The Shining Swarm is a team that is known for being unknown—the team notorious for being forgotten by fans, questioning how they got into the Marble League and why they’re still in the tournament. It’s a question worthy of asking—the team has become the subject of memes over the past few months and did not advance to the 2020 Marble League Qualifiers, which means that they will not be appearing in a competition until the next Showdown.

What does the Shining Swarm have to offer that the Gliding Glaciers did not? (Well, they qualified for a Marble League.) What makes the team any better than the Quicksilvers? (Well, they were better than them in 2017.) Is the team forgettable because the Savage Speeders, another double-S team, also exist? (Most definitely.) You may ask, “Well, Stynth said that “they’re one of the most prevalent teams in the tournament”…they’re not more important than the O’rangers, right?” Look, not one team is more important than the other. Each and every team has their place in marble sports history, and there’s something we can learn from team that has competed. We can learn from Team Plasma that if you haven’t done enough training for Qualifiers, you probably shouldn’t compete. We can learn from the Quicksilvers that just because your Marble Rally athlete is good doesn’t mean that your Marble League athletes will be. We can learn from the Jungle Jumpers that going out the night before the final event of the season is a bad idea.

So, you’re probably asking, what can we learn from the Shining Swarm? The answer is simple: it’s to have fun.