How Spirit of Atlanta turned 1.25 down into 1.638 up on Troopers
Spirit of Atlanta were 1.25 behind Troopers when the two first met on July 18 at DCI Southwestern Championship, and finished 1.638 ahead of them at Finals. The piece argues the swing is a General Effect Music story: it is the caption the two end the season furthest apart in, worth 0.525 of the final margin.
Every number below comes out of this site's own score archive. Nothing here is sourced to an announcement, and nothing here was reported by anybody else first.
The evidence
DCI Southwestern Championship, July 18: Troopers 81.15, Spirit of Atlanta 79.9. Troopers ahead by 1.25. (the DCI Forge score archive)
DCI World Championship Finals, August 8: Spirit of Atlanta 88.588 (10th), Troopers 86.95 (11th). (the DCI Forge score archive)
Total swing between the two meetings: 2.888. (the DCI Forge score archive)
At Finals Spirit of Atlanta's largest weighted caption advantage is General Effect Music, 0.525 of the margin. (the DCI Forge score archive)
How the numbers are weighted
General Effect counts twice. The two effect captions carry 40 of the 100 points and the six performance captions carry 60, so a tenth moved in effect is worth two tenths moved in percussion. Every weighted figure in this piece is scaled that way; the unweighted caption marks are printed as the recap prints them.