Hello and welcome to another RetRollSpective, where we reflect on the history of marble sports teams that have competed in the tournaments of Jelle’s Marble Runs. This time, we’re going to uncover the history of the Constrictors, a team that debuted in MarbleManiaX but has competed around Marblearth under a variety of different aliases and tournaments. Read on to find out how this team has ensnared the competition!
When one thinks of who makes up the marble sports landscape, which teams come to mind? You have championship-winning teams with marble racing in their every swirl, like the Savage Speeders or the Raspberry Racers; rookie teams to the Marble League with much to prove, like the Indigo Stars or the Purple Rockets; or legacy teams whose success in lower-tier tournaments has not translated at the highest level, like the Limers or the Jawbreakers.
What the League has lacked, however, is a “journeymarble” team. “Journeymarble” is an affectionate term coined by the communities of smaller competitions, meaning a team who travels from competition to competition, never defined by their peak performance in one league alone. This has been the course of the Constrictors’ career and a way of life they know all too well.
“Me, my family, my friends… the way I was raised, life is about bouncing from job to job and getting good at what you can,” explained team captain Boa. All five marbles are from the towns that dot the Brace Isles’ southernmost islands, a region with a rich history and many contrasts. Boa and reserve Eryx were raised in Wyvermouth: Python in Plymsnake; and Ana and Conda next to the hills of Cornroll.
“I had to leave school early and let’s just say I had to earn my keep early, to support some people around me,” said Python. They shuffled between two jobs from dawn to late night; one as a cargo driver and another at a shipyard. “What we did was seven of us marbles had to balance these big steel beams on our heads and carry them around. What’ll hurt is if you rolled too quickly because then we all lost balance and the whole beam just keeled over.”
Ana and Conda had more well-off, carefree upbringings, whereas Boa and Python both cycled through odd jobs: concrete mixer, pearl plucker, marbsheep shepherd, and flea fumigator. They could have kept to that life, like all their cousins or neighbors, if not for a chance encounter between Boa and Conda in 2005.
“It took me three interviews, but I got a summer job at the fancy getaway in the area… the Eden Project,” said Boa. “Marble families from all over the Islands would spend the day there because it was this marvelous amusement park with all the attractions.” Boa ran maintenance on the Project’s prize attraction, a giant marble run that young marbles seeking a thrill would roll down in the thousands.
Conda also worked near the run, and after the park closed they would take turns racing down the Plinko board or talking about their hopes and dreams. “I would tell Boa that I dreamed of doing marble rallies ever since I was little, but it’s not anything my family was prepared for,” said Conda. “And Boa would say they also read those same legends of rally racers as a kid, but everyone they know said athletics is something only rich marbles can afford.”
And yet, by the summer’s end, they figured out how things could work. Ana and Conda had enough of their own savings, enough to support four marbles to take part in athletic meets for half a year. This gave Boa a chance to quit their job as well as call up their childhood friend, Python.
“My racing career’s really all thanks to that Plinko board, wasn’t it?” Said Boa. “I fixed it up, but I knew nothing about why it was there. All I knew then was that they paid a foreign marble with a flower in their cap to design it, someone called ‘Jelly Backer.’ “
In 2006, a new team burst onto the Fruit Circuit scene: the yellow Zesty Lemons. Nowadays we would remember that season for the Yarble Yellers’ dominant win, but Fruit Circuit posters at the time prominently featured the Lemons next to the Limers, the Passionfruits, and the Pomelo Power. “NO TIME TO BE SOUR,” announced one poster. “THESE CITRUS TEAMS ARE IN IT TO WIN IT.”
“Of course I remember the Zesty Lemons – because they got in the Fruit Circuit by beating us!” said Sublime. A year before they began competing, the four friends out of Cornroll hitchhiked to Lemono, a town outside of the Limers’ home base. Sublime and their team had just started organizing the Fruit Circuit, but kept to a summer tradition where they would host a sand rally on the local beaches.
“The Limers said if you beat their captain in the sand rally, they would offer you a prize,” said Conda. After watching a dozen young marbles ahead in the line try the race and lose, Conda was side-by-side with Sublime as the gate flipped open. Right away Conda could tell they lacked Sublime’s top speed, but they knew a trick to play. Conda slowed down ahead of a chicane in the track, and as Sublime rolled way up the walls, the future Constrictor rolled straight past them.
Conda beat the Limer by several lengths, and the whole team of four had just rolled over to celebrate when a dark marble with white swirls introduced themself. “It was this beautiful marble and their name was Greg Woods,” said Ana. “And they asked us if we want to meet again tomorrow to show off our talent more.”
The next morning, with the sun just risen, Greg Woods and the Limers were tracking the four yellow marbles’ racing times, jumping form, and pushing power. By noon, the future Constrictors were spent, and thought they were hallucinating Greg’s request: “I know this is sudden, but do you want to fly out with us this afternoon and join the Fruit Circuit?”
In the Fruit Circuit’s early years, as the former Lemons and Limers tell us, the organizers kept hyping up rivalries that did not pan out. The Limers and the Zesty Lemons were both much better than the rest of the citrus-themed teams while also firmly in the midpack. Over the eight seasons that the Lemons competed in the Circuit, their highest season placement was sixth.
For all their talents, “I think we had to admit we were not the best at off-road racing,” said Ana. They lacked the top speed and endurance of the championship contenders, such as the Yarble Yellers or the Grape Nuts. That is not to say they did not try: the Lemons formed a quick bond with several Limers racers, who would take time out of their day to train with the newcomers.
“I really admire their team and their backstory, which is why I made sure I showed them the ropes,” said Lemonlime of the Limers. It was the Limers who convinced the Cornroll marbles to adopt not just the Lemons team name, but also accept being named Lemon, Lumon, Lamon and so forth. It was also team captain Sublime who would work with Ana and Conda in the off-season on how to accelerate and turn into straights the right way.
Another factor the Lemons dealt with: because the Fruit Circuit was not well financed and had a small staffing budget, every full-time racer was also part of race organizing. “So you had Sublime doing marketing and sponsorships, while Conda, Boa, and I handled fan stand setup every race,” explained Python.
“It was fun but also a shambles because we were much quicker on the job than all these other athletes we managed,” Python continued. “Those racing marbles were so green, you’d think they never worked a day on a construction site!”
Conda added to that thought: “Well, we knew they didn’t. And that was a sore point for all of you.”
By 2014, the Zesty Lemons were at a crossroads. Python seemed more interested in doing construction work at each Fruit Circuit event than training. On a trip back to the Brace Isles, Boa also kept pitching for an additional teammate, their “brilliant cousin” by the name of Eryx. Even their mentors, the Limers, were spending most of their time talking to the Circuit’s rising stars – the O’rangers and the Raspberry Racers.
While Ana and Conda felt they just needed to train harder to be a Fruit Circuit winner, the team was deadlocked. “Those two grew up in Cornroll and really didn’t understand how we saw things,” said Boa. “You bounce from job to job. You get good at what you can. We weren’t great at rallies, so let’s find something different.”
It was Boa who, after each long race week, would look into the local sports circuits that were expanding across Marblearth. What caught their attention were a series of articles on the MFC Championship League, a league not based around off-road racing but on complex triathlons or target events like archery. Soon the whole team would read reports of that season, each event recording record-breaking attendance, up to the final events hosted by a team sporting streaks of gold – the Tiger Eyes.
“Yeah, my first encounter with Boa was when they dug up my number and called me!” said Jaguar, captain of the Tiger Eyes. “I didn’t hang up because I heard of the Lemons, they had some good photo finishes in the Fruit Circuit. Eventually, Boa asked me how they could apply to enter the MFC. But I told them don’t bother, we are just coming off of another opportunity.”
At the time, the Tiger Eyes had been the five-time consecutive champions of the MFC. Their league domination, and the sports grounds they called home, were in large part financed by a sports promoter whose identity is still secret to this day. The Tiger Eyes had backing far beyond any other MFC team – and the promoter was thinking of a global opportunity.
Three top-tier MFC teams, including the Tiger Eyes, were committed to jump over to a radically different league, with less of a focus on athletics and more on daredevil challenges. “Our benefactor was thinking about drama, non-stop action, something that will broadcast on every TV channel in Marblearth,” said Jaguar. “Something that can dethrone Marble Drama Island on TV every week.”
The new league needed teams, and the Zesty Lemons snatched up a spot – or, the Lemons without Python. The racer would not go into detail about why they left the team when they switched leagues, just saying that “that new tournament wasn’t worth it for me.”
But the remaining three members, plus Eryx the talented cousin, moved continents once more with a high-earning contract and a new team name: the “Flaming Vogues.”
The MarbleSports Evolved (MSE) Championship, as the new tournament was called, dubbed itself “only for extremophiles”. Teams aimed to survive elimination events held from Hunluen to Polaria, until the top four standing faced off at the Evolution Stadium in Om. The Flaming Vogues competed for three seasons, culminating in a championship victory.
“There are two things with MSE we remember well,” said Ana. “It was quite loud, and the fireworks never stopped.” Tournament events tended to be MFC events on a larger scale, like archery, cornhole, or an endurance-length “extreme marble rally.” But every event began with a parade of marble celebrities taking VIP seats and would end with a large fireworks show.
In their first season, the Flaming Vogues’ experience took them to the Final Four showdown in Om. There, they would be remembered for a championship battle with the Tiger Eyes on an obstacle course full of swinging weights and the dreaded “big balls” one had to bounce across with perfect accuracy.
“The rule was you pick yourself up and go to the start if you fall off, and the first team of four where everyone finishes wins,” said Eryx. “And in the end, it was between me and Felid of the Tiger Eyes, after we got battered a dozen times. And we were both aching, but they barely avoided slipping off the balls and got in before me.”
After that season, however, the tournament started to crack. “Case in point… we were racing and the fireworks would start going off a few lengths before anyone crossed the finish line,” said Boa. “One time this scared the leader so much that we had a pile up right in front of the finish.”
In fact, what got Boa on the organizers’ radar was when they noticed a critical flaw in an event. For Extreme Relay, where out of each baton pass marbles speed up immediately through an accelerator, Boa saw right away that the lane walls were too short, though the organizers ignored their complaints.
“I took action into my own hands, that’s all. I got a ball bearing to go in front of a baton gate, then I just sped down the track to show how it goes wrong,” said Boa. They made the baton pass with the ball bearing, which went through the accelerator. The ball bearing shot out and skipped to the lane to its right, knocking loose the baton gate there. The organizers heightened the walls, but still suspended Boa for two events due to “tampering with equipment.”
With circumstances like these, the Tiger Eyes quit MarbleSports Evolved after Season 2. The Flaming Vogues’ Season 3 win comes with an asterisk, achieved without their top rival.
“I wish I could just say our first marble sports championship was the best,” said Conda, to nods from the whole team. “But when we rolled up to the podium and looked past the fireworks and the paid performers, you saw that two-thirds of the stands were empty.
“I talked to Boa the night of and asked, ‘why did we make this move again?’ We wanted something different, but really we picked a new tournament because we saw all those teams with those fans, working hard to become real champions. This competition didn’t feel real anymore.”
Boa and the team were in contact this whole time with Python, who was now a fixture on the Sand Marble Rally circuit. “They didn’t tell me when I left, but I knew I was the weak link when we were the Lemons,” said Python. “So it would be nice to start fresh and make my own path. I went by Python’s Tub.”
Miracles do not happen overnight. Python’s Tub did not impress in their first amateur sand rally meets, but over time finished more often in the top half. With support from new racer friends they booked a trip to Knikkegen, where racers across the world were eager to qualify for Jelle Bakker’s 2016 Sand Marble Rally. Their new name was something friends thought rolled better off the tongue: Snake’s Tub.
When starting alongside Marblearth’s best racers, the same issues from a decade ago started to show. Snake’s Tub could only reach the end of 2 races in the season before getting cut after Race 6. However, Snake’s Tub could own a pre-season performance that may have decided their qualification: victory in a 500-foot sand rally.
Starting near the front but knowing they were losing ground, Snake’s Tub displayed their teammates’ famous quick thinking. At a fork in the course, they slowed down and swerved left while most others turned right. Seconds later, they were the first marble to shoot down the course’s alternate straight and overtake the leading group. For the second half, Snake’s Tub would fend off pressure from future champion Ghost Plasma to take the win.
Getting commended by Ghost Plasma, Dragon’s Egg, and other elite racers after that race are some of Python’s favorite memories. The other is after their elimination from the 2016 season, and Jelle delivered an honorable mention award to each marble leaving the tournament. “I was on a call with Boa, just yelling out… I met Jelle Bakker first!” said Python. “The Plinko board designer who got all of us rolling!”
Python failed to qualify for the 2017 Marble Rally just as the Flaming Vogues were reconsidering MarbleSports Evolved. Over calls every night, Python emphasized they knew how their former teammates felt. “Them and I can say we won something in our lives, but it didn’t feel right,” said Python. “And I just told them what they were all thinking – it’s time for something different, just don’t go back.”
MarbleSports Evolved was canceled in 2018, a year after the Flaming Vogues quit. The one marble sports event that every Marblearth channel tuned into arrived, but it was Jelle Bakker’s Marble League. However, by early 2021, rumors spread that the Bakker siblings entertained reviving the MSE concept, looking for a way to engage younger marbles less interested in traditional athletics. Reports were that Dion Bakker invested much of their personal wealth in the project and was in advanced talks with the Balls of Chaos to host and select participants.
“It was just like the Balls of Chaos to reach out to the Pinkies, who reached out to the Snowballs, who reached out to the Volleyballs and who reached out to us,” said Jaguar of the Tiger Eyes. “I told them, though, that we want to keep managing the MFC. But you need to invite this Bug Circuit team we know.”
That fateful day came in Fall 2021, not long after Felynia’s Marble League came to an end. The Bakkers, along with the Balls of Chaos on their side, drove under Buzznya’s maple canopies, then past the hills that surrounded the annual Bug Circuit’s grounds. The Bakkers looked for the Scorpions, who won all of the last three Bug Circuits and also sat on the Circuit’s managing board.
The Bakkers would goof and had to be told by Pincer, former Scorpions captain, that they needed to contact the second-generation Scorpions; even if they went by the old athletes’ names, their history lasts longer than even the original team. The new team would have been known as the Zesty Lemons, the Flaming Vogues, and Snake’s Tub before 2017. By then the Tiger Eyes referred that team to the retiring Scorpions athletes, promising they were worthy successors to the name.
“The Bug Circuit was a perfect fit,” said Conda. “Buzznya is beautiful, and apart from racing we take care of the birds at the zoo or the horses at the menagerie.” In all events except for short races, the new Scorpions had such endurance and focus that they were podium favorites. These athletes from the Brace Isles were winners, loved by the locals and could finish out their sporting career here.
“But an offer from the Bakkers, in real life… how can you turn that down?” said Boa. “I was half speechless the minute I saw they were driving down to our street.” The Constrictors thought the Balls of Chaos marbles spoke far too quickly, but they understood the offer from the Bakkers: Take part in Marble ManiaX, and they could compete under their own team name and possibly qualify for the Marble League.
“Isn’t it humorous that over a decade and a half of racing, we were never offered to choose our team name?” recalled Ana. They signed the deal that week and agreed to compete as the Constrictors.
“In honor of Python, the soul of our team.” “So the other teams know we’ll squeeze them out of contention.” And, for Python, “‘Cause you can never catch up to a snake and roll over it. No one can keep us down.”
The first season of Marble ManiaX raged on in Hunluen, the home of the Balls of Chaos, in early 2022. The Constrictors were ready. Yet another cousin of Boa’s, Charmer, signed on to coach the team. Their fans packed a full section in the stands, whether they flew in from Buzznya or were Hunluen residents who once followed the Flaming Vogues.
The first event would be Extreme Diving, where marbles would leap from a skyscraping height onto the underwater target. The Constrictors showed right away they were last to jump, but not least: in their first jump, all but one stayed close to one another and to the bullseye, scoring one 9-point landing.
In the end, those 9 points made the difference in a tiebreaker among the top three, and as soon as the Constrictors dried off they would ascend the medal podium as the first event champions.
When interviewed afterward on their Diving performance, Captain Boa was nonchalant: “where we grew up in the Brace Isles, we’d scale the cliffs around Plymsnake and jump off of them. So we knew exactly what it takes to dive well.”
Conda’s experience was also on display in the Domino Bowling event, shooting down the central lane with a 73-point run, part of their bronze medal performance in the event. While their teammates cheered them on, Conda turned and just said: “I was part of many events based on accuracy, so this event was pretty easy. I only wish I could equal Pinky Winky’s run.”
Python admits to breaking the medal streak in Event 3, with a first-round loss against the Strixes in Extreme Funnels. As Tawny of the Strixes recalls: “It was quite humorous, because I congratulated Python on a tense battle afterwards. But they responded to me first with ‘It’s best to move on, I hate funnels.’ They tried to avoid me, but eventually we had a good chat.”
“I placed dead last in a funnel battle at the start of my rally career,” said Python. “And despite what my teammates think I am just shabby at it! Team Strix was all class though, they are some keepers.”
Boa finished sixth in the Obstacle Race, after an unfortunate incident right out the starting gate. In the third-round, the team captain rolled straight into a rubber barrier, costing them ten seconds of time they could not recover. That said, going into the final Super Collision event, the Constrictors were one of four teams that could win the tournament. With the Purple Rockets and the Strixes knocked out early, the team knew only they controlled their destiny: as long as they made the finals, they would win the tournament.
First, the Constrictors got past the Black Jacks in two chaotic rounds, with one Constrictor braking just in time to eke out a win. Then the team faced the Pinkies, and both took defensive formations that slowed the teams down to avoid contacting the fidget spinners.
But luck was again not on the veteran team’s side. Boa, at the formation’s center, held their breath as they were launched by one, two, three spinners. They ricocheted out of the stadium, smacking a trigger that sent out ball bearings that knocked out two other Constrictors with precision.
“Oh, we got an airborne marble!” exclaimed Greg Woods. The fans’ nerves were steadied, realizing Greg looked at a ball bearing and not their team captain crashing down to incur some lifelong injury. But the Constrictors lost the first half 2-5 and lost in full time 6-9. Another team went to the finals, and another championship was lost.
The Constrictors still left the event with hardware, beating the Balls of Chaos 5-3 to take a bronze medal. This concluded their Jelle’s Marble Runs debut, where the team stunned crowds by fighting for the championship throughout and finishing as runners-up.
If this sounds too much like their narrow defeat in the MSE seven years ago, there was a silver lining to it all: when the team first received their silver medals and remembered what the effort was for.
“We liked the music, and thankfully no fireworks… but what really mattered was the Bakkers coming out to award us the medals,” said Conda. “All of us teared up at that moment.” Boa and Conda, over the din, yelled to thank Jelle for building marble runs and bringing the team together many years ago. In Boa’s telling, Jelle did not say anything back but responded plenty through their kind eyes.
That was the last time much of Marblearth saw the Constrictors, but the story does not end there. All the athletes have their own memory of what happened after when the Black Jacks went back on stage with footage of incorrect scoring in their collision match.
“At first we sat to the side, thinking ‘gosh, this is like MarbleSports Evolved all over again,'” said Conda. “Every team was around the stadium looking at the footage, and we at least thought Captain Heart of the Black Jacks had a point. But it was a conversation between them and the refs, not for us.”
“But once I started seeing it turn into a shouting match between the Black Jacks and Dion and the crew… sorry, I felt obliged to step in!” said Boa. Six years ago they weren’t afraid of calling out the MSE organizers, and now they would intervene as a wiser mediator.
The issue, as Boa understood it, is that the Black Jacks thought of it as a fairness issue to acknowledge the scoring error, while the organizer thought of it as a financial issue. It was inconceivable to take a loss on the investment by acknowledging the error and possibly rescoring the whole tournament.
“Truth be told, I did not mediate very much,” said Boa. “In the end, the final offer was to run a tie-breaker as is and see what happens. The Black Jacks took it.” Every Constrictor agreed the overtime match was hard fought, and Ana hanging on by bouncing off of a wall domino made it 3–2 Constrictors, enough to justify the team’s win.
By the time every team left the stadium that evening, the pitch blackness of night was punctured only by Hunluen’s neon skyscrapers off on the horizon. We saw the Black Jacks roll alone to their team van, but also Ana and Python sprinting up to them.
“Look, Club, all of that nasty business is a part of sports… but in the Bug Circuit we are also looking for teams for an invitational this Spring…” we heard Ana say. “I know this is abrupt… why not come by if you’re interested?”
“Actually, the scheduling would work,” said Club of the Black Jacks. “That would work quite well.”
In RetRollSpective, the Constrictors are a team that has always been on the move but also never stopped evolving. Their career spans more than 15 years across five sports leagues, a journey that helped them gain street smarts, folk wisdom, and intuition for marble sports beyond raw athletic talent.
Following announcements by the Jelle’s Marble Association, the Constrictors were not one of four teams invited to enter the 2022 Marble League Showdown and therefore cannot qualify for the 2023 Marble League. Before the decision was finalized, we heard from Limers Captain Sublime: “the JMA would be nuts to leave them out. They are such quick thinkers and capable of such strength… no team is truly prepared for them.”
Prior to the announcement, the members themselves were more modest. “We went through a long career already, and we’re just thankful for any new opportunity we can get,” said Boa. “The Marble League is not our only priority. What will be our real legacy, I think, are our planned academies in Buzznya and the Brace Isles, where young marbles like we were will learn to reach their dreams.”
Best of luck to the Constrictors in the near future, keep on rolling!
Credits
- Writer: Fouc
- Additional Writing: Vector
- Editors: Edu G.J., Smacg13, Stynth
- Artists: Bookity, Turtle
- Graphic Designers: Fouc, Jelle’s Marble Runs, Tim Ritz
- Photographers: ItsChamp, Jelle’s Marble Runs, Pesky, Phoenix
- Release: 25/08/2023
Project Marblearth 