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[GendoIkari]

Reading through this gave me a thought:

I generally agree that I'd rather randomize my starting hand, but it does sometimes feel unfair when the first player gets the better option of 5/2 or 4/3 (when it's obvious which of those is better), and the 2nd player does not.

One thing we did try was that the 2nd player gets the same hands as the 1st player, but now I have a new idea: what of the 2nd player got the choice? they could choose the same hand OR they could choose to shuffle. That could give them a slight advantage and possible balance the already existing first player advantage (though in many games, it may not make any difference if they shuffle and get the same thing anyway).

In practice, I may never actually do it, but in theory it's interesting to at least consider.

when i was first taught to play back in... 2010? the person teaching me had a house rule that you started with your whole deck in hand and did your first two turns as one (with two buys).

We used to play that way as well. We wouldn’t even take turns; everyone would just grab 2 cards adding up to cost 7 or less and shuffle them into their starting deck. Of course this was before Nomad Camp.

[emtzalex]

Another thing I would point out is that luck dependence and strategy aren't entirely separate aspects of the game. At times, the decision of whether or not (or to what extent) to make your success dependent on luck is itself a strategic question. A very clear example of this is laid out in the strategy article for Treasure Map:

Because you can’t open with a pair of Treasure Maps, at a minimum, it will take at least three turns to get 2 Maps, another 2 to hit a reshuffle, and at that point you have to rely on luck . . . Your odds of hitting before the third reshuffle without help are a mere 29 percent . . . Now, 29% is pretty bad in a 2-player game.  But Treasure Map is one of those cards that subtly gets better with more players: you don’t want to be winning just 29% in a two-player game, but 29% looks pretty darn good when you’re sitting in fourth position in a 4-player game against three people who are all better than you.

Now, Treasure Map is the most blatant example where a player has a choice whether or not to make luck a bigger element of the game, but there are other, subtler ways it can happen. On the first discard with Storeroom (assuming you are playing it terminally), the question of whether or not to discard Silvers depends in part on the probability that they will be replaced by a Gold/Platinum (i.e. how good of a bet it is), but also on all of the surrounding circumstances: Will hitting $8 mean you win the game? Will failing to hit it mean you lose?