Simply put, it depends on the game. MvC2 completely screws you over for picking low-tier. I find that the more modern games are much more forgiving (barring SFxT) for picking who you like vs. who’s the best.
As someone said : Pick one, get good. It can take a while before deciding on who you really enjoy playing though. Out of the four you mentioned, whittle it down to a single one and then play that guy over and over and over again. At least, for single-character games.
The key to landing deadly mix-ups isn’t about guessing what your opponent is going to do, it’s about observing their tendencies, and seeing how their play style changes depending on what the current situation is. Do they play super conservative, but go for more aggressive moves when they’re in block stun? Do they tend to lame it out with a life lead, or do they always get in your face regardless of who’s winning or not? Do they tend to go for more reversals in the beginning of the round, or when they’re losing? Safe mix-ups are great ways to test this type of stuff. You can test how well they’re about to crouch-tech, whether or not they ALWAYS go for the crouch tech, or if they just simply block, or if they mash the ever-living hell out of their best reversal.
You tend to notice this with grapplers. Talented grapplers don’t always go for the grab, they train their opponents into simply blocking first, before doing it.
the only way to be successful with low tiers is to be a fucking maniac genius at fighting games. if youre a maniac genius then you wouldnt be asking this question to begin with.
or you could quit wondering and figure out how you can be that maniac genius guy.
another problem low tiers pose occasionally is that they lack the proper tools to be good in the game theyre in, adn that leads to PERSONAL DEFICITS OF THE PLAYER. example: in cvs2 king cant combo into super, so if you became “good” with king, youd have a huge PERSONAL DEFICIT of never learning how to land a super correctly.
Caps Lock harder, please? 
He’s trying to say that it’s not improbable that low tiers can win, which everyone should know there are really no “locked in” matches based on the match-ups alone.
I guess how much I know about Street Fighter is really showing but isn’t Rufus like ridiculously safe on divekick and that’s what EVERYONE does?
Rufus is good, yeah. Not the best though. Not in AE, not in 2012. But I have to reiterate what Hatman said: It depends completely on the game. In some the tiers are very compressed, like in SSF4 2012 where you can pick just about whoever you like, put in the work and do well enough. Clicking with the character is far more important than it’s Tier list placement - not to say that it isn’t smart to pick Seth if you like, say, Guy and Seth and like them roughly as much as so on. The tiers are very compressed but picking the best character in your most liked list is still almost always a good idea.
Then there’s games like Marvel 2 where you basically pick God tier or lose. In those games you pick God Tier, period. I can’t speak for SFxT or Marvel (I find both supremely boring and do not follow them), but SF4 is a pick what you love game.
Depends on how good you are.
Wondering if you are screwed going into it implies you think you might be, and that isn’t the mindset you want to shoot for.
its mahvel there is no low tier only low tier players that like to blame the game to compensate for lack of skill
Rufus is safe on block depending on where you place your divekicks with him. It’s not like pre-patch SFxT where he can divekick on your head and still be in an advantageous situation. He also has a fair share of pretty bad match-ups in AE(Guile, Sagat, and Zangief are probably the most annoying for him).
There is also Buktooth in CVS2 who didn’t pick the top tier characters and still did well in tournaments.
IMO just play with top tier u like playing the most , personally I dont go for top tiers but every character I like even before a game comes out ends up being top tier (I usually go for the cool looking characters).
Just going back to the Hakan point, with Hakan he’s a character you have to go through the losses to get to the wins, even if your fundamentals are good, there’s a much longer learning process.
As for Hakan being 100% gimmicks, well that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard.
Use the character you enjoy playing, that’s how I see it.
The more you enjoy the character, the more effort you’re likely to put in improving.
Keep using Hakan and whatever low tier characters you’re feeling but you should have a sub high tier (or at least upper mid-tier) character that you work with too. You should be able to find one that you like and fits your style. That way, if you are constantly getting slammed with Hakan and feel like he is no longer an option, then you can switch to your sub and you won’t have to start from scratch learning their mechanics.
If you are really trying to be tournament viable then you are going to have to accept that even though these games are amazing, they still have limited mechanics. They are programmed to work a specific way and the low tier characters are programmed, albeit unintentionally (hopefully), to have less options than upper tier characters. These are just facts. We aren’t talking about MMA where the underdog always has a glimmer of hope of winning because they have nigh unlimited options. It’s a game where the programmers made limited options because they had to. Most of the newer games are balanced enough that it just takes more work to win consistently with lower tier characters, but its kind of up to you if you want to put in the work. You’ll probably find out pretty quick if you are going to be the low tier underdog that womps the upper tiers.
That being said, these games are all pretty new and people acting like tier lists are set in stone is silly. MvC2 is 10 years old. The tier list on that game is pretty much locked down. People have played the game every which way. The people making these new tier lists can figure out much of the game mechanics within seconds but there are still possibilities some of these low tier characters have some techniques and glitches no one thought to utilize.
I’m not a competitive player though. I just love fighting games and troll enough to feel like I have something to add. Take it with a grain of salt.
General rule is that you should have 100% confidence in the characters you use. It’s perfectly fine to use low tier if you think they are underrated and you have clear plans to win with these characters. If you however think that those characters do indeed suck but still insist on using them then you have no rights to complain when the L appears.
yes.
[media=youtube]vkPVDI751Ys[/media]
You’re screwed with anyone if you can’t do well with the characters. If you just like them or insist on being a “low tier hero” and they don’t necessarily fit your playstyle, you’re screwed.
Low tier characters require bigger hurdles to play at a competitive level. With UMvC3 and SSF4:AE:2012, the games are balanced fairly well where there really aren’t any “useless” characters (except maybe Phoenix Wright in UMvC3). A bigger problem you’ll run into is playing a low tier character with a high execution barrier. For Hakan, I know that to play him beyond gimmick level requires you to learn non plinkable one frame links when oiled up among other things. For UMvC3, Iron Man is probably one of the hardest characters in the game to use effectively, the execution on his combos alone is pretty difficult.
So basically picking a low tier character that is also difficult to play will mean you need to spend more time in training mode than the average person before you can get to a comfortable level where you can use the character decently.
If you know the match-up play it. Usually If my character loses the match-up by theory, I’ve played so much to feel comfortable to opt-out of counter picking. It’s not a bad thing to have a pocket top tier team or character though.
Some match-ups are just too difficult to deal with. In a tournament setting, you always have the ability to realize why you lost and adjust for the next weekly or whatnot.
Then you can decide whether or not you should use someone else in that match-up or if your characters have the tools to deal with it effectively.