2020 GSL Code S Season 2 - Round of 24

by Wax

As the old saying goes, good things come in threes. For StarCraft II, that's new maps, a new patch, and a new season of GSL Code S! Well, the jury's still out on whether or not the former two 'good', but all fans of StarCraft II should agree that it's great to have Code S back after a two week break.

To reiterate the format adjustments made in 2020, Code S now begins with a 24 player group stage instead of the previous 32. Twelve players advance to the round-of-sixteen, where they will join the four seeded players from the previous season (in this case TY, Cure, PartinG, and Trap). From there on out, Code S plays out in its familiar format.

This season of Code S brings us three first-time participants in Astrea, Prince, and Zoun. While they're a long way off from filling the shoes of departed players like Classic, GuMiho, and herO, we're still excited to see how they'll perform in Korea's most prestigious tournament. As it so happens, we'll see one of them in action on opening night!

Group A Preview: Zoun, soO, SpeCial, Zest

Start time: Saturday, Jun 20 4:00am GMT (GMT+00:00)

So, who's Zoun?

A look through his Aligulac.com records shows his first competitive match came during a 2012 GSL qualifier, at which time he would have been fourteen years old. His pro career started in earnest in 2014, when he joined a struggling PRIME squad glued to the bottom of the Proleague table. His 2-1 record in the 2015 season of Proleague actually made him the only PRIME player with a winning record, and this spark of potential was apparently enough to get him signed by SK Telecom T1 midway through the season.

However, Zoun's stint on SKT ended up being largely unremarkable—he didn't qualify for any individual tournaments, and he put up a 1-1 Proleague record in his year and a half there (to his credit, his single win came in the playoffs, against Super). Personally, I remember Zoun most from head coach iloveoov's emotional speech after SKT won the 2015 championship, where he shouted out the bench mob of Dynamite, Dokyung, Zoun, and Impact for being such good practice partners and not losing motivation despite their lack of opportunities.



When Proleague ceased operations and KeSPA teams disbanded in 2016, Zoun joined the swaths of players who retired from StarCraft. In the following years, he tried his hand at both Overwatch and League of Legends esports, but failed to reach the same level of competition as in SC2 (he topped out as a 2nd division bench player in LoL).

In 2019, Zoun made his return to competitive StarCraft II. Hindsight is 20/20, but one has to wonder if he should have just kept playing StarCraft II all along. It didn't take him too long to recover his skills, and he's now qualified for GSL Code S in his second 'proper' attempt since his return (he made one isolated try in 2019). Even before this season of Code S, hardcore fans noticed Zoun for his solid performances in the Gold Series Team Championship (GTC), with his 10-6 record being an invaluable contribution to Alpha X's underdog run to third place.

All that said, I don't feel great about Zoun's chances of making an impact in his GSL Code S debut. While he did well to qualify, he did not have the most convincing run. Chance eliminated him in day one of the qualifiers (if you haven't heard of Chance, then the point has been made), and he then narrowly qualified out of the losers bracket on day two. Interestingly enough, Zoun beat his former SKT teammates Dokyung and Impact on his way to qualification—considering that those two have enjoyed far more SC2 success than Zoun, I hope they don't begrudge him his victories.

All-in-all, Zoun's current level seems to be that of a player who's just barely good enough to make it into Code S, and he's definitely benefiting from the Korean talent pool being thinned out by military-related retirements.

If I had to find a reason to be optimistic about Zoun's chances, it's that he might be welll-suited to playing in the GSL format. The GTC format has the first map pre-determined while the second map is picked by the loser, and Zoun has a 6-2 record in those first-map games. Now, that's a small sample size of games, and only about half of Zoun's GTC opponents were at a Code S level. But it may suggest that he's stronger in situations where he can prepare for a specific opponent on a specific map, where he can bring deadly all-in or harassment that sets him up for a win in a macro game. And, while one match doesn't exactly steel you for life, Zoun does happen to be 1-0 in Proleague playoff matches—maybe he won't be overly rattled by playing on the Code S stage.

In my head, I have every reason to doubt Zoun, but in my heart, I'd still love to see this old-newcomer take advantage of this long-awaited opportunity.

Unlike Zoun, we all know what who Zest is and what kind of player he is. Wait, actually... do we? Zest has been all over the place in 2020. IEM Katowice: codified the PvZ meta and placed runner-up. Code S Season 1: eliminated from the RO16 after getting bopped by INnoVationg and RagnaroK. TSL5: finished top four after defeating future Code S champion TY, but got completely destroyed by INnoVation yet again.

I think we can put the "inconsistent" tag back on Zest, and not in the clichéd way we attach it to players we don't want to criticize directly. This is the most entertaining and frustrating kind of inconsistency, where a player can be completely dominant or completely washed-up on any given day.

You'd think that regardless of his inconsistencies, Zest would still be able to cobble together enough wins to advance from the easiest stage of Code S. But right now, I'm not even sure of that. If you thought Zoun's qualifier run was rough, just wait till you see Zest's run. The revised GSL qualifier format consists of three rounds of qualifiers, giving everyone three separate chances to advance. Zest actually had to qualify through the third and final round, where he beat out opponents I can only describe as "fringe Code S players" (Chance, Creator, Curious, Elizae, Gyulzzing, and Impact). The last season of Code S kicked off with a star player in sOs being eliminated on opening day—will we see a repeat in Season 2?

I'm much more confident in soO's prospects of going through to the RO16, as the much-loved veteran heads into his final season of Code S before beginning his military service in October. I'm reminded of his close friend and former SKT teammate Classic, who spent the entire 2019 season knowing he was up against the conscription timer. He was able to write a storybook end (or is it?) to his career, reaching the final four of BlizzCon with one of the most innovative PvZ builds we've ever seen. Classic and soO are two very different players, but I certainly hope soO is just as motivated to go out in a blaze of glory.

One encouraging sign is soO's championship run in TeamLiquid Starleague 5. Much like his IEM Katowice championship run in 2019, the victory came out of nowhere with hardly any previous results to suggest that it was a remote possibility. Even soO was surprised that he won, saying that the games just went bizarrely well for him in TSL5. The cynical interpretation is that competitive StarCraft II is more random than we believe it to be. The romantic interpretation is that while form is temporary, class is eternal. Yeah, yeah, that's my overused, go-to line with soO—so sue me.

Granted, soO's online performances since winning TSL5 haven't been that convincing, as he was eliminated by Denver and Clem in Stay At HomeStory Cup #2, and lost 0-3 to Bunny in the finals of the latest ESL Open Korea Cup. On the other hand, he was the only one in this group to qualify for Code S with a perfect record, even defeating Dark 2-0 in the qualifier match. While soO's opponents are sure to target him with all sorts of nasty, creative builds, I think that soO's defenses will be solid enough to see him through to the RO16 in first place.

Group A's final participant is SpeCial, the resident international player of GSL Code S (joined by Scarlett and Astrea this season). It's time to roll the dice again and see what kind of strategies SpeCial-with-preparation-time will bring. Last season, he lived up to his reputation as a tinkerer by bringing a mech-into-late-bio strategy against Stats, followed by an in-base proxy factory. While SpeCial was eventually eliminated by TaeJa in some straight-up TvT's, he maintained his status as one of the more interesting players to watch in the GSL. On his stream, TY sometimes grumbles that SpeCial only learned the weird parts of his game. I'd say he learned the best parts.

While SpeCial's preparation-oriented approach has always been a good fit for Code S-style tournaments, I'd say the biggest advantage he has this season is Zest's shaky form. Not only did SpeCial put in a more solid qualifier performance than Zest by qualifying on day one, he actually beat Zest head-to-head in order to qualify (in his first ever series win against Zest). While I can't write off Zoun out of hand—he did beat SpeCial 5-4 in a showmatch a month ago—he still has the major disadvantage of being a debuting Code S player experiencing this stage for the first time. After missing out on the Code S RO16 last season, this is a prime opportunity for SpeCial to earn his return.

Predictions

Zest > Zoun
soO > SpeCial
soO > Zest
SpeCial > Zoun
SpeCial > Zest

soO and SpeCial advance.

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