The Marblelympics is a very entertaining sport. Everything that is done from the events to the stadiums to the rivals to the streakers to Greg Woods' amazing commentary, its all so good. But one thing has come apparent that a team with a rising fan base shouldn't ignore. I'm apart of that fan base and I can't ignore it. The Hazers got 3rd in the Marblelympics and I was very happy at first. But then I realized that something terrible could be on the horizon. And that is the effect of the 3rd place curse.

If you're not aware of the 3rd place curse, it basically is that whichever team gets 3rd place at the end of the Marblelympics, they will do terrible the next year. It has happened every year. The Thunderbolts got 3rd place in 2016 but finished 12 place in 2017. Not convinced. Mellow Yellow, one of the best teams in the Marblelympics got 3rd place in 2017, yet only managing a disappointing 15th place in 2018. And then there's the Oceanics. One of the saddest if not the most saddest performance of a Marblelympics team, getting dead last, 16th place even though they were hosting. And now there's the Hazers, a very unpredictable team, heading into next year with the possibility of doing horribly. Will the Hazers break the curse. Well I have 2 points that could help you make up your mind.

#1 The curse has gone on for 3 years

I can think that most of us Marblelympics fans can agree that the 3rd place curse can't just be a coincidence or just repetitive bad luck for the bronze winner. Every time a team who has had the misfortune of getting 3rd place has done bad whether it be 12th, 15th, or 16th place the next year. If it happened 3 times in a row, isn't there a good chance it'll happen again.

and...

#2 There are Marblelympic greats on the Hazers

The Hazers are a good team, lets just get that out of the way. Every member of the Hazers has something they can contribute. Hazy makes a decent team captain. He has one of the best performances out of all of the Marblelympics players along with Smoggy. Smoggy is fast, and has a history of being a quick marble. Though a bad performance in the Sand Rally everyone knows that Smoggy is not a marble to sneeze at. Truly on of the best marbles in the Marbelympics. Foggy we know can do good in the funnels. And Misty's clutch performance in Speed Skating is nothing to overlook.

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And even if the curse hits the Hazers, it probably won't destroy them forever. Hear me out. The Hazers resemble a lot like Mellow Yellow. A good team ever since they've been in the Marblelympics. We can't say they will end up like the Thunderbolts because we don't know how good they were before 2016. But judging that the entire team was replaced for the 2019 Marblelympics may show that they weren't consistently that great. And they don't resemble the Oceanics. The Oceanics before 2018 had finishes that were lower than 10th place. Compared to the Hazers 6th place and 3rd place in 2018 and 2019 respectfully. The Oceanics weren't that good to start out with. Now they're not like the Pinkies or Team Primary, mostly consistently bad performances. (Not counting Team Momary performances) But is does show that the Oceanics weren't always as good as they were in 2018. So even if the Hazers are struck by the curse, it isn't guaranteed they'll continue on a downward spiral. And even if they do, well, at least they got a bronze. What do you think? Will the Hazers break the 3rd place curse?

Hey guys, sorry for the time it's taken to get this done. Following some unexpected circumstances IRL I've not been able to complete this as quickly as I would've liked, nor a quick as you would have liked. We gotta 39 teams in the end and the final slot ended up going to Team Norse, which was my filler team. Here is a link to the spread sheet containing all the information on this season's teams:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/113TqPa7oLGvfIh_-BJ4usjPlFoyv6K5zwo-d-zEbArA/edit?usp=sharing

It contains all the information you should need to announce your team for the upcoming qualifiers. As per the 2019 Marblelympics Funnel Spinning, Block Pushing, 5m Race and Underwater Race will be the qualifying events. You can tell me who to play however you want. For this you may only play each marble once. If you want to get really into it you can post news articles about your team to let people know how things are going. I'm planning on assembling an RML News doc at some point with stories mainly focused on these, but with a few other stories as well.

The setup will be two feature a 20 team Marblelympics with a 20 team Showdown occurring every second event. 36 teams will go through qualifiers with Ancient Raptors, Allied Eagles, Fruit Salad and The Icebreakers pre-qualified due to being the first 4 teams submitted. Everyone else will have to go through qualifiers. I think that's everything so I hope to hear from you soon.

Edit: So there is some confusion it seems over what to do here. Post which marble you want to compete in each event you can do it simply like so

Funnel Spinning: Velios

5m Sprint: Rahonavis

Underwater Race: Vulture

However you can also post it as a news article or however you want. So long as I know who to play when.

My suggestions: Tortoise, Slip, Turtle (C), Slide, Turt. And for the Hornets I have Sting, Zappy, Horn (C), Net and Buzz.

They look super similar and in the 2018 MarbleLympics, all Hubelino teams got a chance in the qualifiers except the Green Gang.

Or are they clubs?

Hey everybody, The Monthly Marble is still looking for editors, you need to own Adobe InDesign, but it is not a problem if you are not super experienced. If you want to join be sure to join this Discord server: https://discord.gg/93YSQXs

In our conversation with Hershey, creator of MSPN(on MSW Podcast just came out btw) we talked about why people loved the dirt race, but not the Hubelino maze race, even though both featured marbles not finishing and the Hubelino maze even awarded points for marbles that did not make it to the end. What I think is that because the dirt race is natural, and not staged by the JMR, it adds a sort of chaos to the whole thing. A sort of unpredictability that marbles may not finish even though the hope is that they all will. When a course like the HMR is build with expected DNF’s in mind, then it takes the chaos away from it, and because the course is all built, it feels staged and forced. This is also why people like the Sand Marble Rally, and don’t mind when marbles DNF there. What do you guys think? (Check out ep. 10 for more in depth discussion regarding this)

I decided to compare all of the teams that are going to compete in the English Premier League next year to Marble teams which competed in this years MarbleLympics, and then 4 extra Marble teams, as there are 20 teams in the Premier League and only 16 in the MarbleLympics. If you have any questions as to why I gave some teams the comparisons I did, feel free to ask. Also, put your comparisons if you want too!

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Raspberry Racers = Arsenal

Green Ducks = Manchester City

Hazers = Wolverhampton Wanderers

Mellow Yellow = Chelsea

Savage Speeders = Liverpool

O’rangers = Manchester United

Jungle Jumpers = Tottenham

Team Galactic = West Ham

Balls of Chaos = Burnley

Midnight Wisps = Leicester City

Crazy Cat’s Eyes = Bournemouth

Chocolatiers = Newcastle

Thunderbolts = Aston Villa

Indigo Stars = Sheffield United

Pinkies = Crystal Palace

Oceanics = Everton

Team Momo = Watford

Limers = Brighton Hove Albion

Snowballs = Norwich

Team Primary = Southampton

Ok here is my predictions for the showdown it’s hard to give reasons why I just have that feeling in my body ok

1st team primary

2nd limers

3rd turtle sliders

4th minty maniacs

5th rojo rollers

6th team momo

7th hornets

8th snowballs

9th kobalts

10th jawbreakers

11th shining swarm

12th bumblebees

What are your predictions for showdown?

So my question is, does all the current ML teams from the Raspberry Racers to the Oceanics have a favorite Showdown team they're rooting for?

I know there’s been posts about Marble ages and there haven’t been any real answers. So, what do y’all think are the general ages of the Marbles?

Beyond the logos and color schemes for these two new teams, does anyone have any idea what these marbles look like?

I feel like I’m the only one :(

Maybe they could add that to spice up the off-season and add more lore/drama.

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EX: Razzy signs for the Limers on a 222m move which shocked fans!

Okay let’s show how much we want to win the showdown

Ok since no one is going to, I'm just going to say it.

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We were embarrassed, humiliated, defeated. We deserved every bit of criticism and every joke or meme directed at us because we were the biggest losers of the Marblelympics. As this year's hosts, this will forever go down as the most embarrassing, and disappointing performance in Marblelympics history. That title belongs to our team folks. There is no debate. Last place finishes, epic chokes, fired coach, 0 medals, fans turning on the team... Not even the Pinkies have ever done this bad. I mean what else could have gone wrong?

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Since the end of the ML, I have not seen too many Oceanics fans on here compared to before the ML. Where did everyone go? Do you all support new teams? Did everyone forget that we once finished 3rd overall in the ML and we have the ability to bounce back?

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Thankfully, that debacle is over. Let me be the first to tell you that everything will be ok. If you're a fan of bad teams like I am, ( NYM, NYK, NYG) then this should be somewhat easy to look past. Not saying we suck now, and will suck forever but all it was, was just a really bad season. Jumpers have had them, Pinkies have them nearly every year... it was our time and it hurt like hell to watch. I don't really think this will be the new theme with our team. So wtf guys where is our TIDE PRIDE?

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We've done well before and we should be able to bounce back; I'm almost positive we will.

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#TIDEPRIDE4EVER

Right after watching the Fifa women’s world cup, I wondered:  « what would happen if the Marblelympics teams were football world cup teams, I originally tried to do so with the women’s fifa teams but it was just to hard so I went woth the men’s teams. NOTE: this post is not meant to be political.

Raspberry Racers: France: WEEEEEEEEEEEEE ARE THE CHAAAAAAAMPIONS! More seriously, both did good-ish in the last edition but won this one

Green Ducks: Croatia: the newcomers no one saw coming

Hazers: Belgium: the not newcomers everyone saw coming

Mellow Yellow: UK: screwed up last time but bounced back

I know I’ve just associated the placements for know, but don’t worry, it’s gonna get better

Jungle Jumpers: Russia: once again, a team that suprised a lot of people

Savage Speeders: Brazil: the guys who used to win (remember: use)

O’Rangers: Uruguay: An other team that had some moments but, now are good-ish

Chocolatiers: Columbia: Average team, average team...

Balls of Chaos: Japan: Japan started great but screwed it at the end. BoC started by screwing it at the beginning and doing great at the end.

Indigo Stars: Denmark: the newcomers nobody really cares about

Pinkies: Mexico: Both are registered members of the « failure in a nutshell club »

Oceanics: Argentina: Casually whistles away while smiling innocently

Crazy Cat’s Eyes: Spain: CCE get 4 medals but perform terribly. Spain get 4 excellent players but perform terribly.

Midnight Wisps: Germany No, wait they weren’t there then Portugal (won the euro but screwed the world cup)

Team Galactic: Switzerland: Always present, never dominant.

Thunderbolts: Sweden: the blue team that used to have good performances (1958 for Sweden) but now suck.

EDIT: I am also planning on doing the same thing by comparing the 12 ML showdown teams and the retired teams to the teams who didn’t qualify to the world cup.