The reign of Maru continued in the Global StarCraft II League as the Jin Air Terran crushed Zest 4-0 in the Code S Season 2 finals to win his second consecutive Code S championship of the year. The four-game sweep took just under 33 minutes of in-game time to complete, with Maru dominating Zest in both mind-games and execution. Maru's victory made him only the second player ever to win back-to-back Code S tournaments, with Nestea last achieving the feat in 2011.
After dominating championship runs at WESG and Code S Season 1, Maru entered Code S Season 2 as the heavy favorite to win the championship. His toughest challenge came in the quarterfinals, where he defeated teammate Rogue—defending BlizzCon champion and the other stand-out player of the year—in a tense, five game series. Besides that match, Maru was largely untroubled during his Code S run, affirming his status as the current best player in the world.
Zest, entered the finals as an underdog with a puncher's chance, having shown strong, all-around abilities in macro and all-ins during a 4-3 semifinal victory against TY. However, Zest was unable to impose his game plan on Maru, and was left playing catch-up in all four games. The tournament marked a meaningful return to form for Zest after his 2017 slump, but also revealed the distance between Maru and the rest of the GSL Code S contenders.
GSL Code S will continue with Season 3 on July 4th.
On June 23 2018 19:51 TeamLiquid ESPORTS wrote: Zest was unable to impose his game plan on Maru, and was left playing catch-up in all four games.
That was the most impressive part... Only the 4th game was close and it is even a bigger testament to Marus skill, that he came back in this game and defeated Zest, because in this game Maru had to play the catch-up game. oO
Maru just monster moded him. It was ridiculous. There was no point in Games 1-3 where Maru wasn't in complete control and mindfucking the shit out of him
I said it in the Classic VS Maru thread and I will say it again. Maru always was going to dominate his opponent. I did think Zest was going to win a game or two, and this series was pretty brutal. But how could one ever doubt Maru??
Well, getting spoiled *is* pretty annoying, even when you 'deserve' it because you weren't careful enough.
I don't get all those saying the finals were the worst, I thought they were funny as hell. We finished the finals in less game-time than a short-ish game of League. Starcraft is just brutal
On June 23 2018 20:32 VvvV1251 wrote: Seriously, i fucking had an urgent thing with work today, just came back to watch the final, and the first thing i see in TL is the fucking spoiler.
On June 23 2018 20:55 Psychobabas wrote: Terrible finals. Zest played so bad it's hard to understand how can a GSL player can perform that bad...
Playing bad I think is the wrong way to describe today's games. Maru's choices simply battered Zest senseless before he could even muster up a mid-game plan. Like, he got rammed so fast and so hard he didn't even have time to "play" badly, so to speak; he was killed off before he could "play" at all.
Well I guess maru vs zest went exactly how you would expect if you just look at each player's form in 2018.
Also, people are talking about how bad the finals was, but I'm sitting here wondering, is this the first time that the finals has been played in the regular studio instead of some sort of arena/auditorium/park/whatever? Trying really hard to not kneejerk react and go all "dead game," but was the projected attendance for the finals really that bad or was there some other reason?
EPT
![[image loading]](/staff/Waxangel/GSL/2018/maruchampions2.jpg)
Maru continued in the Global StarCraft II League as the Jin Air Terran crushed 
