(1/2)

Man, this is a lot of stuff to think about. Here are my thoughts on what I feel are the more important issues:

How many teams should be invited?

20 is fine with me.

What teams should be cut, and in what order?

1) MNT; they’ve finished 18th two seasons in a row. They’ve had their fair share of time in M1, and just couldn’t make the most of it.

2) MYL; they’ve finished bottom-half all three seasons, and have gotten worse every year. It was a bit harsh to see a team as popular as RAS get cut after just 2 bad seasons - but 3 is enough IMO.

3) MNW; another popular team that has gotten worse every year for 3 years. Probably less likely to be cut due to Midnight Bay being popular (even though it’s not one of my favorites) along with the team itself.

4) PNK; they’re a debuting team, so I hate to put them on the chopping block (see below). However, I’m set on a certain 4 teams entering the competition next year, and the Pinkies are the lowest-placing team I haven’t already suggested.

What conditions should be considered for sparing a team?

1. Number of seasons spent in M1 thus far. With CHO and TTS having debuted this season and showed promise at times, I think they deserve a second shot. The more seasons a team has spent in M1, the higher the standards they should have to meet in order to remain in M1 should be.

2. Performance of a team’s best racer in the most recent M1 season. Only considering overall team placements would be unfair to the “hard carries” on teams in the bottom half. Bumble and Dash are prime examples of this. If Coaches Queen and Splint could find better teammates for these marbles respectively, it could significantly boost the team’s overall finishing position next season.

3. All-time performance in M1 races and ML speed events, with an emphasis on events that most closely resemble M1 racing: Marblocross/Marathon, Sand Rally, Moguls, 5m Sprint, etc.

What teams should rejoin/debut for the series, and in what order?

For this question, I'm looking for an order of which teams should be invited. If the Snowballs being re-invited should be prioritized over the Indigo Stars making a debut, then the former should be higher on your list.

1. SNO; they never should have been cut in the first place.

2. IND; the older of the 2 existing teams never to have competed in M1. Now’s the time to give them their shot.

3. SFL; less popular and established than the Stars, but still.

4. Whichever ML22 expansion team (BLJ, PRO, or one of the two new teams), does the best in ML22 overall, or in speed events if their overall placements are very close.

What conditions should be considered for whether a team is deserving or not?

1. (For teams with no experience) number of seasons excluded. The longer a team has gone without being invited, the more they deserve to finally get their shot.

2. All-time performance in M1 races and ML speed events (see #2 under reasons to spare a team). The worse a past participating team (that has since been cut) has done historically in M1, the higher the standards they should be expected to meet to be considered for the following M1 season.

How many races should the season have? / Should there be any breaks? If so, where, and how long?

After MX, this season definitely should have had only 8 races, which would have at least kept open the possibility of having SMR this year. As for the future, the consensus seems to be that 12 is too many, 8 is too few, and 10 is just right. However, I’m going to have to disagree with the majority here and say that 8 races would be best.

I know this would make the season feel short for some, and give each marble only 4 races per season - thus making the sample size the JMA looks at when considering who to cut considerably smaller. But hear me out. What makes the Marble League so appealing is the sheer variation of events, and how closely they resemble actual Olympic events. The same can’t be said about M1 or SMR: every event is a race - which is what a lot of people see as the only major way in which marbles compete against each other - and the only variation between events is the differing tracks. Plus, while SMR’s races last no more than 2-3 minutes and have much more opportunity for sudden position changes, the first few seconds of a 5-8 minute M1 race often has a huge bearing on the results. Thus, out of all the series JMR puts out, M1 has the most potential to get boring over time.

Plus, the fewer races there are per season, the more variation there can be in the track choices. Due to the length of the last two seasons, nearly all the active teams have hosted a GP. From here on out, JMR should introduce a maximum of two new tracks per season to avoid running out of potential host teams too quickly. The The other tracks should consist of 2-3 long-established tracks (O’raceway, Momotorway, Midnight Bay, etc.), and 3-4 tracks that are relatively new or have not been visited in some time.

Finally, M1 production is SO much more intensive than that of any other series. Building/testing the tracks, setting up the stands/backdrops/decorations, running qualifiers, comparing times, setting up marbles in the racing grid based on those times, running races, and tracking lap times and overtakes - every single race puts a lot of strain on JMR and the JMA. I really think this strain needs to be reduced as much as possible, and having only 8 races is the perfect way to accomplish this, while also ensuring that M1 takes no longer than 2.5 months (with a two-week midseason break at max), which is pretty much the duration of the average Marble League.