I disagree. Random is pretty much the ONLY thing that makes NPC battles anything other than faceroll easy. Even WITH the rule, I still win over half my battles against NPCs.

Because NPCs draw upon a very small pool of cards and because their AI is so predictable, it's easy to build a counterdeck and predict their strategies for easy win after easy win. Random is the only way that you'll ever have to STRUGGLE for your win. When I farmed Gaius from the Imperial and Lightning from Tataru, the former was a boring grind and the latter was actually kinda fun, no question.

And, for those who complain that it's just too hard when you wind up with four 1-star cards against the NPC's powerhouse deck, remember you only need to take ONE more card than the opponent does. Lay out your 1-star cards in such a way that when the computer inevitably takes one, you can take it back with another 1-star. Don't bother trying to take the computer's cards; you won't be able to unless you're very lucky. Focus on taking back the cards the computer takes from you. You can remain evenly matched against the computer until the end, when you can drop the one "power" card you're usually issued in a random. And, when your "power" card isn't powerful? You'll generally still be able to manage a draw.

This strategy actually works well even in non-random decks, against NPCs that have decks full of multiple 4- and 5-star cards while you're stuck with one 5-star and the rest 3-star. Play out your 3-stars so that you can take them back when the computer trounces them, and save your trump to tip the balance.