To elaborate on my original post, what people fail to realize is that it's not just about how high the "skill ceiling" is on a game like Hearthstone. Yes, if you are some godlike player you may achieve a win rate of 70% on ladder while even the other pros manage to only get around 65/68%. And even then, depending on the deck you play, there may still be a little more percentage you can squeeze out of becoming even better.
The thing is, you can still just lose a game to a random rank 5 player who simply drew better than you, or simply had a deck which happened to be good against yours(and may well be an otherwise terrible choice in the meta).
What you SHOULD be evaluating is how often the above scenario happens, and to what extent can you "prevent it" by being good at the game. If you take a look at statistics, or actually try playing the game at a somewhat high level yourself, you will quickly come to the conclusion that the higher you get to the upper skill rankings of HS, the less you will be able to distinguish yourself from the rest. At top 100 legend in particular, people very rarely make misplays, and said misplays rarely impact the game's result. This just leads any sane person to conclude that this game is not ruled by skill(even more so at the level that tournament players play in), and people who pretend otherwise, are either tournament players/organizers trying to defend the legitimecy their day job(rightfully so) or clueless rank 5-10 players who believe they understand a thing about this game.
Sorry but IMO you simply cant consider HS as e-sport.. Dont know exact definition of word "esport", but word sport indicate that it is something that you need to train, need to improve your skill and in every real sport.. EVERY REAL SPORT your success depends on your SKILL and skill of your teammates.. in REAL SPORTS there is no LUCK or RNG that fucks your years of improving (yes there are referees that can) but games like FIFA, Rocket League, CS etc are on 95 about skill as was said... HS is a little bit different type of game. For example In any e-sport game is not possible to "put yogg and pray". Many from you are comparing HS to poker.. but poker is also not sport or esport, or?
Sorry but IMO you simply cant consider HS as e-sport.. Dont know exact definition of word "esport", but word sport indicate that it is something that you need to train, need to improve your skill and in every real sport.. EVERY REAL SPORT your success depends on your SKILL and skill of your teammates.. in REAL SPORTS there is no LUCK or RNG that fucks your years of improving (yes there are referees that can) but games like FIFA, Rocket League, CS etc are on 95 about skill as was said... HS is a little bit different type of game. For example In any e-sport game is not possible to "put yogg and pray". Many from you are comparing HS to poker.. but poker is also not sport or esport, or?
Poker isn't considered a sport, but the world series of poker does exist.
While I agree with the majority of your point, let's be real here. On every single game and sport you mentioned the luck factor is still way above 5%, particularly football. It is still by no means big enough that you can discredit them as esports/sports, but it's still there.
Hell, I'm portuguese and I will be the first to admit that Portugal was NOT the best team in the last Euro, even though it came out on top.
To elaborate on my original post, what people fail to realize is that it's not just about how high the "skill ceiling" is on a game like Hearthstone. Yes, if you are some godlike player you may achieve a win rate of 70% on ladder while even the other pros manage to only get around 65/68%. And even then, depending on the deck you play, there may still be a little more percentage you can squeeze out of becoming even better.
The thing is, you can still just lose a game to a random rank 5 player who simply drew better than you, or simply had a deck which happened to be good against yours(and may well be an otherwise terrible choice in the meta).
What you SHOULD be evaluating is how often the above scenario happens, and to what extent can you "prevent it" by being good at the game. If you take a look at statistics, or actually try playing the game at a somewhat high level yourself, you will quickly come to the conclusion that the higher you get to the upper skill rankings of HS, the less you will be able to distinguish yourself from the rest. At top 100 legend in particular, people very rarely make misplays, and said misplays rarely impact the game's result. This just leads any sane person to conclude that this game is not ruled by skill(even more so at the level that tournament players play in), and people who pretend otherwise, are either tournament players/organizers trying to defend the legitimecy their day job(rightfully so) or clueless rank 5-10 players who believe they understand a thing about this game.
Sorry but IMO you simply cant consider HS as e-sport.. Dont know exact definition of word "esport", but word sport indicate that it is something that you need to train, need to improve your skill and in every real sport.. EVERY REAL SPORT your success depends on your SKILL and skill of your teammates.. in REAL SPORTS there is no LUCK or RNG that fucks your years of improving (yes there are referees that can) but games like FIFA, Rocket League, CS etc are on 95 about skill as was said... HS is a little bit different type of game. For example In any e-sport game is not possible to "put yogg and pray". Many from you are comparing HS to poker.. but poker is also not sport or esport, or?