If you told me these facts about a random video game I'd guess the following: - A high rank player can consistently execute a strategy that wins against the ma

If you told me these facts about a random video game I'd guess the following: - A high rank player can consistently execute a strategy that wins against the majority of players most of the time ("beats the meta") - The above has a counter strategy, but this strategy often fails against the majority of the players ("loses to the meta") When these two players meet, they go 50-50, but have very different results in tournaments. Alternatively, one player is generally bad but exploits a particularly hard to observe weakness in the first. I know nothing about fencing, but I suspect something similar is going on here.