Same here. It's really hard to press if you don't swap Ctrl and Caps Lock though.

No key chords, just left pinkie, why would it be so hard?

My bad, I thought you meant Ctrl + `

For me ` is taken by tilda:

https://github.com/lanoxx/tilda

I use the Windows Menu key (the Windows key to the right of the spacebar) for that. Except I use yeahconsole, which is the same concept without the Gnome dependencies.

Such a handy feature, isn't it. I would be lost without my drop-down console.