Punished

Imagine a game like rock paper scissors. Tell me, which is the best sign? This is a ridiculous question, because no hand in this game has an advantage. But then, how is it that certain signs beat other signs? The results of who wins and who loses comes down to a showdown. This kind of "matchup luck" is more commonly called yomi luck. A less extreme example of yomi luck is Starcraft, or any other real-time strategy game. Many strategies fall flat on their back if the opponent, in the safety of the "fog of war" (limited vision), happened to pick a countering strategy. Of course, in Starcraft you can play "gambits" where you sacrifice a worker to scout the opponent's base. But yomi luck is nevertheless a huge part of Starcraft, which is actually considered a quite luckless game. League of Legends also has the element of yomi luck, in that some of the best champions often have a disgusting counter that is otherwise not too viable, and that by nature makes that counter a viable champion. Weird metagame stuff. Magic: the Gathering is probably the greatest example of a game dominated by yomi luck, not only in deck matchups but also in calculations of play lines where you can instantly lose if the opponent is holding a certain card and you have to play around these "mind games". (In piano, I can argue that yomi luck comes into effect in competitions where playing certain pieces in contrast to certain opponent pieces gives you a slight advantage in adjudication, but this is very convoluted.)