TM 2021 - Black Flag Nightless

[Autumn Leaves]

I don't understand how I'm supposed to scumread koba for something that, based on all available info, is something that they regularly do as town. If you don't feel that koba is genuine, that's fine, but the stated reasons for your scumread aren't valid. I feel like you should be keeping yourself open to re-evaluating the replacement rather than making up your mind prematurely on a player that is (I suppose, for you) difficult to read.

[Autumn Leaves]

Well normally when there's gonig to be a replacement I'm like "ok cool, I can re-evaluate my read then" rather than just basing my read off of one slot whose playstyle I could be reading as scummy.

[Autumn Leaves]

That makes sense, but now I'm worried you're scum who was pissed about koba getting so many townreads despite playing badly.

Sorry about your previous team mafia experience though.

[Autumn Leaves]

Shirou I'm a bit confused about your position on koba now--you SR them but you think there's a decent chance that you're wrong but you don't really want to put in the work to re-evaluate your read--is that right?

[Autumn Leaves]

I like shirou for scum a lot

[Autumn Leaves]

I disliked you trying to play around her overall.

Huh, that was an unexpected reason. And by "playing around her" you mean what, exactly?

dunno, it's not a question of what exactly you were doing, it's a question of:

I think Lilith is town, anyone trying to discredit a bit, throw shade on her slot or etc in my eyes, is probably not going to look good. It's the same reason I raised eyebrows on Johnny about Chennis, and I don't even seriously town read Chennis yet, while I do town read Lilith a lot.

If there's one player that'll pocket me in this game and I'll never see it coming it's Lilith...I don't know why but I've trouble seeing her as mafia, at all.

I think she's a very good scum player if she's scum here to the point I don't think I've a chance against her without deep meta-diving, which I probably won't do.

Maybe I should just give her a town read already...

[Autumn Leaves]

@Mena 3519 feels like how I would sow paranoia/shade on a slot if scum, and then shirou says he's sus of people who shade lilith.

[Autumn Leaves]

I like shirou for scum a lot

I do not, why do you?

Idk, he was arguing theory with me, and it seemed like he believed it strongly, and then he equivocated and started buddying me a bit. Felt like a scum way of dodging a 1v1

[Autumn Leaves]

I like shirou for scum a lot

I do not, why do you?

Idk, he was arguing theory with me, and it seemed like he believed it strongly, and then he equivocated and started buddying me a bit. Felt like a scum way of dodging a 1v1

I don’t think scum!shiro is worried about 1v1ing literally any player on site

Doesn't mean he'd necessarily want to get into a 1v1/think it's beneficial

I don't expect you to believe to me here because of...earlier, but I'm pretty confident shirou rolled mafia here and I'm gonna have a lot of fun watching it

[Autumn Leaves]

Of course I'm open to re-evaluating, but I get this feeling I won't need to

[Autumn Leaves]

Doesn't mean he'd necessarily want to get into a 1v1/think it's beneficial

If memory serves me right he actually tends to believe that 1v1s will be perceived as TvT if there’s sufficient force from each side/that he’s good enough to still be perceived as town for the way he pushed someone to guillo even if they flip town

I think there's a decent chance he just doesn't want to get into a 1v1 because he won't enjoy it, given how he felt about

I'm ok with waiting until later days to consider limming him

[Autumn Leaves]

I know this is approaching grey area, but as a sidenote, although I think it may be NAI, if I had to place between "Towny" vs "Scummy" to Math doing weird speculations, I would put it under scummy.

In a Mastina's modded large (I forgot the name but it had to do with Wolves), Math was scum that always speculated weird things which were objectively very hard to realistically take place. In the last days if I remember right his speculation was as weird as speculating wheter vampires were considered supernatural or not, or something similar.

I just remember it was strikingly weird assumptions that at the time I did doubt anyone would genuinely make.

I think that due to this one having different circumstances, it may not apply, especially also given it's been 2 years since that game, but still I would like to point that out?

Didn't you just say you wanted large samples of meta before using it at all?

Math does this as both alignments

[Autumn Leaves]

Since we're talking about my scum game here...

I don't expect anyone to believe me I suppose, since my alignment is still not confirmed, but after game rest assured that whatever idea you had about my scum game before, it's significantly weaker now.

I simply don't have the same stamina to play mafia that I used to, I'm barely caught up here but I'm already quite tired/want to do something else, I don't have any particular motivation to tryhard as either town or scum as I used to before.

Scum play is less, say, frustrating than town since you know everyone alignment since the start, but it's much more exhausting than town if you're really trying to win, because as town you can just give up on town and say "it's not my fault if we lose this", but as scum you're much more responsible for your team's fate. There's much more responsibility in being scum than there is in being town, whether people shoulder that responsibility is another story.

I don't have even stamina enough for town play nowadays, completely rule out of the possibility I could spam as scum as much as I used to, because good scum play does require you to constantly talk, argue and pick fights against town to deceive them. It's just not in the range of what I can do today.

Look at my last scum game for example, I used a much more passive/weaker way of playing simply because I already didn't have enough stamina back then, and I've even less now.

Yeah...not going to do that. I am not even caught up on this game and you want me to hunt for a game that says your point? Not gonna happen.

Didn't you just say you wanted large samples of meta before using it at all?

Math does this as both alignments

I said that it's mostly NAI didn't I?

I just wanted to point out because it was the sole reason I suspected math in scum PT

look you can scum read me but don't engage me in bad-faith or I'm gonna start completely ignoring your slot (I don't mean this in an aggressive way, it's just that there's a difference between casually saying something about someone game vs basing your entire read on that).

I really don't see how I'm engaging you in bad faith here, your starting point was "I don't use meta at all" until you had a large enough sample size to get consistent results. Am I misinterpreting that?

[Autumn Leaves]

Yeah I think math misread your wording shirou

[Autumn Leaves]

I really don't see how I'm engaging you in bad faith here, your starting point was "I don't use meta at all" until you had a large enough sample size to get consistent results. Am I misinterpreting that?

@Shirou

[Autumn Leaves]

it feels like it applies to this game as a whole though, like he’s just arguing about anything and everything for the sake of arguing, even when it’s not relevant to alignment

Pretty sure this is NAI

[Autumn Leaves]

@Mena Since you admit you can't trust your read on shirou, I suggest you trust your read on fire

PEdit: ok, I believe you

[Autumn Leaves]

I generally use meta to either check someone's scumrange, or to get an intuitive sense for how someone plays, I think hard-and-fast tells are unreliable whether you use meta or not.

[Autumn Leaves]

@Mena Since you admit you can't trust your read on shirou, I suggest you trust your read on fire

What, you mean my TR?

Forgot you changed your read. Though, first instincts are often pretty accurate

[Autumn Leaves]

I did, though it wasn't a super confident read.

[Autumn Leaves]

Going over my scumgame with flopz, he'd had to have improved a

lot

to be scum here. I've also been liking auro's posts lately, for most of this game he's been in his own lane and not really concerned about anyone else, in a way that feels genuine. Where I'm at now is something like

{lilith, mena, joqiza}
{math, flopz, auro}
{chenn}
{shirou}

Link to flopz scumgame, starting from where the memes stop viewtopic.php?p=12203352&user_select%5B ... #p12203352

[Autumn Leaves]

Yeah I might look at your meta at some point. I still haven't discounted the idea that you're town and playing very reactively (feeling out the game rather than being assertive). The read mostly comes down to gut, it feels like you're positioning yourself in the game rather than trying to solve it, is the best I can put it. I do think I'll have doubts about the read eventually if you're town, maybe the meta will help.

[Autumn Leaves]

This looks me of thinking is towny from shirou, but it more makes me want to just elim johnny and move on with it than anything else.

[Autumn Leaves]

Autumn posted a reads list in 3777 where he's ranking ppl, sans johnny. But Johnny hadn't even been flipped yet.

I trusted other people that it was hammer, no point giving a read there

[Autumn Leaves]

Ok maybe you're right and I'm getting paranoid I just want more time to go over it this evening. I'm still at work.

@Autumn wouldn't a ranking like that be at least somewhat contingent on what johnny flipped though? Is my point

I mean maybe? I'm probably going to look at interactions more after the flip, but I wanted to get that out there while I was motivated. I don't think it'll have too big of an effect because johnny didn't have a ton of interactions with people and scum likely bussed but it's not 100%.

[Autumn Leaves]

Ya ngl that comment makes me want to drop the hammer on him

Johnny is still at E-2 btw

[Autumn Leaves]

Ya ngl that comment makes me want to drop the hammer on him

Johnny is still at E-2 btw

Why would u announce this fam

I think johnny knew he wasn't hammered at this point, wanted us to be clear about when we wanted to end the day

[Autumn Leaves]

I thought johnny was hammered obv

[Autumn Leaves]

getting one mafia we get an extra elimination

This isn't true because of how black flag works. If we elim 4 townies we lose no matter what.

[Autumn Leaves]

To be completely honest, I'm sus of the plan because it comes from shirou, but the logic looks solid.

[Autumn Leaves]

It's different from randomly picking names because they're good reads. I'm town, I strongly TR joqi and lilith so the plan looks like it wins to me.

[Autumn Leaves]

I would like to hear more specifically Math/AL opinions on me, since I'm trying to hardblock your relatively very easy miseliminations if you're town.

I don't think this is clearing for you at all, in fact I think you're just saving our elims for later. Instead of re-evaluating the bloc, people like joqi will want to elim me/math already.

I was very sure the team was mena/shirou and I was writing up a case, this day phase has made that less likely though, so I'll have to think about things.

[Autumn Leaves]

Shirou, I'll think about it, and if I decide it's a good idea, I'll vote auro by the end of the today.

[Autumn Leaves]

I'm not taking this deal, I have to reconsider my reads. Mena playing this way makes no sense if he's a shirou partner, and I'm still confident mena is scum. Auro doesn't look like scum at all to me, he looks like resigned town. Fighting your elim is hard and unpleasant, and I don't think auro is in the state of mind to want to do that.

Of course, it could still be lilith/shirou or something but idk. I'm gonna post the mena part of my case and talk to people.

@Mena What makes you confident we'll have enough support for the shirou elim? Even if I go along with it, and math and you will presumably vote there, and he'll self vote, but others didn't seem particularly interested in taking the deal.

[Autumn Leaves]

Actually, if I'm sure the deal has enough support, I'll consider it. Me and mena will have a...discussion.

What a bad time for a new magic the gathering set to come out.

[Autumn Leaves]

I don't want the day to end before I post my case on mena at least.

[Autumn Leaves]

@Mena What makes you confident we'll have enough support for the shirou elim? Even if I go along with it, and math and you will presumably vote there, and he'll self vote, but others didn't seem particularly interested in taking the deal

I need mena to answer this too.

[Autumn Leaves]

@Mena What makes you confident we'll have enough support for the shirou elim? Even if I go along with it, and math and you will presumably vote there, and he'll self vote, but others didn't seem particularly interested in taking the deal

I need mena to answer this too.

I think that at least (joqiza, lili) are town who wouldn't throw if a deal like that has been done

Did you even ask them? I'm pretty sure joqiza explicitly said he wouldn't do the deal

VOTE: shirou

[Autumn Leaves]

I'm playing magic the gathering because s new set came out, I don't really feel like writing a case right now. The shirou vote is to see if mena will go there.

[Autumn Leaves]

Mena's vote is on me at the moment.

[Autumn Leaves]

Take a look at mena's read progressions today while I write my case.

[Autumn Leaves]

@Mena The reason I started scumreading you again isn't read progressions, I think it actually made a lot of sense to play the way you did as scum, I'll explain it in the case.

[Autumn Leaves]

@Mena The way I view you as a person hasn't changed, how that view makes sense with your actions has changed.

[Autumn Leaves]

Of course when flopz supports the plan, you stop supporting it.

[Autumn Leaves]

How about one sentences? I think you realized you had to do something extreme to get TRed and/or were frustrated about very high expectations for towniness, so you thought the toxicity was justified.

[Autumn Leaves]

Tbh I still think it's shirou/mena, maybe I'm insane.

[Autumn Leaves]

Tbh I still think it's shirou/mena, maybe I'm insane.

So join in the Auro vote and we lim Shirou tomorrow, it's just that easy

Before I vote a townread, I need to be 100% certain that there's enough support to make a deal like this. You, me, shirou, and maybe math would be votes, but mena maybe seems like he's backing out?

[Autumn Leaves]

Fucking hell chenn

[Autumn Leaves]

Fucking hell chenn

wait shit was that hammer

I think so, we'll find out ig

[Autumn Leaves]

Chenn do you think

I

played a good game if I'm scum here?

[Autumn Leaves]

Chenn if you're frustrated about people scumreading you despite you having played badly if scum, imagine my frustration when it's been years since I've gotten a good chance to actually prove I'm competent as scum. If I'm scum here, you have to admit I played terrible.

[Autumn Leaves]

Mena is scum

When mena replaces in, his opening posts strongly ping me, and I start pushing him. Supposedly, mena wanted us to work together as town after having good synergy in PyP (2024). But his reaction to my push isn't immediately "I was hoping to work with you this game, but you're engaging me in bad faith and that's frustrating", but instead "that's unusual and unhelpful" (1650), and a few posts later he tries to argue that it's scummy (1679). Odd for someone who says this:

my general approach to town is just to turn off the filter as much as possible

He also tries to argue that I'm pushing his slot because he's an easy mislim (1702), which I don't think he would ever believe. In PyP, I saw town!him explode with towniness multiple times after being pushed, avoiding a n1 soft guilty until d4. Also, mena actually breaks off the engagement (itself out-of-character for a frustrated town!mena) and calls me scum engaging in bad faith before it's even clear I'm unwilling to re-evaluate. It's true, I wasn't really planning on re-evaluating, but he didn't engage me for nearly long enough to determine that for sure. He also wasn't very interested in asking me for all my reasons for scumreading him, despite a large part of his case (1996) based on me not having enough evidence to support my read. Normally if a townie thinks player x has insufficient evidence for a scumread on them, they'll push player x to out their reasoning so they can attack it. It looks like mena knows that me outing my reasons won't actually be good for him.

Mena also spends a lot of time buddying super, and not in a towny way. He presumably thinks most of super's case on me isn't valid (he doesn't really push super's points except for "mena is an easy target"). However, he doesn't actually engage with the points, or even say "I don't think super's case is correct but infinity is still scum".

Once again:

my general approach to town is just to turn off the filter as much as possible

Instead, when questioned on his thoughts on super's case, he says:

Yeh but more than that I just really dislike the way that he’s handled my entrance compared to chenn/fb and it’s very at odds with what I’d expect from town!him

Plus you’re like my top TR and you seem competent so if you also think he’s scum this seems like a good jumping off point

Pushing alongside reasoning someone doesn't think is valid causes a conflict in a townie's head, which they would generally voice. It feels more like he wants to maintain a good relationship with super and not undermine super's push, despite being unable to justify agreeing with her points.

Then, I talk a bit more about why I SR mena (1951: his play, specifically his response to being pushed, isn't as explosive/towny as when he's town). Mena then starts acting a bit more like what I'd expect from town!him (like using what he knows of me to form his read in 1996), though I'm not sure why he didn't say that earlier. I say that I'm having doubts on the read, but still think mena is scum, and lilith seems somewhat convinced by my other reasons to SR mena (2268, 2270). Mena is starting to feel the heat a bit, and he realizes he has to do something really outside the box to get TRed. Maybe he thinks he'd have a similar outburst as town, maybe he's just frustrated about the very high standards he needs to reach to get TRed. Obviously his outburst was unethical regardless of his alignment. In any case, mena had an outburst and it was actually a quite scum-indicative one. When confronted about their behavior (especially by multiple people, as in 2440, 2485, and 2467), reasonable townies will usually take a step back and reconsider their actions. Scum, however, don't want to reconsider because the toxicity is serving their agenda. Here's town!koba taking a step back after being overly tunnely/toxic:

hi im home from work and am willing to toss aside my previous reads into the trash.

i admit in my eagerness to find scum and use my methods I went and pushed myself too hard to the point of being stressed.

the only read im retaining atm is the clidd scumread. the very fact they sat there and let me tunnel onto gimli like that just doesnt sit right with me.

idk

im fucking lost.

i hate d1s.

theres a lot of emotion fueled things i want to say about the takes expressed in my abscence but i will decline to in favor of letting game breathe from my presence and letting other discussion permeate it. I think I helped create good enough content to start legitimate scumhuntning and alignment telling reads/actions from occuring.

Mena simply says:

I’m taking a day or two away from the thread to get some breathing room and to let everything calm down. See you guys in 24-48 hrs

Even if mena got overly frustrated in the moment, eventually he would realize he was out of line, so it's very odd to not get an apology. He probably just forgot to fake that part.

Unrelated, this feels like an excuse to not vote johnny when he can't make up a reason to TR him:

I do think Johnny could be scum, but I still think the reasons for infinity being scum are valid

And if Johnny flips town I feel like a lot is left unresolved going into tomorrow, whereas if infinity flips town then my model of the game is very wrong and I can start re-evaluating things

I think there’s some definite partner equity between infinity and johnny but I have a strong preference for still doing infinity first

Because I think the game is basically won if we flip!infinity scum on D1

It’s probably still winning if Johnny is scum and we do him today but maybe slightly harder

But I also think from a risk management pov it’s more damaging to the gamestate if we get a Johnny townflip today than if we get an infinity townflip

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

Once I start TRing mena, here's his progression:

And if infinity is town, he still ought to die for it as a learning experience to not treat people in bad faith when town. The only connection to me/my ego here is that it’s generally much easier to identify when someone is acting in bad faith in the first place when they’re dealing with you

I will admit that part of why I want infinity dead at this point is that I am very sold on this read and think I won’t be able to move on in the game without receiving confirmation one way or the other

I think it’s much more likely that he flips scum, but if he is town then my continued belief that he’s scum will continue to colour my perception of the game in an inaccurate way and make it much harder for me to actually get to correct SRs

And infinity said exactly one thing (that I don’t wanna disclose rn) that made me worry if he could be town

All of these posts indicate that there is a real possibility of me being town in mena's mind, but in every case he forgets to fake a key part. In the first quote, town!mena is likely to say something like "if infinity is town I'll be so pissed/disappointed", because I'm someone he had a positive opinion of and could be town playing "terribly". As for the last two, despite supposedly reconsidering his read on me, and having expressed a desire to want to work together as town, mena doesn't engage me again (with one exception). Maybe once I started engaging him in "bad faith", he gave up on doing that, but if that was his thought process you'd think he would've just...said that. (Again, the "turn off the filter" comment). Instead, he needs to keep me as a mislim opportunity while avoiding reigniting my SR on him. The one place mena engages me again:

I like shirou for scum a lot

I do not, why do you?

Idk, he was arguing theory with me, and it seemed like he believed it strongly, and then he equivocated and started buddying me a bit. Felt like a scum way of dodging a 1v1

I don’t think scum!shiro is worried about 1v1ing literally any player on site

Doesn't mean he'd necessarily want to get into a 1v1/think it's beneficial

If memory serves me right he actually tends to believe that 1v1s will be perceived as TvT if there’s sufficient force from each side/that he’s good enough to still be perceived as town for the way he pushed someone to guillo even if they flip town

This is one of the reasons I think shirou might still be scum with mena. Mena isn't really interested in working with me to find the scum, but he's very interested in making sure I don't SR shirou (despite me probably being scum). Even if shirou isn't the partner, it's a very odd pattern of behavior from town.

Ok that's d1, there's more scummy stuff on d2 but that should be enough for now. I'm not gonna get into a giant 1v1 with mena about this, but if someone disagrees with a point/wants me to explain something better I will.

VOTE: mena

[Autumn Leaves]

Ok but I'm worried that you're town and mena is scum atm

[Autumn Leaves]

I think mena making a deal out of you potentially being scum could help ensure your elim d3. As I said before, I think it's very likely people aren't actually going to follow through and elim you d3.

PEdit: you might be right, but I TR literally everyone except for you and mena so I can't be confident mena's partner is in the PoE.

[Autumn Leaves]

I guess auro can't survive to endgame anyway, so fine.

[Autumn Leaves]

VOTE: auro