osu!weekly #13

Hello everyone, Tasha here with another osu!weekly for you all to enjoy. This week has been rather hectic for me, so lets get right down to business with the news!

The Catch the Beat World Cup finals begin this weekend! Last week the teams for France, Taiwan, the Netherlands, Argentina, the United States and Malaysia were eliminated in the loser's bracket, bringing the tournament down to 6 teams remaining. For a general recap, the CWC commentators have provided a recap video going over the results and map pool. The first match of the weekend will be on Saturday at 11am UTC, going until 5pm UTC the same day. Sunday will feature four more matches, starting at 11am UTC and going until 1pm UTC. If you'd like to see the more detailed schedule for the matches or even the map pool for the quarterfinals, you can see them on the wiki page under Match Schedule or Map pools. Be sure to tune in to watch the winner's bracket teams compete for an advantage in the Grand Finals, and the loser's bracket teams fight to stay in CWC!

The first round of the North American osu!standard tournament is starting this weekend! This is a 1v1 tournament hosting a rather impressive turnout with the top 60 players being #1100 or better, meaning very high skill will be displayed throughout even the early stages. Be sure to check out the original post from tournament organizer MMzz for updates to the bracket, as the first week of matches is not being streamed, but will be updated in the linked bracket.

The finals for Taiko World Cup: Last Man Standing 2 will be happening this weekend! Taiwan A and France are fighting for the winner's bracket position going into the Grand Finals, whereas United States A, Hong Kong, Indonesia A and Japan A are fighting to stay in the tournament from the loser's bracket. Schedule information can be found on the google doc provided by tournament organizer Backfire. Be sure to tune in to see which teams make it to the Grand Finals!

The first round of the Australia / New Zealand osu!standard tournament will be underway this weekend! This tournament is a 1v1 tournament that was made for lower ranked players, allowing only players who are ranked higher than 25,000 to enter. All matches will be streamed according to the timetable provided in the original post made by tournament organizer EmeraldStar82. Be sure to check it out and support the players participating!

The osu!news youtube channel has done another skin showcase. This time deadbeat shows us the Nightcore Light into Darkness skin that was created by Nayachawn, which I must say is quite stylish (Download Here!). We should have more of these videos coming soon, so be sure to subscribe to the osu!news channel if you haven't already!

The osu!academy's latest osu!talk interviews the co-host of the osu!talk and creator of the osu!news' skin showcases, deadbeat. ztrot and Charles445, who was a guest co-host for this particular talk, got into discussion about various topics such as what got deadbeat into the community and mapping, what he's doing in the community now and several other topics. If you'd like to learn more about deadbeat, be sure to check out the video!

Last week the osu!keyboards were released in the osu!store. For some people who might have had interest but weren't sure if the investment is worth it, Tasha has created a quick review of the osu!keyboard to show what it is, how it's set up and more! If you were on the fence for the first batch and want to be more informed about the osu!keyboard for when the second batch is released, this video might be for you.

It was a slow week for osu!next, although there was still some interesting information for those who like osu! merchandise, the preview showing a new shirt design that might be coming to the osu!store in the future. Hopefully your computer doesn't give up on you anymore Flyte!

Some bad news for those who might have been looking forward to an osu! booth at Japan Expo 2015, as due to issues with organizing the event, the booth can no longer be acquired. Further information regarding this can be found in Kurai's announcement post in the original planning thread explaining the situation to everyone. Hopefully a meetup can still be organized by those who were planning on going to the Japan Expo together still!

That's all the news for this week everyone. As always you can send any news you'd like to be represented in the osu!weekly to news@ppy.sh and I will do my best to include that information. Have a good weekend everyone, and be sure to check some of those awesome tournaments out that are going on during it!

—Tasha