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Code S RO24: Hurricane, TaeJa, SpeCial, Stats

Forum Index > SC2 General
14 CommentsPost a Reply

Code S RO24: Hurricane, TaeJa, SpeCial, Stats

Text byTL.net ESPORTS
April 29th, 2020 00:40 GMT

Code S Season 1 - Round of 24

by Wax

Finally, we're arrived at the end of the Round of 24. Which two players will clinch final spots in the round of sixteen?

Also, the RO16 group-selection ceremony is scheduled to begin immediately afterward. Who will Dark take with his #1 pick, giving them the dubious distinction of being the 'worst' RO16 player? Conversely, who will get picked last, becoming the unofficial scariest player in the RO16?

More info: GSL Code S Season 1 on Liquipedia


Group F Preview: Hurricane, TaeJa, SpeCial, Stats

Start time: Wednesday, Apr 29 8:00am GMT (GMT+00:00)

The first round of Code S is when we get ourselves comfortable and ease ourselves into the tournament before the more high-stakes matches begin. It's a place where we can enjoy subplots such as "how will the players returning from the military do?" Well, maybe we 'enjoy' was the accurate word last year, but nowadays, these matches are filling me with more dread than anticipation. It's been a rough go at it for players returning from their mandatory, 20-month military service, with none of them being able to break past the first round.

So, what do we expect from TaeJa. Aside from MMA, he's the most accomplished Terran player to give SC2 progaming another go after military service. It didn't go particularly well for MMA—a single Code S RO32 appearance was all he netted in his comeback. TaeJa's return has only gone slightly better: this will be his second time qualifying for Code S since his return. Watching TaeJa struggle is particularly discouraging because he was reputed to be one of those guys who got by on sheer talent rather than practice. Shouldn't a return after hiatus be easier for players of that archetype?

I might have given TaeJa an outside chance to advance in a different group: he has extremely unbalanced match-up stats, with a dreadful 34% TvP win-rate being contrasted by decent TvZ and and TvT that's around 60%. If he drew the right players and match-ups, the RO16 could have been within reach. Unfortunately, this group has two Protoss players, one of whom is widely considered the best Protoss of LotV. Considering that there's no way for TaeJa to face SpeCial twice, I get the feeling the military returners will go 0/5 in Season 1.

Wow, that was a cheery way to start the preview! Let's move on to Group F's Tier 1 player in Hurricane. That Tier 1 status might seem baffling to some, but Hurricane is a thoroughly baffling player. If you already forgot, Hurricane made a completely unexpected, flash in the pan run to the Code S semifinals in Season 2 of 2019—it's that result which earned him enough GSL points to earn a top seed here.

It's worth pondering: was that run really a flash in the pan? It sure seemed so at the time, since Hurricane benefited from a soft RO16 group and then drew a PvP against PartinG in the quarterfinals. [Tangent: the current GSL group selection format is too uncompetitive. The #1 overall seed always picks a group with the 3 weakest players, ensuring one of the bottom three players in the RO16 will get into the RO8. They should take away the #1 seed's "swap" right to fix this.] Afterward, he achieved little of note, dropping out of the RO32 in the next Code S while not even qualifying for the next two Super Tournaments.

That is, until IEM Katowice 2020, where Hurricane advanced from the open bracket, defeated Serral in the group stage, and survived a generally tough group to reach the playoffs (he lost to Zest in the first round). Some of Hurricane's online performances since then suggest his IEM run wasn't entirely fluky—he defeated INnoVation in his GSL Code S qualifier match, and recently finished 2nd place in the ESL Open Weekly for Korea (narrowly losing 2-3 to Cure in the final). With Patience slumping lately, perhaps maybe it's time we anoint Hurricane as his official successor. After all, we attach the "can beat anyone on his best day" descriptor to players far too often—Hurricane actually deserves the distinction. And what would Patience do in this situation? Probably advance, and get picked first by whoever has the #1 seed in the RO16 (it's Dark, so this is a hypothetical lock).

Hurricane might be the Tier 1 player here in terms of points, but I'm sure many fans are looking at the ever-steady Stats as the true favorite in the group. That's not surprising, since Stats does happen to be the most accomplished Protoss player of Legacy of the Void. At the time of writing, Stats was comfortably leading the Liquibet voting, while the other three players were fairly close to each other.

Now, there's something to be said about how Stats reputation exceeds his results just a tiny bit. Take a look at his last three offline events: Top 16 HSC XX, top 12 IEM Katowice, first round elimination in the GSL Super Tournament. Compared to his perennial championship contender status of the past, he's definitely experiencing a slump. At the same time, you hardly expect him to be in any real danger of elimination here. While we joke about online-Zest on TL, Korean pros joke about offline-Stats: they really seem to respect (or are at least amused by) his ability to over-perform in important, live matches. Now, that didn't avail him when Maru was stepping on his neck in the Super Tournament, but there's no Maru-tier players to worry about at this stage of the competition. I don't see much reason for worry about Stats yet—let's keep it short and say he'll advance.

Rounding out the group is Mexico's SpeCial, who will be looking to make to the RO16 for his third season straight. I'm tempted to look at TY's appearance in the previous Code S group as a proxy for Juan—they've been known to share strategies and ideas in the past. Dear specifically mentioned that he was taken aback by TY's mech, and said it's a strategy really only used by TY and SpeCial. In this two-Protoss group, where SpeCial faces Stats to start, we might see him showcase mech TvP as well.

Theoretically, mech could confer an advantage to SpeCial as he looks to take down a favored opponent in Stats—Protoss players rarely practice against it and they seem to struggle to put together counter-compositions on the fly (although, they instinctively seem to know how to exploit mech's immobility). But there was tidbit from TY's latest prediction video that I found to be quite interesting in the context of this match. Apparently, Stats helped TY practice for his Code S grou[, and thus TY was obliged by the unofficial progamer code of honor to help Stats practice for his. And so, TY said he gave Stats specific pointers on SpeCial's tendencies and weaknesses, though he didn't give away any builds. That seems like quite the extra-advantage for Stats when he was already favored to begin with!

Perhaps, however, this is just some fun gossip for TY's YouTube channel and not really a factor at all. After all, we've seen SpeCial prepare builds that defeated the likes of Stats and Classic in extremely high stakes matches at BlizzCon. Even if TY jokes that's he's the Infestor feeding strategies to SpeCial via Neutral Parasite, we know in reality that SpeCial is a very savvy strategist in his own right. He's often said this preparation-heavy Code S environment is where he thrives, and I imagine he'd like to prove it again in Group F.

Predictions: Even if he's slowed down lately, I have to take Stats to advance in first place on past reputation alone. Unfortunately, 'reputation' is why I have to pick TaeJa to finish last: StarCraft II has just been too consistently cruel to the returners. That leaves me to decide between Hurricane and SpeCial for second place. I'm going to go with the statistics here: PvT has been by far Hurricane's worst match-up in the last few months at a sub-50% win-rate, and he actually lost to SpeCial himself at IEM Katowice. If it all comes down to a final decider match between SpeCial and Hurricane, I'll give Juan the upper hand.

Hurricane > TaeJa
Stats > SpeCial
Stats > Hurricane
SpeCial > TaeJa
SpeCial > Hurricane

Stats and SpeCial advance.


Credits and acknowledgements

Writer: Wax
Images: AfreecaTV
Statistics: Aligulac.com and Liquipedia

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TL+ Member
DinosaurJones
Profile Joined February 2012
United States1000 Posts
Last Edited: 2020-04-29 01:39:51
April 29 2020 01:39 GMT
#2
Hoping for TaeJa and SpeCial, but expecting the exact opposite.
dysenterymd
Profile Joined January 2019
1203 Posts
April 29 2020 02:43 GMT
#3
It's going to end up being a perfectly balance ro16 unless Taeja and Special somehow both advance, which is pretty cool to see.
Serral | Inno | sOs | soO | Has | Classic
Htime
Profile Joined March 2019
58 Posts
April 29 2020 03:23 GMT
#4
A-Dark B-Solar C-Trap D-Maru are seeded
Assuming Stats / Special as Wax foretold*, 5 Terran, 4 Protoss, 3 Zerg available
T - Cure, Bunny, Inno, TY, SpeCial*. P - Zest, PartinG, Dear, Stats*. Z - soO, Scarlett, RagnaroK

Reasoning: + Show Spoiler +

1st Rnd: Dark wants Patience, or a similar weak P, but none are available, so Bunny (his nemesis of '19S1) and probably SpeCial + Scarlett later
Maru wants a Z for sure, would prefer Scarlett, but steal risk says Rag
Trap: wants a T for sure, SpeCial almost certainly, but burned by Dark swap before in '19S3. maybe TY here on the thought Dark would not steal.
Solar: probably a P since he is best in ZvP and T, Z, T are picked so far. PartinG, maybe Dear
2nd Rnd: Ragnarok (D) - Dear over Cure/Inno, since Scarlett could be stolen
TY (C) - loves TvT but not picking Cure/Inno, so likely Stats instead of Zest
PartinG (B) - will avoid PvP so maybe soO instead of Cure/Inno,
Bunny (A) - Scarlett, or whom Dark wants to send for Scarlett
Scarlett (A) - Special, or whom Dark wants to send for Special
SoO (B) - best hope is probably vs Zest
Stats (C) - likely picks Cure over Inno on reputation
Inno to group D, no swap


A - Dark, Bunny, Special, Scarlett
B - Solar, PartinG, soO, Zest,
C - Trap, TY, Stats, Cure
D - Maru, RagnaroK, Dear, Inno


There is some fun game theory of Trap and Maru both wanting their first choice but are afraid of Dark's swap power. Though Maru wants Dark's 3rd choice and Trap wants Dark's 2nd, Maru might have to take the more conservative approach because Trap picks after him. If Maru chooses Scarlett, Trap could draft TY and encourage Dark to steal from Maru, while Maru drafting Ragnarok makes it hard for Trap to go for Special since that would make him the obvious steal candidate. In the end Dark might get his top three choices, unless Maru and Trap agree to both take their preferred choices (and see Dark use the swap) with the goal that it will maximize the chance that one of them (Maru) would get farther.

+ Show Spoiler +

Trap to advance in group C: 40%
Maru to advance in group D: 74%

Jin Air team work version:
Dark-Bunny, Maru-Scarlett, Trap-Special, Solar-PartinG
Scarlett (D)-RagnaroK, Special (C)-Dear, Parting (B)-soO, Bunny (A)-TY
TY (A) - Cure, soO (B) - Stats, Dear - Zest, Inno to D
Dark swaps for his 2nd choice, Cure for Special

A - Dark, Bunny, Special, TY
B - Solar, PartinG, soO, Stats,
C - Trap, Cure, Dear, Zest <-- seems bad for Trap
D - Maru, Scarlett, RagnaroK, Inno <-- seems good for Maru

Trap advance 35%
Maru advance 88%

Argonauta
Profile Joined July 2016
Spain4906 Posts
Last Edited: 2020-04-29 04:40:40
April 29 2020 04:40 GMT
#5
I hope for an all protoss group honestly. Specially with Stats leaving us soon
Rogue | Maru | Scarlett | Trap
TL+ Member
col_jung
Profile Joined October 2017
139 Posts
April 29 2020 04:53 GMT
#6
Gogo Taeja and SpeCial
TentativePanda
Profile Joined August 2014
United States800 Posts
April 29 2020 05:20 GMT
#7
I was thinking Special and Stats very confidently until Hurricane lost 2-3 to Cure the other day. That's pretty impressive considering how good Cure is.

Still hoping for and predicting:
Stats
Special
Hurricane
Taeja
Moonerz
Profile Joined March 2014
United States444 Posts
Last Edited: 2020-04-29 05:21:40
April 29 2020 05:21 GMT
#8
On April 29 2020 13:40 Argonauta wrote:
I hope for an all protoss group honestly. Specially with Stats leaving us soon


Not too long ago this would have been the last thing the community wanted. At this point though I would take it, though I would like to see Special advance.
washikie
Profile Joined February 2011
United States752 Posts
April 29 2020 05:47 GMT
#9
honestly suprised about the lack of taeja hype, even if his chances do look slim.
"when life gives Hero lemons he makes carriers" -Artosis
Legendk
Profile Joined October 2012
France230 Posts
April 29 2020 07:36 GMT
#10
French cast will be here => https://afreecatv.com/legendktv
twitter: SylvainLK / facebook: LegendkLK / twitch: legendktv
Edpayasugo
Profile Joined April 2013
United Kingdom2214 Posts
April 29 2020 07:57 GMT
#11
Interesting group
FlaSh MMA INnoVation FanTaSy MKP TY Ryung | soO Dark Rogue | HuK PartinG Stork State
mpmaley86
Profile Joined May 2019
115 Posts
April 29 2020 14:00 GMT
#12
Need to catch up on watching the group but was able to watch the group selection and it was hilarious. What a ro16 we have.
nanook111
Profile Joined September 2010
United States32 Posts
April 29 2020 17:45 GMT
#13
Taeja Hype
genghiswolve
Profile Joined January 2016
Germany101 Posts
April 29 2020 19:42 GMT
#14
On April 29 2020 14:47 washikie wrote:
honestly suprised about the lack of taeja hype, even if his chances do look slim.


Well that aged well :D
brickrd
Profile Blog Joined March 2014
United States4894 Posts
April 30 2020 18:26 GMT
#15
taeja's play kinda reminds me of heromarine... he seems to expect himself to be able to outfox his opponents with bio, drops and positioning even if it means getting brutally amoved when things go wrong. often he skips out on siege units entirely in the midgame in favor of mobility, but once he's in lategame he controls the ghost-viking-lib composition incredibly well
TL+ Member
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