2025 GSL Code S Season 1

RO8 Group A Preview: ByuN, Rogue, herO, Cure

Thursday, May 15 9:30am GMT (GMT+00:00)

Wax

This season of the GSL began with intrigue in the qualifiers, with some surprising players earning direct seeds to the RO8. Now that the RO12 is over, we'll get a chance to see if these unexpected faces simply got hot on a random Saturday, or have truly raised their games ahead of a summer frenzy.



One of the players who lit it up during the qualifiers was ByuN, who secured a direct RO8 seed with notable wins against Creator, Zoun, GuMiho, and Maru. This wasn't a particularly surprising result for ByuN, who has resided in the RO8 zone of major tournaments for the last couple of years. It was also a result that tracked with his solid off-season performances, where he showed he could beat anyone who wasn't part of the dominant Clem-MaxPax-herO trio.

The question for ByuN this season is whether he has any chance of upward mobility. The last time he was in any realistic championship contention was Code S Season 1 of 2023, where he barely lost 2-3 to Cure in the semifinals. Since then, he's been firmly entrenched as one of the best of the rest, held to RO8 finishes in nearly every major tournament. Beating Maru in the qualifiers was an encouraging win for sure, but it felt less due to ByuN elevating his play than Maru simply being in the process of ramping up after being inactive in the previous months (compared to ByuN, who has been one of the most diligent online cup grinders).

While it's a bit unfair to hold old results against ByuN for this long, I have to note that he didn't just fail to rise to the occasion in his last few Code S appearances—he actually performed below his usual level (losing matches against DRG and soO that he was favored in). Given that all three of his groupmates have stronger reputations for rising in big tournaments, I'll have to predict yet another RO8 finish for ByuN.

Speaking of elevating one's level of play as a tournament goes on, Rogue comes into the group bearing a heavy burden of expectations from nostalgic fans. Unfortunately for those hoping for him to return to 3x world championship form, his performance in last week's RO12 was rather ambiguous. While he easily dispensed with a duo of two far less accomplished Protosses in NightMare and Trigger, he fell 0-2 to Maru—a player whose current form is also unclear. Still, we got half a glimpse of the old Rogue in that match versus Maru, as he took a major lead in the first game with a vintage Roach-Ravager timing. Although Maru managed to score an unlikely comeback victory, it was a reminder of the ever-present threat of an all-in that came with facing Rogue (or the now-retired Dark) in his prime.

Personally, I just wasn't that enthused with Rogue's showing in the RO12, or at least I felt like it just didn't give us much information. The short length of the season means there was no realistic time for Rogue to 'round into form', so I'm going out on a pessimistic limb and say he's not quite ready to impact the title picture of a major tournament just yet. Hopefully, we'll see an even better version of Rogue in time for June's Season 2.

While most of this season's players entered with some air of uncertainty around them, there's one player who's in unambiguously fantastic form. herO has been playing amazing StarCraft throughout the entire off-season period, forming a nearly unbeatable weekly cup trinity alongside Clem and MaxPax. Although he wasn't able to win any of the bigger online tournaments, he did earn second place finishes in PiG Festival #6 and Master's Coliseum #8, where he looked very much on the same tier as Clem and Serral. Considering his off-season rampage, it's no surprise that herO has jumped above all his domestic peers to hit #3 overall on the Aligulac.com standings with only world championship finalists Clem and Serral ahead of him.

Though I do have some slight reservations over extrapolating online results over to offline events, sustained excellence over this long a period is always a sign of something 'real.' As it's unclear whether or not Maru is back to full strength, I have to put herO above all the other GSL players as the single, top title favorite.

Rounding out the group is Cure, who's coming off a strong RO12 performance where he defeated both sOs (2-1) and Solar (2-0). In general, Cure had been catching my eye as a player who had been upping his game in the lead-up to the new GSL season, and his RO12 games showed he was right back in the rhythm of playing in the FreecUP studio. His 2-0 win against Solar featured a classic cheese-greed mixup, following a game one proxy-Barracks all-in with a greedy 3-CC build in game two. While that's a pretty basic example, all the best Cure runs in the GSL featured great series planning and strategizing.

While I can't see Cure realistically threatening herO (funny enough, herO preempted some of my concerns about all-in vulnerability by shutting down proxy Marauders from both ByuN and Cure in recent events), I'm going to predict that he recovers from a tough first match and claims second place in the group.

Predictions

Rogue 2 - 1 ByuN
herO 2 - 0 Cure
herO 2 - 0 Rogue
Cure 2 - 1 ByuN
Cure 2 - 1 Rogue

herO and Cure to advance