DeinFreund I have a bit of experience with this sensation you're describing from my first time around climbing up the ladder. Randy, Drone, Manu, Kingstad, Sigero etc - the majority of these players were not active in 1v1 during my rise. But I can tell you who was active. Goddo. And I would be matched against him endlessly.
Rewind a little. Prior to Godde being my nemesis, and ultimately target, I had 2-3 other rivals that I always got matched with and simply could not beat. The hardest of them being
DrDoom. This is important step #1: If I ever wanted to beat him, I knew I had to queue up and practise / get beaten up no matter what. Every loss was a lesson. Eventually, I beat him and the real Sparkles congratulated me for this personal goal because the work I put in was apparent.
Fastforward back to Godde. I'm in the no2 spot on the ladder at this point, and it's before your system changes. Wins and losses are all like 1-3 elo - and Godde is currently 300 elo or so above me. At this point, the only thing I could think was that I would have to become so good that even the no1 player was irrelevant to my PERSONAL sense of improvement. I had to put him out of my mind, and concentrate on me. That's important step #2. Mastering all of your own weaknesses and focusing on your strengths. Mine was rovers.
I learned through endlessly being matched with him that there's a psychology to RTS games which Godde is aware of and exploits, show by (even recent) comments like "instilling fear" as a means to prevent raiding, allow greed etc. Important lesson #3: Don't be afraid. Godde is a good player, but is no more special in reality than anyone else - he's special in your head. Change him from a predator to Big Game Prey in your mind and you'll be empowered mentally to actually make defeating him into a reality. Go on the hunt.
Important lesson #4 was when I realized that a lot of his success came from extreme familiarity with 1v1, the maps, his opponents, the replays, and the current balance. He wavers when balance changes, just like anyone else. But he's done the map pool to death and has very refined, very rehearsed routines memorized that you're working against. The lesson is similar to stuff I said above, but you really need to learn your own rehearsed approaches to optimize your game on each map. Any tournament I've been in, one of which you won with me, I've spent hours rehearsing the maps beforehand and taking notes. You've even done that with me. Apply it here too.
The takeway from this is that if you REALLY care about the journey of overcoming Godde, you need to earn your ability to say that you've overcome him be surmounting all the work he's put in - by putting in your own work. You're a ridiculously good player, particularly in FFA where it's slower pace, but I've watched you on stream and how you play 1v1. You don't have the instinct of a predator turned on. Get beaten 20 times and learn the maps and 1v1 mentality / meta. Then once you know exactly what's up, turn that fucking instinct ON.
This advice also goes to anyone else who doesn't queue "because Godde". You're making it worse for eachother by denying yourselves the chance to be matchmade with eachother during his online time.
