2022 GSL Code S Season 2
RO20 Group A Preview: Rogue, GuMiho, herO, DongRaeGu

by Wax

Reigning Code S champion Rogue is a title favorite in any tournament he competes in, but he's got some extra motivation as we head into the new season. With his fourth Code S trophy in hand, the path is now open for him to win the legendary G5L trophy. Maru is still in contention as well, so the race is on between the two former teammates to become the first player to claim this elusive honor.



The first step for Rogue will be to advance from his Round-of-20 group, which isn't the cakewalk you might expect for such an accomplished player. Let's put aside the quality of his three opponents for now—Rogue himself is often his own worst enemy. He has a history of suffering early Code S elimination right after he wins a major tournament, most memorably after BlizzCon 2017 and IEM Katowice 2020. The Korean StarCraft fandom has piled so much mockery upon him for such embarrassments that he now regularly says something along the lines of 'I'll make sure not to get eliminated quick' in his interviews after winning a championship.

For the most part, Rogue has made good on that vow—he hasn't been knocked out of the first round of Code S since 2020. But at times it can still feel like he's using the earlier rounds to play himself into shape, rather than dominating like you'd expect from a player of his caliber. We saw this last season where he dropped a map to a massive underdog in NightMare (under-droning due to paranoia about a nonexistent all-in), and a few seasons ago when he lost a map to another Team NV benchwarmer in Percival.

Obviously, I'm going to predict that Rogue will make it through the RO10—how could I not side with one of the greatest players of all time? But going off the precedents he's set for himself, I think he'll take some licks along the way.

There's a good chance that Rogue gets roughed up right off the bat, as he goes against the brainy Terran GuMiho. As an admitted GuMiho fan, I'd argue that the skill he's shown since returning from the military is higher than his tournament results would suggest (one Super Tournament RO16 and one Code S RO20 are his best results so far). Just last season, he very nearly made it out of his RO20 group after he beat Trap 2-0 and went up 1-0 on Creator in the winners match, but was sadly eliminated after losing 1-2 to Creator and then 1-2 to Trap in the rematch.

In general, GuMiho has a lot of quirks that make him hard to practice for, whether it's his fondness for cloaked Banshees, attempts to squeeze Cyclones into every build, and his general love of mech Terran. He's also a player who's proven to be great at concocting builds for preparation-style tournaments like Code S. Now that I think about it, that sounds a lot like SpeCial—well, a version of SpeCial that once won a Code S trophy.

I have to concede that GuMiho's mechanics aren't the greatest, especially when he's trying to defend against multitasking attacks from speedier foes. But that was a hole in Creator's game as well, and we saw what he was able to achieve when he compensated for it with great series planning and build order preparation last season. If GuMiho can prepare in a way where he's able to seize the initiative and play as the aggressor in most of his games, then he might be able to upset expectations and get into the RO10.

Alongside Rogue, herO is the other heavy favorite in the group on paper. Both herO and Rogue have Aligulac ratings that are above 3100, whereas GuMiho and DRG lag considerably behind in the 2600~2700 range. But while Rogue has the big tournament results to back up his impressive stats, herO is a player for whom the numbers are starting to look like empty calories. Despite being a monster player in smaller online tournaments (notably winning five out of nine ESL Open Asia Cups in the 2022/23 season) and being Aligulac's top rated Protoss for weeks now, he hasn't been able to make a deep run in a major tournament since returning from military service.

You could argue that he's had bad luck. In the RO36 of IEM Katowice, he was eliminated by Ryung who seemed to have the blessing of the StarCraft gods as he made an improbable run. herO was then unfortunate to be put in the Code S 'group of death' last season alongside Maru, Dark, DRG, and Creator, with the latter being another player who seemed to benefit from divine intervention. At the same time, you could also say it's herO's own fault that he keeps blowing matches that he should win. He wouldn't have needed to play an IEM elimination match against Ryung at all if he hadn't suffered a massive upset against Nice in an earlier match. In the Code S, he actually put himself in good position to escape the group of death by beating Dark, but wasted his opportunity by losing to both DRG and Creator in two more clunkers.

herO has never been a player to be criticized for choking in big moments—he's historically been a reasonably clutch performer in team leagues and individual tournaments alike. Thus, I'm still much more inclined to believe that this is just a terrible stretch of misfortune for him, and that his skills will come through eventually in major events (be it this Code S or the upcoming DreamHack Valencia tournament). He may not be a dominant player in the conventional sense of having impervious macro play, but his feel for the game and his unparallelled understanding of the Day9 'just go kill him' principle makes me feel comfortable about predicting him to advance from this group.

Rounding out the group is DongRaeGu, who looms as another dangerous underdog alongside GuMiho. Last season, DongRaeGu defied the odds to survive the aforementioned group of death and reach the RO6, scoring two unbelievable victories against Maru and herO along the way. One of the upsets against Maru was of the more traditional variety, with DongRaeGu punishing Maru's greedy build with a deadly all-in. But for the most part, DongRaegu managed to take down his more highly rated opponents by simply reading the game and making good decisions. Maru's mech play nearly had DRG dead to rights on Nautilus, but DRG cleverly used the unique terrain of the four player map to win a comeback victory with Swarm Hosts. Against herO, DongRaeGu's diligent scouting allowed him to comfortably defend and out-macro one of the deadliest offensive players in the game (a bit of an oversimplification so read more about it here).

Even outside the GSL, DRG has been manufacturing constant upsets for both himself and his team of NV Gaming. In the DHM: Last Chance tournament back in January, he beat Serral in consecutive BO3 series to eliminate the Finnish Phenom. In a recent WTL fixture against KaiZi Gaming, he stole a 1-1 tie of Reynor despite there being some 800 points of Aligulac rating difference between the two Zergs. There's just something undeniably special about DongRaeGu and the way he can elevate himself in big matches.

Yet, just because a player is good at stealing upsets doesn't mean they're guaranteed to pull it off—they're the underdog for a reason. I give DRG a respectable puncher's chance to advance, but I can't outright pick him to advance in the end.

Predictions:

Rogue > GuMiho
herO > DongRaeGu
Rogue > herO
DongRaeGu > GuMiho
herO > DongRaeGu

Rogue and herO to advance.

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