The Marble League season is upon us once again. Qualifiers are in just a few weeks then we get to experience the greatest sporting event of the year… The marble league showdown. Jokes and biases aside I am super excited for the qualifiers, so I wanted to take this time to talk about who will and won't qualify. Thinking about doing a little bit of alternating teams for qualifying and non qualifying in no particular order, just because I feel like it. And for those of you wanting my possum review of M1S5 proper, it might happen whenever I get over my undying rage against red flags and red eye. This list will be partially logic based, partially hopeful thinking, and fully insane probably. Let's get into it.

Qualified: Crazy Cats Eyes, Bumblebees, Savage Speeders, Gliding Glaciers

Real shocker I know, but the podium of last year is auto qualified, along with the hosts are automatically qualified. But how do I feel about these teams? If you’ve read my posts before, you’ll know how much I dislike the cats eyes. The speeders are also one of my least favorite teams. The bumblebees……. And I really like the gliding glaciers, probably a top 10 team for me. Cant wait to see how these auto qualified teams do in the League.

Non Qualified: Minty Maniacs, Black Jacks, Purple Rockets, Oceanics

Again, teams we already knew where they’d end up. I really like these teams, which disappoints me that they’re relegated. The oceanics are a blue team, which means i am legally obligated to like them, but they are also a really fun and overhated team. The black jacks are a team I fell in love with over M1S4, the fact they were cut for season 5 was an absolute crime. The minty maniacs share a lot of similarities with the oceanics: they both have 3rd places, and are very often overhated. The purple rockets are in fact a team. I cant wait to see these beloved teams and the purple rockets in the showdown.

Qualified: Balls of Chaos

I know I'm coming out swinging but I really think that BoC is going to do really well this season. Mainly due to their 2018 season, the best season they’ve ever had. They have had success in the snow and I think it will carry over, if they qualify, I’ll tell you where I think they’ll end up then. But I really hope they will qualify. Also because it will make people irrationally angry. I have a soft spot for this team, I’m rooting for them.

Non Qualified: Limers

The limers are not known for their success generally. They have failed to qualify for several years, and looking at how well they did last time there was a winter league (14th) I have little hope this year. Sorry limers.

Qualified: Green Ducks

The Green Ducks messed up a bit in qualifiers last year, but a showdown podium proved that they are not giving up the fight. I could be completely wrong because it is a winter season, and they did not do great in the winter special, but I think they’ll do ok. Especially since they are one of the best teams in the league.

Non Qualified: O’rangers

This one is sure to ruffle some feathers. The O’rangers have been struggling in the qualifiers last year. Them failing to qualify is bound to happen at some point. What better way to hype up the showdown. Now, this is a winter league, which the O’ranger do incredible at, with top 4 placements in both ML2018 and the winter Special. But, I think they’ll slip up and not qualify, which will cause a lot of strife in the comments. I’ll be sure to grab some popcorn.

Qualified: Raspberry Racers

The Raspberry Racers are an incredible marble team, and I think they will qualify once again in 2024. Now I could be wrong, mistakes happen, but a ML without the Racers just seems weird to me. I know they’ll eventually not qualify but i don't think that’ll be this year. And hey, coming off of an incredible M1 season for them, they have momentum. I think they’ll do pretty great this year regardless.

Non Qualified: Mellow Yellow

Another team with a perfect attendance record, but it won't last. The last time Mellow Yellow raced in the snow, they had their worst season to date, finishing 15th. And with finishing 2 mediocre seasons in a row, I really don't think they will qualify this year. Let's just hope their showdown performance is better than their 2018 performance.

Qualified: Kobalts

2,987 days. As of writing this, the kobalts have not been in a ML event in 2,987 days. As a MASSIVE Kobalts fan I am hoping and praying this will change. 2018 was one of our closest years to qualifying. One singular point was what kept us from the league. I truly believe that this is the year they will do it. I am on my hands and knees begging you kobalts. PLEASE QUALIFY!!!!

Non Qualified: Chocolatiers

Honestly I don't have a lot to say about the Chocolatiers. This is pretty normal. There are not a lot of spaces in the league for teams, and I don't think chocolatiers will make it this year. No outstanding reasons I just… have other teams i have higher hopes for.

Qualified: Solar Flares

Here me out. I know I must sound bonkers, but it would be really funny if the Flares qualified. Sure, they’ve never qualified before, but they’ve also only been to 2 qualifiers. Furthermore they’ve never raced in the winter. This is one of those teams that could just randomly do insane and shock the world. Excited to see what this team can do.

Non Qualified: Indigo Stars

Again, there’s only 12 spaces for qualified teams, and I don't know how the Stars will do in the snow. This team is kind of on the cusp of “might qualify, might not.” And for me, there are other teams I could see doing better. Good luck regardless.

Qualified: Snowballs

The Snowballs have been on a resurgence these past few years. Between their 2023 and M1S5 performances, the snowballs have been working very hard to overwrite the narrative that they are a bad team. And they’ve been succeeding. I could totally see them putting together a great show this year as well.

Non Qualified: Pinkies

The Pinkies have done fantastic these past couple of years, and I'm sure those successes will continue. However, I don't know if they will make it this year. Not that they’re going to bomb qualifiers, I just think that the other teams are gonna do better.

Qualified: Thunderbolts

The Thunderbolts are really good in the snow. Their last gold medal was from the winter special, and the last one before then was in the winter league. I do think this team will solidly qualify, and they’re gonna break they’re gold drought. But then again, this is the Thunderbolts we are talking about. Still, I have hope in them.

Non Qualified: Wolfpack

I really like the wolfpack. However, I think they need one more year in the showdown to hone their skills. They have shown a lot of promise, they just need to work on their consistency. Give us another top half in the showdown and Im sure you’ll prove you can make it in no time.

Qualified: Hazers

The Hazers are gonna make a comeback this year. After two less than stellar years in the showdown, the Hazers are hungry for success. Luckily for them, they have found success in the snow before. Just don't botch qualifiers and you should be golden. Best of luck regardless.

Non Qualified: Team Plasma

Team Plasma is very hard to pinpoint but i think i’ve got them down. They are incredible for 4 events before dropping off of a cliff. I feel like they’ll choke a qualification in the last 2 events, then they’ll do moderately ok in the showdown. Please do not get relegated tho.

Qualified: Team Galactic

This team is on the bubble. I really want them to do well (lord knows their fans need it after their M1S5 performance), but whether it’ll happen is up in the air, personally, i think they will. They have been pretty strong in qualifiers before, and I believe they’ll do it again this year.

Non Qualified: Team Primary

This one hurts me to put them down here. They are my 5th favorite, but this team has a problem. Imar led the team to a second in the showdown in 2021, and their best ML performance in 2022. But they made Aryp captain and then they failed to qualify for ML2023, then Aryp had the worst performance by an individual marble in the history of M1. Justice for Imar, give him the captaincy back, and I will be able to predict your successes again. Until then… good luck.

Qualified: Rojo Rollers

The Rojo Rollers had an incredible season in 2023, having their best year ever. They showed incredible promise also in that other competition im forgetting the name of. I really think things on the rollers are turning around. Really excited to see what they can do this year. Please do well.

Non Qualified: Midnight Wisps

Before you call me biased, hear me out. The Wisps qualified barely in the winter league, beating out another team by a single team (wonder who that one was). They then proceeded to have an alright season, but a tight field and two gold medals propelled them to a championship that year. In the Winter special they did not do great from what I remember, I believe they got bottom half. I dont think that the wisps will qualify this year. They’re still in a slump, and they have a captaincy problem of their own. Regardless, hope you do ok this year.

Qualified: Team Momo

MOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMO!!!!

Non Qualified: Shining Swarm

The swarm had a bad year last year, and their 2018 qualifiers performance was pretty abysmal if I remember correctly. Sorry Swarm but i dont think this will be your year. Not sure if you’ll get relegated or not, but I just don’t think you’ll be great this year.

And that's all the teams. A little wacky, but we’re about due for another insane Marble League. I couldn't be more excited for the qualifiers. And by excited, I obviously mean mortified. PLEASE QUALIFY KOBALTS PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!!!! The possum review of S5 will come soon, mainly due to just how fun I had writing this one. Thank you all for reading, and until the next time…

HEEHOO KOBALTS!!!

-Maple

Hello!

This is the place to have general discussions or questions with the community about Jelle’s Marble Runs, a YouTube channel centered on marbles, marble runs, and marble sports such as the Marble League, Marble Rally, Marbula One, and more! Feel free to ask any general questions within this thread.

Thanks for being amazing fans, and keep on rolling!

We seem to only have this conversation while talking about Marbula One team invites, so I decided to go off the beaten path and talk about after the Marbula One season, and make it primarily about SMR.

While we talk about the possibility Marbula One having qualifiers, I can't help but think about how I dislike the SMR qualifying system. I of course understand why they exist: JMR doesn't want to have 32 marbles all in the main league at once, and they want most of the marbles to have a reasonable chance of making any one season. That all makes sense. To this end, the SMR qualifier system is similar to Marble League, in which all eligible teams enter a gauntlet from which rise a certain number of competitors (right now 16) to join a number of auto-qualified competitors (right now top 4 from the last season) in the main league, while everyone else goes to the B-League. It's reasonable enough on paper.

The difference is that in Marble League, the qualifiers consist of four events, all (theoretically; some years have been better than others) testing different things that form a micro version of what the full 16-event League will be. SMR's, on the other hand, is just one race. One boom-or-bust race with no chance to make up points later. Of course, any qualifier system of this sort produces some chaos sometimes, since that's part of the point, but one race deciding everything has always felt weird to me. At the very least, it means that qualifying or not can never be treated as a significant marker of any marble's skill in the sand, even as much as a B-League performance, since qualifiers are just one race instead of four.

Expanding the B-League to ten races, all of which occurring concurrently to the A-League races, alleviates the problem somewhat, mainly because it helps all of the SMR marbles get ample screen time in a season's worth of videos. However, this does not fix the core of the problem I have, which is that season attendance is still decided by just a single race. And since it seems they have the willingness and capacity to record more races, why not have more races in qualifying? Arguments against that would probably go along the lines of that would be too long/boring of a video, or too many videos dedicated to qualifying. It would also probably cut down on B-League races, which would of course reverse a change in Season 7 that was popular. But hear me out, for I have an idea.

(Obligatory disclaimer that no one, especially JMR, is obligated to like this idea or implement it. This is just an idea I'm floating that I may or may not like the final product of if it ever gets implemented.)

The Qualifying Round/Final Round Tournament Model

It's an idea I got, of all places, from following Mario Kart tournaments. The biggest ones typically get hundreds of people entering, and a room can only hold twelve people, so they have multiple rounds of qualifying, with each round getting longer and fewer people advancing out of them, all culminating in the finals, which has the largest number of races and, obviously, the biggest stakes. With only 32 competitors, SMR obviously would not need nearly as many rounds, but we can use the same principle to construct something like this:

Qualifying Round: Two groups of 12 marbles, 6 races, top 6 from each advance. (Top 8 from previous season receive BYE and auto-advance to Final.)

Final Round: 20 marbles, 10 races.

I snuck in another unpopular wish list item I have for SMR, which is that the top 8 from the A-League auto-qualify for the next season. It also comes from my belief that single-race qualifiers are unfair, but I know most people disagree with me on this. If we just have the top 4 auto-qualify, each group can have 14 marbles instead with the top 8 advancing, and it works just fine.

From a logistics standpoint, the pros of this are that this is fewer races to film than Season 7: 22 as opposed to Season 7's 24. Compared to Season 6's 18 races, it is more, so if JMR want to go back to fewer races then the format could easily become 5 qualifying races and 8 final races, or something to that effect. On top of that is the main plus side, which is that we can be fairly certain that all of the advancing and relegated marbles "deserve it", since they all fought through six races to get to that point, lessening the chances of flukes.

One downside would be, at least compared to Season 7, a lessening of screen time for relegated marbles. I don't have too much of a counter for that point other than to say it's at least more screen time than any other season, and that screen time isn't shoved into one qualifying video and one Showdown video. The other downside would be length, since even if the two groups' races were in the same video (six vids for six group races, showing both groups in each video), that is 16 videos. That is on par with a Marble League season, so JMR would probably have to run something like 2–3 vids in a week for at least the qualifying round. I personally think the pluses outweigh the minuses here, but of course everyone is free to disagree.

The biggest negative that I think most people would dislike is the elimination of a B-League or Showdown. I can completely understand that being a deal breaker, especially since we all want to see our favorite marbles have something to compete in, and are used to seeing them again in at least one B-League video if they fail in the qualifiers. To that, I will say that every marble gets to compete in at least six qualifier races, spread out in six videos. It's a smaller season than S7's Showdown, but still more than every other B-League. Think of it as something more in line with the first ever SMR in 2016, where it's all one season with two distinct rounds instead of a "qualifier" that is a separate entity from "The Main Season".

Marbula One

Personally, I think this format is almost a non-starter in Marbula One. It seems fairly clear to me that on a per-event basis, Marbula One is the most production-intensive just by looking at the real-time position pylon, and that's even before having to build each individual track. As much as many fans want qualifiers and/or a Marbula Two, I think it's generally accepted wisdom in the fanbase that a single-race qualifier would be unfair and the sheer amount of extra work that would have to go into a longer qualifier, much less a B-League, is unviable for JMR.

But I want to experiment with this anyway. As much as I do enjoy the 10-race season, I think the best way to handle a Marbula One season in this format would be a qualifying round with 4 races each, then a final with 8. (Number of teams in the groups wouldn't change; I'd go for 8 auto-quals in M1 too.) I guess you could tack on two more GPs in the final, but I don't think it'd be good for a qualifying round to have any fewer than four.

Let's get the least consequential obstacle out of the way first: hosting. I think this is fairly simple. Pick 4 hosts out of each group for the qualifying round, and have 8 hosts for the final round picked out beforehand from the teams that made the finals in the previous season. Sure that means a host might not be in their GP in the final round, and in current M1 I don't like the idea of that happening, but this is more like a S2 situation where a team was competing and were just eliminated from participating in their own GP through their own performance, not through not getting an invite. I think that would work fairly well, and it means we'll certainly get a wide variety of tracks showing up each season.

Now here come the bigger issues that, while solvable, still mostly sink the idea. JMR would essentially have to produce an unprecedented 16 Marbula One circuit races (or 18 if you want ten races in the final). If each qualifying groups has four hosts each, that is 16 courses JMR has to build. Even if both qualifying groups used the same courses, bringing the course count to 12 (the S2–3 count), that's still 16 different Grands Prix that need filming, probably with position pylons. We can even halve the lap counts in the qualifying round but we'd still need qualifiers. I think having both Q1 and Q2 for the shorter qualifying round GPs is a tall order, so it'd be watching two sets of time trials or just do the shootout and argue over what the most fair way to form a starting grid for it. (I'll note that I think ML2020's Marathon did have the fairest method, but even that would be controversial in a M1 setting.) Finally, how many weeks will this take? 12? 16? We've never had a 12-GP season of Marbula One only take 12 weeks so who knows, it may even be longer.

Why Did I Write This

You may be wondering what the point of this was, since I brought up an idea I seemingly liked and then proceeded to tear it apart once M1 entered the picture. Let me re-clarify that I would actually like to see this tried in SMR if JMR is willing to. I know it would be a massive overhaul of the Marble League qualification format we're used to also seeing in SMR, but I personally think it would benefit SMR due to its nature as a racing-only series. I don't see enough discussion about how a qualification system for M1 would work (especially given how often people bring it up) to know how much people share my sentiment that a one-race qualifier would be unfair there, but I'd argue it's unfair in both racing series.

At the end of the day, the main reason I wrote this was because I saw a cool system that worked in a completely different racing competition and wondered how well it would translate to JMR. I discovered that it could probably work for one and probably would not for the other. I hope, in exploring these thought experiments I had here, I managed to open people up to parts of these format conversations I don't see very much and add to future conversations I'm sure will keep happening about both SMR and M1.

Curling and Biathlon(2018) are very good

Curling is a great event, it's extemely dramatic, despite being long

2018 biathlon was very creative as well, and i liked it too!

they dont seem to be very liked, atleast not talked about

Just looking at getting my partner a Green Ducks team as a stocking filler at Christmas as she’s a big fan.

But when the shipping cost for an £8 product is £32 they can absolutely do one.

This is obscene. Are they being personally delivered by a flock of trained ducks?!

If you could add a new event to the Marble League, what would it be

JMR's current Bilibili (Chinese video website) account holders (Mostly represented by JMA member John, who holds the name "Conrad-Heinz" among Chinese fanbase, who is the true identity of "Pinky Spud") has started to upload exclusive Pay-to-Watch contents, such as new perspective of the Momotorway accidents, and things like "Jelle and other JMA members' original marble choices of M1S5". This is again breaking the bottom line of us Chinese fans.

The current Bilibili account holders, as you might know, had betrayed the original Chinese translation group before the start of Marble League 2023, and controlled the comments area until now. Any commentors who addressed the original account holders will immidiately be put into their black-list.

During the M1S5 period, the account is constantly spreading troll articles on drivers and coaches, resulting in constant arguements between different fans (mostly drastic hate on Yellow Eye, and CCE&Ducks fans attacking each other). People who were trying to maintain order have already been black-listed, and the account holders have completely no interest on keeping the comments' order.

I really hope someone can stand out and clean up all this mess, but because every Chinese fan who wanted JMR to get better had been black-listed, I'm posting these here so that at least everyone can see what's going on.

The translation of the screenshot:

Fan: Your account managing is so poor tht you started to post Pay-to-watch videos. is it that us poors don't deserve to watch? Now the community environment is way worse than a few years ago. We used to watch streams together, and I've even donated a lot in 2021. You are really driving your fans away.

Account holder: How can you say this with complete confidence when you're watching videos freely?

My English isn't very good, please ignore my grammar mistakes. Please note me if anything is unclear.

Edit: Please do not attack JMR for this. Jelle and other JMA member has a lot things to handle, and no one is responsible for all these stuff expect John (Conrad-Heinz) and a few. So please not attack Jelle because of these stuff, all I want to do is to let him know all these things and give response.

I don't expect all these mess could be dealed soon, but I wish the JMR community and others who runs JMR can hear of Heinz's behavior so that us Chinese fans' rights can be secured.

2nd Edit: a few spelling and the use of words correction

https://preview.redd.it/4ct8v6fy980e1.jpg?width=864&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ea210f18346f6ea4f1c27e4d548a0ed3306b8104

Who let Mary get to Aryp😭

Hello, all. You know me. I love me a good ranking. And when it comes to marbles, I love deferring to my spreadsheets and formulas. Pretty much every other time I've posted my post-season rankings, I usually just throw the list on the board and explain the system either in the post or the comments, but this time I want to go through the top 15 and make some comments to spice things up a bit. Plus, I like adding a bit of drama and suspense to the proceedings for fourteen of these spots (since I think #1 is a foregone conclusion).

If anyone wants the nitty-gritty details of the system, I can expand in comments, but the brief summary of this is scoring average points per event, and included in the average is five instances (one per season) of a "participation score", which ensures marbles with fewer races don't have these fewer races inflating their scores past those with more races. Further, each previous season is weighted with 95% of the weight of the previous directly after, down to 81.45% for Season 1, so a marble that is improving is scored higher than a marble that is going the other direction. For the countdown, I'll also be including what the score and placement for each marble was after Season 4, so you can see how things have shifted during this latest season.

Do I think this is a perfect system? Absolutely not. But it's the best thing I could come up with in the last year or so that accounts for as many of the annoying variables that exist in a system like this, and I don't see any glaring errors in the final listing (though reasonable people can of course disagree). We of course have perceptions, and what I like most about these math-y lists is the holes they can poke in general prevailing wisdom, so to speak. So with that in mind, let's get going.

15th. Billy. Score: 8.431. 4 wins, 5 podiums.

S4 score: 7.298, 18th.

Billy has always hung around the bottom half of the top 20, and since Season 3 has straddled a line being half a point behind the top tiers and half a point ahead of the gaggle of middling marbles. Now, after three solid races yielding an overall 5th in the individual standings, Billy has bridged the gap up and left his previous competition in the dust, eyeing upwards. His Season 5 was much more consistent than his previous seasons, and the only reason he didn't climb more positions is because there was such a wide gap between him and the spots above him before. (See where Snowy, who was directly above him, was at last season for context.)

14th. Momo. Score: 8.459. S4 champion, 1 win, 5 podiums.

S4 score: 8.782, 12th.

After starting the season with a 2nd at Tumult Turnpike, Momo was in the top 10 on this leaderboard for a little bit. Unfortunately, an aggressively middling rest of the season brought him back down to still well above average, but very much stuck in the 12th–15th range. It's certainly a step up from before Season 4, but it'll be interesting to see if he can hold it in the coming seasons.

13th. Aryp. Score: 8.495. 1 win, 4 podiums.

S4 score: 11.698, 4th.

After 5 straight goose eggs, it must be very strange to see Aryp sitting above a former champion. Then you see where he used to be and…yeah it's quite the fall. Aryp is still this high because of how incredibly cracked he was in Seasons 3 and 4, and at the very least that is a much stronger record than Prim had before his massive fall from grace. Whether Aryp will regain his footing, or even get a chance to, remains to be seen.

12th. Smoggy. Score: 8.577. S1 Third Place, 2 wins, 4 podiums.

S4 score: 9.028, 10th.

Smoggy is fairly clearly the best out of all of the inactive marbles, and the only one to make this leaderboard. It's small wonder why there was a noticeable call to bring Smoggy back instead of Misty. This isn't really the place to get into the merits and demerits of messing up a team dynamic that got a team podium this season, so all I'll say is Smoggy was very good, and if he were ever to come back, there's a good shot he'll score some good points for the team again.

11th. Starry. Score: 9.349. 3 wins, 6 podiums.

S4 score: 10.865, 6th.

This is another hard fall for a marble that as once in top 5 status. Hell, Starry was in 2nd (at least, under my current updated system) after Season 3. Now that's some star power. Landing after this season outside the top 10 is tough, but 9.3 is still a great score, and she's much closer to the top 10 than to spots below her. Another couple of podiums and she might be back. But as you can see, it's one tough competition around this part of the leaderboard.

10th. Royal. Score: 9.461. S3 Third Place, 4 wins, 5 podiums.

S4 score: 12.576, 2nd.

Yet again, what a fall. But this marble is still in the top 10 because holy hell, did he have quite the starting spot going into this season. Remember when he won three consecutive races? Remember how he had another race win before that streak? Remember when in the middle of last season when there was a debate about whether he'd surpassed Red Eye as the best racer in Marbula One? I didn't have this whole system set up back then (and tbh this was a big motivator) but I don't think Royal ever surpassed Red Eye (uh, spoiler for #1 sorry) under my system. However, Royal was cracked enough to pass Speedy up, which is a herculean feat in itself. There was enough of a buffer that it took until GP7 for him to fall out of the top 5. Yeah, I'm really hoping this marble gets back on his feet. He doesn't belong down here with these peasants. (Plz don't be offended this just joke plz uwu).

9th. Clementin. Score: 9.551. 1 win, 6 podiums.

S4 score: 8.858, 11th.

Clementin has his fair share of weaknesses but he has been slowly climbing this leaderboard for his entire career and now he's broken into the top 10. He might not look like he's had the most glamorous career just looking at some of the individual season standings, but as other marbles dip in and out of looking good for one reason or another, Clementin seems to do all right for himself season after season. There's not much else to say. Solid marble all around.

8th. Yellow Eye. Score: 9.738. S2 Third Place, 2 wins, 5 podiums.

S4 score: 9.046, 9th.

While Yellow Eye did plummet from the lofty heights of top 3 (according to this ranking system, obviously debatable) after Season 2 to a mere mortal 8th after Season 3, his return in Season 5 has reaffirmed that he is indeed deserving of being called a top 10 marble. It's definitely easy as a day 1 Crazy Cat's Eyes fan (on the circuit at least LOL, I wasn't watching yet in 2018) to feel my anxiety spike thanks to some spectacular downfalls in Season 3, but Yellow Eye did a rather solid job this season and played his part well to secure his team a second championship and third season podium.

7th. Cerulean. Score: 10.085. S5 Runner-Up, 1 win, 5 podiums.

S4 score: 8.019, 15th.

Holy marbles. I think Royal still has him beat in the flashiness department, but when Cerulean is in his element, he is incredibly reliable. He was the only marble this season to take home double-digit points every weekend, and I seem to remember him getting plenty of camera time in lead battles, or at least podium battles, in every GP. He was 10th on this leaderboard after Season 2 as well, so some more solid seasons like this and he could easily keep moving up, though consistency between seasons still eludes him. Everyone has already made this observation, but all mortals beware a year when both Cerulean and Royal are at their best.

6th. Mallard. Score: 10.085. 0 wins, 6 podiums.

S4 score: 10.217, 8th.

Did you expect the only marble in this top 15 list to not have a race win yet to be in 6th? I didn't either, and it's honestly wild that Mallard hasn't pulled that off yet. But even without that Mallard has been a top 10 marble fighting for top 5 for her entire career, and had that 5th place spot held down for most of the season before losing it in the last pair of GPs. She has to get it one of these days, and I'm sure that'll be the season when she and the Ducks take the trophy, or at least grab themselves another season podium somewhere.

5th. Snowy. Score: 10.497. S1 Runner-Up, S5 Third Place, 2 wins, 6 podiums.

S4 score: 7.972, 17th.

Season 2 may have been a bit of a nap that turned out to be the most disproportionately costly nap that we have ever seen in all of JMR, but this legend that took the circuit by storm seemingly out of nowhere in Season 1 is back with a vengeance and I'm sure we're all here for it. He definitely has stiff competition in this area of the leaderboard, but for now, I think returning to the series with a season podium for both his team and himself, as well as top 5 on my little list for whatever that is worth, is plenty for Snowy to be proud of.

4th. Orangin. Score: 10.508. S3 Runner-Up, 3 wins, 8 podiums.

S4 score: 11.252, 5th.

Yes, the O'rangers do have two marbles in the top 10 of this leaderboard, and still somehow have people wondering if they're due for a roster change. Orangin even moved up a spot since last year. Sure, that's mainly due to Royal and Aryp taking a dive down in the numbers rather than Orangin having a breakout season of her own, but that's still emblematic of a strength both O'rangers have: they're both just solid and consistent. It's easy to miss when the consistency is spread out across a five-year career, and especially easy when Red Eye is up there hogging all of the attention, but even when Orangin has an off-year, her lows are nowhere near as bad as certain others', and because both she and Clementin have never really cubed up on each other, their off-years are nowhere near as dramatic either. Much like her teammate, she has also managed to steadily climb this leaderboard year after year for the most part. Don't count out Orangin, guys. I'd have thought Season 3 was enough of a lesson in that regard.

3rd. Speedy. Score: 11.646. S1 Champion, S2 Runner-Up, 2 wins, 10 podiums.

S4 score: 12.246, 3rd.

Even in years when both he and his team seem to be napping, Speedy still manages a podium at least somewhere. It says a lot that even after Season 5, which I think most would agree was a bit lackluster on Speedy's part, I still find it wild to go back in the annals and rediscover that this marble hasn't won a race since the third GP of Season 2. Like, huh? But I guess when you can string together as many 2nd places races as Speedy has, you don't need to win a ton to be, at least according to this list, the third best marble in all of Marbula One, and unlike the marbles that have come in and out of 2nd on this list over the years, Speedy has been very consistent in staying up here. I think most fans would consider him to be the second best, and for good reason. Speedy is a legend, and he'll be back up there one day on the steps as a champion.

2nd. Cloudy. Score: 11.978. S4 Runner-Up, 2 wins, 6 podiums.

S4 score: 10.530, 7th.

Yeah, I know, this looks like a bit of a sneak. It's his second season, so how on earth is he up this high? Well, when you've raced ten GPs and 3rd or better in six of them — no wait, 5th or better in eight of them, which is something not even Royal or Aryp have managed — at a certain point you have to acknowledge that this marble is here to tussle with the bigwigs. Obviously, the numbers are quite close, and could easily flip given another season. And yes, Cloudy's score is much more volatile because he's newer and that's how averages work, meaning he could do an Aryp next season. But if he doesn't? Well he'll stay right here, and unless such a fall-off happens, he has earned this spot. I think at the very least it's incredibly difficult to dispute that he is an all-time top 10 marble, and very worth your consideration for top 5. As for me, I am perfectly comfortable defending him being the second-best.

1st. Red Eye. Score: 15.732. S2 Champion, S3 Champion, S4 Third Place, S5 Champion, 7 wins, 14 podiums.

S4 score: 15.253, 1st.

Uh, well. We all knew this was coming, and I think we can let that list I wrote next to his name and score speak for itself. He's almost 4 whole points higher than 2nd. His average, weighed down by my participation score bs, was over 15, which is a 4th place per race score, and it went up. But look, no one is going to argue with this and I don't need to defend this placement. We all saw this coming and this isn't going to change anytime soon.

So anyway, here's the full list:

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M1S1: 7° overall with Prim arriving 4°, scoring 54 points, and Mary 32° with 0pts

M1S2: 16° overall with Prim 26° (26pts) and Rima 30° (21pts)

M1S3: 9° overall with Aryp 5° (84pts) and Prim 40° (3pts)

M1S4: 2° overall with Aryp 7° (75pts) and Rima 9° (58pts)

M1S5: 16° overall with Rima 23° (35pts) and Aryp 40° (0pts)

Aryp and Mary are the only marbles (along with Vespa from the Hornets) to finish with 0pts.

3 athletes of the team arrived last in 5 editions (Mary, Prim and Aryp). The other two are Skip (Jungle Jumpers) scoring 1pt and Bolt (Thunderbolts) scoring 3pts

Hello! It's a good day to do another M1 write-up, as the fifth installment of marble racing has recently come to its conclusion. Let's take a look at some teams! Starting with those that have brought us the tracks for this season, we've got...

Balls of Chaos
Oh no... No, no-no-no-no-no, this is BAD. This is not the team I expected to finish dead last, but looking at your roster, it was basically predestined. Instead of Clutter and Tumult, who have been the best you've had in this competition and just so happened to both have a below average performance last year, you brought back Anarchy, who has barely beaten their point total from Season 1 despite an extra Grand Prix and a much more generous point structure, and introduced Disarray, who tied said point total... of 11. Who do you think you are, the Hazers? Even with their double replacement, they can easily score more points in a single race than you can muster up over a whole season - hasn't been the case this season, but you know what I mean! You showed glimpses of promise, but have never failed to fall down the order again and again, with half of your races being scoreless, including three straight. Just... take a break from this one. And by the way, thanks for continuing the tradition of one of the hosting teams getting dead last overall - some of the other teams just couldn't have done it themselves.

Kobalts
With your home Grand Prix switching to a much earlier spot, it seems your roster has done a soulmate swap as well. While Royal couldn't get it together at all, never reaching top half in any race and, I dare say, having a performance worse than S2 Azure, which is itself an accomplishment for all the bad reasons, Cerulean... Remember how I said before their S2 was amazing? Well, THIS was amazing. They've basically had it all this year, but maybe just not quite enough. Top-6 in every race, including a long overdue race win, but the 6th spot came at Midnight Bay, a track where they've finished 2nd and 4th before, and had they got 4th here again, they would have been the individual champion. Still, an overall podium is more than deserved, but maybe we can stride for something better than another 7th as a team? Come on, if both Cerulean and Royal can do their best in the same season, that would be an unbeatable team worthy of being the new champion right there!

O'rangers
The letter O has been keeping well. Another top half finish, but one that easily could have been another overall podium, with just one more medal. This time, Clementin has been the stronger link, getting a bronze right out of the gate and another one later in the season, as well as 9 points from being bailed out at Momotorway, while Orangin barely snuck into the top half despite winning a race. Not much else to say, it's just another solid performance... except at your own track yet again. Maybe spare your home crowd some anguish for a season? That could be an aid towards the second championship, just saying.

Team Momo
This team's performance can be separated into three roughly equal parts - Momo's silver at Tumult Turnpike, Mimo's silver at the O'raceway, and... the rest of the season. How does a team score 22 points in 8 races and 20 in each of the other two? How can the reigning individual champion fail to finish in the top half overall the very next year? Their teammate hasn't had much fun this season either, and seeing Momo's 3LC change to MO2, I fear someone's racing career might be put on hold. Also your home track has returned, and... what the heck has plagued that straightaway... it's like if the helices and the bumpers had an offspring or something... damn it, I'm not finishing that comparison!

Pinkies
Much of the same from this team as last season - only this time it wasn't much of a defined good half and bad half, most of the points came somewhere in the middle. Pinky Panther is developing into some fine racer though, they've even got a medal this year - the first one for the team in this sport, mind you! - but they also scored maximum bonus points for a race and failed to win that race again. However, they were also responsible for two thirds of the team's point haul, while Pinky Toe picked up right where Pinky Winky left off and was underwhelming for the most part. The Pinkies have figured out what it takes to become champions before in the Marble League, and if they want to aspire for greater things here in Marbula One, they have to dig deeper. It might take another roster carousel, but believe me, it might just be worth it in the end.

Limers
Look who's back! After finishing two seasons in second-to-last and having two seasons off, you come back over other teams that actually deserved another chance or a chance in general to finish third-to-last this time! Absolutely pathetic. No finishes above 8th, some appearances in Q2, but for the most part, all the way at the bottom, and mostly on behalf of Lemonlime - why were they brought back over Limelime? Limelime was literally the best racer you've ever had! Just let them race alongside Slimelime and you'll probably get like 15th or something at least! It looks like you have a track worthy of some great racing (that's not Lime Lap), but realistically, it might not get featured in the next season or a few, just like this rotting carcass of a franchise.

Oceanics
Look who's back... back again! This team might have begun their redemption arc this year! From winning MS100, to being close to winning the off-season race they were invited thanks to winning MS100, to returning to M1 with an alright showing that was much better than their first one! Nereid got the team the first race win, but has only scored points in one other race. Siren, on the other hand, was the more consistent one, scoring in every race, fighting for top spots at Midnight Bay, fighting for pole at the home track just like Ocean did, a track that also received the most obstacle-like feature... I'll stop talking about it, it's just insensitive! Anyway, this new squad might be here to stay, but now they have to prove they are a worthy asset in the Marble League - if the Oceanics get relegated again, their remaining fans might as well just abandon them for good.

Team Plasma
This was probably the most mid team this season. They tried to start things hot, with Ecto and Fearo starting off the season with a 6th place finish each, but then just... dissolved into mediocrity again. Fearo did get another 6th at the home field, which doesn't even have a tunnel on the track despite claiming to be one, but there were three other tracks that only netted you 1 point each. You did score points in every race this season, but comparing to the other teams who did that, it's just a participation trophy. Needless to say, I've lost all excitement about this team. After an awful Marble League and many crushed expectations to go with it, you'll have to start trying if you want to regain some of that lost legitimacy. Have fun.

Savage Speeders
Congratulations, this is the worst performance by a defending champion by a mile. It was all thanks to how you started and ended the season. After the first four races, you had just 7 points, then some good results came in, which at that point were still enough to keep you in contention, and you threw it away in the home stretch, with history repeating itself from Season 1, where Speedy achieves a seemingly decent first flying lap at the home field that gets handily beaten by everyone else, and Swifty losing positions at Midnight Bay, a track where Speedy and Rapidly (!) have won before. Overall, it was another season where the Speeders start slow and get to climbing the standings later on, but the climb just wasn't strong enough this time around. It's still not the worst of your seasons, but I hoped for at least a top-5 finish. You still have a Marble League on the horizon, where another overall podium is probably likely, but Lord knows we've had too much nice in the world. Speeders' Country, let's ride!

Midnight Wisps
Look who's... Okay, you get the idea. But maybe they shouldn't have been invited back? I guess this Wespy fellah looked promising? At times? They've claimed two poles in a row, but only placed 5th in both of those two races. They didn't forget about scoring points at their other races, including their home track, which the Wisps have about as much trouble with as the O'rangers with O'raceway, while Wispy gathered all their might to score just 1 point, which also happened purely because a certain Thunderbolt just couldn't stay on the track for long enough! You might get another chance, but who even knows how much worse this can get... I suppose seeing Waspy race could be funny... at this point, why not? Now let's talk about the rest of the field.

Bumblebees
The Bees have figured out their way to greatness over in the Marble League, and now it looks like they're finding their way in the land of racing as well. Bumble was a very consistent contender, claiming every position from 4th to 8th, while Stinger did score only 1 point in the first half of the season, but improved greatly for a Hornets marble, scoring more points in each of their remaining races than throughout the whole Season 4, culminating with the pole to 4th place at Midnight Bay. Despite not getting any medals this year, Bumblebees have just made some history with this performance, as the team's 9th place and Bumble's 9th place in the respective standings are the first top-10 finishes with no medals for each - truly impressive in their own right. Consistency is key in Marbula One, and this performance might be one of the prime examples of that statement - but not the only one, stay tuned for later.

Crazy Cat's Eyes
The best roster to grace the sport is back with a vengeance. Red Eye still refuses to be nerfed, as they stormed the field yet again for a third individual championship and a fourth straight individual podium. Despite another hiccup, this time at Aquamaring, oddly enough, one of the many tracks where Red Eye has won a race before, this time they made up for it by qualifying in the top-3 for every single race. Meanwhile, Yellow Eye has been a decent second racer as before, but they really stepped up to the mound when the team needed them to do so the most. Knowing Yellow Eye's history with Midnight Bay, I honestly expected the team to choke away the championship even with a gap of 19 points heading into the final race, but Yellow Eye pressed on the gas and rose all the way to 2nd place, tacking on the fastest lap point as well to finish 20 points ahead of everyone else in the team standings. Not as dominant as their first foray ended up becoming, but considering the golden Marble League season, truly worthy of admiration.

Green Ducks
After whatever the previous season has been for the team, the Ducks made amends with unprecedented levels of consistency - 7 straight races of double-digit point hauls! Billy and Mallard took turns going for gold, with the former, as per the tradition of one win per season as far as Billy is concerned, getting that gold at the O'raceway and almost making up for the winless Season 4 with a silver at P-Mine Tunnel. That silver also brought the Ducks into the lead with 2 races to go, but this is where disaster struck. A poor start to Savage Speedway GP erased all hope for Billy to make the individual podium, and the uncharacteristically appalling Midnight Bay race for Mallard, who's got a couple medals here before, made them finally miss out on a top-10 spot in the individual standings due to Snowstorm, Yellow Eye and Razzy all nabbing medals. The ramifications these two races had on the team standings could not have been worse, as the Green Ducks went from barely having the upper wing to missing the podium by just 2 points. This squad has what it takes to win it all, but they can't be choking it all away like this.

Hazers
Another roster that's still at the top of their game despite only racing for 2 years so far. Cloudy was the better racer again, this time not dipping into the second half once and ending the season with 3 straight bronzes. Misty got a silver at Limelight Harbour that easily could have been their first gold, but their other races had nothing to write home about. Still, that was enough to avenge Hazy and Smoggy for Season 2 and deny the Green Ducks the last step of the podium. I hope the Hazers can make it all the way to winning a thing - they have all the pieces for a glorious trophy, they just need to put them together.

Mellow Yellow
Quite conveniently, we'll have the remaining returning teams one after another here. First of the bunch is Mellow Yellow, who have been mostly known for mediocre results both individually and as a team. This time it was Yellow basically carrying Yellup, though the opposite was also the case before. Will this performance finally call for a roster change? Who knows. Will they even return next season? Not even sure. I really don't have much to say about this team, they're just there to grab a bronze and do nothing for the rest of the season again. Maybe bring Yeller next time - they certainly know how to gain positions out of nowhere. (sarcasm 12/10)

Raspberry Racers
Looks like the Razzies are enjoying the redesigned curbs a lot more, so much so that it's probably the biggest turnaround in Marbula One ever. Last year, they were on par with the Hornets in being trash-tastic through and through, but this year they started off with Ruzzy winning a race (Tumult Turnpike still living up to its name!) and ended it off with a bronze at Midnight Bay for Razzy because apparently it's Season 2 again! The team did have a bit of a drop in the middle, but they have been neck and neck for the most part and were never too bad to fall into the bottom half. Ultimately, they finished in 5th, above all of their fellow Fruit Circuit competitors, as well as quite a few other M1 mainstays, including Kobalts, Speeders, Team Momo and Team Galactic. Hopefully the Razzies are here to stay if they can keep it going like this.

Snowballs
Now, this team shouldn't have been cut at all! Their performance has also been one for the ages, with Snowy and Snowstorm starting their first races in M1 in 3 years on pole position and ending off the year with consecutive race wins to ensure the first team standings podium. They were one of the championship contenders, but they didn't win only because CCE were basically unstoppable just as usual. Snowy also got a couple silver medals to do enough for a spot on the individual podium as well, which is a welcomed bonus. Hopefully your track can also make a return to make for the permanent winter-themed track instead of whatever Sleet Street was giving the series. Otherwise, just try to keep up the good work!

Team Galactic
Now onto the rest of the dumpster divers of this season, and... what the heck is this team doing in that category? You know, you've always been good in this tournament! Never good enough for a top-3 finish, but always good enough for a top-10! Starry couldn't get it going at all for whatever reason, scoring no points in the first half of the season and finishing below any of their teammates for the first time, while Quasar couldn't do much either. They've once again finished right next to each other in the standings - problem is, it's both in the basement! You've made a good enough performance last season to keep this roster, but now it seems like they both have to get a replacement after performing like this - I mean, there's no way they would flat out leave, right? Really hoping it's just a fluke bad showing and they would do well next year.

Team Primary
After having a taste of the overall podium last year, Team Primary went straight to the same old ways of one of the members doing all of the work, while the other embraced the tank to their fullest potential. Wait... what do you mean Rima was the one scoring points? What happened to Aryp?! Even when they did qualify well, they always proceeded to drop into the bottom-5, with no wish of getting off the mark. Just for the record, not only did Aryp score points in each of the prior 11 races, their worst finish across all of those races was 10th! I guess they have gone full Mary mode ever since getting the captaincy status. Rima wasn't doing much better though - it looked like their seemingly random bronze at the O'raceway would end up being the only points Primary could have for the year. Rima did have a couple more races in the points, but it's nowhere near enough to save face. You're once again on the chopping block, and I don't think you're surviving it this time around.

Thunderbolts
And finally, the team that has lost all of their remaining credibility and talent. Not one, but two DNFs, no medals and no last place overall simply because the BOC have outchoked you. When 29 points can be scored in just one race, you need all 10 races to muster up that amount for the second year in a row! Bringing Shock back over Thunder instead of Bolt did absolutely nothing, as Bolt was the weaker link once again. Just... get out of this series for the time being. Also, I really hope this trainwreck of a performance will be the straw that breaks the camel's back for Thunderstorm's reign as your once proud coach. Either that, or inevitably getting relegated to the Showdown in a month or so. I swear, this marble has been wanted fired for more than half of their time at the helm at this point!

And that's Marbula One Season 5 for you! This season might have been compared to Season 2 to no end, but it featured some decent racing as usual, though not without some red flags and all sorts of DNFs... oh wait, Season 2 had those as well... Anyway, this recap has been in the making for a bit longer than I hoped, which I apologize for, but at least it's not late enough for Marble League to have started already? I'll see you there for some more recaps and/or power rankings I guess. Thank you for reading, and as usual, where are the Stars?

What is your Marbula 1 hottake: mine is that aryp is a top 5 racer

I know everyone will be saying "What? This is the Savage Speeders, they are supposed to be the best!" Sure they do have 2 championships alongside a silver but the other 2 times they weren't on the podium, they were 9th and 12th. Mellow Yellow's results in the ML were either top 4, or outside the top 10. The Crazy Cat's Eyes also have 2 championships and a silver but the only time they didn't get a podium was S4, and even that was still a top 5.

imagine if royal was prime royal this season

Hello,

As promised in my write up here is the Marbula One Fan Vote for 2024.

You will be selecting the marble you think belongs in the Marbula One Wing of the Marble Hall of Fame. After 7 days the results will be collected and the winner will inducted in to the MHoF - M1 Wing.

This is the inaugural M1 vote so think carefully who should receive the most prestigious induction.

This year's finalists are Red Eye, Speedy, and Orangin.

If you don't want to select one of the 3 finalists there is an option to choose another marble. If you choose this option please leave the marble you would like to see inducted in the comments so your vote goes to the marble you want - otherwise it will be counted as an "abstain".

Remember this is a continuing series so if your marble doesn't get the honor, they will have more chances in the future.

If you would like to review the data before voting you can find it here: Marble Hall of Fame - Marbula One 2024 Write Up

Good luck to all the finalists!

Marble Hall of Fame Administrator Mando Shunkar

View Poll

I speak for most tbolts fan including myself