“Photo courtesy of http://www.gomtv.net“

Coming off the back of what might perhaps be the greatest 1 weekend tournament of all time, the WCS Season 2 Finals in Cologne, Germany, the hardest tournament in the world returns.

Why you need to watch the GSL Code S this season:

Most balanced racial diversity ever seen

12 Protosses, 11 Terrans, 9 Zergs. At the top of the world over here in Korea, we’ve never had such a level playing field between the 3 races. Will the top 16 stay this way? Hard to say, but as we progress, it could shed some real light upon what the actual balance of the game is right now, as opposed to randoms whining about Protoss this or Zerg that.

Best players in the world

While Code S is missing a few players here and there (Taeja, and maybe a couple others), this is the most stacked tournament we’ve ever had as far as overall skill goes. Here’s a scary sample of who’s playing:

Soulkey

PartinG

Flash

INnoVation

Bomber

Symbol

Maru

Rain

and the list goes on and on….

Check out the brackets here: http://www.gomtv.net/forum/view.gom?topicid=302022&cid=0&kind=8

Last chance for Blizzcon, and no Proleague

This is the last chance for many of these players to have any shot at making it to Blizzcon. At the same time, its the only tournament going on in Korea that’s worth a damn right now. With no Proleague for the Kespa players to practice for, the teams’ full attention will be on Code S. The level of play and preparation in this tournament will be unparalleled.

My “players to watch” for this season:

Soulkey – the defending GSL champion, this guy can seemingly only be taken down by INnoVation, and even then, barely so. With no travel recently, he should be well-practiced and ready to destroy everyone.

INnoVation – he’s looked a bit beatable recently. (not in TvZ, lol, never). He has to be frustrated with his recent results, losing in a clean sweep to Maru last season, and getting destroyed at the WCS Season 2 Finals. Can INnoVation recover and have another deep run?

Flash – we get to see Jaedong at climb in skill via lots of foreigner events. With Flash, we get a much smaller pool of games to try and judge him off of. For sure he’s getting close to breaking through as an undisputed top player. Last season he lost to some crazy (and awesome) strats by Bomber, who happens to have one of the highest TvT win %’s we’ve ever seen. This season, expect Flash to really show what he’s made of.

PartinG – wasn’t he supposed to win a GSL by now? There’s lots of talk about Protoss being very strong right now, and with how strong PartinG’s PvP has always been, this could be the season. You know he’s itching for it.

Jakjji – finally, Jakjji is back in Code S. He’s been looking pretty good, but his group is ridiculously stacked, with First, hyvaa, and Flash joining him. I have no idea if he can even make it out of this group, but Jakjii was underrated and counted out the season he won. I feel like he’s being underrated and counted out this season too.

Symbol – how deep will you make it this season, Symbol? Never fails to impress me, the kid just won’t lose early.

All in all, this is going to be an amazing season. Make sure you tune in to http://www.gomtv.net to watch!

P.S, let’s let the “Artosis Curse” shit die please. Its clogging up the forums, reddit, and twitter. Let’s talk about the awesome games, strategy, and players. Lets talk about StarCraft.

Cheers,

Artosis