2024 GSL Code S Season 2

RO8 Group A Preview: Maru, soO, Cure, ByuN

Thursday, Jun 13 9:30am GMT (GMT+00:00)

by Wax

Code S Season 2 is finally back after an extra-long break for EPT Spring. Did the events of Dallas teach us anything new about the remaining eight contestants in the GSL? And, if so, do they make a ninth Maru championship feel any less inevitable?



Years of using the internet should have taught you that if an article leads with a juicy question, the actual answer is probably pretty boring. Indeed, none of the events of DreamHack Dallas should have changed anyone's impression of Maru. He went on an extremely Maru-esque run to a runner-up finish, beating his historical punching bags SHIN (2-0) and HeroMarine (2-0) in the Winners Stage, taking out two of his biggest Code S rivals in herO (3-2) and Dark (3-1) in the playoffs, and capped it off with another disappointing and one-sided beatdown loss to Serral (0-4) in the grand finals.

Basically, Dallas left us with the same assessment of Maru as we had after February's IEM Katowice competition: He still has a terrible head-to-head match-up against Serral, but he's still by far the best player in the world not-named Serral, and he will be the favorite to win every Code S tournament until something drastic happens in the Korean scene. Maru's repeated narrow wins against herO remind us that there is a worthy underdog in the Code S title race, but outside the ultra-aggressive Protoss, no one else in the GSL fold has meaningfully threatened him as of late. Even though Cure and ByuN have the requisite TvT skills to deal Maru a one-off loss in a BO3 (more on this at the end), it would be nigh unthinkable for Maru to be eliminated altogether.

Maru didn't need any extra help getting to the playoffs, but he's been put in the express lane thanks to a fortuitous initial match-up against soO. It's a rough spot for the former World Champion to be in, because he deserves some credit for what he's achieved in the first half of 2024.

It really looked like soO had settled into being a casual/part-time competitor in 2023, where he missed out on two of three Code S tournaments, and it seemed like his 'true' retirement was not far off. However, he looked quite revitalized in 2024, narrowly missing out on an RO8 berth in Code S Season 1 while handing Maru a map-loss in an impressive macro game win. This season, he got over the RO16 hump, beating GuMiho twice in (2-0 and 2-1) with a combination of powerful early-game strikes and his signature Lair-tech swarming attacks.

Granted, RO16 Maru isn't always completely locked in, while GuMiho is notoriously one of the most inconsistent players in the scene right now. GuMiho on his best day gave Serral one of his closest BO5+ series in the last 12 months, while GuMiho on his worst day could plausibly lose two BO3's to basically anyone in the top 30 of the EPT rankings (funny enough, I arbitrary picked the number 30, and it happened to be the exact cutoff between DRG and Coffee). Still, I want to give the benefit of the doubt to soO, because I love the GSL's recent identity as the league where the saying "class is eternal" proves to be much more than just a trite cliche. Even if soO was eliminated in the open bracket at EPT Spring/Dallas (losses to ByuN and Harstem), he's someone who could follow in the footsteps of DRG and Stats and surprise with a surprise run to the RO4—IF he wasn't drawing dead against Maru.

While soO can probably give Maru a decent fight in the early/mid-game, cracking late-game turtle defenses has always been the big flaw in his game. Of course, Maru is probably the best late-game turtle player in the history of the game, so you can see where this is headed. I don't think Serral's 4-0 against Maru in Dallas provides any inspiration—if it was as simple as gearing up a big 200/200 timing at 8 minutes to kill Maru, more people would actually succeed at it. Also, for what it's worth, soO mentioned during one of his GSL interviews that playing his own style instead of emulating Serral has been a part of his recent success. That said, I'm still holding out for the remote possibility that soO works some GSL magic against Cure and ByuN and sneaks into the RO4.

Moving on to the two Terrans who are likely to jockey for second place, let's consider Cure. I've praised him for evolving into one of the most consistent players in the scene in 2023/24, recording top four finishes in the majority of Liquipedia-premier tournaments since the spring of 2023. He's one of the best players in the non-Serral & Maru division of StarCraft II, and it's tempting to say he's actually THE best among them because he seems to have a slight mind games edge against herO at the moment.

However, Cure's run of strong finishes was interrupted in Dallas where he was eliminated in the RO12 with a 2-3 loss to SHIN, another member of the maddening inconsistent players club. I'm inclined to say this was more of an outlier result, since you can't read too deeply into any single BO5, and because SHIN has a history of coming up with amazing performances from out of nowhere. However, I didn't quite like the nature of some of the games, with Cure losing to SHIN in a couple of late-game matches—an area where the mercurial Zerg has never been particularly strong.

Ultimately, I'm going to give Cure the benefit of the doubt because of his track record in the last 16 months. He's been the most consistent player who hasn't won a championship—a bit of a backhanded compliment, I know—and he's been remarkably adept at grinding his way to RO4+ finishes.

Finally, we have ByuN, who's looking to breach the Code S RO4 barrier for the first time in over a year. Micro Jackson's post-military travails in Code S are quite well-known at this point, first hindered by debilitating, psychosomatic issues with his wrists, and then held back by the more common 'the GSL is hard' problem.

Actually, that latter part is simplifying the situation a bit. ByuN's skill level has been up and down in the last few years, but he's recently hit a patch of form that should see him make deep Code S runs more often. Just looking at DreamHack Dallas, he beat soO (2-1), Lambo (2-0), trigger (3-1), Stats (3-1), and HeroMarine (3-1) to reach the playoffs, and then went out with a 1-3 against Dark. Now, that's not some kind of insanely impressive run, but only the most ardent Korean elitist would say that's not roughly the same difficulty as your average Code S RO4 run these days. ByuN also put in similar performances to reach the RO8 in four other international majors—EPT Summer 2023, Gamers8, EPT Winter 2024, and IEM Katowice—which makes it all the more curious why he's struggled comparatively in Code S.

I thought we had gotten over the 'ByuN's bad mental' narratives, but it's hard not to think of that in this scenario. The most notable collapse came in Code S Season of 2023, where he was eliminated from the RO16 with a baffling loss to an out-of-shape DRG in the decider match of his group. None of his other eliminations were nearly as bad, but it does make me wonder if ByuN still has some psychological hurdles to overcome when it comes to the GSL.

Predictions

Aligulac.com projects Maru as the prohibitive favorite to advance, having a 93%+ chance of advancing in the top two and almost a 70% chance of taking the first place spot. soO is seen as having barely a chance, while Cure has a slight lead over ByuN in the race for second place. TL.net Liquibet voters basically agree (it's hard to find a big disagreement between Liquibet and Aligulac these days), although they like Cure by a slightly larger margin.

While I agree that Maru-Cure advancing as #1 and #2 is the most likely outcome, I think that TvT could be a significant variable in the group. Maru is the best TvT player in the world by a large margin, but he still drops the occasional BO3 series in non-elimination matches. When it comes to early and mid-game play, I don't perceive that much of a gap between him and Cure and ByuN (who happen to be the #3 and #4 TvT players in the world by Aligulac rating). Much of the gap is in Maru's unparalleled late-game ability, and also his superior composure in big BO5+ matches (this is especially apparent against Cure, who has shown us some incredible self-destruction sequences against Maru in BO5's). In a BO3 winners' match where the loser still has assurance of a second chance, I could see either Cure or ByuN prevailing with something like a standard mid-game Marine-Tank win coupled with a poorly executed Tank-drop opener from Maru (the most frightening build for Maru fans).

Regarding the Cure-ByuN match, I think that one is close to a true coinflip. As I'm so fond of saying, BO3 TvT's between the top ten or so Terrans in the world (excluding Maru) feel like a coin flip, regardless of the head to head stats, Aligulac rating, or other metrics. In this case, it actually happens to be a 55:45 according to Aligulac as well, with Cure holding the negligible lead. I'm going to predict Cure to beat ByuN in a decider match because of the lingering questions about ByuN's mental in the GSL, but it wouldn't be surprising to see either Terran book their RO4 ticket alongside Maru.

Maru 2 - 0 soO
ByuN 2 - 0 Cure
Maru 2 - 1 ByuN
Cure 2 - 1 soO
Cure 2 - 1 ByuN

Prediction: Maru and Cure to advance.