The Great Parity Simulation Experiment: Week 12 (Finals!) + Simulator Download

We did, folks! We persevered through the absence of actual frisbee to nevertheless complete Session 2 of the 2019-20 Parity League season. Incredible!

Congrats to the Champ, GM Morgan, and his team, JT Got Us Fallen In Love Again. Kudos to GM Brian and his team, How to Lose a Disc in 10 Stalls, for an excellent playoff run and a well-deserved silver medal. Your prizes, like the games you played, are simulated. Enjoy your fantasy swag.

The final game, like so many simulated matches before it, was a thriller. Catch the video here if you missed it: https://bit.ly/OCUAParityStreams

Final league standings: https://bit.ly/ParitySimStandings

Final stat leaderboards: https://bit.ly/ParityStatLeaders

Full game reports from all simulations: https://bit.ly/ParitySims

The Dropbox folder with the simulation reports also includes the latest version of the simulator program itself! As long as you have a recent version of Excel you should be able to run it. Start with the ReadMe tab and if you have any questions just ask.

Thank you to everyone who tuned into the live streams, read these forum posts or otherwise followed along with this silly experiment. It was a lot of fun for me to do and I hope it brought you some whimsy and community spirit during this challenging time. I can’t wait to see you all on the field again, whenever that may be!

And now, I turn things over to veteran analyst Chris Keates for his incisive evaluation of the final game that wasn’t.

 Enter the Simulation 

Championship Game: How to Lose a Disc in 10 Stalls (Brian) (21) vs. JT Got Us Fallin' in Love (Morgan) (24)

In the final game of the final week of the Great Parity Simulation Experiment (aka The Matrix), Hadrian’s mathletics are really what’s on trial here. It’s not Morgan or Brian’s GM’ing, or the players on the simulated field. Do the outcomes pass the smell test? Is the frisbee believable?

Did they? Let’s dive in.

Brian’s team was largely built in his own image. Slightly risqué handlers willing to put it, lots of speedy downfield targets. We’ve seen that before in Parity, and from Brian! The game had Brian all over the scoresheet, a 2/5/1/1 (G/A/2A/D) performance, and no throwaways. A great stat line, and not uncommon for him… except in title matches. Marcus put up 6 goals and 3 throwaways, which is absolutely in his wheelhouse. No D’s though, which is odd. Krolak threw it away 3 times which is normal. Alistair had 4 assists which is strange because normally he’s in the endzone. Satollo scores twice which is well below his ceiling but he can be streaky, so it’s believable. Alyssa’s 4 throwaways, much less so. CC had a Berry, a perfectly mediocre night, which is on brand (and a worthy goal every night), but Dana chucked it away almost 85% of the time which is just absurdly unlike her. Angela had a few goals, a few throwaways which is pretty normal… but no assists? Andre with a goal but otherwise unremarkable?

At least for Brian’s game, it’s hard to say if the outcome makes sense. What about Morgan’s team?

Morgan had… wait, what? 4/4/4/1 and only 2 throwaways? Morgan hasn’t played this well since before he had kids! Dan Thomson with more than double the assists than goals? Jay Thor, simulation darling, with 6 assists? These are absurd numbers for a trio of dudes hovering around 40 years of age! And they led the team in most categories! Preposterous! It gets more sane when you see Kristie Ellis being her usual reliable self, but then eyes perk up at Lance’s 7 throwaways and limited impact with only 9 catches. Matthew “Skynes” Schijns has no goals and but 1 D, which is strange. Pepper with no assists, Alisha with a quiet night, Solomon flirting with a Berry, and Christo kept out of the endzone. Caitlin and Wing have quiet nights. This entire team’s outcome is more wrong than right, at first glance.

What if we dig deeper?

First point of the game Graham Brown gets a layout catch block on Lance, which is remarkable for a man his age (and also something he does on the regular). He completes the magic with an assist to CC which is a bit more suspect. Crowd wants an irresponsible hammer from this man, but uncharacteristically he did not provide.

In the third point of the game, Kristie Ellis picks up the disk and bombs it to Jay Thor, who then flips it to Pepper for a goal. That seems right.

Later, Dan Thomson starts with the disk (?) and passes it to Ellis, who sits on the disk long enough for Dan to bust up field on a handler strike (?!), who then sits on the disk long enough and ignores other traffic for Ellis to catch up to the play for the goal (?!?). Dubious….

Pullers for the game, Angela Mueller and Lance, which tracks. On the second one, Angela floats one to a few yards from the endzone which Kristie collects, and Jay “Pylon” Thor busts deep off the pull play for an easy 50 yard gainer before pitching it easily to Pepper for a goal. I’m going to call all of this a bit suspect. Normally after Jay Thor runs that far, he’s not the most cool and collected.

Rachel Young starts a point with the disk and immediately bombs it to a streaking Alyssa who has to bring it back to the line (two pass rule!) before an easy pitch to Marcus. Perfectly expected frisbee.

The story of this game is really two evenly matched teams. There is a 15 minute window where Brian’s high-powered offense just can’t convert on O and they give up 6 breaks. But for this, it’s a back and forth affair. Brian’s team almost achieves what I have come to accept as Parity Mecca, or the double digit touches for every player. Dana was close, with 9, and everyone else had 10 or more. Morgan’s team wrung every ounce of frisbee it could out of aging veterans (oddly leaning on them all game). And ultimately, Morgan achieves in simulated frisbee what he never could in the real world: A Parity championship. It seems that for Morgan, the only winning move is not to play.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing of all is that if from a far enough vantage point, this frisbee is spectacular. If you focus on the minutiae, it all seems very strange. But when you step back, take in the entire spectacle with a wider view, it’s… beautiful. The expected is the unexpected, an outcome we see at every turn. The Matrix strives for the predictable and rarely achieves it, a testament to the deep understanding our Architect has of this league and these players. It is flawed, and improbable, and confusing, and... believable. It is perfect.

And speaking of perfect, if you missed the trophy ceremony, please go to the end of the finals stream, and experience the joy and wonder of Kelsey’s journey of discovery, growth, and self-actualization after his session 1 championship. The grief and sadness of his realization that he must give up the trophy stands in stark contrast against his realizing that without fall there can be no spring, without death there can be no rebirth, that all things have their time and place in the Parity cycle of rebirth and renewal.

Parity will return next year, or maybe the year beyond. Who knows? What I do know is, Morgan, make sure to wipe that trophy down with Lysol. You know Kelsey has been breathing on it to buff it to a mirror finish over the last 3 months.