Author Topic: Seasons with the best/worst NEL placement  (Read 2157 times)

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Offline Wadsy

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Seasons with the best/worst NEL placement
« on: February 24, 2021, 10:07:45 PM »
This is a very interesting subject for me personally because I feel that it is not something discussed a whole lot.
Generally I see topics about non-elimination penalties and/or discussions on teams potentially being saved by the race producers.

I wanted to cover placement of the non-elimination legs and which seasons YOU think have the best/worst placements and why?

To get the ball rolling:

Best:

Seasons 5, 6, 17 and 30

Worst:

Seasons 4, 8, 9 and 12

The ones on the best list are really based on unpredictability for instance with TAR 5 being the first season to have a NEL prior to the sixth leg at the time, a back to back NEL then one in the final 4 rather than the dreaded F3.
Season 6 did an even better job - spreading them out.
Season 17 had some very early NEL's then a string of eliminations before the third NEL - that was pretty cool.
Season 30 is the same as 17 but in a different pattern.


As for the ones on the worst list there really is no need to go over them in great detail as they all suffer from the same problem - leaving them all to the latest possible legs and having NEL points every two legs which is boring and predictable. TAR 8 did not necessarily leave them to the end, but ended up still being somewhat underwhelming.

A dishonorable mention is TAR 28 - Having one in the first leg is great, but what I do have a problem with is where the last NEL was placed.
Wadsy

Offline TARstorian

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Re: Seasons with the best/worst NEL placement
« Reply #1 on: February 26, 2021, 05:29:44 AM »
Thank the Flanders Family for the infamous 6-6-5-5-4-4-4-3-3 endgame structure for the last eight legs of TAR 8. If any season needed the NELs to be spread out, it needed to be the only US season that had five of them in one season.

It's funny how TAR started out as never having a NEL until there were six teams or fewer. Now we get NELs all used up by Final 6 or earlier.
« Last Edit: February 26, 2021, 06:57:05 AM by TARstorian »
I have been to 63 countries. I have met Phil Keoghan, Jon Montgomery, Allan Wu, Elise and Bertram in person. I visited Joe & Bill in Hawaii, JK & Mike in Singapore, and Rovilson in Manila. I attended the TAR 28, 29, and 34 finales.


Offline Wadsy

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Re: Seasons with the best/worst NEL placement
« Reply #2 on: February 26, 2021, 07:52:21 PM »
You’re not wrong, TAR8 had three NELs which were already poorly positioned. Then to add insult to injury they have a TBC in leg 10 and then a double length final. It was just a poorly planned season throughout. If they had have had a couple of early NELs that would have helped but noooo.

For me, seasons 4, 9 and 12 are pretty bad too because they insisted on eliminating most of the teams first so that you are stuck with the same people for bunched up NELs and for what reasons? Competitiveness? With TAR3 it was fine because they had never done it before and then you had some unpredictability with a back to back NEL and the only season to this day with NO F4 non elimination when there was still one to be had in a future leg.
Wadsy

Offline LandonM170

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Re: Seasons with the best/worst NEL placement
« Reply #3 on: February 26, 2021, 09:21:08 PM »
Worst: S1-S4, S8, S11-S12, S27, S29, S31

Best: S10, S17-S18

Offline PhoeUK

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Re: Seasons with the best/worst NEL placement
« Reply #4 on: February 27, 2021, 01:39:17 AM »
I liked S19's tbh. I love first leg NEL's because I always feel bad when teams only get to race one leg lmao.


Offline Wadsy

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Re: Seasons with the best/worst NEL placement
« Reply #5 on: February 27, 2021, 09:49:49 PM »
Yes it was nice in that case, unlike TAR 15 where a team had already been eliminated in the first leg anyway.
Sadly, the double elimination in TAR 19's second leg for me was one of the worst twists ever - as it just does not work to have the last two teams eliminated for me.
Wadsy

Offline redskevin88

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Re: Seasons with the best/worst NEL placement
« Reply #6 on: March 07, 2021, 06:20:32 AM »
The Amazing Race Asia Season 4, the first NEL. That and because of the poor roadblock design in Leg 2 that ensured that Yani & Nadine wouldn't be able to catch up. The Leg 3 NEL also felt kind of weird, because of the back-to-back NELs. 

Offline Wadsy

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Re: Seasons with the best/worst NEL placement
« Reply #7 on: March 08, 2021, 11:45:07 PM »
Adding to the worst bunch, any season that has a NEL, Elim, NEL, Elim, NEL.... Ugh.

The first season does this but it is the first one so I won't hold it against it.
Seasons 2, 4, 8 (OMG!), 9, 27 and 31 are guilty of this sin.
Wadsy

Offline LandonM170

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Re: Seasons with the best/worst NEL placement
« Reply #8 on: March 10, 2021, 11:10:42 PM »
TARAus5. I don't think I have to explain.

Offline cbacbacba1

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Re: Seasons with the best/worst NEL placement
« Reply #9 on: March 17, 2021, 09:02:04 PM »
NEL placement for 27 and 32 were pretty underwhelming. The 8th / 7th / 6th NEL placement which means we are only losing 2 teams from Leg 4 to Leg 8 :groan:. This pretty much annoys all the remaining teams, especially when Kaylynn & Hayley hit all three NELs on 32.


Offline Wadsy

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Re: Seasons with the best/worst NEL placement
« Reply #10 on: March 17, 2021, 11:01:20 PM »
NEL placement for 27 and 32 were pretty underwhelming. The 8th / 7th / 6th NEL placement which means we are only losing 2 teams from Leg 4 to Leg 8 :groan:. This pretty much annoys all the remaining teams, especially when Kaylynn & Hayley hit all three NELs on 32.

I would not consider TAR 32 to have had three NEL's. There were only two, because the 'superleg' was similar to the formats seen in the earlier seasons where it counted as one long leg. I know what you mean though, and agree that 27 and 32 and even 31 were underwhelming in that sense.
Wadsy