GSL Season Two
Code S

A Change in Format
DongRaeGu vs YoDa
Seed vs soO
TaeJa vs Sorry

Brackets and standings on Liquipedia

by munch, CosmicSpiral and Destructicon

This season's sifting of the grain produced mostly expected results. Last season's dearth of stars was largely rectified, with Flash, sOs, Bbyong, soO, and Trap all making a return. The new crop is also, predictably, a mixture of once-great players and rising rookies. That's no strike against the quality of competition though. Tonight already delivers with some curious matches that, although apparently one-sided at face value, will nevertheless prove interesting.

DRG vs YoDa

The Invasion eSport experiment is over for DongRaeGu. After leaving to pursue foreign opportunities for a few short months, the lure of success proved too strong to resist. He left MVP in September, claiming that chasing KeSPA money offers would lead to a loss of passion. However, it seems that the lack of opportunities and glory over the past few months has replicated the same effect. After a period that yielded three failed qualifier runs and a grand total of zero foreign LAN appearances, DRG has realized that, for better or worse, KeSPA remains at the heart of Korean StarCraft competition. The potential that once drove him to the very top of the StarCraft scene still lingers; let’s hope that he gets the chance to show it again.

As the forgotten Korean Terran in WCS EU, YoDa surprised many during his initial return to Korea. Impressive TvT performances for Prime in Proleague, combined with a respectable GSL Ro16 finish, led us to believe that he would finally drag Prime out of the muck, However, his form has tailed off since the end of Round 1 of Proleague. Dumped out of said Round of 16 with embarrassing ease by Life and TY, he is currently on a six map losing streak in Korean offline tournaments. To make matters worse, his mentality seems to be the cause of his problems: in the past couple of weeks, we’ve seen him give up commanding positions against Shine and Losira in PL through some basic errors. However, I know in my heart that YoDa has what it...bwahaha, that's too cruel even for April Fools'.

DRG 3 – 1 YoDa

Seed vs soO

Misbegotten seed of Protoss might, why do you continue to torment us so? After a two and a half year absence from Code S, Seed suddenly reappeared in one of the oddest stories of last season. Catching onlookers off-guard, Seed defeated Life 2-0 on his way to a successful qualifier run. He didn't go far in Season and since his brief return to relevance, the former champion has done little to convince us he’s returning to his former glory. MVP quickly benched him after 3 consecutive losses in Proleague Round 1, and he hasn't been reinserted back into the lineup since January. Judging from his results in other tournaments, it would be prudent to assume he is still stuck in a rut.

Four consecutive GSL finals. I don’t think it’ll ever fully sink in for me just how crazy that number is. Excepting the lack of golden trophies, it’s one of the most dominant runs we’ve ever seen in the game. 2015 reset all the Code S seeds though, and soO was firmly held back in Code B courtesy of PartinG and Rogue. Happily for his fans, it didn't seem to dent his determination the second time around. He stormed with a clean qualification run in Season 2, and bounced back from a defeat against PartinG to get into NSSL. Angry soO is back and it would take a brave man to bet against him this time around.

Seed 0 – 3 soO

TaeJa vs Sorry

The SKT1 rookie has enjoyed a fair bit of time in the limelight lately. Part of it can be attributed to SKT1's change of direction for this season, focusing more on raising talents instead of buying them. But Sorry has also lifted his fair share of the load. So far he's 2-1 in Proleague 3 times with victories over BravO and Curious. In individual leagues he has shown sparks of brilliance, most notably a victory over Dream in last year's Hot6ix Cup, without qualifying for a Starleague. After many months of diligent practice Sorry has finally made it to the GSL, mostly off the back of dependable TvP. But now he faces a challenge of an unparalleled magnitude.

A couple of months ago, I would have said that TaeJa is the no-brainer. However his Blizzcon loss seems to have knocked the wind out of his sails. Despite managing to qualify for season 1 of both GSL and NSSL, TaeJa failed to make a dent in either tournament: He was surprisingly taken apart by Curious in a straight-up TvZ and lost to herO in an ugly TvP. The worst was to follow in the NSSL, where Terminator completed a reverse sweep to take the series 3-2. His failures in Korea were soon followed by a disastrous defeat against Dark at IEM Katowice where, despite taking a map, he went out with a whimper. We know from experience if TaeJa is on, he is one of the best players in the world. Lately he has been 100% off. Despite my common sense telling me to root for a proven veteran, especially one of TaeJa's caliber, I just don't see much fight left in him.

Taeja 1–3 Sorry

Writers: munch, CosmicSpiral, Destructicon.
Editors: CosmicSpiral.
Graphics: shiroiusagi.
Art Credit: Blizzard.
Stats: Aligulac