There are three main factors we’ll consider: Deck Construction, Battlefield Prowess and Card Choice. Each of these should be self explanatory. Deck construction includes the planning, choosing and constructing of original decks. Battlefield Prowess encompasses any and all in-game situations. Card choice differs from deck construction by including drafting skills, overall card sense, sideboarding choices etc. Though related to deck construction, card choice is less about deck planning, mana curve calculations and balance than it is about individual card choices.
The only real way to look at skill levels in this game is to examine each of the aforementioned criteria within the major play formats. We could argue over the small differences in skill required between sealed and draft all day but I’d rather take a deeper look at each of the formats in a vacuum. Success in a major format is a good judge of magical finesse if it gives each player an equal opportunity to win, leaving skill as the deciding factor. As you read through each blurb on the various formats, think to yourself- how do I feel about my ability in this area? From there, you’ll hopefully gain a more holistic approach to gauging a Magic player’s aptitude.
Limited
Deck Construction – Limited events are often favored by the pro community. Monetary issues are non-existent. The paper-rock-scissors effect that constructed events usually revolve around is null. Both sealed and draft involve creating a deck, from scratch, out of nothing. Deck construction skill is the be all and end all of this format. If you can’t make a deck out of six packs or pull enough cards out of a draft to make something quasi-functional, you’re severely lacking in deck construction skills.
Battlefield Prowess – Strategy on the limited battlefield is at once more complicated and at the same time less complicated than constructed. More complicated in the sense that you’re playing with cards that you’re not used to playing with. Less complicated because you’re stuck with a very small card pool and you’re usually just slamming evasive creatures at one another and spamming removal. Limited’s ability to put you into truly unique situations is unmatched, it’s just that those situations are usually fairly simple to decode due to the nature of the format.
Good Pool vs. Bad Pool; Like Night and Day. Bad draws can ruin a limited event.
Card Choice – This is where draft and sealed shine brighter than any other format. During a draft you’re going to make split second card choices often. You’ll have to decide which direction you’re going to take your deck and once you have chosen your cards, choose which of those on color cards you’re actually going to play.
Overall – Though the possibility of a “good draw” or “crap pool” are always there, limited puts most players on an even battlefield. More than that, players are forced to create decks from scratch on the spot. Limited shines quite brightly in all three categories of skill.
Constructed
Deck Construction – Constructed formats involve a different kind of skill. Putting together a deck from scratch, is tough business and there are only a handful of players around that still do this. Most get their ideas from blogs, top 8 lists and forums. The decks are often tweaked by the handler but the ideas are usually a collective (now online) effort, honed by thousands of hands and MTGO playtests. Then there’s the added element of the paper, rock, scissors effect of any given standard event. If everyone is running Jund and I play an anti-Jund net deck for the win, is that skill? I suppose it is a form of skill to anticipate and compensate for the climate around you but I think the old days of creating your own deck from scratch that no one sees coming are gone. The amount of skill required in the constructed formats has gone down as the internet has become a melting pot for ideas. The opportunity for glory is still there, it’s just much harder to come up with original deck ideas when the internet community beats most everyone to the punch.
The MTGO hive mind is more important than ever before.
Battlefield Prowess -In legacy and extended many games are over within three or four turns. The battlefield skill here lies in the mulligan, and your ability to anticipate and disrupt your opponent’s combos. In standard (at least right now) games tend to stretch on for six or seven turns. Stay familiar with the current popular decks and you should be able to anticipate your opponent’s deck after the first or second land drop. The potential for an infinite number of battlefield layouts in competitive constructive formats can be overwhelming. Luckily you’ll probably only see a handful of unique decks at any given event.
Card Choice – Card choice is extremely important in constructed formats. There are so many different removal, burn and counterspells that have been printed over the years that you’ll need to use all of your card choice skills to get the right cards into your deck.
Overall - Constructed formats are the heart and soul of Magic the Gathering. The game is supposed to contain ‘infinite possibilities’. Only in constructed can you truly explore those possibilities. A great amount of skill is necessary to navigate these fickle waters. Though that skill may come in the form of net decking with a slight tweak or two, you’re tapping into a great reserve of skill nonetheless.
X Factors
Some skills are more on the fringe. They directly and indirectly affect a player’s overall skill level whether consciously or unconsciously.
Casual Formats – Though not officially sanctioned formats, skills can be gleaned from these formats as well. Real decisions are needed to negotiate a hardcore EDH or multiplayer bonanza. Though not a huge factor in determining your skill as a magic player, a lot of the same higher level thinking situations arise on these battlefields.
A firm grasp of the Magic economy can make or break your MTG piggy bank.
Economic Understanding – A firm understanding of the Magic the Gathering economy can really help determine the course your magical ship will sail. Most of us do not have unlimited resources so we are forced to choose between online or offline; Baneslayer Angel playset or a Box of M10 etc. Just recently with Zendikar, players were scrambling to make sure they had the dual fetch lands they anticipated they’d need. Even at premier events you’re going to run up against a player or two with a financial crutch. Though you may win anyway you’ll want to identify someone playing Grixis Panorama as opposed to the proper fetch lands the minute they hit the table. The ability to glean information, anticipate card prices and get what you need when you need it on a budget is certainly a skill in itself.
Flavor Knowledge – My meta and I play a game when we’re between excruciatingly long EDH turns. I’ll read the flavor text of a card in my hand and my opponents will try and guess what card I’m holding. Often they’ll actually guess the card correctly! 10,000 cards is a lot of information to memorize. I’ve always felt that a deep understanding of MTG flavor (the novels, web comics, etc.) can help you keep track of that huge library of information, whether consciously or unconsciously. This may not work for everyone but I not only enjoy Magic more after having read the novels, I feel a deeper connection and recognition of the cards themselves.
Personal Disposition, Intuition, Attitude and Mood – Some people have it and some people don’t. Lets just call it “the spark”. Some people are just born winners. They have a sixth sense-type intuition, they top deck everything they need and just have a great attitude about competition in general. This one will be hard to work on if you don’t already have it but I believe personal disposition certainly affects the way you approach the game.
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The Top Chef method. (image vaguely related)
To really assess a player’s overall skill level you need to use what I’ll call the “Top Chef” method of separating the wheat from the chaff. Of course a player can be good at one form of magic or another but the true test of a player’s skill is to see what he can do in a sealed event with a mediocre pool. Or what he can do in a constructed event where their deck choice isn’t lining up with what he anticipated. A holistic approach should be taken when attempting to account for a gamer’s skill level.
Of course each of these categories is weighted differently by each player. In my personal opinion I ranked them in the order that they should weigh on the players overall skill level assessment. Limited followed by constructed and hopefully peppered with a healthy smattering of some of those X factors.
Just for fun I put together a little quiz. The following questions are designed to (very unscientifically) gauge your current grasp of Magic the Gathering. The questions range from easy to difficult and cover everything from general knowledge to tournament level strategy. While no test is perfect, I hope the questions give you some insight into your own skill and experience as a Magic the Gathering player.
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13/14
I mistaked Hexmage question :’( hehehe
“Congratulations – you have completed A Magical Aptitude Test. You scored 15 out of 15. Your performance have been rated as ‘Unbeatable’”
Good fun, you should make a longer one.
Can you explain how the Vampire Hexmage can do both?
First Strike, it lives to be sacrificed.
Each answer is explained once you click “Show Results” Here is the Vamp question’s explanation:
Combat damage no longer uses the stack. But between normal Combat Damage and First Strike damage there is an opportunity for both players to respond. You can sacrifice your Vampire Hexmage after First Strike damage is dealt and deal with both the creature and the walker at once!
Id like to give a shout out to Arix over in the forums for being the official judge on a few of these questions. Thanks Dragy!!
I 4got that hexmage had first strike xD and i dont do card proces so i guesed LC xD I enjoyed that alot and thx for the lil question now she’s alot better in my vamp deck.
Are you sure about the answer to the +1/+1 and -1/-1 counter question? I think it is possible to have both kinds on a card at once. They are removed as a state-based effect, but in the meantime, they are both there. For example, if a card had a triggered ability “Whenever this creature has 2 or more counters on it…”, putting a +1/+1 counter on it, and then a -1/-1 counter would trigger the ability. (Because the triggered ability is checked before the state-based actions have a chance to act.) So, for a moment before anyone would get priority, they are both present.
I might be mistaken, but that’s what it looks like to me. Nice quiz, though!
I’ll look into it. The spirit of the question though, I think was clear. Generally, Can creatures have both +1 and -1 counters on them? No. I wasn’t trying to trick anyone by saying “yes they can for 1 second!” So I think the general answer would still be “No”. If you missed that question because of a confusion on the timing of taking off counters.. go ahead and give yourself an extra point!
Agreed.
14/15
Thought Lotus Cobra was more expensive than Baneslayer angel.
Someday it will be… but there’s just no killer deck for it right now.
On the websites I use LC is more expensive, but idk about other places.
14/15 btw, above was my only mistake.
As it is a subjective question, based entirely on something that has no firm answer (due to locale, usage, and popularity), it should never have been in the quiz in the first place.
I’ve got some Lotus Cobras to trade you for your Baneslayers if you’re interested.
I mean.. their value is subjective, right?
Deal?
Awesome. Reinhart you are a God.
15/15. Nitpick: Untap/Upkeep/Draw are not phases, they are steps of the Beginning Phase.
That threw me off as well. The question could be reworded to ask about the order of steps in the Beginning Phase.
When you start to make questions unnecessarily complicated THAT is when people really get confused. I changed the question to “which set is in the correct chronological order”. Hopefully you could see past steps/phases minutia.
Also, I just gotta say, this blow is amazing. Keep up the great quality work!
blow = blog – sorry!
XD oh, wow. that’s funny. blow is a little different than blog, but we get what you mean.
Needs more Top Chef.
(13/15, clicked wrong answer for Terramorphic Expanse (too early to read), and forgot about Earthquake.)
Opps. I think i learned somthing. The test didnt work on my phone & the page was almost to large to load but after three times i got to read it. Dont suppose in the future it could be broke down more for the mobil. I still use the panoramas. When is the best time to pop that expanse?
Not sure how many pop quizzes we’ll have going forward so you might not have to worry
Cant guarantee that all java apps will work on all phones. It worked on my iPhone for the record 
But the answer to your question is “At the end of your opponent’s turn” or.. at the last possible second before it matters.
realy enjoyed the quiz and aparently so did everyone else I sure do look forward to more of them. Also i was the one who brought up earthquake with Arix xD lol
Heck of a lot easier than the judges test. 14/15 – got the black knight question wrong. It’s confusing because it says “protection from white” vs “protection from white things that target me and only me.”
Like your site.
Good Job! Best article yet and I like the questions at the end. I wouldn’t add too many though, it may cause writers block and the we will all be in trouble. Keep up the good work guys and remember, just because you can rule in Friday night magic because you still live with your mom and have no life, doesn’t mean you come out on top in Saturday’s booster draft. Oh and you usually don’t find them there, Saturday cartoons on cartoon network. OHH!
Re: the article itself-
My personal three factors for good Magic are 1) deck choice, 2) deck contents, and 3) play performance, success in any given tournament being influenced by skill and luck (to varying degrees) in these factors. While your “X factors” may have a place they do so by affecting the three main factors – a player who has a negative attitude, yet makes few play mistakes, is not a worse player than the one who knows all the nuances of the rules yet makes many more play mistakes.
The test is wrong. I got every question right, but it said I got the +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters question wrong.
Yes, you can have them both on a creature. Only for a short period, but saying I was wrong is like saying you can’t have a creature with 0 toughness in play. Fix the test.
Then again, don’t bother, cool test.
I think some of you have struck upon another very important Magic-skill.. the ability to not overthink things!
If I ask you whether the sun rises in the East or the West and you say… “I’m confused because you didnt specify on which planet.” You’re overthinking the question.
Overanalyzing can blind you from the simplest of answers in Magic the Gathering. The Answer to your question is “No, it is not possible to have a creature with 0 toughness on the battlefield.” It is on its way to the graveyard, no instants may be played in between it having 0 toughness and going to the graveyard anyway so whats the point of thinking that way? Same with the counters question.
Anyway, by missing that question due to overthinking some of you have found something worth working on as Magic players!
14/15. I didn’t know I could only redirect damage from an opponent to an opponent’s planeswalkers..
Ditto.
In my opinion Terramorphic answer is wrong. What if your opponent opens with an Island and Stifle in hand? But when we are talking about T2 it’s different thing.
Your Battlefield prowess is unmatched my friend! Though I’d still hold that you should always wait because you do not know that they’ll have Stifle. Now, if it’s stifle-fest-2010 at your tournament and/or its game 2, I suppose you could consider it. Either way I hadn’t considered that! I’ll change it to “in a modern (2009) standard match” Bonus point! In my defense I did say “Usually the best time” And I would call 99.999% “usually”
lol yea i’d waste stifle on a terramorphic expanse xD lol stifle+isochrom lol that thar termaphobic land aint doint crap he-yuk
I got 15 out of 15 correct. However, I don’t think I qualify for the big prize. Wait, there isn’t a big prize?….
You are incorrect about the +1/+1 and -1/-1 question, and wrong again for chastising people about “overthinking.”
If you Kinsbaile Borderguard has two +1/+1 counters on it and eats the fat end of an Incremental Blight, it *will* have both sets of counters on it when it dies, and it *will* give you Kithkin Soldier tokens and trigger any Blowfly Infestations any the area.
Knowing how things usually end up working is no substitute for actually knowing the rules.
You wouldnt be fun to play.
In actuality Devon, at the moment when a creature which has +1/+1 counters on it would recieve a -1/-1 counter (or vice versa), in the comprehensive rules you will find that it states that the opposite counters are instead immediatly removed. At no point, not even for a split hair of a second does a creature have both types of counters.
You shouldn’t cite the rules without reading them. The rules clearly say that they are removed “as a state-based action.” That’s not immediate; they only happen when a player would get priority.
The one with the Vampire hexmage should be no. Planeswalkers are not creatrues… They have 2 types, the name (liliana, garruk, chandra etc.) then the second type is Planeswalker. it is not a creature so if you sac vampire hexmage to destroy target creature with counters on it, it would have to be anything else but a planeswalker. However if I am mistaken please let me know. thank you
Hexmage removes all counters from a permanent. That’s why the hexmage-depths deck works. Also, I do find it kind of funny how everyone seems to look at that question so hard. The hexmage just kills the vanguard with first strike and lives. So you can essentially sac. her anytime you want afteward, even your opponents next upkeep.
Since when does hexmage say “destroy target creature with counters on it” I thought it said “Sacrifice Vampire Hexmage: Remove all counters from target permanent.” and last time I checked planeswalkers were permenants. You know, alot of time could be saved if people would double-check their arguments before trying to prove the people who run this site wrong.