Ahahahaha. You did not just bring up pokemon, did you? Yeah, um... I'm not sure you realize what you're getting yourself into.
Many of you probably already know this, or could at least have inferred it, but I used to be a competitive pokemon player. Luck is a huge part of that game. Ranging from critical hits (6.25% chance to do double damage on any move that hits), to additional status effects on some moves (most around 10%), to not all moves being 100% accurate (some of the biggest moves in competitive play only have 85% or 90% accuracy, despite players typically preferring to use 100% accurate moves when possible), right down to all moves dealing random amounts of damage (the end of the damage formula multiplies by a number between 85 and 100 and then divides by 100), not to mention what happens in the event of a speed tie and one pokemon randomly is chosen to go first based on a 50/50 chance. Luck abounds in the game.
You bring up the specific example of someone getting a critical hit against a blissey. In 9 out of 10 situations, if it was a special move, this won't matter. A move that does 80 damage normally to a pokemon that has 714 HP isn't going to be that much more dangerous if it suddenly does 160 damage, especially since healing reaches its maximum effectiveness the moment she gets below 50%, which is around 350 HP. Crits from physical moves will typically OHKO (one-hit-KO) the blissey, because most non-crit physical moves already will 2HKO it. In this case, well, it was a pretty stupid move switching a blissey in on a physical move, but you didn't deserve to lose your blissey to it. You could've easily brought it in on a special attacker later and healed while taking no more damage from it than an extra 14% of your health. Crits also have the ability to completely throw off what would otherwise be very calculated healing routines (ie. hit, hit, heal, hit, hit, heal, hit, hit, heal) which can allow pokemon to take on other pokemon which they normally should not be able to. Luck factors overshadow what would otherwise be smart play in many situations. Even if luck is statistically on your side, there are always the occurrences that can screw up what should have been an amazing play. The game can and does penalize players for playing well, which is ultimately flawed game design.
Pokemon players have accepted luck as part of the game, but there is a reason that pokemon is not nearly as competitive of a game as well... almost any fighter out there that exists (this is ignoring the fact a lot of people still consider the game "kiddy," which if you're referring to the actual games themselves, then I would actually agree with you). The game can be vastly changed in one turn off of completely random chance. One player can be holding the advantage for the entire game before the other gets a lucky critical hit on a key pokemon, opening the previously winning player up for an easy sweep at the hands of the player who by all rights should have lost. The players had no control over this, and the tide of the match shifted not because of player skill, but because of pure luck.
WHY WOULD WE WANT ANYTHING IN THIS GAME THAT COULD POSSIBLY CAUSE SOMETHING EVEN REMOTELY LIKE THAT TO HAPPEN?
Even in pokemon, many moves or held items that were believed to unnecessarily increase the luck present in the game were banned. Double team and minimize, which raise the user's evasion, were banned. OHKO moves, such as horn drill or fissure, which had only a 30% chance to land, but were a guaranteed KO against anything if they did connect, were also banned.
A major difference between pokemon and smash, though, is that pokemon doesn't have tournaments with money on the line. In fact, pokemon barely has any tournaments at all. It has ladder rankings, yes, but anyone familiar with a ladder format knows that they reward good play over the long term more than anything else. Random factors just plain do not belong in a game where the standard format is best 2 out of 3, double elimination. It's too easy for random chance to completely alter the results of an entire tournament bracket if it shows up at an inopportune time.
It's not a matter of learning how to "adapt" to a new situation. It's a matter of players being unfairly advantaged or disadvantaged due to a reason besides the inherent character matchup and stage combination. Random effects do not provide a reasonable way to test players' ability to adapt to "new situations," since they rarely affect both players equally.
