Maru wins 2024 Code S Season 1

Extends own record with eighth Code S championship

by Wax

The already seismic gap between Maru and the 160+ other players to ever compete in GSL Code S grew even wider on Thursday night, as the ONSYDE/Vitality Terran defeated herO 4-1 in the 2024 Season 1 finals to win an extraordinary eighth championship. With the victory, Maru's Code S title count now doubles that of second place player Rogue, furthering his legacy as the greatest player ever in Korean competitions.



Maru's performances in the first half of the tournament were hardly what one would have expected from the GSL's winningest player, as he struggled to get past underdogs soO and SHIN in the round-of-16, and then settled for second place in his round-of-8 group following a decisive 0-2 loss to herO. However, history told us Maru's championship contender credentials should never be in doubt, and on cue, the legendary version of Maru showed up in the playoffs.

Semifinal opponent Cure never had a chance, losing in a 0-3 sweep to fall to 0-5 all-time against Maru in offline BO5+ matches. His mental block against Maru was especially apparent in game three, where he blew a lead in spectacular fashion and gave up a come-from-behind victory to Maru and his Battlecruisers.

On the opposite side of the bracket, herO advanced over Stats to set up a rematch with Maru in the finals. The Shield of Aiur's run had been the story of the season up to that point, with the former #1 Protoss finally showing some glimpses of his old form after a year of rough post-military performances. However, it was too soon to expect him to take on a player of herO's caliber, and the DPG Protoss won 3-1 in a series of one-sided games.

With herO having defeated Maru 2-0 in the RO8, he was clearly the player best equipped to give Maru a close match in the finals. The first game of the finals on Oceanborn even made it appear as if herO was the player with the advantage, as he overcame heavy early-game losses to take a very impressive comeback victory.

However, that turned out to be the disturbance that caused an avalanche, as Maru would proceed to overwhelm herO with four straight victories in the proceeding games. Early game attacks continued to be the focus for Maru, as he repeatedly exploited weaknesses in herO's defense to inflict major damage. However, he made just one key adjustment from the first game, that being 'don't let your opponent come back.' While herO continued to show tremendous grit while playing from behind, he was unable to recreate his game one miracle against a more clinical and composed Maru.

Maru was reserved as always in his post-match interview, saying he had not been confident against herO and thus leaned toward early-game attacks. It was the kind of post-domination modesty that made one understand why herO jokingly raised a fist at Maru when he went for a handshake.

GSL Code S will resume with Season 2 on April 18th with the Season 2 Qualifiers.

Match Recaps

Semifinal #1: herO [3 - 1] Stats

Game 1 - Site Delta (Stats win): Stats got away with a greedy Gate-Nexus opener to start, and even placed a proxy Pylon in herO's natural to delay his opponent's expansion. herO reacted by applying various forms of pressure while trying to catch up in economy, starting with some Gateway units, followed by an Oracle, and then an attempt at surprise DT's. However, Stats parried all the thrusts without taking much damage, jumping ahead to a solid economic lead (although it was not as stark as one might expect given how little herO achieved with his attacks).

Stats was content to play his lead out slowly, going up to four bases while making a mostly Stalker army. Playing from behind, herO decided to risk it all on a big Zealot-Stalker attack once his +1 and Charge/Blink upgrades were done. However, Stats had more than enough troops to defend, and herO surrendered after being crushed in the deciding fight.

Game 2 - Crimson Court (herO win): Stats opened with the 2-Gate Sentry expansion that's become popular in the new patch, and once again placed a proxy Pylon to slow down herO's nexus. However, herO had no intent of expanding at all, going old school with a 4-Gate Robotics all-in off of one base. Stats discovered this cheese fairly quickly with a Hallucination scout, but herO trusted in his micro and forced his all-in anyway.

They say knowing is half the battle, but in this case, micro was the greater half. Despite Stats having advance notice, herO used his micro brute force his way through his opponent's defenses in under six minutes.

Game 3 - Goldenaura (herO win): herO decided it was his turn to play greedily this time, opening with a 1-Gate expansion against Stats' 2-Gate expansion. Given the macro-favoring nature of the map, this didn't have any real repercussions as both players quickly went up to three bases and progressed to the mid-game.

While Stats followed the meta and focused on making mass Zealot-Stalker with double Forge upgrades, herO sneakily started Colossus and Archon production once he had a solid base of Gateway units. herO had to play defensively as he teched up, leaving Stats to swallow up the map in what became a very unmirror-ish PvP scenario.

herO moved out once his ultimate army was assembled, brushing off Stats' attempts to delay him and marching straight to the opponent's key expansions. Stats' low-tech army fared poorly against herO's splash-heavy forces, and he only barely held off the hanbang attack thanks to newly produced Disruptors. However, herO had already killed enough expansions to take the economic lead, and he finished the game with a series of follow up attacks.

Game 4 - Oceanborn (herO win): Both players reverted to a pre-patch meta for game four, with Stats opening 2-Gate Robo while herO went for a 3-Gate all-in with a Robotics facility proxied out on the map. Stats' conservative play prevented him from losing outright, but he still lost the Gateways at his ramp and several Probes to an opportune Adept run-by. herO decided to stay on one base and keep up the pressure, looking to go for the kill with Immortals and Glaive Adepts. After poking around Stats' base with Immortals in a Prism, herO found an opening to charge up the ramp and defeat Stats in a final battle.

Semifinal #2: Maru [3 - 0] Cure

Game 1 - Ghost River (Maru win): Cure opened with a Reaper expansion while Maru went for Factory-CC into fast 1-Medivac-1-Tank pressure (the ultimate love/hate opener for Maru fans). After getting a decent amount of initial harassment done, Maru followed up by adding a second Starport and continued to harangue Cure with Viking and Liberator reinforcements.

All this slowed Cure down considerably, giving Maru a safe window to bypass the mid-game and tech directly up to Battlecruisers. With Maru content to sit back and mass capital ships, Cure was forced to start Viking production and follow Maru into a split-map game.

Both players speedily took all of their 'safe' expansions, and the game rapidly developed into a contest to control the remaining pair of bottom-center expansions. The two players grabbed one base a piece, and started a bloody series of battles across the narrow patch of land between them. Like a game of Desert Strike, both players continually adjusted their compositions to match each other. Cure's mass Vikings forced Thor production out of Maru, while Cure upped his ratio of infantry as Maru's Tank count started to thin.

Eventually, the game reached a point where Cure had mass Viking-Raven supported by Marine-Marauder, while Maru had a mostly Viking-BC force with just a couple of Thors supporting it. Once Cure had enough Raven energy to lockdown several of Maru's BC's at once, he decided to charge in for a headlong fight. Unfortunately for Cure, too much of his supply was tied up in Marauders, while Maru's 3/3 BC's were much tankier than anticipated. Maru won the fight by an enormous margin and immediately counterattacked to force Cure's surrender.

Game 2 - Post-Youth (Maru win): Both players started with some light Medivac harassment in game two, with neither player gaining a significant advantage in the early game. Maru continued to go down the standard macro path, taking a third base while making Ravens from a single Starport. On the other hand, Cure added a second Starport and committed hard to a 2-base push with Tanks, Vikings, and Marines.

Unfortunately for Cure (a common refrain from the series), his first push fell completely flat, first hitting a mine planted midway in the map, and then getting shut down by several Interference Matrixes. Cure tried a second push once he added Liberators to the mix, but by then, Maru had more than enough units to crush Cure's army and force the GG.

Game 3 - Oceanborn (Maru win): The game swung in Maru's favor early on as he got a big win in an early Reaper-Hellion skirmish, forcing Cure to play defensively and slow down his economy. From there, the game played out very similarly to game one, with Maru tormenting Cure with drops followed by Vikings and Liberators from two Staports. While Maru didn't inflict quite as much damage as in game one, he still felt emboldened to make another fast transition to Battlecruisers off of three bases.

For a while, it looked like Maru would get away with his greed and fast tech. However, Cure's constant probing around the edges of Maru's perimeter eventually paid off, as he found an opening to land a big infantry drop into Maru's territory. As is often the case, this caused a chain reaction where Maru would scramble to defend and Cure would strike at a newly vulnerable location. All-in-all, Cure ended up doing a considerable amount of damage with his drops and took a commanding lead by the time Maru partially stabilized.

Cure's initial plan was to keep up the tempo and batter Maru into submission with pure Marine-Marauder-Medivac. Unfortunately for Cure, this was quickly proven to be the wrong move once Maru had enough Battlecruisers to counterattack with. Cure was severely limited by his lack of Vikings and high Marauder ratio, as it made it impossible to both defend with Marines while also keeping up the pressure with drops. Maru's BC's backdoors dealt substantial damage, bringing the game closer and closer to even with each strike.

Eventually, Cure got sick of dealing with the constant backdoors and consolidated all his infantry for a big frontal attack. This played right into Maru's hands, as he was content to basetrade with his BC's while holding on to Tactical Jump until the last possible moment. The scenario worked out perfectly for Maru, as he razed Cure's main and teleported back just as Cure tried to charge his final mining base. Cure's forces were wiped out, and he surrendered the final GG of the series.

Grand Finals: Maru [4 - 1] herO

Game 1 - Oceanborn (herO win): Maru opened with a Barracks expansion into a late 2-Mine drop while herO went for what initially seemed to be a 4-Gate Blink strategy. The timings and unit positioning worked out so that Maru's drop arrived just as Blink completed, allowing herO to Blink forward and thwart the drop with barely any damage taken.

herO immediately went to counterattack with his Stalkers and Warp Prism, but interestingly enough, he was not going for a committed 4-Gate Blink attack. Instead, he simply trying to delay Maru while researching Charge and teching to Robotics Support Bay and Forge. On the other hand, Maru had been steadily producing units at home, cranking out a considerable number of Marines and Tanks. That meant Maru had the unit advantage despite his drop failing utterly, and he easily shrugged off herO's light Stalker harassment to go for a Marine-Tank push across the map.

This peculiar timing seemed to fluster herO, as he became indecisive about whether he needed to recall all of his troops to defend or leave some behind to keep up their harassment. This resulted in disaster, with Maru's push inflicting serious economic damage before herO could finally clean it up, while the Stalkers left in Maru's base hardly did enough damage to make up for it.

herO hit a surprisingly effective counterattack with Chargelots and a single Disruptor, showing how dangerous his strategy could have been if Maru hadn't struck when he was most vulnerable. But, as it was, herO had taken too much early economic damage to recover from, and Maru eventually snowballed his way to a win.

Well... he SHOULD have. What actually happened was that Maru heavily misjudged his lead, and tried to finish herO with a big SCV-pull attack off of two bases. However, when he arrived in herO's territory, he found Colossus-Disruptor to be impossible to push into without any Viking support, and he sheepishly retreated and took a belated third base. A few minutes later, Maru tried to finish herO off again, this time with lots of Tanks and Vikings in tow. This attack almost sealed the deal for Maru, but instead herO managed to just barely defend while wreaking havoc with backdoor DT's.

This exchange flipped the game heavily in herO's favor, leaving him with a stronger standing army and much healthier economy. Unlike Maru, herO did not squander this lead and safely closed the game out.

Game 2 - Alcyone (Maru win): herO started off by playing defensive Phoenix-Robo while Maru opened Fact-CC to set up a fast 1/1/1 push. Maru's early strike force included every single unit you can make without a Tech Lab (except Reapers), and he moved out with several SCV's in tow. herO attempted to intercept the forces halfway across the map with four Phoenixes, but it ended in disaster as Maru saved his Cyclone with a timely mass repair while picking off two Phoenixes. The loss of two Phoenixes made it a tough defense for herO, but he ended up holding the line at the cost of a heavily delayed third base.

The two players briefly settled into passive build-up mode from there. Maru went up to three bases and started preparing his next big infantry-Tank attack, while herO decided to risk teching to Carriers while skipping splash units entirely. However, Maru didn't let herO get away with cutting corners, and he struck with a deadly Bio-Tank push when herO only had two Carriers out. Maru took down two key expansions and several Probes before herO finally chased him away with newly produced Tempests and Carriers. It was simple for Maru to close out the game from that point, with his infantry and Vikings overrunning herO's poorly supported air units.

Game 3 - Ghost River (Maru win): herO went back to a Blink opener in game three, while Maru went for a 2-Mine drop into an 'old school' 1/1/1 centered around Marines, Tanks, and Cloaked Banshees. While the Mine-drop didn't get much done, the Marine-Tank-Banshee push paid off big time as Maru successfully destroyed the Protoss third (thanks to timely pickoffs on careless Observers). herO gave chase on the retreating Marines and Tanks, but Blinked one bridge too far as he neared Maru's base. Maru had set a trap with a newly produced Tank, and herO ended up donating Stalkers he could ill afford to lose.

This established a solid lead for Maru, though herO was not completely out of the game. Maru tried a couple more frontal attacks after establishing his third base, but herO barely fended them off. Each successful defense gave herO slightly more of a foothold in the game, and eventually he felt confident enough to go for an aggressive action. He moved out on the map with his Templar-Colossus backed main army, trying to set up a backdoor Warp Prism attack in Maru's main. However, this main army feint went horribly wrong as Maru connected with a massive EMP on all of the Templars and immediately initiated combat. Thus, while herO did successfully get a Zealot warp-in inside the Terran main, it came at the cost of his main army getting crushed. Maru continued to march forward with his troops, forcing herO to GG out.

Game 4 - Site Delta (Maru win): Maru played his greediest opener of the night, opening Rax-CC and then adding a quick third CC after Factory. herO applied heavy pressure from the start, harassing with his scouting Probe and then sending a Zealot and Adept to poke at Maru's wall. Quick 3-Gate Blink Stalkers came soon after, with herO proxying a Pylon to speed up the attack.

Maru anticipated such an attack would be coming and confirmed it by scouting the proxy Pylon, and prepared by setting up a full wall with Bunker at his natural. herO stayed true to his aggressive nature and went for a daring Blink over the wall, but was met by a sizable force of Marine-Cyclone that forced him to immediately Blink out on the next cooldown. Undeterred by the first failed attack, herO went for another blind Blink across the Terran wall once he warped in another round of Stalkers. However, things went even worse this time around, and Maru wiped out the Stalkers with Marines and a newly produced Tank.

Playing from a sizable deficit after his failed early gambits, herO decided his only choice was to go even more all-in with Chargelot-Colossus from two bases. herO managed to trade surprisingly well before Maru got Vikings out, but it wasn't nearly enough to overcome the economic disadvantage in the end.

Game 5 - Amphion (Maru win): Maru opened with a similar strategy to game one, starting with a Reactor expansion, followed by a 2-Mine drop, then followed by a Marine-Tank-Liberator push. herO's strategy was also similar as he went for 3-Gate Blink Stalkers, but instead of keeping them home on defense, he sent them out quickly to poke at Maru's natural. This move did not pay off at all for herO, as Maru found seven Probe kills by dropping and re-dropping Mines in herO's under-defended main. Meanwhile, herO's harassing Stalkers inflicted minimal damage.

With another round of Stalkers warped in, herO gambled on sending the majority of his Stalker force through the heavily obstructed backdoor path on the left side of Amphion. While herO slowly waited on multiple Blink cooldowns, Maru obliviously sent his main Marine-Tank force to attack through the far right route on Amphion while sending his Liberator to the Protoss main. This resulted in the two players hitting each others' mostly empty bases at around the same time, but with Maru having an enormous advantage in terms of firepower.

The situation was almost certainly doomed for herO even if he committed to a full basetrade, but he made things even worse for himself by pulling them back to defend (after having spent so much effort sneaking them across the map). herO's economy was already devastated by the time the Stalkers returned, and they only barely managed to clear out Maru's troops. herO stuck around for a few moments longer before he was ready to admit the situation was hopeless and type out the final GG.

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