Yeah, offline, my friends use a variety of ways to pick cards, and it's rarely totally random (e.g., random set but everyone gets one veto, everyone picks 2-3 cards they want, one person curates a game, random set but we adjust based on judgment). Partially because it takes so much longer to play offline, that you want to make sure it's an interesting set, and one that people aren't going to hate. For awhile, we said, no curse giving attacks unless there's at least one reaction card or trashing card (because if there wasn't, those games usually took forever and weren't that fun). But, online, I don't care as much because the games are quicker, and if the game is not particularly interesting or fun, it usually only lasts 10 min.
I think it's totally fine to decline an auto-match game once because you don't feel like playing a boring set or a set with pirate ship or whatever. But if you have so many "no" criteria that you're declining several games in a row (particularly with the same person), then I would suggest that you just propose a game and put in your criteria. It's not a big deal, but it does delay the other person from starting a game (which is basically the problem automatch was trying to fix, as I understand it -- it took too long to get a game started).