MK9 was my first fighting game that I decided to learn so I just picked characters that I liked and/or suited my playstyle (Smoke, Kano, Sektor, Jade, Liu Kang, Jax, Kenshi, Baraka)
In TTT2 I still picked characters that I liked even if I did acknowledge tier lists. Sure, Heihachi/Kazuya/Bruce are top tier, but Bryan is mid tier, has obvious weaknesses, yet I still play him because he suits my playstyle and is fun to play. The rest of the cast is boring and I don't like the other 50 characters in the game lol.
When I get my copy of IGAU I will hop in the lab first with at least Deathstroke, Doomsday, Ares and Nightwing because they seem to have the tools that I find to my liking.
As for my thoughts on the subject of tier whoring are that people are not gonna do well with top characters they don't "feel" or feel instantly connected with when they hit the lab and see what tools they have and their mind goes blank, because they don't immediately feel attuned to how the character is supposed to be played. Instead, when you hit the lab with a character for the first time in a fighting game you should get an instant boner and your mind should start racing with thoughts of different possibilities and ways you can use the character. When you are truly passionate about a character you will cheer for the top players in tournament who play the same character, you will care about maximizing damage, you will care about new tech and setups and you will consequently become a better player of the character of your choice. If you just pick a top tier char and watch how he is supposed to be played before playing the char yourself, you are just copying everything and you will be predictable since the most used top tier characters are the ones tournament players will study the most on how to beat them and you will not catch anyone by surprise in a tournament. For example: Everyone and their mother plays Lars in TTT2 because he is easy to use, has all the tools you could hope for and can be paired with anybody. You fight or watch one Lars and you have seen them all, it's the exact same moves and flowcharting for everybody. Perfect Legend invented Kung Lao and everybody who counterpicks Kenshi with Kung Lao in a tourney is just practically a cheap knock off and tries to play like PL or at least this is what I see, since I don't play the character myself or care about him at all (sorry guize). What I am trying to say is that if you just tier whore and counter pick and winning is all that matters to you, you will never play any character at 100%. When the flowcharting fails you need to bust out some risky stuff, something you figured out on your own in clutch situations when you see the opening to win the match and this is what separates a true character loyalist from someone who is just copying everything from some top player. If the worst your character has is a 6-4 disadvantage you should just grind through it and not resort to tier whoring/counter picking.
