2024 GSL Code S Season 1

RO16 Group A Preview: Maru, soO, SHIN, DongRaeGu

Thursday, Feb 29 9:30am GMT (GMT+00:00)

by Wax

"Somehow, the GSL returned."

After months of customary fretting about the GSL's survival, Korea's longest-running competition announced in January that it would be back for at least two more seasons in 2024.

However, this welcome news was tempered with the announcement of further contraction—the GSL is now even more reliant on its Patreon to keep the prize pool at a reasonable level. Also, credible rumors emerged that this will be the final year of GSL.

If we are truly counting down to the end, then it's time to fully appreciate the GSL while it lasts.




The narrative for Group A is crystal clear: which Zerg will earn the right to advance alongside Maru?

Even if our most recent memory of the ONSYDE/Vitality Terran is him getting walloped by Serral in the IEM Katowice 2024 finals, he's still probably most people's pick for second best player in the world at the moment. Aside from a baffling 1-2 upset at the hands of Cyan in the group stage of Katowice (VOD), Maru beat a string of top players including Reynor, Dark, ShoWTimE, herO, ByuN, and Cure to take second place at the event. Overall, he looked like the same old Maru we've become used to seeing over the past few years: excellent at every facet of the game, but especially good when it comes down to later-game turtling. For Maru, the group stage should be a formality as he looks ahead to an even greater goal: an eight Code S title.

Well, should is the operative word in that last sentence, because Maru has a weird tendency of completely dropping the ball in the GSL every once in a while. The "what the f*** are you doing Maru?" bill came due last season, where he was ejected from the RO16 after losing to Scarlett in a series where he hadn't learned the news map wall-offs in time, and then losing to Solar in a series where he accidentally canceled a nearly complete CC in a fast 3-CC build. Going back further, he unexpectedly got the RO16 boot in 2021's Season 2, losing to Zoun and an sOs on the verge of retirement (sOs' mere existence seems to tilt Maru).

The way I see that kind of disaster repeating itself would be a series of early-game meltdowns—Maru's opponents might line-up a timely all-in as he goes for his Cyclone mech build, or punish him early with Ravagers for playing his bio too greedily (which both Serral and Dark managed to do at Katowice). In the end, the chance of a total collapse is highly unlikely for Maru, but I don't think he comes out of his group entirely unscathed.

Sadly for soO, I doubt he's going to be the player doing the scathing(?). His post-military run in StarCraft II has been more like an epilogue than sequel, or a straight-to-DVD OVA of a once popular anime. Fans are just happy to get a bit more of the thing they love, but they know the magic isn't quite there anymore.

Maru is an especially nasty draw as a first opponent, soO probably knew he was going to be the first pick once he learned that the RO16 would be drawn through a behind-closed-doors group selection (unstreamed, but it seems to have followed the traditional GSL group selection format to some extent). As their skill levels stand now, the soft-timer set by Maru's ridiculous late-game skill doesn't even matter—soO is already outmatched at every earlier stage of the game.

However, even if soO starts off with a loss, he's given himself a small chance of advancing to the RO8 by creating a Zerg three-way (assuming he had some ability to pick opponents in the group selection format). Even if ZvZ has been his worst match-up since his return from the military (with a sub 50% win-rate and sandwiched between Wayne and Erik on Aligulac), the inherent volatility of the match-up gives anyone a chance to steal the upset in a best-of-three. Again, it's a long shot, but it's probably still the best shot soO could have hoped for (word has it that he's primarily focused on ZvZ practice for this group).

On the other hand, SHIN must feel rather short-shifted by how the group selections went. The artist-formerly-known-as-RagnaroK had a strong showing at IEM Katowice for the second straight year, winning his RO24 group (with victories over Clem, Oliveira, Cure, and Stats) and earning a top eight finish. However, his 'reward' is a potential match against the #1 GSL Terran in Maru, and several Zerg vs Zerg matches which are brimming with upset potential.

From what we saw from SHIN at Katowice, a match against Maru isn't entirely hopeless. He found a lot of success with aggressive early-game strategies, and his mid-game macro with Hydra-Bane looked quite strong as well. While SHIN's late-game play was rather iffy (especially his spellcaster micro), that's not really relevant since going to the late-game with Maru is a no-go for even the best players. If Maru is having an off night, SHIN is the player most capable of taking advantage.

I'm curious as to whether SHIN actually picked DRG himself, or if he somehow ended up in this three Zerg group due to Maru's swap shenanigans (again, assuming the group selection had the same format as the ones that used to be shown on stream). Going by Aligulac rating, the ZvZ gap between the three players is surprisingly tight—SHIN at 2794, DRG at 2694, and soO at 2458—it doesn't feel like a comfortable scenario to opt into. Even if SHIN is statistically the best ZvZ player of the lot, there's a lot of danger lurking in these waters.

Rounding out the group is DongRaeGu, who's become an extremely difficult player to rate in his post-military stint. His tournament results are generally unremarkable, except for GSL Code S where he always places higher than metrics would suggest. Despite hovering around 15th place range in Aligulac.com rating for Korean players, he's frequently made appearances in the top eight and higher in the GSL.

DRG recently gave us a great example of this duality in the final quarter of 2023: Following a RO8 finish in Code S Season 3 (beating ByuN in his RO16 decider match), DRG proceeded to miss the IEM Katowice cut as he failed to get by Cyan, Gerald, Scarlett, and Cham over multiple qualifiers. So, while SHIN is clearly the better player than DRG at the moment, there's a decent possibility that DRG waives his hands, casts the magic "ZvZ lol" spell, and slips into the Code S RO8 yet again.

Predictions

I'll just assume that Maru won't self-destruct and pencil him in for a first place finish. As for the three Zergs knife-fighting in a phone booth, I'll pick DongRaeGu's veteran savvy to quell SHIN's momentum from Katowice.

Maru > soO
SHIN > DongRaeGu
Maru > SHIN
DongRaeGu > soO
DongRaeGu > SHIN

Maru and DongRaeGu to advance.

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