Key Design Idea:

Superiority

Sagat’s character ability lets him play cards face-up when initiating an attack to gain increased speed. This is mainly useful for the Normal Attacks, where breaking the speed curve on-demand can make many attacks unbeatable.

Sagat’s other attacks, such as the Tiger Uppercut play with this paradigm a bit. The Armor is great if your opponent is going faster, but if you raise the speed, you increase the range of attacks which could feasibly retaliate against the attack.