osu! World Cup 2018: Grand Finals Recap

For over a month and a half, some of osu!'s best players embarked on the journey of the year in search of glory in the osu! World Cup 2018. Thirty-two teams from across the globe competed to showcase their skills for the championship, and over time, only three were left standing in the Grand Finals weekend – Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States. From there, it was a grand showdown between three of osu!'s most titanic teams for the crown, and boy was it a battle!

In a distinct departure from other years, the osu! World Cup (or OWC) featured its own Grand Finals specific mappool this year, where the playing field was bumped up a notch in difficulty again, forcing players to revise their strategies and picks from the Finals matches.

United Kingdom vs Germany

The first two teams up to play were Germany and the United Kingdom.

Led by veteran and star players Dustice and Okinamo, the German players were already set on making history - returning once again to the Top 3 for the first time since 2014. Their core skillsets were as solid as ever, and their fabled consistency showed no signs of slowing down or giving way. However, standing in their way was Team United Kingdom, gathered under perhaps the strongest roster of players they had ever fielded in a World Cup, who were absolutely hell-bent on becoming the second European team to be crowned since Poland's dominating performance in the OWC last year.

All-star players Bubbleman and Spare held strong as the backbone their team as the English players charged at the Germany's picks. Despite being constantly under pressure, the Germans held their ground, desperately not wanting to repeat their historical defeat from last year against the same opponent.

Despite their valiant efforts, Team Germany could just not muster enough strength to impede Team UK's unstoppable advance, though there were many instances where it seemed as if Germany was about to flip the match on its head and send the English running for their money.

In the end, Team Germany conceded defeat at 4-7. Nonetheless, this still served as a historical milestone for the German players, and will surely ignite their ambition to overcome more obstacles and climb higher in future World Cups.

United States vs United Kingdom

The stage then was set for the true Grand Finals to take place on December 16th, 2018, where two-time champion Team USA squared up against Team UK in a contest for their third ever osu!Champion title. Over recent years, the United States' osu! tournament scene has seen an astronomical expansion since its advent in 2015, with new and skilled players sprouting up like mushrooms after rains in a forest.

When asked about the difficulty of assembling a roster from such a wealth of talented players, veteran player Toy commented that the effort was "one of the hardest things the team has ever done".

The result of such agony was perhaps, the strongest US roster to date.

Meanwhile, the English players most certainly did not cower at the sight of their menacing opponents. Their eyes have been on the prize since the very beginning, and #ITSCOMINGHOME was their call. Throughout this tournament, Bubbleman, OPJames, Spare, Doomsday, MoeYandere, SoraRoxas01, Jameslike, and Karthy all demonstrated their incredible skills and made it very clear to the world just how seriously they were gunning for the top.

"It was great to be part of the team for the first time after playing for so long," commented MoeYandere, Team UK's new blood this year: "I felt extremely nervous with the expectations weighing down, but team definitely made me feel at ease."

Surely enough, all 16 players doubtlessly felt some degree of stress coming into this showdown, with only themselves and their teammates to rely upon.

Team USA started the match off strong, taking 3 points back to back. Playing with both grace and grit, Toy, idke, and fireyrage took turns bringing points to their team again and again. On the other side, Bubbleman held down the fort with Spare, producing high combos and affording their team the opportunity to find holes in the American defense. With a decisive counter-pick on Bad Elixir, team UK finally broke the American momentum, followed by their own unwavering and impressive showing on Unravel and Towards the Horizon.

The two teams then continued their grueling head-to-head in a series of back-and-forth matches, before arriving at 5-5 all. Team USA secured Tabi to Ferry with a strongarm performance from Toy. Their next pick – me & u – an American favourite to win, was suddenly interrupted in its tracks when players began breaking left and right, and the only one to hold through with a full combo was Bubbleman! Holding strong through the skin of his teeth, Bubbleman just BARELY brought his team to victory with a minuscule 70 point lead, setting a new record for the smallest point difference to ever win a match in the osu! World Cup.

(A tiny 70 points difference causes Team USA no shortage of grief.)

This singular moment decided the fate of the match - and sent both teams to meet the The Azure Arbitrator, a gruesome 8-minute slog of high speed consistency fielded as the Tiebreaker for the Grand Finals. Widely regarded as being a deserving but particularly difficult choice, it was the ever-present threat looming above the heads of all the Grand Finalists, and was now being realized in front of over 10,000 viewers.

Going into the map, it came as no surprise when the American team began to buckle and waver, losing combos left, right and centre. However, Bubbleman from Team UK continued his incredible performance and put out a devastatingly powerful play, maintaining an incredible score lead for his team all the way up to more than 2467 combo before finally breaking! This amazing play alone accounted for more than 1/3 of Team USA's total score at the end of the map, paving the way for Team UK to snatch the much-needed bracket reset, and giving them the room they needed to finally breathe.

Now, the match was truly on.

United States vs United Kingdom: The Bracket Reset

After a quick break, the teams returned for the final showdown of the year.

At this point, the osulive channel had broken over 13,000 viewers, the highest ever since the last time it was featured on the Twitch front page. Raw, unadulterated hype was in the air. Tournament organizer HappyStick went over and congratulated Bubbleman via DMs (though mostly out of his own hype boiling over at this point), who only responded with the now timeless quote:

"Not yet. It’s not done yet. I'm not done yet."

However, the Team US was undaunted by this display of confidence, and knuckled down to rethink their approach and their path to victory. After witnessing what Team UK could do on Unravel, Team USA adjusted strategy and opted to ban it instead, depriving Team UK of one of their strongest picks.

The two teams traded blows until arriving at 2-2, when Team USA saw an opening and went in for the offense, taking 2 more points, bringing the score to 4-2. Team UK quickly reorganized a counterattack, tying the score at 4-4.

However, fatigue had begun to rear its ugly head in earnest on both teams, with the total match length exceeding over three hours at this point in the battle. Team UK soon discovered to their dismay, that their fabled consistency had begun to falter on Bassdrop Freaks, with Team USA showing no signs of slowing down. Team USA then followed up with their signature pick Tabi to Ferry, driving home the first nail in the coffin, and then, surging to a decisive victory on Bad Elixir to end the tournament, the United States brought the match home with a 7-4 lead in their favour.

Results

And just like that, the biggest tournament of the year the osu! community is finally over.

For the third time, the United States team will bear the title of osu!Champions proudly, with the United Kingdom coming in second and Germany coming in third.

We were truly blessed to witness so much history in the making - producing perhaps one of the most compelling matches (if not THE most compelling) ever seen in the osu! World Cup.

This year has been one wild ride, and we look forward to seeing you again next year!

—World Cup Staff