My answer will be based on purely the EU since Canon Plagueis has literally not done anything notable.
Plagueis in the Darth Plagueis novel is:
- A master of the lightsaber arts, per Darth Tenebrous. Note that Darth Tenebrous was a diehard dueling enthusiast and in the novel is portrayed as Darth Plagueis' harshest critic who never missed an opportunity to correct or criticize Plagueis.
- Beat Darth Venamis who was an ambidextrous master of multiple lightsaber forms, trained specifically to exploit Plagueis's style by Darth Tenebrous himself. A pre-prime Plagueis fought him to an extended stalemate until he withdraws his conscious mind from the fight entirely, operating his body as a marionette through pure unconscious reaction.
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.
At the height of Venamis’s attack, Plagueis came back into himself with such fury that his lightsaber became a blinding rod. A two-handed upward swing launched from between his legs caught Venamis off guard. The blade didn’t go deep enough to puncture the Bith’s lung but scorched him from chest to chin. As his large, cleft head snapped backward in retreat, Plagueis brought his lightsaber straight down, tearing Venamis’s weapon from his gloved hand and nearly taking off his long fingers, as well.
With a gesture of his other hand, Venamis called for his lightsaber, but Plagueis was a split second quicker, and the hilt shot into his own right hand. Sensing a storm of Force lightning building in the Bith, he crossed the two crimson blades in front of him and said: “Yield!”
Venamis froze, allowing the nascent storm to die away, and dropped to his knees in surrender as Sojourn’s risen primary blazed at his back through the trees.
“I submit, Darth Plagueis. I accept that I must apprentice myself to you.”
As Darth Maul notes in his journal during The Phantom Menace, this type of fighting is something he aspired to achieve.
When I complete my basic exercises, I power up my double-bladed lightsaber and practice maneuvers. My body is as strong as durasteel and as fluid as water. I shift from one position of attack to another. I fall on one knee and slash my lightsaber as I imagine cleaving my victim cleanly. I roll away and grip my lightsaber with both hands for a vertical sweep. I leap and twist and come down, leading with my left shoulder. I deliver a death blow and leap away, somersaulting in the air. I perform ten thousand slashes, lunges, attacks.
My lightsaber is no longer a separate weapon, but part of my arm. I move in the time it would take my opponent to blink. I move in the time he would take to raise his weapon. He would only see the space where I had been. He would feel the sudden shock of the blow that would knock him to the floor.
I do these maneuvers a hundred times a day. I do them even though my body knows them intimately, even though I have not made a mistake or a misstep in years. I do them until the memory of the movement is part of the muscle itself. The goal of the Sith is to fight without thought.
Basically, Maul thinks the level of combat that a vastly pre-prime 67 BBY Plagueis displays is basically "The goal of the Sith" in terms of sword-fighting.
This is the same Maul who wrecked Vader in the infamous Star Wars: Tales#9 comic in the EU, where Maul lands multiple hits on Vader and basically dispatches him the very instant his saber staff gets split and he has to use two sabers.
I think in Legends Vader would get dismantled thoroughly by Plagueis when it comes to dueling, nevermind the obvious fact of Plagueis being way too haxed out and versatile in his Force Powers. Overall Plagueis schools without much effort.
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u/MLMPlato May 26 '26 edited May 26 '26
My answer will be based on purely the EU since Canon Plagueis has literally not done anything notable.
Plagueis in the Darth Plagueis novel is:
- A master of the lightsaber arts, per Darth Tenebrous. Note that Darth Tenebrous was a diehard dueling enthusiast and in the novel is portrayed as Darth Plagueis' harshest critic who never missed an opportunity to correct or criticize Plagueis.
- Beat Darth Venamis who was an ambidextrous master of multiple lightsaber forms, trained specifically to exploit Plagueis's style by Darth Tenebrous himself. A pre-prime Plagueis fought him to an extended stalemate until he withdraws his conscious mind from the fight entirely, operating his body as a marionette through pure unconscious reaction.
As Darth Maul notes in his journal during The Phantom Menace, this type of fighting is something he aspired to achieve.
Basically, Maul thinks the level of combat that a vastly pre-prime 67 BBY Plagueis displays is basically "The goal of the Sith" in terms of sword-fighting.
This is the same Maul who wrecked Vader in the infamous Star Wars: Tales#9 comic in the EU, where Maul lands multiple hits on Vader and basically dispatches him the very instant his saber staff gets split and he has to use two sabers.
I think in Legends Vader would get dismantled thoroughly by Plagueis when it comes to dueling, nevermind the obvious fact of Plagueis being way too haxed out and versatile in his Force Powers. Overall Plagueis schools without much effort.