osu!mania World Cup 2018: Grand Finals Recap

After 6 weeks of intense note holding action, the osu!mania World Cup 4k has reached its conclusion. Our finalists for this year is Brazil, United States and South Korea!

United States vs Brazil

The first match of the grand finals weekend was a rehash between United States and Brazil, whose previous semi-final encounter resulted in Brazil getting brought to the loser's bracket in a 7-6 tiebreaking thriller. The two teams duked it out and showcased yet another match of exceptional intensity that would rival their previous matchup, both performing in win-or-out pressure to determine the third place finisher and the grand finals matchup.

Showcasing an affinity towards their corresponding non-LN/LN picks, the United States and Brazil teams found themselves trading punches to a 2-2 result, winning on their own picks. Brazil stuck to their long-note strategy by picking the dangerous inverse pick Wizdomiot and subsequently met their first break point at the hands of some brutal column-lock combo breaking. With the opportunity to capitalize on this break, the United States stuck with their pattern of LN-aversion and dug right into the speedy Amber Starlight, only to meet the same fate as Brazil with a break point of their own, setting the score back to a deadlocked 3-3.

After an expected LN win by Brazil, the United States team found themselves under the gun to equalize the score to 4-4. Opting to go with the rarely seen SV pick, Shakunetsu, the United States team delivered an expected good performance, with an unexpected incredible twist at the hands of -Electro-.

With both teams attempting to jockey for position, Brazil continued to press forward with their long-note game, aiming to make Talent Shredder an expected fifth point. However, Brazil would unfortunately meet an untimely break point against the United States on their expected win, giving the United States team ample opportunity to push Brazil’s backs against the wall with the extremely difficult Contain. Contain’s result pushed the match to a 6-4 score, putting the United States team at match point and more importantly, one point away from a winner’s finals rematch against South Korea in the Grand Finals stage of the tournament.

Requiring two more wins simply to secure a tiebreaker after a break point, Brazil went for a pick befitting the United States team: Shrill False — despite this consideration, Lothus delivered an absolutely exceptional run and aided Brazil in keeping their tournament hopes alive with a win decided by a mere 5,345 points. Down to only two remaining picks in the mappool, the United States made beepbit futures the 12th and final possible pick of the round, with full awareness that conceding a point would result in a tiebreaking 13th song. After an exceptional fight from both teams on this brutally difficult map, the United States took the pick by a rather convincing amount — over 75,000 points, and secured themselves a top 2 finish, and a trip to the Grand Finals where they would meet South Korea once more.

South Korea vs United States

The United States team once again successfully opened with Tachyon Beam Cannon, while South Korea took their expected point on the tough LN pick, VERTeX by more than 75,000, a 30k+ larger victory than last time, setting up both a 1-1 score and the stage for what would seem to be yet another grueling punch-for-punch duel.

Continuing along the battle of opposing metas, The United States aimed towards the speedy Amber Starlight with an understandable expectation of being victorious. Instead, they found themselves in a dead heat that put every mistake from both teams under a magnifying glass. Unfortunately for the United States team, their attempts would prove to be painfully short from delivering the equalizing punch, giving South Korea what should have been the second point for the United States team.

The “close but no cigar” result seemed to be an unfortunate repeating motif of this match for the United States team. South Korea pushed along their expected path with the other popular but difficult LN pick - larva. The United States chased as aggressively as they could to try and even the score back up, producing a cumulative score that was almost 50,000 points higher than their previous match with South Korea, but yet again, it was just short of what was necessary: South Korea took the point by around 12,000 points.

To make matters even worse, the United States team suffered another break point on one of their own picks, M.A.G.I.C Speed Ball, with the team collapsing in the final seconds of the song. South Korea appeared to be absolutely unstoppable, suddenly amassing a three point lead with only five songs played. Despite the growing lead, they weren’t quite out of the woods yet, as the United States team managed to steal a point on South Korea’s Contain pick by approximately 40,000 points, bringing the score to 4-2 and keeping their hopes alive.

Sadly, this would be all that the United States could piece together. With the score set at 4-2, the United States attempted to bring the game within one point with beepbit futures, and met a similar fate as they did on Amber Starlight, dropping the lead in the last few seconds of the song to concede the point to South Korea by less than 10,000 points, bringing the score to their favor, 5-2.

South Korea’s response of I appeared to be an almost guaranteed 6th point, as they had beaten the United States by over 70,000 points in their previous 7-5 bout. Instead, it featured numerous score trades and an intense showdown that once again came down to the latter portion of the map, as South Korea’s underperformance brought them a team score of approximately 40,000 points lower than their previous attempt. United States improved compared to their previous attempt, but inevitably fell short once more by around 15,000 points, pushing South Korea to 6-2, and the Grand Finals match point.

For their 7th and final point, despite the efforts of the United States on a desperate attempt in Shrill False the South Korean team managed once more to take a point selected by their opponents. One thing that went generally unnoticed due to the quick leave of a certain someone, was a certain someone’s impressive run…

Despite the convincing appearance of a 7-2 result, the deciding score for many of these songs were substantially lower than one could expect: of the nine songs played, all but one of them were decided by 50,000 points or less — six of them were decided by 25,000 points or less, and three of them were decided by 10,000 or less. This showcase of overall caliber between the two teams indicates that on a different day, this match could have had a substantially different result.

Results

As our 2018 champions, South Korea will each receive $150, an osu!mania World Cup 4K 2018 profile badge, and the coveted osu!mania Champions. All of the people out there who supported the winners by purchasing a profile banner will get their banners upgraded to the new flashy winner banner. Each United States player will each walk away with $80, along with a 2nd place MWC 4K 2018 profile badge, and Brazil will walk away $40 per person and the 3rd place MWC 4K 2018 profile badge.

This year's MWC was indeed a blast. We had a lot of fun bringing you the action this year, and we’re eagerly looking forward to next year's osu!mania World Cup. But with this, that brings the current season of the World Cups to a close. We’ll be starting off the new season this coming week with the osu! World Cup (OWC) registrations opening very shortly, so keep an eye out for that. Until then, I’ll leave you with a nice little momento to summarize the joy, wonder, and overall experience the world cup has to offer.

—World Cup Staff