On Dec. 22, the U.S. osu! World Cup Team defeated South Korea in the notoriously injury-inducing rhythm game: osu! This cemented their grand finals win, a 25-game win-streak and one of the most dominant performances osu! had ever seen.
“idke and I have had personal goals to win a World Cup so dominantly that there was literally no way anyone could have hoped for the other team to win,” world champion Toy said. “To make it the most anticlimactic or uneventful Grand Finals ever since the last 4 years we’d played in a Grand Finals match it had gone to a bracket reset.”
Bracket resets have been the least of America’s worries. A series of technical issues has plagued team U.S.A. for years.
U.S.A.’s First Win
The U.S. had competed in five different world championships before 2015, never making top three. Then, they changed a few players, including picking up Toy.
osu! was Toy’s first competitive gaming experience, entering his first tournament in 2015. After competing in only five tournaments, he got his big break in North America Tournament 2015, or NAT.
“It’s an annual tournament for North American players and I ended up winning the first year I entered against the former champion,” Toy said. “It caught a lot of people off-guard (including myself).”
Throughout his years competing, Toy gained a reputation for being able to dominate slower, Approach Rate, or AR 8, maps. “I’ve gained notoriety as a singlehanded carry on AR8 HD maps, effectively shutting out most teams from picking it…,” Toy said.
Soon, the World Cup began.
Out of the gate, U.S.A. was looking strong, reaching winner’s finals undefeated with a 34-13 record, only having one close match versus Taiwan in the round of 16. Then, when they were the furthest they’d ever been, they lost their first match to China.
After being sent to loser’s finals and winning against Poland, the U.S. had their final match ahead of them.
They had a rematch versus China in grand finals, the team that defeated them eight days earlier. They had to win two matches in a row, 14 games total. China only had to win one of the two matches as they were on the winner’s side.
U.S.A. lost game one and then threw in Toy for the second song. They dominated as they scored triple China’s points with Toy leading in points. Toy did solidly afterward, scoring the second-most and most points in the eighth and ninth maps respectively, closing out the first of two matches.
America had won their first match 7-2 and was looking like the favorites going into match two.
The games in match two were close. China was up 4-3. Then, tragedy struck for the U.S.
“…I was still very new and had a pretty low point since I basically threw a point against China in 2015 nearly losing us the tournament…,” Toy said.
Going into their eighth match, U.S.A. was doing great. They kept China at a small lead for the whole song. For three minutes, the U.S. was building up a lead and it looked all but over.
Then, at the literal last possible moment, Toy failed the song. He missed exactly the last seven notes, leading to him failing the song. As per the 2015 rules, a failed player’s points are disqualified for that round. With only three players’ points tallied, a won game turned over to China with only seven notes to go.
China was now ahead 5-3.
Toy then played another game and scored the lowest amount of points on the U.S. team, but they still won the map. He sat out the next song and came back with a vengeance.
He scored the most points game 11 and the second-most game 12. U.S.A. and China were now tied. It’s on to the tiebreaker.
Until this point, both teams are allowed to select maps through ban-pick phases. If a team is weak in an area, they can focus on different types of maps. However, the tiebreaker map is chosen not by the teams, but by tournament staff.
Typically, tournament maps are about two to three minutes long. This tiebreaker was over five minutes and harder than the previous maps.
After two matches, 21 games and almost four hours, U.S.A. was one game away from winning their first world championship ever.
#scripted
“I just can’t believe this is happening,” commentator juankristal said. “I mean, this is such a unique moment. We will not see this again in a lot of time, and United States versus China, last match of the tournament, last map of the tournament, and championship point for both teams. This map has not a single full-combo in the history, and this is a tiebreaker that we are going to see right now between these two top-tier teams.”
The song starts and America is slightly ahead of China. They’ve been keeping them at arm’s-length for three minutes, then Toy gets dangerously close to failing. His health bar dipped below half, but he recovers.
A little over a minute later, Toy has the highest combo of over 400. The commentators are cheering him on, then, his health dips from full down to less than a third. He’s dangerously close to failing again.
He gets back to full and soldiers on. Less than 30 seconds later, Toy dips to a sliver of health. The commentators are confused. Some think he’s failed, others realize he’s still alive.
There’s less than 20 seconds left.
After recovering, his health dips to an even smaller sliver while the commentators are arguing over if he failed or not.
Finally, the last handful of notes appear. The song ends. In their sixth world championship, U.S.A. wins the osu! World Cup by over 300,000 points.
Commentators were calling this match one of the best in osu! history.
“The feeling was honestly surreal,” Toy said. “It was a lot of screaming, adrenaline, disbelief, and a flurry of messages from everyone congratulating me. It was one of the wildest moments of my life and I cherish it.”
Apraxia
While the U.S. was making their miracle run in 2015, an up-and-coming player was watching in the wings. He was slowly improving, but when America won “against all odds,” he had a singular focus in osu! His name is Apraxia, and despite occasionally being mocked for forgetting his cowboy hat due to being from San Antonio, TX, he was destined to help America dominate the osu! scene.
Other than teasing him for being Texan, his teammates randomly changed
their names to match his. I still don’t have a satisfying story behind this yet.
“I was just so motivated to one day be able to play in the World Cup that it just pushed me to the top,” world champion Apraxia said. “I just had such a burning motivation to get there.”
In 2017, Toy had vastly improved. He competed in 19 tournaments that year, winning nine of them and placing top three in all but two. Toy said he was even voted one of the best tournament players of that year.
During his thirteenth tournament, Toy was set to compete in NAT 2017. It was there he’d have his fateful encounter with Apraxia.
“I had to play against Toy,” Apraxia said. “He was considered to be the best tournament player in America at that time. I actually beat him in the quarter-finals of that tournament in winner’s.”
After that, Toy wanted him on team U.S.A.
Apraxia went on to lose winner’s finals and ended up playing Toy in loser’s finals. Although he lost to Toy who eventually won the tournament, his spot was solidified on the national team.
“I got third, but I got recognition from Toy,” Apraxia said.
About four months after NAT 2017, osu! World Cup 2017 was upon them. Apraxia’s debut was less than stellar. During his first game in the World Cup, Apraxia was the only one to miss a note out of eight players.
“That was like [a] really awkward first map,” Apraxia said. “At that point the maps were so easy, so like one miss, you kinda just lose.”
As the tournament progressed, U.S.A. and Apraxia did very well, winning every match decisively and even beating China 5-1.
The U.S. eventually made it to winner’s finals and encountered Poland. They were up 6-1 and had to win only one more map. Then, “destiny” struck as a mixture of nerves and technical issues led to the unthinkable.
Point after point, Poland began catching up. A few players on the U.S. team disconnected. U.S. players failed songs while Poland performed. 4-6, 5-6. Eventually Poland was tied with America and forced them on the tiebreaker map.
Poland kept America at arm’s length and ended up winning the tiebreaker, reverse-sweeping the U.S. from a 6-1 deficit.
“So many things went wrong in the finals,” Apraxia said. “idke for example, his tablet pen just wasn’t working and he didn’t tell any of us. He was just playing maps, and his pen would freeze, and it was really bad. I was having internet issues, and then Toy was having power issues. So, literally everything was going wrong and it was a disaster.”
Winner’s, loser’s and grand finals were all on the same weekend, so the U.S. didn’t have many options for fixing their technical issues.
The day after, U.S.A. beat team U.K. and was set to play Poland the next day.
Their match versus Poland was going well, winning match one 7-3. Then, technical problems started really hurting U.S.A.
Right at the end of game four, two players from the U.S. failed at the last moment. Throughout the games, songs started late and were lagging because of the U.S.’ internet issues.
When America and Poland were tied 5-5, the game froze mid-song, then continued with Apraxia still being frozen.
In the last game of the game, Poland popped off. One of their players full-combod the last song which led to them winning the match and osu! World Cup 2017.
Match two was peppered with technical difficulties on the U.S.’ side.
Despite technical issues, Apraxia said Poland still deserved to win the match.
“Poland did come out on top, and honestly they did deserve it with all the work they put in, and they just went insane honestly,” Apraxia said.
DigitalHypno
However, not all members shared that point of view. One of U.S.A.’s newest teammates, DigitalHypno, chosen for being well-rounded, had a different story to tell.
DigitalHypno is known for being a stronger player than his rank may indicate.
He also has an adorable cat and apparently likes Toblerone.
“I think Monko2k and Axarious were the only two who didn’t really have anything bad happen to them, but they had to sit there and suffer through everyone else around them kinda fall apart in one way or another,” world champion DigitalHypno said. “It was a little rough. I 100% feel like if we were on a level playing field with Poland, there was no way in hell we would have lost. There were a lot of little things that just kinda added up one after another that ultimately led to us losing that year.”
Like Apraxia, DigitalHypno got his first taste of video game competition in osu! He was signed up for a tournament on the last day of 2015, played one match, but due to tournament mismanagement, the tournament was completely cancelled.
His second tournament was also canceled by the organizers, but after that, DigitalHypno found success. He began climbing ranks, performing in tournaments and making a name for himself through various Skype groups.
He found himself on the list of players U.S.A. was considering, but ended up not making the team initially in 2017. However, “destiny” intervened yet again as one of the team’s best players, Vaxei, who is currently the second-highest ranked player in the world, was dealing with a hand injury and stepped down.
Although DigitalHypno said Vaxei was a better player, they are both well-rounded players, so he was a solid stand-in.
In 2017, DigitalHypno ended up playing quite a few maps, but as time went on, he became more of a specialty player. He said he’d usually be one of the main players for a given team, but due to playing with America’s best, he started filling more of a niche role.
“My specialty on this team was my teammates’ weaknesses,” DigitalHypno said.
Regardless, DigitalHypno solidified his position on the team.
osu! World Cup 2018
This year, Vaxei was able to participate. The U.S. had a complete roster and no major technical issues. It was time to see what the team could do on a level playing field. U.S.A.’s redemption arc had begun.
The United States was crushing. They took two 6-0 wins and had a 34-5 record going into winner’s finals.
Like 2017, The United States was facing team U.K. in the finals, this time winner’s finals, not loser’s.
They had a close 7-5 victory over the U.K., but still managed to make it to grand finals undefeated. However, as Toy said, the U.S. had never won a World Cup without a bracket reset.
The U.K. managed to beat Germany and make it to grand finals. They’d have to win two matches in a row to take this year’s championship.
The match began and U.S.A. managed to build up a 3-0 lead with some close wins. The U.K. came back and now the score is tied 3-3.
The match goes back-and-forth and the U.S. finds themselves with a 5-4 lead. Then, once again, “destiny” struck, this time with a side of controversy.
The 10th map loads up and it’s what’s called a double-time map. This means the map is sped up, you guessed it, only 1.5 times faster. The name doesn’t exactly match the description
However, combos are very high and the U.S. is slightly leading the U.K. Despite Vaxei missing early, America maintains their lead.
They go into the break of the song which happens about two-thirds in. Players are now calmly racking up points when the unthinkable happens: the game freezes. The game resumes for all players. All players except Vaxei
Vaxei’s computer had blue-screened.
“The match would have ended 7-4 if not for Vaxei’s bluescreen on the map…,” DigitalHypno said. “Instead, though, the match went to a last map that we lost by a fraction of a hair, then a tiebreaker that was basically unwinnable considering UK’s performance on it. It almost seemed like we were destined to lose the tournament after getting screwed over from a point we should have won — as if our bad luck from OWC 2017 was extending over to 2018 just so we’d never win another world cup.”
This moment was also marked with controversy as even the creator of osu! stepped in.
The U.S. lost the map by little less than 200,000 points. At the time of Vaxei’s disconnect, he had over 300,000, meaning U.S.A. would’ve won even if Vaxei didn’t score any more points.
Apraxia let his anger show.
He asked if the points counted and then exclaimed “he doesn’t get 0 [firetrucking] points.”
Note: osu! automatically censors words.
However, as the rules state, if a player fails a map, their score isn’t counted and a disconnected player is considered to have failed.
The referees explained this, then a referee named mangomizer said “you cannot guarantee he passed the map.”
Although saying one of the best players in the world couldn’t pass that relatively easy map is dubious at best, rules are rules.
This seems to be a simple open-and-shut case. However, there was a new stipulation in 2018’s ruleset.
“Reviving and surviving during a beatmap gets considered as passing it,” states the rules.
Although you still can’t guarantee Vaxei would revive in most cases, this particular map is an exception.
There is a mechanic at the end of the map called a spinner. Basically, you hold down a key and spin your mouse in a circle. A three-year-old can do this. There is no precision required, you just have to make circles with your mouse. You can technically make any shape you want actually, as long as your mouse is constantly going in the same direction.
Due to how that specific map works, if you score literally zero points and then do the spinner, you can still pass.
After team U.S.A. brings this up, osu!’s creator, peppy, steps in with “calm your tits.”
He explains rules exist for a reason and that seems to be the end of it.
After the fateful technical issues, U.S.A. soldiers on. They win the next map, putting them up 6-5.
America picked the last map of that set and the song began. The U.S. held a decent lead. One-by-one, both team’s players dropped combo. Soon, it was just two star players: Vaxei for the U.S. and Bubbleman for the U.K.
Vaxei breaks combo, but the U.S. is over 200,000 points ahead with only a quarter of the map remaining.
The gap begins to decrease slowly, and as DigitalHypno said, it came down to a hair. After the map was over, Bubbleman had full-combod the song.
It takes a second for the score to catch up, so it seemed the U.S. had still won the map. Then, the final tally came in and the U.K. had won by 70 points.
The score was 2,132,691 to 2,132,621. To put that in perspective one extra spin on a spinner is worth 1,000 points. One note’s base value is 300. Taking into account the difficulty, hitting a note at the worst possible timing is still worth more than 70 points.
Sure enough, the tiebreaker match went in the U.K.’s favor and a bracket reset was upon U.S.A. yet again.
Through a series of close games, the U.S. managed a 4-3 lead and replayed the fateful map where Vaxei blue-screened. They found themselves ahead in the map, but one-by-one everyone drops combo except Spare, a player from the U.K.
Spare manages to full-combo and take the win for the U.K. Both teams are tied 4-4.
Game nine happens and the U.S. comes back with a vengeance. All four players get over 1,000-note combos and win.
Game 10 happens and Toy finds himself with a full-combo.
Game 11 is underway and all players find themselves with a high combo. Then, in the middle of the song, one of the U.K. players drops combo while America holds strong. From there, it was history. Apraxia and idke full-combo the final song, leading to a 7-4 victory, a victory robbed once by technical problems.
Despite still being plagued with technical problems, U.S.A. managed to win match two in OWC 2018.
The Most Dominant Performance OWC Will Ever See
However, U.S.A. wasn’t satisfied. The opposite: they were angry. Apraxia especially showed his anger in-game and was not content with his first world championship win.
“It should’ve felt better, but I don’t think it was that great honestly,” Apraxia said.
He said the team went into 2019 with one singular purpose: to dominate.
“For once we were like, ‘we want to absolutely shit on everyone; we want to dominate,’” Apraxia said. “We want everyone to just die. We just want people to think they have no chance. We want the stream to be like so bored when they watch us ‘cause they can’t do anything.”
First thing’s first: the team had to load up their SW4G icons.
“idke’s the one who actually owns those swag glasses [in real life],” DigitalHypno said. “Basically, when Monko2k was editing (making) our avatars for the 2017 collab, he asked idke to take a bunch of pictures of the swag glasses so he could edit them on to everyone’s character. Since then, it’s been a recurring theme in our collabs, since Monko2k has been making our avatar collabs since then.”
Apraxia made sure to practice the last slider of every song.
“We were about to fourway full-combo a map, and then I was like, ‘oh ya, let’s go, we frickin fourway full-combod this bitch,’” Apraxia said. “And then I’m like ‘I’m gonna take a screenshot of this,’ like an in-game screenshot, and then I thought that last slider, like the long one, was the last note, and I took a screenshot and there was another note. And then I missed, and then I ruined the fourway.”
Toy practiced his rolling skills.
“…During tournaments, both team captains will roll a number out of 100 to determine who picks maps first,” Toy said. “My team just likes to fuck around and[,] when I rolled before they wanted me to (arbitrary[,]) they yelled at me when I rolled the literal lowest possible number. It was just some goofing around that turned into people memeing me to the ground for being bad at rolling (literally RNG).”
And finally, idke was bribed with “2 McDonald.”
god im so fucking motivated right now. pic.twitter.com/LW7qnigWGT
— idke (@idkeeeee) December 21, 2019
Going into the osu! World Cup 2019, U.S.A. didn’t expect to win; they expected to crush.
Coincidentally after the Vaxei bluescreen controversy in 2018, players were now allowed to play with No Fail, meaning, they couldn’t fail a song.
Match one versus Turkey: 5-1. Match two versus France: 5-1. Then, “destiny” appeared one last time just to spite America.
Game two of their third match, Australia versus U.S.A., something scary happened. DigitalHypno’s game lagged, causing him to miss a note.
“If my game didn’t lag here we actually would’ve won the map :(,” DigitalHypno said; yes, he included the frowny face. “It literally just froze for no reason.”
However, the technical problems that haunted U.S.A. for two years did not persist. They ended up going 18-0 after that match.
However, this article promised a 25-game win-streak, and the U.S. provided just that.
The first step of preparation is obvious: warming up.
“…Often times, [fieryrage] will map a warmup for us to use (he did this a few times in 2018 as well as 2019),” DigitalHypno said. “For Grand Finals, Fiery said he wanted to make a warmup map for us, but idke basically said [‘]No wait I wanna make a warmup map this time, you do it often enough[.’]”
The rest of the team had no idea what was in store for them.
For warmup maps, the rules are very loose. The only restriction is they can’t have “questionable content,” or be “inappropriate.”
With only a day to make the map, fieryrage and idke had their work cut out. They mapped to their hearts’ content, and right before the match, they informed their team of two things:
Firstly, the map was “technically full-comboable.”
Secondly, no matter what, DigitalHypno will play the last map.
“I wasn’t supposed to be in for that map at all,” DigitalHypno said. “Because of that, I stopped practicing it like days before the match happened. Once I was told by my team that I was going to be put in for the last map no matter what South Korea picked, I basically had 5 minutes to prepare for like half of the mappool which I hadn’t looked at in days.”
Korea picked their warmup map. After finishing the map, something is heard in the background. It almost seems like a mistake.
“Oh say can you…”
Then, the song is cut off.
Everything is silent, then the song starts playing in the background before all players are ready as osu! gives a preview of the song before it’s selected.
As it turns out, fieryrage and idke had been mapping the American National Anthem.
A picture of Donald Trump smiling is seen, and the map starts normally. Twenty seconds in and it seems to be a pretty easy map.
All the casters are silent as the anthem plays.
If you’re paying close attention, the star rating, or difficulty rating is 14.6. A seven-star map is considered challenging and an eight-star map is considered incredibly difficult.
Then, about two minutes in, we see why it’s so difficult.
idke and fieryrage had mapped out the entire American Flag. It spanned the whole screen which meant you had to follow the pattern across the entirety of your monitor for eight seconds.
Every player broke combo.
Then, fantastic pictures were mapped out.
The words of the song were being mapped out, the outline of America was even mapped out.
Stars appeared, a giant pyramid for some reason. Near impossible sequences of notes were introduced, because why not?
Every player had below a 50 percent accuracy, except fieryrage, who was sitting at a cool 51 percent.
Then, for the finale, the two mappers had added their personal touch.
They mapped out in order “OWC,” “GF,” “SK,” then, the South Korean Flag, “VS,” “USA,” and finally, the American Flag.
Then, as a tribute to Apraxia, they inserted the sound effect of him missing the fourway full-combo.
The best moment in the map is the end when we see see the exact part of the infamous map Apraxia missed on, hear him say “yes bitch,” take a screenshot, miss the note… “fuck!”
All eight players missed a combined total of 1,415 notes, with the least amount of misses actually going to Korean player Zeisen-, with only 128 misses.
Team U.S.A. was confident.
“I felt pretty numb going into every match since it didn’t even really feel like we were playing it,” Toy said. “It felt like it didn’t matter how well I did or not because my team was so beast that we’d win each map regardless.”
The first intense moment of grand finals had started right after warmups finished. Toy had been warming his hands up for four hours. The reason: he needed to roll higher than Korea.
Neither team was willing to roll first. The game of chicken had begun.
Over a minute later, Korea succumbs. They roll an impressive 83.
“We lost,” Apraxia typed.
Toy then rolls 12 seconds later. Although he did get better than a one, he only managed a 21, meaning Korea dealt America their first loss.
However, that was the only win Korea would find that day.
To DigitalHypno’s dismay, all four bans were used on maps he had practiced, meaning most likely, he’d only play in the final map of the match.
The match begins with Korea picking the first map, but it doesn’t matter. U.S.A. wins by 450,000 points. Second map, another 450,000-point win. Third map is Korea’s choice and America doubles up, winning by over 800,00 points with Vaxei getting a full combo.
U.S.A. may have won even harder on the third map, but some small technical problems were affecting DigitalHypno.
“…For some reason (and I still don’t know why it was happening), my game had been stuttering pretty badly,” DigitalHypno said. “Because of that, when the map was picked, I explained to my team that my game was stuttering and I didn’t feel comfortable going in because of it. That wasn’t a big deal because Toy was feeling okay on it at the time, so I let him play for me.”
Every map continues in this fashion until the final map, a map DigitalHypno hadn’t practiced for, probably.
To make matters worse, Korea didn’t use strategy to pick the final map, they left the last pick to chance, typing !roll and going with whatever the dice dictated.
The map was selected and, sure enough, the map U.S.A. trolled on was their worst map.
DigitalHypno is the first to drop combo only 140 notes in. However, a few seconds later, two players from South Korea miss with three U.S. players still going strong.
DigitalHypno has built his combo back up and American has formed a small lead. Then, almost at the same time, Digital Hypno and Korean player firebat92 break.
Soon, everyone on Korea has missed and Vaxei and idke are the only ones holding combo. America’s lead is growing.
Then, three players miss. Vaxei alone is holding strong with a 780-note combo. 900, 1,000, 1,100. Vaxei builds up combo and starts closing out the game.
There’s only a quarter of the map left. Victory seems inevitable.
However, all Korean players have over a 500-note combo while only idke and Vaxei have high combos.
The score gap starts slowly closing, but there isn’t enough time left; until Vaxei breaks combo.
At this point, Korea is less than 200,000 points behind America and closing. All Korean players have high combos.
Korea only has 100,000 more points to go. idke has a solid combo and is the last hope for America. Then, firebat92 drops combo.
The result of the match is now unknown.
They’re less than 100,000 points away from victory, but it seems too little, too late.
The song ends, and through a 1,341 combo, Vaxei managed to carry the team, winning by only 35,000 points.
However, they still managed to accomplish their goal of dominating a World Cup.
The U.S. managed to finally win a world cup without bracket resets, controversy, missing players or major technical issues.
“I don’t know if anyone is gonna be able to dominate that hard ever again,” Apraxia said. “[It] probably won’t be like this ever again.”
idke also announced he’d be retiring from tournaments, marking the grand finals with a bittersweet tone.
“I don’t blame him for quitting,” Toy said. “He’s achieved basically all of his goals and now he can rest a legend forever. I may follow suit but who knows a year from now.”
Toy said he hasn’t been able to meet idke in-person to properly celebrate their victory.
“I don’t live near idke, but I do owe him 2 McDonald and plan to follow through when we next see each other.”
