PookyTheMagicalBear v Flavor Leaf (Game Over)

[mastina]

wow, {dunn, DEB} contains 1 scum min
what a surprise.

A real shocker, I know.

I could obviously vote Dunn here but I'm not obsessed with the mafiascum equivalent of K/DA (that is, needing to be on a scum elimination) enough where I feel a need to be on Dunn right now--Dunn is, 100%, no questions asked, the obvious elimination today. But I'll wait to vote there until the masons ask me to since the day should end when the masons say it should, not sooner than that.

[mastina]

Does anyone want to be the person that hammers?

Ideally, just to appease supersaint paranoia, it should be a volunteer from the players that're loosely in the suspect pool, e.g. Spiffeh, Toogeloo (good luck on that one though), maybe someone who we think is town but is possible to be scum which others have fingered (e.g. Solstice, Ydrasse).

But coordinating that might be more trouble than it's worth especially if the designated volunteer doesn't want to actually follow through.

[mastina]

(I feel the need to apologize--right now my attention is divided so I am catching up here slower than normal. Sorry!)

[mastina]

[If you wanted to sacrifice him this is probably how you'd do it.
~Morning

I mean.
DEB-scum sacrificing himself to take out someone who was probably going down today or tomorrow anyway?
Not impossible, although obviously by necessity what happened if Dunn flips town here.

More likely is either DEB town with a genuine guilty or DEB scum faking a guilty on a scumbuddy. Either way, Dunnstral's a pretty sure bet at being scum.

[mastina]

DEB has so low towncred atm that i almost prefer it if we just ignore their 1v1 with Dunn in favour of eliminating an higher threat such as Spiffeh. And then at night we can have the vig shoot either of DEB/Dunn and if whoever dies flips town we know for sure that the other one is scum.
- Norwee

I mean.
A minimum of one scum with a chance of two sounds like it's a juicy deal--and if DEB is town and Dunn is scum, as long as Dunn survives DEB cannot get another guilty result.

But if you insist on a slightly less-optimal play in eliminating a player who's scum outside of the guaranteed-one-scum-minimum: that'd be Toogeloo, who I am actually currently voting.

[mastina]

Mastina is absolutely not scum and i’d kill Spiffeh first in every world.
- Norwee

It was an incredibly bad take from Spiffeh, yeah.

Doesn't guarantee that he's scum, the bad take could come from lazy unthinking spur of the moment town, but it's an objectively terrible take, yes.

[mastina]

Who do you think the third scum is? Right now you think it's one of me/DEB, Spiffeh, ____, right?

I think that regardless of who else is scum, Toogeloo is a surefire bet for being scum. There is at least one scum in you/DEB and I still think there's at least a fair chance you both are scum.

But if you're not both scum, then yes, Spiffeh is the obvious alternative.

[mastina]

Why does everyone think there is a Supersaint? I am almost definite it is a red herring. (I will note that this opinion is not backed by facts, but my intuition here.)

It almost certainly is a red herring--but we should, to a certain extent, act as if it's real, if doing so does no harm.

If the scum do have a supersaint, we could be in for a nasty surprise.
If the scum do not have a supersaint, no harm done.

But if we are struggling to coordinate a hammer onto scum due to fear of supersaint, then harm done, but only if this happens.

So since it is, currently, harmless to pay healthy respect to the paranoia possibility of a scum supersaint, we may as well. No harm done in treating it as a threat.

[mastina]

Toogeloo has had bad takeaways all game

Pretty much yeah.

He's not even pretending to hide the fact that he's a scumfuck.

[mastina]

you silly geese should sheep pichu’s read on me, trust

I am.

I wouldn't be surprised if Flavor Leaf spent the whole night phase workshopping exactly how should react to pichu's death to get the most townread from it LOL

While that's something I can see FL doing, I don't think he did; I'm pretty sure Ydrasse is town legit here.

you silly geese should sheep pichu’s read on me, trust

the hypocrisy isn't lost.
you tell people to sheep pichu on u yet you don't sheep pichu's TR on me
-nornor

The accuracy of this and the indignation of it is something that does make me townread PBE more by the way.

That broke somehow. At least the bulk of it is in Spoiler Tags so far. Suffice to say, so far I'm going with the:

Noraa/Dunn/Ydrasse/Bell

solve.
I haven't even made it through like a tenth of Noraa's posts either

For the record. The half-assed post-by-post analysis, as well as the crappy callout of an incredibly unlikely scumteam.

Should give you plenty of fuel for the "Toogeloo is scum not even trying to hide it" point I've been making.

[mastina]

anyone who has me in their solve is boring and should take me out.

Gonna say this is true, but also:

Mod: possible V/LA due to potential power outage.

So far not out but power could go out any second.

[mastina]

Tbh i do believe Dunn has been slightly scummier than you up to now. But even i find these circumstances a bit questionable.
- Norwee

I mean, at this point, we're living in one of two worlds:
Either two scum have sacced themselves for a chance to eliminate one town power role during the day...
...Or two scum have sacced themselves in an attempt to prop up a third scum.
(Or I suppose one scum sacced themselves for a chance to prop up a second who immediately sacced themselves for a chance to eliminate a player who was going to be eliminated anyway, but I find that the least likely of the scenarios.)

[mastina]

(I am very sorry I'm not caught up yet, but I need to delay it further--I have an obligation to attend to.)

[mastina]

VOTE: Dunnstral F-4

(As I said: when the masons ask me to I'll vote there as part of coordinated hammer plannings, but until then, I am fine just chilling on Toogeloo as a statement that, yes, I think Toog is lockscum here. Butyeah, Dunn is the vote today and is who we should be eliminating. It's not really a question of if to eliminate him, it's when to do so and who to hammer.)

[mastina]

Gloria is ur solve still {DEB, Dunn, Toogeloo}

For me if it's not this then it's {Spiffeh, Dunn, Toogeloo}, and I actually do see Spiffeh as more town now so I'm inclined to think the former over the latter right now, honestly.

Like I've said. While there's a guarantee of 1-2 scum (1 if we're wrong on a townread, 2 if the poe is correct) in {Dunnstral, Spiffeh, DEB} and a guarantee of at least one scum in {DEB, Dunnstral}, Toogeloo is scum regardless of the others in the poe pool. There's 1-2 scum in Dunn/Debb and 1 scum in Toog and then 0-1 scum elsewhere. If the townreads are right, Spiffeh.

[mastina]

What happened with her in Death Curse?

1500 posts from scum Noraa and extremely high WIM.

For the record: Noraa's posts in that game and this game don't look similar to me.

viewtopic.php?f=56&t=80057 this was the one time I played with scum!toog and tbh i didn't even play this game much if not at all

Oh yeah that reminds me.

Toogeloo claimed Survivor in that game at 5/8 votes to eliminate.

His iso was very bare that game. (Or I suppose you could say, fairly

bear

that game. )

His contributions there are pretty comparable to here.

[mastina]

like i haven't palyed with the player honestly is toogeloo someone who is like usually like super obvtown?

No, but he's surprisingly good at surviving a disproportionately long amount of time as scum. He might be mislynch bait as town, but in spite of his innate scumminess, he is ridiculously hard to actually eliminate. Like, he can survive for days upon days without being eliminated even if he's pressured heavily for four phases straight.

I can see FL picking Toogeloo for specifically that reason; he has this tendency to slip through the radar, be written off, be ignored, be invisible, the entire game, in spite of not doing much of anything. That's a valuable player to have on your scumteam.

[mastina]

i don't think scum votes mastina there period

I do, especially with FL at the helm.

[mastina]

Toog already volunteered to be the hammer btw
~Morning

If there is an actual scum supersaint in the game: good luck getting Toogeloo to hammer them.
Toogaloo hammering someone is sufficient proof that the player being hammered isn't a scum supersaint.

[If Dr Easy is scum guiltying his teammate, isn't that just completely game-losing?]
~Morning

Only if a third scum is eliminated and/or we entertain the idea of keeping him alive.

If we refuse to eliminate him, and/or we don't eliminate a third scum, there's nothing game-losing about DEB's play here if DEB is scum. Innocents aren't innocents until there's only one scum alive, so him generating 'innocent' results with two scum alive does nothing to dampen the scum's chances of winning.

[mastina]

Just had a power hit so warning: may cut out any second now.
Will continue to catch up otherwise tho.

[mastina]

this game would be better if the town didnt know which stump was town and which stump was scum

You know, that's not actually a bad idea. A variant on this game mode where the rules are much the same, where the town knows who the treestumps are, know one is town and the other is scum, the scum one drafted a hand-picked scumteam and the town one also did some drafting, but the town doesn't know which stump is which.

It'd become really obvious eventually, but that mechanic is genuinely an interesting one.

[mastina]

Mastina's reads in general are why I think she's possibly scum

Ah yes the player who was among the people hard-campaigning for Bell being scum yesterday and who had both of Dunnstral and DEB as scum candidates yesterday (and in DEB's case, the whole game) when there's a 100% guarantee

at least

one of the two is scum.

Has bad reads.



(Toogeloo's stated reason for scumreading me here should be pretty apparently bullshit here. I have not had perfect reads, but my reads are far from shit. They are at least average, if not better than average, overall, as most of the players I've called town are town and at least two of the players I've called scum are scum. There's been a few players I scumread that were town, and I did briefly townread scum, but my reads have evolved over the course of the game as I reevaluated, reconsidered, and reanalyzed, constantly in a state of flux. Notably, Toogeloo also was the one who made the bullshit claim that my reads hadn't changed, in spite of the fact that they very notably have.)

[mastina]

- I don't see why this player gets drafted like ever. Why would you want to draft this player?

Because in spite of how many players scumread him in games, often regardless of his alignment, he is almost never eliminated, regardless of his alignment.

This fits with Flavor Leaf's fundamental modus operandi as scum, in the one area FL and I share overlap in mafia philosophy. (He and I are polar opposites in most ways/areas, but in this one area, I am forced to admit, he and I agree.) Which is, in a sentence: "It doesn't matter how obvscum you are if the town doesn't eliminate you." Which is to say, a player can be completely and totally obvscum and still be a good pick for a scumteam if the town, in spite of saying the player is obvscum, refuse to actually eliminate them. FL is a firm believer in that philosophy, and Toogeloo as a player is the perfect embodiment of it. He's a hard player to eliminate and players will frequently resist it, with him slipping under the radar by and large and being invisible until poe starts kicking in, where he'll always be the player near the end of the poe (by which, I mean, 2-3 players will always be higher-priority eliminations than him).

What teammates does he support?

All of them? Like, name a player who could be scum. Literally any player not conftown. I can write an explanation for Toogeloo's synergy with them. For Bell, for Spiffeh, for Dunnstral, for DEB, for PBE, for Ydrasse, heck, maybe even for Ircher (tho I admit Ircher's the one I see the least synergy with Toogeloo). And yes, even me, too.

noraa interactions from their side on D1 are more likely to come from town

This applies only if Noraa is scum imo and given I think PBE is town...

his response to Pooky introducing a PoE was more likely to come from town

Hard-disagree.

how they moved from Ircher to Battle Mage more than likely comes from town > scum

Hard-disagree.

1485 is actually really interesting positioning considering creature was kinda lhf at the time but no one really talked about it. If he was scum, I doubt he comes out with this read on the player. You could argue that his progression on creature is like weird but like idunno

Him going after Creature was blatant opportunism.

3610 is some conspiracy shit that doesn't come from scum lol

Consiracy shit is explicitly more likely to come from scum-Toog than town-Toog, so this is deadass backwards.

not knowing how mechanics works is a towntell and this is shown in the fact he doesn't know anything about the fact that FL can suggest 2 "rules"

Not knowing how mechanics work is absolutely not a towntell.

3926 is more likely to come from town than scum tbh

Not if DEB is scum and the whole interaction is scum theater with Toogaloo already knowing the legitimacy of the claims. For that matter, with Bell being scum, scum already knew the legitimacy of the claims but it is doubly so if DEB's scu,.

why does scum go out of their way to fake all not knowing how not known died?

Aside from the chance that a scum player genuinely could make that mistake (I can easily see it as the sort of mistake scumastina could genuinely make without it being fake)? If players give someone towncred for shit like this, that's incentive enough.

his response to me and ircher not caring about his noraa case probably just comes from town tbh. I'm a sucker for this kind of mentality in general because I don't believe scum show that.

You basically point out the flaw in this yourself: you're a sucker for it, that's reason enough for scum to show it.

who is this player's teammates? Like, where are they bro?

Well it's safe to say not me.
Beyond that, how about DEB and Dunnstral? The pool that contains at least one guaranteed scum?

[mastina]

There isn't a doubt in my mind FL would consider her as a draft pick.

Oh absolutely, much to my chagrin. Our styles are diametrically opposed, with them being basically polar opposites, but that absolute playstyle clash can be an asset, since the disagreement can lead to a divergence in both of our normal scum strategies due to the other's influence. FL's got an addiction to high-risk plays that have medium-to-high reward; I am the poster child for low-to-no-risk plays that have medium-to-high reward. We kill different players, hunt for PRs and give a threat level to them differently, our dayplay is polar opposites, I never fakeclaim whereas FL cannot resist the urge to make some outlandish fakeclaim and usually stage a whole team of fakeclaims with 2-3 players on the scumteam having claims that either confirm each other (if FL is going for a perfect win) or contradict each other (if FL is going for a bus-then-win--notably, this is precisely why Bell claiming detective and DEB claiming a guilty on Dunn is right up the alleyway of FL's scum strategies as it is right in his modus operandi for scum to counterclaim scum and claim a guilty on scum to prop them up for the endgame).

Plus, while for the last two years, I have been ridiculously obviously scum due to my inability to effort as scum with me being transparently obviously scum in literally all of my scumgames during that period, my most recent scumgame notably lacked that trait. And while I loathe being scum and find hard-efforting to be too tedious and not worth it, the fact that my last scumgame was doing so is proof that I could be this game.

I'd love to say I would never be picked by FL, but I absolutely could be. But whether through Titus snatching me up or FL simply choosing four other players, he just didn't get me. I would say, however, that I feel I probably

was

a high-priority pick for Titus. Regardless of the players FL picked for his scumteam, Titus knows that I have meta on a fair number of slots this game and would expect me to have a reasonable gauge on them. She knows that I am really really really damn good at poe-solving, that I stick hard to my hard-townreads and very very rarely get locktown-top-tier-townreads on scum (and in the rare instances that I do, that I often correctly boot them out of that tier when the need arises to reevaluate my reads). Titus knows that I radiate an aura as town, that I hate being scum, that I ooze towniness as town and can work well with the town in just about any situation, that I am a reasonable, fairly logical player, who is also mechanically gifted at resolving game mechanics and fairly knowledgeable at the game.

These are traits FL to some extent also tends to disregard. He's aware of them in me, so could plausibly want me on his team to deny them from the town, but he also consistently downplays them and tries to discredit them and tries to make these skills look less valuable than they are in our games, regardless of his alignment. Given how he will discredit me even when he is town, these are traits that I don't think he would see me as a threat for, but I admit that he could, privately, hold me in higher esteem than he publicly does so that he could see them as a threat.

I knew I wouldn't be picked as a mason by Pooky (Pooky simply wouldn't be familiar enough with me to think I was a good mason), but picked by Titus was fully plausible if not probable. FL could've had me as a candidate, but whether through deciding on someone else or having me snatched away, he just didn't end up with me on his team.

[mastina]

FL picked Toogeloo to slip through the radar, be written off and ignored, and be invisible, yet he's anything but that? And yet he can be elimination bait but he's not?
Are you high?

No?
The statements aren't mutually exclusive.
Toogeloo, this game, was widely unseen by most players on D1 and to a lesser extent, D2.
Toogeloo was written off on D1--this is undeniably true.
Toogeloo was largely invisible on D1--this is undeniably true.

Toogeloo is, frequently, elimination bait, once people actually notice him. This requires them to have seen through his magical cloak of invisibility, which often happens around the D2-D3 range, maybe D4. But in spite of his status as largely ignored until he becomes elimination bait, he's ridiculously hard to eliminate and almost never actually IS.

The traits of {is elimination bait, is hard to eliminate, is usually invisible} are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they build upon each other, strengthening themselves. Toogeloo's strength is that he is all three. He is largely under the radar most of the time. When attention is put on him, it becomes clear that there's a lot of suspicion on him, making him a juicy elimination...but

in spite of that

, he ends up somehow almost never actually being eliminated, or if he is, being eliminated literally DAYS after he was put in the spotlight.

Scum that stay under the radar earlier in the game, are exposed in the mid-game, but are not eliminated until the lategame if they are eliminated at all, are precisely the sort of scum that are right up FL's alley. (I am forced to acknowledge that scumastina is exactly what I am describing; when I am scum I am typically under the radar early and when exposed survive surprisingly long, buuuuuut. The very traits that make me a viable pick for FL are exactly the traits that Toog himself has.)

[mastina]

oh no mastina what r u doing T_T

Being my usual logical and reasonable self who's innately charismatic by the sheer fact that what I say makes sense and resonates with others.

(Granted, I'd be the first to admit: what I say making sense and resonating doesn't mean it's actually accurate, I can be wrong on things that make sense and resonate with others as displayed even earlier in this game with Battle Mage, but like. This is just what I do. There's a damn good reason why one of the traits I highly value in other players is them addressing me on the points that make sense and resonate with others, and then point out the legitimate genuine

flaws

in them, without misrepping them. If someone is capable of, without presenting my point as something it isn't, actually addressing my actual argument and pointing out actual flaws in it, that

sticks

and does make me seriously, genuinely, reevaluate. Often it takes some engagement where I will engage the player on their addressing of my point and explore the avenues of it, but there's a damn good reason why when Ircher and Solstice both did this, they both won my trust. Working with me rather trying to blanket-discredit me is something that I value very highly.)

[mastina]

I could live with the solve of assuming Solstice/Ircher/Mastina/Ydrasse are all town and just eliminating from everyone outside of it until all scum r dead.
- Norwee

I mean, mathematically if this is indeed done.

I do actually think it works out to be a town win.

12 alive, with 3 masons + those 4 = 7/12.
Eliminate one of the 5/12, then scum nightkill.
Even lacking a vig, that's 6/10 the next day. Eliminate one of the 4/10, then scum nightkill.
Even lacking a vig, that's 5/8 the next day. Eliminate one of the 3/8, then scum nightkill.
Even lacking a vig, that's 4/6 the next day. Eliminate one of the 2/6, then scum nightkill.
Even lacking a vig, that's 3/4 the next day. And even IF scum got off a supersaint, that'd be 2/3 the next day. Either way, scum lose.

The only way town would lose is if there's scum in Ircher/Solstice/Ydrasse.

And when it comes to those three.

I really really want to trust pichu on Ydrasse being town...so I do.

And while I admit bias in it, yes, I do townread both Ircher and Solstice for just the whole wide blanket of their play on every level.

[mastina]

Oh no. Masons controlling the game. Let me complain about it and shade them so hard that maybe my scum team won’t get completely destroyed. That’s way easier than solving when nobody cares about my Ydrasse read.
- Norwee

To be fair Norwee.

You were a player in MBOS 10; you're quite aware that of the players who complained about the masonry controlling the game, only a fraction of them were actually scum. I think in that game there were like six or so players who complained, and of them, only one was scum, with literally all the rest being town.

So I wouldn't say complaining about the masonry controlling the game is scum-indicative.

[mastina]

@Mastina
Solstice/Ircher/Ydrasse
Do you think any of the above slots are likely to flip scum?
- Norwee

No.

If any of those slots are scum?

Honestly?

Let them win; they've earned it. FL be damned, I don't give a fuck how much he arrogantly would claim "Just As Planned... " and try to claim credit for clearly having been such a good strategist that they won due to him.

I think that if any of them are scum, on their own merits as players, they have earned the win without one lick of FL's assistance, without one iota of FL's coaching/assistance/planning. The depth of play from both Ircher and Solstice has such breadth to it, I just don't see how they're ever scum here and if they somehow were? They'd have earned it because they are just genuinely and overwhelmingly such strongly town. I genuinely don't think that this is within either of their scumranges. If it is, I tip my hat to them because they are just that town.

Ydrasse, less so from me personally, but I believe that were pichu alive, he'd be giving a speech similar to mine on Ircher/Solstice, just on Ydrasse instead. In that I am placing complete and total faith in Ydrasse being to pichu what Ircher/Solstice are to me. That he would think similarly, that FL be damned, Ydrasse earned it by her own merits without one lick of assistance from FL, that he'd be pointing out the depth of her play and the nuances to it being beyond anything she's done as scum and being something he fully believes to be outside of her scumrange by being just genuinely and overwhelmingly strongly town.

If pichu is screaming from the grave that his read on Ydrasse wasn't that strong, then I apologize, but from everything I saw it legit WAS that strong so the only reason pichu would be screaming from his grave is if he was heartbroken upon being given access to the dead PT and devastated to find out his soulread was somehow wrong and crying that, in spite of us trusting him, that we are wrong to have done so.

Which is, again, to say that Ydrasse is to pichu what Ircher/Solstice are to me. For all intents and purposes, as far as we know: full trust in being town.

[mastina]

Like what ur saying starts to make sense but I can't see the pieces that are supporting that piece and thats because I don't think they actually exist.

See, the thing is, you're framing it in this post as "how scum would set Toog up to be eliminated", and that is, in fact, where there wouldn't really be coherent pieces supporting that because they don't actually exist.

But from the frame of "town didn't truly have Toogeloo in their sights until later, and even after they do, they don't eliminate him"...the pieces very much are there?

Having one or two players suspicious of a slot on D1 when there's 15-16 players not suspicious of them, still means the slot is largely being ignored/written off/invisible.

And the proof that Toogeloo is resistant to being eliminated even after the invisibility cloak wears off is...literally in on how both on D2 and D3 he's not actually an elimination candidate. Yes, to some extent, this can be attributed to DEB vs Bell yesterday and DEB vs Dunn today combined with the masons outing, but even yesterday, he wasn't in Pooky's vig pool (which was, notably, a pool outside of Bell/DEB, the elimination candidates for that day), which means in the collective eyes of your masonry, on D2, Toogeloo was under the radar enough to not make that list.

And while he has made that list today, it's

still

not an easy sell to make. People keep insisting on inserting names like Ydrasse, PBE, Spiffeh, Dunnstral, DEB, etc. into the list (well, Dunn/DEB is justified as in the vig list butstill), and Toogeloo volunteering to 'risk' a supersaint death is something that further disinclines people from eliminating him since they'll be inclined to leave him alive to 'test' the presence of a supersaint.

Drafting people who stay under the radar is a losing strategy in this setup.

And yet, Bell was drafted as scum and he is precisely the same type of player--a player who, as scum, tends to fly under the radar in the earliest stages of the game.

You might think that, "Bell was under heavy suspicion on D2 so he wasn't a player who was under the radar???", but I ask you.
Take a look at D1.
How many players had Bell as suspicious on D1?
How many of these players (who were already few in number) tried to actually actively PUSH him on D1?

The answer to both is almost none, because Bell was, largely, under the radar on D1. He was exposed on D2 and put under the spotlight, where under the pressure he buckled and failed, but on D1 he flew by and large under the radar and was under no serious threat. (And to some extent, the proof of this is in Pooky's D1 elimination pool. Bell was not in it, which means to your collective masonry, he was not a scumread on your radar during D1.)

Just because it's not the winning strategy doesn't mean it isn't the strategy which actually was used.

[mastina]

Just because it's not the winning strategy doesn't mean it isn't the strategy which actually was used.

I also feel obligated to mention: while this strategy may not have won Ali v Titus, it

did

win camn V Pine--Pine's trump card player? Was Aristophanes. A player who was, for the vast majority of the game, under no suspicion at all. The player who, infamously, by the meme, eluded scumhunting god undisputed paragon of paragons Ellibereth. (In truth, not actually, Elli was killed N1 and did list Ari as a poe candidate for the fourth scum but after the other poe candidate Elli listed flipped town, the town collectively forgot that Ari was the other read and didn't sheep Elli fully because Elli was proven 'partially' incorrect, so to speak.)

Also, in Ali v Pine, while Pine's first 4 picks were not this sort of player, Iconeum and PenguinPower, his last two picks,

were

.

Aristophanes, Iconeum, and PenguinPower are all players who I'd classify as being players who're largely out of focus early, and when they come into focus, are surprisingly damn hard to actually get an elimination on.

Pine drafted that type of player, and won both times, specifically because of this in the case of Ari's win tho less so in AliVPine, but it should be noted that Ali v Pine is a case of "it doesn't matter how obvscum a slot is if you don't actually eliminate them" with the town having mutually come to many correct consensus scumreads but losing due to pursuing the town players they also scumread.

It having lost in Ali v Titus does not mean it is, in general, a strategy doomed to lose.

It'll probably lose this game, sure! But that doesn't mean it is innately inherently destined to, and even were it so, that doesn't mean FL didn't opt for it thinking in his arrogance that he'd be able to make it work where you failed to earlier.

Be honest; do you think FL looks at your failure and thinks he, the literal Don Corelone, can't manage to pull off what you didn't? Do you think he looks at your failure and thinks it is something innately destined to fail? Or do you think he looks at it, analyzes it, and thinks about what he'd do differently to make it work?

[mastina]

Like actually mastina, if toogeloo is town, what do you expect scum to do?

I mean, there's basically nothing different between Toog-town and Toog-scum. Regardless of Toogeloo's alignment, he is in the poe pool for scum, but scum know that the poe pool is too small--scum need to widen the poe pool and try to get the town paranoid/suspicious of town players that are otherwise lockscum.

Entertaining me as scum, Ydrasse as scum, Ircher as scum, Solstice as scum, and personally in my personal opinion, Polar Bear Express as scum.

If scum cannot convince the town to eliminate in the above players, they are doomed to lose the game.

So, literally, nothing different between Toog-town and Toog-scum. They have whatever read on Toogeloo they think is the towniest for them to hold, and try to expand the poe pool to include town names it otherwise shouldn't/wouldn't.

Notably, Toogeloo/Dunnstral/Spiffeh have all done this to some extent. (Yes, Ydrasse/Ircher/Solstice/PBE to a lesser extent have also done so by being somewhat suspicious of each other, but I'd call Toogeloo/Dunnstral/Spiffeh worse offenders overall.)

[mastina]

But they are still objectively wrong and should be shut down.
- Norwee

Oh agreed.

This is in fact the masonry show right now!

As much as I am arguing with you and Ali, push come to shove, if the masons dictated that, say, Polar Bear Express was the best elimination...I would be obligated to follow that call. I would disagree with it, explain why I was unhappy with it, say I thought it was wrong and tell you why, but ultimately, it'd be your calls to have been made and I'd follow through with it.

And the inverse is true as well; if you said a scumread of mine was off-limits, even if I disagreed, I'd be forced to follow and not vote them. I'd constantly explain why I think that player is scum anyway, and be very vocal about how unhappy I am at the call, but I'd still have to ultimately follow the decision.

Because yeah. This is the masonry show right now and they are in full control of the rest of the game; the game is in their hands, the fate of the game is their call to make, not us plebeians'.

[mastina]

Drafting people who stay under the radar is a losing strategy in this setup.

Dr Easy Bake is under the radar.

Also true.

[mastina]

But like, I understand how you felt in Titus vs Alisae now.

Proof that FL drafted a team full of the invisible players, the strategy Ali used in Titus v Ali unsuccessfully.

[mastina]

but ya mastina aside from like, polar bears are there any problems? I feel like my solve covers like all of the options?

I don't think so.

If all of {Spiffeh, DEB, Dunn, Toogeloo} end up dead, I legit think the game is a town win so the order and method isn't important to me.

[mastina]

Everyone list the 3 people you think are scum please

{DEB, Toogeloo} (lockscum) and {Spiffeh} (poe as most likely third scum).

Speaking of which:
VOTE: Toogaloo.
We're eliminating DEB today, but since I'm going to wait for the masons' permission before voting DEB, no harm in placing my vote here until they permit me to.

[mastina]

mastina putting me as lockscum needs to explain why it's a lock and not just a read, because she's very, very wrong.

Because I've thought your play has been scum for almost the entire game and I've gone into explaining why I felt that way, why I felt you were picked as scum, why this is your scumplay, and literally all of the defense of your slot is "but this one thing Toog did looks like it doesn't fit my mental picture of what scum would do even though it's something scum could very easily do".

[mastina]

[I am actually stupid, Spiffeh's approach to the Bell v. Creature wagons is more organic looking to be honest]

Yup, Spiffeh's approach is more organic--but since we have three scum, he's still the most likely third overall, by virtue of being the least-townie of the slots in the poe.
From your perspective, you know yourself to be town; Ircher is townier than Spiffeh, Ydrasse I am trusting as locktown, and PBE has similar residual trust in locktown as well as being vastly outside what their scum meta apparently is and looking town. If it's not DEB-Toogeloo-Spiffeh, then who would it be? There's a missing scum and it needs to be

someone

who looks town needs to be scum. One player who looks town must, inherently, be scum, due to a third scum beyond DEB and Toogaloo.

(I should note that from my perspective, I view you around the Ircher level of townread as a personally very high townread.)

[mastina]

I dislike the slot is the very large tonal shift in playstyle from very aggressive Day 1 to more reserved every day afterwards.

Yes that does tend to happen when your largest scumread that you were being hyper-aggressive on and were genuinely convinced was scum ends up flipping town.

You'd have a better case on me if there

wasn't

a shift in my play after I was proven wrong.

But inherent to my play is a shift when I am proven wrong to pull back on the hyper-aggression and be more, so to speak, passively aggressive.

[mastina]

Mastina has been decently aggressive towards Creature, and now you, wouldn't you say? I am interested in what the big distinction you're noticing between her attitude towards BM and you two is. and I guess why you think that shift is inherently scummy. I would take it down a notch after hard tunneling a townie on the first day -- and i don't really see the big shift you're seeing, I suppose.

Eh while Toogaloo's arguments are by and large made in bad faith and highly disingenuous overall, this is one point of his where he does at least have some merit, but you're also right so your point has merit, too.

There is a difference between my D1 play and my D2+ play. But the shift in it has a very, stupidly obvious, cause; being wrong when I was the primary driver of the mislynch is something that makes me fear being the primary driver of another elimination. But I refuse to not contribute, I refuse to give nothing, I refuse to not give content, to entirely be in the back seat and just blindly sheep, so I still give my opinions, I still give my advice, I still give my reads and reasons on my content, just in a more passive way. Is actually a fully subconscious thing; it's not something I consciously choose to do.

She had DEB!scum a little bit before it was cool, too.

I mean I called him de facto scum from the get-go.

Granted, for all of the times I've called him scum (I think in the entirety of this game, there's been one, maybe two, times where I thought DEB might be town? One yesterday when I didn't think he'd sack himself just to eliminate someone who was probably going down anyway, maybe one other time but if so don't remember when; otherwise, been scum the entire time), I don't think I've ever voted him seriously (heck even right now I'm voting Toog!) or seriously pressured him. So as much as I've called him scum basically the entire game, it's at least plausible for me to be a scumbuddy distancing without having committed to a hard bus.

And granted, she came around to Bell being scum after a little bit of hesitation, but that certainly wasn't unique to mastina and it didnt automatically make her into a sheep from there on either.

I was actually the one to point out Bell's defensiveness and having cracked under pressure! That was a point I made before anyone else. Butyeah, I was, sadly, a bit late to the Bellscum train. I had Bell as a read to reevaluate on D2, but I unfortunately had him as initially townier than Dunn/Toog who were one step below him.

Alas.

At least I corrected that mistake later-on tho.

[mastina]

Tbh if there's a redirector in this setup then this game has treaded into the unfun territory and I abstain from all responsibility to this game.

Pretty much, yeah.

Redirector when the town is already light in power?

Not a good idea, and would make the setup highly scumsided.

Also, if DEB is town, then that would mean not one but TWO players who look town would need to be scum.

That not one, but TWO, of {PBE, Ircher, Solstice, Spiffeh} are scum at a minimum.

Far more likely is DEB being scum.

deb was supposed to die and yet... nothing

Ah well, suppose this info helps the town more than the scum since FL already knew it was you.

It does help technically narrow the poe down slightly since it means the people calling Ydrasse scum need to reevaluate that stance and helps eliminate the paranoia present there.

[mastina]

is Mastina capable of going sicko mode on BM D1 like that as scum?

Theoretically? Yes, it's possible. I'm pretty sure I've done it before in some past scumgame of mine. I think rather notably I was hyper-aggressive in that game where I was a hydra with Katsuki and eliminated the BROseidon/AngryPidgeon hydra during the day who had perfect reads yet they got mislynched. So it's something that is something I theoretically have the capability to do.

In reality? Probably not, mafia games are hella draining especially going hyper-aggressive. As-is, it's hard to maintain as town (a lot of my townplay actually resolves around trying to get myself nightkilled early, just so that I can chill in the dead thread, because it's less stressful, less effort, once I am dead and every day I'm alive is a drain), but as scum instead of those thoughts being genuine I'd instead have to

fake

them. Which is harder than pouring genuine heart and soul into things.

[mastina]

i dont really SR tooge that much? i feel hes too eager

Pooky, scum know if there's a supersaint and if there is, who it is.

Eagerness isn't a towntell--to the opposite, it's a scumtell because if the hammered player isn't in fact a supersaint (which scum would know), then the scum knows it's safe to hammer.

Even if there is a real scum supersaint, if it's not DEB then Toog can safely make this offer.

[mastina]

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

.

[mastina]

@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.

[mastina]

Okay, am back, sorry for leaving and the abrupt rushed nature of my last post. (Small confession: I was about 40% of the way through it when I was supposed to leave for that other obligation, so I rushed through the remaining 60%.) To more eloquently and elaborately state things:

Why did DEB self-hammer there?

If scum bought that Ydrasse couldn't shoot last night (since I believe she claimed gated), then they were trying to keep it on evens, perhaps?

The scum, fairly obviously, bought that Ydrassed was gated in some fashion, that or their roleblocker (which, per Ydrasse having failed to kill Toogeloo N3, we know they have) was gated and couldn't block her last night.

So they assumed that Toogeloo would be left alive.

DEB self-hammering is better than Toogeloo hammering him. In the scum's world, Toogeloo hammering = not only does the game go onto odds (not much of an issue since we're guaranteed a conftown in mylo/lylo), but also a mislynch candidate is removed from the pool. They would want to prevent that.

I do feel that Solstice is, mechanically, conftown--if the town lacked a way to know about the scum supersaint, it'd be ridiculously easy to arrange for a conftown or widely-townread player to hammer. As I said before, how disastrous for the town is it if a town mason hammers the scum supersaint? 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)?
When the scum also have a roleblocker? And are implied, loosely, to have another role, presumably investigative? (Via the scum being multitasking being a town role information.) And they can multitask?

That's an incredibly oppressive setup for the town since if their core power roles (vig/cop) die/are identified/blocked early/often, the town's basically at the mercy of the scum, and the town is actually punished for playing well. If the town eliminates a scum, normally that's good for them--but having the scum be a supersaint punishes the town for eliminating that scum, since scum know better than to hammer that scum player, leaving town at its mercy.

But having a town supersaint enabler warns the town of the scum supersaint, allowing for counterplay. And it can add a counterbalance in punishing the scum for doing well--if Supersaint is eliminated beit during the day or night, that disables their massive trump card. Even without that, the ability to claim it is enough to give the town some edge.

Overall I think the flip does clear Solstice here. Because I don't see the game as balanced with Solstice as scum; I DO see it as balanced with Solstice as town.

[mastina]

no voting

Unvote: Spiffeh

, per the mason's request.
But,
HURT: Spiffeh
To make it abundantly clear.
HURT WITH A BLADE: Polar Bear Express.

[mastina]

Solstice is probably clear from the supersaint flip.

We aren't believing this by the way

Okay but with both Ircher and I saying it, even if one of {Ircher, mastina} was scum (which I don't think is the case), one of us is town, both of us are experienced setup reviewers, and both of us are saying the same thing, that mechanically and setup-wise, Solstice makes more sense as town in this game.

We have almost the full picture of the setup--all of the town roles, and most of the scum roles. (We know there's a scum roleblocker, albeit not knowing the nature of the scum roleblocker like what powers it has. We know scum are multitasking, implying that the scum's roles if they are gated at all are fairly lightly so, and/or that there's more than one active scum power in the game, with the fairly real chance of a scum investigative. While there's some speculation involved in the exact power of the scumteam, the

general

power level of the scum is known.)

And both of us are saying that, given the info we have, Solstice is mechanically highly likely town.

If {Ircher, mastina} were both scum lying, Solstice would be town;
If one of {Ircher, mastina} were scum, the other would be town, genuinely thinking that;
If both of {Ircher, mastina} are town (as I believe), they both genuinely think that.

Is it possible that we're both wrong (or that I'm wrong and Ircher is scum who is lying)?
Sure is, games can be scumsided.

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.)

[mastina]

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

Top town: Solstice (see also, mechanically should be conftown if this game is balanced);
Top scum: Spiffeh (mostly by poe in that there's 2/3 scum in Spiffeh/Ircher/PBE; Ircher's the towniest of the three by far, Spiffeh is the least-townie of them by far).

[mastina]

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

Sure, it's this one here.

For the record: it might help you to iso MathBlade that game (and also read the dead thread since he did a good job of explaining that, while that was a

good

scum game of mine, why it was still a scumgame due to aspects of my towngame being absent.

Basically, it was a fairly good scumgame, but there were still gaps in it.

Also, I realize it's not as obvious while doing an iso, that it's something hard to detect even in the postgame, but anecdotally if you were in the game at the time and were able to observe it in real time you'd instantly see:
In that game, there was a larger space between my content compared to this game in quite a lot of spaces. I often didn't post if I didn't have a need to. And if I did post, I often posted, overall, less, except during specific times of engagement where I was able to exude my town aura. Which is to say: I could not, from the getgo, from the onset, continuously and throughout the entirety of the game, maintain the town aura, maintain the energy of my town self. And the few times I did manage to do so, I usually had good justification. (There is a notable pickup in my play when I was able to use mechanics, as mechanics is something I am really damn good at regardless of my alignment and which helps mimic town-mastina even as scumastina; Dunnstral was genuinely such a lurksack to an extent that I've never seen from him before that if not for knowing I was scum I'd have been convinced he was scum, so it was easy to pressure him as such.)

Like I said--something like that is a bit hard to see in the aftermath of the game, but if you were there at the time, you'd be like, "oh yeah, I totally see that", where I lacked the energy to maintain it full time and most of the time I did have the energy, I was given ammunition which made it easy to have done so.

This game, however, my energy has been pretty damn consistent, even during the times where I've felt less useful. I've not had a 100% absolutely identical energy level every single rl day in this game, but the energy still was high, shifted forms from one to another and still was high, and even when I had less to offer, was higher overall. I've had moments of lower energy from rl stuff, rl distractions, etc., but I feel that overall, I've been triumphing over that energy lull from those rl things and managed to still try to give a ton even when at a lowpoint in mental/physical/emotional wellbeing. (For instance, I've been sick since Thanksgiving. I said as much in this gamethread, you may recall. I said, "hey, fair warning, am sick, so may not be able to do as much as normal". I'm still sick, with that same sickness, because it never went away, it's still here a full month later, but in spite of that, I've still been doing a lot.)

So while it is, of course, theoretically possible for me to be scum.
It'd have been an even bigger improvement on my scumgame. If this were a scumgame of mine, it'd literally be the best scumgame I've ever pulled off.

I will say however that there's another big thing that does give me towncred tho; I literally wrote the book on not bussing. You can see it evident in that micro; in the game, were I town, I'd have been scumreading Gypyx from D1 because his content that game was something easy to scumread and hard to townread, but instead I forced a townread because I wanted to use my influence to influence the town into thinking Gypyx was town.

In this game I reassessed Bell on D2, added evidence to the pile for Bell being scum, continued to campaign for Bell's death even after the IC urged us to spare Bell, called Bell-DEB as scum-scum, called DEB scum the entire game, and ultimately was hugely involved in the deaths of both scum.

This doesn't clear me--I pushed DEB but never voted him until D4; pushing Bell over DEB means little when both are scum; I initially had Bell as town and townier than two flipped town even at the beginning of D2; I was late on the initial Bell wagon; regardless of who's scum in Solstice/Ircher/PBE/Spiffeh I've defended all four of them rather heavily so fit as being a scumbuddy for any of them; I can and have bussed before, so me bussing in spite of writing the article on not bussing doesn't inherently clear me, because while I have a strong aversion to bussing in general, I can bus if I feel there is an actual strong reason to which would give us more reward than the risk involved (and you can pretty easily make the case that I thought the bus was worth it, there's enough to weave half a dozen or so narratives where I justify it).

But while it doesn't clear me, I do feel like it at least gives me fairly good ground to stand on in terms of towncred.

[mastina]

[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.]

Oh I've done it before, but it's a rarity. I

think

the only time I've done that as scum was Anything Goes, but that was, explicitly, with the influence of Katsukii. (As a hydra, I tend to be influenced by the style of my hydra partner, picking up some of their quirks and traits. In that case, I picked up on some of Katsukii's aggression, tho that game was still mostly Katsukii rather than me; about 7-8/10 of the hydra's posts were Katsukii rather than me. (Notably: while not every post that's proper spelling/capitalization/grammar is me, if the post isn't proper spelling/capitalization/grammar it is for sure Katsukii.)

The closest beyond that would probably be Inorganic Chemistry. I had a (rather deliberate--I orchestrated it to deliberately make people think it was a TvT fight so that people would write me off as town) heated engagement with the Titus/Metal Sonic hydra, but I don't remember if I had that same energy pursuing other town players.

I THINK that's the only examples tho, that otherwise it hasn't happened at all. So, it's within my theoretical capacities as scum; in reality, it's far less so.

Maybe Spiffeh is guilty of this too, I don't really remember. I should review this, yup]

I'm pretty sure you're the only non-mason not guilty of it actually, of the alive players.

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.]

None explicit I think, but I believe I did heavily imply that I thought the case felt like scum. I wasn't convinced the case came from scum, but I didn't think the case was townie-in-nature at the very least.

[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.]

Devil's advocate: TMI is a thing and scumastina revels in using the truth as her weapon. My driving philosophy as scum is literally that the truth is your ally and that you can weaponize it to be genuine and sincere as scum and use that sincerity to tonally feel town to others and garner townreads.

But, yes, it'd have been a double-bus from me when I'm less inclined to do that normally, and yes, I did back out at a time where as scum I could have kept going on it. (For the record: there is a general towntell of someone correctly calling someone scum, but then out of paranoia, second-guessing themselves and hopping off. It's not a solid towntell, especially not due to players like me knowing about it and being able to theoretically abuse it as scum, but I do think that behavior usually does come from town even if the town often thinks it's from scum.)

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

Not really, but sort-of. I didn't know, as in, I didn't think it was sure. But I put the pieces together and thought it was possible. I wasn't convinced MURDERCAT was a mason, but I did figure out it was at least

possible

MURDERCAT was a mason.

[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.

I would say so, yes.

[mastina]

[This is the first parallel I noticed -- prior to this post, I would say you have not been the same as this game. You've bounced your vote around 4 times, i wouldnt say you've really gone all out with your reasoning (as you can see here where you explain you aren't) whereas with BM you felt very dialed in and solid. Even before BM you had like, an extremely rigid and confident readslist where you confirm towned people, strong towned people, and so on. Just a result of this setup's draft phase being unique? Maybe, but still, vibes are different and obviously they continue on as you scumread BM/Creature.]

Right, that would be the point where I had mechanics to work off of--while I am a mechanical player regardless of my alignment, mechanics talk helps scumastina more than it does me as town because mechtalk allows for me to be more sincere/genuine and fake scumhunt better.

Also, fun fact. The linked post you gave is 100% true; regardless of my alignment, I

am

lazy, I

will

leave things out when I feel them unnecessary, I

do

like to hold back for reactions; I

do

like narratives, all as town just as much as when scum. But while I may have made a post like that game's 199 before as town, I legit think that most of the times I've made a post like that, I was scum.

Also, I never once made a readslist that scumgame. I can make readslists as scum, but it's been a trait absent from my scumgames for two years. It's fully possible this game is the first scumgame of mine in two years to have it, because it's possible for my scumgame to have gotten even better. But, yeah, the definitive readslist for the last two years

has

been a towntell, yes.

[Looking thru it looks like you put an overwhelming amount of effort into .. casing why a townie is town, so far.]

Oh yeah I do that as both alignments, but I do it slightly more often as scum probably. As town I'll do it mostly when the player I am very strongly defending is at risk of being eliminated. I still do so as scum during those times (and Nic was in fact doing just that), but I do it more often and more consistently and on more players with me typically focusing less on offense overall. scumastina has a bad tendency to be overall too defensive. Whereas town-mastina will use the poe to launch an offense, and use defense mostly to defend the offense.

[mastina]

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.

[mastina]

[I concur with Ircher though that it is very conceivable for mastina to think that vote was low-risk. I did NOT expect that to happen at all, i didn't think we were gonna place Dr Easy to X-1 until Toog was around, since like, that's the precedent we had set with the X-2. I was flabbergasted that the day got cut off like that]
~Morning

For what it's worth: so was I.

I did, indeed, think it was an entirely safe vote--I didn't want to run into the risk of me triggering a possible hated supersaint, after all. (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. It's one of the reasons I thought he was scum. The mod had EARLIER ALREADY CLARIFIED THIS INTERACTION and yet Toogeloo in spite of the mod having already clarified that a DEB vote wouldn't be counted in the same post as an unvote, decided to do so anyway rather than separate the vote and unvote into separate posts.)

I wanted Toogeloo to cast a PROPER L-1 vote when he came in on Monday, then unvote in a separate post, and then revote as the hammer.

After all--DEB was at L-2 for quite a while before I voted him. Why would he be hammered when I put him to L-2, when he wasn't hammered when Ircher earlier had him at L-2? So I was caught off-guard, too, but I don't really have much in the way of defending the action beyond this.

[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?

[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?

[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.)

[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.

[mastina]

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?

My thoughts exactly.

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 I was under the impression that if we didn't keep DEB close to elimination, Toogeloo wouldn't be held accountable, that he could use the lack of the wagon being large enough, that he could use the wagon being below L-2, as an excuse to not be doing what he promised to do.

Basically, I thought that if DEB was at L-3 or lower, Toogeloo would continue to go "DEB's not in the range for me to vote him yet" and use that as an excuse to not be held accountable. After all, I was under the impression DEB was never voted to L-1, so I wanted Toogeloo to vote DEB at L-1, and then in a separate post, unvote DEB (rather than in the same post). Which is something that'd require DEB to be at L-2; if he was at L-3, Toogeloo couldn't cast a proper L-1 vote then unvote in an immediately following post, what I was wanting him to do. And after that, we'd coordinate the L-1 with him hammering or facing the consequences.

I haven't seen a SR from you all game.

Polar Bear Express (Noraa and Gloria Cleary) <--Has proven to be an incredibly good liar.
VOTE: Polar Bear Express.
I'm pretty sure that FL would absolutely love to get his hands on Noraa as an agent of his. Of the slots in the game, the only one who'd be more FL-friendly is DEB but everyone knows about the FL-DEB relationship and FL knows everyone knows about the FL-DEB relationship and that's a literal WIFOM situation that we could add layers to for days on if FL picked DEB or not, so I'm going not with the most obvious candidate (DEB) but the second most likely candidate.

Polar Bear Express

Flavor Leaf

Thereabouts!

I think Flavor prolly picked all the good scum players for his team.

By and large, I don't exactly disagree. I think FL is fully capable of picking one good-town player to deny them the chance to be town, but by and large I expect there to be three good scum.

The list of good scum isn't quite the same as the list of good liars, but you'll note there's quite some overlap:
Spiffeh
Polar Bear Express (Noraa and Gloria Cleary)
Dr Easy Bake

This is the list of players I'd expect FL to think are good at scum, and like I said: I imagine it contains ~3 scum.

So from a pick-spec point of view, I quite like my Polar Bear Express vote.

I think instead of trying to play “guess the reigning DC’s draft” we could just, ya kno, scumhunt? And not play the game on his terms, giving him that much more control over it?

Fair, so let me put it another way;
Noraa's content has felt like scumposting to me through and through the entire time.

Even without the pick-spec, I'd be voting that hydra here.

I don't like what Noraa is doing in the thread right now, but it doesn't really look like the game they just played. I like mastina, Netflix and Chill, and I think Bell right now

For the record, I do like those townreads, and yes I do see the same on Noraa but lacking a recent game with Noraa I am not inclined to think Noraa town for it.

Huh? What looks scummy about Polar Bear Express at this point in time?

Literally every post until the callout of an Ircher/MURDERCAT/Double solve, which is a post that I can see as plausibly town. I'm not

sure

it's town, because it's possible to be scum making a solve out of plausibly-scummy town players, but since I can see the logic behind the suspicions, it's the first thing to give me any doubt on the scumread.

No me has to take out ircher cuz ircher being towny.
Mastina/Double/Murder

me read Dunn's posts. They keep shading me.
Dunn/Mastina/Double/Murder

For instance, these posts look terrible since they're explicitly OMGUS+reverse-OMGUS (townreading a player townreading your slot + scumreading players scumreading your slot), and it no longer flows as well.
I could see the plausible callout of Ircher/MURDERCAT/Double.
The transition I cannot see.

Suffice to say: I did have reasons. I did see things that were town from you, and in tandem with me placing faith in the players townreading you, I did eventually transition into a game-long townread, but over time I lost the reasons to townread you with the read being stagnant/stale and relying on me, explicitly, placing trust in pichu being right.

And right now, my read on you is explicitly not a tunnel of confirmation bias with me convinced you must be scum.

It's a poe read with me convinced others are town.

There are five possible names for being scum:
{mastina, Ircher, Solstice, Polar Bear Express, Spiffeh}.
I know myself to be town, so from my perspective there's only four names possible.

And, per your hydra's own established stances...

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

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.

...You agree with me that Solstice is town.

You agree with me that Solstice is town, and I know myself to be town.

And given that there's 2 scum, that leaves 3 candidates for two scum: {Polar Bear Express, Spiffeh, Ircher}.

And of the three, I find Ircher the towniest by far.

[mastina]

(I'm not gonna quote it but I feel obligated to mention that 5687 is the exact sort of post that MURDERCAT cased Noraa on.)

[mastina]

I’d probably flip Ircher before Mastina since I know for a fact these ridiculous fanfiction type of analysis is something she can also do as town.

Okay but question.

Where did you get that knowledge?

I've not played with either head of your hydra before and I didn't link any of my towngames before and I don't seem to recall any mention of you checking out my towngames nor them having been linked to you by another.

So where did you get this info from?

Because this is exactly how FL tends to characterize my gameplay and it sounds like something he'd have said in the scum PT.

What’s bizarre to me is Mastina’s 180 and now Ircher’s jumped on it.

It's not a 180 given that I've said for days that if I was wrong on a townread, Spiffeh was the most likely; if I was wrong about two, you'd be the second.

And now we know, via Solstice being town and there being only 5 possible scum including Solstice (4 without Solstice) and with me knowing I am town in that list.

That there's exactly two scum in three names, which from my perspective is:
{Ircher, Polar Bear Express, Spiffeh}.
And I've made it pretty clear I don't think it's Ircher, and why I don't think it's Ircher.

So it's basically just POE.

[mastina]

None of your arguments are actually like ... mastina specific. Like I could take this wall, change a few things, replace PBE with mastina and the same argument applies....

I mean.

Explicitly so, yes.

In the pool of effectively-4, as long as Solstice is a given townread, each player within knows the poe is precisely three names for two scum.

You could be town, but it'd require Ircher to be scum.

I currently believe that Ircher has stronger reasons to be town than you and that the reasons for you and Spiffeh to be scum are stronger than the reasons for you to be town.

You haven't played with me before but you have played with gloria before. Its not my place to say more on this subject.

So I went to search Gloria's games to see if I could guess her identity. From Death Curse, I immediately guessed Nancy Drew. This game also gave me Nancy Drew vibes. So did this one. And Even checking this game's signup thread, I got Nancy Drew vibes from it. And the resemblance in the scummies thread is rather uncanny.

I normally wouldn't go through the work of alt-hunting because I hate the idea of hunting alts, but in this case it was important to verify the claim of Gloria having played with me before.
The good news: Nancy Drew has indeed played with me before and could come with that idea of me.
The bad news: ND39 knows I can fairly accurately read her and, if Gloria IS Nancy Drew 39, this is Gloria/Nancy Drew39's scumgame.

[mastina]

(For context: on multiple occasions, Nancy Drew has said that I am one of the best players onsite at reading her. I've almost never gotten it wrong and am almost always right. While Gloria is, 1: on a hydra, and 2: a different account than ND39 even if Gloria IS Nancy Drew, both factors I admit can influence the accuracy of the read: even with those factors, I'd say that she's scum here. Why? Because reading from Gloria's completed towngames, I can see her as town especially if she's ND39. In this game, reading Gloria's posts, I don't see the same level of townness, especially if she's ND39. This level of performance/play from Gloria is miles below her previous performances where she was town and this level of performance/play from ND39 would be in line with her scumgame. So, if Gloria = ND39, then yes, I actually think that Polar Bears Express is actual legit genuine lockscum here. Because if Gloria is Nancy Drew 39, this is NOT Nancy Drew 39 as town.)

[mastina]

For the record. If Gloria were Nancy Drew 39, then she would be immensely able to be, from the getgo, from the onset, immediately obvtown. Even with depression, even with real life shit, she would almost certainly still be able to play and contribute early-on, and be immensely obviously town from the onset.

In this game Gloria was absent until D2 and while her presence has increased the further into the game we've gone, it is still not to immediately obvtown levels. It looks passable as, to an outside non-ND39-expert, plausibly town. But it is not immensely town, radiating the aura of towniness. Gloria's play has been okay, but not superly strongly obviously town. Reading her completed towngames, Gloria was always immediately obviously superly strongly town (which is one of the reasons I made the connection of Gloria = ND39, from the immediate similarity in how transparently town they were in games in very similar fashions), but that's utterly absent from this game.

Which makes a lot of sense if Gloria is ND39 and was drafted as scum. Nancy Drew 39 hates being scum and while she's gotten better over time at masking it, at being plausibly town, she can't realistically for long periods (especially during periods of stress in her own real life from rl things + rl emotions) radiate that town aura energy when scum. She can make things which look plausibly town when she's scum, but she can't make things which radiate town when she's scum.

And this game, Gloria's absence early, entering on D2 and later with plausibly town content is exactly that: it doesn't radiate town.

Whereas both Gloria, and Nancy Drew, when town, radiate town immediately, even when busy, even when their real life is kicking them down.

I realize that Noraa was in a bit of a tight spot by revealing knowledge about my gameplay which could not have come from her; she had to reveal Gloria as an alt or be accused of the knowledge being from FL. (Which, granted, it probably still actually is.) But putting me on the scent of Gloria's identity was a mistake because if Gloria is Nancy Drew, this is 200% her scumgame.

[mastina]

(Also: FL was meant to know the identities of alts, right? So he should know that Gloria, if she's Nancy, would be immediately obvtown to the town if town, but could plausibly slip under the radar as plausibly town if drafted as scum, especially given people wouldn't have meta on Gloria to know that her not radiating townness means she's scum. Basically, if Gloria = ND39, then FL drafting PBE is a zero-risk, high-reward move. Drafting someone who hates scum might be an issue if that player is playing on their main...but drafting someone who hates playing scum when they're part of a hydra and on an alt means that they aren't going to as clearly show it. So he denies the town a player who'd be immensely obvious as town, while getting a player who, thanks to their hydra and being on an alt, isn't a liability to the town because they are at least plausibly town with the content they do end up giving.)

[mastina]

Only took 4000 posts for people to get on board

Sorry for taking so long. <3

Yes because I'm dying tonight so I want all my thoughts out

We are basically waiting on the masons right now tho.

[mastina]

I know, I have things to say but I have a lot of isos to read first.

Is okay, you've got six days to do so.

Not really, im reading a little. Not worried. We got this.

Hi Vax!

We really do. <3

[mastina]

We were probably going to do Noraa today and then it was going to be mastina/spiffeh

Yeah I figured.

I was okay with being eliminated on d6 as long as scum was eliminated D5 since I had full confidence that Ircher/Solstice would solve correctly in the 3p lylo.

[mastina]

I think this deserves a game of the year nom. It was really fun all-around and I didn't see any issues. It still qualifies for this past year, right?

Correct! Noms are accepted until the 8th.

[mastina]

pedit: The supersaint enabler felt suuuuuuuuper overkill tbh.

Eh, I don't think so. It felt overkill because scum were being killed off quickly and the town's PRs were largely playing almost as optimally as was possible, but if the game wasn't tipping against the scum, in a vaccum, in a void, I do think the town needed the supersaint enabler to not have the game be scumsided.

Especially if the ascetic alien served as a godfather to the disloyal strong-willed vanilla cop--disloyal meant it'd only work on scum, and strong-willed means it'd be immune to roleblocking so would know that getting a result = scum, not getting a result = town, but if ascetic doesn't count as a roleblock, then not getting a result on the ascetic alien is essentially a very very bad false innocent, because it'd be creating a fairly compelling cop clear on the scum's strongest power role.

Having a godfather to the town's investigative role is not something to laugh at balance-wise.

[mastina]

Mastina/Ircher were just insanely overwhelmingly imba. Esp Mastina :3

I have that effect.

When I play as town, I play to get nightkilled (so I do put a lot of emphasis on very hard, very early aggression), since I always have more fun in the dead PTs than among the living, buuuuuuut, if I don't end up nightkilled, that doesn't mean I won't be a threat later. I am both a mechanically-oriented player (can clear players come massclaim) and, when need be, a team player (can work with others without being the driving force).

[mastina]

idunno i just got super paranoid that she was scum with the goal of trying to pocket me and norwee because I see that being super realistic coming from scum!mastina especially given how she built it up

Oh as scum I never aim to pocket a specific player. At least, never done it before. What I'll do as scum, depends. But I've never aimed to pocket a specific player before, as far as I can remember.

I think Supersaint is enough of a surprise that town should have some warning about it. As far as informed townie goes, that role could've definitely been dropped and the setup would be roughly the same.

I do think the setup is overall balanced to a reasonable standard. 13-4 requires quite a bit of town power (as opposed to 10-3), and scum did have some powerful tools. Maybe a full vig is a little bit too much; as Blade Dancer points out, the other roles, especially the cop, were quite gated.

Agreed on this; the informed townie could be dropped, with no true difference in the game. (It was a small contributor to my setup spec later-on, but the game's balance would be mostly the same without it, just slightly harder to pin down the scum role.)

Maybe the vig being ungated wasn't a fit to the other town power roles not being gated, but if it were to be gated then it'd need to be very lightly so, like, 4-shot or something, because I feel like the town did need the vig to be shooting almost every night for the game to be balanced. It's out of place with the other PRs to be entirely ungated, but most gates you'd place on the role would imo leave the town too weak.

[mastina]

if you actually claimed the guilty on solstice we kill deb we never trade solstice for deb w/o flipping deb first

^
I was of the opinion DEB was fakeclaiming and was hard-townreading Solstice even without the supersaint enabler claim. While the mechanical claim may have been clearing to Solstice on D5, even lacking it, on their play, I was clearing them.

[mastina]

I disagree that Solstice wouldn't have gone down in the gamestate at the current time.

And who votes them? Not the masons, per Alisae; not me; other slots were townreading Solstice and scumreading DEB beyond that, so if DEB claimed a guilty on someone outside of the POE, it's DEB who dies D3 rather than Dunn. DEB only lived by claiming a guilty on someone already in the POE.

[mastina]

but mostly we won because Hectic/Ydra/Ircher/Mastina/Solstice played their townie hearts out so so hard. <3

<3

[mastina]

Like Toog, Solstice, mastina, Ircher were the ones we needed to get 2 mislims within and they all towned it up so hard

For the record, I do feel like the scum could

theoretically

still have won, because the counter to town towning it up is for scum to town it up hard and if everyone looks town even the scum, it can lead to the town being eliminated. Theoretically. If the scum towning it up could look more town than the town towning it up.

But, given how difficult it'd be in practice (the strategy may be theoretically a way to make the game winnable, but making that theory become reality is a whole different thing), I do sympathize with the difficulty.

[mastina]

Mastina made a draft pick going over what she would do Day 1, and it was exactly what I did, but she pushed it as it would be different.

I did no such thing tho. I have never outlined what I'd do as a scum mastermind (nor do I have any desire to be a scum mastermind--if I was asked, I wouldn't say no, but I've no desire to ever be one especially due to the overall atrophying of my scum skills since I fully expect that if I were the scum mastermind the game would be a roflstomp from the town), but I did heavy speculation as to what you'd do versus what Pine would do.

In some areas, I actually got close! Like, when I said "I'd expect this list to have 3 scum"...it had three scum.

[mastina]

oh yeah, the league talk was also super fun this game! :>

On that note: according at least to my op.gg page, I am doing tremendously well (tho I admit to being a Normals spammer because I don't really have much interest in playing many ranked games, Normals are more fun).

I've legit been MVP or close to in most of my games. Even when playing support-Ashe for the first time all season, and playing top bruisery-Ashe after not having played it in a long time. (And both games, I was originally autofilled to jungle, but the people in those positions offered to swap with me.)

I've gotten quite fond of rushing Ravenous Hydra as a first item on Ashe, even before a mythic, because Ravenous Hydra's omnivamp applies to everything--every auto, every aoe proc'd damage, every arrow on her volley (which, if all hit, is

11 hits that each heal

), and her ult.
AND, the tiamat aoe procs on everything--every auto, every arrow on her volley (which, again, is 11 aoe hits if all connect), and her ult (main target only, as the ult's aoe damage doesn't also proc tiamat's aoe effect, butstill).

It gives me insane waveclear, insane survivability (I've literally survived burst from assassins like Akali, Talon, and an incredibly fed Kha'zix), and most of my deaths are due to being ignited (since ignite gives healing cut for its duration). In my last game, all seven of my deaths were to ignite, with the three enemy champions I most interacted with ALL running it (the midlaner roaming to bot, with both the 'adc' and support running it, too). Having the enemy team need to burn multiple summoners to kill me, with them failing to kill me if they don't burn said summoners, is amazing.

Granted, yes, ignite does counter ravenous hydra, and so too would someone picking up early healing cut--but nobody rushes healing cut before their first item. Heck, most people don't rush healing cut before their second item. At lower elos (which Normals inherently are), healing cut doesn't tend to appear until 3rd-4th item, at earliest. And if the enemy team doesn't rush healing cut before their first item, I'm almost unkillable without being ignited. (Or if I do die, it's a one-for-one trade, or even two-for-one trade, where the enemy needs to burn so many resources to kill me, they've none left to survive my teammates.)

There is a slight weakness tho. Because I never get low on health, I have a tendency to remain on the map until I run out of mana, since manaflow band + tear is not enough mana. So most of my backs are due to low mana rather than low health or gold.

[mastina]

disloyal strong-willed vanilla cop--disloyal

nah, Pichu was Simple, only could get the goons

True, but the point stands; pichu couldn't guilty your strongest role and if investigating them, would get a false-innocent that would boost your odds significantly.

[mastina]

i know i should have been reading mastina town non-stop throughout this whole game but the paranoia man it was eating me ALIVE

Welcome to literally every towngame of mine in two years where in spite of being immensely town people still paranoia-read me as scum.

[mastina]

I'm salty nobody thought I'd come up with a Supersaint Enabler fake claim without a Supersaint.

Oh I did, I just discarded it because I thought Solstice was town.

[mastina]

You literally tried to townread mastina page one

I mean that's doable and balance of probability...it's probably going to be right.

[mastina]

I kept going "Mastina's wrong now, but she won't be later."

Eh, I tend to never be entirely right or entirely wrong, and whichever I was initially, I do tend to flip to the other later. If I am mostly right early, I'll usually be mostly wrong later, and vice-versa, too.

[mastina]

Subject: PookyTheMagicalBear v Flavor Leaf - Moderator PT

Night 2 Actions

Dr Easy Bake kills

Mastina

Pichu.

So I assume this means I came close to being the N2 nightkill.

[mastina]

mastina will shoot herself in the foot I don't think there's any need to worry about her
She is obvtown every game but people always suspect her for some reason I don't get it lmao

I know, right???

And yet somehow people never learn.

[mastina]

I was shocked to have Mastina has us as her #1 scumread before Noraa even made a single post.

I think Mastina like .... spectated a bunch of my scum games :/

To some extent, yes, yes I did.

[mastina]

Reading scum PTs when you had a decent/good game is very satisfying

Indeed.

[mastina]

so don’t tell me this setup wasn’t ridiculously townsided.

Oh I absolutely can and will say the setup isn't ridiculously townsided.

The game is, loosely, balanced, maybe slightly townsided:
Drop the informed townie (it's not needed for the town and doesn't add much), add a very slight gate to the vig (say, 4x vig), and the game is instantly balanced.

That's literally the only adjustments needed.

An almost full-powered vig, and removing one mostly-worthless role.

Alien as a scum role, in tandem with the mafia nightkill, is genuinely one of the strongest role combos possible. Keep in mind also, the ascetic alien can potentially also cause a false innocent on the goons by rolestopping them. Strongwilled prevents roleblockers from succeeding; it doesn't necessarily puncture through a rolestop. (At least in the NRG, we're moving towards rolestops acting like asceticizers, with ascetics not acting the same as a roleblocker.)

If a strong-willed role fails on a rolestopped target (which per the NRG it should, I believe), then your alien could effectively Godfatherize your goons.

So if the alien protected a goon (which it did!), that's immunity to not only the vig but ALSO the cop.
Sure, you can't kill the player alien'd. But alien can be used offensively or defensively and is tremendously strong at both.