M-League Watch

We’re midway through the regular season and we’ve seen a lot of drama and excitement. Today, we’ll look at the progress of each team and what they need to do going forward to succeed.

1st: EX Furinkazan (336.4pts)

Record: 13-16-3-12, 336.4pts

As one of two teams that only have three players, they have made sure not to dilute their power. Coming off of being 8th out of 8 teams last season, the EX Furinkazan sure have gotten fired up. They are the only team to have never gone to the negatives and have been in 1st place in the standings the longest. The combination of both the highest win rate and the lowest deal-in rate in the league has really paid dividends for them.

In the first three weeks, the EX Furinkazan stayed in the low positives, but then shot up in week 4. They reached a peak of 437.6pts in week 6, but have since slipped a bit to be where they are now.

Leading the team effort is Nikaido Aki, whose 1st places were all big wins. 3/4 of her 1sts were above 48,000 and she has a 77% rentai (1st and 2nd) rate.

Next Steps

With a lead and consistently good performance, the EX Furinkazan should continue their good work, but try to get some stricter fourth place avoidance. If faced with a position where they have to choose between chance at 2nd with a slim chance at being 4th, or to take a 3rd, always take the 3rd. Their goal in the second half of the regular season is to be in a comfortable position so they don’t have to be desperate in the semis.

2nd: Shibuya Abemas (267.8pts)

Record: 12-13-10-9, 267.8pts

Having a team with all four players in the positives is impressive. For the Shibuya Abemas, it’s from having a well balanced and reliable team that they’ve gotten here.

For the first 5 weeks of season, the Shibuya Abemas were hovering around the 0 border, being above it one week and below the next. The moment they went below -100.0pts, the team started to jump into high gear. They started winning more and more games. Their highlight week was in week 7, when Matsumoto won a suuankou and the team won 3 out of their 4 games that week. From that week alone, they won 194.8pts. Their results peaked in week 9, where they reached a high score of 376.4pts.

Matsumoto leads the team in points with 267.8pts, having won the yakuman in week 7 and didn’t have a 4th place until week 10.

Next Steps

With Ooi recently winning the Saikyousen, having the third-lowest deal-in rate and having a high positive score for the past two seasons, it’s surprising that he isn’t being sent to play more often. Even though he has four 4ths, many of those were bad luck deal-ins during riichi.

Other than that, keep winning big hands and keep everyone playing.

3rd: Konami Mahjong Fight Club (130.5pts)

Record: 15-5-15-9, 130.5pts

Having a powerhouse player can keep a team afloat during times of turbulence. In Konami’s case, Sasaki is that powerhouse. His scores help keep the team afloat, with Takamiya struggling to find her footing, having being either 1st or 2nd for only 10% of her games.

For Konami, they struggled in the early part of the season, breaking the -100.0pts barrier early in week 2 and was almost at -200.0pts near the end of the week. This was the week that Sasaki got his only last so far this season, dealing in an honour tile into an unfortunate dealer haneman and dealt in twice while he was in riichi. With some help of some big wins from Sasaki, Konami started to take their team score higher, with Sasaki’s 1sts outweighing the 3rds and 4ths of the rest of the team.

November was the month that things really started to turn around. Fujisaki won 3/4 of his games to take the top player of the month and Sasaki taking 2nd spot of the month by winning 3 of his games as well.

In December, it was more Sasaki, winning two more games to bring his win count to 8. For reference, he has more wins than the entire U-Next Pirates team combined.

Next Steps

Send Sasaki on days that end with a Y. That’s it.

In all seriousness, rely on Sasaki but don’t wear him out. Fujisaki and Maehara provide good results too, but they sometimes have their off days.

Don’t send Takamiya out much and don’t let her play against EX Furinkazan. 4 times out of 6, the Furinkazan have beat her and she has placed either 3rd or 4th against them every time.

4th: Kadokawa Sakura Knights (-65.3pts)

Record: 11-11-9-13, -65.3pts

The Kadokawa Sakura Knights are an interesting case. They either win big or they slowly slide down. They aren’t the best at anything, they aren’t the worst at anything. Everything in their gameplay is sort of average.

In the month of October, they were off to a great start. They went 4-1-2-1 for the first two weeks of the season, taking the top spot at the end of the 2nd week. Then things started to go downhill. They lost points in 6 out of the next 7 weeks, hitting a low of -297.7pts and taking last place at the end of week 9. With a Maehara win and Uchikawa’s record-breaking +96.7, they made triple-digit gains in week 10 and made another triple-digit gain in week 11, almost getting them back to the positives.

Newcomer Hori Shingo leads the crew with a 4-4-3-2 record and 92.3pts.

Next Steps

Despite the stats, Okada is playing relatively well this season. Interestingly enough, all three of her 4ths were against Suzuki Taro. Riichi is her superpower, with just over 63% of her hands won through riichi and taking in a lot of tenpai payments.

Being from NPM and new to the league, let Hori play more games. The more games he plays, the more exposure he gets to the other players from other organization and the more he learns about their strategies.

5th: Team Raiden (-77.4pts)

Record: 9-11-15-9, -77.4pts

The Raiden story is the complete opposite of the Drivens story. Team Raiden started out very low during the first 9 weeks of the season. Much of the points loss was due to Hagiwara making a few reckless pushes and some bad luck causing him to never get 1st place.

Their luck changed in the middle of week 10, when Kurosawa and Setokuma both got 1st to cut their deficit by almost half. Going into week 11, Kurosawa has a record-breaking 101.3pt performance to get them within a 1st of the positives.

Placing 6th and 7th in the overall individual standings are Setokuma and Kurosawa. Combined, they have a 4th place avoidance rate above 90%.

Next Steps

In theory, because each player must play a minimum of 10 games and a maximum of 45, they can just sit Hagiwara out for the rest of the season and just send out Setokuma and Kurosawa. However, because he’s the team’s first draft pick and a fan favourite, they won’t do that. The next best choice would be to send Hagiwara against teams at the top of the rankings.

It may sound like a bad idea, but there is some logic behind it. If Hagiwara loses against teams at the bottom of the rankings, then the change is doubled. For example, if two teams are at -300, and one gets +50pts and the other gets -50pts, the the point difference between them would be 100pts. By placing him with better teams, at least a -60pt or -70 pt performance would be just that.

6th: Akasaka Drivens (-82.5pts)

Record: 10-11-12-11, -82.5pts

The Akasaka Drivens had gotten to a really good start at the start of the season, led mostly by the efforts of Murakami Jun and Suzuki Taro. They were in 1st place for 2 whole weeks and had been top 3 for the first 8 weeks of the season. However, everything started to go downhill after the 8th week.

For the first 4 weeks of the season, both Murakami Jun and Suzuki Taro were near the top of the individual rankings. Since then, Taro has been slipping with due to 3rds and, more recently, 4ths. Up until week 9, both of them had a 100% 4th place avoidance rate.

Murakami continues to lead the team with 204.2pts and a 5-3-4-1 record, having never dropped out of the top 5 since he got on the list in Game 3 of the season.

Next Steps

Taro hasn’t gotten a 1st since week 4 and doesn’t seem to be playing his best since he switched from NPM to Saikouisen. Maybe give Taro a short break and bring in Maruyama more so she can gain more experience.

Being consistently near the top, Murakami’s always a good choice to send to turn around a bad result.

7th: U-Next Pirates (-184.2pts)

Record: 7-14-13-10, -184.2pts

Despite being the defending champions, the Pirates performance doesn’t exactly reflect it. They seem to be employing the same strategy they used last year: Rely on Kobayashi and just barely make it. They are the only team in the league that hasn’t seen a positive team score this season.

Since week 1, the team has been bouncing between 0 and -200. Typically, a 1st is usually cancelled out by 3rds and 4ths during the week.

Kobayashi leads the team with 244.3pts and being the only player in the league without a 4th place.

Next Steps

Send Kobayashi out for more games. Out of the four of them, he has the lowest game count and the best performance. Being just below the cutoff now, it’s better to be playing to keep the score than to be playing catch-up.

Asakura needs to slow down. He’s been making costly mistakes due to mistaking one tile for another and his brain going on autopilot. On online mahjong, a single game may not have a big effect on your overall ranking, but in M-League, it can make a big difference.

Don’t let Ishibashi lay his traps too much. It’s always satisfying to see, but players will start to catch on. Other players have even started to use it. As the saying goes, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” Call the regular riichi, take the noten payments. (Well, maybe don’t let Ishibashi riichi too much…)

8th: Sega Sammy Phoenix (-325.3pts)

Record: 11-7-12-14, -325.3pts

The Sega Sammy Phoenix have been steadily dropping since the start of the season. For 7 out of 11 weeks, they have dropped. Last season’s runner-ups have fallen.

The only major highlight of the season for the Sega Sammy Phoenix is Kayamori’s chankan off of Taro, but she lost in that game.

Next Steps

It’s going to be an uphill battle, but all they have to do is get to 6th. It might be time to start picking targets. Send the best players against the teams on the lower end of the standings.

Kondo, who had the best 4th place avoidance rate last season, has a 40% 4th rate this season. Let the ladies lead the team.

Despite the -139.7pts, Uotani hasn’t done too bad this season. With the costly deal-in in the finals last year and the team’s current results this year, she needs a morale boost. Keep sending her out and let the team captain know that she can raise this phoenix from the ashes.