Darth Plagueis' Lightsaber Skills
I made this thread to suss out the true ability of Plagueis in terms of lightsaber skills. I believe Plagueis is a master lightsaber duelist, and could match the higher tier swordsmen.
Firstly, Plagueis' master, Darth Tenebrous, who is a lightsaber combat enthusiast, considers his apprentice a master of the art:
To Plagueis, lightsaber duels were tedious affairs, full of wasted emotion and needless acrobatics. Tenebrous, however, who had pronounced Plagueis a master of the art, had always enjoyed a good fight, and had clearly bequeathed that enthusiasm to his other trainee.
What can be considered 'master' at this point is unclear and undefined. However a notable first accolade nonetheless.
Plagueis watched as droid after droid was impaled on the opposing crimson blades. “It strikes me as unnecessary, but I won’t deny his mastery of the Jar’Kai technique.” Again, he turned to Sidious. “Niman and teräs käsi will never substitute for dun möch, but I appreciate that you have trained him to be a fighting machine rather than a true apprentice.”
Here he identifies Niman and Jar'Kai, not denying Maul's mastery. This implies Plagueis knows what a master of the form looks like, as if he says it from experience. So from this we can imply that he has mastered at least Niman and Jar'Kai so far.
On seeing the Zabrak’s lightsaber produce two blades, Plagueis drew in his breath. “A saber-staff! The weapon of Exar Kun! Did he construct that?”
He's obviously studied Exar Kun and possibly his technique. This passage really doesn't give you a lot of clarity though as to whether Plagueis has used/mastered the saber-staff. I however would be inclined to believe he did, and here's why:
Sidious is a master of every weapon and every style. - Nick Gillard
This confirms that Sidious is a master of the saber-staff. It is possible that Plagueis taught this to Sidious as well, because he is on record as saying to Sidious whilst training him:
"Every weapon, manufactured by whatever species, has its own properties and peculiarities," Plagueis was saying, his own blade angled toward the ferrocrete floor of the battledome's fabricated cityscape, as if to light a fuse. "Range, penetrating power, refresh rate... In some instances your life might depend on your ability to focus on the weapon rather than the wielder. You must train yourself to identify a weapon instantly—whether it's a product of BlasTech or Merr-Sonn, Tenloss or Prax—so that you will know where to position yourself, and the several ways to best deflect a well-aimed bolt."
Although this is referring to different types of blasters/rifles and so forth, I do believe he had the same philosophy in terms of different lightsaber variants as well, since he continues a little later:
"A being trained in the killing arts doesn't wait for you to acquire him as a target, or establish him or herself as an opponent, as if in some martial arts contest. Your reactions must be instantaneous and nothing less than lethal, for you are a Sith Lord, and will be marked for death."
Here he emphasises that as Sith, they must be prepared for any combatant, and Plagueis' pragmatic mindset regarding this must have passed down to Sidious, since again he is a master of every weapon and form.
Again this is further evidenced by a training session between him and his apprentice:
To refrain from senseless killing, they wielded force pikes rather than lightsabers. Meter-long melee weapons used by the Echani and carried by the Senate Guard, the pikes were equipped with stun-module tips capable of delivering a shock that could overwhelm the nervous systems of most sentients, without causing permanent damage.
An example of both using another variant of weapon yet again.
Therefore we can deduce that Plagueis, lecturing to his apprentice about reacting to any opponent/weapon/situation had obviously trained himself to do so, and then passed that exact same mindset and skillset to his apprentice.
The Muun’s reaction to the barrage of bolts that converged on him required almost more processing power than the droid had at its disposal. By employing a combination of body movements, lightsaber, and naked right hand, the agile sentient evaded, deflected, or returned every shot that targeted him.
This, coupled with "...so that you will know where to position yourself, and the several ways to best deflect a well-aimed bolt." suggests a masterful knowledge of Form V Shien variant. Note that he uses the word deflect, not block.
Venamis charged.
To Plagueis, lightsaber duels were tedious affairs, full of wasted emotion and needless acrobatics. Tenebrous, however, who had pronounced Plagueis a master of the art, had always enjoyed a good fight, and had clearly bequeathed that enthusiasm to his other trainee. For no sooner had the blades of their weapons clashed than Venamis began to bring the fight to him in unexpected ways, twirling his surprisingly limber body, tossing the lightsaber from hand to hand, mixing forms. At one point he leapt onto an overhanging greel branch and, when Plagueis severed it with a Force blow, hung suspended in the air—no mean feat in itself—and continued the fight, as if from high ground. Worse for Plagueis, Tenebrous had made Venamis an expert in Plagueis’s style, and so the Bith could not only anticipate but counter Plagueis’s every move. In short order, Venamis penetrated his defenses, searing the side of Plagueis’s neck.
The fact that Venamis was tossing his lightsaber from hand to hand and mixing forms, whilst imitating Plagueis' style implies that Plagueis himself had incorporated multiple forms into his personalised style, and also suggests that Plagueis, like his apprentice is confirmed to be, (Pertaining to whether Sidious is right-handed or left-handed with a lightsaber, he's ambidextrous. - Nick Gillard) ambidextrous himself. This is further evidenced by:
Instantly he called his own lightsaber to his left hand, igniting the blade...
Which shows that Plagueis didn't seem to worry what hand his lightsaber was in.
Realizing that the fight could go on indefinitely, he took himself out of his body and began working his material self like a marionette, no longer on the offensive, instigating attacks, but merely responding to Venamis’s lunges and strikes. Gradually the Bith understood that something had changed—that what up until then had been a fight to the death seemed suddenly like a training exercise. Exasperated, he doubled his efforts, fighting harder, more desperately, putting more power into each maneuver and blow, and in the end surrendering his precision and accuracy.
Here Plagueis was solely defending against Venamis, making it seem like a training exercis. Even when his opponent doubled his efforts, Plagueis was not struggling to hold off the Bith.
From this I believe Plagueis demonstrates a masterful knowledge of Form III. Also it's worthwhile to note that Tenebrous' enthusiasm for lightsaber combat passed onto Venamis, Plagueis found it tedious, yet the later beat the former in a fair one on one match, displaying Plagueis' tactical approach as being quite refined, as evidenced by how he outplayed his opponent.
Now, it's my belief that the rule of two Sith carried on the knowledge of both Jedi/Sith techniques from one to another. This infers the study of all 7 forms of lightsaber combat. Therefore, each Sith would master the forms of lightsaber combat as they knew them by sparring with their master. Whether they liked it or not can be disregarded.
This means that Plagueis learnt the 7 forms from Tenebrous, and obviously although master of all 7, had created his own personalised style, just like Vader used multiple forms in his own style, or Luke Skywalker.
To explain how the Sith of Bane's lineage became masters of lightsaber combat by sparring, just look at the timeframe of the prequel trilogy. This period had a lot of master lightsaber duelists. One of which is the one of the only level 9's that exist (Yoda). There's also Windu, Dooku, Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Drallig, Jinn etc. These were master swordsmen and some of the best in the Star Wars universe. But did these masters attain their level of mastery with the lightsaber through constant life or death combat with Sith/dark side adepts? No, they did so through sparring. This can also apply to the Bane line. Therefore it makes perfect sense why Sidious and in my theory Plagueis/Tenebrous became masters of the seven forms through sparring alone, as well as training exercises. They also used droids, which Vader uses to increase his lightsaber dueling skills as well.
Overall, I think that the evidence presented displays Plagueis as a master lightsaber combatant, who is a master of all forms and weapons and is ambidextrous. His apprentice showed the same feats, although I think Sidious was still probably better than Plagueis. According to James Luceno, Plagueis and Sidious were equal in power when the apprentice killed the master, even going as far as to state that Plagueis may have found a way to undermine his apprentice if it came to a fight. I think that suggests Sidious was equal or slightly stronger than his master.
Overall I would place Plagueis as at best a 9, probably slightly below Yoda and Sidious, or a high 8, above Windu.
This may be too generous towards Plagueis, and that's why I want to get your thoughts on this. Also this is my first thread, so sorry if I presented it in the wrong way. I'd like to see your thoughts on this.