Standings

The top performer this week is the Shibuya Abemas. Two positives for the first two games of the week, two 1sts, including a win for Ooi’s 100th regular season win in his M-League career, to end off the week. Even With the +122.4 gain and 2/2/0/0 record, they move up to 1st place overall for the first time since Game 3 at the start of the season, setting themselves up to secure a playoff position.

In 2nd place are the Sega Sammy Phoenix. The Sega Sammy Phoenix reversal continues this with a solid 2/1/1/0 record and a +89.5 gain. Leading the way are Kondo and Kayamori, increasing 1st count by 1. In just two weeks, the team has gone from -39.7 and in 7th place to +126.4 and in 4th place.

In second in the performance rankings are the EX Furinkazan. Two 1sts to start off the week is always a good thing, and Aki and Matsugase did just that on Monday. After Game 142, they were just 15.8 points off of 1st place. They didn’t end off the week as strong, but the 2/1/0/1 record and +81.1 put them into a safer position for making it to the semifinals.

The Akasaka Drivens are the last positive team and 4th in the performance rankings. The team is currently fighting for a playoff spot and they did a decent job in making progress. Murakami was able to get a big 1st for the first game of the week, and they got 2nds from Sonoda and Taro to boost the score. And though Taro did get a 4th, the team still ended with a 1/2/0/1 record and a decent gain of +36.3. The bad news is that 6th place also gained points and the distance to a playoff spot only shrank from 153.2 to 151.7 points. They will have to get big positive points and some targeting to get closer to 6th.

Going into the negatives, the Konami Mahjong Fight Club take 5th place in the performance rankings. Struggling Sasaki started the week with a 4th and the baton was passed to Takamiya. She got a 3rd at first, then she got a big win of +84.5, her best win of the season, to erase the losses of earlier this week. The team ended the week with a 3rd and had a 1/0/2/1 record, but the big win from Takamiya allowed the team to only get -0.6.

In 6th place are the Kadokawa Sakura Knights. Their big losses from last week ended up continuing through this week. Unable to get 1st place for another week, the team had a 0/2/1/1 record and a loss of -37.3. The team falls down to 6th place, just in a playoff spot. The best plan for the team is to win, but they also need to focus on not losing points to the Akasaka Drivens.

U-Next Pirates are 7th in the performance rankings. After a few weeks away, Ishibashi and Asakura returned to playing. However, no mercy was shown toward them and they got a 3rd and 4th, respectively. Though Mizuhara and Kobayashi tried and got close to doing well, neither of them were able to get to get into the win column. With the 0/0/2/2 record and -144.0 loss, the U-Next Pirates fall out of 1st place for the first time in 2.5 weeks, going down to 2nd.

And finally, in last place, we have Team Raiden. Breaking barriers is usually a good thing, but not in this case. Setokuma is now last place in the individual standings and the best-ranked Raiden player is in 26th place. With the 0/0/2/2 record and -147.4 loss, the team goes below -1000.0 and discovers a new smaller font. This is the team’s 9th week in a row of negative results, 16th out of the 18 weeks of M-League play.

This Week’s M-League Stats

That’s all for this week! Only 4 more weeks of play before the end of the 2021 regular season! Can the U-Next Pirates take back their 1st place spot, or will the Shibuya Abemas preserve their position? Will the Akasaka Drivens make their way into the top 6? Can the Kadokawa Sakura Knights defend their spot? As always, we’ll just have to wait and see!

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