yeah nothing you could have done on that game

btw i totally agree with you chris, no-luck cycle as it is now is crappy and flawed, especially in 1v1s (i think it works much better in team games).
I tried to think of ways to improve that, and I didn't find anything that could be better than this - the only thing i would change is a dialog popping up when you hit commit the first turn which asks you if you want to be first or last; if both you and your opponent want to play last on a 1v1 game you'll have to wait until the last second before boot, and the one who clicked "Begin" first has second order.

Fizzer asked for opinions about no luck cycle a while ago, and if i remember correctly only Gui brought up a suggestion that looked well balanced, but it made the picking stage way harder (and it wasn't so immediate to understand)

Well, if the template was more balanced, then first pick would not be as much of a game breaker. I don't care how you decide first move (coin flip could be used), it still should not decide the game. The issue isn't with who has first pick, it is that first pick should not decide the game (especially not a coin game).

small earth is not balanced anyway, but I get why we still use it (risk lore). I'd rather see some tweaks though. Like maybe no wasteland and 3 picks (allowing for a combo somewhere else)? Not sure.

Don't play Small Earth 1v1 coin matches. I suspect that Fizzer deliberately set up Small Earth 1v1 so that it would be harder for players to break even on it in terms of coin-making. I've managed to have a modest success on Earth 1v1 coin games, but on Small Earth I find myself losing money in the long run. Perhaps that is only because I am better at hustling on Earth 1v1, perhaps not. This suspicion is reinforced by the fact there is no 80-coin Earth 1v1.

Exactly, why are there no 80 coin Earth games? 10 coins is too little.

Fizzer´s Topic about move order and Coin-game Cycles
https://www.warlight.net/Forum/84028-s-talk-luck-move-order

Quite an interesting reading. You can attack this problem on many corners. Easiest as mentioned already would be to play balanced maps: then it only comes down to order cycle not First pick! Even earth is not that balanced - and much of depending where the wastelands are there happens only one way victory (although variations of countering) can reduce it etc.