The grand final of the Global StarCraft II League: Code S tournament is coming up in Seoul, South Korea. Starting at 6am ET on Sunday, the conclusion of the first 2017 season of the world's most competitive StarCraft II tournament will crown a winner to take home $35,580 (40,000,000 KRW) and a cool 4,000 World Championship Series points for the World Championship Series Korea standings. The final matchup between Splyce's Kim "Stats" Dae Yeob (Protoss) and Eo "soO" Yoon Su (Zerg) promises to be exciting and unpredictable, with each veteran player hungry for his first GSL title.
Between the two players, Stats should be considered the favorite. His road to the finals was brutal, with matchups against the world's best player, Lee "INnoVation" Shin Hyung (Terran), and this year's buzz player, True eSport's Kim "Ryung" Dong Won (Terran). In addition to tough opponents, his adaptations throughout each qualifying series were world-class. On the surface, Stats is an aggressive Protoss player with multiple-pronged timing attacks and angles to confuse and overwhelm the opposition, but he's never one to rely solely on "Plan A." In his series against Ryung, his attacks were constantly repelled and countered throughout multiple games, but Stats played beyond simply fighting back head-on. Instead, through his own strong defensive counter-measures, Stats used map control and vision to create better compositions and attacked Ryung's defenses from multiple points. Stats enters the matchup in the grand finals as the most complete package and should control the pace of every game.
For soO, a victory would be a long-awaited cherry on top of another successful tournament run. On paper, soO is the perfect opponent for the aggressive Stats because of his defensive game plan. Although soO can still strike back with timing attacks depending on the map, his primary objective is to stall and outlast the opposition. Stats will attack and control the pace of the match between the two, but soO's adjustments and adaptations on defense will provide for a chess match befitting of a GSL final. The key for soO will be the macro game. With so much attention on Stats' aggression and creative attacks, the constant macro and map control aspect of the matches may be the x-factor to victory. If soO can outplay in the macro department and limit Stats' stellar vision, this may be a very close best-of-seven series.