Most games use ranked match-making to resolve this. If you're in Bronze, compete trying to get into Silver, etc.. My experience is that you have to be extremely bad to get stuck at the bottom of Bronze in most modern games.
Yeah, you'll lose a few matches as the ranking system figures out where to place you, but the cost of competition is unfortunately the mortifying ordeal of learning that you are not in fact the best in the world.
I slowly climbed up the ranks of the "Go" ladder over the course of playing 1-2 games a week for a couple of years. "Play a lot" doesn't require "play a lot TODAY". There's a ton of games that have stable, long-term communities where you can reasonably expect that game to be around in 5-10 years.
Yeah, you'll lose a few matches as the ranking system figures out where to place you, but the cost of competition is unfortunately the mortifying ordeal of learning that you are not in fact the best in the world.