2022 GSL Code S Season 1 - Round of 20

by Poopi

This group's two heavy favorites are Rogue and ByuN if we are only looking at career resumes, but many more factors go into deciding who advances from a Code S group. ByuN has not won such a major tournament in over a year, and Rogue has a history of inconsistency in the group stages of tournaments. Thus, Zoun looms as a real threat to advance as well, as he comes in off of a strong top-8 run at IEM Katowice (he might even clinch first depending on which version of Rogue shows up). All in all, it could be quite a close group and we will get to see interesting interactions from the new patch. Unfortunately for NightMare, he's clearly the weakest player in this group whether you go by resume or Aligulac rating, but as we've seen in past tournaments, anyone has a chance to cause an upset in a single BO3.

Group C Preview: Rogue, NightMare, ByuN, Zoun

Start time: Monday, Mar 28 9:30am GMT (GMT+00:00)

Rogue is the clear favorite in his opening match versus NightMare with Aligulac giving him almost a 79% chance to win the BO3. The two haven't played each other much since they're rarely involved in the same tiers of competition, but unsurprisingly Rogue has defeated NightMare in all six of their past meetings with a total map record of 13W - 1L.

Rogue had a strong showing at Katowice, going all the way to the final four. He dominated his group stage with wins over Cure, Dream, Neeb, and Spirit, only losing to Solar in a ZvZ. He kept on beating Terrans with victories over Ryung and Bunny in the playoffs, before getting swept by a conquering Serral in the semifinals. ZvZ won't be an issue for him in this group, so there's just a couple of key things to consider in this group with two Protosses and one Terran. First, Rogue was not tested much in ZvP at Katowice, so it is hard to gauge how he would do versus a strong PvZ player like Zoun. Second, this is the first time we're seeing Rogue in major competition after the balance patch. On the previous patch, I would have picked Rogue to get out of this group no matter what. Given his masterful performance against Terrans at Katowice, I would have predicted he'd get at least second place as he'd be favored vs ByuN and there would be simply too much of a gap between him and NightMare in terms of achievements. After the patch though? Maybe it will work in Rogue's favor, or maybe it will work against him—it's just a variable that hasn't been fully accounted for yet. Still, since Rogue has hinted that this could be his last year of StarCraft, we can probably expect him to practice hard on the new patch and deliver good games, especially after Dark and DRG paved the way against Classic and Dream.

NightMare is the clear underdog in this group, playing in only his third Code S tournament ever (he previously qualified in 2017 and 2020). Although being in Team NV has afforded him some great practice partners, he still needs to prepare for all three match-ups and would be fortunate to beat even one of his opponents. We already talked about his match versus Rogue, so we might as well check how he could fare versus ByuN and Zoun. NightMare's odds against ByuN are similar to those against Rogue according to Aliguilac, with only around a 25% chance to win. The head to head is one-sided as well, with NightMare being 2W-16L against ByuN all-time (though the map score is slightly more encouraging at 10W-34L). Thankfully for NightMare, he managed to stop his 13-match losing streak against ByuN earlier this year in a WardiTV tournament, but overall the indicators are pointing to a loss for NightMare. Interestingly enough, NightMare's numbers against Zoun are far better and surprisingly close. Zoun's PvP lags far behind his other match-ups, and Aligulac estimates his win chance against NightMare to be only around 58%. They are tied in matches at 1-1, but NightMare actually leads 4-2 in maps. Since NightMare is facing Rogue first, there is no scenario in which NightMare can advance by beating Zoun twice—even with a win against Zoun he'd have to beat one of ByuN or Rogue. I think NightMare has the potential to be a 'troublemaker' in the group, even if I'm not predicting him to advance (although, BO3 is volatile enough for bigger upsets to have happened in StarCraft 2).

ByuN is coming into this group as a slight favorite to advance. His wrist issues in live tournaments no longer seem to be a serious problem—after what seemed like a trouble-free IEM Katowice, we probably don't have to bring that narrative into previews anymore. ByuN is one of the most well rounded players with no particularly strong or weak match-up, and he ranks #5 in TvP, #3 in TvT, and #5 in TvZ on Aligulac.com (#5 Terran overall). As solid as he is in all match-ups, it should be pretty difficult to beat Rogue in his current form versus Terrans. One could argue that while Lurkers and Queens were nerfed, it's offset by the drilling claws nerf for Mines. This could be especially detrimental for a Terran who is as aggressive as ByuN, who will gladly pile on the pressure with high-mobility bio + mine compositions in the mid-game. Rogue is certainly a strong late-game player who's adept at using Lurkers, but on balance these changes could hurt ByuN more. The best shot for ByuN to advance would be to beat Zoun twice, therefore even if he loses to Rogue in the winner’s match, he can advance off his strong TvP. On the other hand, if he loses to Zoun in his opening match, there's a realistic chance he faces a worst-case scenario of playing Rogue in an elimination match. Aligulac sees ByuN as a slight favorite versus Zoun with a 57% chance to win, and he has a decent lead in head-to-head map record (61–42 - 59.22% win rate). However, their only encounter of 2022 was at IEM Katowice in group stages where Zoun won 2-0 ByuN, winning with both Carriers in the late game and with an aggressive early-game attack. I am not quite sure how the patch is gonna affect this match: Zoun wasn't as aggressive as someone like herO, but he did benefit from mixing in proxy-strategies now and then. Maybe the reduction of Protoss options tips the scales slightly further in ByuN's favor?

Zoun is seen as a slight underdog against both ByuN and Rogue according to the trusty Aligulac, but I think it lags behind a bit in reflecting his current strength—especially in PvT. Indeed, he was able to beat ByuN without much troubles at Katowice, and even won a very close 2-1 match against the best Terran in the world Maru in the same group stage to advance to the playoffs. Sure, he also lost against both Clem and HeroMarine, but they are very strong opponents in TvP and it's not a big mark against Zoun. Overall, it just paints a picture of Zoun as a very solid PvT player. In the case of PvZ, his Aligulac ranking might be a bit low at #8, but there's still a big-match quality to Zoun you can't dismiss. I still have in mind his wonderful reverse sweeps against Dark and Rogue in the GSL Super Tournament, and he also had good results in the match-up at Katowice with a 2-0 victory over Scarlett and a tight 1-2 loss versus Reynor (albeit, his victory came from defending against the now-defunct Queen-walk all-in). It's worrisome that he's only a slight favorite against NightMare in the unpredictable match-up of PvP and has to prepare for all three match-ups as well. But all in all, I think Zoun has a decent chance of advancing from this group.

Predictions: This group is very hard to predict with many plausible outcomes. I think Rogue is favored vs ByuN in general, but I could see ByuN pulling out a BO3 upset. Similarly, I think ByuN has a slight edge on Zoun, but an upset wouldn't surprise anyone (a decent number of fans would say Zoun is actually the favorite). First place for Zoun is on the table, but his weakness in PvP means that last place is possible as well. Since this is Code S and not Super Tournament, I will go with the relatively 'safe' prediction of Rogue and ByuN advancing, which is the choice of Liquibet users as well..

Rogue > NightMare
ByuN > Zoun
Rogue > ByuN
Zoun > NightMare
ByuN > Zoun

Rogue and ByuN advance.

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