2024 GSL Code S Season 2

RO4 & Finals Preview

Saturday, Jun 29 8:00am GMT (GMT+00:00)

by Wax

Semifinal #1: Cure vs Dark

Our first semifinal match features two of the best players of the modern era, whose only shared shortcoming is that they are contemporaries with even greater legends. Cure and Dark are GSL Code S champions, perennial podium placers in major tournaments, and from time to time, the second best players of their respective races. Even though Maru has cast a shadow of inevitability over the GSL, there are few players better equipped to try and challenge his reign.

Cure is the 2023/24 EPT circuit's underappreciated king of consistency, who has been a near-lock to go deep into playoffs of every competition he enters. He's performed about as well as anyone can without winning a championship, placing top four or higher in eleven Liquipedia premier-tier events of the 2023/24 season—including runner-ups in Code S, Gamers8, and Master's Coliseum 6. Although Cure's career best result was the Code S championship he won in 2021, he is undoubtedly enjoying his best sustained run as a top-tier player.

That momentum has shown no sign of stopping in this season of Code S, as Cure enters the playoffs with the best record of the four surviving players: 4-0 in matches, 8-3 in maps. Not just that, but he's probably had the most difficult run so far, beating Rogue, Stats, ByuN, and the defending champion Maru. He reached this point with a combination of rock-solid macro play and timely cheeses—the time-tested, winning formula for many great Terrans.

Dark may not have been as ultra-consistent as Cure during the 2023/24 season, but he has a far longer track record of being an elite player. His current drought of two years without a major title is one of the longest of his career, but fans shouldn't be worried that this signals a permanent decline in form. Every slump—long or short—has eventually come to an end, with Dark using his natural talent and aggressive instincts to add another championship to his tally.

One needs only recall his last championship win at DreamHack Valencia 2022 to know why he's always a threat to win from out of 'nowhere.' Back then, his situation was similar to the present. No one dared disrespect the former world champion, and they gave him token praise, but they definitely weren't respecting him enough in the wake of his championship drought. Dark quickly rectified the situation, defeating top GSL players herO and Maru to win the championship.

Contrary to Cure, Dark's Code S journey this season has been much shakier. He enters with a 4-2 match record (9-4 in maps), dodging elimination scares in both of his RO16 groups. On the one hand, his inconsistent and shaky play is reason for concern. But on the other hand, it's encouraging that he was clutch in the group decider matches, beating both Stats and herO in convincing 2-0 series.

When you look at these two players in isolation, they might appear to be at a similar level—perhaps even with Cure having the edge within the confines of the GSL. However, when you look at the specific relationship between these two players, it's clear who has the upper hand. Dark is on a 13-match win-streak against Cure since November 24th (2023), with an absurd 35-8 map record in that span.

Watching some of their recent games did little to explain the situation. If I could make a bit of a stretch for an analogy, it reminded me of a movie that has a 100% fresh rating on RottenTomatoes, but every single review is a C+. Yes, Dark looked moderately better than Cure in all those games, and technically 'deserved' to win them all. But usually when one player is just slightly better than the other, they usually don't go thirteen straight matches without their opponent somehow lucking their way into a win.

Another curiosity of the player match-up is that it was actually lop-sided in Cure's favor one year ago. Cure reached the peak of his TvZ powers in the summer of 2023, and was regularly beating Dark in an assortment of major and minor tournaments. It's hard to say exactly why the balance of power has shifted so drastically since then. Sure, the map pools changed to make turtle-Terran a bit harder and gave Zerg some moderate buffs in the match-up, but it doesn't come close to explaining such a wild swing in a player-vs-player relationship.

As incomprehensible as the specific reasons may be to me, it's clear where the two players stand right now: Dark has Cure's number, fingerprints, and complete DNA genome. And, yet, I think Cure still has a fighting chance in this specific setting.

Statistics and Predictions

Compared to the jarring head-to-head record, the Aligulac.com rating gap between the two players isn't quite as severe. Cure is the #6 TvZ player player with a 3098 rating, while Dark is the #2 ZvT player, at 3450. When the stats site crunches the numbers, it gives Dark a 76.74% chance of winning.

I'll admit, I'm not that consistent in interpreting Aligulac.com numbers—I'm sure I've called a 75:25 ratio both a moderate and severe gap depending on the players involved and how I feel about them. In this case, I do want to give Cure some benefit of the doubt, while still proclaiming Dark the favorite.

I think the GSL preparation actually factors heavily here, mostly in Cure's favor. One of the big reasons Cure was able to go from online cup destroyer to GSL champion in 2021 was because he eschewed standard macro play in favor of mind-gaming the hell out of his opponents with aggressive early-game strategies. Now, that was mostly in PvT during a very different meta, but the same underlying principles have stuck with Cure. Earlier this season, he beat the returning Rogue with a Bunker-rush that was tailored to Site Delta, and later explained he used it specifically to take advantage of Rogue's likely unfamiliarity with the new maps. While that's a very rudimentary example, I think Cure is generally a very capable cheeser when he has time to prepare.

In terms of straight-up macro games, I'm a bit skeptical of what two weeks of preparation can do for Cure. He's pretty good at the current meta of 3-base all-inning Zergs, but pretty good hasn't cut it against Dark in their last thirteen meetings.The one area where he might stand to improve is in the late-game, especially with mech play. Back in 2023 when Cure was beating Dark regularly, his late-game turtling played a big part. Even though the current map pool might not be quite as favorable for such styles, in a BO5 he might designate a couple of maps to be the sites of grueling, 30+ minute battles of attrition.

Looking at the series from Dark's point of view, he should just take the textbook approach of the better macro player and just play standard while staying hyper-aware of cheese. However, this is Dark, and playing boring, predictable games has never been his credo. His RO16 games against Stats—where he stubbornly forced mid-game Queen-Nydus tactics until they finally worked—come readily to mind. Dark is bound to bring some hyper-aggressive styles/builds to this series, and one of Cure's paths to victory might be hoping they blow up in his face.

TL.net Liquibet users are siding with Aligulac on this one, with Dark receiving around 75% of the votes. However, gambling sites (at least the unnamed one I checked) seem to be with me on giving Cure a GSL premium, assessing him around a 66% chance of winning.

Taking it all into account, my final prediction is a narrow victory for Dark.

Prediction: Dark 3 - 2 Cure

Semifinal #2: Maru vs Creator

The second semifinal match presents me with the usual TL.net dilemma when previewing Maru in the GSL: Do I spin some tale about how his opponent has a chance, or do I just tell it as it is?

Indeed, Maru vs Creator is close to being the GSL's version of the 'hydrogen bomb vs coughing baby' meme. Maru is the greatest player in GSL Code S history with eight championships and three runner-up finishes to his credit. In fact, if you split up his Code S accomplishments equally, you could even argue that Maru α and Maru β are the top two greatest players in tournament history with Rogue coming in third place. On the other hand, Creator is just now reaching the Code S RO4 for the second time in his career, which might make him a top forty player or thereabouts.

Of course, even if Creator isn't the most decorated player in GSL history, one has to acknowledge he did play tremendously well to reach the RO4 in this specific season. He defeated both herO and Dark—arguably the #2 and #3 players in Korea—to advance from his RO8 group, which might signal that he's in tremendous form. However, you can't completely discount Creator's historical record either. If a player finally advances to the RO4 after being stonewalled in the RO8 (and more often, in the RO16) for two years, does it mean they've rapidly improved? Or might they just be having a fluke season? Given Creator's showings in other recent tournaments such as EPT Spring/Dallas and in online cups, I'm inclined to believe it's the latter.

While I hesitate to say it's the most lopsided RO4 match-up we've seen in Code S, it's certainly the worst mismatch since Maru faced Armani back in 2020's Season 3. Still, the thing is, Maru did not wipe Armani off the face of the earth and replace him with a crater the size of Cincinnati. The underdog Zerg actually put up a surprising amount of resistance—even shocking the SC2 fandom by besting Maru in a late-game duel—and went out with a respectable 2-4 loss. In that match, and every other match where Maru's aura of invincibility was tarnished, lies the nanometer-thin sliver of hope for Creator.

As incredible as Maru has been in the GSL, he's also been due for at least one explicable loss in each of the past few years of GSL. Creator needs to look to the Season 3 of 2023, where punching bags Scarlett and Solar swung back and KO'd Maru from the RO16. He needs to think about 2021's Season 2, where Zoun and his Disruptors purified the RO16 of Maru's presence. He needs to find inspiration in 2022's Season 1, when DongRaeGu and he himself booted Maru from the RO10. Even though these previous upsets all came in the lower rounds of tournaments, Creator might find some hope in the underlying principle of those losses. That being: sometimes, Maru is gonna Maru.

Statistics and Predictions

Your gut is probably telling you this match-up is rather bleak for Creator, and the numbers back it up across the board. At the time of writing, Maru is the #2 TvP player in the world by Aligulac rating with a 3501 rating, while Creator is the #7 PvT player in the world at 2897. #7 may not sound that bad until you remember that the pool of high-end Protoss players is rather thin, and the players above him include MaxPax, herO, Classic, NightMare, ShoWTimE, and even Trap.

When you do the ratings math, Aligulac.com projects Maru as a prohibitive favorite with an 89.15% chance of winning. Public opinion lines up similarly, with Maru receiving around 86% of Liquibet votes while gambling odds also give him around an 88% chance of victory.

The historical head-to-stats are quite ugly as well, with Maru having an 18-4 match record against Creator (40-15 map score). Included in that record is an ongoing seven match win-streak started in October of 2022, with Maru going 15-2 in maps during that stretch.

Unfortunately for Creator, it's hard for me to imagine many winning scenarios for him. While he's pretty good about picking his spots with all-ins in PvZ and PvP, PvT is the match-up where he tends to stick to a rigid, standard playstyle. He heavily favors the Blink into mass Gateway units + Robo/Storm playstyle which is typical of PvT these days, and Maru should be all too familiar with how to play against it. The thing is, I don't even know what Creator is supposed to change up in order to confuse Maru. It's not like using a bunch of Stargate openers is going to confuse Maru, since we see herO and other Korean Protosses use them all the time. In fact, it would probably hurt Creator to alter his openers too drastically if he's not as practiced with defensive Phoenix micro.

Oddly enough, I think the best chance for Creator to win is to keep things simple and do what he normally does, and just go for typical Chargelot + Colossus/Templar timings in the mid-game. Maru's judgment on defense isn't always perfect, and he can make questionable/greedy decisions in defending bases. I can envision a scenario where Maru tries to take his third a little too quickly, has one tank out of position, and still commits to a defensive battle against an incoming force. Honestly, he'd probably win anyway, but maybe three out of ten times Creator scores the upset. Another winning scenario might see Maru get too cute with multi-prong army movements in the mid-game, while Creator consolidates his army to force a basetrade. While I think Creator has poor decision-making in basetrades, it's still preferable to playing Maru straight up.

However, in order to play Maru in the mid-game, you have to survive the early-game. That's my biggest concern for Creator, as there's no one better than Maru at skill-checking players with early attacks in PvT. He has authored some of the fastest BO7 wins in SC2 history with simple yet brutal tests of his opponents' defensive concentration. Creator isn't exactly known for his defensive multi-tasking or precision, making this a particularly difficult match-up for him. I really hope he's spent the last week engraving every defensive response into his muscle memory, or this could be a very quick loss for him.

While I give Creator all the credit in the world for making it this far, I'm afraid his underdog journey will end here.

Prediction: Maru 3 - 0 Creator

Finals Scenarios

[From least likely to most likely]

Creator vs Cure

If this were a semifinal match, I'd say Cure was the enormous favorite due to TvP being his best match-up and the one where his GSL preparation shines the most. However, if Creator somehow survived his match against Maru and made it this far, it would be because he achieved StarCraft II transcendence and morphed into an entirely different player.

I don't know exactly how this version of Creator would play in-game (though he'd definitely have glowing golden hair in real life), but I figure he'd get the job done against Cure as well.

Prediction: Creator 4 - 1 Cure

Creator vs Dark

Unlike the match-up above, this clash would actually be pretty close under normal circumstances. PvZ is Creator's strongest match-up and his best chance of upsetting better players, and he demonstrated that by defeating Dark 2-1 in their RO8 group. Granted, Dark played very poorly in that match and later tightened up his play for the decider match against herO, but there's no guarantee he keeps it together in the grand finals.

As mentioned above, Creator surviving his match against Maru would mean he basically transformed into a totally new player, possibly one with the strongest mental in all of StarCraft II. In that case, we'd see the finals play out in a pattern we've never seen before, with Creator calmly playing his own game while Dark implodes.

Prediction: Creator 4 - 1 Dark

Cure vs Maru

This is the most intriguing finals match-up to me, as it highlights the importance of mentality in StarCraft II.

If you just look at the all-time record between Cure and Maru, there's no question that Maru dominates his former teammate (21-10 all-time, 9-3 since 2023. Maru's superiority is even more pronounced in the biggest matches, with nearly all of Cure's wins coming in BO3's or non-elimination matches (including the upset he scored in this season's RO8).

What makes this relationship so interesting is that mentality has much more to do with the gap than in-game ability. Watching their games from the past year or so, I'm convinced that the in-game skill gap between Maru and Cure isn't nearly as wide as fans perceive. I think they're pretty close or equal in early/mid-game play, with late-game being the only phase where Maru is clearly better. That's a meaningful advantage for sure, given how it's easier to force late-game in TvT than the other mirrors. But that alone shouldn't explain why Maru has such a huge head-to-head edge against Cure.

To me, the biggest factor is that Cure goes into his matches with Maru as a defeated man, completely psyched out by playing against such a formidable opponent. The most telling example came in 2023's Season 2, where Cure went up 2-0 against Maru in the semifinals. Cure had three fantastic opportunities to close it out—and actually took the lead in two of those games—but he committed a series of brutal, borderline farcical errors that eventually led to a reverse-sweep.

I find it very apt that Jaedong recently talked about how his blind confidence was one of the keys to his success, as it's a lesson Cure will desperately need to take to heart in a potential finals against Maru. I'd love for this saga to end with Cure finally overcoming his mental block, but the history of SC2 tells us such obstacles are not so easily overcome.

Prediction: Maru 4 - 2 Cure

Dark vs Maru

This match would mark the fifth grand finals meeting between Dark and Maru in major tournaments, with Maru holding the 3-1 lead at the moment. While the overall head-to-head record is closer with Maru having a 27-25 career match-record advantage, the high-stakes matches have tended to go in Maru's favor. We saw that pattern continue to play out in 2024, with Dark defeating Maru in the mid-stakes Masters' Coliseum tournament (4-3), while Maru came out victorious in the more prestigious IEM Katowice (2-0) and EPT Spring/Dallas (3-1) events.

Considering some of Dark's recent inconsistencies in the GSL, and the fact that Maru seems even more ruthless than ever against anyone not-named Serral, I'm going to say Maru adds another finals win against Dark to his tally.

Prediction: Maru 4 - 2 Dark