PookyTheMagicalBear v Flavor Leaf (Game Over)

[mastina]

People still giving Noraa a pass when a mason with the most experience with her is calling her scum is mind numbin please explain scum Bell's reaction to me calling her scum if Noraa is town

I was placing faith in pichu and didn't think your case had merit, but if you wanna eliminate PBE now, I'm actually down for it.

Ircher and Solstice are both strongly gamesolving, and largely on the same page as me by and large, seeing the same things I am, analyzing the thread, trying to look at all the facts and info and coming to conclusions from it. Add in the mechanical reason for Solstice to be town, and I do feel like the scum are Spiffeh/PBE.

Since there's two scum left and three eliminations left--I actually wouldn't mind putting my life on the line tomorrow. That with a scum elimination on either of Spiffeh/PBE, that if you so choose, I'll let myself be eliminated tomorrow--with the condition that you trust me on the other being the other scum.

[mastina]

I honestly wish I knew who was scum here.

I am really at a loss

Can I also point out.

Both Polar Bear Express and Spiffeh are going, "I have no clue, I am at a loss here".

Whereas all of Ircher, Solstice, and I...very much are

not

at a loss, we DO have thoughts, opinions, and analysis to give, and are all thinking about solves and doing work towards one?

[Solstice]

[Do you think it's impossible Ircher can manage a performance like this as scum, mastina? maybe you are more familiar with him than I am]

Ircher and Solstice are both strongly gamesolving, and largely on the same page as me by and large, seeing the same things I am, analyzing the thread, trying to look at all the facts and info and coming to conclusions from it. Add in the mechanical reason for Solstice to be town, and I do feel like the scum are Spiffeh/PBE.

[like I agree with this, Ircher is much stronger than the other two today, yesterday, and overall by far. Even so, Im finding it hard to shake my early read of Noraa and read on Gloria. I do not have a direct reason for Ircher being scum -- as I reviewed, your and his Murdercat progressions do not bother me anymore.]

[It is certainly true that Polarbears come off like they're drowning a bit atm]

~Morning

[mastina]

[Do you think it's impossible Ircher can manage a performance like this as scum, mastina? maybe you are more familiar with him than I am]

I am explicitly not familiar with him so I have no clue--but I would find Ircher's performance this game pretty damn impressive if he were scum because the depth and breadth to his thought process, the nuances within, the effort and the analysis, the conclusions, and him also bringing up a lot of points I agree with, with him even being on the same page as me, before I have had the chance to raise my points?

That's incredibly hard to pull off as scum.

I don't know his capabilities as scum, but his performances here would be tremendously good if he were scum because it'd be just a ridiculously good, solid scumgame across the board. Plus, he's someone who I didn't think FL would pick so if FL picked him I am genuinely impressed. (If this is Ircher's scumgame, then Ircher is genuine Don Corelone material--I don't think he's ever been nominated for a scum award like that, so I don't think he's genuinely that good as scum.)

In contrast: While Spiffeh has done a good job of surviving and has town aspects to his iso, nothing he's done is truly beyond his capabilities as a scum player, especially not one of his caliber. His game here is okay if it's scum, but not something which makes me think, "this dude's not scum". Plus, he's someone FL can and would pick.

Polar Bear Express is someone I initially scumread, so I definitely can see them as scum. Basically the only reason I was townreading them was trusting pichu's read there to be right. But on their own merits, I don't see their play as town.

I see Ircher's play as town through and through and struggle to see how he'd ever be scum;
I see Spiffeh's play as, in spite of having town moments, overall being scum;
I've seen Polar Bear Express's play as, largely scum, and while I did have some genuine reasons to townread them and do want to trust pichu's read there, overall I'd say their play fits more for final scum than Ircher's does.

But I admit that of the three, the only player I'm really remotely familiar with is Spiffeh (and even he, I'm not intimately familiar with), so I honestly have no way of assessing them on their theoretical merits.

[mastina]

You guys wanna hear what my first draft team was before I had to redraft?

I was so happy I got it too. Mastina and Dunnstral were the first bans the first draft.

#4 Double the Trouble (Alisae and NorwegianboyEE)
#1 Nextflix and Chill (notscience and Brian Skies)
#3 Spiffeh
#2 Creature

it was this.

The first 4 on the playerlist. I'm showing the definition of chaotic neutral this game.
The first 4 on the

this team relies on being able to control the game otherwise they lose me thinks.

I was putting stock into Creature on that setup, and I had leftover Xenoblade hype with Notscience/Spiffeh. Creature was my deep wolf because he doesn't lose 1v1's late game.

Plus, first 4 on the playerlist, I didn't want how I picked to be guessable.

Yeah, I didn't know the redraft wasn't public knowledge. Playerlist just changed is all, and Ircher joined.

For the record.

This is what I am referring to with Spiffeh-PBE.

Creature and Double the Trouble are both masons--depending on the exact nature of the draft, they could've been stolen away from FL before he grabbed them.

So the first four would be impossible if masons were removed.

But Polar Bear Express is, notably: fifth on the playerlist.
If FL wanted to maintain some semblance of his original plan, but he had some of it taken away (say in the redraft, since there apparently was one when Ircher joined, instead of me/Dunn first the mod stole the two masons away first and saved me/Dunn for later), then drafting Spiffeh and Polar Bear Express would accomplish this. There would be leftover hype on Spiffeh, and Polar Bear Express would serve a similar role to Double the Trouble.

Think about it: both slots are hydras, both have really strong early scumgames, but both burn out later into the game.

And then think about the other picks. Bell was probably the replacement for Creature, as someone FL picked as deepscum and thought he wouldn't lose the lategame 1v1s. If I had to guess, he was, the second time around, still planning on picking up Netflix and Chill...but when they were taken from him by Titus, decided he'd go for ol' faithful, ol' reliable, DEB.

Plus, when it comes to a draft.
I see a four-man scumteam of {PBE, Spiffeh, DEB, Bell} being more coherent than {Ircher, Spiffeh, DEB, Bell}. Ircher as scum on the latter scumteam just doesn't feel like he adds anything to the others, whereas PBE does.

But I realize that delving into FL-wifom territory is dangerous ground to be treading.

I'll say that without fl-wifom, I still think that Ircher's play here would be on a whole different level, whereas PBE's play here, while occasionally looking town, is comparatively-lackluster. And as MURDERCAT points out: he has the most experience with PBE and thinks PBE is scum. Though his case may have been flawed, that doesn't mean the read is. Sometimes, you can have a deep sense of "knowing" a player is scum, but when you try to explain it and case it out, your case is complete and utter shit.
Plus, the main townreader of PBE was pichu and while pichu was defending PBE, there were times pichu did call PBE scum and pichu's defense of PBE was not as strong as pichu's defense of Ydrasse.

I just think that, overall, PBE is more likely to be scum than Ircher, especially given one of the main reasons for PBE being towntold:
A huge reason for the towncred on PBE comes from their appeals to emotion.
However, Bell proved that scum under FL's guidance can make effective appeals to emotion.
So a notable scum strategy this game WAS AtE, for Bell; if Bell as scum could do AtE, why couldn't PBE as scum do AtE?

[Polar Bear Express]

I honestly wish I knew who was scum here.

I am really at a loss

Can I also point out.

Both Polar Bear Express and Spiffeh are going, "I have no clue, I am at a loss here".

Whereas all of Ircher, Solstice, and I...very much are

not

at a loss, we DO have thoughts, opinions, and analysis to give, and are all thinking about solves and doing work towards one?

I guess the game’s solved then according to you. so why not grant my request? Why put me in the position of being the game losing misfade when you can just kill us today? It’s pretty damn clear that nothing other than our flip will convince anyone, so let me prove to everyone I wasn’t lying then.

[Polar Bear Express]

I honestly wish I knew who was scum here. I know it’s not us. I don’t think it’s you, probably not Mastina but I think there are likely two deep wolves which is why I’m pretty sure we’re losing if I can’t get through to people. So, if I can’t, I ar least beg you not to make me this guy:


viewtopic.php?f=84&t=83833&user_select%5B%5D=355

I’m legit shocked that what’s beyond obvious to me is just “wifom” to you.

Again, I don’t want to be Pooky in this game.

[mastina]

And as MURDERCAT points out: he has the most experience with PBE and thinks PBE is scum. Though his case may have been flawed, that doesn't mean the read is. Sometimes, you can have a deep sense of "knowing" a player is scum, but when you try to explain it and case it out, your case is complete and utter shit.

To elaborate on this. There is a difference between confirmation bias, where you are tunneling in on the target being scum, and knowing the player is being scum, but being unable to properly explain why, and in your efforts to do so, you make flawed cases that make people assume you're tunneling town that's wrong.

Since the latter half of D2, I have believed that MURDERCAT was the former, confirmation biased town who hard-tunneled on a player and whose evidence didn't match up with the evidence in-thread because it was wrong from the tunnel-vision. I wrote it off as classical town tunneling on town, and being loudly wrong.

But just recently, when I was going down memory lane (I skimmed both of the old scumgames I linked to), I remembered the concept of a soulread. The term soulread is a bit outdated, it is a bit archaic in modern mafia and rarely sees use. But when thinking about MURDERCAT's read on Polar Bear Express, and with nostalgia of older games in mind, it ~clicked~ to me that the issue with MURDERCAT might be exactly that, knowing a slot is scum but being incapable of properly explaining why due to the soulread not letting you have the means to explain the read that you know is right.

I had previously not considered it, or if I did, wrote it off as "eh MURDERCAT probably doesn't have the amount of games needed to have a soulread", either way, having concluded tunneling town. But when thinking about soulreads, it occurred to me--you can gain a soulread on a player from your first game with them. You don't need dozens of games with them. And while MURDERCAT (in spite of coming from the scummer generation that would use the term) I

believe

hasn't said his read on Polar Bear Express is a soulread...while he hasn't said it, the way he's acting, with the benefit of hindsight, IS like it's a soulread. He's acting like it's a soulread even if he hasn't said it's a soulread.

So in hindsight, ignoring him for this long was probably a mistake, if it is indeed a soulread, and it is my fault for not making the connection in the type of read until now. (MURDERCAT is free to chime in here with his own thoughts tho as it is his read so he can correct me if I am wrong in thinking it's a soulread.)

[Polar Bear Express]

[Do you think it's impossible Ircher can manage a performance like this as scum, mastina? maybe you are more familiar with him than I am]

Ircher and Solstice are both strongly gamesolving, and largely on the same page as me by and large, seeing the same things I am, analyzing the thread, trying to look at all the facts and info and coming to conclusions from it. Add in the mechanical reason for Solstice to be town, and I do feel like the scum are Spiffeh/PBE.

[like I agree with this, Ircher is much stronger than the other two today, yesterday, and overall by far. Even so, Im finding it hard to shake my early read of Noraa and read on Gloria. I do not have a direct reason for Ircher being scum -- as I reviewed, your and his Murdercat progressions do not bother me anymore.]

[It is certainly true that Polarbears come off like they're drowning a bit atm]

~Morning

I honestly don’t know if I find it more disheartening or ironic that both you and Mastina keep ignoring the fact that I keep stressing I don’t want to be the game-losing misfade and am realistic to understand that if you people really assume that FL would be so boneheadedly stupid as the have DEB self-hammer mere minutes after I made it a specific point of putting DEB at E-fucking-1 and made a point of pointing that out and people seriously can’t see why that softclears me, than just kill me today. Why? Because if that doesn’t prove to you I can’t possibly be scum here, than clearly nothing short of our green flip will accomplish that, right? So, again, I really really don’t want to be the game-losing misfade, so let me just prove I’m town here in the only way that can’t possibly be ignored.

[mastina]

Plus, the main townreader of PBE was pichu and while pichu was defending PBE, there were times pichu did call PBE scum and pichu's defense of PBE was not as strong as pichu's defense of Ydrasse.

(This is something I did a much earlier iso on. I did it at the very start of D3, I just never shared with the class my findings. In hindsight, I should've come forward with it, but OH WELL.)

To elaborate on this:

Pichu, soul masons?

SOUL MASONS

While this was the last read pichu gave on PBE and was indeed townreading them hard...

upon Bell redflip:
Dunny probably town
spiffeh very possibly scum - good shot
Polar Bear hydra - Gloria's continued absence is still creeping me out
@Gloria: are you not feeling this game in particular, and why?

...This was an earlier interaction where pichu fingered both Spiffeh and PBE as scum. (For the record, pichu's stance on Spiffeh also was, at the time of his death, 'spiffeh town', can retrieve those posts to show them, too, they're not that far below this in his iso, but this is about PBE not Spiffeh.)

hey Gloria if you see this i think you should go to page 29 and read that in full
there's a crumb there about my role that i spelled out in emojis

(Pichu also 'crumbed to Gloria his role, and then died that night, not part of my case, butstill.)

Solstice + Bell + Polar Bear + Creature + DEB is a solve
don't %me

Polar Bear is a spicy paranoia pick because i can actually see what murdercat is seeing (i change my mind a lot) and Gloria was posting frequently in an ongoing trust fall game while she was unreported for duty in this game

This was the last read he had before then.

And a lot of the townread pichu expressed on PBE seemed to originate from their willingness to vote Bell--when we know that FL planned for Bell to die that day. (That or DEB to die that day, but the scum definitely knew one of them was going to die D2 and it looks more likely to have been planned to be Bell.)

[mastina]

Ircher

(6): Solstice,

Bell

, Polar Bear Express

Solstice

(1): Spiffeh

Battle Mage

(6): Spiffeh

Ircher

(6): Solstice,

Bell

, Polar Bear Express,

Dr Easy Bake

For the record, I do think that FL is likely to stack scum on Ircher here overall, also, so I do think this indicates PBE is scum. Granted, it doesn't say anything in Ircher/Spiffeh from these vcs since I can see FL putting three scum on town (Ircher is town) or FL putting three scum on scum (Ircher is scum) equally as likely since both are things he would do.

Scum could do just about anything they wanted to do on D1 given that, unless Ircher is scum (in which case scum could avert his elimination just by hopping off), literally no scum were in danger tho.

In this particular game, in fact, I'd say that vca is, largely, useless. On D1 no scum were wagoned (unless Ircher is scum and was wagoned by his scumbuddies, which would be something they could easily dismantle), on D2 we had role-related wagons, and on D3 onward it was the mason show.

But I figured I'd still give this a look to see if there's anything which stands out.

[Polar Bear Express]

Great fanfiction you’ve got there Mastina. Very sadly, none of it happens to be even remotely true. Is it in your town meta to fantastically twist things this much because you certainly are but I still think that you could actually be believing the nonsense you’re spewing, so I think that’s NAI for you.

Why because Hectic was very obviously townreading us and only had concerns about my lack of posting but anyone who ISO’s me in Death Curse, would clearly see that I lurked there for two weeks straight. -okay, so v/la for the second but iow, both are large theme games. I lurked in both and this hypothetical “crumb” you allege Hectic made to me is literally the first I’m hearing about it.

Hectic’s concerns about that would have obviously been alleviated by my increase in posting after Bell flip. so your case if anything - is a very clear case of why we’re obviously town here, despite of your inexplicable reasons for alleging the converse.

Please continue with this. I look forward to more of your attempts to “scumcase” as town.

[Polar Bear Express]

Add 5660 to that list because apparently Mastina can’t conceive of the possibility that we were actually scumreading Ircher at the time of that vote.

[Polar Bear Express]

FACT: Mastina’s scumcase on us is ironically actually a towncase on us and her what reads to me as likely confibias, is apparently preventing her from realizing that.

FACT: My debunking of any of that being even remotely scum indicative isn’t being addressed.

FACT: What part of my hard pushing you all to misfade us today to prove we’re town is going over people’s heads? If MS had a game that would be the equivalent of a dark comedy sketch, this would have to be it, if it weren’t for the fact that we might actually lose the game because people aren’t using their heads.

Pooky told me after Royalty that I shouldn’t allow myself to get so upset like I was in Royalty, so if it’s not obvious to everyone why we can’t be scum here, than please just fucking kill us already.

[Polar Bear Express]

*Sigh*
who pissed gloria off?
Imma have to be the calm one
Ok I'll give it a shot and try to effort this game once again.

-nornor

[Blade Dancer]

Official Vote Count 5.1

Not Voting

(7): mastina, Creature, Spiffeh, Ircher, Solstice, Polar Bear Express, MURDERCAT

With 7 alive, it takes 4 to execute.

Deadline

: (expired on 2021-01-08 15:45:00)

[/color]

[Ircher]

to tell you the truth, high effort is not towny for me either, anyway -- what's towny about me this game is how easy I find it to make content, which isn't super different from being perceived as high effort, I guess ?? Essentially, I don't care about giving my stances on things over and over again all day long because i know everything i think is by definition coming from a town place so if anyone scumreads it, that is not my bad.]

[whereas when i'm scum i live in constant fear of slipping up somewhere

(I will note that for anyone who might want to meta me, this is actually a pretty good description of what I do as scum as well. Games are on my wiki page in chronological order from most recent to least recent. I will note that my scum games can be very hit or miss. Newbie 1975 is a game I lost as scum, but it's in my opinion one of my best scum games. Granted, I tend to have a habit of forgetting my performances with time.)

Fine but I still think it’s really silly for anyone to think a player who is widely considered the 5th best scum player on site does something this ludicrously boneheaded but whatever.

Tbh, I don't believe in a lot of "town tells" because I find most of them are too easy to fake as scum or could easily be explained as coincidence with as much validity as the actual town tell case. This falls under that. I don't think it's condemning--as I said earlier, you can probably give a credible defense for your timing--but I am not going treat this as anything close to resembling a clear.

Well, we’re in the same boat as you are, so I wish I could be more help here. I know we will probably lose if I can’t convince people and I feel extremely frustrated about that. If I can’t convince people that we’re flipping town then would much prefer to be misfaded today rather than being the reason we wind up losing.

This is the /exact/ same thing Bell did earlier: woe is me AtE, stalling / not actually providing reads, etc. Why /should/ we town read you for this behavior given the precedent set by Bell?

I know it’s not us. I don’t think it’s you, probably not Mastina

That leaves Spiffeh and me. You can towncase the other two slots you are townreading for a start. That will be more useful than towncasing yourself.

I thought was the optimal move, to keep DEB near the elimination mark but not at L-1 until we were ready

Why did you think this was important? That is, why was it important to keep DEB near elimination even if we weren't intending to immediately go through with it?

(Because, per the mod's ruling on votes, DEB never went to L-1. Toogeloo did a vote on DEB and an unvote on DEB in the same post, with the unvote being after the vote. Per the mod, the only vote-action taken was Toogeloo's unvote, so Toogeloo never voted DEB.

This actually isn't how I interpreted the mod's post:

I read the thread chronologically when counting votes. In 5430, Toog voted and then unvoted Dunn.

This implied to me that Toogeloo was actually voting Dunnstral in that post, and if it were an actual hammer, Blade would have stopped counting. I would expect her to rule something like "In 5430, Toogeloo unvoted" if your interpretation was the correct one. I guess it's an irrelevant point here, but eh.

[like I agree with this, Ircher is much stronger than the other two today, yesterday, and overall by far. Even so, Im finding it hard to shake my early read of Noraa and read on Gloria.

For the record, I feel Noraa's town meta is something that scum can imitate without too much difficulty especially with the help of a good scum player (Flavor Leaf) and at least during the early game.

I guess the game’s solved then according to you. so why not grant my request? Why put me in the position of being the game losing misfade when you can just kill us today? It’s pretty damn clear that nothing other than our flip will convince anyone, so let me prove to everyone I wasn’t lying then.

This post implicitly supposes Spiffeh isn't scum as Spiffeh is currently the most at-risk of being limmed (with you secobd most). Thus, for you to be a game losing misfade, both Spiffeh and you have to be town. This is inconsistent with your earlier expressed reads that everyone save Spiffeh and me were likely town, so I don't understand this attitude.

Great fanfiction you’ve got there Mastina. Very sadly, none of it happens to be even remotely true.

Blatant AtE, and calling her narrative a fanfiction is very far from the truth.

Why because Hectic was very obviously townreading us and only had concerns about my lack of posting but anyone who ISO’s me in Death Curse, would clearly see that I lurked there for two weeks straight.

Yes, pichu was townreading you. But pichu didn't have the same info then that we have now and the expressed town read was strong, but not super strong. Regarding activity, I'm not really reading y'all too much off of that (but I do find the talking switch D3 a bit convenient for your scum meta--again, I think that it was a legitimate switch, just one that happens to very much help scum!you.)

this hypothetical “crumb” you allege Hectic made to me is literally the first I’m hearing about it.

I can believe you missed the post, but uh, that was definitely a crumb. More specifically, pichu pointed to a previous page in an attempt to crumb you in on pichu's role. I don't see how you don't think that post was a crumb.

OPINION: Mastina’s scumcase on us is ironically actually a towncase on us and her what reads to me as likely confibias, is apparently preventing her from realizing that.

FTFY

While mastina may very well be conf-biased, I don't see how any of this is actually rooted in the evidence. You've heard from many different people the exact same (or slightly modified but overall the same) takes that mastina is giving, so either we're all wrong (possible, but not super likely) or the facts don't actually support town!you; they may be NAI or something else.

FACT: My debunking of any of that being even remotely scum indicative isn’t being addressed.

I think your debunking has been addressed to some extent. More importantly, I think you have to give people time to process and address it as I'm trying to do right now.

FACT: What part of my hard pushing you all to misfade us today to prove we’re town is going over people’s heads?

This isn't a fact; it's an opinion expressed as a question. Scum can quite easily offer themselves up. It's called WIFOM.

[Polar Bear Express]

2 scum in this list:
mastina, Spiffeh, Ircher, Solstice, Polar Bear Express

Each of you give one top town and one top scum within the list

I'm going to think about this a bit more.

@mastina: Can you link that recent scum game where you efforted once more?

Sure, it's this one here.

Why did DEB self-hammer there?

I was going to argue that it was done to save his scumbuddy from hammering 'before he had the chance to'.

But then Toog flipped town.

Given that, the most likely answer is simply to deny us the free kill, since they weren't expecting Ydrasse to vig. A Toogeloo elimination today was pretty much a given with DEB's self-hammer, which tomorrow would've left us in lylo.

But, given the presence of the scum supersaint:
I think from a setup perspective, for the game to not be tremendously and overwhelmingly scumsided, Solstice HAS to be town.

Why?

Scum have some form of roleblocker--presumably, having blocked Ydrasse both N2 and N3. So at least 2x if not more.
Scum had a supersaint--a nasty surprise for the town that, if used well, could take out a clearly town player, if town had no warning. (Imagine a mason hammering scum.)
There was talk of the scum maybe having an investigative role as well. (I'm not as sure on this, FL could've just identified the PRs on his own, but there's still the possibility of it.) Supporting this; We know scum have multitasking, due to the Informed role, meaning scum can both action and kill--which does tend to imply multiple scum PRs, although it only is truly confirmed that there's one.

And the town's power?
Three masons, one vig, one investigative loosely at the level of a cop, and one or two roles that give info but are otherwise worthless. (Informed, Supersaint Enabler.)

The scum have a strong edge in this setup by the PRs if the second role is a fakeclaim.

So given that: I feel Solstice is clear.

Given Solstice is clear, and two masons, and knowing myself to be town: that's, from my perspective, an autowin; 4/7 slots locked as town, with 2/3 of the remaining being scum, in Spiffeh/PBE/Ircher.

My guess:
VOTE: Spiffeh
+PBE, in spite of pichu's townread there.

The reason for this guess is admittedly a bit of me-logic. FL claimed his first recruit list was the first four players. Spiffeh and PBE are two of the first four players.

I thought I had more time, but have another obligation so gotta leave it here for now, will be back later tho.

Was going to say this logic is bad but you expanded later so I'll reply to the actual reasons.

[Is Mastina willing to call three different town players confirmed 100% lockscum as mafia and then give lengthy cases for each of them? like does she have the scumrange to do so, I mean. it's impressive if so. i could not for the life of me find a good and recent mastina!scum game example.]

[Ircher i think has had really solid content but maybe not exactly so much solid reasons for me to townlock him. We'll see]

[Once upon a time I had a paranoia of these two for their persistent Murdercat scumreads -- I thought it was so weird they had him so low after both his Polarbears case and the Bell interactions. Murdercat!town coming as a surprise to people.. was a surprise to me. Their reasons for him being scum were not the greatest from what i recall. Maybe Spiffeh is guilty of this too, I don't really remember. I should review this, yup]

[Im going to pick up right after Murdercat's case on Polarbears and onwards from that]

[Why is Murder so special though? Aside from it seeming sorta odd to me that people had him so low and for so long, there was a bit of a conflict between Bell and Murder at the start of D2 where it wasn't clear who'd win out. Maybe there's something telling there. and i'd rather do this then look at whole ISOs.]

[Note, after i wrote these, I naturally ended up putting a lot of focus on Bell too -- so there's that in there as well]

Spoiler: Mastina on Murder and Bell

[Mastina spends the first part of D2 suspecting Creature and talking with Ircher about BM a bit, and does not really pitch in much on Bell v. Murder at first.]

MURDERCAT (I don't really townread MURDERCAT and with a lack of townread and with poe, is reasonable scum candidate)

Dr Easy Bake (is de facto scum)

Creature (I really don't think this is town-Creature)

Where the scumreads probably do have 2-3 scum in them, and the reevaluation slots have the other 1-2.

[Mastina places Murder in her PoE by virtue of him not being a townread and not much more. Bell is just outside her PoE at #5.]

Dunnstral, Toogeloo, Spiffeh, Bell, Ircher (reevaluation needed, this spot probably has 1-2 scum in it)

For the record:
I can say that the Bell of this game very much looks identical to the Bell of MBOS10, but I admit lack of familiarity with the nuances of him as a player to be able to tell if he is definitively town here.
Spiffeh I feel has been getting townier over the course of the game, but with at minimum one scum absent from my readslist, that healthy paranoia I have on him needs to be addressed because there's a rather significant risk that he is the scumteam's deepwolf. (Plus, on an unrelated note, going into the wifom-hole, if FL's claim of his first draft being the first four names on the playerlist was in any way remotely close to the truth, if Creature is scum, it lends some credence to the idea that Spiffeh could also be scum, with FL having been unable to draft all four due to the other two being picked as town, buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut, I feel that going down this rabbit hole is a mistake so I basically am writing this off as possible, but not probable.) Overall I'd still rate him as town, but if we have three scum flipped and can't find the fourth after multiple town deaths, it's worth revisiting on him. He's certainly not a priority-sort today imo so even if it's possible he's scum, I kinda want to townbin him anyway for now, to revisit it down the road if needed.

Ircher I feel is probably town here. I admit lack of familiarity with him, and I realize that I do need to acknowledge he does have several bad takes and that effort does not equal town and that his style of posting does have a lot of information in it with the analysis comparatively lackluster, all things that make it possible he's scum, but I also feel that Ircher was not following an FL script, that Ircher's stances and refusal to play ball with Pooky came from an inherently town point of view and that the indignance behind it did radiate a type of townness I don't think Ircher, even with FL, could fake.

So in terms of the names up here with 1-2 scum in them, I'd rate their townness as:

Ircher > Spiffeh (this and above means "not interested in really sorting today") >>>>>> Bell

>

Dunnstral = Toogaloo (Bell either equal or higher than Toog/Dunn, not quite sure which).

[As we can see, she doesn't have a read on him due to lack of familiarity.]

Polar Bear Express*

who r u even trusting here

It feels like everyone who has played with Noraa is insisting that this is Noraa as town, most of them rather strongly so. And that even the other head has some townreads, too.

Who, with Noraa experience,

isn't

townreading Noraa at all?

I imagine there's some, but as far as I can tell, almost everyone is telling me the same thing, that this is Noraa as town. Some to locktown levels, some to town-but-dampened levels, some to town-but-needs-reassessment levels, but almost all saying town.

Am I wrong?

Murder I think has the most experience with noraa and is scumreading them.

I'll be honest, I didn't count MURDERCAT as part of the town because, see also: scumreading MURDERCAT.

How do oyu feel about his case on noraa?

I didn't even open the spoiler on it to so much as skim.

While we're at it, how do you feel about noraa's posting today?

Neutral with a side of town; nothing has struck me as scummy in it, but it's not bleeding town, but does loosely feel town.

[Funny little bit where Mastina observes that everyone with experience with Noraa townreads her -- but doesn't include Murdercat due to him being in her scum. I like that]

Okay read the case.

I believe that Noraa's tone this game is fake and over the top.

This is not something I have any way of judging.

...

SO.

For the case.

I can give no judgement on tone, but on the parts of the game that are actually things I can assess: this case feels very wrong, very narrow-minded, very manipulative, very specific, and not accurate at all.

Does that mean it's wrong? I'm not a Noraa guru, heck if I know.

But I can tell you as someone who doesn't know Noraa, that the case on her does look like it's not valid.

[Mastina takes the time to review Murdercatto's case on Polarbears here. I agree with the conclusion she reached that the case was off. I also came to the conclusion that Murdercat was more likely town for it because I felt it was a genuine case -- I see why he thought it was real. I dont think mastina has any comments for how it reflects on Murdercat's alignment, although she might have thought it was cherry-picked intentionally.]

pichu's case I read. I don't find it compelling, but I also don't find it wrong in the same way I did MURDERCAT's case on Polar Bears Express.

...

The rest of the case doesn't really resonate with me much at all, but overall?

Conclusion: lukewarm with an emphasis on 'warm'; Bell was among the slots I was townreading that I needed to reassess and judge if they are scum. The case doesn't hard-sell me on Bell being lockscum, but it does a fairly good job at showing the very real plausibility if not probability of Bell being scum by demonstrating the actions that're more likely to come from scum than town, a viewpoint I do find myself overall agreeing with, albeit with the caveat that I do feel the need to research before sheeping it wholly and unconditionally.

In other words:
Would vote.

I like my Creature vote more right now, but if I was seriously asked to genuinely join the Bell wagon, I probably would.

[Mastina will also review pichu's case on Bell. She found it plausible and worthy of a vote, but not as good as Creature.]

[So far, I would say it's very believable for mastina to reject Murdercat's case and give pichu's case a "plausible" as either alignment. I felt decently the same way. However as scum i think you'd do the same thing.. overall, though, i don't have any issues so far as I think it's pretty believable to vote Creature over Bell.]

DUN Dun dun dun dun dun Dun dun, DUN Dun dun dun dun Dun dun dun.

GUYS THIS MEANS THAT THE SCUM IS DUNNSTRAL
LETS GO GET HIM BOYZ

If MURDERCAT is in fact town?

Actually quite likely! Creature + Bell + Dunn + DEB would be an incredibly likely combo, with the other one being Creature + Bell + Toog + DEB (or Creature + Bell + Spiffeh + DEB but as mentioned I wanna table Spiffeh-scum thoughts until three scum are dead, ideally).

Although I remain unconvinced that MURDERCAT is town.

[Mastina has PoE'd out both Bell and DEB correctly here, with some suspicion on Spiffeh -- this is not terrible. She is saying all of this in the event Murderkitty is town, which she isn't convinced of yet, but whatever]

Uh, wouldn't I be happy with the game state here.

Uh, I'm not gunna engage with Pichu's case on me it's the same forest fire shit and I know exactly what I'd say and what he'd say and do in response to every cherry pick, wrong take, pointed out to him etc.

Hey so like.

Remember how there was a summation of "Noraa as scum does not react well to pressure but does as town", more or less?

Yeah, well.

I am beginning to think that applies better to Bell than it does to Noraa.

I remember Bell got some pressure in MBOS10--and reacted completely differently than Bell is reacting here, similarly under pressure.

There, he had a certain energy and smugness to him; here he's radiating defensiveness.

Soyeah.

Definitely am seeing Bell-scum here now!

[This is mastina's decision on Bell being likely scum. Before this point, she used wording like "If Bell is scum" -- now she's starting to believe. She does this just one hour after calling pichu's case plausible... so it seems she decided to scumread Bell through a reread of sorts. This is very significant, I think, because that means it is very likely something caused her to shift that read as she was reading through -- either it was Bell's defensiveness, or something that made her feel it was time to bus.]

[She had Bell as plausibly scum while reading pichu's case in 2963, and then she decided to call Bell scummy as a reaction to his defensive tone in 3139/3140. I'm going to read that stretch.]

[Yeah so it's basically Pichu, Ydrasse, Double, and Solstice beating Bell into the ground, and then Bell responding pretty poorly to it. Soyeah, he definitely looked like he was going down there. However i will note that Bell's reaction to pressure was indeed not great looking compared to what i've seen.]

You didn't push me. I spent upwards of 8 hours telling you to your face what the truth was and it didn't matter. Call it AtE or what not. But the facts are the facts and you saying you weren't voting me in that at the end of day is just massaging your own play to look better in hindsight as a form of ego protection.

(Ironically. Bell's posts in this stage of the game actually look almost exactly like Noraa's posts in that one Noraa scumgame everyone is talking about which I can't remember the name of off the top of my head. The one which MURDERCAT linked to. Noraa's posts there when defending herself, look like Bell's posts here when defending himself.)

Would like to hear update from Mastina on recent events but leaning town for now.
- Norwee

Considering I've pointed out reasons for Bell being scum that, to my knowledge, are unique to me and things not presented by others before me, it is now me who could use the advice of others in confirming if I am onto something in regards to Bell's defensiveness when under pressure.

(Which is to say I think it's a solid indicator that he's scum.)

I also have thoughts on others, but they're best saved for after a Bell flip if we are flipping Bell today.

I'm debating whether to vote Bell or not; I only have one vote and to me, both Bell and Creature are equally scum.

But overall, I think I do lean towards doing this:
VOTE: Bell.

[Here is the switch]

K, I'm detective.
N1 I investigated Toog who killed no one.
Good job everyone.
Good job.

This is, at the very least: a plausible claim with a plausible target.

I just happen to not believe Bell's town from it.

In my opinion, the claim is utterly dead null. It does nothing to make Bell more scum, but also does nothing to make Bell more town.

So where does that leave me?

Still voting Bell because I'm scumreading him anyway.

[Handwave of the claim]

Ok yeah Toogeloo might be scum

Possible, but Bell's still scum regardless. Toogeloo's a good candidate for scum especially if you think Dunn to be town, but I wouldn't say Toogeloo's pop-in here is lock-scum. Possible scum, definitely; surefire scum, nahhhh.

This wagon comp is bad, I don't like it. Unvote.

Toogeloo is literally the first vote on the wagon that could be scum.

It is otherwise a quite stellar wagon that is, very clearly, self-evidently, towndriven.

[Honestly I agree, the wagon composition was pristine, i dont know what Murderkitty was talking about. Some sympathy for suspecting Murdercat there.]

[I like Ircher's readslist lots]

As do I!

I feel like {Bell, Creature} as lockscum is a good start, with {DEB} as a highly likely third and then the fourth being within {MURDERCAT, Dunnstral, Toogeloo}. Two from the latter category if you want to sub DEB out. 6 names for 4 scum is a really good POE solve pool.

[Okay, she didn't have him as the bottom -- notice DEB was her next in line, not Murderkitty. I like that. I can more buy Murder being in that nullish slightly scum tier, maybe. I just thought the Bell interactions spewed town though]

guys one of these detective claims is fake
see if you can figure out which one

Hot take: both are.

But if only one were--yes, I'd begrudgingly admit that DEB's is more plausible than Bell's.

[Lul. This is the first and probably only occurrence i can think of where a player finds SvS to be the most likely option. And mastina goes back on it later when I think she could have gotten away with still pushing that without getting DEB killed. If I'm right, i think this progression makes mastina town.]

I'm not too sure about Toogeloo actually, but Alisae said they think they have been town so i'm going with their read on that for now until i get a better feel on them myself.
- Norwee

Toogeloo being town isn't impossible--
It'd require Bell as scum; it'd require Creature as scum; it'd require 2 of {DEB, MURDERCAT, Dunnstral} to be scum.

But it is something I am rather skeptical of overall.

Granted.

I really don't see why MURDERCAT is getting townread. There is precisely one reason I can think of for MURDERCAT to be town, and unless that one reason is the reason others are townreading him, I legit don't get why people think he is town.

DEB I think is scum with Bell, even if that is a stance I realize is a bit of a hard sell to make.

So with Bell as scum and Creature as scum, if my gut-townread on Dunn is right, there is in fact the chance Toogeloo is town, if both DEB and MURDERCAT are scum.

But that's literally the only way I see Toogeloo as town.

[..did Mastina realize Murdercat was a mason? I forgot about this. I think she is implying that here]

I still don't really get what the fascination with creature is though.

It's called scumhunting; Creature is scum so it's my job to hunt him and pressure him even when voting elsewhere due to hunting elsewhere because there's four scum rather than just one.

You should try it some time*.

(*I am aware MURDERCAT is consistently casing Polar Bear Express as scum. Aside from me disagreeing with the core points of his case, there's also the fact that MURDERCAT doesn't seem to be doing anything aside from the Polar Bear Express case, and my burn here is relating to that lack of diversity in reads and stances backed by reasons. By which, I mean, as far as I can tell, MURDERCAT doesn't have anything resembling a four-man guess for a scumteam. He's pressuring primarily one slot, for reasons that I feel are wrong. Rather than applying pressure in multiple areas with multiple reads.)

[I can buy thinking that Murderkitty is hyper-tunneled and therefore not really accomplishing much, sure.]

What reads do you have if Creature is town?

IF Creature were town (he's not), then I'd lockscum

both

Bell and DEB and then look heavily into Toogeloo and MURDERCAT in particular, with a possible side of Dunnstral.

The same goes for IF Bell's town (he's not); I'd lockscum Creature and DEB while looking heavily into Toogeloo and MURDERCAT (albeit less Dunnstral in this one).

I genuinely feel like there is a POE pool of six that, very likely, contains all four scum, with a very high chance:

{Dunnstral, Toogeloo, MURDERCAT, Dr Easy Bake, Bell, Creature}.

Individually, Dunnstral looks the towniest of them.

Individually, Creature looks the scummiest of them.
Individually, Bell looks the second-scummiest of them.
Individually, DEB is DEB and someone that FL could always count on as scum due to DEB and FL being intimately familiar with one another so DEB as town represents a threat to FL whereas DEB as scum is his greatest asset and off of DEB's contributions so far it looks a lot more like he's FL's asset than he is a threat to FL so I think there's a high chance he's scum.

Individually, MURDERCAT's reads and stances the whole game have looked like scum to me and there's literally only one scenario that would make me think otherwise. He's a lower-priority sort for me, however, specifically because given more time, that one scenario will either become debunked or confirmed. If it is debunked, then he's a high priority for being eliminated as an incredibly likely scum candidate; if it is confirmed, then he is someone we'll never eliminate due to him being town. I personally feel that the one scenario for him being town isn't the most likely, but time will tell there.

Individually, Toogeloo's highly null. He's not someone I'm scumreading, but overall, his stances and takes are no longer resonating with me as being town. He's not a high-priority sort because there's four names that I feel are more likely scum than him, with one of them being a low-priority sort, but if MURDERCAT's one scenario of being town is true, then Toogeloo is very highly likely to be scum.

Individually, I do loosely feel like Dunnstral is town, weakly so here, but that is the read that this day phase has been most in flux, and if too many of the names above are town, then by necessity he would need to be scum. But I do genuinely feel that the only way he is scum is if literally two of the above names flip town--which makes him a lower-priority sort, as we should flip names above him before considering eliminating him.

One name flipping town from the above doesn't change this solve.
Two names flipping town from the above still doesn't change the solve.
It'd literally take three of the above names being definitively town for me to consider a different solve right now because I am that confident that these six names contain the solve, pretty conclusively so.

[Mastina does not catch the two scum outside of Bell/DEB here, no, but also no one in the game has. So whatever. The addition of Murdercat into her PoE is was I was worried about, but after reading through, it does not bother me so much.]

do you see anything that is shown in the setup twice cuz I sure as hell don't!

Oh they exist, I literally reviewed a double-doc game, but they're notably rare. I've seen them before. Double doctors beyond the one I reviewed; double trackers happened at least once; double millers has definitely happened; double neighborhoods (as in, two separate neighborhoods of two where all four were town); etc. They exist, they're just rare.

I've normally not been really quoting Ircher posts with points unless I felt a need to argue with them, but I feel particularly compelled to make a positive reaffirmation here, in that:

This feels very townie. Not sure if it will matter though.

I disagree. Bell's actions post-claim do not seem to be in accordance with what Bell wrote. As they say, "actions speak louder than words." If Bell puts those words in action, maybe I will reconsider.

I agree with this wholeheartedly.
Bell has not put those words into action thusfar.

Oksy, here is the actual CC post from DEB. The fact that DEB is giving the benefit of the doubt here is very +town equity for their slot. Scum!DEB benefits very little from such a move (as he's a goner regardless.)

I do have to disagree with this, though. If you assume that Bell is scum and look at DEB giving the benefit of the doubt, it increases the odds that DEB is scum with the whole thing being scum theater where both claims come from scum. I'd therefore say that DEB giving the benefit of the doubt is, overall, null, where you can see the action as town or scum in equal amounts.

It's probably town-equity if Bell is town since town willing to consider the original claim as town is more likely than scum counterclaiming a doomed slot only to then give benefit of the doubt, but if Bell is scum I give no such town equity to DEB.

So my thought on this is that it's probably a classic FL scum-scum claim where both players claiming the role are scum and neither is town.

I think the one hole is that the other has to explain why they are still alive. That doesn't sound like an easy task to me.

I don't see why not.

If only one scum makes the nightkill the entire game, there's only one guilty and a bunch of innocents/false innocents.

A detective not getting a guilty poses no threat to the scum.

And if both detective claims are scum, then they have no reason to claim a guilty, so they can claim innocent results the entire game.

Plus, a detective's innocent isn't a game-long clear, so stacking innocents does no good. If the detective got innocents on eight players before the detective died, those eight innocents don't become conftown. No detective innocent is actually an innocent, not unless all four scum have made a kill (something that we, the town, have no way of knowing).

And you were keeping your reads close earlier as if you had something special, then came out with the most generic copy pasted reads possible

A reasonably good point.

Can u post a reads list Bell?

What do you think I'm doing rn?

Actions speak louder than words.

Yes, actions speak louder than words.
You're saying you're making a readslist; you're not showing a readslist.

[This is mastina arguing against Ircher on the odds of DEB being scum, probably going to look at this more when I read Ircher.]

[Whatever im done reviewing D2 for Mastina now]

Spoiler: Ircher on Murder and Bell

VOTE: MURDERCAT

[So at the start of D2, Ircher votes for Murder, apparently his strongest SR. This comes a bit after Bell's initial scumread + vote on Murder happens, however, Ircher had a preexisting scumread. I tried to kinda get an idea of why he disliked Murderkitty so much, and i didnt really come up with too much -- he thinks Murderkitty is an active lurker who mostly lacks real content.]

[I did find something interesting, though]

There's like zero reason for you not to share your reads. Stuff like this make me think you are scum, Murder.

People trying to get info out of me without engaging me are scummy

^

This kinda makes me think Bell and MURDERCAT are linked. I'm pretty sure this isn't the first nor the last time that Bell has implicitly defended MURDERCAT like this. (Defend is perhaps not he best word to use here.)

[Ircher thinks Bell and Murder might be together because of this pattern. i wonder if he ever brings this up again]

Page 97 --> About half of it is fluff. pichu and Battle Mage post some content but it's not super significant.

reads?
reads...
Bell is still kinda scummy
Solstice is unsure - i go back and forth
murdercat kinda sus
double is trouble
Creature is very slightly scummy
that sums up my feelings of scum equity in the playerlist

I like and agree with most of these reads. I don't really see what some others are seeing in Double; I've seen them engage in some confirmation bias, but they seem overall townie. I think when the slot disengaged from one of their tunnels was also a point towards town them. (Can't remember which slot was being tunneled though.)

Also like, you know I'm town right? And what I'm doing? Because I want you to trust me on this Noraa case, I don't want it turned around on me.

This feels super manipulative. I don't like it at all.

I am but Pooky's loyal soldier

Translation: I plan on doing nothing useful unless nudged to do so by the treestump.

Look at this progression.

BM is town
to
emphasis on BM is pr
to
slight shad
to
ask for reads
to
BM is scummier than Ircher(with no vote on BM)
to
BM, I think Noraa is scummier

This isn't entirely accurate depiction, but reading the quoted posts in the post above, it comes fairly close.

Noraa we talked about this you can't just quote my iso you have to give reasons why it's scummy

She did. She elaborated in her following post that your progression was scummy.

He's obviously not going to explain his read on you if he thinks it's going to be a distraction to the leading wagons.

(Referring to MURDERCAT.) This is very much a problem because we shouldn't be focusing on the top two wagons at the exclusion of the rest of the playerlist.

I am reading your posts and giving them about as much thought as I am giving FLs.

Please tell me how this embodies a town mindset. In particular, you admit here that you've already decided that Noraa is scum, and thus, there is no need to engage with them. The thing is that unlike Flavor Leaf, you

don't know definitively

the alignment of Polar Bear Express. What if your read is incorrect? Don't you want a chance to correct yourself if it turns out your read is actually wrong? Ignoring her posts is not going to offer that opportunity.

[So this is a review of older pages that Ircher is doing as Bell and Murder are just starting to go at it. it seems very much like Murder was the initial player that Ircher was going to try and push for today -- i dont think it is likely he's piggybacking off of Bell, because judging from his D1, this was going to happen regardless. It seems they just happen to coincide.]

A good amount of time passed since Noraa's post about Gloria and Gloria's first post. I think I can see where you are coming from, but I think even if you aren't super invested, you will probably care a lot about how your own slot is perceived by others.

This post by MURDERCAT though is probably the first town-indicative post I've seen from the slot. It's very possible I've been tunneling his slot a bit this game.

At the bottom of page 110. Oh hey, I'm only 5 pages behind now... With any luck, I'll be caught up by midnight.

[Ircher thinks that Murderkitty's case on Polarbears is his first town-indictative one. Yay!]

Tbf, yes. He's been super townie otherwise and familiar with me in a way that I would expect from him as town.
I'm not going to ignore this cliff drive as being something other than it is tho.

Yeah, this seems really bad faith to me and not how someone with a town mindset would approach this.

For god's sake man, the BM mislynch could've been pretty preventable had I had the time to prevent it.

This post is kinda a red flag for me. Wasn't Creature on the wagon? If he felt so strongly, he probably had enough time to at least unvote. (Granted, he probably had other obligations, but my point remains.) Otherwise, it's quite easy to have this kind of take AFTER you see Battle Mage flip town.

[Overall I lean that this is a genuine case (although I am not certain yet), but I also do not think this is enough to say Noraabear is scum.]

This sums up my thoughts on that case very well actually. I'm starting to like the Solstice slot more.

[Ircher seems to be feeling the Murdercatto town vibes here, as it even makes him reverse his scumlean on my slot cause we agreed on it.]

VOTE: Bell

I want to give Murder a chance in case I'm wrong after seeing that case Murder made.

Current solve is probably something like Bell + Creature + Dr Easy Bake? + Ydrasse?

Starting to think pichu is possibly town as well.

[Here's the switch. Let's check the area around it..]

[Yo this was early as fuck, he's actually the first Bell vote what the shit? This was back when we were like still discussing Bell vs. Murder in its very early stages. No Pichu case or anything like that. That was earlier than i remember. Alright]

And I'm 14 pages behind again... Lovely.

2881 by Solstice: Tweet's evaluation of MURDERCAT's progression on Noraa --> I definitely agree here that Bell's characterization of MURDERCAT's progression on the slot wasn't very accurate. I also agree that the case seems rather genuine hence why I am willing to give MURDERCAT a chance to let me reevaluate him.

[So basically if I'm to believe this, we were mindmelding the whole time apparently. Why the heck was murder so low on Ircher's lists? Ah, I suppose "giving him another chance" isn't really the same as a townread. Still, we did see that crucial bit the same]

@Ircher, why are you scum reading me?

(Note: I searched my username to find this post.) Main reason is that I think you were very under the radar Day 1. That might not seem that big of a deal, but I think it holds weight as it suggests you aren't really looking for scum; rather, you are going through the motions. pichu has stated many of the other reasons already and in a more eloquent way than I likely would have. That's the gist of it anyway.

Can you go in more detail about Spiffeh? I think he has posted some townie things/good takes, vut I don't think he's done anything that points strongly in favor of town!him.

[Pretty decent looking pair of posts now]

[So apparently there's a character limit. Okay then.]

[3732]

[I feel like there are a lot of things here that make me more sympathetic to a Murder scumread (as i mentioned with mastina), i think murdercat calling the wagon composition on Bell bad was really weird. This also meshes up perfectly with Ircher thinking the two are linked earlier.

[Yeah so there's a character limit apparently. You only need the tl;dr for this, which is that the Murdercatto suspicions by Ircher/Mastina did not look nearly as bad I remember them being. Some other highlights..]
[Ircher voted Bell way earlier than I thought -- he abandoned Murdercat to get the FIRST vote on Bell. He also had a suspicion that Murdercat/Bell were linked which he points out a couple times, so it makes sense he continues to include Murder]
[Mastina i think is just town for the progression on Bell v. DEB being SvS, i still think this.]

[In general i think my conclusion is that it wasn't as obvious to others that Murdercat was town and i see more of why.]

[Something I'm wondering now is, is Noraa starting to drown late game like I would expect her to do? I cannot remember the last substantial post she's made. At the same time though, I am still really surprised by Noraa's early game and Gloria's recent adamant posting if the slot is scum]

[At the moment I'm at a townread on mastina, leaning that way on Ircher but not convinced yet. Other two I haven't done much for as of yet. The easiest slot for me to buy as scum is Spiffeh, for sure]

~Morning

I'll read the spoilers later. Am I drowning? I dunno but I'm not vibing this game that much rn.

The more Mastina says this could be her scum game, the more I'm just believing its not :/
My TRs are Mastina and Solstice.
Gloria agrees with me for the most part on mastina but has some doubt about solstice I'm pretty sure.
My main thing with solstice is just the claim seems too weird to be from scum & the effort seems real not fake. Assuming DEB is a scum supersaint, I don't think scum ever claims supersaint enabler here.

-nornor

[What made you think DEB was the supersaint?]

~Morning

It made sense and clicked together like a puzzle. One scum died(bell). The other(DEB) cc'ed for towncred, guiltied town meaning he definitely dies the next day. Supersaint enabler existed. I originally thought it was so that DEB could guilty someone and kill someone with supersaint. That was wrong but it did make perfect sense at the time. Moon logic. Noraa logic.

VOTE: Dr Easy Bake
Doing this now, since Ircher unvoted and Toogeloo never really voted (per mod's way of handling votes), so this is back to

L-2

.

VOTE: Doctor Easy Bake

E-1

VOTE: The Original D (myself)

I'm really surprised no one is seeing what I'm seeing here

This is stupid.

Well I actually don't know DEB's schedule. I assume that DEB does a lot of active lurking, so DEB would know when they are E-1. mastina tends to be around at that time anyway--it didn't seem that unusual. I guess Polar Bears looks the worst there, but they could probably find a credible defense for their actions.

The active lurking part is pretty obvious imo. He cc'ed bell pretty fast too right?

[Gloria's list of threads is way smaller than I remember it being. Did I mix her up with someone else..? Anyway she doesn't have any scum games yet, lol]

Merry Christmas!!!!

Gloria and I don't really agree on much besides DEB!scum.
We've agreed that she'll be the one providing reads for now and I'll just be on the lookout and voice my opinions to her. By request, this thread can also get them.

-nornor

ahhhhhh shittttt

[What was your reasoning for having Noraa lay low -- if it's game related anyway?]

Seriously? Deb has barely been around all game and you don't think it was coordinated when they post within 10 minutes of each other during the holidays in the middle of the night?

[WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT IT DOES NOTHING TO HELP THEM]

[I don't even know why I'm asking that question anymore considering the SvS detective claims]

[Okay, i did actually establish earlier that it was good for DEB to self-hammer (from scum's PoV of Ydrasse not shooting). So they did have motivation. But oh my fucking god lol, there is absolutely no reason to make it look that blatant]

~Morning

Well cuz if I take over, I'm gonna end up calling everyone scum, people are gonna get mad, and then I get yeeted. Its like ... a phase or something.

People still giving Noraa a pass when a mason with the most experience with her is calling her scum is mind numbin please explain scum Bell's reaction to me calling her scum if Noraa is town

This is disappointing.

[I would be shocked if even Noraa thinks you're obvtown for that, to be honest. But that's not what's important to me -- what's important is that you think it is]

~Morning

Last few pages were a wash.

[Polar Bear Express]

Solstice if scum was warning the town about what amounts to the scum's greatest trump card. Furthermore, that scumsides the setup. A surprise supersaint with the town having no warning, when the town's only power beyond the three masons is a (somewhat gated) doc, a vig, and a weird investigative (which, functionally, acts a lot like a cop)?

I agree with this assessment.

-nornor

[Polar Bear Express]

But in the event of this game being actually balanced, I would say Solstice is town. (And that if Solstice were scum, the game would be scumsided regardless of what the mods thought when designing the setup.)

I know nothing of balance but I don't think scum would ever claim super saint enabler which lead to all of town thinking DEB was scum super saint.

[Polar Bear Express]

I'm really surprised no one is seeing what I'm seeing here

Oh I guess I can see how that could be a coordinated 1-2-3-punch of all the remaining scum hammering a wagon.

After all, FL does like to infamously fuck with VCA and coordinate scumblocs in voting.

I don't really have much of a defense against that other than explaining my viewpoint that I thought an L-2 vote was genuinely safe to make and I thought was the optimal move, to keep DEB near the elimination mark but not at L-1 until we were ready, but I realize that does little to deter the thought of a scum-coordinated quickhammer given it IS a move FL would pull. (Tho I would say that if I had to guess, scumastina would be disinclined to follow through on FL's request for it, but I'm not sure enough to say so definitively since it's possible I would.)

I would ask tho that if you think it's true, to at least eliminate Polar Bear Express first before considering me.

I really dislike this

-nornor

[Polar Bear Express]

I honestly wish I knew who was scum here.

I am really at a loss

Can I also point out.

Both Polar Bear Express and Spiffeh are going, "I have no clue, I am at a loss here".

Whereas all of Ircher, Solstice, and I...very much are

not

at a loss, we DO have thoughts, opinions, and analysis to give, and are all thinking about solves and doing work towards one?

Ok I kind of see where you're coming from. The thing is gloria and I do have thoughts and opinions. We have talked about basically every possible pairing but we can't decide.

-nornor

[Polar Bear Express]

Polar Bear Express is someone I initially scumread, so I definitely can see them as scum. Basically the only reason I was townreading them was trusting pichu's read there to be right. But on their own merits, I don't see their play as town.

I see Ircher's play as town through and through and struggle to see how he'd ever be scum;
I see Spiffeh's play as, in spite of having town moments, overall being scum;
I've seen Polar Bear Express's play as, largely scum, and while I did have some genuine reasons to townread them and do want to trust pichu's read there, overall I'd say their play fits more for final scum than Ircher's does.

Hectic is one of the few people that scum!me is extremely extremely afraid of. He caught me in every single scum game I had with him and modded death curse(he cheered for me in the scum pt and talked to me a lot after my buddies all flopped over and died). He's seen my town game close up. I've complained to him about my town games. He knows best what town!me looks like.

I haven't seen a SR from you all game. All you've done is say Im town bc of pichu.
I find this a convenient time to bring this up and really dislike this SR.
It feels really weak but I have yet to read the big wall so I'll read that rn.

-nornor

[Polar Bear Express]

You guys wanna hear what my first draft team was before I had to redraft?

I was so happy I got it too. Mastina and Dunnstral were the first bans the first draft.

#4 Double the Trouble (Alisae and NorwegianboyEE)
#1 Nextflix and Chill (notscience and Brian Skies)
#3 Spiffeh
#2 Creature

it was this.

The first 4 on the playerlist. I'm showing the definition of chaotic neutral this game.
The first 4 on the

this team relies on being able to control the game otherwise they lose me thinks.

I was putting stock into Creature on that setup, and I had leftover Xenoblade hype with Notscience/Spiffeh. Creature was my deep wolf because he doesn't lose 1v1's late game.

Plus, first 4 on the playerlist, I didn't want how I picked to be guessable.

Yeah, I didn't know the redraft wasn't public knowledge. Playerlist just changed is all, and Ircher joined.

For the record.

This is what I am referring to with Spiffeh-PBE.

Creature and Double the Trouble are both masons--depending on the exact nature of the draft, they could've been stolen away from FL before he grabbed them.

So the first four would be impossible if masons were removed.

But Polar Bear Express is, notably: fifth on the playerlist.
If FL wanted to maintain some semblance of his original plan, but he had some of it taken away (say in the redraft, since there apparently was one when Ircher joined, instead of me/Dunn first the mod stole the two masons away first and saved me/Dunn for later), then drafting Spiffeh and Polar Bear Express would accomplish this. There would be leftover hype on Spiffeh, and Polar Bear Express would serve a similar role to Double the Trouble.

Think about it: both slots are hydras, both have really strong early scumgames, but both burn out later into the game.

And then think about the other picks. Bell was probably the replacement for Creature, as someone FL picked as deepscum and thought he wouldn't lose the lategame 1v1s. If I had to guess, he was, the second time around, still planning on picking up Netflix and Chill...but when they were taken from him by Titus, decided he'd go for ol' faithful, ol' reliable, DEB.

Plus, when it comes to a draft.
I see a four-man scumteam of {PBE, Spiffeh, DEB, Bell} being more coherent than {Ircher, Spiffeh, DEB, Bell}. Ircher as scum on the latter scumteam just doesn't feel like he adds anything to the others, whereas PBE does.

But I realize that delving into FL-wifom territory is dangerous ground to be treading.

I'll say that without fl-wifom, I still think that Ircher's play here would be on a whole different level, whereas PBE's play here, while occasionally looking town, is comparatively-lackluster. And as MURDERCAT points out: he has the most experience with PBE and thinks PBE is scum. Though his case may have been flawed, that doesn't mean the read is. Sometimes, you can have a deep sense of "knowing" a player is scum, but when you try to explain it and case it out, your case is complete and utter shit.
Plus, the main townreader of PBE was pichu and while pichu was defending PBE, there were times pichu did call PBE scum and pichu's defense of PBE was not as strong as pichu's defense of Ydrasse.

I just think that, overall, PBE is more likely to be scum than Ircher, especially given one of the main reasons for PBE being towntold:
A huge reason for the towncred on PBE comes from their appeals to emotion.
However, Bell proved that scum under FL's guidance can make effective appeals to emotion.
So a notable scum strategy this game WAS AtE, for Bell; if Bell as scum could do AtE, why couldn't PBE as scum do AtE?

I don't understand why you think flavor would actually just randomly pick people?
It seems to me like he picked a bunch of people that he likes/are good at obvtowning.
Double trouble and PBE are not comparable. One is a hydra of two fairly good players with lots of experience. Another is a hydra of Gloria(a fairly new account on site) and Noraa(someone literally known for recking havoc and doing terrible in big games)

Ok Im done reading. I don't understand why this post was even made. It looks confbiased as hell and is 102% wifom.
If this is actually the whole case, that's just dumb.

-nornor

[Polar Bear Express]

To elaborate on this. There is a difference between confirmation bias, where you are tunneling in on the target being scum, and knowing the player is being scum, but being unable to properly explain why, and in your efforts to do so, you make flawed cases that make people assume you're tunneling town that's wrong.

Since the latter half of D2, I have believed that MURDERCAT was the former, confirmation biased town who hard-tunneled on a player and whose evidence didn't match up with the evidence in-thread because it was wrong from the tunnel-vision. I wrote it off as classical town tunneling on town, and being loudly wrong.

But just recently, when I was going down memory lane (I skimmed both of the old scumgames I linked to), I remembered the concept of a soulread. The term soulread is a bit outdated, it is a bit archaic in modern mafia and rarely sees use. But when thinking about MURDERCAT's read on Polar Bear Express, and with nostalgia of older games in mind, it ~clicked~ to me that the issue with MURDERCAT might be exactly that, knowing a slot is scum but being incapable of properly explaining why due to the soulread not letting you have the means to explain the read that you know is right.

I had previously not considered it, or if I did, wrote it off as "eh MURDERCAT probably doesn't have the amount of games needed to have a soulread", either way, having concluded tunneling town. But when thinking about soulreads, it occurred to me--you can gain a soulread on a player from your first game with them. You don't need dozens of games with them. And while MURDERCAT (in spite of coming from the scummer generation that would use the term) I believe hasn't said his read on Polar Bear Express is a soulread...while he hasn't said it, the way he's acting, with the benefit of hindsight, IS like it's a soulread. He's acting like it's a soulread even if he hasn't said it's a soulread.

So in hindsight, ignoring him for this long was probably a mistake, if it is indeed a soulread, and it is my fault for not making the connection in the type of read until now. (MURDERCAT is free to chime in here with his own thoughts tho as it is his read so he can correct me if I am wrong in thinking it's a soulread.)

Murdercat hasn't graduated from the institute of soul reading Noraa yet if that was a soulread.

-nornor