Angrel-San
[10] Knight
Well, there are many examples from the tournament scenes of various fighters over the years where players have pulled off upset victories against more favoured opponents simply by utilizing a character that was overwhelmingly agreed to be a low tier character; sometimes it's about the particular match-up, but other times its just about presenting the opposition with a scenario they have not trained for. There's also the question of one's comfort with the style itself: there's nothing from preventing a player from recognizing that a given character is objectively being lower tier, but still presenting them with tools they feel a connection with and which they can eek victories out of--again, particularly if you can blindside your opponent with something they don't know how to reliably and consistently counter. But regardless of the reasons in particular cases, this is a known phenomena that high-level players have open discussed using, and which has occasionally led to some big moments at tournaments.
Correct on all points.