I haven't won a GW cycle for about a month straight now. I play it every single day. I can get to node 12 as long as I don't get matched up with Super Squads in nodes 6, 9, 10, & 11 also. If and when I do get to node 12 though, the problem is that I am facing squads that are far, far superior to mine. Sure my characters are level 80. But they aren't Gear Level 10, are not completely maxed out in abilities or mods. As I play node 12, I find that it's a joke. Because by the time I have one offensive turn 4 of my strongest characters have already been destroyed. It will take me 7-8 different squads to only maybe kill one character of theirs.
It's frustrating but nice to see that others are as disappointed in this game feature as I am. I keep hearing that if you have over 36k squad power, that you no longer face these "Super Squads". As someone who only has a mere 30k+ squad, I cannot verify to the validity of that.