I'd give myself about a six. I'm better than strictly average, I play FNM and other such tourneys pretty regular and place pretty well in those games.
But I don't have that Spike need to win that is required to be a really good player. Instead I'm a massive Johnny and constantly brew janky nonsense that still gets me through because I build against my local meta.
I'm the fucking shithead playing Owling Mine at the modern event but still going 3-1. I'm the fuckwit playing Zada Arcbond in standard and calling the judge to help me do maths.

As to substantiating that? I have top8'd a couple of pptq's and top16'd a wmcq and if I gave you my name you could probably look me up, but I see no reason to.

>>43731903
Right now I'd give myself a 7, I'm good enough to notice and capitalize on others mistake but I'm held back because I don't want to spend the money and time necessary to homebrew and test every set.

A 5?

I've won a few FNMs, and even went undefeated at my last prerelease.

But, I don't know how to draft, even standard meta is beyond me, and I can't pilot any of the more complicated decks.

I am, however, pretty good at multiplayer, especially chaos variants. I'm really good at politics, so I routinely beat my semi-pro friends...

Maybe 5.5? 5.3?

>>43732293
Are politics, skill at social manipulation and diplomacy Magic relevant skills? Does an aptitude for that sort of thing correlate to a skill in Magic?

>>43732383
I'd say so. Free-for-alls are still Magic, even if convincing two people to gang up on one reduces the efficacy of that lone player's other magic skills.

Still, in order to do it effectively, you really need magic skills. Aside from understanding the value of a card, you to appreciate its perceived threat, and you have to be able to convince your opponents that their priorities are eliminating each other. Recognizing combos before they go off, appreciating the emotions of people affected by certain spells, and simply recognizing the right timing to make different moves and appeals, all these come with experience with the game and are extremely important, so much so that a really charismatic newbie wouldn't go too far compared to someone who had both charisma and knowledge of the game.

>>43732383
Not him, but if you know your opponent, you can beat them when, based on just the cards, you shouldn't.
I have one friend that is really good at guessing what is in your hand based on what kind of deck your'e playing and what mana you are tapping or leaving available.
I have successfully bluffed him by feeding him the wrong clues.
It's like when I'm playing blue with counterspells and I constantly keep one card in my hand and two islands untapped.
I have a couple times prevented my best friend from dropping his big creature from the threat of the island hidden in my hand.
He also has a tendency to hold back a turn too long when amassing a swarm of little creatures.
I've survived games I shouldn't have because he didn't do the math and realize a full attack would end me.

>>43731903
I measure myself not against others, but against myself.
Maybe a 4?
I play really well, but I am not adept at constructing a deck without a lot of practice with the set.
Also, I am rusty as hell.

>>43731903
I don't have any proof, because I can't afford any top tier decks but I would say 4/10.
I can't seem to play control for shit, then again I haven't played any net deck control decks and have only played my own janky brews so it my just have been the decks I'm making.
I feel like I can pilot decks better than I make them, so maybe add 1-3 to that score.

>>43731903
1, I don't have the money to buy cards I'd need to win with :^)

For real though, probably a 5. I'm not good at constructing decks. though once I understand how a deck is supposed to work, shits wizardry

>>43734613
> I haven't played any net deck
Anyone who refuses to play netdecks gets a +1 in my book.

6, I guess? 60/100 is an F grade, so 6/10 seems appropriate. I shark prereleases and FNM drafts pretty easily, but they're fucking idiots who don't understand the game so that doesn't really count for much. I haven't spent much/any time in constructed formats, and skill is almost entirely a function of experience in that regard, so I'm crucially flawed as a player. If I pick up a random standard deck in a standard I haven't studied, and one of my more constructed-playing friends picks up a random standard deck, I'm probably going to win most of those games, but being a quick study doesn't matter until you've actually studied. One of my friends is a fucking idiot and I can't beat him on either side of the elves/burn matchup because I don't derive the right lines of play in a reasonably timely fashion.

>>43731903
Probably 3. I know MTG since I'm a child, I know most keywords, I understand the mechanics, I'm good at logic; but I never played competitively or against better players than me (that is to say, real players), I know nothing about the meta, I just play what sounds fun (if I ever play).

>>43731903 Maybe 2/10 ?
I used to be OK at draft, but I haven't played at all in a few years.

Probably like a 3 or 4, I beat the scrubs around me who play kitchen table commander but that's about it. Never drafted, only played at a card shop a few times.

1
I know the basic rules from hearing friends talking about it.

>>43731903
3, perhaps 2.
I fuck up regularly and I struggle to make decks sometimes, but I'm better than someone who's entirely new.

>>43731903
6-7

I'm about as well versed in rulings as a first level judge, if not more. Plus, I construct all my decks myself and do fairly well with them in whatever meta I play.

It's hard to say, I can spot my own mistakes pretty well and I learn from them but I still have made them in the first place. I have a great understanding of the stack and how to wording of a card affects how it works but I can't look at a card and instinctively know how to abuse it (bazaar of Baghdad for example).

I'm going to say 6 but I feel that may be too generous, particularly when only 4 numbers up is the best of the best.

I am the King of Casual Magic.

The decks I make are beloved by my group not for being strong, but being fun to play, especially in concert with each other. I evaluate cards based on how much fun they are, and I build decks around interacting with your opponent, being able to read them, and building big and impressive combos that alter the way the game plays rather than simply winning the game outright.

I am effectively our groups de facto deck designer, and everyone respects my sense of fairness and balance alongside my design decisions, with everyone preferring to play my decks against each other.

So, a 3.

During Zen/Alara I got pretty into the game. I would have put myself at a 6 or so.

But I don't really play much anymore, so a 3. Knowing the meta is so important and all I know now is second hand /tg/ memeings.

>>43734757
You'd be wrong, then, if you're inferring +1 to player skill. A rogue deck can do well and is sometimes the right choice but if you flat out refuse to play an established list you're almost certainly bad.

I am probably a 5ish, I do well at fnm, at my school I'm one of the better players, and have even played a few tourneys, however that's only for modern and legacy, for standard I suck so hard.

four? I know the game and the rules very well but lack skill, am bad at evaluating plays in the moment and have little competitive drive. I do usually recognise misplays and why they were misplays after the fact, I just have trouble thinking through all facts presented

>>43738477
A person who refuses to play a net deck is less likely to win a given tournament, but their insistence to rely on their own ability almost certainly makes them a better player than someone who chooses the easy route.

>>43738599
What do you mean by "net decking"?
Someone who copies a list without thinking about it?
Someone who wants to play a deck with discard, removal, and a few good creatures and decides to build Jund?
Someone who adds Lightning Bolt to their deck?

I'd put myself at a 6 or 7. I have a lot of game knowledge in a lot of different formats, I have a good handle on the "abstract" concepts of mtg, my play is usually very tight, and I can pilot anything. However, I'm not the greatest drafter (mostly a lack of practice), but I actually do pretty well in sealed, even though I hate sealed. It's like it's easier for me to make the best possible deck from a pile of shit than to pick my own less shitty cards and make a deck with that.

Eight, probably?
In my local group, people tend to come to me for advice on things over anyone else.
On a wider scale, I've Day 2'd three GPs, in different formats, that were also the only three GPs I went to that year.

>>43738599
More likely they're too stupid to perform the simple self evaluation required to realize that always playing your own homebrew is a bad habit which will almost certainly negatively impact performance - to put it simply, a scrub.

>>43734757
>m-muh speshul snowflaek

it's too bad that the constructed formats of magic aren't purely games of deckbuilding as much as they are games of playing skills. (you actually have to play the game too AND win, who knew?)

i do understand why a lot of people get unreasonably salty about having only a handful of cards being tier 1 in a game that has around 20,000 cards in existence. it's just the cognitive dissonance kicking in.

>>43738477
A lot of people who categorically refuse to netdeck insist on playing pure jank thinking it's totally going to bust the format open and they will be hailed as genius.

Then they throw their cards in their opponent's face when they inevitably lose horribly.

>>43739578
>thinking it's totally going to bust the format open

Not necessarily. Some people are just more interested in figuring out how their own skills compare, rather than testing out how well someone else's deck runs.

A 5, i'm pretty average i'd say. I won a couple of drafts but never did amazingly in constructed due to cash restraints and not enough time to build and test.

>>43731903
I'm like...a... 6, now?
I know about a number of bullshit rules examples, but all I really want to do is build silly decks with the cards I own. Kitchen table best.

I've played Standard, but my deck of choice was too slow; I was happier with it doing something semiunique even if it was garbage comparitively. It was the usual Abzan junk, I just wanted to drop a Duneblast after sacking everything to a husk.

Modern is definitely not for me, since I just want to play stupid things rather than powerful ones.

I've played EDH, but I've only recently begun to buy into staples for it and my deck was severely underpowered when I first started. It seems fun if everyone goes into it with the idea of having fun, and even instawin combo can be fun if people know that's what the guy is playing and it has a chance of being prevented. I recently bought a precon, though I intend to get some other commanders from them via singles

It's taken me a long fucking time to get good at draft, and I've never done a full one in real life. Closest I've come is Sealed prereleases. I think I'm finally good enough at picking cards to where I can compete.

I've played- and created- a cube, which is based entirely around having fun with two-color archetypes. Currently trying to nab a copy of Grenzo to make BR a bit more fun to play, and possibly a Krenko if I can trade for it. BR right now is a bit meh to draft because it's got a lot of "now everyone hates me" effects. It's a work in progress, but it's playable.

I like the EDH approach to matches but I hate building EDH decks. Singleton makes me cry a little inside.

I consider myself a 3. Not abjectly fucking terrible, but I've never been serious or given enough shits. I will never win except by fluke against someone who properly cares about MTG or takes it seriously, has literally ever been to a Tourney, etc, even if they are kinda bad in the scheme of things.

But I will fucking violate anyone who doesn't really know what they're doing with a similar tier deck. I am capable of understanding why combos work.

>>43731903
Gonna go with 4. I win maybe 80% of the modern or standard games I play when I'm using established decks, but I'm shithouse at brewing and even worse at draft.

Would actually grade myself lower from this, except I've got autism-tier knowledge of the rules at this point. People at my LGS turn to me for rulings when our local judge isn't around.

4-5. I tend to play at FNMs with my janky brews versus actual decks and I tend to win. I usually score 2-3.

>>43742024

and by 2-3 I mean 2nd/3rd place.

>>43731903
About a 5 or 6.

I've played quite a few tourneys and to be honest, I lose pretty badly at them since I'm not familiar with many of the cards in all the different sets, which is problematic when making decks.

However I have played games with friends who do go to state competitions using straight, basic, beginners decks and do win fairly evenly, against a number of strategies when the rock, paper, scissors aspect doesn't overwhelm.

Basically, if I am familiar with what I'm playing with and if the odds are stacked even, I'm a god bet to put your money on.

Its just I lack the knowledge that makes a good player a great one. All the poise, none of the finesse.

>>43731903
I'd put myself around a 6 or 7. I'm fucking amazing at playing in the moment, using what I know and what I have to the best effect, but I suck pretty hard at paying attention to the meta or planning ahead more than few turns.

>>43731903
5 I guess.

I'm a much better deck builder that I am a player. I know all the rules but I make stupid mistakes during non-casual matches

>>43739672

handicapping yourself isn't necessarily a test of skill. a true test of skill would probably be playing in a mirror or against decks with even matchups

>>43744988
>a true test of skill would probably be playing in a mirror or against decks with even matchups

There's more to the game of Magic than just being able to run a netdeck. With so many different formats, including various limited and multiplayer scenarios, just being able to place high in a modern tournament doesn't mean you've mastered all the skills a Magic player might need.