This is actually somewhat common in epee competitions (i.e. I've seen it multiple times in national level tournaments), because they are high variance and defen

This is actually somewhat common in epee competitions (i.e. I've seen it multiple times in national level tournaments), because they are high variance and defense is hugely advantaged. It's also a reasonable strategy because a tournament can run up to 9 rounds of single elimination, so committing to this strategy means you expend only 1 minute of effort per round, instead of 9.