2023 GSL Code S Season 3

RO16 Group C Preview: Dark, DongRaeGu, ByuN, Astrea

Start time: Tuesday, Oct 17 9:30am GMT (GMT+00:00)

by Wax

With the GSL community still reeling from Maru's early elimination in Group A, we move on to the latter half of the round-of-16 matches. For some of our Group C players, this shocking development has big implications. ByuN has shed his greatest nemesis in the GSL (besides his own wrists), making this his best chance to win a second Code S championship. Dark, while not as helpless against Maru as some of his Korean peers, will certainly welcome the elimination of the #1 championship contender. As for Astrea and DRG, just getting out of the RO16 is a major challenge, but the absence of Maru in the RO8 slightly improves their outlooks should they advance to the next round.



Dark may have finished runner-up in last season of Code S, but that doesn't automatically make him the #1 championship contender. He didn't exactly beef up his credentials in between Code S Seasons, suffering an embarrassing group stage elimination at Gamers8 and settling for a modest top eight finish in Masters' Coliseum. Yet, despite these short-term fluctuations, Dark's multi-year consistency is what makes me think he's the safest title bet among the remaining players. herO has been playing fantastic online StarCraft II in the last few weeks, but he also went through one of the most dramatic rise and fall cycles in recent memory. Cure has hit a second career peak with a runner-up finish at Gamers8, but I can't get rid of my lingering doubts about his mentality after his choke-job against Maru in the last GSL. On the other hand, Dark has managed to win at least one Liquipedia Premier-tier tournament per year since 2019, and I think he has a great chance to keep the streak going in Code S (or at DreamHack Atlanta).

It's also an encouraging sign that Dark has an impressive 14-4 match record since the recent 5.0.12 patch, with herO being the only opponent to halt him in online competitions (at least when Dark isn't off-racing). I'm especially keyed in on Dark's 7-0 match record against Terran—with ByuN looking like his toughest opponent in this group, there's a good chance he takes first place (he did happen to go 1-1 against ByuN in the WTL last week).

Of course, Dark shouldn't overlook his first match against DongRaeGu... …right? Well, unfortunately, I think I can officially say DRG's run as the 'savvy veteran who just knows how to win in the GSL' is over. He may have defied expectations to reach the playoffs in every Code S season of 2022, but his 2023 GSL performances—RO16 in Season 1 and qualifier elimination in Season 2—are more in line with his mid 20's Aligulac.com ranking and mediocre showings in other competitions. It's hard to tell what exactly was responsible for his outlier 2022—DRG himself suggested in an interview that he may just be a player who's better in offline settings, but I highly doubt everyone else in the SC2 scene abruptly got better at offline play in 2023.

In any case, the upsets of Group A oblige me to make a serious advancement case for every player. Obviously, ZvZ can be an X-factor that works in DRG's favor against Dark. Besides, Solar, no one seems to be a lock to win in ZvZ these days, so maybe DRG can get some momentum in his very first bout. As for ZvT, DRG always has a chance against players who allow him to play a straight-up macro game. Maybe ByuN will overthink the match-up here and play greedy builds over the kind of early harassment that could dismantle DRG. As for Astrea, I'll make it simple—the American Protoss has never won a match in Code S (more on this below).

The third player we have to go over is ByuN, and I can't really say it's a joy to talk about him in the GSL. It's just dreadfully repetitive and dreadfully sad at the same time, as his nervousness-induced wrist issues have tanked several of his offline tournament runs since his return from the military. The best thing I can say about his Season 2 run was that he was eliminated without having to ask for a wrist-related pause—he simply got outplayed by strong opponents in Solar and Maru. I guess we can count that as progress?

Still, to try and look on the bright side, the RO16 generally hasn't been an issue for the current incarnation of ByuN. This is the stage where he looks like Online-ByuN, tearing through lesser opponents with style and fury. Also, I think he's a player who will benefit from Code S Season 3 being played on a relatively new patch and map pool. ByuN's strong mechanics overshadow the fact that he's a very clever build-smith, and he could very well debut the cutting-edge builds that other Terrans imitate down the line. I'll reserve my worries about ByuN for later—he shouldn't have any trouble this early on.

Rounding out the group is poor Astrea, who comes in with a 0-8 career match record in Code S. Now, I'll say his first two losses from 2020 were expected, as he was still growing as a player and had succeeded just by reaching Code S. But the other six losses are from 2022 onward, when Astrea had established himself as a strong World Team League player and a dangerous wild card at IEM Katowice (2-3 group stage record in 2021 and 2022). On paper, he's definitely not someone who should be getting killed this hard in Code S. Maybe it's just incredibly bad luck, or maybe it's just nerves (TL.net's favorite explanation for everything alongside jet lag)—whatever it is, it's turning into a pretty bad trend.

The underdog case for Astrea is pretty simple: he plays like his normal self. No, he's not a favorite to advance at full strength, but he at least has a Scarlett's puncher's chance if everything breaks his way.

Predictions

Dark > DRG
ByuN > Astrea
Dark > ByuN
Astrea > DRG
ByuN > Astrea

Dark and ByuN to advance.

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