2022 GSL Code S Season 1 - Round of 6 Preview

by Wax

The round-of-six is the most unique addition to the new 2022 Code S format, providing an intermediary stage between the RO10 round robin groups and the RO4 playoffs.

Trap and Dark, the two 1st place finishers from the RO10 groups, have been directly seeded into the RO4. The 2nd and 3rd place finishers from each group must now compete in the RO6 to try and claim the remaining two RO4 spots. The format is essentially a mini-double elimination bracket, with the 3rd place finishers starting in the losers' bracket while the 2nd place finishers start in the winners' bracket.

Round of 6: Rogue, Creator, RagnaroK, DongRaeGu

Start time: Monday, Apr 25 9:30am GMT (GMT+00:00)

#2 Seed Match: Creator vs Rogue

For me, Creator has unquestionably been the 'main character' of Code S Season 1 so far. Back in 2012, he was one of the next generation stars who seemed destined for greatness, standing shoulder to shoulder with the likes of TaeJa and Life. However, Creator's actual fate was most cruel, and he would spend the better part of a decade mired on the fringes of relevance. The late career revival he's enjoyed over the last half-year was wholly unexpected, and even if he was to be eliminated here in the RO6, his run will have been one of the most delightful StarCraft II stories in recent memory. Still, as long as I'm caught up in warm and fuzzy feelings, maybe I could dare hope for a bit more…?

Unfortunately, hope has run up against one of its greatest natural predators: Rogue. It feels like the three-time world/global champion's purpose for existing is to put down fan-favorites, be it denying soO a taste of gold at BlizzCon or slamming the door on what seemed like Maru's best ever chance of attaining the G5L. While Rogue was recently foiled by Serral at IEM Katowice, you have to think that means he's going to make up for it by ending this Creator fairy tale in the GSL.

The head-to-head certainly makes the outlook for Creator seem incredibly bleak, as he's 3-21 in all-time matches against Rogue (10-41 map score in those matches) and currently in the midst of a four match losing streak. On the other hand, Creator has made up a LOT of ground on Rogue in the last six months and their Aligulac.com ratings are now shockingly close with both players in the 2900's. In fact, the Aligulac formula only considers Rogue a marginal favorite with a 55.92% chance to win—I've definitely called such odds coin-flips in previous previews.

Of course, our usual caveats about Aligulac.com ratings apply—doubly so when it comes to Rogue. He's the only player for whom I totally buy the 'not trying online' excuse, and it certainly hasn't looked like he's been trying that hard from all the losses he's giving up in various online cups (barely managing a 60%+ ZvP win-rate in the last six months). Conversely, a lot of Creator's PvZ rating climb was due to his performances in those cups, making this current GSL run the first time he's really got big PvZ wins in a high-stakes setting.

However, if Rogue's reputation for being a killer in the clutch is the reason we tend to overlook his occasionally poor online results, it has to be mentioned that his aura of offline clutchness took an enormous hit in the prior season of Code S. Zest handed him his first ever loss in an offline BO7 match, and in a PvZ at that. Also, just going by the eye-test, I haven't been so impressed with Rogue's ZvP this season. The underdog NightMare gave him way too much trouble in the RO20, while Trap beat him very convincingly in the RO10 (Rogue only took a map thanks to positional luck on the four-player map of Nautilus II). On the other hand, Creator is looking like a very solid, macro-oriented Protoss. There's almost a Zest-like quality to him—he can commit some really bad mistakes here and there, but overall, he makes enough good big-picture decisions to be able to win the larger war.

While I think this match is pretty close in terms of raw ability, I'm predicting Rogue to win due to the external factors. Even if Rogue's vaunted clutch reputation has taken a hit, and even if Creator has made huge strides in overcoming his nervousness issues in the AfreecaTV studio, there are just too many years of GSL history telling me that Rogue is the massive favorite in an important match.

Prediction: Rogue 3 - 1 Creator

#3 Seed Match: DongRaeGu vs RagnaroK

Damn, this season of Code S has really given us an overabundance of great individual narratives! If not for Creator, I could have picked either RagnaroK or DongRaeGu as the feel-good story of the season (shoutout to Ryung as well).

While DongRaeGu has already shown us his veteran savvy by making a handful of deep Code S runs since his return from military service, I can't help but smile at each extra time the 30-year-old Zerg shows us a glimmer of his old greatness. Similarly, seeing RagnaroK make a deep major tournament run isn't an entirely new experience. However, it feels like he's turned a corner in this season of Code S, displaying build order-crafting and mind-gaming abilities we'd never seen before. I don't want to jump to conclusions now, but I feel like RagnaroK is establishing the foundations to have sustained GSL success going forward.

In a quaint twist of fate, the two must now overcome their mutual worst match-up as they face off with their tournament lives on the line. Going by Aligulac.com ratings, RagnaroK and DRG are two of the more uneven Zergs in terms of match-up strengths, with their ZvZ's trailing behind their ZvT and ZvP. Indeed, ZvZ had nothing to do with their success this season—RagnaroK lost his only ZvZ against Rogue in the RO10, whereas DRG lost two ZvZ series to Dark in both the RO20 and RO10. Aligulac actually thinks these two are about equally mediocre at ZvZ, giving RagnaroK a marginal edge with a 57.95% chance to win.

Amusingly enough, both players seem to be very well-aware that ZvZ is their weakness, and tried to overcome that weakness with all-ins in their earlier matches. RagnaroK didn't play a single standard game in his 1-2 against Rogue, going for some kind of deception into an all-in on two maps and being the victim of an all-in on the remaining map (although I imagine he would have gone for another cheese if Rogue hadn't shot first). As for DRG, he tried to play Dark straight-up in their RO20 match, only to get thoroughly outplayed. DRG changed course with a duo of all-ins in their RO10 rematch (including a proxy-Hatchery) but still couldn't overcome Dark in the end. There's potential that this match devolves into a chaotic but entertaining cheese-fest, including dueling 14-pool base trades and similar sorts of nonsense. I'm certainly wishing for that scenario. However, it could also be the case that both players go into the match thinking "this guy's ZvZ is weak enough that I can play him straight-up" and deliver a fairly vanilla, macro-oriented series as well.

While ZvZ can be unpredictable, I'm favoring RagnaroK by a hair. He's just been so well-prepared throughout this entire tournament run, not only planning strategies and build orders for a specific match, but also plotting mind-games between matches knowing that his opponents will have watched his previous games.

Prediction: RagnaroK 3 - 2 DongRaeGu

Decider Match: TBD vs TBD

I'll just go through my thoughts on all the potential scenarios briefly.

RagnaroK vs Creator: I give Creator an advantage in macro games, but I doubt RagnaroK is going to want to play Creator straight-up. Creator isn't great at crisis management or micro in low-unit count scenarios, so I fear for him if RagnaroK decides to get cheesy.

DongRaegu vs Creator: Creator just looked much better overall in their previous RO10 match, with DRG only winning the game where Creator made the huge mistake of losing a Prism with two Disruptors in the early game. I can't completely discount the possibility that Creator will falter under the pressure of the moment and commit such an error again, but I think he's beyond such dramatic collapses now.

Rogue vs RagnaroK/DRG: Rogue is favored by basically every criteria against DRG/RagnaroK, be it head-to-head record, GSL resume, Aligulac.com rating, TL.net Liquibet voting, or just my gut feeling. Rogue has played some very close BO5 series against supposedly weaker opponents in the past, so it wouldn't surprise me to see these go all five games.

Given my initial predictions of Rogue defeating Creator and RagnaroK taking down DongRaeGu, that would leave us with Creator and RagnaroK facing off in the final match. I would favor Creator to advance if he could somehow goad RagnaroK into playing straight-up games, but I don't think that will happen.

Even before RagnaroK changed up the way he prepares for matches, ZvP was already a match-up where he was prone to going all-in or deploying some kind of tricky strategy. While Creator is much improved overall, I still have some doubts about both his early game micro and his ability to adapt to unexpected situations. As mentioned above, Creator's strength is making all of the right big picture decisions so he can put himself in a position to A-move you to death. Unfortunately for Creator, I think RagnaroK is perfectly equipped to take that strength away.

Final prediction: Rogue and RagnaroK advance to the RO4.

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