The best example of randomness in any competitive game that I know of is Faust in Guilty Gear. It’s not just good, it’s excellent. If you could control which items you get, then it’s all about setplay. It’s all about practicing forever in training mode. Happily, it is not like that.
Because it’s random, it’s all about improvisation. One of the items is very very good, so you want to throw items a lot to get that one, but along the way you get whatever you get and you just have to make due. Based on the items you happen to get, the positioning, the timing, the spacing of it all you have to make on-the-spot decisions to make the most of it.
This isn’t just a guess or hypothesis either. From 10+ years of Faust, we know that it’s excellent, leads to great dynamics, and skill-tests the interesting kind of skill (improvisation) instead of the training mode kind of skill. So it perfectly aligns with what Fantasy Strike should have. Further, we don’t have to guess if Lum’s version is fun and has good dynamics either. Lum has been implemented in a placeholder state (real gameplay but bad looking art) for many months and it all works just how I’d hope. He’s one of the most fun characters because a lot of improvisational decisions are asked of you so there’s a lot to think about, and a wider range of situations happen when playing him than other characters. It’s pretty great.