Making the Grade, Again: Code S Group Nominations

Written by Mizenhauer
Photo by leimmia

Not all GSL matches turn into epic battles that leave you at the edge of your seat. It's just the nature of StarCraft II for some games to end up being one-sided. But there's one part of GSL that's always guaranteed to be exciting: the Group Nominations. Intrigue and drama abound as the attending players use all of their cunning and diplomatic savvy to try and land themselves in the easiest possible group.


Unseeded players are often the most entertaining as they must connive, beg, and threaten their way into a favorable group. But it's the seeded players who wield the true power. If they can correctly predict everyone's preferences and motivations, then they can set up a chain of events that will fetch them a perfect trio of RO16 opponents.

Of course, creating an easy group as a seeded player doesn't mean much if you s*** the bed when it comes time to play the games (looking at you, INnoVation). On the other hand, Stats completely lost control of his group last season, but still managed to play his way out of the PvP dogpile he was heaved into.

All that goes to say... I'm well aware of how last season's grades look in hindsight, and I'm resigned to the fact that this season's grades might end up the same way once the groups play out. Alas, this would be so much easier if those pesky players would just play the way they're supposed to.

Ruminations aside, the players met in the FreeCUP studio on May 16 to take another crack at things. I suppose I should, too. Here are your Group Nomination grades for GSL Code S Season 2.

Maru: (#1 Seed) - Grade: A+

Group A: Maru, Patience, Solar, Zest

The rich keep getting richer. One of the oft overlooked benefits of winning GSL is the #1 seed in the next season's Group Nomination, and the entailing right to swap the group positions of any two non-seeded players. Maru followed up his imperious GSL campaign with an equally commanding performance while drafting for the round-of-sixteen. Playing the role of shrewd tactician as opposed to conquering despot, Maru managed to create the group of his dreams.

Maru started off by picking Patience, the player universally regarded as the weakest in the RO16 (this isn't my appraisal—the attending players openly dismissed Patience's skills). Maru had to wait for six players to go off the board before getting a second bite of the cherry, but he made excellent use of the opportunity by snatching up Solar and Zest.

No, Maru didn't make the picks directly, but Patience and Solar were all too eager to do his bidding. It made all the sense in the world from their perspective—beating Maru might be next to impossible, but they must have liked their chances to advance in second place from among Maru's hand-picked weaklings. They would bend the knee to Maru and then fight for his table scraps.

Anyway, back to Maru. He made easy work of Solar at IEM Katowice in perhaps the first, high-profile display of Ghost/Raven mastery. As for Zest, one couldn't keep a straight face while trying to assert Zest is on Maru’s level. The once great Protoss doesn’t look anywhere close to winning Code S these days, instead settling for OlimoLeague and Ballistix Brawl greatness (what kind of world are we living in where Zest and Impact played four times in a single month?).

Maru’s road to the quarterfinals was already being paved with gold bricks, but he had to put the finishing touches on his masterpiece. I think we would all predict Maru to advance in first place from his RO16 group, and he must fancy himself as the top dog as well. In that case, GSL seeding would would put him in a quarterfinal match against the second place player from Group B.

At that point in the proceedings, Group B contained soO, Gumiho, Dear, and Rogue. Maru hasn't been shy about singing Rogue's praises, and he probably expected his Jin Air teammate to advance in first place (especially with the soO’s disastrous ZvT and Dear’s general haplessness). Meanwhile, over in Group D, another Jin Air player in sOs was staring down a tough opening match against INnoVation, who many of the players seemed to fear despite his recent lack of results. Given the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone, Maru granted a favor to sOs by swapping GuMiho and INnoVation (this gave Rogue the task of facing INnoVation instead, but Rogue was one of the few players who was confident about taking him on).

It should be noted that even before Maru actually exercised his right-to-swap, he had been aiding his teammates with its mere threat. All of the non-Jin Air players present knew that Maru would use his swap to undo any Jin Air team-kill, limiting their effective range of picks. On the other hand, the Jin Air players were allowed to operate more freely, with the other players unable to employ the powerful tactic of threatening to create a team-kill.

Overall, Maru has positioned himself brilliantly to make another deep run. His RO16 opponents are already resigned to a battle for second place. His three presumed quarterfinal candidates—soO, INnoVation or Dear—all trail behind him in their current form. Furthermore, Maru didn't just help himself, but he gave his Jin Air teammates a better chance of advancing to the quarterfinals together. He may have pulled off the best #1 seed performance in Group Nomination history.

soO: (#4 Seed) - Grade: D

Group B: soO, Dear, INnoVation, Rogue

soO can’t seem to catch a break.

Last season, INnoVation wrecked soO's near-perfect group at the last moment by swapping Dear and aLive. soO survived to reach the quarterfinals anyway, winning a pair of matches against aLive—ironically, the very player who had supposedly ruined his group. It all goes to show that an easy group is no guarantee of advancing, just as no quartet is an automatic death sentence. Even so, soO must have wished he'd have an easier time this time around, after the unenviable trial he had to endure in Season 1.

Just like the previous season, Dear was soO's first pick in the draft, and this time he actually got to keep him! Regardless of what soO says for the cameras about getting revenge on his past finals opponents, his repeat selection of Dear is consistent with a more shrewd plan: pick the weakest Protoss left on the board. So far, so good.

Dear went on to pick GuMiho, which was a sensible choice given the general state of PvT and the fact that PvT has been Dear's best match-up since the 4.0 patch. On the other hand, soO couldn't have been thrilled at having his worst match-up tested, even if he had inexplicably navigated his way out of a double-Terran group last season. That had seemed more magic trick than replicable feat. At least it would be easier to take on GuMiho, compared to TY or INnoVation who were still on the board (ByuN had been snapped up early on by Stats). When GuMiho’s turn to pick came around, he did soO a solid by selecting Rogue instead of TY or INnoVation, who had remained untouched until the very end.

TY went to Group C and INnoVation landed in Group D, but the proceedings were not quite complete. Plenty of wheeling and dealing happens off-camera, and all of the Group Nomination participants seemed to be aware that Group B would be the target of Maru's intervention. soO surely hoped the Jin Air Terran would exercise his right to trade Zest with GuMiho, completing what Solar had called the "lowest MMR trifecta." Sadly Maru was less than accommodating of soO, swapping GuMiho with a Terran soO has had significantly less success against throughout his career in INnoVation. Thus, another awful group for soO was completed.

Things went a bit better for soO this time around, since he actually gets to play his selected opponent in Dear. However, he is yet again the collateral damage of meddling by a #1 seed Terran, blind-sided by another difficult ZvT test at the last second.

Dark: (#3 Seed) - Grade: D

Group C: Dark, Classic, Trap, TY

Dark fell short in the semifinals of the previous season of GSL, but it was good enough to earn him a seeded spot in the Group Nominations. In years past, Dark had frequently been one of the most swaggering players in the Group Nominations, challenging all championship contenders to come at him. This time, he claimed to have taken new approach which valued practicality over bluster.

Dark must have been disappointed to find that Patience and ByuN were off the board by the time it was his turn to pick, but he still had juicy targets such as GuMiho, Dear and Solar to choose from. Instead, he choose Classic. Wait, Classic?

Aside from Rogue's haughty dismissal of INnoVation, Dark's pick of Classic might have demonstrated the biggest difference between pro-gamer perception and fan perception of a player. Yes, we all know Classic’s kryptonite is PvZ, but he’s still the best Protoss in the world in the other two match-ups (at worst, second best) and a true force to be reckoned with. But if fans considered Classic's PvZ to be good-but-not-great, then Dark showed us he rates Classic's PvZ as straight-up bad.

In any case, the move was a clear sign that Dark is confident in his ZvP, but he should have been dismayed when Classic added Trap to the group. Trap has given Dark fits over the past few months, defeating him in a best-of-eleven ONPOONG showmatch and eliminating him from the playoffs of IEM Katowice. 1v1 competitions often come down to a clash of styles. For whatever reason, Trap has faired extremely well against Dark's normally unmatched genius.

Where Trap pulled the rug out from under Stats last season, starting the PvP chain reaction, this season Classic did the same to Dark. When it was Trap's turn to choose, he faced the unenviable decision of choosing between TY and INnoVation. Trap chose the more in-form Splyce Terran, who presents a greater threat to Dark at the moment.

Dark took out both INnoVation and Ryung 2-1 in the RO32, but it wouldn't be crazy to say Ryung was the one who frustrated Dark more. While Dark was able to punish INnoVation for his clumsy use of Ghost-Raven, he absolutely short-circuited when faced with Ryung's version of "I'm never crossing the halfway line of the map" mech. TY has historically been a master of that most-loathsome style of Terran, even if he has been outshone by Maru lately. Any clash between Dark and TY will hinge on how they adjust to the latest balance patch, and where the meta stands on Group C's match day of May 30th.

Stats: (#2 Seed) - Grade: A

Group D: Stats, ByuN, sOs, GuMiho

Stats stuck it to the haters last season, making it all the way to the finals despite being disparaged and predicted to lose in almost every single round. Notably, TeamLiquid.net gave him an "F" grade in the Group Nominations for picking his way into an absurd ALL-PROTOSS RO16 group, while having a sub 50% PvP win rate at the time (he ended up advancing in second place with a 5-3 map score). It remains to be seen if he can duplicate that success, now that he doesn't have our endless doubt to use as motivation. Just kidding—Stats' consistency appears to be a cosmic force that can't be affected by mere mortals.

Stats got off to a good start, as he quickly snatched ByuN into his group. It was an unsurprising move for a number of reasons: PvT in general, Stats' hardiness against aggressive styles of play, and the fact that ByuN has been so out of form that he literally cried in relief when he reached the RO16 this season.

Classic and Dear were off the board by the time it was ByuN’s turn to add a third member to the group. This is where the hilarity began for Stats last season, but ByuN went for a very reasonable pick in sOs. sOs and Stats have have played once in 2018 and only three times in 2017. Stats has to be considered a favorite, however, as he's won a couple of important PvP BO5's in the GSL this year.

That was the last pick in Group D, as INnoVation was defaulted in as the final member. However, Maru soon arrived as an interceding angel, carrying away the woeful machine and leaving behind a protesting GuMiho as a gift. GuMiho might have been a champion in 2017, but one year later, he clearly ranked among the more desirable opponents remaining in the RO16. In the same instant that soO stepped into a mound of dog poop on the street, Stats happened to look down and find an errant $20 bill.

The Splyce Protoss has a proclivity for showing up in offline events, and now faces a far less challenging group than the one he did a season ago. If he managed to wade through that bloodbath, he should have no trouble of reaching the elimination rounds again. What do I know, though? We’ll just have to watch and find out how wrong I was about this whole mess.

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