When I played faust I only knew like two of his combos the tornado and the item toss I'm pretty sure I only won any games was because no one else played Faust so no one knew how to deal with him When I got on a new level my first opponent was another Faust but one who actually knew how to play him
I think I'd see a similar thing happen with Voldo in SoulCal. People that used him were prone to repetitive methods and people focus too much on pattern recognition, so they often won without much difficulty.
Part of why I pay less and less attention to meta over the years in games is I lose sharpness in learning the game because I'm focusing on preconceived notions rather than taking it all in. I have general strategies going into games, primarily glass cannon builds, but then go from there.