But what's the national sport of Canada? Hockey I think? It is not 1vs1, 5vs5, 6vs 6 or what? But yet, "the Others" were first focusing on 1vs1.
I mean the guy explained this to you had a valid point, and a good intention for sure, but i think he is "misguided" but the good intentions.
Checking most competitive games the last 11 years, what I can see is, after people get better and better they tend to isolate the factors that they cannot control, as skill-wise they become more "equal".
And what someone cannot control? Luck and/or randomness, the RNG elements as LoL players used to say.
What can be an RNG factor? In a moba is the critical hit ratio, which is based on a % RNG, so it is randomness or luck.
In footy games, the MC/FuT pro players tend to say that RNG factor is the AI controlled teamates, the headers, the weather, the sunlight, etc.
So companies take the feedback and try to eliminate RNG factors. Everything seems OK, but the problem in this is, the online players share the same gameplay with offline players.
So either the first group or the latter is usually upset by something. For example until pes 2017, that the secondary press was working as always, people used tooam that everyome controls the CF and defends only by pressing

. After 2018,that secondary press became broken, being now more hit-or-miss than secondary press, nobody complained again.
Even my favorite trading card game, which is 1vs1 by nature, is so much influenced by this anti-luck trend.
Back to topic, this 1vs1 sound logic in theory for such type of mass multi-player games, but cannot apply in practice.
Especially Teamsports like football and basketball, except for class, Form, momentum, mentality, are still based also in luck. IE, Steven Gerrard or John Terry is taking a crucial penalty kick, he slips and misses the PK.