A Clash of Kings - A Divided Kingdom

[Mina]

CSL, I'm so sorry to hear about your friend.

Cow,

I don't think so

. I agree with your suspect list, since I've already explained my problems with Axelrod. It's kind of worrying me how little thought people are putting into beyond "CSL/SSBF/Unsight." They're all mindlessly going for easy targets. But I'd like to take things slow. Maybe I should have learned from my epic failure at partnership analysis this game, but I still want to do one reread of the thread. I even bought a notebook just for Mafia. Maybe I'll make a case on Axelrod to show just what my problems with him have been.

On the off-chance I'm correct in some of my assumptions, I know something that doesn't really do much for us moving forward, but can at least explain a few things. Don't know if I'd be ousting anyone else in the process, however.

Mikujin, just answer one thing: do you think there's a high chance you've caught scum? (I think I can guess where you're heading with this.) If you're putting two players in a likely 1 v. 1, you should probably claim. Otherwise, wait on it a little, since you'd either out a role or give scum advance warning on what information you have.

I actually think we're more likely to be in a 4-4-(1?) set-up. The Lannister and Greyjoy teams should be symmetrical, with one godfather, one roleblocker, and one or two goons. Either way, I'd be shocked if the Greyjoys didn't have a roleblocker counterpart to xvart.

But I should check if any flipped scum players have commented on the balance.

We'll know for sure if the Lannister kills stop tonight, though.

[RichardGHP]

I am here. I will be making a decision on who to vote for very soon; can someone summarize the SSBF case into a few sentences?

[Mikujin]

On the off-chance I'm correct in some of my assumptions, I know something that doesn't really do much for us moving forward, but can at least explain a few things. Don't know if I'd be ousting anyone else in the process, however.

Mikujin, just answer one thing: do you think there's a high chance you've caught scum?

(I think I can guess where you're heading with this.) If you're putting two players in a likely 1 v. 1, you should probably claim. Otherwise, wait on it a little, since you'd either out a role or give scum advance warning on what information you have.

I've very little confidence in the information I have.

[Macavitar]

My gut was suggesting that Axelrod needed a closer look too. I definitely think there's something to that. Look at his interactions with Percy and Raivann. Look at his iso 13, where he claims that he wasn't a fan of Deer. Except he never voiced that in earlier posts, and it's not like he ever voted for Raiv. Really like iso 20, where he reminds Raiv to claim, followed up by poo-pooing the vig claim in iso 22. It reads like he's admonishing his buddy there. Iso 24 heavily pushes CMAR over Raiv. A quote to enjoy:

There is no evidence implying that Percy is scum.

Well, that's not exactly true either. There's certainly nothing blatant though.

While being a strong supporter of Percy throughout the game, he decides that he needs to add this little disclaimer.

I'll likely continue digging in, but at the moment I think I may be leaning towards SSBF/Axel as well.

[Eddard Stark]

Vote Count 4.1 - The '"

I swear it by earth and water. I swear it by bronze and iron. We swear it by ice and fire.

." Votecount

SSBF (2) - Macavitar, Unsight.

CSL (1) - Mikujin

Not Voting (10) Mina, Thor665, Axelrod, Super Smash Bros. Fan, Locke Lamora, diddin, CSL, RichardGHP, hasdgfas, MagnaOfIllusion.

With 13 alive it takes 7 to lynch. If a majority is reached the person with the second most votes will also be simultaneously lynched.

[Macavitar]

By the way, we should quickly deal with the mechanics of making this double lynch work today. Here's my thinking: While we're still wagoning, don't let anyone get past L-2. Once we as a town have pretty much come to a conclusion as to who the two lynchees will be, things will need to be coordinated. Both lynchees should be brought to 4 votes (4 votes being a majority of the remaining votes after the regular 7 vote majority today). Once both are at 4 votes, one of the lynchees gets 3 more votes, and we've successfully lynched our two choices. This plan occupies 11 votes, leaving two votes "free". This means that even if our two lynchees don't cooperate, this plan can succeed.

[MagnaofIllusion]

Mac’s 2005 is very much what needs to happen. I’d even suggest we use FOSes in lieu of votes for the short term to make sure we don’t have and accident mis-fire on the secondary death.

I will not be voting for SSBF today. I don’t see anything inherently wrong with his vigging of Vezo instead of CSL given the pressure he was getting (from myself at the very least) to hit Vezo. Check his ISO … he even asks for opinions on switching over before Night.

@Thor

– Given how strongly you were for Vezo’s vigging the prior day why are you so concerned with SSBF’s change of targets?

VOTE: Unsight. My views haven’t significantly changed.

My first post of the day was going to be an explanation of why xvart could be eliminated from the suspect pool, as well as a ranking of the remaining eight suspects on their likelihood of being Greyjoys or Lannisters. The wind has been taken out of my sails.

I don’t see the Town benefit of not posting your thoughts, regardless of whether you were correct about xvart or not. Putting your thoughts out there allows everyone else to possibly see connections they might have missed. Also you’ve already done the work so it isn’t a time burden for you.

Something about the flavour confuses me. In the mini, Cersei was the poisoner and roleblocker; scum also couldn't use actions and kill on the same night unless they were the last member of their faction. Either Cersei isn't the poisoner, the one-action-per-night rule doesn't exist, or the Lannister Mafia threw away their roleblocks by sending their roleblocker to perform all their nightkills (in which case...WTF, Lannister Mafia).

I think you are overthinking the flavor element of the flips. Unlike a Mini I don’t think that scum have individual kill flavors. I find it unlikely that a single Lannister or Greyjoy has made every faction kill to this point in the game.

I actually think we're more likely to be in a 4-4-(1?) set-up. The Lannister and Greyjoy teams should be symmetrical, with one godfather, one roleblocker, and one or two goons. Either way, I'd be shocked if the Greyjoys didn't have a roleblocker counterpart to xvart.

With both xvart and benmage flipping blocking roles (Roleblocker and JK) you think that the Greyjoys have a third blocking style role? I’m not saying it is out of the question but that seems to be a little heavily weighted IMO.

I've been keeping my eye on a few people.

You’ve pretty much outed yourself as some sort of information role between the end of day discussion with Cow yesterday and your statement that you knew Locke would not be getting results. If you have information that you think identifies another scum player you need to provide it.

Otherwise you simply need to stop hinting around. It’s not helpful.

[Thor665]

@Mikijun - if you have so little confidence in your info why did you bring it up? I'm not sure I see the town advantage here.

@SSBF - When you get back I'd still like to hear what prompted you to vezo over CSL.

@Magna = because he had previously indicated a different target priority and his 'reasons' for switching were nothing new. Als - if you support FOSing today...why the vote?

@Richard - you don't understand the SSBF case??? ...I hate you.

In short - he's suspicious enough to have been taken to L-1, he's claimed Vig 'who hacks' . Do you believe he's a Vig or a SK (or go with Unsight's 'third scum team' theory)?

[Locke Lamora]

I agree with the latest sentiments regarding Mikujin. I really don't see the value for town of dropping hints here and there if there's no benefit whatsoever to the information at the end of it.

Magna: to me, SSBF's switch screams of survival instinct. If you were vig in his position and you thought CSL was scum and Vezo was VI, who would you vig? CSL. If you were SK trying to preserve what little chance you had of making it to endgame by being a good town-directed killer, who would you vig? Vezo. The fact that SSBF did a U-turn after seeing that several players preferred Vezo indicates to me that he's far more concerned with staying alive than he is with hitting scum.

I agree with Macavitar re: Axelrod. I found myself more concerned by his slot on a re-read during night, especially that quote he highlighted. I was also left with the impression he spent a lot of time talking about SSBF's SK-ness and the setup, then suddenly declared he didn't like Rifka when the lynch became viable. I'm going to go ahead and:

Vote: Axelrod

Who's Theon Greyjoy? Is it you?

[MagnaofIllusion]

@Magna = Also - if you support FOSing today...why the vote?

Because I just suggested it. If it gains traction (and judging by the fact that neither you nor Locke have commented positively on the idea I doubt it will) I’ll move to an FOS. Until then I’m not going to have an inactive vote.

[RichardGHP]

If the only thing against SSBF is that he hacks, then I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt. Flavour speculation is not only anti-town but pointless.

[Macavitar]

If the only thing against SSBF is that he hacks, then I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt. Flavour speculation is not only anti-town but pointless.

Except it's not the only reason. SSBF's claimed kills make much more sense for a SK than for a vig. Even more than the N3 kill (and I agree with Locke's assessment), the N2 kill was particularly egregious, when he killed IDI over vezo. While IDI did flip scum, vezo was clearly the correct vig kill that night. IDI was under the radar, and someone you make a case on for a lynch; he was not a correct vig target i.e. someone already under suspicion by the rest of the town. SSBF's reason for vigging Raiv did not mention any vig counter-claim. If SSBF really was a vig, he would have made that kill

because

he knew that Raiv was fake claiming. SSBF never said that when asked about the Raiv kill. And yes, while it is flavor spec, there is no way that Arya (who uses a dagger named Needle) kills by hacking to bits. Everything else in this game has been flavorfully reasonable, while Arya killing in this manner would not be.

SSBF needs to be one of our two lynches today.

[Mikujin]

@Mikijun - if you have so little confidence in your info why did you bring it up? I'm not sure I see the town advantage here.

Because it kinda came up at the tail end of yesterday, and if I don't try to breadcrumb now, I'll not keep my pattern up properly. It may seem trite, but it's a rather committed effort.

On a related note, I'd also be satisfied with an SSBF/Axelrod scenario for today.

[Axelrod]

Mikujin:

This is what I would like to do: You have dropped enough "hints" that anyone who is 1/2 way paying attention is going to be assuming you have an information role. Basically, there's no real reason to keep this in the closet if there is anything at all to be gained from it, but the best way (imo) is to go slowly.

First:

If you "saw" xvart (Cersei - Roleblocker) target Locke last Night, which would obviously explain why you said you didn't exect Locke to have any results, I think you should confirm/deny at this point. That's all you should say. Then, depending on the answer there might be some follow-up questions that are worth asking. For example, your hint also suggests you might have seen

other

people targeting Locke last Night besides xvart, and if this is the case, and depending on the

number

of other people (and who they were - which you shouldn't be revealing), there might be some useful info. there.

And Macavitar, that has got to be one of the laziest "closer looks" I've ever seen. Seriously, talk about superficial.

My gut was suggesting that Axelrod needed a closer look too. I definitely think there's something to that. Look at his interactions with Percy and Raivann. Look at his iso 13, where he claims that he wasn't a fan of Deer. Except he never voiced that in earlier posts,

Sheesh. There's always got to be a first time you talk about someone. There were, and are, still people I haven't really said much of anything about this game. In that post, Raviann was getting some attention, so I weighed in on him - fairly accurately, if I do say so myself. You might also note (not that you'll consider this a point in my favor, but whatever) that right before I made that post I admitted I was slacking on this game, and I was doing some re-reading before commenting.

But, okay, fine, I said that I hadn't been a fan of Deer in that post which was something I hadn't stated before. This is only any kind of "tell" at all, (and it would be a minor one at best) if I am, in fact, Deer/Raivann's scumbuddy, yes?

and it's not like he ever voted for Raiv.

That's really misleading. I'm pretty sure I said several times I didn't like him and he was a good choice, but I went with CMAR on Day 1 because of his lurking mostly, and then I laid off Raivann because he claimed vig. I think I said - again, accurately - that Raivann was going to get caught if that claim was false, and I was hardly the only person who expressed those sentiments.

Really like iso 20, where he reminds Raiv to claim, followed up by poo-pooing the vig claim in iso 22. It reads like he's admonishing his buddy there.

If I had a dollar for every time I've asked a scum a question or put pressure on one and then later got accused of "coaching" said hypothetical scumbuddy, I'd be rich. Seriously, that's one of the worst arguments out there. "Coaching" during the day almost never happens. Because it's stupid.

Bussing

happens all the time, but not "coaching" where one scum tries to somehow hint to his buddy or get his buddy to answer some question, but "sneakily" so no one notices him doing it - it's just dumb. It's one of these mythical arguments people use to accuse someone of being scum, which common sense says aren't right, but since anything can be a "tell" if you look at it from a certain angle, it still gets trotted out. But this is what I always get accused of.

Iso 24 heavily pushes CMAR over Raiv.

Heavily? Over Raiv? Raiv was a dead wagon at that point (remember, vig. claim?) I was flabbergasted that people were starting to vote for

Richard

over CMAR when CMAR had done nothing but be incredibly and unbelievably useless. And I still stand by that.

A quote to enjoy:

There is no evidence implying that Percy is scum.

Well, that's not exactly true either. There's certainly nothing blatant though.

While being a strong supporter of Percy throughout the game, he decides that he needs to add this little disclaimer.

A "strong supporter" of Percy? And this is where I accuse you of either not reading (lazy) or being deliberately misleading (scummy). My interaction with Percy consisted of one time "barning" him over his assessment of CSL - which

still

stands, and I still think CSL is scummy, irrespective of whether or not Percy said so. I didn't support Percy to be Hand, and you might recall he was one of my first choices for the free Cop inspect yesterday, which I believe you - or was it your hydra - said was horribly scummy of me to even suggest.

So yeah, strong supporter, that was me. Percy said a number of things that raised my proverbial hackles this game (which I think I said already) but I certainly wasn't sure about him being scum, and didn't feel like I had enough to call him out on either.

And now I need to go back and try to remember why I though you were town, terrible as that post was.

[Mikujin]

Mikujin:

This is what I would like to do: You have dropped enough "hints" that anyone who is 1/2 way paying attention is going to be assuming you have an information role. Basically, there's no real reason to keep this in the closet if there is anything at all to be gained from it, but the best way (imo) is to go slowly.

First:

If you "saw" xvart (Cersei - Roleblocker) target Locke last Night, which would obviously explain why you said you didn't exect Locke to have any results, I think you should confirm/deny at this point. That's all you should say. Then, depending on the answer there might be some follow-up questions that are worth asking. For example, your hint also suggests you might have seen

other

people targeting Locke last Night besides xvart, and if this is the case, and depending on the

number

of other people (and who they were - which you shouldn't be revealing), there might be some useful info. there.

Rolefishing, eh?

I've already said

exactly

what I saw, you're just not looking hard enough.

[Axelrod]

I agree with Macavitar re: Axelrod. I found myself more concerned by his slot on a re-read during night, especially that quote he highlighted. I was also left with the impression he spent a lot of time talking about SSBF's SK-ness and the setup, then suddenly declared he didn't like Rifka when the lynch became viable. I'm going to go ahead and:

Vote: Axelrod

Who's Theon Greyjoy? Is it you?

Sheesh. Are you really saying you are going with the "it's suspicious that I said Percy was suspicious" line of reasoning?

And I don't understand your point re: SSBF. I think he's pretty blatantly the SK (because it's either that or there is simply no SK at all and our Mod. decided to be a bit of a Bastard by making

Arya

a Town vig. who "hacks" people to pieces, and then SSBF made some seriously questionable choices). I wanted him lynched yesterday, and basically got shouted down by everyone who thought there was no problem keeping him around.

And, yeah, bad on me for re-reading and taking a stand. I was ready to vote Unsight, right up till the end, then Rifka started to get some momentum from I don't remember where, so I decided to re-read him and low and behold, he looked pretty bad to me. Fault my reasoning if you will - I laid it all out there - but please don't just vote me for being wrong. I might also point out that it doesn't really make a lot sense for me to go pushing an alternate wagon at the last minute

unless

Unsight were my scum-buddy. Is that what you think?

[Axelrod]

Rolefishing, eh?

I've already said

exactly

what I saw, you're just not looking hard enough.

You know, if I ask you a question directly, it's not "fishing."

I have "looked" and I'm stating what appears to be obvious. Now, if that's not right, then, fine, there may be something else entirely going on and it may or may not be profitable for you to remain cryptic. If you have truly stated

exactly

what you saw, then maybe there's nothing there at all. All I'm saying is if you are choosing to remain cryptic when being more forthcoming could have helped you had best have a good reason for doing it when the time comes. I had my own good reasons for asking you.

I also note your above posted support for a me lynch, however, so I'm going to ask you to go into more detail about

that

, if you don't mind.

[Axelrod]

I'm coming to the opinion that reviewing a player's posts in "iso" is actually not that great. At first I thought it was neat, but now I think you lose so much of the context. Yes, you can click the post and go and see it in the actual thread as well, but I know I don't always do that.

Not saying this would have changed my opinion of Rifka. Probably not. But I think doing these "iso" rereads just doesn't substitute for an actual re-read.

[Axelrod]

And now, for your reading pleasure, here's how the Rifka lynch actually went down:

First Vote: Thor in #1774. reasoning is "mostly gut" and also to try and get some discussion going. At the time of this post SSBF had 3 votes and Unsight had 4. Vote is fine, and Thor seems pretty Town at this time in any event.

Actually, this was not the "first" vote for Rifka. Locke voted Rifka in #1507, which he will later unvote (and then revote). Locke's reasoning is that he's focusing on the people who were critical of people who wanted Percy to step forward (of which there were three, Locke, Benmage, and myself). Given his role this is not unreasonable and nothing particularly suspicious about the vote. It is actually somewhat ironic now, however, as Locke is voting me for reasons that

appear

to be my expressing doubts about Percy (but in a suspiciously non-committal way?) Which is something of a reversal of the reasoning for this vote.

Locke's revote comes at #1863. His main reasoning appears to be that Rifka looked like he was buddying up to Benmage to try and get Benmage off his back. Fine.

Third Vote is from xvart, except this is really Locke again as xvart has proxied his vote to Locke. Nothing to see here.

Fourth vote is from Mcaviter in #1923. Reason is to "shake things up." At that point, Unsight had 7 votes and Rifka was now at 4. This vote doesn't bother me too much. As I said before, I don't really think that scum would have all that much incentive to go pushing a mis-lynch on Rifka close to deadline when someone else not on their team was already on the hook. So, maybe, if Macaviter were scumbuddies with Unsight, but even then, I don't really see him making this vote this way. He's just throwing it out there to see what happens, which is actually more of a Townish mindset than not.

Fifth vote was Mina in #1936. This also appears to be kind of a "shake things up" vote. Which is fine. The only thing I don't particularly care for is the way she admonishes Rifka not to claim unless it looks like he's going to be the lynch. Like, if I'm voting for someone, I'm generally happy if they claim. It kind of undercuts the force of the vote to ask them not to. On the other hand, I suppose there have been a rash of early claimers in this game, and it's not totally unreasonable for her to want to avoid another one for no good purpose (assuming at that moment that Unsight was still going to be the actual lynch). Mina has seemed very town to me most all the game anyway.

Sixth Vote was me, in the next post #1937. I was actually compiling my post at the same time Mina was doing hers, though you'd have to take my word on that one. I'm not going to analyze my own post, so someone else can do that. It was what it was. All I can say (and this is totally from my own viewpoint knowing my own alignment) is that I think my post would perhaps have given scum on the fence who were wavering about how to jump more ammunition to justify voting for Rifka than they would have had previously from the prior voters.

Seventh vote is hasdgfas in #1952. Hasdgfas is mod-confirmed Town.

Momentum has now swung towards Rifka, but the two are still neck and neck. There's concern about the possibility of a No Lynch, though Locke is promising that he will switch over to Unsight with his xvart proxy if need be at the deadline.

Eighth vote is SSBF in #1971. He was previously voting CSL (you know, the person he didn't vig.) but switches now to avoid a No Lynch and barns my reasoning. SSBF is the SK.

Ninth and Lynching vote is Diddin in #1975 which is just the vote. His reasoning comes earlier in #1972 which is "Lynching is better than No Lynching." He is then encouraged to hammer by Locke and does so.

This is really the most interesting vote of the bunch. Diddin is the only player who actually switched wagons, off of Unsight and onto Rifka, and did so for the purported reason of getting a Lynch instead of a No Lynch. Except Locke was already saying that we were

not

going to No Lynch. He was not going to let us. Locke was standing by to drop two more votes on Unsight if need be at the deadline. Unsight was the person Diddin was voting for, and, presumably, the person Diddin wanted lynched most. Why switch at all here? This is like a false dilemma. In fact, by switching, you lose the lynch you supposedly want more? Of all the votes, this one comes across as the weakest. It's like Diddin was expressing a false sense of panic and trying to look as townie as possible by saying HE would drop the hammer if no one else would!

Looking at his posts in (shudder) iso, he really didn't have much to say about Rifka at all before that. He didn't have much to say about Unsight either when he voted him. He was mostly barning the reasoning of others. This has the effect of making his vote look more like a "I don't care who gets lynched" kind of vote.

So, that's that. My professional assessment is that Diddin looks the worst of all the Rifka voters and SSBF is still the SK.

[Locke Lamora]

Interesting reaction. Let's see:

1. No, you're not suspicious because you said Percy was suspicious. You're suspicious because of the way you hinted that you might be harbouring some suspicion of Percy without really explaining that read at all.

2. Yes, SSBF is blatantly the SK. I just found that there was a period during D2 where you didn't do much else apart from talk about the setup and SSBF being SK. I never said it was a scummy assumption - a number of people have said the same thing since he claimed.

3. I'm not voting you because you were wrong about Rifka. I was wrong about Rifka, Thor was wrong about Rifka...and so on, and so forth. My point was that you came along as the wagon had picked up momentum, did a Rifka reread and suddenly declared her to be pretty damn scummy. I believe someone (Mina?) mentioned that it felt that you were trying to paint every thing Rifka did as scummy. I got a similar impression and it felt more like scum trying too hard to justify hopping on a bandwagon.

I do agree with you about Diddin. That does demonstrate a genuine lack of interest in an Unsight lynch. If we do have 4-man scumteams, I think Diddin would be a good lynch because I think Sandor is a logical addition to a Tywin-Cersei-Joffrey team given the context of the book.

[Super Smash Bros. Fan]

@Thor665: It was a difficult choice to make in terms of who to kill. The first option (CSL) would get rid of someone who I thought was truly scummy, although if town, not someone who I think will destroy the game for the town.

The second option (vezokpiraka) was an extremely anti-town player that

no one

would want at endgame because he is almost always useless and he was scummy anyway, even thought not as much as CSL. However, unlike CSL, vezokpiraka can litterally cause his own faction to lose the game. See Mafia Vs. Werewolves (Large Normal). Vezokpiraka was a confirmed townie who was a monk mason. He was almost totally useless throughout the entire game and was kept until endgame because scums knew that he could easily be manipulated in their favor and that's exact what happened. He was one of the major reasons why the town lost the game.

And I completely understand that no one would want vezokpiraka around anymore in this game. The longer we kept him around, the worse the situation would get and had it not been for him being killed by me, I can almost guarateen that he would live until endgame and still be completely useless.

When it all boils down, my reason for killing vezokpiraka is this:
- Even more useless then CSL.
- Is capable of destroying all chance of a win for his faction due to his uselessness.
- Won't be killed by the scums due to his incredibly anti-town meta. He wouldn't be lynched either.
- I can't remember anyone wanting vezokpiraka to stay around.
- Can easily be manipulated in scums favor.

[diddin]

Ok, since tomorrow is my last day before school starts, I promise a big post, probably on Axelrod.

[Thor665]

@SSBF - why shouldn't you be lynched today? A two lynch day seems an optimal one to verify you, and if you're Vig you've killed 2 scum and 1 VI so you've pretty much been an awesome Vig already. Seems pretty smart to kill you now to clear the SK fears - thoughts?

[Locke Lamora]

SSBF: we know

why

you killed Vezo. I'm not disagreeing that killing Vezo was a good idea. It's because of comments like this that I'm dubious:

Why isn't Unsight dead yet?

It's because Unsight hasn't claimed yet?

Now I'd like for you to answer this question, what have you done to support the Unsight's lynch wagon? So far, all I see is a vote on him and a vote alone is not good enough. You haven't really given us any proper justification of your own, even if they were parroting on other people.

Vote: CSL

If you aren't lynched today, definently shooting you tonight.

SSBF: why CSL over Vezo? Vezo threatened to vote Unsight when he already was, for crying out loud.

I feel that vezokpiraka play is more anti-town while CSL is scummier. Yes vezokpiraka has commited scum tell, but I feel that CSL is even worse in this department. vezokpiraka is at least trying to participate in the game while CSL is doing next to nothing to help the town. The fact that he holds strong bonds with Raivann as has been pointed out a few times is enough for me to have him as my kill preference.

Finally, on deadline day, you say that you are torn between the two targets. Why? You were dead set on lynching CSL and killing him at night if he wasn't lynched. You suddenly completely abandon your certainty for no other reason that I can see than to please the people who wanted Vezo dead.

[Axelrod]

More thoughts.

I think I'm (sadly) coming around to the idea of 4-man scum teams, and the main reason is all the "extra" stuff the Town is getting during the day, free inspections, extra lynch, etc. Without that I would have said a 4-4-1 set-up was too much scum, but with it, maybe it's not too out of whack.

4-man scum teams means there would still be 3 Mafia + our SK living, however, with only 13 players left, which made me wonder how far we can get with pure process of elimination methods.

Such as:

People who are pretty much as "clear" as they are going to get baring a "Cop" inspect on them:

hasdgfas

- mod. confirmed. Unclaimed I think.

Thor665

- vig. (I assume 1-shot though he's never stated definitively.) Vigged Percy undercircumstances making it almost impossible for him to be Percy's buddy. Could he be a Lannister with a 1-shot Day-kill? I just don't see that, ever.)

Locke Lamora

- NameCop (busted Percy, again under circumstances that make it virtually impossible for him to be Percy's buddy. Could he be a Lannister with a Name Cop? Aside from that being a crappy ability for a scum team, I just don't think so)

This leaves a group of 10 people. Of which I am one and I at least can take myself out if no one else can.

This leaves 9 people. 4 scum (assumption).

Now, one of these scum is as known as you can get without Cop inspect. That is SSBF. He is the SK. So, put him to the side and that leaves a group of 8 people with 3 potential mafia in there (yes, for anyone else I am in there and you take your own name out, okay?):

2) Mina
4) MacavityLock
6) Unsight
15) Mikujin
18) diddin
19) CSL
23) RichardGHP
25) MagnaOfIllusion

Now we get to "reads." Of this group, I have had a good read on Mina all game. And that has pretty much remained consistent. Other people have gone up and gone down, but Mina has stayed right there at the top. I have thought scum were Town before, but I am rarely

that

wrong when I've pegged someone as Town. Mina is just not an option for me. YMMV.

I had what I though was a good read on Macavitar, but I no longer feel nearly so confident, so he is still in the mix.

4) MacavityLock
6) Unsight
15) Mikujin
18) diddin
19) CSL
23) RichardGHP
25) MagnaOfIllusion

Richard still has the whole "Loras was a vengeful townie" thing going for him. Could he be a scum under those circumstances? Well, what I'm realizing is that - if he were scum - it wouldn't be Lannister or Greyjoy scum. Loras has zero reason to be going vengeful townie over a Lannister or a Greyjoy. No, the only way I was thinking Richard could be scum was as part of a third scum group - an as yet unrevealed faction. Which there is zero evidence for (unless SSBF is one of them and has been doing all their killing and there is no SK in this game.) And even

then

, it would be Bastard Mod. to do something like that (have a Townie gain a vig. shot on the death of a scum out of "vengeance") So, no, despite his rather weak play, I'm not calling Richard scum here.

4) MacavityLock
6) Unsight -
15) Mikujin
18) diddin
19) CSL -
25) MagnaOfIllusion

6 People, 3 scum, 50% chance. Now we're talking. (or there's just 1 scum and it's 3-3-1 and we're in great shape now). So, what are the current claims?

4) MacavityLock
6) Unsight - Ser Davos Seaworth, Vanilla Town
15) Mikujin - (some kind of information role)
18) diddin - "The Hound" Sandor Clegane, Vanilla Town
19) CSL - Maester Luwin, Vanilla Town
25) MagnaOfIllusion

I want to believe Mikijin. Clearly he knows something. Certainly he knew that Locke was turning up no results last Night. I would love to get him out of this group, but I'm not quite there yet with him still being so vague and cryptic. Really, once you get down to a group this small,

any

information could potentially break the game. This is the time for people to be coming

out

if they've got something. A real solid claim (and there are still a few out there) could narrow down the pool even more.

Anyway, this is the group to look at from where I'm sitting. We've got 2 lynches. SSBF should be one, and someone here the other. Probably not Mikujin just because of his "info" claim. That at least can buy him another day to produce something, as long as there are other good choices. Probably not Mcavitar either, despite recently dropping polls. CSL and Unsight have gotten most of the attention here, and for good reasons. They are still very viable. Diddin has a suspicious name-claim, and that poor vote on Rifka yesterday, and I don't remember a lot else. Magna has not gotten much of a look at all that I can see, which is not a positive or a negative. Maybe I'll try to get a better read on him specifically next.

End Current thoughts