Code S Season 3 Group Nominations: More Wonderful Shenanigans

Written by Wax

The second Code S group nomination of the post-Maru era delivered another entertaining spectacle, with Dark lording over the proceedings like the arrogant, power-drunk #1 seed the AfreecaTV producers must have always wanted. Even if Maru's actions as the #1 seed were quite villainous from the point-of-view of any non-Jin Air player, his humble demeanor made it about as interesting as facing Brood Lord-Infestor. On the other hand, Dark went so far in the opposite direction from 'humble' that by the end, I was wondering 'wait, will there be REAL bad blood after this?'

Here's a look at how things went down as well as my observations from the show:

Wow, Dark finally had a group nomination that didn't suck!

If we were still giving out grades for the group selections, Dark would necessitate the creation of a brand new "S" grade. The previous #1 seeds were essentially given A's by default, as the immense power of having the first overall pick AND the ability to swap for any non-seeded player guaranteed an easy group.

Somehow, Dark managed to create a group that isn't just easy, but might actually be perfect: KeeN, SpeCial, and FanTaSy. Not only does Dark get to practice against Terran only, but those three Terrans are among the four lowest ranked players left in the tournament (going by GSL points). One of those Terrans (SpeCial) happens to be a foreign Terran—incidentally, Dark has a career 100% win-rate against such competition. Another one of those Terrans (FanTaSy) is only a year removed from finishing his mandatory military service, a career impediment no one has ever truly overcome. As for the last Terran (KeeN), the last time he advanced from the Code S Ro16 was in 2011.

Dark did have luck on his side—it's a rare coincidence that the 'easiest' opponents are all from one race. But Dark does deserve credit for recruiting a perfect accomplice/victim in KeeN. Seeing TvT as his best path to the Ro8, KeeN was all too eager to follow Dark's orders and bring SpeCial into the group. No wonder the Korean casters were saying that Keen was Dark's Infested Terran.



Outside the composition of his group, you have to say Dark won this group nomination just because of how much he seemed to enjoy himself during the proceedings. He deigned it beneath himself to even stand-up from his chair to pick KeeN, basically saying 'you know who you are—get over here,' which somehow went over completely fine. While Dark didn't end up matching TY and Maru together as he had previously threatened, he still got to mete out some punishment. When Trap ignored Dark's warning to stay away from his designated Terran targets, he was deftly punished with a team-kill against teammate Cure. On that note...

Jin Air suffers in a post-Maru world

Once the dominating force in the group selections, things became very iffy for Jin Air players once Maru lost his #1 seed. Previously, all the non-Jin Air players were heavily restricted in their range of picks, knowing that any Jin Air team-kill they created would be undone by Maru. Without that protection, Jin Air players have been left having to do contortions to try and avoid a team-kill at all costs. Despite their best efforts, things went particularly poorly for Jin Air this time around: Trap and Cure both ended up in Group B while Maru and Rogue landed in Group C.

In Trap's case, he violated Dark's edict to leave FanTaSy alone, and was thus punished by Dark who used his #1 seed privilege to swap Cure for FanTaSy. While Trap might have expected that Dark would simply steal FanTaSy away from his group, he was quite unlucky that the player he got back in return was a teammate. In theory, picking FanTaSy wasn't a suicidal move for Trap. Korean caster Gisado hastily tried to explain the game theory of Dark's situation to the other players: if everyone went after Dark's designated targets, then Dark couldn't protect them all. Unfortunately for Trap, he was the only one that bit, and thus he was the only one that got punished (alongside Cure).

In the case of the Group C, it came down to Stats deciding between Rogue and Zest as the final group member (with Stats, Maru, and Solar already in the group). Jin Air players were quick to remind Stats that he had spent an awful lot of time bumming around their team house as of late, enjoying free meals and lodging. How could Stats even think about team-killing Maru and Rogue after that? Unfortunately for the Jin Air boys, Stats decided to he had to stay loyal to a different team: KT Rolster. Avoiding a team-kill between himself and former KT teammate Zest was Stats' foremost priority (Zest reminded him "you've slept with me way more times!" in a moment of particularly poor phrasing), forcing him to condemn Jin Air to another team-kill.

SpeCial is just the greatest

Way back in the day, GSL used to reward the most entertaining player of the group selections a cash prize. Alas, poor SpeCial. If that award still existed, he would have won it by a landslide.

First off, he killed the pre-recorded video segments where he showed off his limited Korean vocabulary. SpeCial complaining about Terran being under-powered in mixed Korean-English is funny no matter how many times I see it, and by the frequency of such segments, it seems like the GSL producers and Korean audience agree.

Next, SpeCial had the call-out of the night against RagnaroK. During one of the video segments, RagnaroK rather aggressively said he would like to pick SpeCial, bringing up his undefeated record against him in offline matches. However, when it came RagnaroK's turn to pick, he started contemplating other options. SpeCial took exception to his cowardice.


Now, RagnaroK had good reason to not pick SpeCial, as there was a big risk that Dark would just swap him away. Still, I kind of wished SpeCial had drowned out RagnaroK for the rest of the segment by yelling 'Yeah, keep walking, b****!' at the top of his lungs.

Finally, SpeCial pulled off a funny, perfectly-timed fake-out gag. Occasionally, we'll get a player who tries to create a bit of tension and entertainment by pretending to pick one player, only to change their mind at the last second. This usually sucks, whether it's due to bad acting, poor comedic timing, or just all-around half-assery. SpeCial fully committed to a comedic bit, zealously declaring he was going to pick his long-time friend TY as his opponent. He really made you believe like he felt this was a great idea, and that it would be an honor to play his mentor on such a stage. TY's genuine shock completed the bit, as it looked like he might backpedal his way out of the studio and all the back to Ansan. This one's the hardest to describe in words; I suggest you watch the whole bit.

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