2025 GSL Code S Season 1
RO4 and Playoffs Preview

Friday, May 16 9:30am GMT (GMT+00:00)

by Wax

The shortened season of Code S will come to an end on Friday night, with the champion joining Clem as the second player seeded into the 2025 Esports World Cup. herO looks to be the heavy favorite after backing up his great off-season play in the RO8, but perhaps this season will have one last surprise in store?

Semifinal #1: herO vs GuMiho

The semifinals begin with what appears to be an extremely lopsided duel on paper, with championship favorite herO going up against the unpredictable but outmatched GuMiho.

Anyone who's followed off-season StarCraft II should be familiar with herO's exploits, as he grinded online tournaments diligently and achieved fantastic results that were second only to Clem and Serral. While he's only played one round of GSL so far in the truncated format, all of the momentum from the off-season seems to be carrying over as he beat down Cure and ByuN in the RO8. Now that the "Maru will lock in when GSL officially returns" narrative has gone up in smoke, herO stands alone as the prohibitive favorite to win the Code S Season 1 championship.

Still, if there's someone herO needs to be especially wary of among the remaining players, it should be GuMiho. After all, he's spent the last six months reminding us of why you overlook him at your own peril. He won HomeStory Cup 26 as an underdog, taking down both Maru and Clem in the final two rounds. Just yesterday, we saw him deliver one of the most delightfully GuMiho-ish performances ever in the RO8, psyching out Maru so hard that the GSL GOAT self-imploded while playing off-race Protoss (poorly), and then knocking Reynor out of the GSL with a one-two combo of unorthodox strategies. In fact, you'd think herO would be especially wary of GuMiho's upset potential, as he suffered a 1-2 loss against the Towel Terran's 2-base all-ins during the GSL qualifiers.

However, in reality, both contestants seem to believe this match leans heavily in herO's favor. herO had no qualms about expressing his preference for facing GuMiho during his post-match interview, and GuMiho acknowledged his extreme underdog status when he had a chance to comment on the match. Indeed, while GuMiho's all-ins did happen to best herO in the qualifiers, that was an outlier result—GuMiho had lost the previous 14 head-to-heads before that, and by a combined 9-36 map score at that. According to Aligulac.com, herO has a 93.61% chance of winning this BO5, which is a pretty ridiculous number so deep into a tournament.

While I give GuMiho a bit more credit than he gives himself, I have to admit his chances are pretty grim. Right now, non-Clem Terrans barely have a chance of beating herO in straight-up macro games, and they've mostly resorted to throwing a barrage of cheeses at him and praying a few of them will work. However, herO also happens to be one of the best Protosses at defending all-ins. While he occasionally takes questionable defensive engagements (only herO could be overaggressive on defense), overall, his great micro and multi-tasking serve him well in early-game defensive scenarios.

It must be noted that GuMiho actually did win the HomeStory Cup 26 finals with the all-in-or-nothing approach, and his deluge of Terran timings eventually pierced through Clem's defenses. However, that was Clem's first time playing Protoss in a major tournament, whereas herO has faced down all sorts of BO5+ mind games throughout his career. Moreover, GuMiho will barely have had any time to prepare any special strategies for this series, and will likely have to pick from his existing and more predictable repertoire of builds.

Prediction: herO 3 - 1 GuMiho

Semifinal #2: Classic vs Cure

This season of GSL has shown that ramping up your game ahead of a big tournament is far easier said than done, but the two players in this semifinal have been some of the most successful at it.

Classic has simply been fantastic since April, qualifying directly for the GSL RO8, disrupting the weekly cup monopoly of the Clem-MaxPax-herO trinity, and just last night, winning his GSL RO8 group with victories over Reynor and GuMiho. For the most part, Classic has achieved this by being a very solid and somewhat boring macro player. The most memorable games in Classic's career may have featured clever strategies, but at heart, he's always just wanted to macro you to death. Luckily for him, this is one of the best times in StarCraft II history to be a solid and boring Protoss, and it's no surprise that Classic is thriving.

Cure's build up has been a bit more gradual, but he's peaking at the right time all the same. With strong fundamentals as a foundation, he's getting to show off his cunning as a strategist and series planner now that he's playing in the Code S format again (alas, this won't be as relevant given the lack of preparation time). Historically, championship-caliber Terrans have had an uncanny knack for knowing the optimal way to mix-up their unorthodox and standard strategies, and sOs, Solar, Rogue, and ByuN all got a taste of that in their losses to Cure.

The big picture framework for this match should be Classic trying to build up an insurmountable economy and production infrastructure, and Cure trying to stop him before he gets there—mostly with 2-base all-ins. Cure took that approach against herO, but that's also how he's played in a lot of his recent TvP's. In Cure's two losses, we saw herO pick apart the Terran aggression by leveraging his superior multitasking, simultaneously stalling back at home and backdooring on the other side of the map. However, I feel like the Cure would actually have the mechanics advantage against Classic, a slower player who has shown some vulnerability to multi-pronged aggression in his post-military career. Speeding the games and making them hectic should work in Cure's favor.

Aligulac gives Classic a moderate advantage with a 58.2% chance of winning the BO5. The head-to-head record paints a much worse picture for Cure, however, with Classic leading 6-1 in matches since the meta-changing 5.0.14 patch. I'm going to go against the numbers here and say Cure will find the combination of strategies needed to unlock Classic's defense. While Cure rarely punches above his own weight class, he also always plays right up to the limits of his abilities in important matches. Against Classic, that should be enough to get him over the finish line.

Prediction: Cure 3 - 2 Classic

Finals Possibilities and Predictions

In the extremely unlikely case that GuMiho beats herO, I'd have to assume it was because we were in the midst of a rare astrological event where all the energy of the cosmos was being channeled through his hands—just like when he won HSC 26, placed runner-up at DreamHack Summer 2023, and when he won Code S in 2017. Neither Classic nor Cure have a chance at beating that version of GuMiho, and he would become the inevitable champion.

Should reality behave normally and herO prevail as predicted, the finals outlook would vary greatly depending on his opponent. Unfortunately for Cure, his head-to-head match-up against herO is just as bad as GuMiho's. He's currently on an eleven game losing streak versus herO, and is a dismal 2-16 against him since the 5.0.14 patch (13-41 map score). However, unlike GuMiho, Cure spent zero points in the "logic defying" attribute at character creation, and his chances of achieving an upset are slim.

A Classic vs herO final could be much closer. The Aligulac.com prediction says herO has 79% chance of winning a BO7, but the head-to-head record tells a different story. Classic actually has a 6-5 series lead against herO since the 5.0.14 patch, and is 3-1 against him in the last three weeks. Even though herO is clearly better at PvP in an overall sense, for some confounding reason, Classic seems to have his number.

From what I've seen of their games, Classic seems to have a knack for taking their games back to an older era of PvP where the match-up was still messy and weird, rather than playing the safe Zealot-Stalker build-ups we've become accustomed to in recent years. One would think the mechanically superior herO would benefit from such chaotic games, but at least in PvP, Classic still looks like he can micro and multitask at a championship level. herO himself has given voice to how tricky an opponent Classic would be, and I think he'd only be a moderate favorite in a potential clash.

Overall, herO is the firm favorite to win the championship, but Classic brings enough variance to prevent this from being a foregone conclusion.

Prediction: herO 4 - 1 Cure