have to know it. (Side note: cards like Militia Bugler and Aviary Mechanic; underestimated cards, but great for certain objectives).

Then using your knowledge, you use the cards you have available to you to build the best that you can to meet that particular objective/goal in the shortest amount of time available.

5. Meta trend/archetype analysis: If you want to win, you have to know what your up against. This means knowing high-value cards or cards you will run into in your match ups and building a strategy to counter act them in some way. For instance, playing a node that requires casting 4 supports? Better pack support removal but not just non-land removal kind or only 1 card of support removal; but, multi-purpose cards - golem, totally lost, azcanta to draw/filter, etc. Since if you run into decks without that many supports or they never get around to casting them, you better hope you don't have dead cards in hand like demolish. Also consider the PWs you are matched against based on node color and that colors particular strengths to meet the objectives.. because you want to be able to counter those abilities... like teferi's 1st hexproof/enter battlefield creatures/higher cost creatures so on and so forth.

6. END-GAME: Its about breaking the game and loops. Why? Usually they are the most efficient and consistent with the least amount of time invested in this pile of lost time, i.e. MTGPQ. We just don't have time and this games absorbs too much.

Furthermore, things don't phase us anymore, we are bored, we've done this and that; but, we are looking for that something to tickle our fancy and give us that feeling of "WOW!" until the the next best thing comes around. Its like fetishes - you start mundane and normal but it gets more and more specific over time.. at least, that's where I am at and for me its finding loops. The sense of achievement in building something so fast, so reliable, and so good. And also, seeing it in action about 20ish times and getting the overwhelming sense of "overpoweredness".

... but i am weird

Some of these are innate, some require experience, but all can be learned.

P.S: I believe the best can usually build the best decks within 2-ish iterations. This is because they put a lot of thought/time into it from the beginning - they consider all the possible variables.

Volrak

I haven't quantified the difficulty or compared the importance of the various skills, but have instead tried to classify the most relevant skills.  So I'm listing skills even if mastering them may seem subjectively easy, or if they can have only a minor influence on outcomes.

I've put skills into three categories, from the lowest level of the game to the highest level.  One area nobody's brought up yet is the highest level category, which is long term resource management.

1. In-game strategy

  1.a Hand management
    * Choosing card order
    * When to cast vs hold vs discard cards
    * When to spend vs hold loyalty

    * When to stick to objectives vs giving them up to reduce risk of losing
    * Bug avoidance

    * Predicting the opponent's deck and the bot's play choices, as an input to all of the above
  1.b Gem matching

    * Which strategy to choose (or, how to weight competing objectives).  E.g.
      - Maximising expected gains
      - Maximising worst-case gains
      - Minimising expected opponent gains
      - Maximising loyalty vs mana
      - Whether to prioritise special gems, and which ones (activations, supports, etc)

    * Picking the optimal match given the chosen strategy and a board state
    * (Gem matching skills are highly probabilistic, i.e. any single choice may or may not pan out well, but in the long run, these skills improve game outcomes)

2. Event/match preparation

  2.a Choice of planeswalker

  2.b Choice of deck

    * (Much has been said about this already, I won't repeat it)

3. Long term resource management

  3.a Managing basic in-game resources

    * What to spend jewels, crystals, runes, and orbs on, and what to avoid

    * When to spend resources immediately to boost your short-term options (in Event/match preparation), and when to save resources to get more efficient use out of them
  3.b Other long-term in-game choices

    * Whether/when to master cards
    * Whether/when to level PWs
    * Whether/when to hoard packs
    * For the above and others, being able to apply the devs' stated future intent to the choice
  3.c Managing time

    * For players not playing 100% of events, which events to play competitively vs play casually vs skip

    * When to use a speed deck vs a safer but slower deck

  3.d Managing money

    * For paying players, which packages to spend money on

Tremayne

First up, I think it is great that you try to include the community in defining in game terms like skillful play. Keep it up.

the previous posts are generally filled with very good descriptions of skillful play.

For me skillful play is summized in two statistics I call the deck and player win ratio. 

Deck win ratio
Definition: How many wins achieved with a deck of the total times the deck has been played.

This would show how good a player is at designing decks and piloting them. There is an underlying assumption to this score, which is the deck is being used equally often be the player and by Greg.

For most of my decks I have a pretty good idea what the win ratio is, when I’m piloting the deck. If the deck win ratio is high then it is because of two things

1. I have added cards that works well together (deck building)
2. I have piloted the deck in game adeptly (match-3 skills and deck management)

If the deck win ratio is low then it is most likely due to poor deck building or a new deck where something is being tested, like new cards or interaction between cards and or planeswalker.

However, so far I have no knowledge about how well my deck performs when Greg is piloting them and I think that should be a factor in defining good decks. It therefore follows that a deck score above 50% is good and a score of 90% or above is most likely extremely difficult to achieve. Likewise, a deck win ratio below 25% is very bad, since that means the deck is most likely winning less than 50% of the games where a players controls it.

Drawback: developing decks will influence this score negatively, so i suppose that all matches in Training Grounds are not counted for the ratio or the first 5 games in TG with a deck Does not count.

Undefined subjects; when to reset a specific deck’s win ratio; does all deck slot counts.

Player win ratio
Definition: How many games a player have won out of the total games said player have played with any deck.

This would show my combined ability at piloting my decks and select the right planeswalker and deck for in game events. There is an underlying assumption to this score, which is “bad luck” e.g. cascade, bad draws and the like, are equally distributed among all players.

The player win ratio should be high for good players and low for less good players. Developing decks will influence this score negatively, but I lean towards letting every match counts in order to reduce the likelihood of having to many perfect scores, but it is undecided at this time.

Drawback: not sure this counts, but designing decks that Greg can’t win with is hidden in this score, which perhaps is a good thing.

undefined subjects: should this score only count for a limited period before being reset or should it be a running timeframe that removes old matches from the score in order to display current skill level and not lifetime skill level.

End notes
perhaps these two statistics could be combined in a meta rating, but not sure.
The will most likely require more deck slots in order to work, something like 3 slots by default for Planeswalker at level 60. Deck slots are gained during levelling of PW.

Mburn7

Volrak said:

I haven't quantified the difficulty or compared the importance of the various skills, but have instead tried to classify the most relevant skills.  So I'm listing skills even if mastering them may seem subjectively easy, or if they can have only a minor influence on outcomes.

I've put skills into three categories, from the lowest level of the game to the highest level.  One area nobody's brought up yet is the highest level category, which is long term resource management.

1. In-game strategy

  1.a Hand management
    * Choosing card order
    * When to cast vs hold vs discard cards
    * When to spend vs hold loyalty

    * When to stick to objectives vs giving them up to reduce risk of losing
    * Bug avoidance

    * Predicting the opponent's deck and the bot's play choices, as an input to all of the above
  1.b Gem matching

    * Which strategy to choose (or, how to weight competing objectives).  E.g.
      - Maximising expected gains
      - Maximising worst-case gains
      - Minimising expected opponent gains
      - Maximising loyalty vs mana
      - Whether to prioritise special gems, and which ones (activations, supports, etc)

    * Picking the optimal match given the chosen strategy and a board state
    * (Gem matching skills are highly probabilistic, i.e. any single choice may or may not pan out well, but in the long run, these skills improve game outcomes)

2. Event/match preparation

  2.a Choice of planeswalker

  2.b Choice of deck

    * (Much has been said about this already, I won't repeat it)

3. Long term resource management

  3.a Managing basic in-game resources

    * What to spend jewels, crystals, runes, and orbs on, and what to avoid

    * When to spend resources immediately to boost your short-term options (in Event/match preparation), and when to save resources to get more efficient use out of them
  3.b Other long-term in-game choices

    * Whether/when to master cards
    * Whether/when to level PWs
    * Whether/when to hoard packs
    * For the above and others, being able to apply the devs' stated future intent to the choice
  3.c Managing time

    * For players not playing 100% of events, which events to play competitively vs play casually vs skip

    * When to use a speed deck vs a safer but slower deck

  3.d Managing money

    * For paying players, which packages to spend money on

This is much less rambly than my post, but covers pretty much the same ideas.  Thanks for summarizing!

Tremayne

I agree with a lot of what Volrak wrote above.

Depending upon what the definition of skillful players is to be used for, like matchmaking then I have difficulty translating Volraks description into something that can be used for determining equal levels of players in regards to skills.

so @Brigby is this definition of skillful play intended to be used for matchmaking, sometime down the road?

Matthew

Mburn7 said:

Volrak said:

I haven't quantified the difficulty or compared the importance of the various skills, but have instead tried to classify the most relevant skills.  So I'm listing skills even if mastering them may seem subjectively easy, or if they can have only a minor influence on outcomes.

I've put skills into three categories, from the lowest level of the game to the highest level.  One area nobody's brought up yet is the highest level category, which is long term resource management.

1. In-game strategy

  1.a Hand management
    * Choosing card order
    * When to cast vs hold vs discard cards
    * When to spend vs hold loyalty

    * When to stick to objectives vs giving them up to reduce risk of losing
    * Bug avoidance

    * Predicting the opponent's deck and the bot's play choices, as an input to all of the above
  1.b Gem matching

    * Which strategy to choose (or, how to weight competing objectives).  E.g.
      - Maximising expected gains
      - Maximising worst-case gains
      - Minimising expected opponent gains
      - Maximising loyalty vs mana
      - Whether to prioritise special gems, and which ones (activations, supports, etc)

    * Picking the optimal match given the chosen strategy and a board state
    * (Gem matching skills are highly probabilistic, i.e. any single choice may or may not pan out well, but in the long run, these skills improve game outcomes)

2. Event/match preparation

  2.a Choice of planeswalker

  2.b Choice of deck

    * (Much has been said about this already, I won't repeat it)

3. Long term resource management

  3.a Managing basic in-game resources

    * What to spend jewels, crystals, runes, and orbs on, and what to avoid

    * When to spend resources immediately to boost your short-term options (in Event/match preparation), and when to save resources to get more efficient use out of them
  3.b Other long-term in-game choices

    * Whether/when to master cards
    * Whether/when to level PWs
    * Whether/when to hoard packs
    * For the above and others, being able to apply the devs' stated future intent to the choice
  3.c Managing time

    * For players not playing 100% of events, which events to play competitively vs play casually vs skip

    * When to use a speed deck vs a safer but slower deck

  3.d Managing money

    * For paying players, which packages to spend money on

This is much less rambly than my post, but covers pretty much the same ideas.  Thanks for summarizing!

You know there’s a “Like” button for comments like this, right?