2022 GSL Code S Season 1 - Round of 10

by Poopi

The round-of-10 ushers in one of the most drastic format changes in GSL history as the players will compete in a round robin group stage. The ten players have been divided into two groups of five players each, and each group will play out a full round-robin akin to the IEM Katowice group stages.

The 1st place players from each group will advance directly to the semifinals, while the 2nd and 3rd place players will compete in a playoff for the remaining two semifinal spots (Afreeca is calling this playoff the "round-of-6"). Both groups will be played across two matchdays, with five BO3 matches being played per day.


Round robin action begins with the well-balanced Group A, where every player should find it a challenge to advance. BO3 round robin can be very unpredictable as we have seen in numerous IEM Katowice events—sometimes everything is decided with a couple of matches to go, but at other times the final standings come down to the very last map of the group.

Even the ostensible favorites Rogue, Trap, and ByuN could easily be eliminated if their condition is bad on their match days. Trap was very vocal about his discontent with balance in his RO20 winner's interview, but at least he has the silver lining of being the sole Protoss and only having two match-ups to prepare for (though he didn't get the best possible scenario where he plays only Terran on day 1, and only Zerg on day 2).

Group A - Day1 Preview: Rogue, Trap, ByuN, RagnaroK, Ryung

Start time: Monday, Apr 11 9:30am GMT (GMT+00:00)

Match #1: Rogue vs RagnaroK

Rogue is obviously the favorite versus RagnaroK, and beginning with his easiest match on paper is a great way to get a momentum boost before taking on the other players. Still, it is kind of a double-edged sword: ZvZ is a volatile match-up where Rogue has given up numerous BO3 upsets throughout his career, and it would be a disastrous start to lose in what's expected to be a relatively easy match.

If we take a look at the Aligulac prediction for this match, we can see that Rogue is the comfortable favorite with around a 70% chance of beating RagnaroK. However, when you see that Rogue is only 39W–25L (60.94% win rate) against RagnaroK in head-to-head map score (17W-10L in matches), it might seem to suggest that RagnaroK is a tricky opponent who has an outsize chance of causing an upset. Unfortunately, their recent matches results since 2021 heavily favor DPG Zerg: Rogue is 5W-1L-1D in matches with a dominant 14W-4L map score (the last time RagnaroK beat Rogue was in January 2021, during a Wardi event group stage).

The ray of hope for RagnaroK is that he's already exceeded expectations by qualifying from a group with Bunny, herO, and Cure, even topping the group in first place. What really shined for him was how he took advantage of the Code S format, preparing clever proxy-Hatchery builds that won him four consecutive games. It's also encouraging that in his post-match interview, he said he likes the RO10 round robin format very much and that he is confident he can perform well. Even if proxy-Hatching is too predictable now, we may see many other creative builds from RagnaroK in the RO10.

While I think the match should be close, Rogue is still a tier above RagnaroK in my opinion. Despite his recent losses to Solar and Serral at IEM Katowice, he should still beat lower-ranked Zergs when it matters.

Prediction: Rogue 2 - 1 RagnaroK

Match #2: Trap vs ByuN

This match is closest of day 1, though Trap vs RagnaroK is a surprisingly near behind in second (more on that in a bit). Trap is still one of the best PvT players in the world despite some recent setbacks, while ByuN has been showing his improved TvP abilities in recent online competitions.

This is why I am not surprised at all to see them almost perfectly matched in terms of Aligulac.com odds, with Trap holding a narrow advantage with a 50.64% chance to win. While Trap has a slight lead in head-to-head map record at 48W-40L, this match seems much closer to the 50/50 that the algorithm suggests.

For the last few years, Trap has been known as one of the foremost Terran-killers in StarCraft. Even before he rose to become the #1 Protoss player in the world by winning a swath of "tier 2" tournaments, his PvT had already been considered top tier. He was even good enough to handily dismantle Maru in the quarterfinals of Code S Season 3 (2021), though that was followed by a loss to eventual champion Cure who was on an even hotter TvP run at the time. Recently though, he's been losing an alarming number of matches against Terrans of varying ability. Indeed, since that loss to Cure, he has dropped series to Bunny, Cure, Clem, ByuN and Maru numerous times. He even got beaten 2-0 by GuMiho during the RO20 of this very tournament, barely winning the rematch 2-1 to qualify for the RO10.

ByuN has played well in online cups, which always have to be taken with a grain of salt when used for predicting GSL Code S. The AfreecaTV studio sure seemed like an entirely different stage when he faced Zoun for the first time in the RO20, losing in an uninspiring 0-2 performance. However, after dominating NightMare in the losers' match, ByuN did a complete 180 on Zoun in the decider match by picking him apart with great map movement and multitasking.

It doesn't seem that ByuN has been affected much by the patch in TvP, while Trap was never particularly known for abusing proxy-Void Rays (perhaps he put a lid on it after his crazy reverse sweep loss to Maru in Code S Season 1 of 2021?), so balance changes shouldn't be too big a factor. With both players being very closely matched by the numbers, I will have to go with my gut feeling for the prediction and pick the Shopify Rebellion player to win.

Prediction: ByuN 2 - 1 Trap

Match #3: Rogue vs Ryung

This match is a rematch of an unexpected clash from the IEM Katowice RO12. Ryung went on what must be a once-in-a-lifetime run in Poland, getting out of an open bracket he was not even qualified for in the first place, then getting out of a stacked RO24 group with a 2-3 record. After that wonderful run to the playoffs, things came to a somewhat deflating end as Rogue dominated him in a 3-1 victory, but Ryung still managed to put up a fight and take a map with a cleverly placed proxy 2-Barracks that caught Rogue off guard.

Known as a TvT specialist for much of his career, Ryung's recent surge has been largely based on his TvP. Not only was TvP the backbone of his run in Katowice, but he managed to defeat Zest twice in Group B of the RO20 (including an epic comeback victory in the final map of the group). However, he hasn't shown us the same strength in TvZ, and he might be tempted to type “IMBA IMBA IMBA” after these matches—just like he did against Sniper back in 2012. TvZ is still Ryung's weakest match-up, which is almost expected given the mechanics-heavy nature of the match-up and how Ryung is one of the oldest active pro gamers. In fact, this match is probably the most one-sided of the RO10, with Rogue having around a 92% chance of winning a BO3 against Ryung according to Aligulac. Raw win-rate also shows a heavy disparity in TvZ strength, with Rogue having an excellent 28W–11L map record in the last two months, while Ryung has struggled to win even a third of his maps (27.59%) at 8W–21L. Not only is Ryung visibly struggling in the match-up, he has also never beaten Rogue in his whole career with a 0W-12L match record against him (combined map record of 8L-26W).

Even though Rogue can be vulnerable in BO3 matches, I can’t reasonably pick Ryung to score the upset here. In fact, Rogue was very confident he could win the entire tournament, when Protosses were not doing well at the time of his group stage interview, so he is probably not very concerned about 'weak' TvZ Terrans at all. All the numbers say Rogue is the obvious choice, and I'll follow along..

Prediction: Rogue 2 - 0 Ryung

Match #4: Trap vs RagnaroK

Depending on how closely you've been following the two players, you might be shocked to hear that Aligulac.com actually rates this match as being almost 50/50. It's not quite as tight as Trap vs ByuN above—RagnaroK has a 51.78% chance to win compared to Trap's 50.64%—but it's still basically a coinflip according to the trusty stats website. At least it was a surprise to me, as RagnaroK isn't known as that strong of a Zerg, while Trap still has a reputation as one of the top Protosses.

Even the head-to-head records are super close: Trap is 23W-21L in matches and 57W–52L (52.29%) in maps against RagnaroK, with both players having enjoyed periods of dominance against each other in the past. Sure, some of these wins might have happened when Trap was infamous for being poor in PvZ compared to his other match-ups, but it doesn't account for the entire record. RagnaroK might have sneakily been Trap's Zerg kryptonite all along! At least for now, the win-loss cycle between the two players seems to be favoring Trap, as he's won a larger portion of their matches in the last half-year or so.

There was quite a lot of balance complaining from Trap in his post RO20 interview, but I am not sure how much of it was putting on a show for the camera or and how much of it was being dead serious (interviewer Gyuri quipped that she had never seen him so engaged for an interview). When you take it all in, it's very tempting to pick the underdog to win here—Liquibet users are still favoring Trap heavily, regardless of what Aligulac may say.

However, I will still go with the majority of TL.net users on this in the end. Trap's recent lead in head-to-head is a factor, as well as the fact that he beat a strong Zerg in Solar in the RO20. RagnaroK may have surprised herO with his offensive hatcheries, but he was aided by the fact that herO's responses were less than optimal. Trap is generally more solid against aggression and doesn't choke against underdogs that often.

Prediction: Trap 2 - 0 RagnaroK

Match #5: ByuN vs Ryung

In an inversion of Trap vs RagnaroK, Aligulac tells me this match is surprisingly one-sided when I thought it would be close: ByuN is a heavy favorite with around 80:20 odds of beating Ryung in a BO3. Yet, this is one of those times when I'm pretty sure Aligulac is fooling us, as I believe Ryung is most certainly still a very scary TvT player. For much of Ryung's career, no matter what the state of his other match-ups were, and no matter where balance or the meta stood, he could always go into a tournament and beat the other top Terrans—often to the displeasure of fans who were relying on them to carry Terran in TvZ or TvP. I believe this is still the case to some extent.

ByuN said in his post-RO20 interview that he had fixed the unsteady TvT which had plagued him since his return from the military, and he does indeed look stronger in the match-up. In fact, Ryung has yet to beat ByuN since his own return from the military, and is 0W-5L in their matches with a combined map record of 4W-10L. When looking at Ryung's match history in the mirror match-up, we can see that he is strong against Terrans such as SpeCial and TIME, but that he still has troubles against the likes of Maru, Cure or ByuN. Even players like Bunny and Dream are causing him trouble.

Yet, Ryung has improved greatly over the last six months or so, and he looks quite sharp nowadays. If he can take a map off Rogue in his worst match-up on the biggest stage, I am pretty sure he can summon some of his old TvT power and take down a supposedly stronger Terran in a single BO3. After all, ByuN might have improved his TvT, but it’s hardly in the realm of invincibility like Maru’s. Even though the Aligulac odds seem very much against me, I will predict another underdog to win. Not only because it could make the group very unpredictable going into day 2, but also because I expect a good season from Ryung after his great performances in Katowice and Code S so far.

Prediction: Ryung 2 - 1 ByuN

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