2022 GSL Code S Season 2 - Round of 10

by Poopi

Due to DreamHack Valencia, day 1 of Group B will be played early on Tuesday, Jun 28 9:30am GMT (GMT+00:00). Also, there will be a week break before the second half of the RO10 is played on July 11th and 14th (at the normal Mon/Thu times).

Group B - Day 1 Preview: RagnaroK, Creator, Bunny, Dark, Cure

Start time: Tuesday, Jun 28 9:30am GMT (GMT+00:00)

Match #1: RagnaroK vs Creator

Depending on what tournaments you watched recently, you might have a very different idea of who is supposed to be the favorite of this first match. Those who mostly followed major tournaments—especially the last season of Code S—might see Creator as the favorite. Not only did he reach the finals compared to RagnaroK's 5th place finish, it was Creator himself who eliminated RagnaroK in the process.

On the other hand, if you followed the ESL Open Cups, WTL, and other online competitions, you probably noticed that Creator has been struggling a bit there. Still, he managed to qualify for the round of 10 without too much trouble, only losing 0-2 against Maru and beating both KeeN and Solar in convincing fashion. As hard as it is to gauge Creator, RagnaroK is tough to pin down as well. He's been a solid online player, and also performed way above expectations in the round of 20: he beat both Cure and Trap, respectively 2-0 and 2-1, to qualify in first place.

Aligulac.com sees this match as basically a perfect toss-up, with RagnaroK boasting a 2905 rating in ZvP and Creator 2901 at the time of writing. The head-to-head record slightly favors RagnaroK by a margin of 19W-14L in matches and 54W–42L in maps (56.25% win rate). However, it should be noted that most of these wins come from before the rise of Creator as a serious Code S contender, and the Team NV Protoss won all three of their encounters in 2022. Another good indicator that Creator might indeed be the favorite is that he is doing well in PvZ with a 30W–16L map record in the last 8 weeks, compared to the 15W-15L record of RagnaroK (they played similar quality opponents). One player seems to be on the rise, while the other looks to be stagnating at best.

I expect a close match, but Creator’s finish last season was not a fluke in my opinion, and I expect him to qualify for the RO6, starting with a victory here against RagnaroK.

Prediction: Creator 2 - 1 RagnaroK

Match #2: Bunny vs Dark

This match looks kind of one-sided when you consider both players' resumes, but remember that Dark couldn't live up to his vaunted reputation in the RO20 group stage. Despite being a heavy favorite in his group, he actually finished second after losing to Zoun in the winners' match. On the other hand, Bunny finished on top of his group with a 2-1 win versus ByuN and 2-0 against soO, though Dark is a whole other ZvT beast than the military returnee.

Expectedly, Aligulac favors Dark by a large margin with 73:27 odds in a BO3 against Bunny, but I don’t think the Terran is a clear underdog. He has been a solid TvZ player over the last months with a 7W-3L match record, and he even put in a fantastic performance against DPG in a WTL match where he beat Dark 2-0 and defeated Rogue in the ace match. Dark has a similar record in the same timespan with a 7W-3L-2D record, but it's a bit concerning that he was held to draws against both SpeCial and Dream in the WTL.

Dark may have trounced Ryung in the RO20, but he's not a strong enough TvZ player for me to have a clear idea about Dark. Losing to Zoun was a big upset for Dark, and I am actually thinking that Bunny has a good shot of beating the DPG Zerg here. Dark has overall dominated Bunny in their historical encounters, but the good form of Bunny in both the WTL and GSL has impressed me while Dark is not looking as scary as expected.

Prediction: Bunny 2 - 1 Dark

Match #3: RagnaroK vs Cure

This is a rematch from Group D, where RagnaroK 2-0'd Cure on the way to qualifying in first place (Cure still qualified by beating Astrea and Trap). TL.net had often portrayed RagnaroK as an underrated ZvT player who impresses in defeat, so it's a little vindicating to see him play so well as of late. In fact, he's actually the #1 seed in this group, thanks to a combination of his 5th place finish last season and 1st place advancement from the RO20.

The earlier match between RagnaroK and Cure was pretty telling. RagnaroK won the first map of Curious Minds with a proxy Hatchery strategy that surprised Cure but did not give the Zerg a clear advantage. The game went into macro, and RagnaroK managed to get ahead and use Brood Lords to force Cure into a desperate attack that was ultimately defended. In the second game, another proxy Hatchery was used, but it was a far more aggressive version that put RagnaroK ahead. This prompted Cure to do a 2-base Marine/Tank/Medivac all-in, which RagnaroK countered with a big backdoor attack that destroyed his opponent's entire economy. Funny enough, Cure tapped out GG even before losing his army on the other side of the map.

As RagnaroK dominated Cure in both build order mind games and still kept up in macro when necessary, I do not see why the result would change barely two weeks later. Aligulac sees the Terran as the slight favorite with a 56% chance to win, but RagnaroK convinced me he is in a very good position to qualify for the RO6 once again.

Prediction: RagnaroK 2 - 0 Cure

Match #4: Bunny vs Creator

This match is definitely the hardest to predict for me. Both players are barely over a 50% win-rate in the match-up in the last 2 months, and their head-to-head map record is super close with Creator at 35W-33L over their careers (51.47% win rate). There's the teamkill factor as well, although we don't know how often Team NV play internal matches.

Both players seemed to struggle in the TvP match-up recently. Creator lost against virtually every good Terran he encountered while only winning against clear underdogs. For Bunny, it is basically the same, except he got one quality win against Zest in the Code S qualifier. However, Zest had been very inconsistent in his lead up to his retirement/hiatus, so it's hard to know how deeply to read into that result.

Since this seems to be another coin toss, I am going to go with Creator as he had the best results in the latest Code S. His results were a bit shaky afterwards, but he looked convincing when it came time to play in the GSL again. In fact, his RO20 game against Maru on 2000 Atmospheres was very close and could have been a win, so he might be in good enough shape to beat a slightly weaker Terran.

Prediction: Creator 2 - 1 Bunny

Match 5: Dark vs Cure

The last match of the day seems pretty straightforward, as Dark has historically dominated Cure and is still one of the best ZvT players around. But similarly to the match against Bunny, there is still upset potential. The reassuring thing for Dark fans, however, is that Cure did not look impressive in TvZ during the round of 20, getting destroyed by RagnaroK.

Cure won their only 2022 encounter 3-1 in an EPT cup, but this a pretty isolated sample (also, Dark has generally underperformed in the ESL Open Cups). The reputation of Cure as a choker offline is probably out of date since his Code S victory, but it’s not like 'online-Cure' is giving us much reason to be hyped about him in the first place. Outside of this victory in EPT KR #117 against Dark, Cure has not won in the regional since cup #97 in November 2021. He performed reasonably well in WTL, but that may be the only positive he has going for him after his quick elimination in Code S Season 1.

As Cure looked pretty uninspired in TvZ and Dark ultimately got the job done, I am gonna go with Aligulac in this match and predict the Zerg to prevail in this teamkill.

Prediction: Dark 2 - 0 Cure

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