hostrauser

Oh no, here he goes again. Spitting out all these useless numbers and specifically targeting ME and MY CORPS with his venom. Hey folks, I just report what the Excel formulas tell me, don't shoot the messenger. (That never happens on DCP, right?) Open Class corps have been thrown into the mix, but I will only track those currently scheduled to appear at DCI Prelims in August. Per usual, I'm anaspeptic, phrasmotic, even compunctuous to have caused you such pericombobulation. 98.106 Bluecoats 97.733 Santa Clara Vanguard 97.329 Blue Devils 96.599 Carolina Crown 96.242 Boston Crusaders 94.700 Cavaliers 91.568 Cadets 90.937 Blue Stars 90.890 Blue Knights 90.005 Mandarins 88.483 Crossmen 86.765 Spirit of Atlanta ---------- FINALS CUT LINE 85.745 Phantom Regiment 85.445 Academy 83.468 Colts ---------- THEATER CUT LINE 80.937 Madison Scouts 80.637 Troopers 78.437 Pacific Crest 77.220 Music City 73.230 Genesis 72.914 Legends 72.748 Spartans 70.518 Cascades 70.399 Guardians 70.145 Gold ---------- SEMIFINALS CUT LINE 68.525 Jersey Surf 67.070 Louisiana Stars 67.039 River City Rhythm 65.404 Golden Empire 65.119 Southwind 64.115 7th Regiment 63.494 Raiders 61.366 Shadow 58.064 Colt Cadets 57.541 Heat Wave 53.266 Les Stentors

This thread is a gold mine of terrible opinions. Well above and beyond DCP's usual output. A trophy of shame to everyone who has participated here.

Again? Didn't Madison only have a guard of like 12 or 16 back in 2000 (the start of their descent below the Finals cut-line)?

Congratulations to our first Sweepstakes show winners! First point increase has been added.

I don't think I have posted this yet... POINT INCREASE SCHEDULE 6/30 - First Increase 7/7 - Second Increase; End of unlimited caption changes 7/14 - Third Increase 7/21 - Fourth Increase 7/28 - Fifth Increase; final point levels 8/4 - NO INCREASE (you'll have a week to play around with max points and plan final caption changes before Championships) +1 for Class A, +2 for Open, +3 for World on each date

Predictions for tonight? 😏

Hahaha! Even back in the 90s the June shows were "abstract messes." EVERYTHING is an abstract mess at this point in the season, that's always been the case. I withhold final judgment until August.

...congratulations on 200,000th post, then?

He's getting paid to post? Hmm... I wonder if I could get people to pay ME to NOT post. 🤔

Boy Howdy, we won't forget her or that other guy.

George Hopkins started a push to have both GE captions just be "overall GE", and this was born out of that. To the best of my understanding, GE1 is GE with a visual emphasis and GE2 is GE with a music emphasis. However, there's more cross-pollination than the old days. GE1 considers what is going on musically more than the old GE Visual did, and GE2 considers the visual aspects more than GE Music did.

For reaching 100,000 posts here on DCP! What the **** is wrong with you. 😂

Not *common* per se, but it happens once or twice a decade. It was only three years ago in 2016 that Boston barely squeaked into Finals... then almost the entire Cadets staff told George Hopkins to get lost and move East to the Crusaders and look at them now: Boston Crusaders - DCI Finals scores (place) 2015: 86.800 (10th) 2016: 84.800 (12th) 2017: 92.963 (6th) 2018: 94.313 (5th)

When Vanguard brought in J.D. Shaw a few years ago Key Poulan moved on to Sacramento, and then they got Ike Jackson and his RCC percussion crew and it was off to the races. A lot of BD and SCV alums (both performers and instructors) now on Mandarins staff.

A program coordinator is not the same thing an arranger, which I specified. And no, it's not an EASY fix, but it happens all the time. Cavaliers lost Saucedo and Gaines. Vanguard has lost Casella, Rosander, and many other people over the past 25 years before finding this sweet spot. Cadets lost nearly everybody on their staff to the Boston Crusaders and went through Hopkinsgate a heck of a lot more recently than Phantom's changes; they are still doing okay. You're telling me Phantom can't draw in a better staff than The Academy or the Mandarins? Seriously? My point is: I can't remember the last time a corps bottomed out this hard due to staff changes. Scouts 20 years ago? Other corps GET IT DONE. The Regiment organization is not getting it done, and they need major changes, from the BOD on down.

The P-value this early in the season is hideous. 😂 Yeah, I definitely wouldn't bother doing a deep dive on my numbers until another week or two. The projected numbers will of course change every week as more data is compiled. If I have the time and get bored, I might retroactively plug in early-season 2018 data and see (1) how the corps would have ranked after one week and (2) how they actually ended up.

Absolutely this, 100%. Some of the individual section books for 2017-2019 have been fine, but the coordination of elements and the show design as an overall whole has been utterly miserable. Also, look at how poorly their "Analysis" scores have been the past several years. In 2018 their Visual Analysis score was last in Finals and a full 0.6 below the 11th place score. Brass and Percussion scores are adequate, frequently placing in that caption above where the overall corps places. They're playing notes, but not making music (as my old college band director used to say). I'm pretty neutral on Will Pitts as an arranger. (I certainly don't feel the vitriol towards his brass books that some others do; sure, he's no Jim Wren or J.D. Shaw, but then, who is?) But as far as being the PROGRAM COORDINATOR, Pitts is not getting the job done. I think he is trying to wear too many hats. Look at Vanguard, and how fantastic their shows have been recently. Shaw/Rennick/Rennick creating the music, Gaines/Toth creating the visual (and yes, that is an absolute embarrassment of riches, a level of design talent that few corps can even hope to aspire to), and the absolutely underrated and desperately important Scott Koter making sure everything works together. Phantom needs, first and foremost, a capable Program Coordinator. If they don't have that in place, all the changes in the world to design and instructional staff won't make a bit of difference.

I'm not sure what you're asking? Last year's scores only come into play for corps that have not performed in competition yet. Was that sarcasm? I can never tell. Anyway, Cascades have finished higher than Jersey Surf each of the past four years. Surf hasn't topped Cascades at Championships Prelims since 2014.

95% chance Phantom doesn't make Finals this year. They're sitting 15th or 16th overall right now and, while they might pass up a corps or two, I just don't see them passing four or five corps to make Finals.

Scoring trends from last year's championships week and the week prior. In modern DCI, it's usually safe to assume a corps will be more or less in the same range as the year prior. There are always exceptions, of course, but we don't need to plan on, say Jersey Surf or the Cascades, suddenly coming out and scoring with the likes SCV and Crown. That sort of build up takes time. It's basically a stab in the dark, but it'll have to do until 2019 scores come in for those corps.

It's been a few years since I've done this, hasn't it? Anyway, not too many shows yet, so the numbers are still very rough. The formulas will get more comfortable with more data. Here are the current estimated championships week scores for the World Class corps... 98.141 Santa Clara Vanguard 97.333 Blue Devils 97.327 Carolina Crown 96.795 Bluecoats 95.273 Cavaliers 95.266 Boston Crusaders 91.273 Mandarins 91.030 Cadets 89.852 Blue Stars 88.650 Blue Knights 87.407 Academy 86.397 Crossmen 85.731 Phantom Regiment 85.381 Spirit of Atlanta 84.121 Colts 84.067 Madison Scouts 82.290 Troopers 79.200 Pacific Crest 78.019 Music City 74.938 Genesis 72.256 Cascades 70.613 Jersey Surf

Out of the corps that have performed so far, Phantom is currently projected to finish 12th. The Blue Knights haven't been thrown into the mix, so make that 13th. And depending on if Spirit builds on last year, that could be 14th. Based on my growth projection spreadsheet, after two shows it forecasts several distinct blocks... The Top 6 - No one is catching them. These will be the Top 6 corps, in some order, guaranteed: 1. Santa Clara Vanguard 2. Blue Devils 3. Carolina Crown 4. Bluecoats 5. Cavaliers 6. Boston Crusaders Boston's 6th place score, as of right now, is forecast to be 94.925! Then there's a four point drop, and another four corps between 89 and 91... 7. Mandarins 8. Cadets 9. Blue Knights 10. Blue Stars Blue Knights are just a guess right now, based on prior years' performances. But right now, these all look like locks. There's another 2+ point drop to 11th place, and here is where things get interesting... 11. Academy (87.3225) 12. Crossmen (86.2500) 13. Phantom Regiment (85.4125) 14. Spirit of Atlanta (85.4000) 15. Madison Scouts (84.85000) Five corps, two finals spots. Of course I'm not saying Phantom is doomed to 13th place after two shows. But Phantom has A LOT of work to do over the next six weeks. Monday will be the first good look: Phantom, Blue Stars, Crossmen, and Spirit all at the Evansville show. If Phantom is closer to Blue Stars and ahead of Crossmen, that will be a big first step. Behind Crossmen, they've got work to do. Behind SPIRIT, and the odds of making Saturday night just get that much longer.

And we're off! Scores are up for the first night of competition!