M-League 2021: Mid-Season Review

We’re around halfway through the season and we’ve seen records broken and new players showing their prowess! Today, we’ll take a look at how each team is doing and what they’ll need to do to succeed.

1st: EX Furinkazan (337.2pts)

Record: 13-16-6-9, 337.2pts

As the team that won the M-League 2020 championship, they are carrying the momentum. Even with one of their former team members going to another team and two new members being drafted, the team bond is still strong. In October, The team members were 1st, 2nd 4th and 11th in the individual standings. Matsugase led the pack with his 3-1-1-1 record in his first month in M-League. In November, the team continued to go strong, increasing its lead over the rest of the league. Near the end of the month, they were able to hit the +600.0 point, a feat that took other teams a whole season to do.

In December, though, things started to fall apart. Their their team score was basically cut in half after three straight weeks of negative scores. Even with the fall, they still hold the top spot in the league.

Next Steps

The first thing they have to do is get out of their current slump. The team is on the verge of falling out of 1st place since they took the spot at Game #20. Then, keep doing what they were doing before the slump.

All the players are doing well and can all play in any situation. It would be beneficial for bot Matsugase and Rumi to play a bit more so they have more experience with the players and get a sense of how her opponents play. If they do that, they will be able to confidently face their opponents when they make the playoffs.

2nd: Konami Mahjong Fight Club (+299.5)

Record: 16-6-10-12, 299.5pts

In the off-season, the Konami Mahjong Fight Club picked up two new members: Date Arisa and Takizawa Kazunori. Filling the spots left behind by two mahjong greats (Maehara Yudai and Fujisaki Satoshi), they were sure to do them proud. Date Arisa has had an amazing season, being top spot in the individual standings, having the highest score in a single hanchan and only having one loss this season. Takizawa has improved greatly when compared to this point last season, reducing his 4th place rate from 33% to 18% and increasing his score by 70.9pts. Sasaki is still doing better than a third of the league and Takamiya has 152.1 more points than she had at this point last year.

Despite having a rough start the first two weeks, the team was able to make the positives by the end of October. In November, the team brought their A-game. Date had her record-breaking 105,500 performance on the 18th, her 3rd win in a row on the 25th. Takizawa got three wins as well and the team was the best performing team of the month with their 8-2-4-5 record and 257.4 point gain.

Next Steps

Last season, the suggestion was to send Sasaki on days that ended with a Y. This season, Date should be sent out on every date possible.

Kidding aside, there’s no need to change anything they’re doing. They need to keep going strong, pass the EX Furinkazan and take a big lead. They do need to be careful not to overextend themselves, however. If history is an indicator, they need to save some energy so they don’t fail in the playoffs again.

They are decently ahead of the rest of the teams, so they should let Sasaki and Takamiya play a bit more so they can find some positive momentum. If things spin out of control, Date and Takizawa can get things back in order again.

3rd: Kadokawa Sakura Knights (118.0pts)

Record: 12-12-10-10, 118.0pts

After the Kadokawa Sakura Knights finished 2nd in last year’s finals, some disappointment fell over the team. At the start of the season, the team failed to gain any big points. They were down one week, up one week, up one week, down one week. Hovering around the 0 mark actually helped them from falling too far down in the rankings. With the first month over, they started to improve in November. On Week 7, they had their best performance of +111.4, though they lost some of it in Week 9 when they had a -99.6 point loss. So far this December, the team has gotten two 50.0+ weeks and have risen to 3rd place.

Next Steps

The team is somewhere between the lead group and the trailing group. The goal of the team will determine how the team plays. If the team just wants to confirm getting into the semifinals, then they need to target the lowest teams. If they want to get to the top and comfortably get into the finals if they make the semifinals, they need to target the teams above them.

If the team is going to do well, all team members have to do well. With the teams current point total, they can afford to send Okada out until she can hit her stride. Once that happens, the team can rake in the points and have the chance to make it to the top of the standings and succeed in the playoffs.

4th: Shibuya Abemas (56.1pts)

Record: 10-11-16-7, 56.1pts

At the start of the 2020 finals, the Shibuya Abemas were at the top of the standings. By the end, they dropped down to the irritatingly familiar 3rd place.

The team flip-flopped a bit at the start of the 2021 season. Whatever they gained, they lost. Whatever they lost, they gained. The team would have gotten more points, but Matsumoto kept getting passed at the last second. Ooi did well, Shiratori struggled a bit and Hinata couldn’t get a 1st or 2nd after her first game. They hit a big snag on Week 7 when they got a record of 0-0-3-1 and a -93.7 loss during Konami’s big break. On Week 9, they regained a lot of points when Matsumoto got his first 1st since the start of the season with their +139.0 week. In the most recent week, Hinata has won her first game of the season and brought the team into the positives.

Next Steps

The Shibuya Abemas have been strong since the very start of M-League. Though they are a bit lower that they were last season, they are still in a good spot. They should be aware of their relative placement if they want to beat their 3rd place curse. If they want to do that, they have to target the teams above them.

Matsumoto has been doing extremely well this season. If it weren’t for players passing him in South 4, the 2nds he has would be 1sts. With Hinata recently winning her first game this season, she along with Shiratori and Ooi can provide strong support with Matsumoto taking the lead.

5th: U-Next Pirates (33.0pts)

Record: 9-15-11-9, 33.0pts

In the 2020 season, the U-Next Pirates failed to make it to the semifinals after being the team that won the championship in 2019. With the new rule that if a team with the same composition fails to make the finals two years in a row, the Pirates are at risk of breaking up their championship-winning lineup.

In October, we saw the Pirates that we were familiar with: 4th place avoidance, but failing to get 1sts. With the 2nds and 3rds, they didn’t gain or lose too many points. With each week, they gained no more than +50.0 and lost no less than -50.0. By the end of the month, they were in the positives at +3.1 (which is better than the 2020 season when they never saw the positives).

The start of November was a small rough patch for the team, having 3 weeks of negatives (including a -88.2 and -113.1). Asakura suffered the most, getting 3 losses in a row. But as the months changed, so did the team’s fortune. The team kept winning, getting three straight weeks of positives. Their +124.2 in Week 9 gave them a big push forward and Week 10’s +86.0 gave them the title of the best team of the week.

Next Steps

The Pirates are in an interesting position. As the only team that can be forced to drop a player if they don’t make the finals, they have the most to lose. Though they are in 5th place and in the positives, they aren’t exactly in a comfortable spot.

Asakura and Mizuhara have been doing exceptionally well and should be the aces of the team. Kobayashi has been in a bit of a slump in terms of getting points, but he has done quite well in terms of positional play. He should be sent out more often at the end of the season to ensure that they end the season in a good spot. Despite Ishibashi being very enjoyable to watch, his risky plays could be problematic and thus be sent out less often.

6th: Sega Sammy Phoenix (-79.6pts)

Record: 9-12-13-10, -79.6pts

After being 2nd place in the 2019 season and a big drop to 8th place last season, the team decided to drop Wakutsu Akira and draft Tojo Rio this season. After a rough first week, the team got it together and started earning big points, being 1st place momentarily after Game 19. Newcomer Tojo got a 2nd in her first game and a incredible 77,200 in her second game.

As October turned to November, things started to drop off for the team. Tojo went on a 3-game 4th streak and the team got -156.3pts and -106.4pts in their first two weeks of the month. After the tumble, the team slowly regained the points with a 4-week positive streak. With a big comeback by Kayamori and some luck, the team is currently going 20 games without a 4th.

Next Steps

With the middle of the standings currently quite close, a little targeting can prove to be valuable. The more teams they have below them, the more padding they have. With the team’s current 4th-place avoidance streak, they shouldn’t have a problem of dropping down hard.

There’s no need to prioritize any player to play, though certain situations are best handled by certain players. Kayamori had a really good comeback, Tojo was able to get the 3rd highest score this season and Kondo has avoided last place in his past 7 games.

7th: Akasaka Drivens (-186.6pts)

Record: 12-8-10-14, -186.6pts

In the 2020 finals, a controversial play by Murakami cemented the team’s 4th place standing while affecting the placement of the other teams. Going into the 2021 season, it seemed like the albatross was stuck on Murakami’s neck, even if he or the rest of the team didn’t think so. Though the team didn’t falter too much at the beginning, it was much more noticeable in Week 4. Four losses in the week resulted in a drop of -246.0 and firmly put them into 8th with a score of -310.0.

In the first week of November, Maruyama, Taro and Sonoda broke their own curse. The three of them collectively got three firsts for the team, they broke a 39-hand winless streak and made the team the top performer of the week. Murakami’s suffering only continued that week, however. With a loss that week, Murakami was on a 5-game 4th streak and went down to a score of -360.9 (and became the centre of some satire articles). Then, on Week 6, Murakami broke his curse and won his first game of the season. The team went on to win that week as well and almost get the team back to the positives.

After their temporary high, the team got into trouble again, having trouble getting 1sts and losing points for three straight weeks. In the most recent week, the Akasaka Drivens flipped again and were the best performer, slowly making their way back up again.

Next Steps

The very rough patch that they hit in the beginning put them in a hole, but they are climbing out. They should keep playing the style that they’re playing and get to the positives. Once they’ve done that, they can reassess the situation and see if they need to be more or less aggressive to confirm a spot in the semifinals.

As always, the team should send Maruyama out more often. She has proved that she can play well and get the team points. Despite Murakami’s current point situation, he isn’t a detriment to the team and has shown decent improvement in his more recent games. With Maruyama playing a bit more and everyone else playing equally, they should do well.

8th: Team Raiden (-577.6pts)

Record: 8-9-10-17, -577.6pts

With Team Raiden’s highest finish ever being 6th place, the team wanted to improve their chances of at least making the finals by getting a 4th player. Their choice was Honda Tomohiro, the runner up in the EX Furinkazan Member Audition and the winner of the 10th and 11th Grand Prix MAX.

In the very first week of M-League 2021, they had an extremely good performance, getting a record of 3-0-0-1 and a score of 131.8pts, winning the week and being at the top of the standings. Afterwards, however, things started to go downhill. They went below 0 in week 3 and kept going down. They were the worst performer for three weeks and have had a negative week 10 out of the 12 weeks this season.

Perhaps one of the few highlights of the season is Hagiwara’s improvement. His very first game was a win and compared to the last two seasons, his play and score have improved so that he’s no longer at the bottom of the standings.

Next Steps

The obvious next steps for the team is to earn some points. Any points will do. However, positional play from here on out will be very important as well. If they hit the EX Furinkazan or Konami MFC, they can make some progress to get to 6th place. However, hitting the Drivens or the Phoenix would double their progress since Team Raiden would move up as the other team moves down.

In terms of players to send out, Hagiwara’s aggressive nature will be helpful in getting a lot of points, even if a bit risky. Kurosawa is always a good choice, but her low-call strategy is a losing strategy against the calling style of the Pirates, as well as against Date. As for Setokuma and Honda, they can be sent out to give the other two a rest when they need it.