GSL Season One
Code S

Opening Night Preview
Rain, Solar, herO, DongRaeGu

Brackets and standings on Liquipedia

Partial VODs on YouTube

by stuchiu and Waxangel

The old era is dead. GomTV has long left its old home behind and established a new foothold in Gangnam. KeSPA has won, absorbing the founders of Korean StarCraft 2 into its mighty empire. The old legends have crossed the sea and faded into memory. Now begins a new age.

Ro32 Group A: Rain, Solar, herO, DongRaeGu

Countdown:

After three long months, Code S is back. WCS swallowed the GSL and spit it back out, leaving it forever changed but still bearing its proud name. Now, the new season of Code S starts off the WCS 2014 in earnest as hundreds of progamers around the world aspire to the title of World Champion.


The first group of the season is aptly headlined by two Protoss champions in SKT_Rain and CJ_herO. After months of constant adaptation and refinement, Protoss have started to emerge as a superpower in HotS. While they have remained the dominant force in Proleague, they have also become the most dangerous race in individual competition as well. The first two major events of the year, ASUS ROG Winter and IEM Sao Paulo, ended in PvP finals. Now, it's time to see if Protoss dominance will continue in the most difficult tournament in the world.

You could say it all began with Rain. He heralded in a new era as he won the 2013 Blizzard Cup over SoulKey in a convincing 4-2 final. As the exemplar of safe and steady play, Rain simply cannot be defeated with tricks or the dark arts when he is on his game. Only a player who is playing an even more powerful orthodox game could take him on.

However, we are receiving mixed signals as to what kind of Rain will arriving at the GomTV studio. His Proleague performances have been disappointing with two wins and three losses so far, and he has even surrendered the ace spot that was firmly his in the previous season. On the other hand, his awe-inspiring run through the IEM Cologne qualifiers suggest that he is still the one Protoss all others must bow to, with his Proleague stats being merely an abberation due to small sample size.

Should Rain falter in Code S, then there will be plenty of ambitious Protoss players ready to usurp him. One such player is herO, CJ's rising star and and the first player to ever win 2 consecutive IEM StarCraft 2 events at Singapore and Sao Paulo. As with Rain, herO's Proleague play contrasts with his play in individual competition. His 5-4 record is not bad by any means, but as his team's ace he was expected to do much better. Much of the blame for CJ's 6th place round 1 finish falls on his shoulders. herO will be looking to prove that the dominant Protoss we saw at IEM is his true identity.

Going against the Protoss players are two Zergs in Samsung_Solar and MVP.DongRaeGu. They are good players for sure, but they cannot help but seem slightly lacking in comparison to Rain and herO in their current form. After all, good usually loses to great. However, an important equalizer exists in the controversial map Daedalus Point, with its effectively unwallable choke point making it a death trap in PvZ. Without a veto system in place, the Protoss players will be almost guaranteed to play the map at least once per PvZ series.

Solar has abruptly and improbably become the new face of Samsung Galaxy Khan. Once just another Zerg bench warmer who was most known for beating Stephano and barely being fielded again, he quietly improved himself while playing a variety of online cups and qualifiers. His strong showing at the Numericable M-House Cup 3 should have warned us beforehand that he'd be a force in the new Proleague season, but no one fully expected him to break out the way he did. He opened the season with two wins against WCS 2013 champion sOs, and he ended the round with a 4-2 record. And to kill time, he also ran rampant over the last few ZOTAC NA cups before they ended. Solar may be the least experienced player in the group, but he has already proven that given the right circumstances he can beat anyone.

The last and oldest in the group is DongRaeGu. Though he is now and forever one of WoL's most hallowed champions, he has fallen on hard times in HotS as he struggles with the new mechanics of the game. This all seemed to change for him in one fateful GSL group last season where he met Innovation. At the time Innovation was nigh-unstoppable in TvZ, and had yet to ever lose a TvZ series unless his opponent resorted to cheese. DRG smashed him, becoming the first player to bring INnoVation back down to reality, dispelling his aura once and for all.

Unfortunately, that performance proved to be fool's gold as DongRaeGu was knocked out immediately in the next round. Ever since then, DongRaeGu has been unable to reproduce that kind of inspired, championshiop level play. Yet, his fans remain loyal to him as always. The win versus INnoVation was all the evidence they needed to keep hoping that he could one day win another GSL championship. And who knows? They may not be wrong.

Overall Predictions

Daedalus Point is getting fixed, but it won't be in time for the first week of GSL. How unfortunate for the Protoss players who have been scheduled to play! Even if herO and Rain are arguably better players than DRG and Solar, are they really good enough to beat them with the handicap of what some are calling the worst GSL map ever? Also, don't forget that herO will have the big jetlag disadvantage from what must have been a grueling flight back from Brazil.

Rain > Solar
herO < DongRaeGu
Rain > DongRaeGu
Solar > herO
DongRaeGu > Solar

Rain and DongRaeGu advance.

Writers: stuchiu and Waxangel.
Graphics: GomTV, shiroiusagi.
Editor: Waxangel.