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[Leafsnail]

Well that's clearly not true, games less Chess and Go have no luck but such incredible strategic depth that there can be no definitive answers on how to play.

[Reelya]

Diplomacy has no cards (or dice) either, and is all about bluff. In any game with 3 or more players you can pretend to ally with one person but be really planning to stab them in the back.

Many games radically change between two players and 3 players. e.g. monopoly, settlers of catan. With two players, their trading mechanics don't kick in, and they're just dice-rolling contests.

Then again, I think random chance is necessary for there to be a certain balance. If everything was static, there would be just 'One Perfect Way', and it would suck all of the fun out of games.
Like how most RPG's have damage be an X - Y figure, and include crits; just because the luck element spices up the game.

Well, chess doesn't have luck, and there's definitely no agreement on a perfect sequence of moves. Chess has been superbly balanced over 1000 years though. I'm kinda interested now in possible links between chaos theory and games like chess now. Chess is so well-balanced it's on a knife edge and deterministic yet entirely unpredictable. If you change any of the rules, it just deteriorates into a much more predictable, lesser game. These qualities sounds a lot like chaotic systems theory, where on the cusp between two stable states, you get this chaotic behavior system.

[timferius]

Quarto! is my 2 player thinking game I go to. Largely because it's easy to teach/learn, and takes a lot less time than chess.
Also ya, if you look in to a lot of the Euro style games, most of them don't have any random elements. Terra Mystica is a pretty thick game I played recently with no cards, no dice. It's all about shuffling your cubes/discs/people etc. properly, and blocking your opponent where neccesary.

[Sergarr]

Most of those don't have luck involved at all, and rely much more on bluff and long-term strategy

How can you have bluff without cards?

Then again, I think random chance is necessary for there to be a certain balance. If everything was static, there would be just 'One Perfect Way', and it would suck all of the fun out of games.
Like how most RPG's have damage be an X - Y figure, and include crits; just because the luck element spices up the game.

If the game is even moderately complex, finding a "one perfect way" is not going to be easy.

For instance, we know the equation for gravity, but despite that, the three-body problem is still a thing. The Great Ferma Theory is something which can be expressed really easily, but proving it requires to go through some serious hoola-hoops. And so on - as long as your system is complex enough, solving it is not going to be easy, and even if you solve it, the winning algorithm would be extremely complex and basically impossible for a human to carry out without technical assistance.

Physics is full of simple rules that result in extremely complex systems. I don't believe that we can't do the same for our games.

[Leafsnail]

Well, chess doesn't have luck, and there's definitely no agreement on a perfect sequence of moves. Chess has been superbly balanced over 1000 years though. I'm kinda interested now in possible links between chaos theory and games like chess now. Chess is so well-balanced it's on a knife edge and deterministic yet entirely unpredictable. If you change any of the rules, it just deteriorates into a much more predictable, lesser game.

Well I mean, it's based on an old Indian game and there are both Chinese and Japanese versions of it too, so to some degree I think it's fair to say it was a compelling game even before those changes.  Everyone seemed to agree the old game was too slow and changed the rules to make it more exciting (broadly speaking the Europeans made all the pieces way more powerful, the Chinese introduced cannons and forced the king to stay inside a little box and the Japanese introduced the rule where you can play the pieces you capture).

[Tack]

Intriguing.

Now that I think about it, there isn't too much luck to the typical MOBA, either.

[Leafsnail]

Oh right and if we're discussing skill in M:tG there are some videos I should share.
Bonfire of the Damned
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDJTCYEg3Tc
Ignite Memories
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmB0nlpz_2Y

[Bauglir]

Ignite Memories
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmB0nlpz_2Y

Welp. I'll never do anything quite that beautiful.

[Leafsnail]

I like how well Chapin takes it.

[Tack]

Does ignite go off however many cards they have in their hand, or do they just pick three?

[Leafsnail]

It's the whole hand, they both just happened to have three.
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=109756

[Sergarr]

Ignite Memories
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmB0nlpz_2Y

Something tells me that this deck is OP, seeing as both players were using it.

[Leafsnail]

Indeed it was, Rite of Flame (and it's best replacement, Seething Song) are now banned so the deck is dead.  It seems like it wasn't some kind of widespread phenomenon though, it was just 3 players who came up with the deck and took the tournament by storm (heh).

e: although Chapin went on to lose to Doran the Siege Tower in the finals.

[Tack]

Although I'm curious about the 'skill' part when he tanked 5 ignite memories in a row simply because of the dice throws.

[Bauglir]

Although I'm curious about the 'skill' part when he tanked 5 ignite memories in a row simply because of the dice throws.

I suspect that was the point - that luck is actually very relevant, indeed, even at the highest levels of skill.