Koh “GuMiho” Byung-jae and Gabriel Raffaele “HeRoMaRinE” Segat have yet to meet in 2024 but have clashed four times last year. The latter won the first meeting at ESL Open Cup #167 Americas and lost the remaining three series 1-2, worsening the German’s all-time head-to-head record to 3-6.

GuMiho and HeRoMaRinE have not met once since May 2023, so the head-to-head figures might not hold as much weight. Still, GuMiho is in good form ahead of this clash and is fresh off a semifinal run at ESL Open Cup #212 Korea. HeRoMaRinE’s only notable accomplishment this year was finishing top four at ESL Open Cup #209 Europe.

Even at $1.60 with the top StarCraft II betting sites, GuMiho looks a bit undervalued. As such, GuMiho to cover the map handicap is worth a look.

Sasha “Scarlett” Hostyn has met with Yoon “trigger” Hong 14 times since their first clash in March 2021 and enters this match with a 10-1-3 head-to-head record. That includes two wins from 2023 at ESL Open Cup #172 Americas and HomeStory Cup XXIV at the start of December.

Form-wise, neither player has shown much ahead of Intel Extreme Masters Katowice 2024. Scarlett placed 19th-22nd at WardiTV 2023 at the start of January, whereas trigger’s most recent appearance at a Premier-tier event (Master’s Coliseum 7) ended with a 15th-16th finish.

Priced at $2.51 with esports betting sites, trigger is expected to struggle on Thursday. He hasn’t beaten Scarlett once since November 2022 and comes up against a player with a 61.8% all-time win rate in Zerg vs Protoss matchups.

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Byun “ByuN” Hyun-woo and Kang “Solar” Min-soo will meet for the first time since last Saturday, when ByuN won 3-1, marking his first head-to-head win of the year (1-9). And not only has Solar won all previous nine meetings, but he is also 27-8 up in maps won over that stretch.

The big question for this match is whether ByuN can repeat his success from last week and defeat Solar for the 40th time in his career (39-49). As much as we would like to believe that ByuN can do it, we have a tough time recommending a bet on the 28-year-old at $2.20.

He defeated Solar last weekend, but this was still his first head-to-head victory since December 2021, and you can’t ignore that. One game alone does not change the fact that Solar has dominated this matchup for the entire year. Solar at $1.61 is a no-brainer pick – we would need to see odds much closer to $3.00 to side with ByuN.

Joo “Zest” Sung-wook and Koh “GuMiho” Byung-jae have met just four times in StarCraft II during 2022, most recently in March, when Zest won 2-1. It marked his third head-to-head victory of the year and his second consecutive.

But even though Zest is the more successful player of the two this year (3-1) and across their entire history (33-21), we have to note that Zest’s last three meetings with GuMiho all reached the final map (2-3, 3-2, 2-1). Zest is still the better player, and he has a good record in Terran (62.43% win rate), but we don’t expect him to dominate the match.

Zest with a -1.5 map handicap at $1.89 is appealing, but we’re getting much more value on the over 4.5 total maps. GuMiho played well against Zest in their last two meetings, so it’s hard to doubt his ability to win at least two maps on Saturday.

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In the first game of Group C, played on February 21, GuMi opened up with mech against protoss, which is basically unheard of, but fitting for the legendary player nicknamed “the build master” for the wide variety of play styles he employs.

He killed a few probes with a hellion run by early on, whereas Classic tried some stalker/adept pressure but was unable to break GuMiho’s defences after some nifty widow mine micro and the timely arrival of a couple of cyclones. GuMiho actually managed to get his third CC out before Classic could take his third base, so he ended the early game with a modest economic advantage.

As the players entered the middle game, GuMiho moved out and Classic’s army met his in the middle of the map. At this point, Classic’s composition was mostly zealots, with some stalkers, and a single immortal. Gumiho for his part had a mix of tanks, hellions, cyclones, and liberators with one raven for detection and anti-armour missiles. Classic tried to catch GuMiho in the middle of the map near the neo violet squares, and while he traded out effectively, GuMiho did eventually win the fight.

Meanwhile, Classic had teched up to fleet beacon with triple starport, but unfortunately he never really had the time or the money to start carrier production. In a neat little mind game, the Protoss player did fake a carrier at one point, after GuMiho scanned him, with the hopes of tricking his Terran opponent into an inferior tech composition. This legerdemain ultimately proved to be in vain, as GuMiho eventually managed to push through to Classic’s fourth base. When the two armies collided, GuMiho scored an incredible hit with his raven’s anti-armour missile and Classic’s forces melted under the weight of GuMiho’s mechanical onslaught. With a twenty to one hundred army supply deficit, Classic was immediately overwhelmed and had no choice but to surrender.

Classic won both of his Bo3s and was the first player through to the Ro8, while Maru defeated Gumiho in an incredibly close series, that came down to a rubber match with both players floating their buildings to the center of the map after a base trade, to take the second spot.

Gumiho and Dear are both out of the tournament.

Group C results

Group C Matches