ESFI World

The second week of GSL Code S held few surprises as the usual favorites made it through while most of the unknowns and wild cards fell out. Some might consider the elimination of Nada and Keen in the first round to be upsets, but keep in mind that each has had the same fate in the previous two Code S tournaments as well. Genius looked quite dominant for the first time in a while, but those who know Genius should recognize that he only surprises when he underperforms. The only truly unexpected result was PartinG's first place finish, which extended his GSL winning streak over hallmark Code S players to five. All of this is not to say that it was a boring week; there were plenty of entertaining and exciting games. In retrospect, a week full of expected results restored a bit of stability and sanity after the crazy first week of GSL 2012.

Watch highlights from Groups E-H (Produced by Mike Nguyen)

Group E was the most predictable of all. MMA tore through his opponents with his usual gusto, becoming the first player to 4-0 into the Ro16. Zenio won a ZvZ and then lost two ZvTs. Gumiho lost a mirror match and then beat two Zergs, while Yugioh finished with a 1-4 record to make his way out of the group. On an interesting statistical note, every player won or lost their matches in lockstep with their respective winning percentages in those matchups according to the Team Liquid Player Database. The most noteworthy thing about this group, however, may have been MMA's insane multitasking abilities which seem to impossibly increase with every tournament. It felt as if he was able to win every game by forcing his opponents to fight, unsuccessfully, on five or six different fronts at once.  

Group F featured three players from team MvP along with Team Evil Genius's newest member, JYP. The EG Protoss just did not seem up to snuff in this group, losing four in a row in fairly one-sided games. On the flip side, Genius displayed a remarkable return to form. As was already alluded it is foolish to ever expect anything, either positive or negative, from Genius, but the oddball Protoss played like he had just finished winning BlizzCon again, dominating his teammates sC and DongRaeGu in matches that included BM stalker dances and booth-invading thumbs down rituals. The last time Genius advanced out of his group he ended up in the quarterfinals. He drew an absolutely brutal Group D for the Ro16 this season, but, again, I have learned not to make predictions when Genius is involved.

The most surprising things about Group G were, oddly, also the least surprising. Despite being widely recognized for his talent and heart, MarineKing had not advanced past the first round of Code S since his second place finish in January of 2011, almost a year ago. So while many expected MarineKing to get through his group due to successes in other tournaments, his success was actually quite a breakthrough. MarineKing became the third player in as many groups to sweep both of his opponents with 2-0 wins over Happy and aLive. The fact that he got through two Terrans is even more impressive considering that TvT is statistically MarineKing's worst matchup.

MKP advanced with 2-0 wins over aLive and Happy (Photo: SK Gaming)

Happy is very good, but he still has yet to beat a Terran in a Code S BoX. It should be no surprise then that he beat Code S newcomer Brown but lost to the two talented Terrans in his group, aLive and MarineKing. Brown, upon whom many had placed their Protoss hopes and dreams, became the fifth Code S neophyte in a row to fall back down to Code A. Despite some hard-fought and exciting games against aLive, Brown looked terrible against Happy and in both matches his losses came as a result of a series of preventable mistakes. While he shows promise for the future, as of now Brown joins a long line of up-and-coming Protoss disappointments.

But Protoss players have a new upstart on which to pin unreasonably high hopes and expectations: PartinG, who managed to get through both Puzzle and Nada to win Group H. PartinG beat Puzzle in a somewhat typical PvP, but his match against NaDa was an entertaining strategical chess match of odd build orders and appropriate responses. Meanwhile Keen continued his Code S struggles, losing to NaDa in the first round for the third time in five tournaments, and then getting steamrolled by Puzzle although the match did involve a battle-cruiser-versus-archon war that was at least a novel take on the matchup. In the final match Puzzle finished off NaDa with a void ray rush and a seven-gate, bringing us back to GSL Open Season 3, which is now free to watch on GomTV! The most notable thing about this group, aside from PartinG's impressive victories, was how greedily Protoss players have started playing against Terran. Following a trend that arose a few weeks ago but has been picking up as of late, both PartinG and Puzzle seemed comfortable going for three nexuses off of just one or two gateways. It looks terrifying at the time, but we have yet to see it satisfactorily punished outside of simple build-order wins.

Comebacks: There was a huge reversal in the trend of comebacks that was so prominent last week. This week, the winner of the first game won five out of seven (71%) three-set matches, compared to just three of eleven (27%) last week. This brings the overall percentage up to 44%, which is still quite a bit lower than the 60% over the rest of Code S best-of-threes.

Tiers and Tears: Code A players did quite a bit worse this week compared to last. Whereas last week they had a 61% win rate as five out of the six players went through to the next round, in Groups E-H they dropped to a 48% win rate and only three of the six advanced. Those two extra Ro16 spots went directly to players who made it to Code S through the Up-and-down matches. Two out of the six Up-and-downers made it through this week, an improvement over the zero for four record seen in the first four groups. The final breakdown of the Ro16 is as follows: six November quarterfinalists, eight Code A players, two Up-and-downers, and no players who received special invitation.

Counter-picking: The introduction of map picking has introduced a whole new layer of complexity to Code S, one that players are still learning to master. Deciding upon a map to beat a certain opponent or race is a tricky skill as there is usually very little time in which to do so, especially when the mind is often still racing with the recent loss. Zergs seem to be the worst at counter-picking, winning only three of thirteen (23%) games on maps they picked.

The most frequently picked map overall has been Daybreak by both Zerg and Protoss players against Terran, but to limited success. Out of the four times Zergs have picked it for ZvT, they have lost them all. Daybreak accounts for five of the seven picks for Protoss against Terrans, but Protoss has won just twice after choosing it.

Terrans are all over the map with their picks with the most success coming from Antiga Shipyard against Zerg, where it seems relatively easy to confine a Zerg opponent to three bases with a siege line in the center.

The final match of a group is always between one player coming from the winners match and one from the losers match. In the first round of Code S, the players coming from the losers matches advanced out of the groups five out of eight times, a reversal of the normal expectation.

The final match can also feature a rematch from the first two pairs of competitors. This happened only once in the eight groups, which is unusual since the average over the past three seasons has been four of eight.

The last time the Ro16 of Code S was less than half terran was in July. This season marks the fourth in a row to contain eight or more Terrans in the second round of competition.

Group H was just the fourth ever Code S group to have two Protoss players take first and second place. The three others were Choya/Tester in January, Tester/Anypro in March, and Huk/Puzzle in November. It has happened only once for Zerg, when Losira and Coca got first and second back in July. It has happened twenty-two times for Terran, however, largely due to the surfeit of Terran players in the GSL.

We have a brief break in GSL action for the Lunar New Year holiday. The Ro16 groups are stacked, though, so use the week to get pumped for four days of non-stop nerd ballery.

Ro16 - Group A

Mvp (T)

GuMiho (T)

Curious (Z)

aLive (T)

Ro16 - Group B

MMA (T)

Oz (P)

Puzzle (P)

SuperNova (T)

Ro16 - Group C

MC (P)

GanZi (T)

jjakji (T)

PartinG (P)

Ro16 - Group D

NesTea (Z)

DongRaeGu (Z)

MarineKing (T)

Genius (P)