The qualifiers for GSL Season 2 were held over the weekend, determining the four players who will advance directly to Code S, as well as the sixteen players who will have to brave the trials of Code A. For those who are unfamiliar, the new GSL qualifier system in 2021 awards four direct Code S seeds on day one of the qualifiers, while day two only awards spots in Code A.
Veteran stalwarts INnoVation and Solar claimed two of the direct Code S spots, while the other two spots went to Zoun and Bunny—two players who have hit a patch of great form in recent months.
Players qualified for Code S
Players qualified for Code A
Down in Code A, we'll be seeing a few blasts from the past join the competition once more. ForGG made a surprising run through day two of the qualifiers, taking down both Armani and Patience to earn a Code A spot. Terran fans have even more good news to celebrate, as KeeN attained his first notable result after his recent discharge from the military, taking down Zest to reach Code A. Trust was another surprise player to make it through the preliminaries, earning his first return to the AfreecaTV studio stage since 2019.
Overall, three spots changed hands since GSL Season 1:
Small correction, Percival shouldn't be in the "Out" category since he beat Ryung and made it out as the 3rd player in his Group C pool. It finished last so it only updated recently.
I would have liked to see Ryung return so he can stay motivated, but if he's losing to Percival then he's probably not ready. And it's nice to see new young players make it.
It's really awesome to see Keen, ForGG, and Trust back! It's exciting to have 3-4 new/fresh players.
I'm also glad to see Creator back finally. His group match vs Zest in the last GSL season of 2020 was a really good PvP. Too bad Patience didn't make it, as he also had a great PvP vs PartinG in that same season, but it's nice to see ForGG!
So Creator just had to beat Cham to qualify? Or do results from the first day are taken into consideration for the second day seeding? The time when the GSL qualifiers were super hard is really gone...
Although I'm super hype to see ForGG return, I hope he is good, and it's not just that the level of the qualifiers has gone down!!!!
On June 02 2021 05:40 Totoro1 wrote: So Creator just had to beat Cham to qualify? Or do results from the first day are taken into consideration for the second day seeding? The time when the GSL qualifiers were super hard is really gone...
Although I'm super hype to see ForGG return, I hope he is good, and it's not just that the level of the qualifiers has gone down!!!!
Creator got a walkover in the first round, beat Cham and then beat Keen for seeding.
Forgg had a slightly harder run: 2-1 armani, 2-0 patience, 2-0 hurricane
On June 02 2021 05:40 Totoro1 wrote: So Creator just had to beat Cham to qualify? Or do results from the first day are taken into consideration for the second day seeding? The time when the GSL qualifiers were super hard is really gone...
Although I'm super hype to see ForGG return, I hope he is good, and it's not just that the level of the qualifiers has gone down!!!!
Creator got a walkover in the first round, beat Cham and then beat Keen for seeding.
Forgg had a slightly harder run: 2-1 armani, 2-0 patience, 2-0 hurricane
Holy Batman on a nuclear powered pogo stick, those are some names! Noice!
ForGG's run I hope is a preview of his performance in Code A itself. Taking out Armani, Patience and Hurricane is no easy feat and with only 1 actual map loss in all 3 sets.
On June 02 2021 09:44 yoshi245 wrote: Awesome to see ForGG and KeeN make it back.
ForGG's run I hope is a preview of his performance in Code A itself. Taking out Armani, Patience and Hurricane is no easy feat and with only 1 actual map loss in all 3 sets.
To be fair you couldnt of named more "Code B" level players than Armani Patience and Hurricane
On June 02 2021 03:52 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: Small correction, Percival shouldn't be in the "Out" category since he beat Ryung and made it out as the 3rd player in his Group C pool. It finished last so it only updated recently.
I would have liked to see Ryung return so he can stay motivated, but if he's losing to Percival then he's probably not ready. And it's nice to see new young players make it.
It's really awesome to see Keen, ForGG, and Trust back! It's exciting to have 3-4 new/fresh players.
I'm also glad to see Creator back finally. His group match vs Zest in the last GSL season of 2020 was a really good PvP. Too bad Patience didn't make it, as he also had a great PvP vs PartinG in that same season, but it's nice to see ForGG!
On June 02 2021 09:44 yoshi245 wrote: Awesome to see ForGG and KeeN make it back.
ForGG's run I hope is a preview of his performance in Code A itself. Taking out Armani, Patience and Hurricane is no easy feat and with only 1 actual map loss in all 3 sets.
To be fair you couldnt of named more "Code B" level players than Armani Patience and Hurricane
But yeah it was awesome
Armani made it into the ro4 of GSL:S3 2020, and he almost beat Dream recently (himself able to go to ro4), he is no pushover. This is very encouraging for ForGG, dunno if his worst match-up is still TvT?
On June 02 2021 03:52 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: Small correction, Percival shouldn't be in the "Out" category since he beat Ryung and made it out as the 3rd player in his Group C pool. It finished last so it only updated recently.
I would have liked to see Ryung return so he can stay motivated, but if he's losing to Percival then he's probably not ready. And it's nice to see new young players make it.
It's really awesome to see Keen, ForGG, and Trust back! It's exciting to have 3-4 new/fresh players.
I'm also glad to see Creator back finally. His group match vs Zest in the last GSL season of 2020 was a really good PvP. Too bad Patience didn't make it, as he also had a great PvP vs PartinG in that same season, but it's nice to see ForGG!
Dudeeee. That Creator Zest PvP was AWESOME
DUDE YESSS. I haven't followed most of LotV, and didn't personally get to see much of Creator to understand why he has trouble staying in GSL and why the casters say he's a shaky player etc.
But that day he fucked Taeja hard, and also played such clean PvPs vs Zest. Remember that moment when Zest was about to sneak his Adepts in, and Creator actually was ready to block it with a Battery even though he was doing something else outside his base?? That's the kind of pro polished play I love to see in a game like SC2. Small things like that, always being ready.
That whole PvP was like, them making big plays against each other, and normally 1 big play will be enough to let you end the game soon in recent SC2, but in that series the other player would find ways to use their few advantages in some aspects and even the game back up, it was so exciting. Like one time Zest seemingly was about to catch Creator way off guard and kill his natural and basically win, but actually Creator knew to blink his Stalkers behind Zest's army and knew that if Zest tried to fight, Creator with his blink can just kite and run away. Basically stopping Zest from being able to focus the Nexus without losing his army, and Zest knew that and just recalled home. I also liked that they did a lot of similar things to each other, making the match feel mirror-y at times. (Well that's what I remember, might be a bit off on some things).
But yeah that PvP was so good, and Patience vs Parting's, and PvPs of recent too like sOs vs Zoun game 2, damn PvP is such a cool MU now! So much variety of tech/builds/strategies/unit comps/tactics, and both races have resilient army and longer fights especially thanks to Batteries and also Disruptor zoning and encouraging armies to be split up more and move more carefully. And not only that early game 1-2 base builds with aggressive tech/army strategies are intense and exciting, but also long macro games happen pretty commonly too and are intense and exciting and don't end in just 1 battle too often.
Covering 1) Solar vs PartinG 2) PartinG vs sOs 3) Bunny vs ByuN 4) ByuN vs Zest 5) Dark vs INnoVation 6) Dark vs DRG 7) Zoun vs Cure 8) Armani vs Cure and possibly Keen/forgg Qualifying matches!
Covering 1) Solar vs PartinG 2) PartinG vs sOs 3) Bunny vs ByuN 4) ByuN vs Zest 5) Dark vs INnoVation 6) Dark vs DRG 7) Zoun vs Cure 8) Armani vs Cure and possibly Keen/forgg Qualifying matches!
Covering 1) Solar vs PartinG 2) PartinG vs sOs 3) Bunny vs ByuN 4) ByuN vs Zest 5) Dark vs INnoVation 6) Dark vs DRG 7) Zoun vs Cure 8) Armani vs Cure and possibly Keen/forgg Qualifying matches!
awesome!
converted to proper timestamp so everyone can see it in their own timezone Saturday, Jun 05 12:00pm GMT (GMT+00:00)
Update : Will also be casting Keen qualifying match versus Zest and ForGG seeding match versus Hurricane.
Full list as follows - 1) Solar vs PartinG 2) PartinG vs sOs 3) Bunny vs ByuN 4) ByuN vs Zest 5) Dark vs INnoVation 6) Dark vs DRG 7) Zoun vs Cure 8) Armani vs Cure 9) Keen vs Zest 10) ForGG vs Hurricane
On June 02 2021 09:44 yoshi245 wrote: Awesome to see ForGG and KeeN make it back.
ForGG's run I hope is a preview of his performance in Code A itself. Taking out Armani, Patience and Hurricane is no easy feat and with only 1 actual map loss in all 3 sets.
To be fair you couldnt of named more "Code B" level players than Armani Patience and Hurricane
On June 04 2021 17:58 AlphaXSushi wrote: Update : Will also be casting Keen qualifying match versus Zest and ForGG seeding match versus Hurricane.
Full list as follows - 1) Solar vs PartinG 2) PartinG vs sOs 3) Bunny vs ByuN 4) ByuN vs Zest 5) Dark vs INnoVation 6) Dark vs DRG 7) Zoun vs Cure 8) Armani vs Cure 9) Keen vs Zest 10) ForGG vs Hurricane
Hypee thanks for the update! So cool to see Keen and ForGG back!
On June 05 2021 20:28 tigera6 wrote: How the effing hell Parting got seeded to play Zest? And we have ForGG vs Percival? Somebody tell Afreeca they got a bug in their seeding system.
On June 05 2021 21:56 swarminfestor wrote: ForGG vs Percival? Perhaps, this is the easiest opponent that Percival can get to qualify into Code S for the first time.
He does not look very confident inTvT. Close series vs Ryung and Top in qualifier. ForGG seems a bit weak in the MU so pretty even match upcoming.
While DRG's ZvT isn't as absurd as it was last year, KeeN has a pretty hard task in dealing with him. Seems like a coinflip with Perceival vs. ForGG TvT. Parting vs. Zest is just weird. I expect Zest to win, but Parting is always a live dog, who knows what he could do.
Rooting for Percival to beat ForGG. It’s much healthier for the game when new blood breaks through than old guard keeping dominance despite being past their prime.