M.League

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M.League

M League logo
Country Japan
Inception 2018
Leader Mr. Susumu Fujita, Chairman
(Founder/President of CyberAgent)
Members 9 teams

M.League 「Mリーグ」 is a professional mahjong team league. This is the first league where mahjong players receive a salary for playing games. Players are fielded from the various mahjong professional leagues. An M.League season consists of a number of regular season games followed by a playoff final. Each team is corporate sponsored, and thus they represent their respective companies. All league activity is hosted at the M.League Studio.

Format

The main format of the competition features a regular season and a post season. The basic format of the season varies in the number of hanchan played.

Current format

With nine teams, the regular season spans for 108 days for 216 hanchan. This grants 96 hanchan per team. After the final regular season day, the top six teams continue into the semifinal round, where they play 30 hanchan on a 15 day schedule (20 hanchan per team). Into the final, the top four play another round of 16 hanchan on a 8 day schedule.

Rules and regulations

Game rules are indicated in the Official M-League Rules 「Mリーグの公式戦ルール」. All gameplay is in the form of hanchan using AMOS brand professional mahjong tables.

Game day

Every game day session includes two hanchan. Teams scheduled to play send one team member for each of the two hanchan. If desired, one player may play both hanchan.

Game rules

League rules comply with general riichi mahjong rules with special competitive settings. Starting score is 25,000 points; target score is 30,000 points; the uma is 「+30 / +10 / -10 / -30」.[1]

Draft

Prior to each season, one day is set for team drafts. Teams select from a field of players among the different professional organizations. The inaugural draft was held on August 7, 2018. Naturally, every team made their player selections to fill their rosters in the inaugural draft. For subsequent drafts in later years, teams may opt to draft new players or otherwise pass on the opportunity (passing is disallowed starting from 2022 season). Currently, each team has rosters of four players.

Announcers

Main

Guest

A number of guest commentators appear for casting. The most regular guest commentator is Koushou Tsuchida. Other commentators may either be current league players, former members, or other mahjong professionals.

M.League Studio

The league has a dedicated studio for games and broadcasts. The studio is located in Hamamatsuchou, Minato, Tokyo. A jansou named M.League Stadium is open to the public in Takadanobaba.

Teams

Logo Team name Company sponsor Players Inception
Akasaka Drivens Hakuhodo DY media partners Ken Sonoda (Saikouisen)
Taro Suzuki (Saikouisen)
Maki Asami (Saikouisen)
Futoshi Watanabe (Saikouisen)
2018
BEAST Japanext BS Japanext Masatoshi Sarukawa (JPML)
Hiroe Sugawara (JPML)
Daisuke Suzuki (JPML)
Kana Nakada (JPML)
2023
EX Furinkazan TV Asahi Aki Nikaido (JPML)
Kenji Katsumata (JPML)
Takaya Matsugase (RMU)
Rumi Nikaido (JPML)
2018
Kadokawa Sakura Knights KADOKAWA Kotaro Uchikawa (JPML)
Sayaka Okada (JPML)
Shingo Hori (Kyokai)
Nanba Shibukawa (Kyokai)
2019
Konami Mahjong Fight Club KONAMI Hisato Sasaki (JPML)
Mari Takamiya (JPML)
Arisa Date (JPML)
Kazunori Takizawa (JPML)
2018
SegaSammy Phoenix SegaSammy Yuumi Uotani (JPML)
Sayaka Kayamori (Saikouisen)
Rio Toujou (JPML)
Hiroshi Daigo (Saikouisen)
2018
Shibuya Abemas CyberAgent Takaharu Ooi (RMU)
Sho Shiratori (JPML)
Yoshihiro Matsumoto (Kyokai)
Aiko Hinata (Saikouisen)
2018
Team Raiden Dentsu Masato Hagiwara (JPML)
Naoki Setokuma (JPML)
Saki Kurosawa (JPML)
Tomohiro Honda (JPML)
2018
U-Next Pirates U-Next Go Kobayashi (Mahjong Union)
Akina Mizuhara (Saikouisen)
Yu Suzuki (Saikouisen)
Kei Nakabayashi (Kyokai)
2018

Note:

JPML = Japan Professional Mahjong League

Saikouisen = Saikouisen Nihon Pro Mahjong Kyokai

Kyokai = Nihon Pro Mahjong Kyokai

RMU = Real Mahjong Unit

Seasons

Season Start Date End Date Winner Runner-up Top regular season player
2018 2018-10-01 2019-03-31 Akasaka Drivens EX Furinkazan Takaharu Ooi
2019 2019-09-30 2020-06-23 U-NEXT Pirates SegaSammy Phoenix Yuumi Uotani
2020 2020-10-05 2021-05-18 EX Furinkazan KADOKAWA Sakura Knights Hisato Sasaki
2021 2021-10-04 2022-04-26 KADOKAWA Sakura Knights SegaSammy Phoenix Akina Mizuhara
2022 2022-10-03 2023-05-19 Shibuya Abemas Konami Fight Club Arisa Date
2023 2023-09-18

Top 10 hanchan scores

Rank Player Team Score Date Season (Hanchan)
1 Taro Suzuki Akasaka Drivens 132.8 2024-02-26 2023 (Reg 178)
2 Saki Kurosawa Team Raiden 132.7 2022-11-07 2022 (Reg 41)
3 Arisa Date Konami Fight Club 125.5 2021-11-18 2021 (Reg 54)
4 Koushin Asakura U-Next Pirates 122.4 2021-12-02 2021 (Reg 70)
5 Hisato Sasaki Konami Fight Club 118.2 2021-04-22 2020 (SF 14)
6 Yuumi Uotani Sega Sammy Phoenix 114.4 2020-02-27 2019 (Reg 167)
7 Hisato Sasaki Konami Fight Club 114.0 2021-02-18 2020 (Reg 154)
8 Yoshihiro Matsumoto Shibuya Abemas 113.7 2021-04-29 2020 (SF 22)
9 Shingo Hori Kadokawa Sakura Knights 112.9 2021-01-02 2020 (Reg 97)
10 Makoto Sawazaki Kadokawa Sakura Knights 112.1 2019-11-19 2019 (Reg 64)

Yakuman

So far, all the yakuman scored fall under yakuman gosanke: suuankou, daisangen, and kokushi musou. The most scored in a season was in the 2019 season with eight.

Yakuman counts (21 total)
Suuankou Kokushi Musou Daisangen
Regular Tanki
11 3 3 4

References

  1. M.League rules (in Japanese)

External links

Competition rules
M League channel
M.League in Japanese Wikipedia
Blog covering game highlights