M-League 2022-23 Finals: The Teams

The M-League 2022-23 Finals begin on May 8! Today, we’ll take a look at which teams will be playing, how they got here and what they will need to do to succeed.

1. EX Furinkazan

Regular Season: +586.1pts (2nd, 26/29/18/21)

At the very start of the season, the EX Furinkazan started to fall quickly. After three weeks, they were already -200.0pts. From there, they started to slowly and surely gain points. By the end of 2022, they were at +250.0pts, +300.0pts soon after, +400.0pts a week after that and +500.0pts two weeks after that. They tried to fight hard against the Konami Mahjong Fight Club to take 1st place in the regular season, but they just missed. However, Katsumata was able to take the 4th place avoidance award, the team’s first individual award winner since the league’s first season.

Semifinals: +290.4pts (Net -2.7pts, 5/3/9/3)

For the first half of the semifinals, the team’s had trouble getting gains. In their first 10 games, they had only one 1st and a six 3rds. Dropping by -150.0pts, they had fallen down to 3rd. After this humbling drop, they started putting their guard back up and started playing as they did in the regular season. During the second half, they only had a single 4th and got good gains with their four 1sts. On May 2nd, Matsugase and Katsumata, the two players who did the bulk of the work in the semifinals, got back-to-back wins. By the end of the semifinals, they erased almost all the losses they had in the first half and took back the top spot.

Going into the Finals: +145.2pts

Going into these finals, the EX Furinkazan is the only team to have previous won a championship, doing so in the 2020-21 season. Though the team may look a bit different this time around, they have a tournament winner and the power of sisterhood on their side.

One thing that the team should focus on is avoiding 4th place. If they don’t lose too many points, then it will be harder for other teams to catch up. With Katsumata winning the 4th place avoidance award and also avoiding 4th during his six games in the semifinals, he is the man of the hour.

Even with Katsumata’s proven skill and experience, the other players should not be ignored. Aki has experience from been with the team since the very beginning, Matsugase had strong results in the regular season and Rumi has been able to get big wins when it counts. With the teams current lead and players for any scenario, the team has a chance to win its second championship in just three years.

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2. Shibuya Abemas

Regular Season: +55.6pts (3rd, 21/29/24/20)

The started off with a very strong start to the season, rising up to +500.0pts around the start of November. Unfortunately, the strong start couldn’t be sustained and the team started falling. After the big start at the beginning, they had erased those gains and went into the negatives by mid February. Once they hit the negatives, they started to reverse and aimed to finish the regular season strong. With a strong rentai rate at the end of the season, they ended up positive and finished in 3rd place.

Semifinals: +266.6pts (Net +238.8pts, 8/4/3/5)

With the team’s fourth appearance in the semifinals, they were all too familiar with the procedure. As such, they knew well what to expect and how to play. They chose the right hands and pushed at the right times. With their ability to gain points, their hand value on average were worth a mangan, pushing them to win games despite having the second-lowest win rate. After their first 12 games, they gained over +100.0pts to move them into a good positive spot and put them over +100.0pts over 5th place. The team continued to gain points in the last two fifths of the semifinals and were the top performer, doubling their score and finishing in 2nd place. The top player for the team was Shiratori who played 8 games and was the second-highest scorer in the league during the semis.

Going into the Finals: +133.3pts

Five years, five finals. Time to not get 3rd.

With their years of semifinals experience, the results were seen bright as day and they were the best performing team in the semifinals, gaining +238.8pts over 20 games. What they need to do is convert their finals experience into results. They have played 60 finals games, infinitely more than Team Raiden. Time to display their wisdom.

In terms of players, they again showed their results through the semifinals and through the past few finals. As long as they don’t over-rely on Ooi, they should do well. They had Ooi play the most games in the 2018-19 finals, the 2019-20 finals, the 2020-21 finals and in the 2021-22 finals to some degree. In all of those years, Ooi was negative and the team finished 3rd. Ooi can still play, but shouldn’t be the main focus to prevent fatigue. Trust the others, work as a team and they may be rewarded with a plate.

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3. Team Raiden

Regular Season: -42.4pts (5th, 26/21/21/26)

After an extremely rough 2021-22 season, Team Raiden wanted to reverse course, make the finals and keep the team. Thought they didn’t start off with a gigantic jump, they still started out with a respectable positive gain, something they hadn’t seen with in about a year. On the 6th week, Kurosawa impressed the whole league with her famous 112,700 win. The team lost points after this, but Honda started to win. As the season went on, Honda kept winning and winning and winning, eventually getting to 13 wins at the end of the season. With Honda’s wins and support from the rest of the team, they finished the season more than 1000pts better than last season, finishing 5th in the standings.

Semifinals: +173.8pts (Net +195.0pts, 5/7/6/2)

The team knew that keeping the group together depended solely on their ability to advance to the finals. With the threat of separation, they needed to win 1sts and avoid 4ths. That’s exactly what they did. In the first half of the semifinals, Hagiwara was in the hospital, so the pressure was on the other three players. All three of them were able to get 1sts, including a 75,900 from Setokuma to be the highest-scoring game in the semis. After their first 10 games, they jumped all the way up from 5th to 2nd. With Hagiwara’s return to the pitch for the second half, the team continued to slowly gain points (including a 1st from Hagiwara), settling down in 5th place with a score of +173.8pts.

Going into the Finals: +86.9pts

This is the team’s first finals in its history. After four years, they are finally here. With this build up and excitement, they are the team with the greatest amount of adrenaline in their system. We saw some of that energy in the semifinals and now it is time to bring even more energy into the finals.

This season, there has been a very positive and noticeable improvement in Hagiwara’s play. In the semifinals, he had the lowest deal-in rate and chose when he would push very carefully. Being the team captain and with the greatest energy to finally win, him being the star of the team could benefit the team. With the three others there as support,

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4. Konami Mahjong Fight Club

Regular Season: +592.2pts (1st, 28/24/21/21)

The regular season for the Konami Mahjong Fight Club last season was good and they wanted to do even better. From day one with Date’s suuankou win during a public viewing, the team impressed fans and supporters. Each player seemed to improve with each game and each climbed closer to the top of the individual standings. At the start of January, the team was 1st overall and Date was nearing the top. After a hard-fought battle against the other top players, Date managed to end up on top and win the MVP award and the team at 2nd place overall.

Semifinals: +172.8pts (Net -123.3pts, 3/7/5/5)

Finishing in 1st place in the regular season, the Konami Mahjong Fight Club had high hopes for the finals. Unfortunately, they were unable to convert those hopes into points. The team was only able to get three 1sts in the whole semifinals, with one of those 1sts being a tie. They had the lowest deal-in rate and the second-highest win rate, but the value of their hand’s weren’t high enough to give them good placements. However, their performance in the last day and the big lead they started the semis with, the team still finish with a playoff spot,

Going into the Finals: +86.4pts

Starting the finals in the 4th place position, the Konami Mahjong Fight Club is in the same place as the 2018-19 Drivens, the 2019-20 Pirates and 2020-21 EX Furinkazan. The Konami Mahjong Fight Club is your newest champion.

In all seriousness, starting the finals in 4th place, like starting South 4 in last place, offers a unique opportunity to be more aggressive that you would usually be. Taking that into account along with the increased energy to get out of 4th, the team may be as strong as they are unpredictable.

Besides Takizawa, all of the Konami members did well in the regular season, meaning they can all go out equally. However, Takizawa can offer a great service to the team besides play. As a member of the championship-winning 2020-21 EX Furinkazan, he knows some of their plays, their motiviations and their biases. With such information, the team may be able to get an edge over their opponents. If they can have their winning ways from the regular season back and this insider information, Takizawa can be the first player to win the championship twice and lead the Konami Mahjong Fight Club to win their first-ever championship.