[Code S] RO32 Group B Recap/Group C Preview

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Same Great Taste
– Nestea goes through to the Ro16 without dropping a series

Yes, he's old compared to the rest of the field. Yeah, he might not have made a final in a year and has been struggling of late. True, he's never been anywhere near as good in foreigner tournaments as he is in the GSL, and has disappointed many a time when traveling out of Korea. But, when it comes to Mokdong Studios and Code S, no one can dispute that Nestea is at his very best.

On a night when he was rewarded a trophy named after himself for his tenth straight season in Code S, Nestea also passed the 100 win mark in the GSL and got into the second round by taking down two young guns trying to usurp him. Try as hard as they might, neither TheStC or Creator were really able to touch Nestea on this magical night. Only losing one game because of a weird strategy he tried on Creator by building a hatchery in his opponent's base, Nestea showed the world the talent that has brought him three titles.

Nestea didn't face Naniwa in this round, but if the two continue the play they showed tonight, you shouldn't be too surprised if they meet down the road in this season's tournament. After a few seasons of looking shaky and having to bounce through Code A and the Up and Down matches, Nestea is motivated to make another finals after seeing Mvp's success last season. With another trophy to add to the collection and 100 career GSL wins in his sights, Nestea will be entering the next round with everything to play for.

No Fluke Here
– Naniwa gets out of the first round for the second straight season

It wasn't as pretty as the first go around, but Naniwa showed that even in the face of elimination, that he could persevere and make it through. With a quarterfinal appearance last season, there was a lot of praise for how well the foreigner performed in his first Code S season, but this was truly the night where he proved if he belonged. We've seen players enter, place well in a single GSL tournament, and then fall to the wayside next season when the match-ups aren't to their advantage.

Getting to the top eight of the GSL is impressive, but getting through two straight first rounds in Code S might be even more astounding. Getting beat by Creator in a close first series, Naniwa was able to take out new teammate TheStC in the first elimination series and then get his revenge against Creator in the final match of the night.

Depending on results in the next six groups, Naniwa might even have enough GSL points to be one of the four players with a first round pick in the RO16 group nominations. Even if he isn't, Genius showed last season that picking the white dude isn't always the best decision. Slowly, but surely, the GSL veterans and fans are gaining respect for Naniwa and realizing that he isn't a one hit wonder. A championship might still be too lofty of a goal, but with a reasonable second round group, a return to the quarterfinals or an advancement to the semifinals might not be as far fetched as it once seemed.


No Royal Debut
– Creator fails in the first step of the royal road, and TheStC goes 0-4 in his Quantic debut

Oh, Creator. You had so much promise. Having three Grandmaster accounts with 75% winning percentage. Beating up top players in online tournaments. Getting hyped by MarineKing and the rest of your teammates. Destroying players in Code A and making your teammate Maru look like a scrub. Everything looked right for a royal road run like Squirtle last season. He had finally matured into a player who could take on Code S after making his first big splash in the Super Tournamnet last year, but it wasn't meant to be.

Things started out great with a win over Naniwa in the opening match and a set victory over Nestea in the second series, but three straight losses followed immediately after. He didn't play badly, but showed holes that he needs to fix if he wants to become the player that a lot of people think he can become. There will be no royal road for Creator, and his Terran teammates will have to bear the load for Prime this season. This is the last time you'll see of Creator in Code S this season, but you can bet it won't be long until the talented fifteen year old returns looking even stronger.

That leaves us with TheStC. Not really much to say here. Even in the booth, he had just changed teams so recently that he didn't even have a team jersey yet. That pretty much sums up his night. No one is going to dispute that TheStC is a good player, but with the disbanding of his team, moving to a new team and everything that comes with that, you can't be surprised he didn't capture a single victory on the night.

Wait a few weeks, let him get settled in his new living arrangement and new teammates, and we'll see TheStC that impressed everyone in Season Two.

ST_Squirtle, EG.ThorZaIN, FXOGuMiho, MvP.Keen

"Everyone's got something to prove!" is one of our favorite clichés here at TeamLiquid, but it's actually applicable to Code S' group C without much exaggeration. Of course, you just have to start off with ST_Squirtle, the heir apparent to the fabled Kong Line. While the Kong line started off as just another internet meme, a casual joke used to poke fun at pro-gamers whose career highs stopped at second place, it's transformed into something quite serious indeed. Repeated failure at the final step is already something that will weigh heavily on any player's mind, and a popular cultural phenomenon that constantly reminds the fans and the player of those failures only makes the pressure to win even more severe.

Luckily for Squirtle, he's only two silvers deep (IPL4 and GSL Season Two) into the Kong Line, a point at which the defeats seem more like bad luck than a sign of some supernatural curse. In the case of GSL Season Two, Squirtle might even find reason to be encouraged though he suffered a particularly painful loss in the seventh set of the grand finals. His overconfidence after thwarting Mvp's cheese rush caused him to lose a game that was 95% in the bag, but he could go into this tournament thinking "well, as long as I'm not that stupid again, there's no reason I can't win it all."

Lest we get ahead of ourselves, the road to redemption is a long one with plenty of obstacles to overcome, and before he can look ahead to another finals, Squirtle must first focus on getting out of his RO32 group.

Fortunately for fans of Squirtle, the turtle-toss seems has picked himself a very beatable first opponent. EG.ThorZaIN arrived in Korea just today, directly from after competing at MLG Anaheim. Combined with his first trip to Korea, when he played Code A just eleven hours after touching down in Incheon, ThorZaIN now owns the #1 AND #2 spots for "least prepared player in GSL history."

It's a very unfortunate situation, because ThorZaIN has a chance to not only to prove that he himself belongs in the very top tier of foreigners, not only to make Sweden proud by putting two of its sons in the GSL RO16, but to give hope to the entire international community. To have that undermined by something as frustrating as scheduling is immensely disappointing.

To be very honest, there are very few positives for ThorZaIN going into this match, even besides the lack of practice. Sure, Squirtle's 'worst' match-up is PvT, but it was still good enough to go on the greatest single tournament run in SC2 history (IPL4) and take the greatest player in SC2 history to the seventh set of a finals (Code S S2). On top of that, ThorZaIN hasn't looked hot at all against high level Protoss players in recent tournaments (losing to Inori, Socke, Oz, SaSe, and Puzzle). The situation could be even worse if NaNiwa and SaSe decided to help their teammate Squirtle out and give him a few dozen pointers on ThorZaIN's style, but in this case, it's hard to tell whether the bonds of team or country are stronger.

The only really encouraging thing for ThorZaIN is that there are no Zerg players in this group, but TvT isn't that lucrative a prospect either. Yes, ThorZaIN won the most important TvT of all against Polt in the Dreamhack Stockholm finals, but that was preceded by going something like 5 – 18 against Korean Terrans in online tournaments. And as luck would have it, two of the Terrans he got stomped by online happen to be in his group.

First, we have MvP.Keen, the forever up and comer. Next to him is FXOGuMiho, who is in danger of becoming Keen in the near future if he doesn't become more consistent. Basically, Keen has been around as a "talented young Terran" for something like a year now, and he's even made good on the hype a few times by getting fairly far in Code S. However, most of the time he's just languished in Code A or B, took a few random wins in GSTL, and was anonymous overall. His self assessment after defeating Nestea in the Code A RO36 was one that made a lot of sense: he was a mechanically talented player who just wasn't good enough at the mental aspects of the game. After beating Nestea, Keen said he had started focusing more on those mental aspects, and that he had made a lot of progress. That's great to hear, Keen, but I think we'll just reserve judgment on that point until you're past the RO32.

Gumiho emerged as an exciting, rising Terran player towards the end of 2011. He rode his momentum to a top four finish in 2012's GSL Season One, but since then he's been on the Keen career course. Unlike flash-in-the-pan macro Terrans like Happy, TOP, and sC, Gumiho made his splash in the scene with a highly entertaining, hyper-aggressive style, something that suggested he was a special kind of player, capable of making a lasting impression in the scene. But just like most macro Terrans faded into anonymity after everyone else caught up to them by the end of 2011, an all-around increase in harassment and harassment defense ability has killed a lot of what gave Gumiho his identity.

There are so many good players in Code S now, and while Keen and Gumiho most certainly rank among them, they need to show that they are not just good but great.


Overall outlook and prediction

Squirtle has an easy path out of this group, with a guaranteed first match against the jet-lagged, ill-prepared ThorZaIN. He's also the best player in the group, the last season's runner up, and still riding a massive wave of momentum (barely losing to Mvp in a seven game final doesn't count as losing momentum). The only strike against him is a poor performance against Bomber at Red Bull Battlegrounds, but that seemed like more of a case of Bomber winning the team-kill mind game. The only way Squirtle doesn't make it out of the group is if he suffered pro-gaming's version of postpartum depression and lost his focus after the last finals.

As much as I'd love for ThorZaIN to do well, and as much as I believe in his ability to play well in a preparation heavy GSL setting, I just can't pick a guy who arrived in Korea 30 hours ago to do well. Should he get any kind of result at all, it will be that much more impressive, but I'm still penciling him in for a last place finish.

That leaves Keen and Gumiho to fight it out for the final spot in the group. Keen looked good as he beat MMA in the final round of Code A, but that was his only 'good' TvT win in what seems like forever. Gumiho has been a strong TvT player in the GSL and online for pretty much all of 2012, and he must be favored in the head to head.

Squirtle > ThorZaIN
Gumiho > Keen
Squirtle > Gumiho
Keen > ThorZaIN
Gumiho > Keen

Squirtle and Gumiho advance.