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Rain Drops

While it is outside the scope of this article to discuss the reason and implications of By.Rain forfeiting his matches in the group, there can be no doubt that it made the group both less interesting to spectate and a lot more confusing as to giving answers about where the players stand. The direct result for the group was the HyuN was awarded a walkover in his first match, while the loser between GuMiho and YoDa would advance automatically to what was technically the fifth and final match of the day, without a need for a losers match.

For the players, it was a windfall to see their prospective 'group of death' candidate turn into a much easier proposition. For Gom, it must have been a blow; Rain clearly is a draw based off his ‘elephant on stampede’ role, being the reigning OSL champion could not have hurt, neither his WCS Asia victory. At the end of the day, we may never know whether Rain was ever going to win this GSL, but there is no denying he was one of the favorites going into it. Now however, he is out of the competition.

An Expected Winner, You Were Not
- LG-IM_YoDa defeats FXOGuMiho and TSL_HyuN to advance to the round of sixteen in first place.

When great champions are interviewed, they have an unerring and sometimes puzzling tendency to name some relatively unknown player on their team as the best in practice. Yoda received this dubious honor when Mvp labelled him as the best LG-IM player a while back. It was initially followed up by a strong run through Code A resulting in the understudy’s first taste of the big league. However, the momentum was snuffed out by Symbol, leaving more doubts as to whether Yoda would even supplant Happy as the second best Terran on the team.

Going into the group, things looked like they might very well repeat themselves. However, with Rain out of the picture, YoDa's prospects suddenly looked a lot better against the volatile Gumiho and a less than Mokdong-proof Hyun.

The first match against Gumiho let Yoda show a so far relatively untested Code S caliber TvT. Defeating Ryung last season was impressive in terms of getting results, and Yoda would follow up on that success with more solid play. While he lost the second game on Entombed Valley due to getting his tanks caught out of position, thus throwing away a good lead, he won on Antiga Shipyard and Cloud Kingdom. Across all three matches, his early game looked simply far superior to that of the FXO Terran; on Antiga he continuously built on his lead throughout the game, leaving Gumiho’s bio composition severely outmatched. On Cloud Kingdom he essentially won the match in the early midgame where his late tech up to cloaked banshees went unnoticed and wreaked terrible damage. The timing attack that followed was simply too much for Gumiho to ever handle, and Yoda would advance to meet Hyun.

The first game of the winners final confirmed yet again an old truth about new maps. With the first game taking place on Bel’Shir Vestige, it was time for YoDa to bust out the old standby of 11/11 versus Zerg. While Hyun did his typical early drone scout, his pool was simply too late to launch a decisive defense and the proxy location was close enough to ensure that good micro was all Yoda needed to be one game away from securing his group victory. Game two saw him lose on Whirlwind. While he was able to easily deflect the stylistic early roach attack by the TSL Zerg, his counter timing did not find much success and he overstayed his welcome, losing valuable army and never really recovered. However, Antiga once again proved itself as a Terran playground, and YoDa was able to penalize Hyun’s early tech up to hive with heavy tank/bio aggression that first took out the hard to defend fourth location, then moved on to eradicating the Zerg third. While Hyun was able to amass a small brood lord fleet, YoDa was securing his fourth and constant streams of marines, marauders and tanks were enough to finish the job as the Zerg had no economy to hold on to.

Yoda's advancement in the group still feels a bit puzzling. On the one hand, getting out of a three man group doesn’t say much. His play wasn't anything we hadn't seen from him before: a little bit of cheese, a fair amount of consistency, and good fundamental play required to be a steady Code S player. On the other hand, if Rain had actually been playing, and had lost his first match against HyuN in a most unlikely turn of events, this group victory would have looked truly impressive for YoDa, even if he had showed the same quality of play.

In the end, it is easier to judge based on game play alone; where YoDa looked strong but not enough so to prevent him from being a very attractive pick for group selections coming up next weekend. Still, it was a good first step to make a real impact on Code S, and we should have learned better than to distrust the word of Mvp by now, even when he is obviously being humble.


- One victory over Gumiho is enough to ensure that best online Zerg player in the world tastes Code S success.

The real benefactor of Rain’s forfeit due to seeking international fame and fortune was most assuredly Hyun. While he has ripped apart tons of Protoss on the online scene, he still remains perhaps especially vulnerable looking in the matchup offline. Also, getting a free pass to the winner’s match is not insignificant. And while he lost against YoDa in rather underwhelming fashion, it meant that only one match win was enough to see him through.

On Abyssal City, Hyun looked decidedly uncomfortable against Gumiho’s unorthodox two port banshee into mech with a heavy viking contingent. He was able to stabilize through the midgame, but his tech transition into brood lords left him both vulnerable strategically against a player famed for multipronged harass, who had already prepared a viking fleet to boot. The game went back and forth, with Hyun’s roaches able to deal with the powerful mech composition for some time, but he was never able to win decisive victories and fell apart slowly to persistent hellion run-bys while his brood lord army was rendered ineffective.

Daybreak looked to be heading in a similar direction. However Hyun was able to slightly modify his strategy, relying more on defense and expanding rather trying to harass the mech player. He was able to sustain few losses, and in the midgame he was just able to win a crucial battle outside his fourth as Gumiho finally went on the offensive. With Daybreak featuring less avenues of harass than Abyssal City, his transition up to brood lords was also more easily defended. As the game went on, he simply played it safe and made sure to push before Gumiho could come up with a good compositional counter.

Finally, Antiga Shipyard was where Hyun found his ideal counter to Gumiho’s personal take on playing mech. The TSL Zerg went for a more aggressive adoption of roaches as his primary damage dealer, largely ignoring the banshee threat as he took the initiative. In a choice that harkens back to his earlier days, he attacked Gumiho’s slowly building army with overlord speed and drops. Gumiho was not able to find a suitable position to defend both his main and third, and upon seeing the Terran’s army movement to protect his own production, Hyun made a straight line for the third. As Gumiho was forced to life and try to regain some control over his own ramp, the roach numbers proved to simply be too high.

For Hyun, this looked more like another frustrating day at the Gom studios. He clearly failed again to truly live up to his potential, and the loss against YoDa was especially disappointing. However, he was granted a free win against Rain, thus letting him at least see success in terms of results. It remains highly questionable whether he has unlocked the secrets of transforming online dominance to Mokdong prestige, but every little step he takes should bring him closer and he is still one of the most dangerous players so far qualified for the round of sixteen.

- Another season, another disappointment for Gumiho

While there are legitimate questions to be asked about both YoDa and Hyun and what their advancement really tells us, what is clear is that Gumiho had another frustrating Code S appearance. The only player to not get any real benefit from the Rain situation, he was again able to showcase his unique talent and play style, but not in a consistent manner.

Ever since his dismantling of SlayerS in the finals of last season’s GSTL, one has rather expected to see Gumiho once again make a deep run in Code S. All the ingredients seem to be there, he is very interesting stylistically, he has solid mechanics and he is unpredictable. However, just like YoDa and Hyun have had their own struggles, Group D showed that Gumiho’s might be deeper, and they were certainly more noticeable on the day. It is hard to say that the former random player lacks the skills to follow up on his former Code S success, but what is clear is that something is not clicking at the moment. His TvT openers against YoDa looked strange and largely ineffective while he looked a bit figured out by the end of his series against Hyun. However, barring a seriously unlucky draw in Code A, chances are we will be seeing Gumiho again next season for more Code S chances.