2026 GSL Code S Season 1

RO8 Preview

by Wax

GSL Code S now moves on to the round-of-8, where the four survivors of the round-of-12 will join up with four seeded players for another two days of group stage action. Who will survive the final online crucible and earn the right to return to the GSL studio for the offline playoffs?

Group A: Classic, Cure, Maru, Rogue

Start time: Wednesday, May 06 9:30am GMT (GMT+00:00)

Our preview begins with one of the top championship contenders in Classic, although past reputation is carrying a lot of weight for the veteran Protoss at the moment. If our frame of reference was just 2025, then Classic would easily be the #1 pick to win it all—the summer saw him pull off an amazing late-career revival that included a Code S title (making him the current reigning champion) and a runner-up finish at the EWC world championship. However, the former #1 Protoss has suffered an undeniable decline in 2026. January's SC2 All-Star event (possibly the biggest event in all of 2026) saw Classic eliminated in his first bout, suffering a 1-3 loss to Clem—an opponent he had hard-countered for much of 2025. Classic has also fallen short of his 2025 level in all sorts of online competitions, be it weekly cups or $10,000+ events.

Given the state of the SC2 scene, it's expected that players' motivation and effort level will fluctuate depending on the major tournaments ahead of them. It could very well be the case that Classic put in an ungodly amount of practice for the last payout of its kind at EWC, and simply hasn't been able to rekindle the same competitive fire ever since. More controversially, one might speculate that he masterfully exploited Protoss' strength during the previous balance patch, and has been cut to size since the 5.0.15 balance patch in October of 2025 (although, if that was the case, how does one explain herO?). Whatever the reason, the implication is that Classic's advancement to the RO4 is far from assured.

Still, early returns from the RO12 suggest that the GSL is still a special tournament that brings the best out of Korea's top players, whether it's due to their ability to take advantage of the preparation time or simply the fact that they give more of a damn about a tournament they've spent their whole careers playing in. Although Classic didn't have the toughest GSL qualification path, the fact that he went through Ryung, Cure, Rogue, and Trigger with a combined 8-1 map record suggests that Code S will be where we see Classic at his best. "Big-game riser" is absolutely a box that's checked off on Classic's character sheet, which is why he still has championship contender status in my mind.

Classic's initial opponent Cure has gone through an eerily similar up-and-down arc through 2025-2026. His peak results in 2025 were exactly one placement lower than Classic, with the TL Terran earning a runner-up finish in Code S and placing third at EWC. Just like Classic, Cure's results in subsequent tournaments have fallen off, even including a mirroring RO8 elimination at the SC2 All-Star event.

As a GSL romanticist, I'm trying to give most players the benefit of the doubt and believe they will elevate their play in the GSL. While Cure has rarely joined the ranks of S-tier players during his career, he's been remarkably consistent at placing high in significant events—surely he can claw his way to another top four finish? Unfortunately, Cure has really tested my faith so far this Code S season. He barely qualified for the tournament at all (narrowly beating Ryung in the deciding match of an overall soft qualifier), and he struggled to advance from his RO12 group in second place (putting up a 4-4 map record). While I'd love to see a vintage performance from Cure in this group, I'm afraid he'll be sacrificed to other players who will keep that GSL aura alive.

On that note, how about that RO12 performance from Rogue? The all-time legend gave Korean elitists a massive dopamine hit by specifically talking about how GSL preparation™ helped him advance from his group in first place, as he tailored aggressive strategies to take down both Percival and Zoun with ease. It was immediately reminiscent of one of the last 2025 Code S series we saw him play in, where he scored a huge upset against herO in the semifinals through deception and mind-games.

However, trickery isn't the only thing Rogue has going for him. Unlike many of his GSL colleagues, he's actually been raising his stock in 2026 through his performances in online cups and mid-size online events. Much of this has to do with his improved standard macro play—it may never return to the level of his world championship peak, but it's enough to present most opponents with a tough greed/cheese dilemma.

Rogue's ZvT improvement has been particularly notable, and it's the one match-up where you could say he's undoubtedly top-tier. He's taken series off of Clem in weekly cups, and he's gotten the better of Maru multiple times in RSL competition (his latest win having been earlier this week). Although ZvP remains a concern for Rogue—as it is for everyone in the non-Serral department (even that's becoming debatable these days)—that may not factor in at all depending on how the group plays out.

That brings us to Maru, who is the current holder of the "most difficult player to predict" crown. Reynor and Rogue were giving him stiff competition in that category for a while, but Rogue's rise and Reynor's return to semi-inactive status has landed Maru this dubious honor.

Where to even begin? We probably have to look back to Maru's last dominant offline tournament run, where he won DreamHack Dallas 2025 while taking out the majority of the GSL's elite along the way. That high point anchors all the uncertainty around present day Maru—for all the inconsistent play and occasionally awful showing in online events, that run gives hope that Maru could show up and randomly be the best player in the world for a 6-8 match stretch. That definitely wasn't the case during the All-Star Invitational, where Maru was eliminated in the first round against Reynor. However, just a month later, Maru proved that hope to be well-founded in the LiuLi Cup, where he took the championship with consecutive playoff wins over the elite European trio of Clem, Reynor, and Serral.

That kind of whiplash leaves one utterly perplexed when trying to interpret the results of his latest tournament outing. Just days before playing in the GSL, Maru was ousted from his RSL Season 5 group containing similar members, losing to both Classic and Rogue. Even Maru's late-game turtling—the one thing that has held up during his ups and downs—failed him against Classic's superior long-term strategizing. Personally, I'm inclined to believe that Maru fans will have to suffer through one more "it's so over" cycle before he rewards them with another "we're so back!" moment, but I say that with no degree of conviction at all.

Predictions

Classic 2 - 1 Cure
Maru 2 - 1 Rogue
Classic 2 - 0 Maru
Rogue 2 - 0 Cure
Rogue 2 - 1 Maru

Classic and Rogue to advance

Group B: SHIN, Zoun, herO, ByuN

Start time: Thursday, May 07 9:30am GMT (GMT+00:00)

For Group A, the throughline question was whether or not former champions can re-elevate their games for Korea's most prestigious event. As for Group B, it's filled with players poised to capitalize if they don't.

We start off with SHIN, who's had "dangerous wildcard" status in the GSL for years now. In many ways, he's a miniature version of Rogue or Dark—his macro play has never been at their peak level, but his creativity and willingness to pull the trigger on all-ins have always made him a tricky GSL draw. At his best, that's been enough to earn him a GSL runner-up finish (Season 3 of 2022), and at his worst—well, he didn't even qualify for 2025's Season 1 where the qualifiers were quite soft. SHIN's international results are similarly mixed, with the best reflection of his mercurial quality being the fact that he is bizarrely good against Clem (a career 41-65 map-score against Clem is insane when you think about their relative levels in the overall scene).

SHIN's recent form suggests we'll see the darkhorse title contender version of him in the GSL, as he comes in with a great 3rd place performance in the WardiTV TLMC tournament (narrowly losing 3-4 to both MaxPax and Clem in the final rounds), combined with generally good results throughout a variety of online competitions.

On the other hand, Zoun hasn't looked impressive at all over the last few months, but what does it matter?—he came through when it mattered in the GSL RO12 and advanced in second place in his group. Alright, Solar's inability to kill Zoun before the Protoss deathball came together is probably a bit more reflective of the state of ZvP than Zoun locking in for the GSL, but a strong showing from Zoun in Group B would definitely strengthen the case for the latter.

As mentioned in the RO12 preview, Zoun hasn't done much to inspire confidence as of late, but his perpetual status as a high-ceiling/low-floor player makes him an opponent who can't be taken lightly (much like SHIN). Given the group make-up, I'm inclined to say Zoun's run of upsets will end here, but I could see him eking by in second place.

ByuN is another player who has enjoyed a wildcard reputation for much of his post-military career, but his credentials don't quite support the perception. Perhaps the exciting, aggressive brand of play he was known for years ago has affected people's mental image of him—in reality, he's been more of a steady, mid-table player since 2021.

Ironically, I think the reputation actually has become reality in 2026. ByuN has been on an impressive tear in online play over the last few months, even challenging the MaxPax-Clem-herO trinity for weekly cup titles. His performances against those top players varies wildly from match to match—just in the last week, he's swept herO in a cup finals and been on the receiving end of an equivalent beatdown as well. Maybe it's just my personal read, but it feels like he's achieved this recent success by toning down his aggression just a notch. ByuN is still incredible at snowballing small leads with ruthless offense, but he appears to be less reckless and steadier than before. In terms of strategic preferences, he has all the traits of a classic wildcard player, possessing strong macro play but being fully willing to cheese in every game of a series when necessary.

Despite this dangerous array of groupmates, it's hard to be seriously concerned for herO. While many top players seemed to take it easy after EWC 2025, herO redoubled his commitment to grinding weekly cups and playing in every tournament possible. He was rewarded for staying in form with a championship at the All-Star Invitational, giving Protoss its first win at a fully-rostered international major since herO himself won DreamHack Atlanta 2022. herO then doubled down by winning the Rongyi Cup title, making him the dual-champion of the two biggest events of 2026 thus far.

Combined with his continued domination of weekly cups, this should be enough to confirm herO as the undisputed #1 player in the world at the moment. However, herO has also suffered a handful of setbacks in Liquipedia A-tier tournaments such as RSL and LiuLi Cup that make it hard to give him a fully resounding endorsement. For all of herO's consistency in weekly cups, one still has to worry that a suicidal frontal attack or ill-timed DT gamble could doom herO against a lesser opponent.

Predictions

Zoun 2 - 1 SHIN
herO 2 - 0 ByuN
herO 2 - 0 Zoun
SHIN 2 - 1 ByuN
SHIN 2 - 1 Zoun

herO and SHIN to advance