I've heard many people tell me that blue is the most skill intensive color in the game, and that it's much harder to play than any other color because it allows for the most "choices" and "decisions" during the course of a game.
Personally, I think that's a crock and every color can be very skill intensive. I don't find seeing 3 cards and picking 1 to keep and which 2 to bottom hard, as the correct choice is often glaringly obvious.
What do you think? In your experience, does one color require more skill than the others?
Funnily enough, one of the most skill intensive decks in Modern is mostly colourless.
I don't think you can say a specific colour is more skill intensive than the others. Even burn, which most people think of as a simple deck that anyone can play, takes a fair bit of skill if you want to play it optimally.
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Well, I can saw a woman in two, but you won't wanna look in the box when I'm through.
"All colors are equally skill intensive" is a horrible statement. Any topic with the statement "everybody is equally right" disqualifies each and every possible debate.
The question is: why is blue the most skillful? And the answer has to do with decision making, resource management and reactivity. As a blue mage, you're often making choices on when to counter (or not), when to outtap or not, etc. It's a reactive style, and you need to analyze and anticipate on your opponent. I'd say green and/or red are the least skillful, as they're mostly about playing your deck (often through ramping) as quickly as possible.
So yes, there is something inherent to blue that makes it more skillful, and that is counterspells and other reactive abilities mostly found in blue.
Expecting more "they're all equal" responses below.
EDIT: kudos to the OP and his friends for at least having the intuition to brand blue the most skillful.
I think blue, as it has the cards that give you the most choices. I dont say this to disparage other colours, or colourless, however when I'm watching games or playing its Blue that has the wheels turning.
I don't know if I'd say blue has a higher skill ceiling, but I do think blue is a color you just can't throw a 60 card goodstuff.dec deck and expect to do well. Blue is definitely not a "beginner" color, but most beginners generally don't gravitate towards reactive and defensive strategies, so that makes sense.
A lot of people are crapping on red, but I honestly think its a difficult color to play really, really well. Pointing burn at someone's face isn't inherently difficult, but knowing the right place to do so is something that definitely requires experience with burn. Basically a bad burn player can beat a bad player at another archetype. But a good burn player can beat decks that are "objectively" better than his/her burn deck.
Basically, all colors might have a similar skill ceiling, but blue does have a much higher skill floor than other colors do.
you need to analyze and anticipate on your opponent
This idea about blue is actually very overstated. Once you reach a certain level of experience (with the game in general), it's not hard to tell what's genuinely a threat and what's not. An experienced player is not going to get his counterspells baited, and that's why blue is not inherently more skill-intensive than any other color - it's about the player, not the color.
Expecting lots more "OMG blue is the most skillful because it's hard to draw three cards at the end of the opponent's turn" posts below.
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Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not watching.
All of the colors have the same amount of skill intensity because you're playing against an opponent and must anticipate their plays and try to play around them. In modern there are certain decks that try to play past the opponent and interact as little as possible, these decks cover all five colors between them (Bogles, Infect, Ad nauseam, Affinity, Amulet Bloom, etc.). People who say that blue is the most skill intensive color are wrong, it's not. The thing with playing blue is that it is the least forgiving color to play. Since you are usually playing reactively it is very easy for a poor decision to put you far behind in the game. Whereas when actively trying to advance your boardstate and you make the decision to play a threat that gets answered, you are not behind but even on the trade because they had to spend resources to stop you. I wouldn't say that playing blue requires more skill, but usually requires more experience because you need to have knowledge of what your opponents might play so that you can react accordingly. Additionally blue's threats are generally weaker than the other colors which makes their decisions more important because it is more difficult for them to close out games, which is why blue is generally used as a support color.
TL;DR It's not the color that determines the skill intensity but the choice of deck and the current meta.
you need to analyze and anticipate on your opponent
This idea about blue is actually very overstated. Once you reach a certain level of experience (with the game in general), it's not hard to tell what's genuinely a threat and what's not. An experienced player is not going to get his counterspells baited, and that's why blue is not inherently more skill-intensive than any other color - it's about the player, not the color.
Expecting lots more "OMG blue is the most skillful because it's hard to draw three cards at the end of the opponent's turn" posts below.
It's odd how you state that it's not about skill, but over time you get experience and make better judgment. That's the point of skill. And blue mages don't just draw 3 cards EOT. If that's your view of blue, you don't play blue enough.
In Modern, almost all colors have found their way into decks that are hard to pilot. It's probably a more relevant question in Standard, or even "for beginning players, what is hard to understand", where red and green often provide easy to understand strategies ( fast aggro / big-creature midrange ) that can be more readily explained than, say, a black attrition or blue control game.
I respect everyone's opinion, but it honestly blows my mind that so many people think blue is the pet skill intensive. I've played the color in several formats. I just find it's difficulty is massively overstated. "I have so many lines of play! And 90% of the time, the best one is obvious to any decent player!"
I especially find the argument that card selection makes for a color requiring more skill hilarious and totally baseless.
The colors are not the skill aspect of the game, its knowing interactions and proper ways of handling those interactions. So all colors are equal in skill.
Implying having to invest $800 in 4 cards if you ever plan to play green competitively isn't a handicap.
Implying Goyf isn't colorless.
But this conversation isn't about money, it's about skill intensiveness and the (imagined) handicaps green suffers. Also, Goyf is objectively not colorless, it is a green creature. Besides, I can list many more excellent green cards such as Life from the Loam and Noble Hierarch. Primeval Titan is Green, and we can all agree he's pretty strong.
Well the arguably two decks in Modern that punish you for making the wrong decisions and have like 20 decision trees at any point are (roughly) colorless and 5 colour... (Affinity and Amulet Boom). I don't think its fair to assign a deck with a certian skill level based on what it plays, but rather how it uses the cards that it plays. You can look at cards having different logic behind them, ie: Thoughtseize on turn 1 being proactive and planning out the rest of the game, but then changing your gameplan to react to what they have in hand vs a Cryptic Command on turn 6 being reactive vs some threat. Any top tier deck will be challenging to play, and because they can't all be put into the same situation it isn't really fair to judge them based on the colours they play.
I think the conversation has to be about what's color identity is more difficult to play. Blue has counters, black has discard, white has removal and swipes, red has direct damage and green has ramp. That being said I think the more skill intensive identity are blue's with black's as a close second. And I make that guess for 2 reasons. 1) To play a blue reactive deck you have to understand your meta in a way you can build your deck with the appropriate spells (thought seize is good in almost every meta, remand is not). 2) playing multiple discard spells gives you access to Intel that let's you play multiple in an optimal way but with counters you don't have the info and you can fall into some mistakes. IMHO Blue is the most skill intensive in a various aspects.
Any color is. To say one color is over the rest is pretty narrow minded. How the deck works together as a whole counts. Sometimes its about skill in crafting the 75. Sometimes its about playing the deck right. Sometimes its about knowing the meta so well you know what exact 15 card sideboard takes down the event. Aggro, Midrange, tempo, control, combo. These all require different types of intelligence.
The question makes the assumption that a blanket statement is the correct answer. When the question is flawed then the answer will be too.
Personally, I think that's a crock and every color can be very skill intensive. I don't find seeing 3 cards and picking 1 to keep and which 2 to bottom hard, as the correct choice is often glaringly obvious.
What do you think? In your experience, does one color require more skill than the others?
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I don't think you can say a specific colour is more skill intensive than the others. Even burn, which most people think of as a simple deck that anyone can play, takes a fair bit of skill if you want to play it optimally.
They may have each different choices but that does't make one decision more skill intensive then the other.
Do I play this creature now or later?
Do I discard this card or the other?
Should I counter this spell or not?
All of those are decisions that can decide the outcome of a game.
The question is: why is blue the most skillful? And the answer has to do with decision making, resource management and reactivity. As a blue mage, you're often making choices on when to counter (or not), when to outtap or not, etc. It's a reactive style, and you need to analyze and anticipate on your opponent. I'd say green and/or red are the least skillful, as they're mostly about playing your deck (often through ramping) as quickly as possible.
So yes, there is something inherent to blue that makes it more skillful, and that is counterspells and other reactive abilities mostly found in blue.
Expecting more "they're all equal" responses below.
EDIT: kudos to the OP and his friends for at least having the intuition to brand blue the most skillful.
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A lot of people are crapping on red, but I honestly think its a difficult color to play really, really well. Pointing burn at someone's face isn't inherently difficult, but knowing the right place to do so is something that definitely requires experience with burn. Basically a bad burn player can beat a bad player at another archetype. But a good burn player can beat decks that are "objectively" better than his/her burn deck.
Basically, all colors might have a similar skill ceiling, but blue does have a much higher skill floor than other colors do.
Ever heard of the banned list?
More to the point however, I think that all colors are quite close, but if I had to go with one, I'd choose blue as the most skill-intensive.
This idea about blue is actually very overstated. Once you reach a certain level of experience (with the game in general), it's not hard to tell what's genuinely a threat and what's not. An experienced player is not going to get his counterspells baited, and that's why blue is not inherently more skill-intensive than any other color - it's about the player, not the color.
Expecting lots more "OMG blue is the most skillful because it's hard to draw three cards at the end of the opponent's turn" posts below.
TL;DR It's not the color that determines the skill intensity but the choice of deck and the current meta.
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It's odd how you state that it's not about skill, but over time you get experience and make better judgment. That's the point of skill. And blue mages don't just draw 3 cards EOT. If that's your view of blue, you don't play blue enough.
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In Modern, almost all colors have found their way into decks that are hard to pilot. It's probably a more relevant question in Standard, or even "for beginning players, what is hard to understand", where red and green often provide easy to understand strategies ( fast aggro / big-creature midrange ) that can be more readily explained than, say, a black attrition or blue control game.
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I especially find the argument that card selection makes for a color requiring more skill hilarious and totally baseless.
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Implying having to invest $800 in 4 cards if you ever plan to play green competitively isn't a handicap.
Implying Goyf isn't colorless.
But this conversation isn't about money, it's about skill intensiveness and the (imagined) handicaps green suffers. Also, Goyf is objectively not colorless, it is a green creature. Besides, I can list many more excellent green cards such as Life from the Loam and Noble Hierarch. Primeval Titan is Green, and we can all agree he's pretty strong.
and besides, that's racist!
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The question makes the assumption that a blanket statement is the correct answer. When the question is flawed then the answer will be too.
Remand, for example is skill intensive. Delver of Secrets is not.
Vines of Vastwood, for example is skill intensive. Noble Hierarch is not.
With that said, every color can be skill intensive depending on what cards you play.
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