osu!taiko World Cup - Semifinals Recap

Did you miss the past weekend of matches in the osu!taiko World Cup? Don't worry, as Eiuh helps you catch up on what went down in the Semifinals!

The Semifinals offered some very exciting matches, including the first tiebreaker we've seen since Group Stage. Let's walk through them, shall we?

Semifinals Matches

The opening match started with Australia eliminating Chile 6-2. At first, the Australians found themselves in a 1-2 deficit, losing out heavily on the nomods UNDEAD CORPORATION - Revived and Qoiet - Out Now On Crowsnest. All the following picks went in favour of Australia, as the combined strength of Jaye and rango was too much to handle for the Chileans.

The next team to secure their top 8 placement was Indonesia with a 6-0 sweep over Brazil. While some maps were close, Brazil leaves the match empty-handed as they're knocked out of the tournament along with Chile, leaving no Latin American teams left in the cup.

The European brawl between Spain and Poland ended 6-2 for Spain. CreepyDuck besting both of the Spaniards on 5 out of 8 maps was simply not enough for Poland. Spain would be the last European team standing, but not for long.

Canada versus Hong Kong was the definite highlight of the weekend, ending 6-5 for the Canadians. The mid-seeded Hong Kong team took everyone by surprise as they took Canada all the way to tiebreaker where they narrowly lost. If you missed this truly spectacular performance, you can rewatch it on the osulive Twitch channel.

In the first winners bracket match, Taiwan stopped USA in their tracks with a 6-3 win. The US did steal one more map from Taiwan than last year, but will need to perform even better to contend for the silver medal moving forward.

In the other winners bracket match, Japan mercilessly knocked South Korea into the losers bracket with a 6-0 sweep. If Japan continues to play at this level, the other remaining teams should be very concerned.

Since Indonesia and Australia won their respective matches, they would now face each other. Indonesia did win 6-2 after a 5 map win streak to close it out, but don't let that scoreline fool you. Many of the maps could've gone either way, and the Indonesians had to fight tooth and nail for most of their wins. An exception would be the gruesome DoubleTime finisher map Ellie Goulding - Burn, which is something the Australians certainly felt.

A few reflections on the cup by the Australian player Jaye following their elimination:

This is the first time Aloda has been captain, and they did a great job of it. The tournament also showed how much rango has grown as a player. I really think he was the highlight of the team, even if our scores say otherwise. As the maps got harder we could show off more of what we could do, especially in Semifinals. When we beat Chile, it felt like a massive weight was lifted off our shoulders because we got revenge for not only last year and Group Stage, but also MWC where they've swept the Australian team twice.

My best mod is Hidden, but since 2 of our HardRock players were absent I had to limit myself and play the mod I dislike the most. As much as I dislike HardRock as a mod in general, Jikininki is the first map and only map so far to actually make me not only enjoy HardRock, but actually want to play it. Finally, I might as well add that Nov 29 was an amazing HD pick and I feel no sympathy towards everyone that struggled on it.

In the last match of the weekend, the journey of the last European team came to an end. Canada had a player fail on the HardRock map Whispered - Strike! for the second time this weekend, but besides that they didn't give Spain any way into the game and could close it out more convincingly than in their match against Hong Kong. It ended 6-1 for the Canadians.

Semifinals Mappool

In Semifinals, every map was picked atleast once (including tiebreaker!) and the most common bans by far were Whispered - Strike! (HardRock) and Hitori Tori - perthed again (yambabom remix) (Hidden). For some more insight on the pool, let's hear what the map selectors had to say about it.

"I was surprised that Avalanche was picked as often as it was, and got quite a high amount of HD / HDHR plays which surprised me considering how anti-HD it was compared to playing it with HR. Epileptic Crisis, being a reading pick, was not too surprising to be the most picked map. Overall I'm happy with the diversity of player picks, with no maps being entirely ignored and no map being the top favorite to pick as several maps shared that spot but were also sometimes picked very late in matches.

Also, Burn and the tiebreaker got played, two maps where I'm really happy I got to see them this stage (Burn even three times!). I thought Revived would get picked one or two times more, but I guess OD6 and the dense sections made it too risky." —Nwolf

"Upon releasing the mappool, we were sure it would be met with some harsh criticisms. Personally, I had felt that the mappool lacked cohesiveness, and despite our best efforts, Nwolf and I both thought it was a mess. But to our surprise, it seemed that the majority of the players took a liking to it, and the matches played thereafter showed a fairly balanced spread of picks across the weekend.

Probably the most ambitious thing we experimented within this pool was the inclusion of a gimmick map in the FreeMod bracket. To our knowledge, it was something that had never been done before, and we think it was a huge success - its inclusion was critical to some upsets we saw this weekend.

Overall, Nwolf and I are pleasantly surprised with the success of the Semifinals Mappool. After all, who wouldn't be satisfied with a tiebreaker match after a two week drought? With Finals Mappool released, we look forward to hearing your thoughts and feedback in the comments below!" —mangomizer

Finals Preview

This weekend we'll be seeing 4 matches. While that may not sound like a lot, the importance of each match cannot be overstated. Also, keep in mind that the matches from now on will be Best-Of-13 and can last a very long time as a result.

In the winners bracket, the undefeated teams of Japan and Taiwan will battle for a spot in the Grand Final. In the losers bracket, we'll be seeing atleast two matches between North America and Asia, as the first two matchups are South Korea versus Canada and United States versus Indonesia. The winners of these two matches will face each other for a spot in the top 3, where they later compete with either Japan or Taiwan for the Grand Finals spot. If all of this sounds complicated, you can have a look at the bracket on the wiki page.

Useful Links

Want to join in on the Finals action? The first match between South Korea and Canada starts on Sunday at 02:00 UTC on the osulive channel, so don't miss out! While you're there, you can also rewatch past matches. If you're into stats, why not have a look at the various ones compiled by deadbeat and Nwolf which can be found here, as well as these leaderboards I've compiled.

Don't forget to buy a banner if you haven't already! If you end up supporting the winner of the tournament, your banner will remain on your profile until the next world cup! Since there are so few teams remaining, the chances of that happening are now fairly sizeable. You can pick up your banner at the osu!store. By doing so, you contribute to the tournament prize pool.

As always, feedback is greatly appreciated, so feel free to provide some in the comments below or by PM. See you next week!

—Eiuh