osu!weekly #95

2017 is starting to really show what it can offer us this year. We got a new featured artist, a new mapping contest and a brand new live drawing client for the World Cups. I wonder what else 2017 has to offer?

Table of Contents

• Weekly news
• Scorewatch
• Taiko World Cup

Weekly news

2017 has already seen its fair share of tournaments, contests and other miscellaneous events and now we've announced our newest featured artist, Lukhash. With his arrival comes over 60 tracks all timed and ready to go. With such a huge range of songs now freely available, you're sure to find something in here to suit your tastes.

The Monthly Beatmapping Contests are back in full swing with a new contest up and running. Our first MBC for 2017 will be for osu!catch featuring the sweet tunes of nanobii. It has been a while since we've held a MBC, so if you are interested in taking part, make sure to brush up on all the rules. Submissions will be open until the 26th of March, and if you're unsure how long you have left, you can always check the contest listing for a countdown.

Year in and year out, we see a lot of tournaments hosted, but not much love is given for the smaller guys. So if you are one of the smaller guys who wants to join in the tournament fun, Xeious has you covered. He recently opened up his first tournament which will be single elementation, 1v1 matches for players ranked 30k-60k. Registrations will be open until the end of March, or until all 32 slots are filled. So if you're planning to enter, best decide soon as spots are limited.

Scorewatch: March week 2 (With Scorewatch Patrol)

Before we get into this week's impressive plays, our fellow friends from the Scorewatch Patrol created a discord server, where you can give your suggestions about scores that are noteworthy. Feel free to drop by and help their team out or just have a casual osu!-oriented talk. With that said,

DanyL has pretty much established himself as one of the fastest growing DT players He set a crazy HDDT 93.06% FC on TrySail - High Free Spirits -TV.Ver- on Skystar's Extra, gaining 645pp and surprisingly sniping Cookiezi off this difficulty. This is also his first ever 600pp play, and it helped him climb to 13th in the world. Watch out for him.

Step aside Ayachi Nene, yellowy246 has done the incredible stuff this week as well He pulled off an incredible 98.86% FC on Imperial Circus Dead Decadence - Uta, gaining 592pp, his first ever 500pp score (nearly hitting 600 even), and setting the (currently on the leaderboards) 10th FC. What can we say? Here's the play!

Japan have sent their Top 6 to the World Cup this year (funnily enough, the Top 6 in the world as well), and it seems like they are preparing well. Maybe too well? _yu68 establishes Ramen Land's dominance with a solid 99.39% 3 miss DT score on Sampling Masters MEGA & Tatsh - Weave Detonator, just 3 days after being ranked, churning out 704pp. 270BPM of drumming action is waiting to be watched!

Have you heard of Sousaki? Maybe? Maybe not? Well, he did make a surprising play on Dancing Dolls - monochrome(Asterisk Makina Remix), setting a monstrous HR 99.83% FC and getting 785pp. HR plays were also set on this play by Dusk and [224]Hyperw7, making this play seem out of the blue.

Seems like ExGon popped by osu!catch for a bit and pulled off a casual HDDT 99.91% FC on 8284 vs wa. - Adularescence, scoring 904pp. He then proceeded to HDDT 99.46% FC Hitsuji to Ojisan - XENO, scoring 1070pp. Is ExGon going to claim his crown back? We'll have to watch and see!

NOTABLE MENTIONS:

XVoIR pulled off the next 4 mod FC on Mike Greene - Bill Nye the Science Guy Theme Song (Chinese Intro) with an insane HDHRNCFL 99.29% FC, gaining 582pp. It is also the highest recorded pp play with 4 mods enabled.

Totori went for the big money and big prizes by setting the No.1 score on The Quick Brown Fox - Big Money with a 97.46% 3 miss run.

applerss tried to outshine _yu68 on Camellia - Exit This Earth's Atomosphere with an impressive 95.34% HDDT FC, unfortunately getting 2nd on the map but earning 643pp.

TWC 2017 Week 0 Summary: Live Drawing Renewal - with magnomizer

As the spring season begins to roll in, we are greeted with the familiar sound of drums. It's that time of year again – TWC has returned for its 7th installment!

This past Sunday saw the live drawings coupled with the much anticipated mappool showcase. Don't worry if you've missed out, as you can still check out the VOD here, or settle for a brief summary below:

Like last year, we have 24 teams representing their respective countries and regions from all around the world. We re-welcome Finland, Norway and Ukraine with open arms, all of whom having last participated in TWC 2015. Inevitably, this also leads to the departure of three other countries, namely Italy, Singapore and the Philippines. We wish them all the best, and we hope to see them again next year.

With regards to the drawings, teams were initially sorted by rank into 3 tiers, then randomly split among 8 groups, found here. The whole drawing process was made more intense as Japan (the top seeded team) was last to be sorted – all other teams watched in trepidation as a result of this. Groups E, G and H are ones to watch out for, as I believe that the competition for 2nd place will be particularly fierce. For avid watchers who tuned in last year, Group A will see a rematch between Taiwan and the UK – definitely one to look out for as well.

As for the mappool showcase, there were moments of shock and disbelief throughout, as no one was remotely prepared for the surprise that Sayaka- and OnosakiHito had in store. Coming in with an average SR of 6.07* (a jump of 1.54* from the previous year), it is by far the highest star rated Group Stage pool across ALL world cups to date. The bar has been set extremely high, and for once we may even see some top seeded teams waver at this early stage.

The first match is scheduled to take place on Saturday 11 March, 12:00 UTC. Be sure to drop by the osu!live twitch channel this weekend. The atmosphere is literally buzzing with excitement, so make sure you are present to witness the start of the most hyped up TWC yet!

Also you may of noticed the lovely new index at the top of the weekly courtesy of Nyquill. If you have any suggestions for what you would like to see in the weekly (and have some spare time), 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