What exactly is skill?

[Lonk]

The word 'Skill' and 'Skilless' are thrown around in the card game far too much to the point where it kind of loses its meaning.  What is definite about 'skill' is that having it leads to a higher win consistency.

 

What is your definition of skill when it compares to Yu-Gi-Oh!?  Not the general definition, but your definition?

[Trebuchet MS]

To me, it's the choices you make in the card game. What cards to run. What cards to side. What to swap out when siding. What cards to use and when. The plays you make on the fly to work around or out of difficult situations. The choices that you see are possible to reach a more favourable outcome.

 

And so, the "skill-less" Decks, I would read as those with no great diversity in going from point A to point B - where you can literally predict what they will search out the moment you see their tutor, what monster they'll summon with what effect. Of course, I can't exactly blame those decks if their archetype is ridiculously small that there's not a lot of diversity in worthwhile plays.

[Althemia]

Skill is the ability to use what you're given to make correct decisions. This is one of the reasons why Extra Deck Monarchs are considered skilful in terms of the mirror, mainly due to how difficult it is to actually play correctly in the context of that. However, something like Exodia is considered skilless because there is little decision making to actually make other than "This card draws me cards, so let's play it and oh look I have Exodia." There's no flexibility or alternative gameplan, just that.

[VCR_CAT]

And so, the "skill-less" Decks, I would read as those with no great diversity in going from point A to point B - where you can literally predict what they will search out the moment you see their tutor, what monster they'll summon with what effect. Of course, I can't exactly blame those decks if their archetype is ridiculously small that there's not a lot of diversity in worthwhile plays.

 

Not necessarily. Diversity in going from point A to B doesn't really define "skill". Hi, my name is VCR_CAT. You might remember me from such great documentaries as "The Locomotive: Rise in the Cardgaming Community" and "Mommy is that a Train?" I bring this up, being one who pilots a deck that has limited means to get from A to B, because you can use this to your advantage very well. When a deck has clearly telegraphed combos that are easy for one to figure it, it allows a player to play expecting their opponent to read those telegraphs. It makes it easier to throw them off by switching to an alternate play with a feint, if you will.

 

So no, I wouldn't say a deck is skilless just because its means of summoning its bosses are limited. Does it make their plays predictable? Yes, but that doesn't mean there's no room for a smart player to make changes in their strategies to play to that predictability.

 

In all honesty, it's hard to say that a given deck is "skill-less" because it ends up all falling into the abilities of the player to know their deck, and if it's a linear one, know what they're telegraphing and how to play around it. Of course, there will be decks that have a more flexible and versatile toolbox of options and plays available to them, and this makes it harder to make the right decision in a given moment, as Koko explained, and those decks will be harder to learn and harder to pilot. While other decks, such as Qliphorts, will have much more limited options and are thus easier to learn and pilot; but the fact that there's decisions at all means that it will take some degree of skill to play, and a smart player will typically build and play the deck better.

 

I mean, if we want to talk Skill-less, you should be looking towards something like a regular Exodia FTK deck (nothing fancy like a Quasar varient or w/e; just the typical Library + Toon Contents mill). Overall, something that's as braindead as summon Library and spam spells doesn't really take any brainpower.

[Spinny]

Skill is the ability to use what you're given to make correct decisions. This is one of the reasons why Extra Deck Monarchs are considered skilful in terms of the mirror, mainly due to how difficult it is to actually play correctly in the context of that. However, something like Exodia is considered skilless because there is little decision making to actually make other than "This card draws me cards, so let's play it and oh look I have Exodia." There's no flexibility or alternative gameplan, just that.

You couldve summed all this up by saying

"There are those who can play Pale Moon, and those who cant"

Pale moon is seriously hard to play in CFV like wtf, the amount of decisions you get presented with is ridiculous.

[(GigaDrillBreaker)]

Also important to note that decks with relatively low effort at a low level, such as Tellar, often have a much higher skillcap when brought into a competitive environment.

[Delibirb]

I feel like skill as a general concept, as I understand it, is a culmination of one's natural talent and practice in the specific field. More often I think, it tends to refer more to the natural talent portion, as practicing at something is not widely attributed to "having skill," though I think that's more a fault of people's views than of the term.

 

In ygo, skill generally gets thrown around to refer to one's capability to do well in poor matchups or situations within a match, though it tends to rely more on luck than talent or practice, at least in the latter, so it is frequently used incorrectly. Which I think isn't necessarily a bad thing, as long as there's still some level of standard as to what constitutes skill or lack thereof within the community, in the context we use it in.

[Sleepy]

It is the combination of using the knowledge about your opponent and the knowledge you've acquired about your own plays/cards and the options they give you in order to achieve the best possible outcome.

 

A deck like Satellarknights is pretty straightforward with its Main Deck combos, but most of its decision-making lies in the Extra Deck.

FTK decks like 2010 Frogs or Exodia's FTK, they always aim for that one combo and doesn't have variations unless your opponent gets to play and somehow obstructs that very play... in which case many decks of this nature just auto lose..... Even so, even those have some degree of skill somewhere. You could be struggling to make the most of your hand without a key component, or you might actually have some kind of answer in addition to the FTK. For the most part at the very least deck-building is an important factor in those, as much as they are about the lowest in skill out there.

 

Mirror match formats typically are akin to more skill since variations are decreased and both sides will have access to the same kinds of options, and if top tier, you can pretty much guarantee consistency in pulling them out when they need to, leving their decision-making to fight with. I said "typically" though because there are exceptions, but for those it'd have to be the "win the coin toss = win" ideology (like Frog FTK). 

There are many factors to take into account but up there people already described it best.
 

[Blake]

Skill is Maxx "C" in response to Pot of Duality.

[goodfusion]

Skill is Maxx "C" in response to Pot of Duality.

 

So that your The Fabled Unicore can negate Duality, preventing the opponent from doing anything more that turn and allowing you to win.