You have to remember that carlsen plays these for fun. The last tournament he spent the best part of half of it playing joke openings that were very fun to watch but put him at a disadvantage. He was one or two seconds away from beating Zhigalko_Sergei with his transvestite opening. I think he took the first or second one seriously and ended up ~80 points ahead of second place.
I prefer the way lichess matches players to the swiss system as in every tournament you will have multiple games between almost everyone in the top 10. Magnus played penguin, rebeccaharris, zhigalko and the other top players around five or maybe more times in the course of the tournament. You cannot finish top without beating those chasing you, it is a fair system. The first game depends on rating but after that it does not, so at most you would get one game that was "easier".
I prefer the way lichess matches players to the swiss system as in every tournament you will have multiple games between almost everyone in the top 10. Magnus played penguin, rebeccaharris, zhigalko and the other top players around five or maybe more times in the course of the tournament. You cannot finish top without beating those chasing you, it is a fair system. The first game depends on rating but after that it does not, so at most you would get one game that was "easier".