(S32) Ultimus Week

[UberBJ]

WSBL Championship Week S1 Affiliate

[SouljaBoy2007]

Task #1 (620 words)

The Silverbacks and Fire Salamanders are permanently tied together, as they were created at the same time. After years of contending, they finally met in the Ultimus this year. They were opposite teams in several ways offensively. The Silverbacks liked to sling the ball while Berlin had the league's best rushing attack. The Silverbacks were led by an elder statesman in Sam Howitzer while the Fire Salamanders were quarterbacked by young Dexter Zaylren. Defensively, they were nearly carbon copies of one another, finishing right next to each other on the sack leaderboard and forcing about 30 turnovers each. The playmakers for both of these teams showed up big this season to get these teams to the playoffs.

For Berlin, the story revolved around their superstar runningbacks. In the days before the season, they made a blockbuster deal to snag Goat Tank from a tanking OCO team. Tank rewarded the Fire Salamanders with 18 total touchdowns and his most efficient rushing season ever. Berlin also snagged Jay Cue Jr. from the Yellowknife Wraiths. He had a bit of a down year by his standards, but that still gave the Fire Salamanders 2 1000 yard rushers. This provided their young QB Dexter Zaylren with a perfect environment for a breakout season and he gave them just that. Zaylren led the league in passer rating while finishing 3rd in TDs and 4th in completion percentage. This dynamic offensive attack, combined with a defense that allowed just 24 points per game led by the sack leader BamBam McMullet. gave the Fire Salamanders the #2 seed in the conference. They blew out the Sailfish in their first playoff game as Goat Tank ran for 136 yards and Zaylren tossed two early scores to Troy Abed. The defense capitalized by holding the Sailfish under 50% conversion rate on 3rd down and by forcing a fumble which they recovered. In their second playoff game, the Fire Salamanders eeked out a win in Philadelphia. The two high-powered offenses screeched to a halt and the Fire Salamanders managed to win by controlling the ball and the clock. In the end, a pair of missed 4th down conversions doomed the Liberty and sent the Fire Salamanders to the Ultimus.

The Silverbacks, in contrast to the Fire Salamanders dynamic offensive attack, leaned very heavily on the arm of Sam Howitzer and he delivered in a big way. He gave them another 5000 yard season while also throwing 34 touchdowns and finishing 3rd in passer rating. His favorite target, Tugg Speedman, led the ISFL in receiving yards and was second in receptions. Their #2 receiver, Joseph Radetzky also finished with over 1100 yards. Like the Fire Salamanders, the Silverbacks finished 2nd in their conference. In their first game, they had an absolute war with the Austin Copperheads. They created over 600 yards of offense in an overtime win. They capitalized on a mistake from Austin to set up Armando Galarraga to kick the game winning field goal. That set up a matchup with an Arizona team that was the league's #1 team. In that game, the Silverbacks shut down the dominant Arizona Outlaws rushing attack while Howitzer threw for 344 yards in the 28-17 win to send the Silverbacks to the Ultimus.

In the Ultimus, these two evenly matched teams had very different performances. Berlin came out flat, with NYS jumping out to a 20-0 lead. Berlin was able to pull the game back to a one score deficit with a great 4th quarter, but their onside kick attempt failed and the Silverbacks scored the game sealing touchdown with 1:16 left to play. Dexter Zaylren's pointless touchdown with 6 seconds to play meant nothing and the Silverbacks were able to hoist their second Ultimus championship.

[Gwdjohnson]

Full SHL CW (10 TPE)

[209tacos]

PBE full CW affiliate

[mango8154]

32) This time of year is filled with festivity and community spirit, however some members of the community are less fortunate than others and have a myriad of problems that the holidays and christmas if anything compound on those problems, the Austin Copperheads as a team have come up with a number of ways to help out the larger community of Austin. One thing the players are doing is helping serve food at local food banks and homeless shelters, hopefully with local charities also raising money for those who are sleeping rough at Christmas as they can be forgotten at this time of year unfortunately. Another thing the players of the Austin Copperheads are doing is visiting children in hospitals, some unfortunate kids are stuck away from their homes just to stay alive and the players try to help by visiting sick fans and hopefully improving their morale and bringing some Christmas spirit.

34) Daniel O’Leary’s holiday traditions are as follows, first nothing christmassy goes up or happens until december first, no songs, decorations, nothing. Then on the first of the month the Christmas calendar gets broken out and the Christmas tunes start playing, these are the first signs of christmas. On the first weekend the decorations get put out, firstly small things like christmas rugs and laurels but by the weekends last minutes all the decorations are up, Daniel doesn’t go overboard with decorations but there is quite a bit with a nice big christmas tree, ib the second to third week the yearly watching of harry potter happens, a yearly tradition in his household and on the week leading to christmas, christmas movies are watched a lot, at least one a day. On christmas eve a nice sit down meal at a fancy-ish restaurant planned months in advance and he takes his family to have a nice meal.

[GlimsTC]

Task 1

As of this writing, the Ultimus has already well concluded and we now hoist a new championship banner in honor of the New York Silverbacks who were the winners of this season. I would say that despite the Silverbacks having won just a few seasons ago, this was still a surprise to me. However, the bigger surprise of this season, or not really a surprise depending at how you look at it, is the Philadelphia Liberty's success and them finally standing out as one of the better teams in the ISFL.

Ever since I can remember, the Liberty have struggled. Not due to poor GMing, but just horrible horrible luck. The people of Philadelphia have been incredibly patient however, and this seasons feels like it was finally a reward for their efforts. But when you look at how things were just two seasons ago, it's wild to think the time is finally now. They went from what is their usual in S30 with a record of 4-12, to bringing it to .500 at 8-8, and this season just absolutely blasting the league, finishing with the best record (and best tiebreakers) at 11-5. Compare this to a team like the Hawks for example which are still struggling, and it puts into perspective just how insane of a jump the Liberty took this season. Sure, they failed to win the Ultimus in the end, but I feel that with this sim, it's incredibly hard to just luck yourself to the top of the food chain like they did, and because of that I believe that this season was merely a teaser of things to come.

That being said, the Liberty's success and then failure to capitalize on it this season is a testament to just how consistently good Berlin has been. A team that's constantly competing and sort of follows the same fate that the Silverbacks do every year. It's rather amusing that the two expansion teams are so similar year in and year out, but then even with that, the Silverbacks are now 2-0 against the Fire Salamanders in the Ultimus. It's a shame they haven't been able to close the gap and finally beat out their fellow expansion team, but considering how often they're in the position to have a shot to make it to the Ultimus, there's no doubt that at some point they'll be pulling it off. And now that their division in general is becoming so competitive, it'll be interesting to see just how long their powerhouse last. For all we know, they could pull an Arizona and run that side of the league for a long time to come!

Lastly, I'd say the final team to really surprise me, and this was a team not in the playoffs, is the Baltimore Hawks. For a team that's had so many first round picks and high first round picks in general, they've steadily matched Philadelphia's record every season besides this one, where Philadelphia finally made that leap forward, Baltimore once again failed to cross the .500 threshold. One would assume with all the talent they've managed to gather that's currently sitting above 900+ TPE, that they'd be able to at least hit .500 by now. One must wonder if this is because the other teams they face really are just that much better, or if they've just been getting actually unlucky. I have to imagine they're due for some success soon, but it's definitely an odd trend that's plagued the franchise for a while now. Though, even if they do start going upward, I struggle to imagine that they'll break into the playoffs any time soon, unless one of the top four current teams drastically fall off. I am of the opinion that the other teams really are just that good, and as we've seen for a while now, the strangle hold that top teams have usually remain unless they blunder heavily somewhere.

(652 words)

[furiousPanda]

8. There are plenty of different types of awards in the International Simulation Football League, from the Most Valuable Player to Rookie’s of the year. Personally, I do not think Panda McKyle would win any of them, because the voters kind of hate him, but I do think he deserves some recognition for an amazing season. I will make up an award that Panda McKyle would win and is not football related, which is pretty easy. I have mentioned before in other point tasks, that the gambling addiction of Panda McKyle is real, and the reward will be related to that since he is so good at black jack. So I think he would win the Black Jack player of the year award! Why? You might ask. Well McKyle is a great blackjack player in general. When he goes to the casino every pit boss knows about him. He is out there putting a grand on single hands, doubling and splitting hands at the correct moments in the shoe and planily getting lucky sometimes. He would win tournaments and increase the size of his bankroll.He one time this season won $20k on a single double up. This could easily have him winning the black jack player of the year award. I doubt any other player in the league could compete with him. And McKyle is like the Jordan of black jack, tho he is still pretty good at being an ISFL quarterback. Another off the field award he would qualify for is ‘The GIF master’. McKyle loves responding to management, head office and teammates with GIF reactions. He is incredibly talented at it and it could be outright hilarious. Some of his favorites include: Friday gifs, No bugs bunny gif and the Grinch gif! Anyway, I think those are great awards, Blackjack player of the year and GIF Master. 

Code:

309 words

 

33. My team, the San Jose Sabercats are running a little Secret Santa, and we all are in charge of getting to a teammate. Panda McKyle drew the name Russ, the co-GM of the Sabercats. Now Russ is not a terrible person but this is a good opportunity for McKyle to get creative with his gift. Russ likes buses a lot, like a whole lot. Not really sure why, it is kind of a weird fetish but we’re not here to judge. So McKyle buys him a few models of buses. A San Jose city model bus, a school bus and a zombie apocalypse armored battle bus. Of course, McKyle would not put it together but hopefully Russ has the ability. In addition to the numerous bus models, McKyle wants to give him a gag gift. And what is the best gag gift for Christmas? A huge lump of coal! This is what he gets for making contract negotiations so difficult.

Code:

160 words

34. Panda McKyle’s Christmas celebrations are a little different than the typical average Christmas. He celebrates it in a Polish traditional kind of way. Which starts out with Christmas Eve being more important than the actual day of Christmas. This is the day that McKyle’s family would give each other gifts and what not. They would also eat various different meals throughout the day. Usually it is a lot of fish and pierogies. Before dinner, the family would all gather together and give each other ‘Best wishes’ for the new year. So you would walk around to each individual family member and wish them a great new year. Then when dinner comes, it would still keep up with the fish theme and this is what everyone would eat. After dinner, this is where the drinking begins! It usually starts with Vodka, beers and Polish moonshine! Everyone in the family goes ham. Then when the clock strikes midnight, the whole family would go to mass that night.

Code:

165 wurds

[Vaelynn]

With awards season upon us, make up an award for your player win for something not on the football field.

I think the award for most intimidating secondary should be awarded to the Philly Liberty this year, and in particular the spectacular duo of Remus and Romulus Roman. While this is not technically an individual award, I think it highlights the incredible contributions of every secondary member on the Liberty – something I think the whole team deserves. This year’s defense played lights out, crushing opposing offenses with absurdly high turnover rates, sacks, and pass break ups. Remus played a major factor in the success of that defense, allowing Romulus to play the role of enforcer, and other CBs to be as aggressive as they need to be in order to make the big play.

Remus’ role in that defense is to play the center fielder – covering all spaces and acting as a safety net for the, at times, overly aggressive defensive style of Romulus and the rest of the defense. Without Remus, small mistakes on behalf of the linebacker core and corner backs could result in devastating points for opposing teams. Remus and Romulus’ style of play has contributed heavily to the success of the team overall. The style, while different, maximizes the strength and tackling ability of Romulus and the incredible speed and playmaking skills of Remus.

This diametrically opposed style is exactly what makes Philly so scary – Romulus is there to knock your teeth in, and Remus is there to crush your hopes and dreams if you ever manage to get through. This doesn’t even touch on the borderline MVP performance of Xavier Walls throughout the season. Though the sim definitely simmed a few times this year against our defense, many times we lit up the scoreboard and carried the team to victory.

 Turnovers were a sort of signature of Philadelphia, which of course probably made it difficult for the opposing little dot to psych himself up before each game. (316 words)

Write a short biography about your player.

Remus’ decision to ultimately leave the New Orleans Second Line to pursue a different, less glamorous position with the Philadelphia Liberty was a choice the befuddled most pundits and left everyone wondering what happened. His overnight success as a converted Safety (from Running Back) was a bit of a surprise, but definitely solidified his choice. This reporter got a background story on the most controversial choice of season 32.

Remus has publicly spoken in detail about his love and respect for the New Orleans organization, the team, and it’s General Managers, but the real story is the love that Remus has for his family. Remus dreamed of playing alongside his brother since pop warner days, and beyond that developed an incredibly close relationship with his college teammate Xavier Walls as well (Remus constantly refers to him as his "brother from another mother").

This kinship, and the desire to buy a house and season tickets for their mother to attend every game were the primary motivations for Remus to leave New Orleans. Growing up, Remus and Romulus’ mother attended every game of theirs – always switching jerseys at halftime so she could support both of her sons. Once both were drafted, their mother couldn’t attend both of their games anymore – breaking that ironman streak she had of game attendance, something that affected the whole family. With this decision (and a long term commitment from Philly) both sons are moving their mother into their recently constructed duplex mansion.

 With Philly, Remus may have found his calling as a Safety. He had a lot of success as a Running Back, but he always felt he was a stronger defensive player than anything, and had a strong desire to play that side of the ball again. Remus is loving life on the Liberty, and truly feels like he has found his long term home. (311 words)

[j00]

Through a random lottery drawing, you have been named the league's new commisioner for a day. Congrats! What improvements would you make to the league if you had the power to do whatever you wanted?

I would increase fantasy payouts. Maybe this is cause I haven't been winning jack shit in the past few seasons, maybe not. Probably is. But maybe the payout should be 5 / 4 / 3 / 2 / 1 / 0 for 1st / 2nd / 3rd / 4th / 5th / 6th place. Fuck it, double it. 10 / 8 / 6 / 4 / 2 / 0. Let 5th and 6th place fight it out for 1-2 points instead of just resigning for the whole season once they figure out that their draft sucks or whatever. I think that's just underwhelming. Is it really that bad to give out more TPE? I wonder if anyone's done the stats for the percentage of players who are max earners. Also might be interesting to see those who consider themselves max earners, how many point tasks and training camps and weekly activity checks or whatever they've missed. I consider myself a max earner, and at this point, I must've left like over 50 potential points on the table, mostly from forgetting, or having too good a week, or having too bad a week.

Would it also be bad to delay regression by one more season? I can't say, I guess, and I'm not gonna try and impose my opinion. I'm just a lazy f*** and max earning is hard work. It's why I'm gonna be retiring after this season, to be honest. Damn, and people play in these leagues for years as max earners? That's crazy. Okay, I guess not too many people do that, just a select few.

Anyways, my favorite tasks were those that are like, "You get 5 points for participating, and .5 points for every one you get right". I like my participation trophies. Gonna sue me? I just think the sim being so trash is already bad enough punishment. Honestly, props to the sim balance team, I could never do that job, even if I got real life bucks. And these foos do it for free? Crazy. Madness.

-------------------------------------------------

Describe your player and/or team’s journey through this latest season. What were the highlights? What were the lower points? What might you have done differently? What are your expectations for next season?

Man, it was great just landing here. I got to skip training camp, and I plan to do that again next season. In fact, I don't even plan to practice next season. I've done enough practicing for my whole life if I'm being real honest. But yeah, we kicked it off quick from the start. But then we hit some rough patches in the middle of the season. Some say the football gods are unkind, unjust, and I would tend to agree. I also think that bum Fred Tassow is just absolute garbage and it's no surprise that we got rid of that bum this offseason. He was holding this team back, 100%. I mean, I already kinda knew that from our initial meeting, but the guy gave me a pretty big check so what's a man to do? I didn't wanna come in here as the highest paid player and start callin' for the guy to get fired right away, but shit, maybe I should've. Maybe we would've won the Ultimus if I had spoken up. Shame on me, really. But shit, we got one more chance. Or at least, I got one more chance. This might be the end for me. I'm exhausted. Tired of running. Tired of catchin' balls if you know what I mean. I'm definitely looking forward to the end, especially as my body ain't gonna be letting me do this for too much longer. I've beaten it up for years, never rehabbed properly, and it's all biting me in the ass now. I definitely ain't looking forward to a lifetime of physical rehab, so I'm not sure what I'ma do. Man, the other day I tweaked my back getting out of bed and it hurt for a week. Not even the ladies that I pay so much for were able to help, and that's when I knew this was gonna be my last ride.

[mook]

SHL Affiliate

I appreciate's it. Happy Holidays!