Discussion Which Decks Take More "Skill" to Operate?

[Acetrainer_Samwise]

I've recently heard the word "skill" and "easy to play" being thrown around alot.

For example Vika Bulu is usually said to be fairly easy to pilot.

Where as something like Zoro eggs might take a little more brain power to make the correct decisions.

So my question is what decks in the current standard/expanded game take the most skill to use, and which ones are easy to use.

 

[Merovingian]

I can speak on Expanded. The big skill deck I know of for Standard is/was Sylveon GX. Not sure how relevant it is now (doubtful).

Expanded:
EASY:
Durant Mill
Beached Whales (I'd rate this more as an intermediate deck, but as far as a of of other control decks in the Expanded meta go, Beached Whales is probably the easiest control in the meta to pilot).
Buzzwole-GX decks seem easy to pilot (someone correct me if I'm wrong, I'm just starting to use aggro decks for the first time since 2005. The decision making tree seems easy enough).
Zoroark-GX decks seem easy to use, but have a varying skill ceiling depending on what variant you're running.

MOST SKILL:
Sylveon GX
Sableye / Garbodor
Nigth March (Night March is easy to learn, but has a deceptively HIGH skill ceiling. The deck has a surprising amount of micro decisions to it and is partially why we are seeing less of it in regionals. Between that and Zoroark-GX does what Night March does, but more efficiently.)


Control decks are usually very budget friendly (unless its Beached Whales), but come at the cost of being super skill intensive.

 

[JL_muserwolves]

Generally speaking, a deck's skill ceiling comes from the amount of decisions a player has to make during a game, as well as the difficulty in getting those decisions right. As @Merovingian pointed out, control decks are usually the best example of these because you're usually selecting and playing multiple cards on any given turn, and messing up the sequencing will spell doom for your attempts at locking your way to victory. In general, however, the more moving parts a deck has, and the longer it takes to complete the deck's objective, the more skill-intensive it's going to be.

Both of the current Tier 1 decks in Standard, Buzzwole/Lycanroc and Malamar, have various decisions that need to be made, of course. While both of them are focusing on spewing a bunch of energy onto the board, the important distinction is in where that energy goes. On paper, Malamar would take more skill because every turn you're trying to accelerate multiple energy and figuring out where to distribute it, but Buzzwole has a lot of little micro-decisions like how Octillery BKT interacts with your draw supporters and whether or not to play a Guzma or similar instead, when to use Lycanroc-GX and when to power it up as opposed to attaching to a Buzzwole, using a Beast Ring to only fetch 1 Energy, using Absorbtion-GX vs. opting to save the GX move for Dangerous Rogue and whether you think the Buzzwole will be return KO'd, etc.

Buzzwole and Malamar are both easier to pilot than something like Sylveon, however, because with Sylveon you're trying to pick 3 cards out every turn and anticipate the progression of the game state then react to it accordingly, and card sequencing plays a greater role when you take into account disruptive supporters, potential Lusamine Loop establishment, timing of Plea-GX, when to go on the offensive with Fairy Wind... it is a very skill-intensive deck.

Overall I'd say Buzzwole is probably the most straightforward Standard deck to pilot at the moment, but there aren't really any brainless decks out there right now.

 

[Duo]

This seems like somewhat of a loaded question to me since the nature of Pokemon TCG is reacting to your opponent and anticipating the state of the game several turns in advance.

I don't think a deck that has more decisions to make each turn is more "skillful," I think that just means that your deck is more versatile than decks that are built with only one win condition.

Obviously there are decks that are more beginner friendly than others to help people learn the rules of the game, but if we're talking about operating at a competitive level (which I assume is the case due to the location of this thread), by nature playing at a very high level requires you to understand the fundamentals and decision trees of every deck in the meta, and you need to be able to anticipate how your opponent will pilot their deck even if it's not a deck that you play yourself.

To me, this makes every deck just as difficult to pilot as the next, since when it comes to an entire competitive format, it's not just about how you play your deck - it's about how you play your deck around everyone else's deck.

 

[Otaku]

I've recently heard the word "skill" and "easy to play" being thrown around alot.

I believe you've also heard the term "salt" or "salty" thrown around as well.

A common misconception in Pokémon is that certain decks take "skill", when the issue is "skills". Best example? Night March in its prime. When you don't know how to use or counter it, it seemed so brain dead. Some things were easy about it, but given how often I saw people win and lose with it, with both results showing up in what were supposed to be autowins or autolosses and everything in between... if you didn't learn the correct skills for Night March, you could only win with it through the deck's intrinsic power, but you'd get stomped as soon as you faced competent opponent's with their own competitive decks (adjusted for match-ups).