Luck is always a factor prevalent in card games. Structurally, TCGs (trading card games) are affected by luck (RNG) in some way or form.
So what is luck? Well luck is essentially chance which is the probability by which an effect happens in a certain way or direction. Luck can then be boiled down to essentially a value or percentage in which things may occur whether that be in your favour (good luck) or against you (bad luck).
Okay. So what? While luck and probability both exist in every card game, Weiss Schwarz is a game in which there is high variance. Yes, there exist many games with variance, but a core mechanic in the game of Weiss Schwarz itself is the reliance upon variance.
Variance? How does that affect Weiss Schwarz? Because of Weiss Schwarz’s high variance and the constant shuffling and moving of cards due to effects, the way games play out can drastically change. That is to say that game consistency is relative rather than constant. Say in one game, your opening draw was poor and even after a mulligan, it is still poor, yet at the end of the game you come out winning. But the following game, the reverse happens.
Are you saying Weiss Schwarz is a game of no skill and just pure luck? No, not by any measure. Weiss Schwarz at its core is a game of RNG and tons of RNG calculations.
Okay, but by having many instances of RNG, doesn’t that cancel each other out and make the game consistent? Well, yes and no. The only consistent pattern is that RNG will always exist. Just because you have multiple instances of RNG doesn’t mean the game overall isn’t RNG. But the way Weiss Schwarz’s RNG works is different from the way most other trading card games’ RNG works. At the very principle, soul damage or the life gauge as they call it in other games is not guaranteed. A vast majority of soul damage which defines the outcome of a game is based entirely off the top of your deck and your opponent’s deck. Sure, you can manipulate the top of your deck with shuffling and good gameplay such as compression to make it more likely to cancel, but at the end of the day, if you cancel, you cancel, if you don’t, you don’t despite the chance %. You never know if that one cancel you need is in the top of your deck or at the very bottom even if the math % is in your favour like one climax in four cards.
Okay, so how do I measure skill and improve as a player? Many micro-steps. Despite the vast amount of RNG scenarios, all a player can do is try and minimize the bad odds and push them in your favour. Despite scenarios always changing and chances of things going the way constantly altering, a good player adapts and tries their best to maintain a consistent game plan.
Most of the skill in Weiss Schwarz can be found in micro-managing of situations, understanding risks and overall game/card knowledge. For instance, if you have the ability to, you should remove your deck of unwanted cards if you want to increase the odds of hitting a climax with your brainstorm. Another thing that can be done is to remember the cards you trigger and the number of soul triggers you possess in your deck. Knowing about match-ups is another very good skill to know letting you play around your opponent’s combos to some degree or prepare for their plays by adjusting your very own. There are a lot of small things that build up that can clearly differentiate good players.
Okay, I did all that and I still lose. Am I a bad player? Did I do something wrong? That’s just the thing. Weiss Schwarz is a game where even if you perform the “best” move or the most logical move at the time, the game may not turn in your favour. Does that necessarily mean that you’re a bad player? No by any means. You performed the best move given your knowledge of the game state and it failed in your favour. It happens. That’s what RNG is. Now that’s not saying that the same play in a different instance will go the same way. RNG is RNG. All you can do in Weiss Schwarz is do your best to minimize it.
There will be games where you do your best and lose, and games where you play poorly, but still somehow come up on top. This is how the game of Weiss Schwarz works whether you like it or not. But that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t focus on becoming better and honing those micro-skills. Because in the majority of games, if you’re doing the right moves, more often than not, you will be winning more.