[ryanscott]

I've not played a 'real' fighting game at competition level for years, my last being Soul Calibur 2, and even then it was only really beyond-casual in the sense that there were a few of us that dedicated a decent amount of time to familiarising ourselves with the nuances of a few characters. We were pretty good anyway.

I'm hesitant to bring this up here at the risk of being ridiculed, but the only game I've taken 'seriously' for the past few years is Smash Bros (and please don't think i'm suggesting that it can compare with the likes of SF or MvC). Nobody plays Street Fighter or owns an arcade stick where I'm from, so forgive me.

Anyway, from my experience with fighting games, I'm under the impression that there are always a few nigh-on-impossible match-ups like the one you're talking about with Phoenix, where, as p1d40n3 suggests, the match is all but over at the character select screen providing the stronger team can avoid executional errors. I assume these match-ups are the reason that some characters are seldom seen in tournament play.

Having never played MvC3, let alone at a high-level, I'm probably wrong to comment on the player-error thing, but it does happen often in other games.