Standings

The top performers over the past three game days are the Kadokawa Sakura Knights.With the news of Sawazaki’s temporary leave from M-League, the rest of the team wanted to prove to Sawazaki that he could count on them to bring the championship plate home. Uchikawa (even though he got a yellow card at the end of his game), Hori and Okada all got 1sts to show their commitment to make Sawazaki proud. The was was able to gain +130.1 and had a record of 3/0/0/1 to move them up to 1st place with a 102.7pts margin over 2nd. As long as the team doesn’t get four lasts in their last four games, they will surely make it to the finals.

The Shibuya Abemas take 2nd place. After the men had some slightly disappointing results in their first three games this quarter, Hinata was sent to get the team back to their winning ways. After a 2nd and a 4th for Hinata earlier in the semifinals, she finally got her 1st win and got the team to net positive. With the 1/2/0/1 record and +17.5pts gain, the team sits in 2nd place. Though the team is 124.5pts from 5th place, they need to make sure that they aren’t reckless. If they do that, they will be in the finals for the fourth time in a row.

Rounding out the gainers are the EX Furinkazan. With Matsugase sitting out after testing positive for COVID-19, Katsumata and Aki were tasked with bringing the team into the top 4. However, neither of them were able to get 1st place. The team’s last game had a big positive, though, with Katsumata winning a haneman to move from 3rd to 2nd to secure a positive result for the quarter. With a 0/3/1/0 and +16.4pts gain, the team is still in 6th place and 83.1pts from a spot in the finals. However, Katsumata’s momentum from the last game might be the thing to get them out of the hole.

Going into the negatives, the Sega Sammy Phoenix take 4th place in the performance rankings. Between Kondo and Uotani, they were able to win 9 hands and deal in 0 times over their three games. Unfortunately, due to a 3rd place for Kondo and a rough game for Kayamori, the team ended up just a bit negative. With a 1/1/1/1 record and a loss of 8.2pts, the team knows that they will have to give it their all to move out of 5th place and make it into the finals.

In 5th place in the performance rankings are the U-Next Pirates. Overall, the team’s performance wasn’t bad. Kobayashi, Asakura and Mizuhara were all in 1st place near the midpoint of the game, but only Kobayashi was able to keep it. Mizuhara was hit by tsumos and a big dealer penalty, while Asakura got caught in an Ishibashi trap and was taken over at the last minute by Katsumata. The team didn’t lose too much, going 1/0/2/1 and dropping -24.4pts, but the team’s margin over 5th place has shrunk to 0.5pts. The team’s composition is at stake, so they will have to fight for their life to hold onto a finals spot and keep their team the way it is.

And finally, in 6th place in the performance rankings, we have the Konami Mahjong Fight Club. Two days of TakiHisa usually brings good results, but it wasn’t meant two be. Hisato called riichi 9 times over his two games and only won 4 hands. Even when he didn’t deal in in his first game, he only got 2nd. With the bad luck , the team went 0/0/2/2 and lost 131.4pts, dropping hard from 1st to 3rd, now only 34.0pts from 5th place.

This Week’s M-League Stats

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That’s all for this quarter! By the end of the week, we will know our four finalists! Can the Sakura Knights, Abemas, Konami and Pirates hold onto their playoff spots, or will the Sega Sammy Phoenix and EX Furinkazan take them away? Will we see more big hands? More comebacks? More yakuman chances? As always, we’ll just have to wait and see!

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