Code S RO20 Preview: Creator, KeeN, Maru, Solar

2022 GSL Code S Season 2
RO20 Group E Preview: Creator, KeeN, Maru, Solarby Poopi

This group would have been relatively easy to predict in 2021. Maru would be the obvious favorite, with Solar being the popular pick for second place. You might expect Solar to play well enough to actually threaten Maru in the initial match, but his level of play would decline as the group went on. But would he really struggle enough to cede second place to Creator? Probably not.

Midway through 2022, however, things are not as clear. Maru still seems to be the strongest player, but given his results in the first half of the year, it’s not by as big a margin. But most importantly, the second strongest player in the group now seems to be Creator. In fact, after a runner-up finish in Code S Season 1, some fans might even be picking him to take first place.

Code S Season 1 was a breakthrough moment for Creator as he returned to the grand finals of a major tournament for the first time in 10 years. The last time he was considered a top tier player was back in 2012, when he was still a member of Prime alongside MarineKing and Maru. A lot has changed since then, except the fact that he’s once again fighting Maru for the spotlight.

In Season 1, Creator got off to a good start in the RO20 by topping his group with 2-1 victories against both Solar and GuMiho. Creator shined even more in the newly created round-robin style RO10 group stage, excelling in a tough group that included Maru, Dark, herO and DRG. The first three of those players were the huge favorites to advance, and it seemed Creator would be lucky to barely advance in 3rd place. Instead, he finished in 2nd place with an excellent 3-1 record, beating everyone except Dark.

Creator got a bit of a reprieve in the new RO6 phase of the playoffs, losing his initial match to Rogue but winning his second-chance match against fellow darkhorse RagnaroK to reach the RO4. There, it seemed like Creator’s luck had once again run out as he drew Trap as an opponent, but he managed to defy the odds with a dominating 3-1 victory. However, the miracle run couldn’t last forever, and Creator did end up losing to Rogue 2-4 in the grand finals. Still, it felt like Creator might be starting a new chapter in his career—one where he was a consistent championship contender.

Unfortunately, Creator’s recent performances across various competitions have not been very impressive, and force us to consider the possibility that Season 1 was just a flash in the pan. Since the Code S finals, he has a pedestrian 25W–17L–2D record in matches with a 66W–46L map score (58.93% win rate). Those would be good, maybe even fantastic results for 2021 Creator, but it’s disappointing for a Code S finalist. Maybe some of that dip is due to a well-earned rest after a hard GSL journey, but it doesn’t seem like his form has been improving in the lead-up to his Code S match.

It is hard to know exactly how prepared Creator will be, but at least he will start with a relatively easy opponent first: KeeN. The former king of ceremonies started his military service on a positive note, having reached the top eight of Code S Season 3 in 2019. However, he’s struggled to regain that form since his return from service in 2021. His best result so far has been a single RO16 in 2021, but he failed to qualify for the first season of 2022 after losing twice against NightMare in the preliminaries. KeeN did manage to fight his way through the qualifiers this season, but he didn’t exactly beat a murders row of opponents. The key players he beat were Classic, NightMare, and Percival, followed by a fortunate walkover against Dream (who supposedly had to quit his last match due to wrist pain).

Even though this season has been filled with upsets so far, I can’t be so generous as to say I think KeeN has a shot of adding to the list. There was some rhyme and reason to the other upsets—Rogue had his championship hangover, soO showed his old championship class, and RagnaroK kept his momentum from Season 1 going with some more well-planned openers. On the other hand, KeeN has historically been a fairly mid-level Code S player whose best ever Code S result was top eight, and he hasn’t been playing particularly well in recent tournaments either. Even with Creator’s lackluster showings and Solar’s occasional group stage slip-ups, it’s hard to see where he’s going to get his wins (do we even have to mention the invincible TvT player Maru?). Even match-up wise he is unlucky as he has to prepare for all three factions.

Solar, on the other hand, is very much in the mix for a RO10 spot. As usual, his biggest enemy will be himself as he is possibly the anti-Trap (Inverse Trap? Reverse Trap?): a very good player who can’t make it to the RO8 of the GSL Code S. Incredibly, it’s been 13 seasons since Solar has placed top eight or higher. However, now that Trap has finally failed to reach the top eight for the first time in years, perhaps the laws of cosmic balance will deem that it’s Solar’s time to rise.

He has to start with the strongest opponent first: Maru. This will be a real challenge, as the legendary Terran has been the bane of Solar’s competitive existence. Maru has frequently picked Solar in tournaments with player-led group selections, making it very clear how he rates his ZvT play. The most well known clash between the two was the infamous nuke game that allowed Maru to win a comeback victory at IEM Katowice 2021, but similar things have happened in Korea. Indeed, Solar actually beat Maru’s vaunted late-game turtling during a Code S group stage match in 2021, only to lose to Maru’s early and mid-game play in one-sided fashion (Solar went on to get eliminated by sOs in the later group matches).

The setup of the group looks uncannily similar, with a first match versus Maru and a potential fight against a former Jin Air and Team NV Protoss for second place. But could things play out exactly the same? Solar’s best match-up currently is ZvT at around a 3200 rating (#5) on Aligulac, compared to his worst match-up of ZvP at around 2900 (#7), so this is a bit worrying. However, Creator’s own PvZ rating is in the same range, and Aligulac only gives Solar a slight edge of 54:46. Once again, the real question is what kind of mental state will Solar be in if he ends up losing against Maru. I have no doubt that Solar can beat whoever comes up if he beats Maru in the initial match, but that would be a tough ask. The most likely scenario is that both Maru and Creator win their first match, Solar beats KeeN and has to defeat the loser of Maru and Creator, which could be difficult for him given his track record.

Last but not least, Maru is the final player who overshadows the rest of the group. On paper, he should still be considered one of the best Terrans in the world, if not THE best outright. But he also had a very disappointing RO10 exit in Season 1, losing against Creator, Dark, and DRG and only winning versus herO when the group was already decided. Since Maru does not play in the small online cups and currently isn’t playing in the WTL, we’ve barely seen him play afterward. In fact, we only saw him once in a major tournament since his GSL exit, where he lost 1-3 to Serral in the RO4 of King of Battles (it played out similarly to their IEM series, with Serral dominating the mid-length games but dropping one map to Maru’s hyper-turtling). Other than that, he beat Prince 2-1 and RagnaroK 2-0 in the qualifiers, with the latter series being another demonstration of Maru’s TvZ turtling ability.

Basically, we don’t have any new information about Maru. His RO10 exit was an upset, he’s still the best defensive TvZ player in the world, and he has great head-to-head records against all three of his group opponents.

Predictions: Aligulac pretty much agrees with my initial assessment of this group: Maru is the heavy favorite for 1st place with an 80%+ chance to advance, KeeN has tiny chance of qualifying at around 9%, and the battle for 2nd place should be very fierce between Solar and Creator with both of them having qualification chances in the 50% range. Any combination of Maru + Solar or Creator should be a popular prediction which has a good chance of becoming reality. So the real question is who will I pick between Creator and Solar, and if Maru will qualify in 2nd place instead of 1st.

Even though we barely saw Maru play in the last few weeks, I trust him to still be the fearsome Terran that can bully Solar and Creator at will, so I will keep him in 1st place. Creator would likely face Solar pretty late into the group unless Maru somehow loses his initial match, which would be a good advantage. Indeed, Solar is very well known for playing both great games and choking in the same group stage, so you always want to play him as late as possible.

However, Aligulac sees Solar qualify over Creator, albeit by a narrow margin, and I will predict the same. The first reason is that Creator looked really shaky in the competitions after his lost finals, and I am not sure he has the mental stamina to keep up with his newly gained level of play. The other reason is far less rational: I would just find it funny if Solar broke his no-RO8 streak the same season Trap failed to qualify for the RO8. Technically, it’s now the RO10 and not RO8, but I think the spirit of those streaks is still preserved by this logic.

Creator > KeeN
Maru > Solar
Maru > Creator
Solar > KeeN
Solar > Creator

Maru and Solar to advance.

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