news
7 Nov 2024
osu! World Cup 2024: Round of 32 Recap
osu! World Cup 2024: Round of 32 Recap
Tune in and check out the Round of 32 results, recaps of the most exciting matches, player interviews, and much more!
With the first round of this year's osu! World Cup behind us, let's briefly take a look at how the past weekend went, and what we can expect moving toward the Round of 16.
If you are more of a visual learner, Junihuhn is back once again this year with their video recaps!
Mappool recap
Download the pool here! (127 MB)
For the first pool in the bracket stage, things started off with pretty approachable maps to most teams, while still offering a decent challenge.
To kick things off in the pool, we had an (in?)famous song as the first No Mod map, that being Shikanoko nokonoko koshitantan (Raphiiel Remix?) mapped by alden (NM1). The map accentuated player's aiming skills, with a few twists and more complex sections later on to spice things up. Whether the song is deerly loved or a cardinal sin is entirely up to you, though.
A couple of other highlights of the pool included two highly regarded existing maps, Samayou by ponbot (HR1) being voted "Best Vanilla Map" in last year's Mapper's Choice Awards (MCA), and Celluloid by Fsjallink (DT1) being a community tournament staple which can be described as a mix of speed and aim.
The pool had its fair amount of modern maps — some made specifically for the tournament, like Flask's Bug Thief (HR2) and Silverboxer's Burn your TV (NM2), but also brought back some proper relics of osu!'s early era, like Lehjuh's Cigarettes In The Theatre (DT3) and RLC's difficulty on Houkago Stride (FM1), which provided exciting picks for both the new and old generations alike.
Capping it off, however, was the first osu! original in the tournament — and what a project it is.
Imy's Lies playing Truth, wonderfully sung by Natsume Itsuki, combined two of our amazing Featured Artists' abilities into one truly epic song, mapped by Garden and Ryuusei Aika. It served as our tiebreaker for this week, being the deciding map in the Sweden vs. Indonesia match. If this doesn't make you want to check the map out, here is what Ryuusei Aika had to say about it:
I am glad to participate in the making of RO32 TB as a mapper! This song has all the elements I love as a powerful Japanese rock work, just as any other Imy songs, so I had a lot of fun playing around. I also enjoyed the creative discussion with Garden, who initiated the idea of switching styles (mainly flow aim <-> awkward aim) between different sections. Hope you like the song, the map and LowGraphics' impeccable storyboard! Huge shout out to everyone who made that happen as well!
Round of 32 summary
| Team A | Team B | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Hong Kong | 5 | 2 | Taiwan |
| South Korea | 5 | 0 | Belarus |
| Philippines | 5 | 2 | Malaysia |
| Germany | 5 | 1 | Singapore |
| China | 5 | 3 | Japan |
| Norway | 5 | 2 | Thailand |
| Canada | 5 | 0 | Kazakhstan |
| Romania | 3 | 5 | Brazil |
| Poland | 5 | 0 | Ukraine |
| Australia | 5 | 0 | Austria |
| Sweden | 5 | 4 | Indonesia |
| United Kingdom | 5 | 0 | Finland |
| Russian Federation | 5 | 0 | Argentina |
| France | 2 | 5 | Turkey |
| Chile | 5 | 2 | Spain |
| United States | 5 | 0 | Peru |
While it would be completely unfair to say that the Round of 32 plays out the same every year, it remains very clear that the top 32 seeds have been shaken out into their respective brackets during this round, but of course not without some surprises along the way.
The outcome of the France (#14) vs. Turkey (#19) match was quite shocking! The majority of the community's pick'em votes went to the France at 78.3%, but Turkey ended up on top with a decisive 5–2 result! There was also a fierce battle between neighbouring seeds Brazil (#17) and Romania (#16), ending in Brazil winning with a final score of 5–3.
Taiwan (#25) also took two points from Hong Kong (#8) despite the huge gap in seeding, with the same scenario and scoreline replicated on the same day by the Philippines (#9) and Malaysia (#24), showing that even when the underdog teams are faced with a looming threat, they won't go down without a fight.
China vs. Japan
You can view the match information here!
You can view the match VOD here!
After what feels like déjà vu from 2023, China (#13) and Japan (#20) once again found themselves as first-round opponents, and expectations were high after last year's match reaching the tiebreaker.
Wanting to make an impact, Japan opted into NM1, where both YMD and Teacchyyy showed us their mechanical prowess with FCs, Teacchyyy in particular choking an SS with 1x100!
China was not shaken by Japan's performance and decided to make their mark on the HD2, the low AR pick, and their captain lolol235 (formerly known as davidqu2) did not disappoint with a 99% FC. With one map for each team, Japan looked towards DT1, however China went above and beyond expectations with nearly a 4-way FC and taking the advantage at 2–1.
China tried capitalising on the newly found momentum with DT2, one of the most popular maps of the weekend. High expectations were had from both China and Japan, but early misses left China chasing Japan for the rest of the pick and tying the match score at 2–2. Japan needed to find a solid map pick after miss-picking DT1, and decided to put their faith in HD1, the Hidden tech map. Star players lolol235 and Teacchyyy had an amazing duel awaiting one another to break their high combo, which ultimately ended in a miss from lolol235, letting Japan run away with the lead.
Starting the second half of the match, team China decided to stick to their guns with the speed picks and chose NM2, another one of the more popular maps of the weekend, and with flying colours on their pick tied up the match once again. With the teams down to one pick each, Japan went into NM3 hoping to guarantee the tiebreaker. Despite Japan's two major FCs, China still managed to squeeze out a break point at a critical time! For the final pick of the match, China opted to pick the precision HR2 pick and managed to shut down any chances for a tiebreaker with an FC from Crystal, sealing Japan's fate.
An incredible matchup between two closely seeded teams. Look out for both of these teams next week as China faces Russia and Japan against Argentina.
Sweden vs. Indonesia
You can view the match information here!
You can view the match VOD here!
On Saturday, the community has been given a pleasure of watching a top tier match between two very evenly matched teams, Sweden (#15) and Indonesia (#18). This was not just an even matchup on paper though, with the match itself becoming more intense by the minute, leading to the first tiebreaker being played in a match this year!
Sweden ended clutching the win with a final score of 5–4. scylla, team Sweden's captain, kindly agreed to share a small glimpse at how the team prepared for their match versus Indonesia.
How did you and your team prepare for the match vs. Indonesia, were there any expectations the team had before the match started?
For this week we didn't do anything special in terms of preparation. We were discussing having a scrim against another country but real life plans got in the way. One hour before the match I went through our scores on our team sheet and made lineups and planned picks and bans based on their scores as well as their mental and current playing ability. With how even our opponents are to us skill wise we went into the match with very little expectations, in our eyes the win could've gone either way. Despite not having Zpinxx for the match, our team mental was great, we played really well, and most of our picks went the way we wanted.
What were some of the more difficult decisions made by either yourself or the team combined during the match?
The most difficult decision was our roster for FM2. The initial lineup we planned for was changed last minute with me going HR and Andros going NM, which was dangerous but worked very much in our favour. We had many plausible mod and player combinations that sounded really good on paper but the one we went with was not planned beforehand at all.
With this victory under your belt, how do you feel about your team's chances in the rest of the tournament, and what would be your team's ideal placement?
I don't have high hopes for our match against Australia. We might be able to snag one or two points but I don't see a win in sight, especially not considering how well they played against Austria. As for our loser bracket, I think there's a high likelihood we win against the winner of Singapore vs. Thailand. The match after that is most likely gonna be against either Chile or United Kingdom which will be really tough regardless who we face, but its not looking as grim as against Australia, that's for sure.
Worst case I believe we place top16, which isn't that bad considering we seeded 15 this year. Best case we place top12 like last year, it's optimistic but I believe there's a small chance we make it that far, it heavily depends on how our opponents play and the maps in the mappool. Whether we make top16 or top12, I'm still gonna be satisfied with our performance this year. In my 5 years of playing OWC it has always been a joy playing for Sweden and playing with my fellow swedes, they make it all worth it in the end.
More player interviews
Willy seized the opportunity to get lots of players' opinions and predictions before this year's Round of 32, including FlyingTuna, xootynator, Rafis, Amasetic, Musty and Rektygon (a.k.a. hydrogen bomb). After having these interviews streamed live during breaks between matches, they're now compiled into a convenient playlist:
The osu! World Cup will be back this weekend with its Round of 16, the first elimination round of the year! Check out the OWC wiki page for the match details along with full tournament details (such as the schedule or statistics for this round), and join us at osulive or osulive_2 to ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ give your energy ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ, and cheer on your favourite teams!
We hope to see you cheering for your teams this weekend in Twitch chat or reading up on the results in another round of recaps!
—0x84f, Dada, Damarsh
Comments9