Park “Dark” Ryung-woo and Kim “Stats” Dae-yeob will clash in the first round of Group C matches at Global StarCraft II League Season 1: Code S, marking their first meeting since 2020. Dark leads in the head-to-head with 20-9 in series and 61-43 in maps won and is one of the current top Korean StarCraft II esports players, so it’s hardly shocking to see him priced as the favourite.

It’s also important to note that Stats returned from a nearly two-year-long break from competitive SCII in February. Still, he has done well for himself since and is 3-2 from his last five outings, with wins against Jang “Creator” Hyun-woo and Sasha “Scarlett” Hostyn.

However, while Stats is not to be ignored, it’s hard to pass on backing Dark at the offered StarCraft II betting odds. The Swarm has had s a few slip-ups over the last month, but he is in excellent form and holds a 68.53% win rate in Zerg vs Protoss matchups.

Esports betting sites are paying -111.11 on Dark to cover the map handicap, which is great value.

Koh “GuMiho” Byung-jae has clashed thrice with Kim “Ryung” Dong-won this year and has won two series. That includes their last two meetings at WardiTV Korean Royale (2-1) on April 4 and during the 2023 GSL Season 1 Qualifier a few days later.

Considering GuMiho’s success against Ryung, it’s hardly shocking to see him priced as the favourite for the rematch, but -250 is way too pricey. GuMiho has won against Ryung twice over the last 30 days; however, both series were very close – so while he deserves to be viewed as the man to beat, anything below -111.11 doesn’t look right.

Based on what we’ve seen from Ryung and GuMiho this month, the two Korean SCII pro players should be priced much closer to even odds. The value is with Ryung.

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Cho “Maru” Seong-ju is the leading candidate to win the 2023 Global StarCraft II League Season 1: Code S, and it’s easy to see why. Since the turn of the year, Maru has finished second at Intel Extreme Masters Katowice 2023, PiG Sty Festival 3.0, and most recently at WardiTV Korean Royale.

On top of his success at major events, Martu has also won Korean Starcraft League #1, Korean Starcraft League #2, and Korean Starcraft League #4, showing exceptional form ahead of GSL. His next opponent, Jang “NightMare” Wook, has not achieved nearly as much and won just one event this season, the Universe Titan Cup Show Match #8 in March.

NightMare hasn’t accomplished much at major events, nor has he won against Maru once since their first meeting in 2015 (0-7). Still, he won a map against Maru at WardiTV Korean Royale in March, and has a decent record against Terran players, so perhaps the offered SCII betting odds underestimate him a bit.

Maru should win, but at +275 on BetOnline, the value is with NightMare with a map advantage.

Byun “ByuN” Hyun-woo and Park “DRG” Soo-ho have met only twice this season, and both series ended in ByuN winning (2-0, 2-1). The 29-year-old is 25-13 up in the head-to-head with a 55.91% map win rate (71-56), but more importantly, he has lost against DRG only twice since the start of 2022.

As the latest SCII betting odds suggest, ByuN should win, and it’s hard to argue with that. He regularly delivers against DRG and is very effective in Terran v Zerg matchups, with a 66.67% win rate over his last 69 TvZ games. DRG has a decent record against Zergs (60% over the last 35), but it’s hard to imagine DRG causing an upset on Tuesday.

Esports betting sites have ByuN priced at +125 to win without dropping a map — a generous offer that is hard to pass on.

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ROGUE vs CREATOR SCII BETTING & MATCH DETAILS

?The final fixture of GSL Season 1 Code S will see the first-time Code S finalist Jang “Creator” Hyun-woo clash with the three-time champion Lee “Rogue” Byeong-yeol this Thursday. This sets up one of the most lopsided mismatches in GSL history, as indicated by the odds available at the leading StarCraft II betting sites.

Still, we have to recognise Creator’s impressive performances in this tournament. He topped his section in the first group stage and finished the second group stage tied with Park “Dark” Ryung-woo at 3-1, before eliminating Shin “RagnaroK” Hee-bum (3-1) and Cho “Trap” Seong-ho (3-1).

But even though Creator has looked strong in the latter stages of Code S, he lost against Rogue (1-3) in their first meeting on April 25. Admittedly, he also lost against Trap in the first match and then got his revenge, but this will be a tall order.

Rogue leads the ESL Pro Tour 2022/23 Korea standings by 50 points and has yet to show anything that would make us doubt his ability to claim his fourth Code S title. The 28-year-old Zerg player’s only defeat came against Trap (1-2), and even that was a very close match, while he won the remaining bouts with at least one map to spare.

Rogue has boldly predicted a one-sided affair, and even the other SCII esports players have no issues framing it as such. With a 21-3 head-to-head record (5-0 since January 2021) against Creator, we don’t believe he’s wrong.

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Park “DRG” Soo-ho finished the first round of play with a 1-1 record, with a 1-2 defeat against Jang “Creator” Hyun-woo and a shock 2-1 victory against Kim “herO” Joon-ho. Even though DRG went 1-1, he showed solid decision making in game three against herO, taking advantage of herO’s weak army supply after losing his fourth base.

Cho “Maru” Seong-ju ended day one with two 1-2 defeats against Park “Dark” Ryung-woo and Creator, which puts him in a rough spot. But the do-or-die situation Maru has found himself in should bring the best out of him.

Maru and DRG have never met before, but we don’t need past head-to-head results to know Maru should have a considerable advantage. DRG is a solid player, but he is not very efficient into Terran (53.33%), relatively to Maru’s 62.85% TvZ win rate. Moreover, Maru is simply a better player, and you just have to look at his past GSL achievements (four titles) to confirm that.

Jang “Creator” Hyun-woo picked up two (2-1) victories in round one of Group B against DRG and Maru, which is impressive, but his toughest challenge is yet to come. On Thursday, he will clash with Kim “herO” Joon-ho, who Creator has never faced before, in what promises to be an exciting PvP matchup.

HerO lost one series in the first round, albeit against Dark, so there is no shame in that. Moreover, he usually does well into Protoss with a 63.13% career PvP win rate (832-486), which he improved to 68% over the last 50 outings.

It’s hard not to feel excited about Creator and what he can bring to the table in this tournament, but it’s also tough to make a case for him for this bout. He defeated Maru last week, but it was a very close series, and his victory against DRG was primarily thanks to DRG making a crucial mistake in game three.

Creator might win a map, but there’s about a 50/50 chance we see a 2-0 sweep from herO. So at around +125 with the top SCII betting sites, we have to side with herO to win without dropping a map.

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?Park “Dark” Ryung-woo and Cho “Maru” Seong-ju will clash on Thursday for the first time since January, when Maru won 3-1, marking his 18th head-to-head victory (18-13) of his career. Moreover, Maru has won four of his last six meetings with Dark, dating back to November 2021, so it might seem fair that he is priced as the betting favourite to win on Thursday.

However, we would argue that the offered StarCraft II betting odds should be reversed. Perhaps Dark does not deserve to be priced at only -151.52, but he should be favoured to win this best-of-three (Bo3) series.

Dark was phenomenal last month when he topped Group A with a perfect 2-0 (4-0) record and is on a streak of 12 wins and only three losses since the start of April. Moreover, Terran are Dark’s best matchup (66.22% win rate) and he has further improved that figure to a 19-8 record (70.37%) over his last 27 matches.

On the other side, Zergs are Maru’s least-favourite race to play against (62.92% win rate), and he has won only six of his last 11 matches against them. This should be a close affair, but we would prefer to be on the side of Dark at outsider odds.

Jang “Creator” Hyun-woo last met with Park “DRG” Soo-ho in February at IEM Katowice 2022, when he won 2-0. It marked his 10th (10-13) head-to-head victory against the Zerg player and his second consecutive following a 2-1 win at ESL Open Cup #103 Korea in December 2021.

Considering his past success against DRG, we have no issues seeing esports bookies pricing the 25-year-old as the favourite. He is also in great form and has a solid record against Zerg (56.92% win rate), particularly across his last 15 outings (10-5, 66.67%).

On the other hand, DRG has a 57% career win rate against Protoss, which took a dip across his last 28 outings against the race (53.57%). DRG has looked good during the group stage, though, so we wouldn’t write him off entirely, but a wager on Creator makes the most sense at the offered betting odds.

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