Code S RO16 Preview: Cure, Rogue, Stats, Dark (2024)

RO16 Group C Preview: Cure, Rogue, Stats, Dark

Thursday, May 23 9:30am GMT (GMT+00:00)

by Wax

It's unclear why AfreecaTV switched the order of Groups C & D, but in effect, they've saved the best for last. Group C is clearly the most intriguing group of the RO16 in terms of player storylines, and possibly the most daunting group of death in recent memory—IF everyone can play close to their peak level.

Of the four players, Cure is the player whose level fans should feel the most certain about. For a player who was once criticized for his inability to perform in big tournaments, Cure has become extraordinarily consistent in the 2023/24 EPT season—both for better and for worse. He almost never loses to anyone he "shouldn't" lose to, which has helped him reach the top four or higher in seven out of ten Liquipedia-premier tournaments held during this current cycle. On the other hand, he also never beats players he shouldn't beat—usually Serral and Maru—which has contributed to him topping out with runner-up finishes (three of them in 2023).

That makes Cure a great yardstick for measuring the level of the three other players in the group. If either of the military returnees can take down Cure, that would be a very meaningful indicator that they're truly 'back'—even for Stats who made a surprise run to the top four last season (more on this below). As for Dark, he's historically gotten the better of Cure when he's in peak form, so a convincing win would signal that his RO16 elimination last season was just a blip, and he's right back to being one of the top contenders for the Code S championship.

Cure's hand-picked initial opponent is old Jin Air teammate Rogue, who has been the single most fascinating mystery in the StarCraft II scene since returning from the military in March. He was my personal choice as the greatest of all time when he began his military service in the summer of 2022, and some fans still contend he holds that title now. If Rogue could somehow make a full return to his peak form, it would be an enormous shake-up in a scene where the top-tier has become very stagnant.

What's Rogue's chance of regaining his peak abilities? Up until a couple of years ago, I would have said zero percent due to the long, long history of military returnees failing to recapture their former glory. However, herO's miracle run to the Code S championship in 2022, followed by his continued reign as the #1 Protoss in the scene, has recalibrated our expectations. While it's still a long shot for Rogue to take back his throne as the best in the world, at least it's no longer something that I'd consider to be literally impossible.

Then, how much progress has Rogue made since March? My short answer is: he's become extremely good for a player who has only been back for two months, but he's probably not good enough yet to advance to the RO8 of Code S.

Even though getting through the Code S preliminaries has become a baseline expectation in a thinned-out Korean scene, it was still remarkable that Rogue reached that level barely a month after returning from military service. Aside from the qualifiers, he was very active in general online tournament play in April, and going through the games, it's pretty incredible how you barely notice any serious rust from his time off (to the extent that I wonder if he was in a civil-service situation like PartinG that allowed him to play a bit of SC2 on the side).

However, aside from the speed of Rogue's recovery, so far there's nothing particularly notable about his actual play. He has just looked like a pretty decent all-around Zerg player, whose one quirk is an unhealthy fondness for Lurkers (and trying to steal free wins by tunneling them into your main). The one area where I see some glimpses of the old Rogue is in his late-game play, where he still shows great instincts in terms of positioning and map control. However, his complex army micro—the key skill that made him possibly the greatest late game player ever—has looked way off from his peak in the limited number of games I've seen.

Of course, post-military Rogue is a work in progress, and you'd think he'd be getting better by the day. Perhaps the Rogue selected by Cure in late April has become a wildly different player over the course of a month? Well, perhaps not. Rogue very recently played Cure in the ESL Open Cups, and the check-up on his skill level wasn't very encouraging. Cure won handily in two macro games, playing both mech and bio in a thorough beatdown. As it turns out, it's one thing to get off to a fast start, but another thing entirely to keep up that pace of improvement.

However, at the end of the day, one has to wonder how much all of this analysis about Rogue's skill level even matters. On numerous occasions, Rogue has shown us that his online play, Aligulac rating, and ladder MMR are all irrelevant, because he saves his best for high-stakes offline matches. In a sense, we haven't actually seen the real Rogue yet—we'll have to find out what he looks like on Thursday night.

It speaks to Rogue's immense stature in SC2 that the excitement around his return is partially overshadowing the Stats hype train. The Shield of Aiur achieved his first major post-military breakthrough last season by reaching the top four, sparking hope that we might be seeing the second herO story unfolding. I was quite eager to get on the bandwagon at the time, inspired by his 2-1 over Dark in the RO16 and a handful of convincing wins in various online tournaments. However, doubts have started to seep in since then, leaving me wondering how good Stats really is right now.

The thing is, while I saw a lot of potential in Stats' best moments, many of his other matches weren't quite as inspiring. It's concerning that Stats' form hasn't improved or stabilized since he reached the Code S RO4—in fact, Aligulac.com says he's actually regressed slightly (he's dropped to #19 from a #13 peak). Also, if you look at his RO4 run with some cynical hindsight, you could say there was a decent amount of luck involved and that Stats punched above his weight class. While he did get one big win against Dark, his other victories came against two notoriously mercurial players in SHIN (x2) and Classic.

Indeed, the worry is that Stats is following directly in the path of Classic, whose wild swings in form have made him the most frustrating military returnee by far. In the last 12 months, we've seen a version of Classic that beat Serral en route to a top eight finish at Gamers8, and also a version of Classic that couldn't get through relatively easy qualifier brackets for IEM Katowice and GSL Code S. Obviously, I'd readily accept a version of Stats who has peaks and valleys over one who never hits those peaks at all, but that would fall short of expectations (albeit unfair ones) that he could become a legit contender to herO for the title of #1 Protoss.

Finally, we have Dark, who's looking to rebound from an embarrassing Season 1 where he was eliminated in the first round with losses to Stats and Classic. While it's usually just sour grapes when someone says the loser of a match was better than the winner, it absolutely felt like that was the case when watching how Dark just toyed with both Classic and Stats in the maps he won. That's why I'm 99% confident that Dark's elimination wasn't due to a slump or drop in form, and that it was just the kind of bizarre, inexplicable failure even the best players have to face every now and then when playing in Code S (as we've been so thoroughly reminded these last few seasons, with Maru, Dark, Reynor, and Solar all going out in the RO16).

Previous to that group, Dark had been on a roll in previous four Liquipedia-premier tournaments—where he finished RO4 (Code S Season 3), runner-up (DreamHack Atlanta), RO4 (Master's Coliseum), and RO4 again (IEM Katowice)—and I expect him to get back on track here.

Predictions

Aligulac.com sees Dark and Cure as the favorites, with the two players having 85.71% and 59.62% chances of advancing, while Rogue and Stats trail with 30.76% and 23.91% (Rogue's percentage is likely a bit too high as he hasn't played enough matches to properly calibrate his rating after returning from the military).

Interestingly enough, the TL.net Liquibet voting doesn't differ too much from Aligulac's calculation, with the vote share breaking down as Dark: 36.7% / Cure: 29% / Stats: 17.9% / Rogue: 16.2% (if you double those percentages, you get a bad statistics version of their implied advancement probability). I thought that Rogue would get a lot more votes out of sheer respect for his big match ability, but it seems like TL.net users just don't trust any player, even one with the aura of Rogue, to succeed in such a difficult group in their first tournament back from the military.

Well, TL.net users, you are fools—at least the 84% of you who didn't predict Rogue to advance. Personally, I'm terrified to pick against Rogue no matter his situation, and you should be as well. The man made over $1,000,000 in prize money in his career on the basis of being the greatest big match player ever, and if he somehow gets eliminated here, I'm actually going to blame GSL for no longer paying out the money to make it worth his while, instead of Rogue for lacking the requisite skills. He already gave us a tiny preview of his clutch superpowers in the qualifiers, where he pulled out a Baneling bust against ByuN to win the final map he needed to qualify for Code S. Whether it's through cheese, a couple of maps' worth of inspired macro play, or just his uncanny ability to make his opponents collapse for seemingly no reason, I just can't shake the feeling that Rogue will be moving on to the RO8.

Cure 2 - 0 Rogue
Dark 2 - 0 Stats
Dark 2 - 1 Cure
Rogue 2 - 1 Stats
Rogue 2 - 1 Cure

Dark and Rogue to advance.