August 15th—a date that for most Italians means packed beaches and summer holidays—marked the start of qualifiers for one of the events the Osu! community looked forward to the most: The Roundtable, organized by BTMC.
The tournament shared its name with the team he had founded himself, a group that wasn't about competing but had become a real cornerstone of the community.
It wasn't a tournament team; it was a digital family, with BTMC at the head.
Sign-ups for qualifiers had opened back in April, and I had registered, buzzing with excitement at the thought of playing in something so prestigious.
The catch was that the finals were going to be a LAN event from September 6th to 8th in Las Vegas—a brand-new venue.
The first two editions had been held in Los Angeles, but Osu!'s rising popularity had drawn more and more sponsors and viewers.
BTMC realized the old location had gotten too small and they needed somewhere bigger.
So he moved it to Las Vegas, tying it to LVL UP EXPO, a convention focused on video games, anime, and comics.
By the time the finals rolled around, I would either already be in Japan—like I was hoping with everything I had—or about to leave.
There was no way I would find time to swing by Las Vegas.
Plus, once I got to Japan, Nijiro and I still had to tick off the rest of the list he hadn't told me about yet.
I reached out to BTMC. I sent him a private message asking if he had a minute to talk, knowing how slammed he was with prep.
I owed him that much—I had seen him hyping the community by announcing that the Osu! World Cup winner, me, was going to be there.
I didn't want to let him or the community down without even giving a heads-up.
I got into the Mathew è Storto voice channel to wait for him. That way, as soon as he was free, he could join without my having to call him.
"Hey BTMC," I said the second he connected.
"Hey Christian, how's it going? Saw your message—is something up?" he answered, sounding tired but still riding the high of the weeks ahead.
I laid it all out for him: the Certificate of Eligibility on its way, the visa, the flight to Tokyo, the complete impossibility of stopping in Las Vegas.
While I was talking, Nijiro joined the call and stayed quiet, just listening.
"Hmm, that's a rough one," BTMC said once he had taken it all in.
As he thought it over, he added, "Still, you're unbelievable. Who'd have thought you'd pull off moving to Japan this fast?"
"Anyway, at least play the qualifiers," he said finally. "You know how much it means for Osu!—and for my tournament—if you're in it. It'd bring a ton of eyes."
He was right. Osu! needed to grow. It had an incredibly passionate community and real LAN tournaments, but it was still stuck in a niche compared to giants like League of Legends or Valorant.
"Okay," I agreed, feeling a little lighter. "But I can't do the finals, even if I qualify."
"Shame," BTMC sighed, a hint of sadness in his voice. "Everything would've been covered—flight, hotel, five days of vacation in the States."
"You trying to talk me into it or what?" I shot back with a laugh, and he laughed too.
That's when Nijiro finally spoke up. "Hey guys, I've got an idea."
We all went quiet. "Since Christian will probably already be in Japan by the time the tournament happens, we could do the commentary together."
"If he's still in Italy, he can stream from home and I'll hop on too to boost the numbers," he added, finishing the pitch.
"Hell yeah, Nijiro!" BTMC shouted, so pumped his mic clipped. "That'll give us maximum exposure!"
"Having you as a commentator is wild! Millions of your fans would tune in and discover Osu!," he said, running a hand through his hair.
"Christian, you break down the high-diff maps; Nijiro, you bring the hype… it's perfect!" he finished, his face lighting up like he could already see the whole thing unfolding.
The plan was set: I would give commentating a shot—a role I had never tried before.
I wasn't sure I would be any good at it, but I knew that with Nijiro and BTMC alongside me, I would have fun and do my part well.
I was also hoping BTMC would give me a few pointers before the September 5th stream started—maybe on how to speak more clearly, enunciating every word, or how to keep the energy up.
By now, BTMC had become a pro commentator, thanks to all the World Cups and Roundtables he had casted.
Later that day, at exactly 7 p.m., the open qualifiers kicked off.
The tournament was split into two brackets. Everyone started in the upper bracket; lose once and you dropped to the lower.
In the lower bracket, one more loss meant elimination.
The goal was to win your bracket and advance to the closed qualifiers, where only the top 16 would fly to Las Vegas.
My bracket was manageable—definitely not one of the toughest, like Mrekk's, who had to face Accolibed—currently fifth in the world—and NyanPotato—currently eighth.
I only had two top-50 players: Vudek, ranked 44th, and FlyingTuna, 28th, whom I would play the next day.
On the first day, I swept everyone I faced.
Most of them were casual players who were just in it for fun and couldn't keep up even on 7-star maps, while I was playing 11-star ones.
The next day, I only ended up facing FlyingTuna—Vudek had been knocked out by some top-250 guy, sending the community into a frenzy.
FlyingTuna had qualified for Worlds back in July, but I had never spoken to him because I didn't want to bother him.
He was on Team Bungalow with Mrekk and Ninerik, so I knew better than to underestimate him.
The open qualifiers were best-of-five maps, while the closed qualifiers switched to best-of-seven for the round of 16 and quarterfinals, and best-of-nine from the semifinals onward.
On top of that, this tournament had a fixed map pool—no picking your favorites freely.
BTMC had come up with the system from the very first edition, convinced it was the best way.
That meant everyone knew the tournament maps ahead of time and could practice them in case they got picked.
Thanks to how well BTMC's map selection system had worked in past Roundtables, rumors were swirling that the 2026 Osu! World Cup would finally introduce a map pool.
It hadn't been officially announced by the staff yet, but most of the community was sure they were working on it.
The match ended 3-1 in my favor. I only dropped one round on a map I had never played before—one with a tricky pattern that played right into FlyingTuna's strengths.
The win got me into the closed bracket, but it left a bad taste in my mouth.
"Did it even make sense to keep going?" I wondered, staring at the screen that read: "Winner – Pantera Grigia".
If I stayed in, I would just be blocking FlyingTuna from qualifying for finals I couldn't even attend.
In the end, I decided to drop out and let FlyingTuna take my spot in the closed bracket.
That same night, after BTMC wrapped his stream, I sent him a private message on Discord.
«I'm calling it here, playing was a blast,» I started typing. «I'll give my spot to FlyingTuna, maybe he can even make it to finals.»
BTMC replied almost right away: «Got it, I get why you wanna give the spot to FlyingTuna. Not everyone would make a call like that, it says a lot about you.»
Then he added in another message: «I'll let him know now. Wanna cast the closed bracket with me?»
«Nah, tomorrow I'm just gonna kick back and watch,» I answered. «I'll probably root for FlyingTuna since I handed him the chance.»
«Alright, thanks for at least playing the open quals,» BTMC wrapped up, then jumped straight into a private chat with FlyingTuna.
The third and final day of qualifiers rolled in on August 17th, and things had gotten serious.
The players were all strong—nothing like the open qualifiers, which were open to anyone who felt like jumping in.
The closed bracket worked completely differently from the open one.
The goal was to win as many of the ten matches as possible. The top sixteen players with the most victories would qualify for the finals.
That day I decided to stream for a few hours in the early afternoon and rest in the evening.
After saying goodbye to chat, I leaned back in my adjustable office chair and followed the tournament on my second monitor.
It was a ROG 4K IPS—picked mainly for keeping an eye on chat, since before that I had been checking it on my phone.
I had gone for that super-high resolution mostly because I didn't want it just for Twitch; I wanted to watch anime and YouTube videos too.
At midnight, after five straight hours of matches, every player had finally finished their ten games, and BTMC pulled up the leaderboard on stream.
Top of the list was, of course, Mrekk: ten matches, ten wins. Unstoppable.
Second place went to a name I had never heard before: Toro.
He hadn't made Worlds, so I didn't know him at all, but he left me stunned right away.
"Why are they showing him instead of Ninerik?" I had wondered during the tournament when BTMC decided to feature Toro's match.
It only took a few seconds to be blown away by how good he was.
Since I had been out of the Osu! scene lately—busy grinding Fortnite—I only found out then that Toro was third in the world rankings.
"Top 3?!" I blurted out. "Okay, now I get why he's so insane."
Just a few months earlier he hadn't even cracked the top 50, but that summer he had trained so hard his rise had been lightning-fast, shooting him up to the elite in no time.
While Toro was playing his seventh match live on stream, BTMC shared an interesting tidbit I hadn't known.
"What you're watching right now is a new prodigy in the Osu! scene: Toro," BTMC said.
"In recent weeks the community has turned on him, accusing him of cheating because of how many PP he's racked up in such a short time," he went on, leaving me floored.
PP stood for Performance Points—the more you had, the higher you ranked globally.
Back in July, during the Osu! World Cup matches, I had even managed to pass Mrekk: I had 31,750 PP to his 31,440.
"But he's not cheating," I thought as BTMC spoke. "Any pro player can tell the cursor's being moved by a human."
"Before he played the tournament we checked his PC," BTMC added. "We're certain: it's 100% clean."
FlyingTuna qualified for finals too, and I couldn't help feeling happy for him.
"Good thing I gave him my spot—at least now he can go to Las Vegas without paying a thing," I thought, nodding to myself, satisfied with the smart choice I had made.
With the qualifiers for finals wrapped up, it was time to focus on the last preparations for Japan.
"Christian, start getting ready—if everything goes smoothly, the CoE should arrive in a few weeks," Nijiro had told me that same night. And I couldn't contain my excitement anymore.