2022 GSL Code S Season 2 - Round of 10

by Poopi

After a one week break for DreamHack Valencia, Code S is back with the rest of the round-of-10 matches!

As it turns out, the live tournament in Spain was quite the COVID-19 spreading event, with several players from both the Korean and international scenes testing positive after the tournament. Those players include Group A's Maru and DongRaeGu, who have been given permission to play their GSL matches online due these unfortunate circumstances.


A wide range of results seems possible as we head into the second half of Group A. Maru, who looked very strong at DreamHack Valencia, is the only player who seems to be in a safe place with a 2-0 record. Meanwhile, DongRaeGu, herO, and Zoun are all tied 1-1 and will be competing fiercely to advance to the RO6 playoffs. Even the 0-2 soO can still hope to advance if fortune smiles upon him.

Group A - Day 2 Preview: Maru, herO, DongRaeGu, Zoun, soO

Start time: Monday, Jul 11 9:30am GMT (GMT+00:00)

Match #6: DongRaeGu vs herO

At least according to the TL.net power rank, both players performed up to expectations at DreamHack Valencia. herO (#5) looked like a strong title contender, barely losing 2-3 to eventual champion Dark in the semifinals. Meanwhile, DRG (#10) continued to prove his chops as a savvy veteran, beating ShoWTimE twice in the group stages but narrowly falling 2-3 to Neeb in the RO16.

Even without speculating about DRG’s condition with regards to COVID-19, I would have labeled herO as the clear favorite in this encounter. He's the #1 PvZ player according to Aligulac.com, and his narrow 2-3 loss to Dark at Valencia doesn't tarnish that too much. On the other hand, ZvP has been a problem match-up for DRG since WoL, and lately he lost 1-2 against Zoun in Code S and also lost 2-3 to Neeb in Valencia. While he's shored up his ZvP considerably in 2022, beating the best PvZ player in the world is a tall order.

Indeed, Aligulac.com sees herO as around an 80:20 favorite. While DRG actually managed to defeat herO in last season's group stage, even beating an earlier version of herO's Oracle-into-mass-Gateway-unit style, I feel like herO has truly reached a new level this summer. Now if you add in the potential variables from playing with illness, and the writing seems to be on the wall for the Team NV Zerg.

Prediction: herO 2 - 0 DongRaeGu

Match #7: Zoun vs soO

This is another PvZ match where I see the Protoss as a heavy favorite, though it seems like this may not be a common opinion (more on that below). Reaching the round-of-10 is already a great result for soO just a few months after his return from military service, and it's understandable that he doesn't seem ready to take the next step just yet. His prior loss against Aligulac's #1 TvZ player Maru was understandable, but losing against DRG in the Team NV player's weak match-up wasn't the best sign. Of course, those two matches only have limited bearing on this upcoming ZvP match against Zoun, but I can’t help but consider soO the clear underdog if only due to lingering rustiness.

We could not check up on either players' form at DH Valencia, but we know that Zoun is an established, playoff tier Code S player while we're still not sure about soO. Early signs for soO are encouraging, but there's no guarantee he'll go back to being a frequent finalist.

Funny enough, Aligulac actually views soO as the favorite in this match, although only by a tiny 53:47 margin. While this does show soO is solid in various online competitions, I think Zoun's rating is somewhat suppressed due to him focusing mainly on premier-tier events. His PvZ performance was actually very impressive in the first group stage, beating both Dark and Armani (it should be noted that Dark looked way sloppier than in the RO10 or at Valencia). Also, he happened to beat soO 3-2 in the most recent ESL Open cup. Given the stakes here, I expect Zoun to play at his best and beat soO again.

Prediction: Zoun 2 - 0 soO

Match #8: DongRaeGu vs Maru

This match is interesting from a historic perspective. Both players were the absolute best at either side of the TvZ match-up at some point in their careers but they barely played each other at all. In LotV, they've only played each other two times: Maru beat DRG 1-0 in a 2020 WTL match, and DongRaeGu won 2-1 in last season's RO10 group stage.

There's also a very peculiar circumstance where both players will be playing online after testing positive for COVID-19 after their European excursion. There is a lot of uncertainty about their condition, and whether or not they have symptoms severe enough to affect their play. At least Maru seemed to be in good shape during the recent TSL9 qualifier, even beating Percival with his off-race Protoss. But it could be that Maru was too fatigued from his sickness to play drawn out TvT games, and went with Protoss to try and get fast wins instead. While that's purely conjecture, it would surely benefit DongRaeGu if that was truly the case. The Team NV Zerg is most well-known for his strong mid-game, but he's had trouble against strong turtle Terrans in the late-game (notably losing to Spirit at IEM Katowice). Given the impressive defensive showings from Maru in his DreamHack matches against Reynor and Dark, DRG will have to be very wary about letting the games drag out for too long.

Aligulac sees Maru as the clear favorite with around an 80% chance to win, which is not surprising given his monstrous 3500+ TvZ rating. It's unfortunate for DRG whose best match-up of ZvT stands at a very respectable 3000 rating points, but Maru has simply reached another level by perfecting his defensive style. DRG is a smart player and I doubt he will try to challenge Maru on his own turf, therefore the quick double evo style that Dark used to quickly beat Maru in the finals of DH Valencia will probably be the key in this match.

Despite most of the indicators favoring Maru heavily, I actually expect a close match as Maru is prone to putting in a sloppy performance at some point in the pre-playoff stage of the GSL. After all, DRG actually managed to beat him in the first season. Still, I see Maru ultimately winning in the end.

Prediction: Maru 2 - 1 DongRaeGu

Match #9: herO vs soO

This is another match-up where I think there's a clear favorite. The breakdown for the two players is similar to what I've already mentioned above. herO is looking extremely strong in PvZ right now, whereas soO is still rather unproven after returning from military service. soO's 21W-11L ZvP match record (58W–38L map score) in the last two months is actually quite impressive for a returning player, and the quality of his opponents was decent as well. However, herO's record is otherworldly: He's 26W-1L in series with a 62W-11L map score in those games (84.93% win-rate). The only Zerg player that managed to beat him in a series was Dark, which happened last week at DreamHack Valencia.

Expectedly, herO is the favorite by a large margin according to Aligulac.com with a 77% chance of winning. He's also 4W-0L against soO in 2022 matches, putting up a 10W-1L map score inside those series.

Stylistically, I do think soO would do fairly well against herO's Oracle-Mass Gateway unit style as his traditional strength has been fighting in the early and mid-game with low tech units. The problem is that herO is not confined to a single style and has a far better grasp on the PvZ meta than soO at the moment. Even outside his attention-grabbing Zealot-Stalker strategy, herO has a lot of options for winning. I don’t see an upset happening in this match, therefore I will go with the safe prediction.

Prediction: herO 2 - 0 soO

Match #10: Zoun vs Maru

After a day full of relatively one sided matches, an upset is bound to happen, right? Maru being sick and having to play Zoun in TvP seems like the perfect storm for an unexpected result.

Zoun actually has a trend of playing well against Maru in big tournaments, and he already beat him 2-1 in the group stages of IEM Katowice this year. Looking back to last year, he also eliminated Maru from Code S Season 2 thanks to some juicy Disruptor shots from outside of vision. Even if Maru is currently rated as the #1 TvP player on Aligulac, Zoun winning might not be the biggest surprise.

The lack of significant PvT games for Zoun does make this match a bit of a mystery. He's actually 5W-0L in matches over the last eight weeks, but his strongest opponent was GuMiho while his weakest opponents were ForGG and HHQuanTa. On the other hand, Maru has proven his TvP dominance in several big matches lately: He beat Creator and herO in the GSL, and then went on to beat them again at DreamHack Valencia (3-1 vs Creator and 2-0 vs herO).

I'm wary of predicting a straightforward day without an upset (although my pick of Zoun over soO is an upset according to Aligulac, at least), but I don't really see Zoun beating Maru when even herO could not do it.

Prediction: Maru 2 - 1 Zoun

Final Standings Prediction:

1. Maru
   
2. herO
   
3. Zoun
   
4. DongRaeGu
   
5. soO

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