Official beatmapping contest support

For tournament support, see: Official tournament support.

Beatmapping contests are eligible to receive support from the osu! team provided they meet certain criteria.

For other contests, email us at tournaments@ppy.sh. We'll try to work something out.

This article was last updated on March 13, 2025. For the full changelog, check out the beatmapping contest support updates thread. For any queries or clarifications, please consult the #tournaments channel in the osu! Discord server or send an email to the account support team via tournaments@ppy.sh.

Benefits

Officially supported contests have access to certain benefits:

• Profile badge prizes for first-place winners. See profile badge design criteria on the official tournament support article.
• Progress towards Elite Mapper user title. See contest points for more details.
• Potential consideration for news coverage.

Expectations

Contest organisers are expected to monitor their contest for anything that runs afoul of the expectations outlined below, and are single-handedly responsible for reporting such incidents to the account support team via tournaments@ppy.sh. Failure to adhere to this may result in withdrawal of official support.

Contests

Community-run contests receiving this support are expected to abide by the following general ideals:

• Remain free and fair.
• Be as transparent as possible.
• Preserve competitive integrity.
• Encourage good sportsmanship.

In addition, all promotional material or any services associated with a contest receiving official support should adhere to the osu! community rules. This includes things like Twitter accounts, Discord servers, and so on.

Additional expectations

While the following expectations mainly apply to tournaments, contests are still expected to abide by them to the best of their ability:

• Staff
• Players

Eligibility

Contests which abide by the following criteria are eligible for official support for profile badges:

• The contest must meet either of these criteria:

  • The contest is organised and run by an experienced team of accomplished and reputable staff, as decided by the osu! team.
  • The contest has successfully run for one iteration without official support.
• The forum threads associated with the contest MUST contain a clearly visible and accessible link to the contest report form. The link must be placed at the bottom of the original post.

  • https://tcomm.hivie.tn/reports/create
• The contest must have a clearly defined set of rules.
• The contest must accept submissions for only one game mode. Most users specialise in one game mode, so it is not reliable to evaluate mapping quality across multiple game modes.
• For solo osu! contests, there should be at least 15 valid submissions.¹
• For solo osu!taiko, osu!catch, or osu!mania contests, there should be at least 10 valid submissions.¹
• For team contests, participation will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis depending on team sizes, creative requirements, and total valid submissions. As a rule of thumb, aim for at least 20 participants and 10 valid submissions.
• The contest must have a clearly defined judging criteria based on mapping merit. These ensure a contest follows an understandable quality standard in line with other mapping contests.
• The contest's results must be determined by valuing scores from all judges equally. Using standard deviation to determine final scores is required.¹

  • The final score must be calculated as follows: judge X's final score = (judge X's raw score - judge X's average raw score) / judge X's standard deviation.
• The contest's host must moderate their judges' comments. Comments which are either offensive, belittling, of low effort, or otherwise inappropriate may be removed at the committee's discretion.
• The contest's results must be publicly displayed with judge scores/comments visible. The judges may be anonymised publicly, but the osu! team may ask for un-anonymised judge details if necessary.
• The contest must have at least 4 judges. Contests with fewer judges allow each judge too much influence on overall results.
• Contests which incorporate a screening phase prior to judging must also have at least 4 screeners.
• A user cannot participate in more than one submission to the contest.
• Submissions to the contest should be anonymised. This limits judging bias removing name association between a mapper and their map. This rule may be ignored only if a contest has special circumstances that warrant removing anonymity.
• The contest's organisers must not participate in the contest. This includes both submitting a map and judging/screening submissions. Anyone with access to judging/screening information or un-anonymised submissions is considered a "contest organiser".
• Any staff involved in the operation of a contest in any capacity must not be currently restricted or tournament banned.

In addition to the criteria above, contests which abide by these rules are eligible for official support for contest points to earn the Elite Mapper user title:

• The contest must exclusively use songs listed in osu!'s Featured Artist library or other songs explicitly permitted for use in osu!.
• The contest's initial announcement must be published on osu!'s front page news and the contest listing. For credibility of the Elite Mapper title, a contest must have maximum visibility.

Requesting support

If your contest satisfies the eligibility criteria, you can make a request for support by sending an email to tournaments@ppy.sh with the following information:

• A brief description of your contest, including any applicable dates, game modes, and any other appropriate features
• A list of all organisers and staff involved in the contest and their respective roles
• Any links to:

  • The contest's results
  • The forum thread for your contest.
  • Public Discord servers or any other off-site chatrooms used for the contest.
  • Previous iterations of the same contest series (if applicable).
  • Your contest on the Mappers' Guild contest listing (if applicable).

Once we receive your request, the osu! team will send an approval or denial of your contest's official support status.

Profile badge prizes must be requested at most two months after the contest's completion. Badges will never be approved until after the conclusion of the contest.

For news posts, setting up contest listings, or any other inquiries, please contact us as early as possible before registrations, ideally at least a month in advance, to allow time for consideration.

The osu! team may choose to deny official support to any contest that fits the eligibility criteria at their discretion. This ensures no foul play occurs by contest organisers taking advantage of criteria loopholes, so if you are running a contest without ill intent, you likely do not need to worry about this.

If approved, you will need to submit the following:

• A list of applicable badge recipients (a.k.a. the winners of your contest).
• An appropriately designed badge (see profile badge design criteria on the official tournament support article).

In exceptionally rare cases, a contest may be granted the privilege of awarding badges to its top three finalists. A contest that has received this distinction is recognised for attaining the highest level of production quality and organisation possible — this is given exclusively at the discretion of the osu! team. Hosts will be contacted directly if applicable.

News posts

While support for advertising and sharing the outcome of your contest is available via news posts, there are additional requirements that must be considered:

• Contests will be expected to provide the following news posts:

  • A news post for advertising the contest.
  • A news post announcing that the voting is open (if the winners are determined based on public voting).
  • A news post detailing final results.
• Those responsible for writing them should expect to adhere to the editorial standards required by our news styling criteria. Additional news posts are presently not permitted.
• If your contest is limited to a specific region, it is only eligible to receive news post support if it involves a LAN (a.k.a. an in-person meetup).

Requests for news support will be reviewed by both the Contest Committee and the osu! news team for suitability.

Notes