Mellow Yellow slipped in the standings until the eighth event, when Yellah earned a gold medal in the High Jump and set a new Marble League Record, reaching a height of 38cm. The team rose into second place overall when they earned a silver medal in the next event, Steeplechase, but the team ultimately lost its focus, picking up just six points over the last three events. Thankfully for Mellow Yellow, their one-point lead over the Midnight Wisps in fourth place allowed the team to finish the 2017 Marble League in third place, and prequalify a second time for the next season.

The team acquired Yellim in time for the 2018 Marble League Friendly Round, which saw the four prequalified teams compete in an exhibition tournament prior to the 2018 Marble League championship. Mellow Yellow placed second in all three events and finished second overall. Things were looking good for the team in yellow.

It could go without saying (but it’s not going to) that the Mellow Yellow we saw in the 2018 Marble League was so jarring that it almost looked like a different team competing. The team earned no medals throughout the entire tournament, and the closest it came was in the final event, when Yellow placed fourth in the Sand Mogul Race. The team began their season in ninth place, and jumped up briefly to eighth after a sixth place by Yellah in the Ski Jump before falling to ninth, then twelfth, then fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth.

Yes, Mellow Yellow was in sixteenth place at the end of the eighth event, having placed last in the Snowboard Cross as well as in Speed Skating three events earlier. The team began battling with the Minty Maniacs and the Pinkies to “stay out of the basement” of the standings, for at this point, the team had nary a path to victory. Luckily for Mellow Yellow, they secured double-digits in three of the four final events and finished the 2018 Marble League in fifteenth place, well above the Pinkies and tied with the Limers in points, but behind them in medal count.

“A lot of fans attribute our bad performance to the ‘third place curse’, where the team that places third at the end of a Marble League tanks in the following season,” Yellah pondered. “It’s an interesting concept, and so far, there’s no evidence against it…other than the fact that there is no logic or physical evidence for it, either. Besides that, it’s not fair to the hard work that us athletes put in every year. You can’t always win.”