Idk about sabers though; Jinn had a thorough understanding of how to face a Makashi wielder, and Ventress was clearly a lot sloppier than Dooku. This, along with Jinn's superior strength and experience leads me to believe that he's a cut above her in lightsaber dueling.
Jinn has less experience though... and Ventress constantly contending with Anakin and Kenobi - sometimes together - is a superior display of strength than anything we've seen from Qui-Gon, considering their strength feats trump his.
How is being the apprentice of the greatest Makashi user of the era (and arguably of most other era's save the ancient Sith) not count as considerable experience? Or that Jinn reguarly sparred and bested the temple Battlemaster, and is considered one of the greatest duelists in the Jedi Order? Jinn has a tonne of experience sparring against high level duelists, including Dooku himself. Dooku was able to identify every weakness of Ataru. Jinn clearly wasn't able to do the same with Makashi, since the latter is technically superior to the former, but Jinn would have a deep and thorough knowledge of Makashi due to regualr sparring matches with Dooku over decades of training. Jinn would therefore have a significant knowledge of how to undermine a Makashi user, especially one like Ventress who is noted to be considerably sloppier than Dooku. If Jinn could contend with Darth Maul's Juyo style and put him off balance - at least temporarily, I fail to see how a Dark Adept nowhere close to Dooku's mastery of Makashi could definitively beat Jinn in sabers.
Jinn has generic "Most skilled" and "Best ever" accolades given out to nearly all PT force wielders with a name, big deal. Every single Jedi in the Order has a lot of experience sparring against high level duelists, but that doesn't mean they are in any way comparable.
Yes but Asajj's Makashi isn't really textbook... It's basically just Ataru/Niman. Regardless, you could argue that Jinn may pick up on her form and potentially exploit certain weaknesses, but I'd wager that she could do the same. Considering that form IV was among the most popular during the PT era, and the fact that Ventress herself has likely mastered it, plus she's fought notable practitioners of the form; Ahsoka Tano, Quinlan Vos, likely others I can't think of right now. There's just as much reason to believe that Ventress knows Ataru inside and out, as there is Jinn knowing a lot about Makashi.
But we're going into really autistic logistical edges that Qui-Gon possibly has (but likely doesn't), when instead we should be looking at Asajj's far better feats, namely;
- Matching/Defeating early-mid TCW Anakin Skywalker on multiple occasions.
- Easily defending against Mace Windu's strength with one hand, despite his momentum and superior leverage.
- Defeating Kit Fisto before her prime.
- Contending with/matching early-mid TCW Obi-Wan.
There are more, but these really should be enough to cement her as solidly above Qui-Gon.
If we're talking about the most skilled swordsmen, I should mention that alongside briefly contending with Mace far before her prime, she's also a confirmed superior to Sora Bulq (Being Dooku's deadliest agent according to multiple sources); "One of the greatest Lightsaber instructors the Jedi Order had ever known."
Jinn may have contended with Maul, but that was largely due to Maul having to divide his attention between two opponents and Qui-Gon getting time to meditate, which made him 'fresh' enough to briefly get the upper-hand. In this situation however, those factors aren't present, so all Ventress needs to do is drag on the fight until he tires, and victory is assured.
Ventress wins easily, remember Jinn died long before the Clone Wars, everybody got much better during the Wars due to constant fighting. Qui Gon was barely able to contend with Maul 10 years earlier, he's not on that Clone Wars combatant level by default. He loses badly.
I'll be replying sometime tomorrow, I will still argue for Jinn in at least sabers. I'm new, so I'm not sure how my debating skills will play out, hopefully I can do a good defence.
Everyone absolutely got better, and Ventress was above most of the Council as well... We all know you and Ant are taking Jinn's side because of your shared disliking of Dooku