M-League Watch 2020 Update

Opening day is only one week away and the M-League Watch team is getting ready to watch every single minute! For this preseason week, we’ll have an article every day for the next five days! For today’s article, let’s take a look at some of the updates we’re making to bring you the best reporting.

M-League Watch Team

I keep using “we” when talking about the M-League Watch team. Well, let me introduce you to the other writers on the team.

Ozball

I’m Ozball, I’ve technically been playing mahjong since around 2013, however I’ve only really gotten back to playing seriously since the beginning of 2019. I’ve lived in Japan in the past, though am based out of Australia at the moment. I want to help bring more Japanese sources of Riichi Mahjong to the rest of the world.

SBT

Oo!~ I’m SBT. I’m based out of Australia and have been playing mahjong since October 2018. You may know me from the Australian Riichi Mahjong Association broadcasts. I have a passion for riichi mahjong and hope to bring it to a wider audience

Favourite Team: Konami Mahjong Fight Club
Favourite Player: Takamiya Mari/Sasaki Hisato

Favorite Team: Sega Sammy Phoenix
Favorite Player: Uotani Yuumi

Watch out for Ozball’s first article coming up this Thursday!

Weekly Updates

Watching every single game and writing an update is hard work. So, we will be bring you the standings and the top plays of the week every Saturday. If there’s a game that interests us, we may do a game review or a hand review from time to time, as well as anything of interest regarding M-League.

Mouseover Translations

To help make the blog easier to read, we have put in mouseover translation for those who are more familiar with the WRC terms. When viewing on desktop (sorry phone users), you will see some terms with a dotted underline below them, you can mouse over these terms to see the WRC translation or the definition of these terms. Not everything is translated though, so use the Arcturus Japanese Mahjong Wiki for anything you don’t know.

Discord Server

It’s M-League time! Also my attempt at the joke M-League “Watch”. It’s bad, I know.

We now have a Discord server! We have self-assignable team roles and team chats so you can chat with your fellow fans! For security, I have put it so that you must have the “M-League Fan” role in order to access the general channels, so make sure you give yourself that role. I’m new to Discord moderation, so please be patient and let me know any improvements you want to see in #server-improvement channel.

Link to the Discord Server: https://discord.gg/9vz7vKF

That’s it for my update! Stay tuned for tomorrow’s article about the top plays of last season!

M-League 2020 Schedules and Calendars

With the 2020 season just over a month away, M-League has released its schedule for the M-League 2020 season.

The M-League 2020 regular season will start on October 5, 2020 and end on March 12, 2021. Games are played each week on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday at 1900 JST, with the exception of the last week of December, when the games will instead be played on Saturday, January 2, 2021 and Sunday, January 3, 2021, both at 1700 JST.

Of course, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the schedule is not set in stone. Changes to the schedule may occur throughout the season.

For your convenience, I have created a Google Calendar of the schedule (with times in JST), as well as one for each team. There is also an iCalendar (.ics) file that you can download to put the schedule on your computer’s calendar.

Any mistakes are purely my own. If there is any discrepancy between the calendar and the official M-League schedule, the official M-League schedule is correct. For those wondering, the featured image above with the nice format was released in an official M-League press release with the image being found here.

(Google Calendar, iCalendar)


Akasaka Drivens

(Google Calendar, iCalendar)


EX Furinkazan

(Google Calendar, iCalendar)

Kadokawa
Sakura Knights

(Google Calendar, iCalendar)

Konami Mahjong
Fight Club

(Google Calendar, iCalendar)

Sega Sammy
Phoenix

(Google Calendar, iCalendar)


Shibuya Abemas

(Google Calendar, iCalendar)


Team Raiden

(Google Calendar, iCalendar)


U-Next Pirates

(Google Calendar, iCalendar)

M-League 2019 Re:mind

Over the next two months, AbemaTV will be featuring a series called M-League 2019 Re:mind. This series will consist of 29 episodes that are an hour long, with each episode featuring a different player. The video will go through the highlights of the season for each player.

Continue reading “M-League 2019 Re:mind”

M-League 2019 Finals: Games #11-12 and the Awards Ceremony

On the 6th and final day of the M-League Finals, emotions were high. Both tears and joy and tears of sadness were flowing today. With the standings so close, everyone wanted to see how it ends. By the end of the broadcast, over 1.4m viewers had tuned in to see.

I’ll be doing things a little differently today, going through every hand so you can experience the play-by-play excitement of the last day.

Link to the game: https://abema.tv/video/episode/444-4_s1_p114. Note that the game is only free to watch for 72 hours after game time. After 72 hours, it will only be available to users with Abema Premium.

Before the Games

Before the games, we were introduced to our commentators of the day: Hiyoshi Tatsuya and Tsuchida Koushou from Saikouisen. They went through the highlights from the previous day and then showed the rankings going into the 6th and final day.

Standings after 10 games

The Sega Sammy Phoenix were ahead with 232.9pts. In 2nd place was the Shibuya Abemas with 146.8pts. In 3rd was the U-Next Pirates with 108.7pts. In 4th place was the Kadokawa Sakura Knights with -229.7pts.

Page 1: Before the Games
Page 2: Game #11
Page 3: Game #12
Page 4: The Awards Ceremony
Page 5: Final Thoughts

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5

M-League 2019 Finals: Games #9-10

On the 5th day of the M-League Finals, it was hand after hand after hand. With 32 hands and the broadcast almost reaching midnight, it was one of the longest M-League days I’ve ever sat through. Still, it was worth every minute!

Link to the game: https://abema.tv/video/episode/444-4_s1_p113. Note that the game is only free to watch for 72 hours after game time. After 72 hours, it will only be available to users with Abema Premium.

Before the Games

After we were introduced to our commentators Kobayashi Misa and Shibukawa Namba from Nihon Pro Mahjong Kyoukai (NPM), they played the highlights from the previous day and then showed the standings going into today.

Standings after 8 games

The Sega Sammy Phoenix were in the lead with 201.9pts, with the U-Next Pirates in 2nd with 119.1pts. In 3rd were the Shibuya Abemas with 66.3pts, while the Kadokawa Sakura Knights were in 4th with -128.6pts.

Page 1: Before the Games
Page 2: Game #9
Page 3: Game #10

Pages: 1 2 3

M-League 2019 Finals: Games #7-8

Today on the 4th day of the M-League Finals, we saw life and death. From destroying hopes and dreams to coming back from the negatives, there was a lot of action on this glorious day!

Link to the game: https://abema.tv/video/episode/444-4_s1_p112. Note that the game is only free to watch for 72 hours after game time. After 72 hours, it will only be available to users with Abema Premium.

Before the Games

Fujisaki Satoshi from Konami Mahjong Fight Club and Matsushima Momo were the comentators of the day. As always, they showed the daily digest of the previous day’s games and showed us the rankings:

Standings after 6 games

The Sega Sammy Phoenix are ahead in 1st place with 178.3pts. The U-Next Pirates are in 2nd with 99.8pts. The Shibuya Abemas at 32.7pts and the Kadokawa Sakura Knights with -52.1pts are 3rd and 4th, respectively.

Page 1: Before the Games
Page 2: Game #7
Page 3: Game #8

Pages: 1 2 3

M-League 2019 Finals: Games #5-6

See that hand over there? Yeah, the one right there. That was one of the starting hands from today. On the 3rd day of the M-League Finals, the suspense and the excitement was unlike any other. With big things happening today, this was one M-League day I’ll never forget.

Link to the game: https://abema.tv/video/episode/444-4_s1_p111 Note that the game is only free to watch for 72 hours after game time. After 72 hours, it will only be available to users with Abema Premium.

Before the Game

The M-League Championship Plate. Notice the Akasaka Drivens logo on the stand.

At the start of the day, we were introduced to our commentators: Setokuma Naoki from Team Raiden and the highly enthusiastic Hiyoshi Tatsuya. They showed the championship plate and noted that the champions from last season, the Akasaka Drivens, have their logo engraved on the stand. As usual, they showed the highlights from Tuesday’s game and then showed the standings going into today.

The Sega Sammy Phoenix were in the lead with 186.0pts. In a distant second were the Shibuya Abemas at 87.9pts. Third was held by the U-Next Pirates at 44.5pts and the Kadokawa Sakura Knights were in fourth with -59.7pts.

Page 1: Before the Games
Page 2: Game #5
Page 3: Game #6

Pages: 1 2 3

M-League 2019 Finals: Games #3-4

Day 2 of the M-League finals is finished! With the most kans I’ve seen in a while, this was an exciting M-League day!

Link to the game: https://abema.tv/video/episode/444-4_s1_p110 Note that the game is only free to watch for 72 hours after game time. After 72 hours, it will only be available to users with Abema Premium.

Before the Game

With commentators Sasaki Hisato from Konami Mahjong Fight Club and Matsushima Momo, the day started with a recap of the previous day. Then they showed the rankings after the first two games:

The rankings going into game 3

The Sega Sammy Phoenix top the standings with 106.4pts. They are followed by U-Next Pirates 64.3pts, Kadokawa Sakura Knights with 47.6pts and Shibuya Abemas with 40.4pts.

Page 1: Before the Games
Page 2: Game #3
Page 3: Game #4

Pages: 1 2 3

M-League 2019 Finals: Games #1-2

The M-League Finals have begun and it did not disappoint! From a baiman to hanemans to mangans, the day was full of surprises and intrigue.

Link to the game: https://abema.tv/video/episode/444-4_s1_p109. Note that the game is only free to watch for 72 hours after game time. After 72 hours, it will only be available to users with Abema Premium.

Before the Game

With Hagiwara Masato from Team Raiden helping with the commentary, we got our first look into the commentating booth. To observe social distancing, the two commentators sat a distance between them. During the actual game, they were moved to different rooms in order to keep their distance.

  • Commentators Hagiwara Masato and Kobayashi Misa
  • Notice how they moved to different rooms during the game

Before the first game, they showed some highlights of the season and how each team got to the finals. Afterwards, they showed the standings going into the finals.

Standing going into the finals

Kadokawa Sakura Knights were in the lead with 142.4pts, with the Sega Sammy Phoenix within striking distance of the lead with 86.0pts. Though the Shibuya Abemas and the U-Next Pirates were at 32.0pts and -1.7pts respectively, they still posed a threat with the final being 12 games.

Page 1: Before the Games
Page 2: Game #1
Page 3: Game #2

Pages: 1 2 3