Cadevilina Crown

Pretty sure it was 2009 Semifinals.

I’ve considered going to this show, but unfortunately, I have a prior commitment this evening.

Up through San Antonio, I wasn’t entirely sure if Spirit would be able to close the gap on Phantom later in the season, even after their early-season victories. Tonight, they proved that. We’ll see if the trend lasts, but it’s very possible we could see them on Saturday night.

Hello, Spirit! 👀

Here come the Mandarins! Just 0.7 behind Cadets, beating them in overall GE and overall Visual!

Wow, you are really down there. I hope the amp placements are kind to you.

Well, this was just posted to Facebook.

I still remember what happened to the Cavaliers back in 2015. That corps was close to overtaking BK for the Top 6 at San Antonio before things went awry.

Really, the caption that's affected the most among the three judges that judge from the field (Visual Proficiency, Brass and Percussion) is Percussion because those judges were the ones that tended to enter the field the most. Comparing scores between San Antonio this year and the same show last year, not a ton has changed. SCV still is 1st in Percussion, and they actually got the same exact Percussion score as they did a year ago (18.3). I don't see much change in either of the other captions, but then again, these tend to be a bit more volatile than Percussion in recent years. If you want to see where the most obvious impacts of this rule change lie, you'd have to compare overall visual designs between today and a year ago. In particular, things like the placement of the front ensemble (not always exactly "on the 50" this year), the placement of the battery during their features (more and more coming directly to the front sideline instead of just behind the pit or elsewhere on the field), and even the placement of the hornline at times (many more features next to/in front of the pit, with some MMs occasionally going beyond the front sideline). All of this is being done to give the three on-field judges better sightlines, since they can't go more than 2 yards past the front sideline like they used to.

That is true, but some of us are too lazy to do the math. DCI can easily show those averages to tell us who the MA “winner” is, just like they did with the Percussion caption back when that had 2 judges.

So I know that since last season there have been two Music Analysis judges at all the Regionals and Championships. And I get why this is being done - to allow judges that specialize in different instrument areas (i.e. brass and percussion) to judge the same caption, giving all the corps a fair analysis of their musical product, just like with GE. Here's what I don't get, though: When I see the recaps for these shows, I see the two MA categories and get very confused because both are labeled the exact same way ("Music - Analysis") with absolutely no distinctions aside from the judges' names. Why not call them "Music Analysis 1" and "Music Analysis 2" in the same way as GE? Moreover, why are these captions not averaged on the recap like GE is now and Percussion was before that was replaced with the two MA judges? That would make it so much easier to see who is truly the strongest in this category. Just my $0.02. Feel free to discuss.

More specifically, BD's music. (They won GE tonight, so their design is stronk enough.)

There are two possible answers to this question, and I won't say either.

Ladies and gentlemen, this was your Ott-winning hornline just four years ago. Sad.

They won Visual Proficiency and one of the MA judges (really wish they either averaged that caption or put “MA Brass”/“MA Percussion” or SOMETHING to make the 2 distinct).