osu!weekly #81

Another week passes by, with no shortage of things happening in the world of osu!. From the OWC's Round of 16 concluding, to a new set of Loved maps all the way over to some pretty incredible scores, read on to find out more!

This Week In osu!

A fresh batch of Loved maps from the last Community Voice polls have hit the rankings! Some (but nowhere near all) of the new additions include:

• t+pazolite - Call me it. (500 Tortures), by Fort.
• Kobaryo - Pumpin' Junkies (Kobaryo's FTN-Remix), by MMzz
• Erehamonika remixed by kors k - Der Wald (kors k Remix), by ExGon
• Camellia - Singularity, by Evening

If you'd like to go see all the new additions yourself, head on over to the Loved beatmap section. Voting for the 3rd batch of Loved maps should commence sometime next week, so if you want to have your say in what deserves to be loved, keep an eye out for the voting threads over in the Community Voice forum.

There were a few changes to the staff this week. Old-timers Bakari and Nishiji stepped down and were graciously honored with a seat in the osu!alumni, while some old faces became new again with -kevincela- and Gabe returning to the GMT after a long absence. Welcome back boys, and to our new alumni - enjoy the rest, you've earned it!

After the osu!mania and Catch the Beat community started up their own modding mentorship programs, the Taiko community is the latest to follow suit. Raiden is hosting a mentorship program with some help from OnosakiHito and DakeDakaane. Mentor applications have just recently finished, and now is the time to apply as a mentee. If you want to learn how to mod those pesky dons and kats from some real cool cats, now's your time to raise your hand! Applications will open on the 21st of November and close on the 1st of December, so get in while you still can.

ztrot and I (deadbeat) took the time to sit down with a few of our lovely OWC commentators (Doomsday, juankristal and omgforz) to talk about this year's world cup. We got some nice insight on what had already gone down, and what was still to come. Things got a little more interesting though when a certain SPECIAL GUEST decided to show up halfway through, but who could that be I wonder?

Scorewatch: November Week 3 (with Raveille)

Another week full of amazing scores! Let's not let the OWC distract you too much and jump right in!

ExGon is at it once again in the osu!catch community. He managed to SS the Loved Erehamonika remixed by kors k - Der Wald (kors k Remix. The star difficulty on this map, however, is far-fetched. It stands at a shocking 19.14. See it to believe it, this is absolutely nuts. My god, it's full of stars.

Mama Mia! Amamiya, New Zealand's current No.1, has destroyed Konuko - Toumei Elegy on Skystar's difficulty with an HDHR 98.24% FC, giving her 596pp. This play alone shot her up to rank 62 in the world. We await the second Oceania player to emerge into the top 50...

Through blood, sweat and tears, Musty managed to rip apart positive MAD-crew - Mynarco Addiction with an HDHR 1x 100 FC and 59.51 UR, granting him 565pp. Through even more blood, sweat and tears, he broke into the 10,000pp club, becoming the 30th player and 2nd French to enter it. It took him a while, but determination wins in the end. Watch out for this guy in the upcoming OWC. Congratulations!

The No.1 mania player, jakads has set the 2nd highest score on D(ABE3) - MANIERA on the [Masterpiece] difficulty with a 7 miss 98.71% score. With that score, jakads earned a terrifying 1185pp, however, jhlee0133 still stands at the top. Will jakads manage to beat him? Time will tell..

That's all for this week! Will your score be featured here next week? Get playing and find out!

OWC Week 2: Round-of-16 Gets Heated (with Evrien)

The past weekend marks the beginning of OWC 2016's Elimination Stage. If Group Stage was where teams get together and test the waters, Elimination Stage is where they pick up weapons and let slip the dogs of war! After an action-packed day, 8 teams advanced into the next round in the winner's bracket, and 8 more will try to climb their way back from the loser's bracket.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is safe to say that this osu!jet has now officially taken off. Fasten your seatbelt, adjust your seats to upright position, and prepare for a wild ride ahead. (ed note: did you just assume that our osu!jet has seats???)

But first things first – let's take a moment to recap what has gone down last weekend in the RO16:

• China and Australia opened up with strong performances across the board, where the two teams tied at 2-2. However, China was able to pull ahead afterwards, locking the game with a 5-2 win.
• Norway vs Taiwan came in really close. The two teams traded points until they arrived at tiebreaker, where Taiwan came out bruised but standing.
• Poland, a team unscathed thus far, finally saw an open wound as the Russian Federation fought their absolute hardest. However, the unyielding Polish veterans secured themselves a tight but decisive 5-3 win.

Also noteworthy was the very hyped and anticipated France vs United Kingdom game. With many predictions before the match leaning towards a close game or maybe even a tiebreaker, France was able to quickly pick up the pace after having their first point taken, pocketing 5 points in a row and swiftly but mercilessly sending the English down to the losers bracket.

The other matches were just as exciting, but due to space limitation I will leave it to you to find out more here. The osu!live tournament stream also has a handy play-by-play in the channel feed for you to feast on, simply scroll down to the bottom of the page and read up from there.

Taiwan taking a point against Norway on Sakura no Uta, with Rucker getting a SS!

This coming weekend will herald the Quarter Finals, where our players will be tested by one of the most technical and challenging mappools so far in the history of the OWC. If you like what you have seen so far, be sure to tune in and support the circle-clickers as they engage in action!

Next week, we'll be revealing the answer to the word search we released a few weeks ago. We're hard at work getting the new puzzle ready for you guys and it should be ready for osu!weekly #83!

As per usual, if you have any suggestions for what you would like to see in the weekly, feel free to drop by the osu!dev discord and directly highlight Nyquill or myself (deadbeat) in the #osu-weekly channel. Alternatively, you can also e-mail as usual at news@ppy.sh.

See you next week!

—deadbeat