GSL 2013 Season 1 Code S

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Ro32


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by: stuchiu




After a long break, the GSL is back with the last major Wings of Liberty tournament they will ever run. With this being the last WoL GSL, it's fitting that so many old-time fan favorites have returned to Code S for one more encore before we close this chapter of SC2 history.

One of the players in this season's opening match is both a young, rising star, as well as one of the older players in the GSL. CreatorPrime was playing in Code A and GSTL all the way back in 2011 when he was still in middle school, but he needed to wait until 2012 to really explode onto the scene was one of the best young players in the world, and as candidate for the best Protoss player. He might even have taken the latter title before Parting’s heroic last 2 month stretch took it out of Creator's grasp. Now Creator will set his sights on this GSL. Though he's had plenty of success outside the GSL, and he's yet to find consistency in the world's premier league. He was able to reach a career best Ro8 last season before falling to HyuN, and he'll look to improve upon those results this season.

This will be a good group for Creator as he only has one match-up to practice, PvZ. On top of that, among the 4 players here, he has had the largest downtime with his last official match was played about 2 months ago. With 2 months of practice time and the recent infestor nerf (Creator may be the Protoss player who has lost the most high profile broadcast games to mass infestors, alongside Seed) I can’t help but feel that Creator will feel very comfortable going into this group.

His first opponent is Nestea’s latest disciple, LG-IM_ByuL. Once one of the aces of Fnatic, he made his initial splash in the scene by 4 killing team IM in the GSTL. Since then, he fell on hard times as supposedly, the practice environment of the Fnatic house wasn't strict enough for him to develop his talent. As Fnatic cleaned house in the winter, ByuL was one of the players let go, and he made a slightly surprising move onto LG-IM. We like to believe the dramaticized version of events, where the merciful and forgiving god Nestea gave Byul the chance to repent for his sins and join his team to try and earn redemption. Byul did not disappoint as he cleared his Up & Down group in second place looking much like a mini-Nestea. While still a new addition to team IM, he has already seemed to benefit from the training environment and while he is the clear underdog in this group, he is still a threat to anyone here.

The third player in this group is the still teamless Symbol. Symbol has become a regular fixture in Code S, often reaching the Ro16 or Ro8 with strong solid macro-based play and intelligent builds. While Symbol does suffer a bit from being stuck in the middle, he's distinguished himself in a peculiar way through a constant battle with team Incredible Miracle. What started as an all-kill against LG-IM in the GSTL eventaully led to Symbol being one of the few players ever to make his Ro16 group pick for no other purpose than to guarantee the elimination of LG-IM players. Even in the Up & Downs, he was matched with two LG-IM players in his group. While he couldn’t stop Losira, he did stop both First from advancing while taking the Wild Card spot. ByuL and Symbol aren't guaranteed to play given the brackets, but history says it's inevitable.

Once a player people considered a contender for a GSL title, Symbol has fallen down in stature to just a very strong Code S player. Symbol will once again try to prove people wrong as he once again tries to advance to the finals and force prospective employers to up their offers. And if he happens to take out an IM player, that’ll just be the cherry on top.

The last player in the group is the strongest and most accomplished one. ST_Life won our award for best player of 2012, and it was well deserved. After joining the ST team, his strength took a sharp upswing as he dominated almost every league he entered and took 3 major titles (2 of which he won in a week). He is the only player to have the Royal Road Sword and won each of his majors against the best of each race (Mvp, Leenock and Parting). Another thing to keep in mind is that Life has been on vacation for the last few months (winter vacation is longer in Korea). His sudden rise in skill in the summer of 2012 coincided with the start of vacation and moving into the Startale house - that can't be a coincidence, can it? Barring the chance that Life was also caught up in whatever disagreements that saw Squirtle and PartinG leave Startale, then he should have show up having trained and honed his already incredible skills. While the Zerg heavy nature of the group might make the chance of an upset higher than usual, Life should still be an overwhelming favorite to move on.

Overall thoughts and predictions:

Life and Creator are the favorites here. While Life doesn’t seem that confident in his ZvZ’s when interviewed, he still has one of the best records in the matchup for his career, and has come of defeating two ZvZ monsters in Sniper and DRG on his way to winning the 2012 GSL Blizzard Cup. While less famous than his ZvT, his ZvP has the same hallmarks of being both very solid and very unorthodox as the situation calls for. He can play a standard style, such as the one he used to crush PartinG in the Blizzard Cup final, but it's not like he forgot all of the nydus and early pool tactics that he favored earlier in his career. Against a paragon of safe, standard play like Creator, those tactics could be very useful.

Creator is the master of hitting ridiculously strong 3 base timings that kill Zergs before hive. However, his recent games in Code S Season 5 (2012), BWC, and Iron Squid II suggest that his timings are getting figured out, so he'll have to have used the winter months well to prepare even better builds. At one point in the past, Creator didn't mind going to the late game in PvZ, but was subsequently convinced to stick with three-base timings after losing to too many infestor turtling zergs. With the infestor nerf now in play, Creator may want to revert to that big-picture oriented style again. Against an untested Byul and a standard Symbol, he should be able to do fine. Creator's only problem is Life and even if he’s an underdog, he isn’t an underdog by much.

While it seems clear that Life and Creator will take the top two spots, both Byul and Symbol can pull off an upset here. Byul showed some clever one off strategies and strong standard ZvP in his Up & Downs. If he goes into the first match with a plan, he might have a chance to knock out Creator the first time by surprise. Symbol on the other hand doesn’t have very many tricks up his sleeve. However, he is still a very solid opponent for all the players here and he does seem to show most of his strongest performances when team IM is involved.

Creator > Byul
Life > Symbol
Life > Creator
Symbol > Byul
Creator > Symbol

Life and Creator advance.

Writers: stuchiu
Graphics: Meko
Editor: Waxangel.