(S26) Ultimus Week

[gucci]

UW pass

[mee]

7) As a create of the season 26 class I have enjoyed my time in Tijuana. While my first season started late, and came with the awkwardness of joining a locker room with a lot of veterans, I had the enjoyment of going to win the Utimus in my first season. Having been in other sim leagues I know how much fun it is even when your team struggles, but when the team is able to play until the last game of the season there is no doubt that there is a different level of fun that can be hit. I can't say we had the same success this season, but the locker room had a bunch of new rookies so I wasn't the new guy anymore which also made it more fun. I am know up to I think 4 GMs in my short stint in Tijuana, and all four of them have been awesome in the locker room and pms. With Mithr also moving to NOLA and then drafting me, he has continued to be great. It was odd to see Mithr send me the DM that he drafted me, as he was already my Tijuana GM. But it was a blessing, he has  been great in easing the transition from DSFL player to a future ISFL player. Having gotten drafted only once, it was a fun experience. From answering the goofy questions to actually seeing my name on the board, it has been of the most fun I have had so far in the league. While it doesn't seem that I was a first round talent, I was a good player, drafting in the third round to New Orleans. Shuffleboard is certainly having a solid career as far as the numbers go. He played very well this season with more playing time, I hit my DSFL cap.

As far as improving the game, I will say right now, it was awkward having to be forced onto a good DSFL team. I am not sure how the waiver system works, but the fact is Tijuana had absolutely no need for another defensive back when I joined the league. Should I have been forced to basically only play one in every 3 plays? Should Tijuana have had to sit a better player than me, of course not, but maybe I should have had the right to go to a team that was able to play me?

19) Design Hat



24) Design Ticket

[Symmetrik]

2) Tell us about your draft class. Is there anything that makes it special in comparison to other classes? Where did your fellow draftees land, how are they doing? Did anyone turn out to be an unexpected steal of that draft based on what you know today? Do you think anyone in your draft class will become a hall of famer? If you’re new to the league, how do you think your class will do? Where do you think people will get drafted to?

Is there anything special about my draft class? Hmm. Hard to say. It was just the biggest draft class we've had, featuring 284 players selected to the ISFL over 24 rounds. Pretty easy to pull some stuff out as special, when you have 284 players to pick from. In a draft that big, there's bound to be steals just because you're getting so many quality players in later rounds. There was 3 GM players picked in it, and several other players that went on to become GMs after that. The Jack brothers, Quarterbacks that were GM selections for the Wraiths & Sabercats. Colt Mendoza, the most legendary sim tester. Magnus Rikiya, the OL revolution, Zamir Kehla, the list goes on. With 284 players there's a million stories to pick out from this draft. 29 players have surpassed 1000 TPE.

Colt Mendoza - The #1 pick, Steg had some epic articles and cemented himself as a messiah in the OL circles. The OL revolution was already slowly underway, but Steg put out an article backed by over 25,000 test games of data. This article showed with definitive data that human OL could provide not only better results at equal TPE, but also human OL could give equal performance but for much cheaper at the tackle position. At this time there was only a few teams running with human OL, and it was a legitimate issue where people actively told players not to create OL cause they were useless, or avoided drafting active players if they were OL. Steg also wrote a second article again reiterating the strength of human OL, and a couple articles about CB attributes. A combined 50,000 games of OL testing, and 180,000 of CB testing. It was a wild time leading up to that draft, and Steg articles probably had a drastic effect on where the several active OL in this draft were taken. Steg would also go on to be a DSFL GM for the Birddogs.

The OL changers - If you looked now, you might see Mo "Mamba" Magic as a 1st round pick and think that an OL went in the 1st round. Unfortunately, despite Steg's article, we weren't at that point yet. I was the first OL to go off the board, in the 3rd round at pick 33. We did see Magic & Benson Bayley Jr switch to OL afterwards, both flipping from the defensive side. They were part of a fairly large contingent of players that switched to join OL afterwards, rather than teams drafting them. These are the only 2 from S22 that switched, but there was roughly 10 players overall that switched between then and now.

The GMs - The Jack brothers were both GM players, Colby, controlled by flyeaglesfly, took the helm in Yellowknife. Monty, controlled by Rradum, went to San Jose. Benson Bayley Jr, mentioned previously, was an LB at the time of the draft and is now an offensive lineman, had recently been put in charge of the Chicago Butchers. The Butchers had gone through a whole lot of turmoil, and not long before the draft Bayley was put in charge. There's players who at the time weren't GMs, but got the chance after that. Steg, Colt Mendoza, as mentioned got a DSFL job, and I believe there are/were a couple others, but I can't be sure as it doesn't list co-GMs anywhere on the site (only head GMs on the wiki). I think Exilizer/Derred de Ville for the Hawks, Panda for the Pythons , NTG for the Buccaneers. Highschdi got an expansion job with Berlin. There's bound to be more.

Steals - It's impossible for there to NOT be steals in a draft this deep. You had several round of great actives. In this case, talking about a steal is a pretty small difference. A player like Nick Kaepercolin went in the 5th, Jamar Lackson went in the 7th. Lackson is 2nd in TPE for the class, and Kaepercolin is 4th. Buckley, Dawkins and Nakamura, 4th round picks. Von Pebbles another 7th rounder. All these players are over 1000 TPE. In this case, can you even really consider 4th round picks steals? Buckley is 24th in TPE, which at 12 teams per round, puts him at the end of the 2nd round. So a jump from top of the 4th to top of the 3rd? Is that a steal. The size of the class makes the scale completely different. In most drafts, you would be ecstatic to get a 1000 TPE player in the 3rd round (and I'm sure teams still are), but for example a player like Haha Mango-Panda was selected 26th, the 2nd pick of the 3rd round, and has 1002 TPE. Excellent right? Well actually, it's not a steal. Mango-Panda is ranked 29th in TPE in the class. Yes, despite getting a players with 1002 TPE in the 2rd round, there was actually still 28 players that have more TPE.

The S22 draft was an epic draft and I am so glad I was a part of it.

[UpperNet]

8. Gluteus maximus wasn't always the elite kicking machine he is today, im fact he prefer to just chill and play video games all day. Today we gonna tell the story of gluteus maximus and his thrilling journey to the dsfl and isfl.
   Gluteus was sitting in a classroom bored, back in middle school all he wanted to do was play video games and read comics. "I am getting tired of these video games, I've beaten every level" gluteus thought to himself. He walked outside to the playground to see a couple of kids playing soccer. "Hm this looks fun" glute thought to himself as he walked towards the kids playing soccer, not knowing this moment was gonna change his life. "Hey, let me try this, it looks pretty fun" glute exclaimed. The soccer players laughed at him and said " you woudnt be able to score even one goal against us, normie" glute took that as an insult and challenged them. "We'll make it easy for you and give you a free shot against are goalie but of course you don't even stand a chance". Glute then kicked the ball so hard that it literlly burn hitting the goalie and knocking him in the goal, injuring him very bad in the process. The soccer plays looked at glute in shocked as glute stared in the goal blankly, just now realizing his godly talents. Glute then decided he'll dominate the sports scene with his leg once he gets into high school. In high school glute was a multi sport athlete excelling in both soccer and football. In football glute broke several school records, his best record being a feold goal from 60 yards. Glute also had the best feild goal percentage, not missing a single kick when he was in high school. Of course glute got several D1 scholarships from aoot of big school including Alabama. But glute didn't liked the idea if going to a already dominate sports team. Glute always the one to face a challenge head on, and even if the situation was bad, to provide his team with his elite kicking talent no matter what. Gpute decided to go to Georgia tech, where he became the starting kicker as a true freshman. Where he continued to dominate, as a result sof his elite stays glute was the first kicker taken, being selected by the minessota ducks in the 5th round and the Austin copperheads in the 4th. Glute continued his dominance, winning punter of the year and was a runner up for kicker of the year. But as a shocking reveal, glute said he'll be switching to DT in the isfl. Why? Glute was in competition with fellow kicker Bloomfield, and with glute size he thinks he'll continue dominating as a dt.


18. We got many sports sim league around loke the ISFL, PBE etc. But I noticed that there's no sin league of the true sports among sports. Yes a sport that is so underrated it doesn't even have its own league in real life! Which i find incredibly sad. I like the introduce you guys to my sim league idea, The International Thumb Sim or TITS for short. First there would be a variety of archetypes to choose from. I'll present you the archetypes below.

Big Attacker - if you like to strike in big hits this acretype us for you! Big Attacker always looking for the knockout hit, using there size and brute strength to get there results.

Bullet Barager- you like to always be hitting with constant speed? Thus archetype is for you. BB lacks size but makes it up with there speed and fast hits, making it impossible for opponents to dodge.

Iron Thumb - you like tanking shots and looking for counter opportunities? The iron Thumb can take any hit with toughness and always looking for the opponent to slip for a finishing attack.

Trickster - these thumb warriors are smart, able to successfully bait any opponent with there wits. They can fake any attack but follow up with a different attack instead, making them hard to predict!

Of course these are only some examples of the archetype but more to come!

21.

ISFL

Best - For the isfl the best branding for me has to be the Berlin Fire Salamanders, even its name is so unique to the other branding. Plus I do love reptiles! The logo is just beautiful, that black salamander with red eyes just give me such a flaming vibe and I love it! The way the lizard is climbing is a good detail to it. Also the flame going on in the background is amazing. Overall the branding is pretty unique i think, and like the creativity to it.

Worst - Philadelphia Liberty branding is just so bland to me, the logo is so boring. Its literally just a bell! I mean if they wanted to do something patriotic atleas do something cool like a musketeer holding a rifle or something, but I woudnt like to play for a team with a boring bell as its mascot, plus the colors are also bland.

DSFL

Best - The Dallas Birdogs probably takes my spot for this. What can I say I'm just a huge fan of dogs! I like how the logo has the dog sticking out in the middle of the D thought that was pretty creative. Plus I feel like the branding in general is unique, like hiw many sports team has a bird dog as its mascot? The colors goes good together in my opinion, the blue and yellow. Plus I do love me some Texas teams.

Worst -

The worst for the is the norfolk seawolves. The name would give me the impression that it's a wolf that lives in the sea, but no its just a boring submarine. So lame.

[supertardis101]

16. 
San Jose missed the playoffs this season sadly, but we have plently of experience on what being there is like and we had a few songs that we loved to blast before we went outside the locker-room and kicked some ass. One of my favorites to listen to was Enter Sandman by Metallica. The entrance to this song is really fun and fast and the drop is absolutely amazing. I have fond memories of jumping around the locker-room like wild baboons while listening to this song with my teamamtes. An absolutely great song to hype you and team up. I would absolutely reccomend it. Another really good one would be Thunderstruck by AC/DC. This song has a definite hype vibe and listening to it can get anyone's heart pumping. This one is really fun to enter the field to. In a bit more of a satirical sense, the song loser by beck always kind of gets me fired up a bit. Its a bit ironic and funny, but loser is truly a good song and really can help you to get your head in the game and your blood pumping and flowing before a big playoff game. Finally, Immigrant Song by Led Zepplin is really fun and hardcore to go with before a game. The blistening drums, guitar, and Jimmy Page's voice are all booming and will get your ass out of your seat quicker than a fox and a foxhole.

[Vorshayla]

6) Write 800 words or more on something about anything in the league that interests you. It could be related to statistics, a league issue that you take seriously, or a niche part of history that doesn’t fit neatly into either of the above categories. This must be directly related to the league, so don’t wax 800 words about your team’s participation on a Werewolf server or something.

I really enjoy the casino aspect of the league.  Having real life experience in working at a casino, it's really interesting to see how the team can relate sim stats which are wildly unpredictable and turn it into potential lines for players to bet on.  Having the opportunity to work with a great team also makes the experience fun as we're coming up with new ideas to try to get money of the league.  However, as the history of the casino will show, we have not had much success in that regard, possibly because of high bets, or favorable lines to the players and not enough advantage to the house.  

With the introduction of bingo and stocks, i think it was a step in the right direction, however results have been mixed due to a very volatile market because "sim gonna sim"  I would like to work on proposing prop bets such as things like "results of the first play of the game" or "what the score after 2 quarters would be" stuff like that to keep things interesting and to draw more viewers to the stream instead of just watching your own game or waiting for the index to get updated to check your players stats.  

It's a quite interesting situation to try to build a sportsbook in a sim league using real life tactics, however I think this approach may be a little flawed since while both worlds use past stats to draw the best lines, there just isn't enough consistency in a sim league due to no injuries, or just the random aspect of it with hardly any rhyme or reason, therefore I think in order for the casino to the profitable to the league and to eliminate money from the players, we need to think in a different way to make bets attractive with decent payouts, and limit the high risk propositions that could make users instant members of the 9 figure club.  

In addition to static prop bets, something along the lines of maybe charging players to do fantasy instead of paying them for participating might also be a way to look at removing money out of the league for a chance at TPE.  Since league money is only used for packs, or TPE earnings anyway, payouts could be in TPE instead of money back, that way people are risking their money in order to improve their players thereby having a wider range in terms of TPE per player on a team and teams may not suffer from regression all at once, or super teams be formed for 6 years at a time due to everyone moving up at once.  

Also, I'd like to implement actual casino games, like on-line black jack or slots or something, where people can gamble with their league money for more league money, and since table games generally favor the house, this could be a sustained effort to get some money back into the league from the players while providing users with a bit of entertainment during down time between streams or the such.  Such bots already exist and it should prove fairly easy to implement into the website as well.  Should those prove successful, we could move towards other games like roulette or craps, maybe even host a weekly poker game for users to get to know each other in a private poker room where buy ins would be for league cash and the winner would win the pot, with a rake going to casino to remove bits of money out of the league that way as well.  The options are unlimited if we start treating the casino like an actual casino in addition to a sportsbook/stock market.

The casino team is amazing and trying to find different ways to make this work, but with the confines of keeping it in the realm of sim football it becomes very difficult to extract money due to the uncertainness of the core product that we are betting on.  The above ways tend to favor the house more with a more traditional sense of a casino and the hopes is that if we are able to incorporate these games of chance in the future, the casino might have better success going forward.  

In conclusion, there are several ways I think we can make the casino work with active user engagement in addition to making it fun for anyone who wants to participate.  While these are just ideas at the moment, and implementing them might take more strategy and planning, but I think if we come up with an efficient way to start bringing these ideas to fruition within the next few seasons the casino might finally turn a profit and do what it was meant to do in the first place by taking money out of the league slowly to ensure that more people do things to earn money by writing media and doing graphics to increase user activity league wide and to promote the league to outsiders as well.  


839 words

[SomeSay...]

2) Tell us about your draft class. Is there anything that makes it special in comparison to other classes? Where did your fellow draftees land, how are they doing? Did anyone turn out to be an unexpected steal of that draft based on what you know today? Do you think anyone in your draft class will become a hall of famer? If you’re new to the league, how do you think your class will do? Where do you think people will get drafted to?


Tell you about my draft class, well as you probably know, I am part of the Massive Reddit class of S22, somewhere around 230-250+ Member draft class, which honestly is super impressive after seeing the last two reddit classes. We really crushed that class. I mean this class has active users that were drafted all the way down into the ELVENTH ROUND! I will speak on some of them shortly as steals of the draft. But what a dream draft for the GMs. There was so much opportunity for late bloomers and steals in the draft. If you were able to scout well and take a look at the gain’s users were making. You could see the potential for your team’s success. And a few teams did a great job of it. And there winning percentage and consistency shows.
Well, there were some recreates in the S22 draft so a few of them went towards the top, but a couple also went later in the draft, just before me was user BenDover, or as you guys might know him Jamar Lackson. And if I had to say anything about him, he has crushed it since his last player. The dude is a stellar running back for the San Jose Sabercats, we won a championship together, he has gone on to GM are DSFL team the Minnesota Grey Ducks.

There are quite a few players that were unexpected steals as well in my opinion, there is myself obviously who was drafted after Jamar with the last pick in the SEVENTH ROUND, and here I sit over ONE THOUSAND TPE. A ultimus champ and MR. PickSix. And I am far from one of the steals of the draft. Let me break down a few more from my draft class. There are so many that I want to include as many of them as I can.

One of closest associates in the league TheCC is another user/player who was a steal, I believe he went in something like the THIRTEENTH ROUND, and is now GM of the Grey Ducks and just behind me in TPE and one of the most liked users in the league. Then there was Daymond Brooks, or as you guys know him FSF. A mother fuckin fantastic locker room presence, one of best people I met on here and without a doubt, a great player too. He started off as a WR with us in Minny, and then switch to DL in Chicago, and potentially could snag an award this season with his best season to date. And this man was the NINETY FIRST OVERALL PICK.

I cant forget my brother from another mother, Jangorhino either or MVP. SEVENTY FIFTH over all pick, one of the best DE in the game, well over One Thousand TPE and a GFX wizard. A guy who has a gigantic personality and one of the biggest bank accounts in the league. You’ve probably heard of him, but what a steal of the draft as well.  Dex, Cash, Despacito, Boyd. All these names are SIXTH round or later.
Whats crazy about this, is that Minnesota picked Myself, Jamar, CC, Jango and Daymond. And we still did not win a Ultimini. But it just goes to show how fantastic this class was and how many great users there was.

And honestly, I could sit here and break down tons of users that came out of this class. There are tons of users that I could discus as steals to be honest, There are tons of users that wont classify as a steal, but they continue to crush there TPE and continue to contribute to the league and make it a better experience for everyone.  There are so many great contributors and users that came out of the S22 draft class its unreal. Some have fallen behind and taken a back seat to just enjoying the league but lots of us hold Jobs, GM roles, WR roles, and are crushing the game!
YES! I think there are some users who could potentially become Hall of Famers. Lots of the users at the top of the draft have some good chances if their careers continue to be successful, Colby Jack is coming into his own and just capped off a Ultimus Win. And a big win at that, using his arm and his legs. There are a few CornerBacks that have a chance. I know lots of these users will be in the ring of honor or HOF for their perspective teams if they stay there through out their careers.

I know it talked about a ton, but I really wanted to high light the season 22 class again, we may not see another one like it in a while. More people are home and on social media than ever before and we have yet to get a class that size again.

Code:

815 Words

[Troen]

2) Tell us about your draft class. Is there anything that makes it special in comparison to other classes? Where did your fellow draftees land, how are they doing? Did anyone turn out to be an unexpected steal of that draft based on what you know today? Do you think anyone in your draft class will become a hall of famer? If you’re new to the league, how do you think your class will do? Where do you think people will get drafted to?

The S22 draft class should already be well-known to all as the biggest reddit-sourced class, with over 270 members at the time of the draft. It led pretty directly to 4 expansion teams and is now in the position of taking over the top TPE positions in S27 and onward. Really, it may well be the most impactful class since the start of the league.

However, since I've pretty much always enjoyed the quantitative nature of the league, I'm going to quantify some of the impact.
Looking at the positional stats for the ISFL (actually still called the NSFL on that page, heh), the average TPE per position is:
QB: 1013
RB: 766
WR: 738
TE: 660
OL: 598
DE: 646
DT: 758
LB: 688
CB: 768
S: 731
K/P: 657

Here's how many players in the S22 class have more than the average positional TPE:
QB: 5
RB: 5
WR: 7
TE: 5
OL: 5
DE: 6
DT: 5
LB: 8
CB: 8
S: 8
K/P: 3
In total, that's 65 players from S22 who are above-average players for their position. Now to be fair, looking at averages might be slightly misleading since backups could drag the average down a bit, but that's still a clear sign of impact.
Looking at it a different way, the average team has about 23 players on its roster right now (326 players in the ISFL per the team stats page). The S22 class could make up nearly 3 above average teams on its own.

Looking at TPE earning a different way, here's the rounded earning rate of the top TPE earner in each non-regressed class (per the TPE tracker as of 1/10/21):
S20: 165
S21: 183
S22: 185
S23: 190
S24: 196
S25: 199
S26: 201
S27: 217

(Calculated as (highest TPE of top player - 50) / (28 - season) - ie S20 players earned TPE in S19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, and 26, so 8 seasons)
This decline over time follows naturally given the rookie tasks, decreasing amounts of TPE
from training camps, and the higher likelihood of missing a TPE earning task for some reason eventually. How do those max earners compare with the 75th and 90th percentile earners for the class?
(Side note: I'm looking at current class information per the tracker, which doesn't include retired players it looks like. So, the stats aren't perfect vs. the initial draft class. I believe but didn't go check that S23 is the class they started auto-retiring 50TPE players with no updates)
S20: 24 players, 11 with under 100 TPE who are ignored as non-earners. 90th percentile (2nd/13 remaining): 160/year. 75th percentile (4/13): 150/year
S21: 76 players, 34 with under 100 TPE who are ignored as non-earners. 90th percentile (5th/42 remaining): 175/year. 75th percentile (11/42): 151/year
S22: 181 players, 85 with under 100 TPE who are ignored as non-earners. 90th percentile (10th/96 remaining): 177/year. 75th percentile (25/96): 163/year
S23: 49 players, 2 with under 100 TPE who are ignored as non-earners. 90th percentile (5th/47 remaining): 182/year. 75th percentile (12/47): 163/year
S24: 49 players, 0 with under 100 TPE who are ignored as non-earners. 90th percentile (5th/49): 188/year. 75th percentile (13/49): 179/year
S25: 86 players, 1 with under 100 TPE who is ignored as a non-earner. 90th percentile (9th/85 remaining): 188/year. 75th percentile (22/85): 183/year
S26: 58 players, 7 with under 100 TPE who are ignored as non-earners. 90th percentile (6th/51 remaining): 191/year. 75th percentile (13/51): 175/year
- Note the tracker currently has 4 GM bots; I ignored those
S27: 70 players, 31 with under 100 TPE who are ignored as non-earners (obviously this overcounts a bunch of active slow earners vs. other classes, but I went for consistency; a more rigorous analysis would probably define non-earner differently per season). 90th percentile (4th/39 remaining): 201/year. 75th percentile (10/39): 188/year

So, looking at the earning rates of the high performers, I actually think that S22 doesn't really stand out. In some ways, this makes a lot of sense - the league only offers so many ways to get more TPE. The percentage of people per year who are near-max earners seems to be consistently over 25%, as well. S22 still stands out as the largest class, but it's only 11 ahead of S25 in terms of number of people who stuck around for at least a couple weeks.
S22 and S25 actually do have a similarity if you look closely at the 75th percentile trend line - S25 actually goes up vs. S26, while S22 holds even with S23. I think this is the strongest signal for those classes being unusual, but since they're also very big classes I can't quite envision the cause - are people joining from reddit more likely to remain active? Do larger classes help activity? I know that a lot of people when I joined formed rivalries and had media poking at each other as well as Twitter wars. Since the total number of people in the league went up as a result of those classes, though, I'd think that there would actually be more things to keep people interested and active over time. As an alternative hypothesis, maybe it's the number and concentration of people doing the same thing? With a lot of people joining discord, figuring out how to do everything, it would make sense that there's a ton of connection-forming. Compare the newly arrived people who are trying to figure everything out and spending a couple hours on the forums and the main discord to people like me who mostly hang out on my team's server and only read the media section of the forum - maybe there's something to be said about making connections with someone from the group.
That does raise another (mostly unrelated) thought - I wonder if the league would ever consider a recruiting post much closer to the start of the league year so that new creates could be on a team almost immediately? I know that for me it was something like 3 weeks from creation to drafting, and it really felt like a whole lot of nothing for a while. I'm guessing that waivers would be a nightmare to deal with if 50 new people all showed up at the same time, but I have to wonder if that would be a better player experience and help people to come back.

So anyway, getting back to S22: My class was clearly impactful to the league, but mostly for size rather than abnormal quality. But, quantity has a quality of its own, y'know. I do expect that the next couple years are going to see a lot of S22 players on championship teams - 8 of Yellowknife's 22 players were from S22, for example (and all had TPE over their positional averages), and it's interesting to see that they also have 5 S25 players on the roster. I expect that the history of the league won't be complete without a selection of the top of the class and understanding how it led to the expansion teams. My personal theory is that the good timing of the reddit post (fairly soon after the Super Bowl so that people were keeping their eyes on football news but when it wasn't drowned out by games) along with getting followed pretty soon after by lockdowns and travel restrictions (making it easier to be/remain active) will make it unlikely that we'll see another single class that reshapes the league so drastically ever again.

[jzajenius36]

6) Write 800 words or more on something about anything in the league that interests you. It could be related to statistics, a league issue that you take seriously, or a niche part of history that doesn’t fit neatly into either of the above categories. This must be directly related to the league, so don’t wax 800 words about your team’s participation on a Werewolf server or something.


This is something that took me a bit by surprise a few weeks ago. As I was thinking up a way to earn some money during double media week I came upon the idea to take a look at some of the actual game results, from week to week, throughout the season. As someone that typically tunes in just to watch my teams’ games, I was fascinated by one of the results earlier in the Liberty season when we lost on a last second ~30 yard touchdown throw to end the game. It was at that moment that I realized there were likely a lot of really great sim games happening right beneath my nose that I wasn’t picking up on.
As I sorted through the wins and losses, and dug deeper into the play-by-play within these great matchups, I found myself becoming really engrossed in the players, the decisions, and the endings. Taking the next step from there, I found it actually pretty fun to take what I saw from the dots, and extrapolate the raw data into a story of sorts. As someone who is not as active on discord, the media and graphics forums, or grading and league office tasks, this was one of those moments that kind of finally drew me in. I don’t necessarily think I’ll be jumping in head first to a new age of activity, I can say that I’m actually looking forward to keeping a closer eye on scores throughout the week and creating my next media post about the best endings of the week/year.


However, there is obviously a huge wildcard that will factor into the content of my next media post, and that is the new sim engine that is being instituted starting this league year. Now, shockingly, I haven’t familiarized myself too much with the various new factors this year such as archetypes and traits, or the new presentation within the play-by-play of each game, but even I know things are a changing. From the 2 minutes I watched of the new sim engine game presentation, it looks like there will be a lot more shown, within each play. Such things as, I believe, a flight pattern of the ball when it’s thrown, when the ball is kicked by punters and kickers, and defensive and special teams returns. While it may take away from my creativity a bit, this will no doubt make the games even juicier as we can watch kick returners hit a hole, hug the sideline, and burn down field for an 85 yard kick return touchdown. Or a defensive tackle causing a fumble in the backfield and a linebacker scooping and scoring from 20 yards out. It seems like a small change, but there’s so much lost in translation when you see the dots throw an incomplete pass on third down, followed by a green font telling you “field goal is good.” Something as simple as a flight pattern on a kick should make watching the games much more enjoyable.


I think that directly relates to my media interest of “the best finishes of the season.” So many of the games that qualify for this media consideration end on things such as a missed or made 50 yard field goal or a 70 yard pick six in overtime, and the only thing you see is the play before, followed by a notification that someone scored on a non-offensive unit play. Now I find it fun to kind of create that play in my head, visualizing the settings and the pressure in the moment, along with the reactions of players, but a lot of that can still be introduced despite being provided a bit more information by the sim.
Something that’s a bit less straightforward or clear is how these new player archetypes, stats, and traits may play into my media articles for best finishes. At first glance, seeing things such as newer and more archetypes should lend itself to more unique players. Further, added things such as player ‘competitiveness’ and traits including such things as leadership and player specialties will contribute more to varied player builds and impacts. Also not to be forgotten is the unknown. Users haven’t created and established the ‘meta builds’ yet as there’s so much to be tested with an actual season, so we’re likely to have more build diversity than in years past. While this sounds and is exciting, without seeing any of this information within the sim game presentation itself means that the unique player builds will have to be manually reviewed in order for myself to include a related anecdote in my media write ups. That’s just kind of a whiny complaint from me, a lazy writer, but that’s just additional information that’s there for me to utilize if I feel like it.


All in all, I’m very excited for the next season, both for the sim presentation and for the feel of the games as well, and can’t wait to write about some of the best of the season.



(842 words)

[hotdog]

5  TPE - Choose a team or player to write about that isn’t your own. What did they do well in the last season? Have they shown any drastic improvements from previous years? What could they do better?

For this prompt, i'll take a look at a team I don't know much about, though to be fair that's most of the other teams in the league lol. Let's take a look at the Honolulu Hahalua, who finished with the worst record in the league this season. I don't think you'd find many people who expected the Hahalua to win the ultimus this season, but I'm not sure they would've been a consensus for dead last either. The last few seasons they'd been in the thick of the playoff race in the conference, and this season they found themselves totally out of it. Much of their key pieces on offense stayed in place, including QB Luke Skywalker, WR Jed Podolak, and the RB duo of Ayers and Kane-Maika'i. Despite a lack of depth at the pass catching positions, their passing game was fine this season, finishing with the 7th most passing yards. That may be a result of being down in a lot of games and trying to air it out to catch up, as they were third-to-last in passing TDs. The running game took a step back this season, 4th lowest in rushing yards. Their defense was surprisingly solid, finishing with the most pass deflections, the most tackles for loss, and the second most interceptions. So looking at their stats overall, they don't scream playoffs but it doesn't really suggest worst in the league either. Taking a look at their season schedule now, it seems like they lost quite a few one-possession games, so maybe that helps explain the poor overall result. They had a three point loss to San Jose in Week 1, a four point loss to Austin in Week 2, a three point loss to the Yeti in Week 9, a six point loss to New Orleans in Week 11, another six point loss to New York in Week 12, and another six point loss to Berlin in the final week of the season. Their wins were all by six or seven points (interesting fun fact i guess). Weird to see so many games in the 3-6 point range and none in the 1-2 point range. Anyway, it's tough to make much of this Honolulu season, It seems like it went a little worse than it should, and we had a ton of parity this season so finishing 3-13 is enough to be the worst in a very balanced league. If they ran things back with this same roster, I'm not sure they'd make the playoffs but I reckon they'd be better than last.

2.5 TPE - How or where would you celebrate with your teammates after winning an Ultimus or Ultimini?

If we won the ultimus and things were normal (i.e., not covid) we would celebrate winning by hitting the town for a night of shenanigans. because we are outlaws we would go around robbing places and no one would be able to tell us no because we just won the ultimus and no one can stop us! security guards will pose for pictures with us and we'll take the loot and be on our way. As we roll around the town we will drink many bottles of champagne. jay cue knows a special trick, a unique way to open champagne bottles, and the whole team loves when he does it. taro raimon would be going crazy drinking lots and lots of champagne and beer and DB jadakiss (that's me) would also be going crazy drinking lots of champagne and beer. the running backs (thorbjornson and pama) would get lost and wind up at chuck e cheese and we would make fun of them for it. at the end of the night (8am) we would be very drunk and surrounded by groupies and everyone would get to go home (or to a hotel or someone else's home) and get to have sex with fans that wanted to have sex with us but we would be too drunk to do anything so we would pass out tired instead like true champions.

2.5 TPE - Your team has made it to the playoffs! Put together a pre-game playlist and explain how those songs will hype your players.

No surprise here i think the best foundation from which to build our pregame playlist will be jadakiss songs. we'll start with The Champ Is Here of course, to get us pumped up to win games ourselves and become the titular champs mentioned in the title. Next up we'll go to Made You Look (remix) by Nas featuring jadakiss and ludacris - what a trio of 2000s rappers man come on it doesn't get better than this! where do fingers squeeze triggers like boa constrictors? why, in that song of course! that line gets the people going. sticking to the theme, we'll feature "They Ain't Ready" - ruff ryders with jadakiss and the one and only bubba sparxxxxxxxxxxxx. the "they" in this scenario would refer to our opponent on the football field, who aren't ready for the smackdown we're about to give them on the field. Lastly, we finish it off with "ryde or die bitch" to remind all our players we're ready to die for our teammates out there on the field, suggesting that we are the bitches in this scenario but it's fine because that's a good thing to be. And everyone knows Jay Cue likes to rock prada suits and his ass is fat. Those four songs leading up to the game sounds like an automatic win to me.