2024 GSL Code S Season 2

RO8 Group B Preview: herO, Creator, DongRaeGu, Dark

Thursday, Jun 20 9:30am GMT (GMT+00:00)

by Wax

Group A of the RO8 saw the Terran duo of Cure and Maru set foot in the semifinals, and now it's time to see who their opponents will be. herO and Dark look to be prohibitive favorites in Group B, but with upsets being the theme of the season so far, Creator and DRG have a chance to introduce some chaos into the playoffs.



herO is Group B's top dog, standing out as one of the few players in the GSL who could possibly prevent Maru from winning a ninth Code S championship. He's reigned as the #1 Protoss player in the world virtually uninterrupted for the last two years (MaxPax's non-participation in major events disqualifies him from consideration), and he's given Maru many close matches during that time. While Maru is currently on a four-match winning streak against herO, three of those were decided by a one map-margin (3-2, 5-4, 4-1, 4-3). Thus, even though herO would be the underdog in a finals rematch from Season 1, he's still StarCraft II fans' best hope of seeing a Protoss champion crowned for the first time since December of 2022 (when herO himself won DreamHack Atlanta).

Of course, that's all assuming herO gets out of this group, but I think that's basically a formality. Sure, Dark will give him a tough challenge in the battle for first place (do either of them even want it, since Maru would be their opponent?), but it's hard to see herO losing to Dark and eating an upset at the hands of Creator or DongRaeGu. Creator vs herO is just a horrendous mismatch in terms of physical ability, with herO easily having the best mechanics out of any Protoss player (again, not considering MaxPax) while Creator might be the player who makes the most out of the least. The outlook is similarly grim for DRG, for whom I can't see any aspect of the game where he has an advantage. A herO self-implosion due to overaggression is the best chance of victory for either player, but that's obviously a longshot. No, when I say there's a chance for chaos in this group, I'm saying there's a small chance that Dark drops the ball—herO should be safe.

herO's initial opponent will be Creator, who I think is doomed in the head-to-head for the reasons I listed above. However, the two Zerg opponents are a much more enticing prospect, as Creator will be able to play his best match-up.

Now, I have to admit Creator's PvZ was very unconvincing in the RO16, where he only advanced after capitalizing on some awful decision making from bad-SHIN (the DreamHack Dallas players who had the misfortune of playing against good-SHIN must have felt aggrieved). However, the previous time Creator made it to the RO8 (Season 3 of 2023), it was also on the back of his PvZ, which looked very solid in victories against Scarlett and Solar.

"Solid" really is the most apt word to describe Creator's PvZ. He mixes up aggressive and greedy build orders well, doesn't do much out of the ordinary (except revive the old school DT/Archon drop opener now and then), and is just generally good at safely setting himself up to assemble a big deathball and a-move his opponent to death. There's nothing particularly thrilling about it, but it's undeniably effective. He's #4 in Aligulac.com PvZ standings (behind MaxPax, herO, and Classic) at the time of writing, which makes him a moderate favorite against DRG while putting him within striking distance of Dark (who he's upset a handful of times in online cup play). While Dark playing at the top of his game should win handily, his GSL ZvP has been shaky in these last two seasons. If Creator can be the steadiest of the three non-herO players in the group, he could earn a surprise RO4 berth.

While I'm pretty comfortable with my assessment of Creator as a solid player with a bit of upset potential, I have no idea what to make of DongRaeGu at the moment. His Code S Season 1 performance was incredibly bad, and coming off a yearlong slump in 2023, I actually thought he was winding down his career and getting ready to retire. Instead he fought his way back to the Code S RO8, and even did it with a perfect 4-0 performance in his RO16 group (wins vs Solar and Nightmare). What the heck happened?

The thing that makes DRG even more perplexing is that his 4-0 wasn't even that convincing. Solar lost one-sidedly after taking some terrible engagements, while NightMare just looked utterly off balance after having looked very impressive against ByuN in his previous match. Basically, it felt like DongRaeGu simply played well enough not to lose, and his opponents did the rest of the work for him by crumbling under pressure. Still, you have to give credit to DRG where it's due. He's talked in the past about how his composure in big offline matches is one of his strengths, and we were reminded about just how important composure can be in this season's upset-laden RO16.

I don't think herO will be rattled at all against DRG, but the other two players could be vulnerable. While I give Creator the edge against DRG if their games play out normally, I just have a sinking feeling that he's going to lose a key prism due to mismicro, or that he'll leave a gap open in his wall at the worst possible time, or that he'll use a reflex-recall that actually puts his troops in a worse situation—basically, I have a feeling that something will happen that causes distraught-Creator-face to show up in the player cam. As for a ZvZ against Dark, DRG can lean on the fact that it remains the most volatile match-up in StarCraft II.

Finally, we have Dark, who I've hinted at having doubts about. Prior to the RO16, I expected Dark to give us a dominant, statement-making performance to atone for his disastrous Season 1 where he was eliminated by Classic and Stats. After all, his play in international tournaments had remained excellent, and I had every reason to believe that Season 1 was just a blip (especially with Stats coming back down to Earth). Instead, Dark started this season's RO16 by giving up another loss to Stats (0-2), and had to crawl back from the losers match to advance to the RO8 (he did beat Stats 2-0 in the rematch).

Dark's four maps against Stats (2-2) were somewhat peculiar, as he insisted on playing some kind of Nydus all-in in three of the games. At a different time in Dark's career, I would have said it was a sign of his swagger and confidence that he went back to strategies he failed with earlier. However, with Dark giving a post-match interview where he lamented the quality of his play, I had to wonder if he had crossed over the line from confidence and into insecurity. Perhaps he needed to prove to himself that his build was still good—and more importantly—that he was still good.

Putting my incredibly speculative psychoanalysis aside, the best version of Dark should easily finish in the top two of this group. Outside the aforementioned GSL Season 1, he hasn't been eliminated from a major tournament with a 'bad' loss in almost a year (Solar, Maru, Serral, and herO handed him his most recent elimination). While I do have some questions about his ability to take on players like herO and Maru in the playoffs, DRG and Creator are simply not players who should trouble him if he's playing anywhere close to his normal level.

Predictions

Unsurprisingly, Aligulac.com sees herO and Dark as very strong favorites to advance with 84.7% and 78.33% probabilities. TL.net user Liquibet voting is even more lopsided, with around 90% of all votes going to the duo. I completely agree with this being the correct prediction assuming nothing weird happens, and that everyone plays at their average level.

However, the all important metric of 'vibes' tells me that something's been off about this tournament since the RO16, and we're due for at least one last surprise before the playoffs (I can easily imagine a bunch of interviews/streams a year later where players talk about how everyone's mental was fried due to the uncertainty in the scene, akin to late-2016 and the end of KeSPA). I'm going to go out on a limb and say the ZvZ dice come up snake eyes for Dark, and DRG sneaks his way into the RO4 for the first time since 2022.

herO 2 - 0 Creator
Dark 2 - 0 DongRaeGu
herO 2 - 1 Dark
DongRaeGu 2 - 1 Creator
DongRaeGu 2 - 1 Dark

herO and DRG to advance.