2020 Code S Season 1:
The Ro16 Group Selection Ceremony

by Wax

As you delve deeper into any fandom, you discover there's an important line that ends up being crossed. It's the line where the surrounding talk, gossip, and human relationships of the performers becomes almost as interesting as the art itself (be it movies, music, or professional video games). For those of us who have reached crossed that point of no return in StarCraft II esports, the GSL group selection ceremony is our holy grail of entertainment.

It's a reality show that forces the players to compete outside the game, all so that they might gain the smallest of advantages in the round of sixteen. All those skills they spent thousands of hours practicing inside StarCraft—manipulation, deception, prediction, misdirection—must be applied, but without the intermediary devices of keyboards and mice.

Let's take a look at what happened at the most recent Group Selection ceremony, which took place on April 29th.

The Best Video Segment Ever?

Stop right there! Before you continue scrolling down, go to the 35:45 mark of the Group Selection video and watch the rapid-fire interview section.. In fact, watch that seven-minute segment before you watch or play any more actual StarCraft II.

GSL has done several of these kind of Q&A-style videos before, but this one was the spiciest one of all. Maybe it reflects the changing nature of the scene—all the players are familiar with each other because they've all been around forever, so there's no politeness, manners, or hurt feelings to consider like there might have been in the KeSPA days. For the most part, they're ready to let loose and call each other out on their BS, both inside and outside the game.

Here are some highlights:

Who is the worst (best) race abuser?: TL.net readers are still angry about the Zergs of 2019, but progamers took a more big-picture view by largely picking strategic (pronounced "cheesy") Protoss players as the worst race-abusers. Classic and sOs split most of the votes, which was a testament to their ability to craft builds and drive their opponents insane over the years. It was amusing to see PartinG get a few votes—he might have been called the weakest Protoss during the actual group selection, but it sure seemed like no one actually enjoyed playing against him.

Who should go to the military?: I was surprised to see a handful of guys single out Solar as someone who needed to go to military to learn some manners. Then again, I could envision him as the endearing brat type.

As we all know, streamer-PartinG is an exaggerated character being played on camera for entertainment purposes—unless you're Kiwian, who seemingly has to experience this PartinG in real life. PartinG's frenemy prescribed a unique cure to the Big Boy's unique 'condition.'


The best answer, however, went to sOs, who said he wanted everyone to F off to the military already (okay, maybe not in those exact words), so he could usher in a new era of Code S featuring sOs versus 23 amateurs.

Most underrated: This one drew the most wide range of answers and was actually interesting for competitive reasons. Cure and Solar were named a lot, which most hardcore fans would have expected from watching them kick-ass in online cups. But DongRaeGu was an out-of-left-field candidate, brought up by soO as a player other Zergs are learning from.

Who's the best Zerg/Terran/Protoss?: Maru was obviously the clear winner in the Terran category, with the exception of SpeCial who picked his friend and mentor TY ("he has class"). sOs and Zest split the Protoss vote, while Dark and Rogue were most named among Zergs. That was a peculiar contrast to IEM Katowice, when most of the progamers responded Serral to a similar question in another, pre-taped Q&A segment. Whadya know, maybe progamers are just as prone to "what have you done for me lately"-type thinking as the fans.

It did make me wish I had a sports debate show to take these answers out of context and argue about it for two hours in the afternoon. "ARE THE KOREANS DISRESPECTING SERRAL?" "THIS IS WHY YOU'RE WRONG, TASTELESS." Wait, maybe there's a market for this...

RagnaroK's Group of Death, feat. PartinG

The biggest story from the group selection was the formation of a killer group of death in Group D. Maru-RagnaroK-INnoVation-Zest.

Now, I saw some people commentating as if RagnaroK's plan was to create a group of death and get swapped out by Dark, but that really wasn't how it went down (though RagnaroK did pitch the idea as a last-minute desperation ploy).

Unfortunately, RagnaroK's actual reasoning didn't make much sense. When it was his turn to pick, he seemed genuinely torn on whether or not to pick PartinG—the weakest player left on the board (besides Scarlett, who Dark had already 'reserved'), but also his good friend outside of StarCraft. Ultimately, RagnaroK couldn't bring himself to pick PartinG into the group of death, prompting an "I raised you well" speech from Parting. What was baffling was RagnaroK's alternate choice: instead of picking the next weakest Protoss (Dear, Stats, or Zest), he picked the strongest Terran left—if not strongest player overall—in INnoVation. It's as if his thought process went "well I couldn't pick my #1 choice, so I guess I'll die."


Funny enough, PartinG was a part of the reason Group D become extra deadly. PartinG, selected to Group C, ended up having the final meaningful pick of the ceremony and was left to choose between soO and Zest. Picking soO would mean sending Zest to Group D by default, further dooming RagnaroK. Of course, PartinG picked the easier opponent in soO. Now, most other players would have made that choice as well, but it was particularly humorous to see PartinG complete the group of death by his own hand, and also repay RagnaroK's mercy with hardship.

Dark Goes Soft

We've groused on several occasions about how the #1 seed in the group selection ceremony has far too much power. Not only does the #1 seed get two picks through the rules, they basically get an indirect third pick because none of the other players can select who they really want for fear of having their pick swap-stolen away (the game theory checks out!).

Dark played this advantage perfectly in the season prior to this one (2019's Season 3), where he assembled an 'easy Terran' trio of KeeN, FanTaSy, and SpeCial in the RO16 and cruised to the playoffs.

Yet, somehow, the infamously ruthless Dark actually showed some sympathy this time around. With everyone in the studio expecting Dark to take Bunny or TaeJa with the first pick, Bunny revealed that he actually felt safe. As it turns out, he had called Dark a week ago, knowing he had his eyes on him. According to Bunny, getting completely crushed by Dark in the 2019 Season 1 quarterfinals was what had caused his long slump (absent from Code S for two seasons), and he swallowed his pride to ask Dark to cut him a break. Surprisingly enough, the grovelling actually had the desired effect (there's a lot of grovelling in the group ceremonies, but it rarely works) of moving Dark's dark heart, and Dark selected TaeJa instead.

Wow, that's a far cry from the Dark of 2019, who said he was relishing the idea of making his enemies suffer when he finally got a chance to exercise the #1 seed's right for the first time in his career! There was another moment of minor mercy from Dark toward the end, where he looked to swap Stats out for an easier opponent. While he could have picked anyone, he honored an earlier agreement by swapping for Dear—not the easiest nor the hardest player—instead of going back on his word.

That's not to say Dark has become a warm and cuddly personality all of the sudden. He had apparently given a hands-off warning to everyone regarding Scarlett, designating the Canadian Zerg has his personal prey to hunt. I guess crushing foreigners is the one sadistic habit Dark will never give-up.

Wait, INnoVation is Actually Confident?

Newer fans of StarCraft II might think of INnoVation as the guy who always whines about Terran being weak. They might not know that once upon a time, he was actually a badass, confident player who showed thinly veiled disdain for lesser opponents. Well, it's hard to blame the fans for not knowing (or simply forgetting), since the last time INnoVation was super-dominant was in 2017—we've only seen the "Terran sucks; nerf Zerg plz" version INnoVation for the last couple of years (he still won WESG anyway).

And so, it was shocking to see the return of swaggering INnoVation, the "I will destroy you" INnoVation, the literal Terminator from the movies INnoVation at the group selections. Before any of the picks were made, INnoVation said he was confident that no one would dare pick him, and that he was destined to end up in Group D as the last pick. That doesn't just signal internal confidence in his skills—it means he already knew everyone else was terrified of him.

RagnaroK ended up making that prediction incorrect by drafting INnoVation to Group D in the middle round of picks (right group, wrong order) but INnoVation took it in stride. His response, to paraphrase, was "Well, I'm going to win the championship anyway, so I might as well destroy everyone in this group first."

Now, we've seen INnoVation dominate and win tournaments when he was whining and exuding a lack of confidence. What the hell do we make of an INnoVation who straight up declared that he's going to win it all? We've learned to verbal bluster with a grain of salt in StarCraft II, but this is so out of character for INnoVation in recent years that you can't help but be intrigued.

Of course, one has to think the recently proposed patch changes could have affected INnoVation's mood. And while consensus seems to be that the changes are quite good for Terran, we have no idea what the timeline would be for the patch going live, or how many of the Terran buffs would actually make it to live untweaked. No, I actually think INnoVation is honestly that confident in his skills with the game in its present state. The RO16's Group D was already must-see StarCraft, but now it's taken on another level of hype.

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