2022 GSL Code S Season 2
RO20 Group C Preview: Dark, Ryung, Zoun, Armani

by Poopi

On paper, this group seems almost as predictable as Group A (herO, Rogue, DongRaeGu, GuMiho) seemed at first. The mighty Dark looks like a lock to advance, with Zoun having a slight edge over the other three in the race for second place. Of course, what actually happened in Group A was anything but predictable: reigning champion Rogue went down in flames, with DongRaeGu opportunistically taking the RO10 spot instead.

While I highly doubt Dark will meet the same fate, a decade of GSL play has taught us that lightning can strike the same place twice.



Despite having gone nearly a year without winning a major title, Dark is obviously the favorite here. He looked very strong last season as he topped the RO10 group of death, and was only eliminated from the playoffs by eventual champion and personal nemesis Rogue. Dark's first match will be against Ryung, who has has shown us his miracle run at IEM Katowice was no flash in the pan. Last season he defeated Zest twice in the first round of Code S, and he's continued to be a solid performer for Team GP in the WTL. However, most of Ryung’s good results have been due to his much improved TvP and veteran savvy in TvT. In contrast, his TvZ is mediocre at best. It's no surprise to see Aligulac making Dark the insane favorite with more than a 92% chance of beating Ryung in the BO3. The head-to-head record also suggests that this is a glaring mismatch: Dark leads with 11 wins and 1 draw in matches (that draw came during a 2021 WTL match) and a combined 26W-3L map score in those matches.

In the other opening match, Zoun will take on Armani in a comparatively closer series. The combo of the October map pool change and recent balance patch have brought Zoun's PvZ down quite a bit from its peak, but he's still a solid favorite against Armani with a 71% chance to win according to Aligulac. The Armani who once made a brilliant underdog run to the Code S final four is long gone, and these days even qualifying for Code S feels like an uncertainty for him. The head to head record is deceptively close at 42W-34L in favor of Zoun, but most of Armani's wins were collected in 2019 and 2020 when Zoun had yet to establish himself as a Code S regular. In 2021 and 2022, Zoun is 9W-2L against Armani and is currently on a seven match winning streak.

Whether that match goes chalk or if Armani somehow pulls off the upset, Dark is still the comfortable favorite to win a prospective winners match. Zoun may have won big matches against Dark in the past, most notably the reverse sweep in Super Tournament 2 of 2021, but such wins are the exception to the norm. With Zoun's PvZ having slightly declined as mentioned above, Dark is even more likely to prevail with a 72% chance to win on Aligulac. Also, while this match was about five months ago, Dark did happen to win their last big clash in 2022's Super Tournament (3-1 score). Similarly, Dark is favored against Armani with around a 80% chance of winning, so unless Armani can summon his inner DRG or Zoun can channel the spirit of herO, I can't see Dark having to sweat much in this group.

The real question seems to be who will get 2nd place. Everyone's way of practicing is different, but it wouldn't be surprising if Ryung is focusing a bit more on Armani and Zoun compared to Dark. Ryung has had some success against stronger Zergs with various proxies (although it spectacularly backfired against Rogue last season), and he'll have to decide carefully if he wants to potentially 'waste' them against Dark in a 1-2 loss or just hide his strategies for use against Armani. In 2022, Ryung win-rate in TvZ is below 50% in TvZ, and the best Zergs he's beaten are soO, ByuL and Armani. Thankfully for him, Armani is not that strong in ZvT either and has around a 41% match win-rate in 2022 (his biggest 'quality' wins being against Dream and GuMiho in GSL qualifiers, and against TIME in the WTL). Aligulac sees this series as basically a coin toss, which makes strategizing tricky for both players. Does Ryung think Armani is a player he can beat by playing straight up? Or, as mentioned above, should he dig into his bag of tricks and try to catch him off guard?

A Zoun vs Ryung match seems likely at some point during the proceedings, be it the losers match or the decider match. I have praised Ryung’s TvP many times since Katowice, but Zoun is also a potent PvT player. Minus the high profile upsets, Ryung isn't exactly a consistently strong TvP player and only has a 34% chance of beating Zoun according to Aligulac.com. Their head-to-head record is also one-sided in favor of the Alpha X Protoss who is 8W-1L-1D against Ryung with a 21W-7L record in maps. One interesting thing to note is that Ryung only ever beat or tied Zoun in WTL, during the magical 2021 Winter season when Team GP were playing out of their minds. However, one also has to note that basically all of their head-to-head record was compiled before Ryung had his recent TvP renaissance, and was largely known as a poor TvP player. Still, I think the last spot should go to Zoun as he's a moderate to strong favorite against both Ryung and Armani.

Predictions: Dark may not win major tournaments as often as Rogue, but also does not bomb out of them as frequently either. I didn't have to look at any stats to have Dark pegged as the favorite, and a look into the numbers only reaffirmed that confidence.

Ryung may have been able to upset Zest twice last season, but he was aided by some very Zest-ish throws and army donations. Zoun is not quite as reckless and enjoys playing a methodical, late-game oriented style of PvT when the situation allows, so I will predict that no upsets will happen in Group C in the end.

Dark > Ryung
Armani < Zoun
Dark > Zoun
Ryung > Armani
Zoun > Ryung

Dark and Zoun to advance.

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