If any of you are wondering, what skill is is seeing options, and what a lack of skill is is the lack of seeing options. It’s like Sherlock Holmes saying “you see, but you do not observe.” Options are hiding in plain sight right in front of you but you’re too stupid to understand what you’re looking at.
Go and have a truly skilled player look at a replay of one of your games, and they’d point out all kinds of options that you just passed right over, quickly, as if nothing was there. Speeding on through. That’s why I think there was some AMAZING advice for getting better in another recent thread:
Give yourself time to be that better player watching your replay. Give yourself time to see the things that are hidden in plain sight before you. If you’re not roping often, you’re not serious about increasing your skill.
You need to understand that the very stereotype of a low skill Battlegrounds player is someone who overcommits to a particular build and just starts hard rolling for one or two particular minions. They’re the ones who end up saying “oh it’s just luck, either you get your Baron or you don’t” because it’s confirmation bias, the only way their play was good play is if that premise is true. They believe it because it makes them feel better about themselves. Their tunnel vision blinds them to any the other options offered. Instead of seeing what’s before them, they just see not-Baron, or not whatever it is their tunnel vision is focused on.
Sometimes those options are there. Sometimes they’re not. I’m not trying to say that Battlegrounds is 0% luck. But I am saying that you’re not going to see plays that you aren’t even looking for. Sometimes no amount of skill can turn a Tavern refresh that’s a miss into a hit, but a lack of skill can easily turn a hit into a miss.