The Followpoint: mrekk, the osu! Prodigy

Read up on the latest interview with mrekk, the osu! #1 player and streamer.

Welcome or welcome back to The Followpoint, a "community spotlight" series where we interview various players and community figures to get to know them better!

This time we have a special news posts set for you, where we interviewed the very top players of each game mode, and in this one we are joined by mrekk, osu!'s rank #1 player!

Let's get into it!

For the people who somehow don’t know who you are, how would you introduce yourself to people who don’t know you?

My name is mrekk, and I’m currently known as the #1 osu! player to many people today, as I have been dominating the playerbase for 3 years now.

I am also known to be a prestigious tournament player, as I have won many of osu!'s biggest tournaments such as: The Roundtable II hosted by "BTMC", Corsace Closed 2023, and many more.

How did you get introduced to osu!, and what was your first impression of it?

When I was around 9 years of age, my older brother (aka phungster) introduced me to osu! while we were bored at our aunt's house. I thought it was pretty cool and I downloaded the game on my iPad since I didn't have a PC at the time.

When my parents finally let me play osu! on their laptop, I immediately bought an osu!tablet and improved faster than many of my older brother's friends, including my older brother and realized I had a talent for the game.

Where does the name "mrekk" come from, and is there any special meaning behind it?

Unfortunately there is no meaning to the name mrekk, I just thought of a cool name to have when someone generously gifted me osu! supporter.

What's the favourite osu! story of yours?

When I got so angry that I decided to throw a domino piece at my laptop, causing me to quit for an entire year due to me being scared of being scolded by my parents. I ended up telling them and they let me use their laptop instead to play osu!, which is why I'm here as the person I am now! Now imagine if I never smacked my screen with a domino piece or If I just never told them. The thought honestly scares me...

What would you say is the greatest gift that osu! has given you?

The osu! community has always been a blessing to me, as it has given me many unforgettable moments that I'll definitely never forget in my life. If you told my 11 year old self that I'd be the #1 osu! player, for 3 years dominating the player base with not even 1 person coming close, I'd definitely think you're crazy.

If not for osu!, I wouldn't have the many friends I have today to cherish, the dopamine I get from winning tournaments with my fellow teammates and getting PP records left and right, the unbelievable feeling from meeting the people I've looked up to and much more.

I'm seriously thankful for all the memories that the community has helped me make, and the unforgettable moments that the community has created for me and for everyone. I'm currently looking forward for the events that will uphold in the future as my time in the osu! community certainly hasn't ended yet so stay tuned!

What do you think of the osu! community in its current state?

Just like every other community, the osu! community has its own ups and downs. Though many people (including me a lot of the time) like to look more into the dark side of the osu! community, it's important to look at the more bright side of the community, as the community most likely isn't as bad as you think.

Even though many incidents happen in the osu! community, we still have a bond that is irreplaceable by any other community. For example our part in the r/place project and our win on the twitter battle royale poll against Beat Saber. So don't lose hope yet, our community is still good!

How do you manage to keep yourself motivated after being at the top for so long? What drives you to keep improving?

osu! has always been a big passion for me, as that hasn't already been obvious with the 9 years of (almost) consistent playtime, osu! has basically been with me for half my life which is pretty crazy to think about. To be honest I'm not even sure where all this motivation comes from. From it being the dopamine release from setting scores or just my absolute love for the game, I guess I just like to set gamebreaking scores for the fun of it.

Of course this can't go on forever and I may slow down (as that may already be present) due to education and other life factors, but nevertheless I always come back in my free time to enjoy clicking circles and doing my daily PP farm/score shredding.

Who would you say are the best osu! player(s) at the moment that aren't you, and why?

There are many osu! Players on the rise and many of you may have noticed that. For example Ivaxa, aknzx, cloutiful and so on. I seriously believe that these players have potential as they have insane improvement speed and are also so incredibly young, improvement could just possibly come as they age.

And of course I have to give my props to Akolibed who was the only one so far to be my only competitor ever in the 3 years I've been number 1. It was the first time I've ever felt scared about losing my #1 spot, and honestly it was a humbling fight. I thought I could fight him off easily, but damn was it a challenge, he set so many scores so fast I couldn't keep up! But eventually I caught up and set many scores to now where the gap is now set from 110pp to almost 1000. If you're reading this Akolibed, I look forward to another fight.

Is there any advice that you would give to people who are just starting out, or are wanting to improve to one day be like you?

My best advice to give is to not let top players demotivate you. This is a common thought in most newer low ranked newbies that they will never be as good as the current top players. This may hold you back from significant improvement due to not thinking that you could improve to the point of current top players, or just using it as a factor to demotivate yourself.

Another thing to use to your advantage is to not overthink anything. Setup, PP you name it because overthinking things may lead to you thinking more about the numbers and not about the game in general. In my experience I barely even knew what PP was when I was 5 digit and just played and fc'd stuff for fun, just because I wanted to play the game.

When you first became recognised in the community, how did you feel about people's reactions towards your fast improvement?

I definitely felt like an odd one out when it came to improvement and I'm definitely aware of my fast paced talent for osu. When I first started rising to the leaderboards – I thought my improvement was normal until I got r/osureport'ed and said I mastered HDDT in a few days (which I literally did, I got my first 500 after 5 days of playing the mod). And people were certain I was cheating after saying that, which meant I had to do multiple liveplays and hand cam to prove my legitimacy.

Knowing I was a fast improver has definitely given me tons of motivation, as I want to push the limits of osu! further to see what's possible.

How did your face reveal affect you as a content creator and osu! player?

Doing a face reveal in late November 2022, definitely changed my perspective on content creation as it shifted many opportunities for my viewers and for me as a content creator. I'm extremely happy about the osu! community being supportive with my face being revealed as I was definitely afraid of people being mean or rude to me but now thanks to the osu! community, i'm now happy and no longer shy to cameras or to the public eye.

What do you feel like most people don't truly realise about being rank 1, especially for as long as you have?

That for many times during my reign that I have thought about quitting and being able to rank up again, it's always lonely at the top and not having any competition is definitely draining, but I always somehow find bursts of motivation everytime I try taking a break and just start popping off again. It's weird but it just happens and I guess it's a good thing.

I also have always had a passion for osu! since I was just a kid since I was already extremely motivated to play osu! at a very young age and had looked up to the current top players back then (Cookiezi, Rafis, hvick225, etc.), so since this has been a dream of mine, since I was very young it always comes back to bite me and play.

I'm here forever.

You've touched the editor in the past. Have you ever seriously considered becoming an active mapper?

Unfortunately, as cool as it would be to be an active mapper, I’ve seen the amount of effort you would need to push a map to get it ranked and I'm not sure if I'm bothered to do that, but who knows, maybe you would see an "mrekk's Extra" in the Ranked section in the future!

What are some scores you would like to see set the most (that have not been set already)?

A score that I'd definitely love to see is an FC on a map called "Hurting for a Very Hurting Pain". This map has been one of my favourites since I just started and though it'd be cool for me to close it out, I'd be very happy to see an FC by anybody on this map.

Honestly, there isn't really a specific map outside of that map that I'd like to see FC'd, but I'm definitely a big fan of upcoming top players who have very big potential to be my competition as there are many players today who have big potential, the good examples are: cloutiful (chud son), aknzx, Ivaxa, Kamensh1k, aimbotcone and Lexu2S (killer2007). I may have left out a lot of people, but don't worry if you're not in this list because you can very easily prove me wrong!

What are some "endgame" scores or milestones you would want to achieve in the future?

As a lot of you know, there are many maps that I'd like to FC but have not yet or have already gotten close/choked them. A good example of this is a map called "Owari Tsumugishi Mono", which is a 375BPM hybrid map with extremely hard speed, and alt sections. This map would be 1600 for FC, and I have said many times on my stream that it's probably my easiest 1500+ (as I could very easily get worse acc).

But sadly I wasn't able to close it out due to nerves and other issues. My best score on the map currently is a 2 miss worth 1389PP. Unfortunately, I can't name all of the scores I want as it would be too much to count but I could name a few maps scores on which would be marked as legendary to me or just a dream scores in general. A few of them are listed below:

Denkishiki Karen Ongaku Shuudan - Yakata Mawari [Rebirth]
Avenged Sevenfold - Save Me [Nightmare]
F-777 - Space Battle [Intense]
Seiryu - BLUE DRAGON [Blue Dragon]
Akiyama Uni - Odoru Mizushibuki [Death Dance]
Release Hallucination - VANITAS [The Silent Lament of Broken Wings]

If you were to stop playing osu! one day, what do you think the reason would be? Or do you plan to continue playing for as long as possible?

Just like other former top players, one day I may be too busy to play osu!, deciding to focus on my priorities instead. But the plan for now is to keep playing osu! in my free time when I'd like to and there are currently no plans to quit in the meantime and in the future.

Of course there is the possibility of RSI or carpal tunnel happening if I do play too much, so don't forget to do your daily wrist/hand stretches and exercises in between your play sessions and inbetween maps!

It says in your me! page that you want to "finish osu!". What does finishing osu! mean to you?

Think of this how you want, but all I'm going to say is to be warned.

To finish things up, what does the future hold for you? Do you have any goals or anything else that you'd like to mention?

In conclusion, I definitely still have motivation to play, and you (the reader) should be on the lookout for more and new cool scores! You could also check me out (shameless advertising I know) on Twitch if you want to see the #1 osu! player in the flesh.

And of course, thank you to MegaMix_Craft for organising and setting this news post up.

Thank you to mrekk for joining us and answering these questions as well, and thank you for reading!

Please look forward to the next interview with osu!catch #1 player, YesMyDarknesss, which will be posted in two weeks!

—MegaMix, Utiba & DigitalHypno