2022 GSL Code S Season 2
RO20 Group B Preview: Zest, soO, Bunny, ByuN

by Poopi

This group has the potential to be full of intense, close competition, or be an utter disappointment packed with one-sided stomps. Indeed, Zest’s form does not seem that good nowadays, but he can randomly Zest-up on any given day. soO has only been back for two months now, and has delivered both promising games and disappointing duds in online competitions. Bunny is the player who's looking the hottest lately, but he's still coming off a wrist injury that hampered his practice for a while. Speaking of wrists, ByuN's issues on the GSL stage seem to have returned after a long period of calm—who knows how long he is going to be able to play at his best?



Zest had a lot of momentum in late 2021, stopping Rogue’s insane offline BO7 winning streak in a seven-game Code S semifinal. His form looked a bit shakier in the following online cups, but he was able to get back in great shape in early 2022 and won Super Tournament 1 with big victories over Maru and Dark. However, IEM Katowice brought a downward turn, as he put in a subpar performance by getting eliminated in the group stages. Things did not get better in the first Code S of 2022, and he was also eliminated from the group stage with two losses against a surging Ryung. Zest's performances in the online cups he previously dominated have dropped off as well, and you have to wonder if his incredibly long run of being a top-tier player is finally over.

This group could be a real litmus test as to where Zest's focus is at. You never know what version of Zest will show up to a given day of games—it's almost as difficult as predicting whether or not a specific tournament will really be his last before military service. However, he should at least be in good stead for his first match against soO, as his recent PvZ play seems perfectly fine. He's even picked up wins against top Zergs like Rogue and Serral (albeit in a best of one vs the Finnish Zerg), while only taking a few acceptable losses to Solar in return. PvT is an entirely different story. A quick look at his PvT history since Katowice shows us a weaker match record of 21W-11L (65.62%) compared to the very impressive 17W-3L (85%) he's put up in PvZ. We can see he's lost a lot of series to the likes of ByuN, Bunny, Cure, TIME and Gumiho as well as his Code S losses to Ryung, which isn't encouraging as he goes up once more against ByuN and Bunny. While he's managed to beat similarly strong Terrans at the same time, he is definitely looking mortal in the match-up and it might end up becoming his downfall once again.

In a recent TL.net interview, soO was realistic in regard to his expected performance for this Code S, saying his goal had to be simply to qualify for this event. He does seem to be a long shot contestant at first glance, but you can't completely rule out his chances of advancing. He managed to win more than 60% of his matches (56% of his maps) since returning from military service with a 39W-26L record. While that's pretty mediocre in a general sense, it's solid for a player who only came back to SC2 in April. soO has lost 3 times against Zest so far, only taking two maps out of eight, but he did manage to beat other strong Protosses such as Trap, MaxPax and Classic several times. Winning a BO3 against Zest might not be out of reach.

Even though Zest seems too strong for soO at the moment, I would not be surprised to see soO win against any of the Terrans. soO and ByuN played against each other a decent amount in the past few weeks, as both players are very active in online cups. soO has kept things fairly even with a 4W-3L match record and a 14W-13L score in maps. The concern that ByuN might end up playing suboptimally on the offline GSL stage due to returned wrist pain has to be brought up again, and soO might even be favored against the Shopify Rebellion terran.

As for Bunny, soO actually beat him recently 3-2 in an Olimoleague tournament… …played in Wings of Liberty. Interpret that as you will! Prior to that, Bunny did beat soO in a King of Battles qualifier, but overall the sample size is pretty small.

Either way, Bunny and ByuN will play each other in a TvT mirror in the other initial match of the group. I would favor Bunny given how well he played at IEM Katowice (making a run to the top 8), and how he seems to be picking up where he left off after an unfortunate fractured wrist caused him to get eliminated early from the last Code S competition.

However, Aligulac.com actually sides with ByuN and gives him a 60.61% chance of winning the BO3. ByuN has a fantastic TvT record over a big sample size of games, going 36W-10L (78.26%) in matches over the last eight weeks. Bunny's record is more modest, albeit over a much smaller number of contests: 6W-3L. There's also the wrinkle that ByuN is currently on a five match winning streak against Bunny, not having lost to him for nearly a year now. In fact, ByuN just won a match against him in the HomeStory Cup qualifiers, although it's unlikely that either player revealed any of their GSL strats during that match.

Bunny may actually be perfectly recovered from his injury by now—you would sure think so after a massive WTL performance over the weekend where he earned Team NV a win over DPG by going 2-0 against Dark and 1-0 against Rogue in the ace match. He has a 12-1 overall record in the WTL, which is a fantastic record in the highest stakes event he's played since recovering from his wrist injury.

Predictions:

All players have the potential to qualify, and Group A confirmed that Code S winners are always in danger of being upset in the GSL. While Aligulac is usually a trusty guide, I will be adventurous in my predictions and go completely against their projection of Zest and ByuN to advance. Zest is too unpredictable, and while ByuN might actually have the highest Aligulac rating in the group (#11, 3029 points), it feels like the stats website often overstates ByuN's chances in the AfreecaTV studio.

Zest > soO
Bunny > ByuN
Bunny > Zest
soO > ByuN
soO > Zest

Bunny and soO to advance.

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