2021's GSL Season 1 began with the return of Code A as a live, studio event. This new version of Code A will be held as a series of best-of-five matches, with the winners moving directly on to compete in Code S. With Code S shifting to a 16-player format, the new Code A event could be seen as a semi-replacement for the old Code S RO32/RO24 group stages.
In a rather perplexing move, AfreecaTV welcomed back Code A by scheduling the three most stark mismatches for the first day. The favorites ended up claiming their Code S spots without much trouble, with TY winning 3-1 over Prince, sOs going 3-0 against Percival, and Maru also taking a sweep against Creator.
Prince returned to the studio for the first time since Code S Season 2 in 2020. Despite being eliminated in the first round, he had left an impression on the fans with his creative/cheesy style, taking games off both Maru and Scarlett. He picked up right where he left off, beginning game one against TY with a proxy-Nexus inside the Terran main. However, TY quickly scouted this sOs-esque maneuver and reacted calmly on defense, taking an easy win after shutting down the initial tactical recall of four Adepts. Games two and four were also one-sided losses for Prince, but without the fun-factor of a crazy build. Whether it was due to mechanics or nervousness, Prince just couldn't keep up with TY's harassment while also executing his own game plan and lost in fairly straight-forward games.
However, even in defeat, Prince may have further improved his reputation among GSL fans due to his unorthodox, Skytoss-powered victory in game three. After starting with a 2-Stargate Void Ray opener, Prince found a way to transition into mass Carriers backed by Disruptors on the ground—all without dying in the meanwhile. TY's army of Marine and Vikings were unable to defeat the Protoss fleet in a straight-up fight, and the AfreecaTV Terran was forced to surrender his only loss of the series. After the games, TY joked that "At least for a moment, I knew how Zerg players felt."
Unfortunately for Percival—who made his AfreecaTV studio debut against teammate sOs—he wasn't able to make as much of an impact in a 0-3 defeat. The first game ended rather abruptly after a proxy-Robo vs proxy-Starport start. Percival was too hasty in moving out to clear the enemy proxy, giving sOs the greenlight to attack the undefended Terran base and do irreparable damage. Game two saw Percival go for a proxy-2 Rax Marauder strategy which successfully cancelled sOs' expansion Nexus. However, Percival was far too disrespectful of sOs' capacity for cheese, and made a greedy transition by expanding and teching at home while floating both Barracks. sOs promptly punished him with an old-school 4-Gate for an easy win.
Percival gave his best performance in the third and final game on Romanticide, hiding a proxy Starport and catching sOs completely off-guard with two cloaked Banshees. After killing over twenty Probes, Percival went for the kill by pulling SCV's and going for an all-in Bio-Tank attack. However, his lack of patience led to his downfall, as he hit an anti-timing ten seconds before Stimpak completed. Percival still had enough troops to win, but a poor fight into a super-charged Battery sealed the series in sOs' favor.
After the match, sOs said he was lucky to win the third game due to Percival's lack of experience in studio matches. sOs also expressed his relief at having earned a Code S RO16 berth for the first time in nearly two years and five seasons.
Creator came into day one with the strongest resume among the underdogs, but this was offset by the fact that he faced the strongest opponent. Maru took a dominating 3-0 sweep against his former Jin Air and current Team NV teammate, making up for a weak showing in the qualifiers.
Creator managed to keep things close for a while in game one on Deathaura, with the two players settling in for a standard macro game. While Maru was in control for most of the game, Creator's dangerous army centered on Colossi and Disruptors that made it difficult for Maru to fight head on. However, Maru was able to take Creator apart once he added mass Liberators to his army, razing base after Protoss base to force a GG.
The next two games were rather one-sided, with Creator taking fatal Probe losses to an Armory-Widow Mine drop in game two, and then ceding defeat in game three after committing to an ill-fated basetrade.
After the matches, Maru gave his fans some reasons to be optimistic going forward, mentioning his improving shoulder health and saying "I think I'll do better than last year." Of course, in typical Maru style, he still complained about Terran being underpowered when asked about the possibility of winning the G5L trophy.
Maru also gave a cheeky comment on his IEM semifinals loss to Reynor, joking that "After winning the second set, I thought 'this guy is really bad.' I felt really bad for a month for letting my guard down like that."
GSL Code A will continue on Thursday, Mar 25 9:30am GMT (GMT+00:00) with DongRaeGu vs SpeCial, Cure vs ByuN, and RagnaroK vs Hurricane.
Expected results. Grats to sOs for getting back to the Ro16.
Maru's thought of Reynor "being bad" after winning the first 2 games though. I wonder what led Maru to get reversed swept by Reynor? I thought that it will be a Maru-PartinG/Zest finals. Was disappointed he lost at that time.
This time Matu didn't lose the code A bo5 vs eventual champion Zest, missing his PartinG award in the process. I like it better with one sided series where the underdog is playing for maps instad of seeing potential champions eliminate each other.
Yeah, even Maru admits he was the far better player but he lost because he gifted Reynor that series... One of the biggest steals in SC2 history, very sad to watch
On March 23 2021 18:52 MarianoSC2 wrote: Yeah, even Maru admits he was the far better player but he lost because he gifted Reynor that series... One of the biggest steals in SC2 history, very sad to watch
Pros talk crap all the time, and Reynor's early and mid game were visibly better than Maru's even in the first two games. No-one is a far better player than the literal world champion lol.
Maru also gave a cheeky comment on his IEM semifinals loss to Reynor, joking that "After winning the second set, I thought 'this guy is really bad.' I felt really bad for a month for letting my guard down like that."
this aged pretty badly lol
On March 23 2021 18:52 MarianoSC2 wrote: Yeah, even Maru admits he was the far better player but he lost because he gifted Reynor that series... One of the biggest steals in SC2 history, very sad to watch
I like how a reverse sweep in Katowice's SF coming from the then-to-be World Champion (who, btw, clearly ouplayed him in all 5 games' early phases) is called "big steal"... you can say Maru threw g4 (his fault tbh so no steal even there) but in g3 and g5, Maru got overconfident and was outclassed pretty big time... g5 also was one of the best games of the season so what was stolen there? :D
Congrats to TY, sOs and Maru for advancing. Wonder if the G5L trophy can be achieved this go-around.
Also that is interesting Maru said that about Reynor as they have both played at least two series prior to their bout in Katowice 2021. I remember in the summer 2020 DH season finals that Reynor outplayed Maru pretty handily with lurkers, 2-0. Surely Maru must have remembered that dominance and being outplayed. Maru would win the following series in ASUS Rog Online in Nov. 2020 with a 3-2 score.
Maru also gave a cheeky comment on his IEM semifinals loss to Reynor, joking that "After winning the second set, I thought 'this guy is really bad.' I felt really bad for a month for letting my guard down like that."
On March 23 2021 18:52 MarianoSC2 wrote: Yeah, even Maru admits he was the far better player but he lost because he gifted Reynor that series... One of the biggest steals in SC2 history, very sad to watch
I like how a reverse sweep in Katowice's SF coming from the then-to-be World Champion (who, btw, clearly ouplayed him in all 5 games' early phases) is called "big steal"... you can say Maru threw g4 (his fault tbh so no steal even there) but in g3 and g5, Maru got overconfident and was outclassed pretty big time... g5 also was one of the best games of the season so what was stolen there? :D
Maru played the godlike defesive lategame style that almost nobody in the world can play against top Zerg. Reynor loves doing his Lurker build and just rush into the base, burrow and destroy everything. Maru is the only one that can counter that style effectively, and made Reynor quit on using his favorite units. Had Maru played the same style in both game 3 and 4 of that series instead of doing agressive build order, I do believe he could have won the match. And how can you say Reynor "outclass" Maru in game 5, when it was dead even till Reynor hit those Fungal at the end of the game. It was as close to a 50/50 game as possible, but if I am Maru I think I could beat Reynor the next time I see him. Of course, Reynor would feel the same way, thinking he could have 5-0 Maru just base on their "early game", unfortunately Reynor still couldnt crack turtle shell that Maru was doing against him after all these game.
guys, I don't think Maru is saying he literally thinks or thought Reynor is bad, he's just saying he got overconfident after winning the first two games and feels like that contributed to his loss and he felt bad about it afterwards.
anyway, there's nothing you can really take away from Reynor's victory, though it sounds like Maru is itching for a rematch. could be a fun developing rivalry!
Sometimes that does happen when you see your opponent is bad and your mind shifts into sub-par mode. It can be pretty hard to switch back to tryhard mode when that happens.
On March 24 2021 04:59 ThunderJunk wrote: Sometimes that does happen when you see your opponent is bad and your mind shifts into sub-par mode. It can be pretty hard to switch back to tryhard mode when that happens.
For me it's usually impossibru. When I try I will do more mistakes than before in the "it's already won why bother" mode.
Always those kind of people on Teamliquid who don't like the fact that some foreigners are better players than Koreans. What a narrow elitist view point honestly. Get real people, Serral, Clem and Reynor have been destroying top tier Koreans.
On March 24 2021 15:02 atchosvk wrote: Always those kind of people on Teamliquid who don't like the fact that some foreigners are better players than Koreans. What a narrow elitist view point honestly. Get real people, Serral, Clem and Reynor have been destroying top tier Koreans.
Serral lol? Dude got famous beating Europeans, hasn't been really top tier in 3 years now.
Clem lol? Dude can win but.. destroying? Yea, in a few sets, I guess.
On March 24 2021 15:02 atchosvk wrote: Always those kind of people on Teamliquid who don't like the fact that some foreigners are better players than Koreans. What a narrow elitist view point honestly. Get real people, Serral, Clem and Reynor have been destroying top tier Koreans.
Destroying, out of what, 8 World Champion titles foreigners won 2. CLem has won how many tournaments exactly? And with Koreans in them? What a destroyer!
And THIS is exactly why are some people not liking these players. Because of people like you, who are "look at these destroyers" while they ignore Korean success or take it as granted. How many interviews did the last Korean WC holder get? How many Reynor? Do the math.
On March 24 2021 15:02 atchosvk wrote: Always those kind of people on Teamliquid who don't like the fact that some foreigners are better players than Koreans. What a narrow elitist view point honestly. Get real people, Serral, Clem and Reynor have been destroying top tier Koreans.
Serral lol? Dude got famous beating Europeans, hasn't been really top tier in 3 years now.
Clem lol? Dude can win but.. destroying? Yea, in a few sets, I guess.
On March 24 2021 15:02 atchosvk wrote: Always those kind of people on Teamliquid who don't like the fact that some foreigners are better players than Koreans. What a narrow elitist view point honestly. Get real people, Serral, Clem and Reynor have been destroying top tier Koreans.
Serral lol? Dude got famous beating Europeans, hasn't been really top tier in 3 years now.
Clem lol? Dude can win but.. destroying? Yea, in a few sets, I guess.
Serral is at his lowest point in the last 3 years and he is top tier without any doubt, he became famous beating koreans(yes, effectively destroying anyone koreans included when he was at his apex); Serral has a 69.6% win ratio in maps and 81% in series against koreans since 2018...
I wouldn't say they have been "destroying" top koreans, in the last year Serral has had the same win ratio against them than in the last three years, Reynor has had 59%wr in maps and 67% in matches, Clem almost 50% for both(dragged down by his TvT especially, even if recently he has improved in this regard). Top 3 foreigners are better than most of the koreans and on par with the top ones in this new Age of Parity.
Maru's statement here is as deluded as the one of the most elitists, Reynor had already beaten him in the past and only narrowly lost their last encounter, judging him a bad player is foolish; Reynor wouldn't have won 5-0 either but he could have gone "4-1" if he abandoned lurkers after seeing he wasn't prevailing. Anyway, the match was close and Maru could have won it; he shouldn't have in any of case, Reynor advanced deservingly.
Maybe TL should hire Maru to provide some hot takes for the writing team. All he had to do is make one incredibly obvious joke and people instantly start shit in the recap thread.
On March 25 2021 04:42 Elentos wrote: Maybe TL should hire Maru to provide some hot takes for the writing team. All he had to do is make one incredibly obvious joke and people instantly start shit in the recap thread.
I feel TL should hold off to see if him making one cheeky line after a decade of saying nothing in interviews is indicative of a trend rather than being an outlier
On March 24 2021 15:02 atchosvk wrote: Always those kind of people on Teamliquid who don't like the fact that some foreigners are better players than Koreans. What a narrow elitist view point honestly. Get real people, Serral, Clem and Reynor have been destroying top tier Koreans.
Serral lol? Dude got famous beating Europeans, hasn't been really top tier in 3 years now.
Clem lol? Dude can win but.. destroying? Yea, in a few sets, I guess.
You are in absolute denial it's painful to watch. There is clearly a European dominance in the scene. It's not taking a few sets, it's consistently having top Eu players beating Koreans at pretty much all events for the past 3 years with Serral leading the way.
You have to understand Korea has the highest level of play on average but not the best players anymore, it's a thing from the past!
On March 24 2021 15:02 atchosvk wrote: Always those kind of people on Teamliquid who don't like the fact that some foreigners are better players than Koreans. What a narrow elitist view point honestly. Get real people, Serral, Clem and Reynor have been destroying top tier Koreans.
Serral lol? Dude got famous beating Europeans, hasn't been really top tier in 3 years now.
Clem lol? Dude can win but.. destroying? Yea, in a few sets, I guess.
You are in absolute denial it's painful to watch. There is clearly a European dominance in the scene. It's not taking a few sets, it's consistently having top Eu players beating Koreans at pretty much all events for the past 3 years with Serral leading the way.
You have to understand Korea has the highest level of play on average but not the best players anymore, it's a thing from the past!
Past 3 years you say? 2018: IEM WC won by Rogue(0:1), runner up Classic(0:1) Blizzcon WC won by Serral(1:1), runner up Stats(0:2) 2019: Katowice WC won by soO(1:2), runner up Stats(0:3) Blizzcon WC won by Dark(1:3), runner up Reynor(1:3) 2020: Katowice won by Rogue(1:4), runner up Zest(1:4) 2021: Katowice online won by Reynor(2:4), runner up Zest(1:5)
Out of the world championship titles, which should be the highest title and show the suggested dominance of the top players, foreigners won 2 out 6, no foreign player was able to win more than one. In the meantime Rogue won 2, Stats and Zest has two second places.
The dominance, ladies and gentlemans. The dominance while losing 2:4 for titles and 1:5 for the second places of the most prestigious titles. These are your best players, Serral - who was unable to appear more than once and Reynor, who appeared twice, but unlike Rogue wasn't able to win twice. The dominance of the past 3 years!
The dominance of having 3 appears out of 12. The dominance of having 2 players while Korea was able to push into finals 6 different players(Dark, Rogue, Zest, Stats, Classic, soO).
The foreign Protoss dominance or Terran dominance where none of these races was able to achieve anything notable while having the best players and dominating Koreans.
On March 24 2021 15:02 atchosvk wrote: Always those kind of people on Teamliquid who don't like the fact that some foreigners are better players than Koreans. What a narrow elitist view point honestly. Get real people, Serral, Clem and Reynor have been destroying top tier Koreans.
Serral lol? Dude got famous beating Europeans, hasn't been really top tier in 3 years now.
Clem lol? Dude can win but.. destroying? Yea, in a few sets, I guess.
You are in absolute denial it's painful to watch. There is clearly a European dominance in the scene. It's not taking a few sets, it's consistently having top Eu players beating Koreans at pretty much all events for the past 3 years with Serral leading the way.
You have to understand Korea has the highest level of play on average but not the best players anymore, it's a thing from the past!
EU is closing the gap real quick on KR, and you might say that they have 2 top players in the world considering how 2020 played out. That is still FAR AWAY from what you are saying that EU is dominating the scence. Serral is having issue beating top KR Zerg and Protoss for the last couple months. Reynor were winning A LOT of close series which could have gone the other way around. And Clem is still chasing his first global title, and he should start winnning some pretty soon.
On March 24 2021 15:02 atchosvk wrote: Always those kind of people on Teamliquid who don't like the fact that some foreigners are better players than Koreans. What a narrow elitist view point honestly. Get real people, Serral, Clem and Reynor have been destroying top tier Koreans.
Serral lol? Dude got famous beating Europeans, hasn't been really top tier in 3 years now.
Clem lol? Dude can win but.. destroying? Yea, in a few sets, I guess.
You are in absolute denial it's painful to watch. There is clearly a European dominance in the scene. It's not taking a few sets, it's consistently having top Eu players beating Koreans at pretty much all events for the past 3 years with Serral leading the way.
You have to understand Korea has the highest level of play on average but not the best players anymore, it's a thing from the past!
Past 3 years you say? 2018: IEM WC won by Rogue(0:1), runner up Classic(0:1) Blizzcon WC won by Serral(1:1), runner up Stats(0:2) 2019: Katowice WC won by soO(1:2), runner up Stats(0:3) Blizzcon WC won by Dark(1:3), runner up Reynor(1:3) 2020: Katowice won by Rogue(1:4), runner up Zest(1:4) 2021: Katowice online won by Reynor(2:4), runner up Zest(1:5)
Out of the world championship titles, which should be the highest title and show the suggested dominance of the top players, foreigners won 2 out 6, no foreign player was able to win more than one. In the meantime Rogue won 2, Stats and Zest has two second places.
The dominance, ladies and gentlemans. The dominance while losing 2:4 for titles and 1:5 for the second places of the most prestigious titles. These are your best players, Serral - who was unable to appear more than once and Reynor, who appeared twice, but unlike Rogue wasn't able to win twice. The dominance of the past 3 years!
The dominance of having 3 appears out of 12. The dominance of having 2 players while Korea was able to push into finals 6 different players(Dark, Rogue, Zest, Stats, Classic, soO).
The foreign Protoss dominance or Terran dominance where none of these races was able to achieve anything notable while having the best players and dominating Koreans.
EU players aren't dominating the scene, it's not true.
Considering only World Championships doesn't show the whole picture and, even then, non koreans aren't doing that bad. If we take every international Premier tournament in consideration, we find out that koreans and non koreans are essentially tied when it comes to winning in the last three years: it's 11-12 for koreans(including the very dubious GPC that Inno won) and 8-15 as far as second places go.
There are still more koreans who are championship contenders but at the very top it's at worst even and below that there are more foreign players than koreans.
Now, failing to understand why non korean champions draw so much interest truly surprises me. HoTS has been absolute korean domination so non korean audience was truly pleased to see someone else rising his level of play and actually win titles: this happens every time in traditional sports heavily dominated by a region(eg:Dekkers winning Muay Thai championships in Thailand). Also, unlike what happened many times in the past, those new non korean champions weren't overhyped or just a fluke; they consistently showcased their skills as championships contenders and won repeatedly(still are and most likely will be).
Does it seem weird to you that a consistent part of the non korean casters and non korean viewers appreciate non korean top players? I don't know how many interviews Rogue had in Korea last year, you find weird that Reynor, first in the history of Sc2 of winning Katowice not being a korean, is getting interwieved nonstop(outside of Korea)?
I’m not sure why this is controversial at all, via whatever means the gap has clearly narrowed.
Serral and Reynor are in the global top bracket of best players around, Dark’s there, Rogue’s there, TY is there if it’s GSL, Stats, Trap and recently Zest are there too.
If there’s a tier beneath that featuring perpetually dangerous players who could pull a run together, Clem’s in there, Inno’ long dropped into this tier given his form, Parting kinda wavers between tiers, etc. Probably Byun and Cure belong here too.
Then tier 3 you’ve got a bunch of players good enough to take almost anyone in the world out on a good day, if not regularly back-to-back in making good runs, and is most of your Ro16 level GSL players plus Heromarine, Showtime, Special alongside the Armani’s of this world.
Which is a crude tier system, but it’s a gigantic closing of the gap. Back in the day foreigners, even in Stephano’s heyday didn’t have a single tier 1 player, nobody if anyone in tier 2 and relatively few even making tier 3.
On March 23 2021 21:10 CynicalDeath wrote: I like how a reverse sweep in Katowice's SF coming from the then-to-be World Champion (who, btw, clearly ouplayed him in all 5 games' early phases) is called "big steal"... you can say Maru threw g4 (his fault tbh so no steal even there) but in g3 and g5, Maru got overconfident and was outclassed pretty big time... g5 also was one of the best games of the season so what was stolen there? :D
I think the idea people get at is that had the early phases/build orders not gone beyond exceedingly well for Reynor, it wouldn't have even been close. That and terran winning cross server TvZ just wasn't a thing.
Reynor had some stars-aligning types of handouts in that series and it was still the closest match of the tournament. Saying that Maru got "outclassed" in g5 after Reynor had a lead no zerg should lose from the opening, and still almost lost if not for suprise fungals, is a bit of a joke.
On March 23 2021 18:11 Drfilip wrote: This time Matu didn't lose the code A bo5 vs eventual champion Zest, missing his PartinG award in the process. I like it better with one sided series where the underdog is playing for maps instad of seeing potential champions eliminate each other.
He didn't just miss his PartinG award, he would have doubled the NesTea award with 20 Code S consecutive appearnces.
On March 24 2021 15:02 atchosvk wrote: Always those kind of people on Teamliquid who don't like the fact that some foreigners are better players than Koreans. What a narrow elitist view point honestly. Get real people, Serral, Clem and Reynor have been destroying top tier Koreans.
Serral lol? Dude got famous beating Europeans, hasn't been really top tier in 3 years now.
Clem lol? Dude can win but.. destroying? Yea, in a few sets, I guess.
You are in absolute denial it's painful to watch. There is clearly a European dominance in the scene. It's not taking a few sets, it's consistently having top Eu players beating Koreans at pretty much all events for the past 3 years with Serral leading the way.
You have to understand Korea has the highest level of play on average but not the best players anymore, it's a thing from the past!
Past 3 years you say? 2018: IEM WC won by Rogue(0:1), runner up Classic(0:1) Blizzcon WC won by Serral(1:1), runner up Stats(0:2) 2019: Katowice WC won by soO(1:2), runner up Stats(0:3) Blizzcon WC won by Dark(1:3), runner up Reynor(1:3) 2020: Katowice won by Rogue(1:4), runner up Zest(1:4) 2021: Katowice online won by Reynor(2:4), runner up Zest(1:5)
Out of the world championship titles, which should be the highest title and show the suggested dominance of the top players, foreigners won 2 out 6, no foreign player was able to win more than one. In the meantime Rogue won 2, Stats and Zest has two second places.
The dominance, ladies and gentlemans. The dominance while losing 2:4 for titles and 1:5 for the second places of the most prestigious titles. These are your best players, Serral - who was unable to appear more than once and Reynor, who appeared twice, but unlike Rogue wasn't able to win twice. The dominance of the past 3 years!
The dominance of having 3 appears out of 12. The dominance of having 2 players while Korea was able to push into finals 6 different players(Dark, Rogue, Zest, Stats, Classic, soO).
The foreign Protoss dominance or Terran dominance where none of these races was able to achieve anything notable while having the best players and dominating Koreans.
EU players aren't dominating the scene, it's not true.
Considering only World Championships doesn't show the whole picture and, even then, non koreans aren't doing that bad. If we take every international Premier tournament in consideration, we find out that koreans and non koreans are essentially tied when it comes to winning in the last three years: it's 11-12 for koreans(including the very dubious GPC that Inno won) and 8-15 as far as second places go.
There are still more koreans who are championship contenders but at the very top it's at worst even and below that there are more foreign players than koreans.
Now, failing to understand why non korean champions draw so much interest truly surprises me. HoTS has been absolute korean domination so non korean audience was truly pleased to see someone else rising his level of play and actually win titles: this happens every time in traditional sports heavily dominated by a region(eg:Dekkers winning Muay Thai championships in Thailand). Also, unlike what happened many times in the past, those new non korean champions weren't overhyped or just a fluke; they consistently showcased their skills as championships contenders and won repeate
dly(still are and most likely will be).
Does it seem weird to you that a consistent part of the non korean casters and non korean viewers appreciate non korean top players? I don't know how many interviews Rogue had in Korea last year, you find weird that Reynor, first in the history of Sc2 of winning Katowice not being a korean, is getting interwieved nonstop(outside of Korea)?
Then they need to stop fucking pretending they're doing internation coverage without having favorites. Harstem having favorites is fine, Winter having favorites is fine - they both never pretended otherwise. Some didn't and don't. Which is my point. Either they stop hypocrisy around their neutrality or I will call them up, I don't see anythign wrong with that.
EPT
