/Invitational 11: Pick your Poison 5 (Game Over)

[CrashTextDummie]

Hi.

Any deadlines or other pressing matters I should be aware of? Give me a day or two to catch up otherwise.

[CrashTextDummie]

Apologies for not getting this done yet, unforseen stuff happened. Will have found the time within the next 24 hours.

[CrashTextDummie]

Alright, I started reading, first 10 pages down. As usual, Day 0 stuff is a chore to read through, as I don't think it gives much information pertinent to scumhunting. I admit to skimming some of the longer posts by confirmed town players.

I don't have many notes, but it's more than nothing:

From the people still alive, MME (now Pokerface) struck me as the most pro-town for his massclaim proposal. Knowing what we do now about the set-up (that town started with 2 vigs and two trackers), I think massclaim would have been very advantageous for the town. I very very seriously doubt scum would have suggested it. Plus, I think a town player is more likely to look for and suggest potentially game breaking strategies than scum (which is why Zorblag and Hoopla struck me as very town as well, I'm curious to find out how they ended up getting lynched).

By far the most scummy player of the first 10 pages is VasudeVa (now HackerHuck). Not only did he speculate on a 2vig/2tracker set-up as the most likely and still refused the massclaim idea (or even consider it), he also brought up the fact that scum were day-talking on two seperate occasions. Since scum are the ones actually doing the day-talking, I find them to be more likely to bring this up in-thread than townies. A decent tell.

Mith pinged my scumdar for shooting down MME's massclaim idea using flawed math. Most people openly rejected the idea, but his reaction struck me as the most likely to come from scum. He presented numbers that looked pretty (not to mention pretty decisive) but were utterly meaningless in the context of this game. Bringing them up seems disingenuous to me. As outlined above, I think scum only had to lose from a massclaim and mith's argument read to me like scum trying to nip the idea in the bud with a sleigh of hands.

Papa Zito (now iamusername) pinged my scumdar lightly for extreme uselessness.

No one else piqued my interest.

Scumteam as of page 10 (in order of likeliness):
HackerHuck, mith, iamusername

I'm hoping the game gets easier to read once the theory discussion is done with. Next batch coming shortly.

[CrashTextDummie]

(Sidenote before the next analysis post: I read the last couple of pages as well as the circumstances of Hoopla's lynch before starting to read the game proper. I am assuming Hoopla to be town based on her gambit)

[CrashTextDummie]

Pages 11-20 read, game got interesting thankfully:

My suspicions of mith have increased. His reaction to DGBs gambit is consistent with what I'd expect from one of her buddies. I particularly disliked how he used it to drill Hoopla (case in point: Post 412, in which he asks for nothing short of mind reading from Hoopla) and ultimately used it to push the wagon on her. I felt his case against DGB was a lot stronger (particularly since he claims to have a good track record at reading her) than the one against Hoopla. This is significant because he was the tipping point in getting the Hoopla wagon going (prior to his votes, Hoopla and DGB had the same amount of votes). At this point in my read, he's a good bet for scum.

Vasudeva (HackerHuck) did little in these 10 pages, and none of it was encouraging. Of particular note is the wagon hopping and the weak bandwagon vote on Hoopla.

Papa Zito (iamusername) made me raise my eyebrow early in D1 with his unreasoned Hoopla hate and a "DGB is DGB" stance to her gambit, but I haven't decided yet if I find it very scummy. My irritation with him could be playstyle related. Needless to say, he doesn't exactly make my scumlist.

MME (Pokerface) did very little in these 10 pages. I carry over my pro-town feelings from D0.

I had issues with ooba's entry into D1 (Post 381). It's fairly useless; his criteria for assigning people to the scum/town column doesn't make much sense. I also dislike where certain people ended up on the list. And lastly, it bothers me that he awards town-points for supporters of massclaim, and yet he was hedging his bets on the issue for the entirely of D0. Considering my point about massclaim in the last post, this makes a whole lot of sense from a scum point-of-view.

Plum struck me as rather pro-town for generally accurate analysis and spotting some of the same things I spotted (re: ooba, for example).

Ekim (Fate) and SpyreX continue to not leave a lasting impression. Not a big issue at this point in my read.

Most likely scum as of page 20:
mith, Vasudeva, ooba

[CrashTextDummie]

I'll continue tomorrow. It's getting late and this took longer than expected. That D0 was draining to read.

[CrashTextDummie]

Reading. Switching my analysis formatting to something that worked better in the past. Pages 21-30:

Fate (replacing ekiM)

- I have a somewhat mixed reading on ekiM. His unvoting of Hoopla struck me as rather pro-town, his metaing seems genuine. On the other hand, I don't like the VV defense. Didn't really care for his late-day voting behavior either: He unvoted zoraster because the wagon lacked momentum, yet he put his vote on a person with even less momentum (with weak reasoning to boot). I could see this coming from scum who doesn't want to tip the scale in a scenario with Hoopla-town and VV-scum. Not the scummiest player by a longshot, but I'll keep an eye out as I read on.

mith

- not much from him in these pages. I disagree with Hoopla that he is more likely to attack her this consistently as town. I've played with mith-scum before and know he's easily capable of such a relentless attack. My opinion of him hasn't changed, still a very good candidate for scum. Looking forward to the oozing Fate has promised.

PokerFace (replacing My Milked Eek)

- not much from this player slot. Not as big a fan of SaintKerrigan as I was of MME, dislike the lack of vote at the end of the day. Not bad enough for me to seriously reconsider my stance though. Not an interesting character still.

ooba

- only two content posts. I don't find them particularly scummy, but his play is way too under-the-radar for my taste. I continue to be unimpressed.

iamausername (replacing Papa Zito)

- I didn't take many notes on him. General feeling is that his contributions increased in these 10 pages, which makes me feel better about him. I may have to read back on him when I'm done, because I still don't really know where I stand on him.

Plumegranate

- continues to make posts that rub me the right way. I feel very in tune with her as I read the game. Probably town.

SpyreX

- got more visible in this portion of the game. I'm not sure I like the VV hate from him, it had the hallmarks of a :strongbus:. I know I didn't like the way he ended up on Hoopla. Not the scummiest in the bunch, but definitely worth a raised eyebrow.

HackerHuck (replacing VasudeVa)

- I don't understand how Hoopla got lynched over him, even with her deliberate bad play he was far and away the scummiest player of D1. My predecessors posts in ISO pretty much give the picture: shameless wagoning, refusal to answer questions, feigned indignation, terrible (non) defense. Everything about him screams scum.

Most likely scum as of page 30:
VasudeVa, mith. Third slot up for grabs between ooba/SpyreX/ekiM (in order of likeliness)

Next 10 pages coming up.

[CrashTextDummie]

Another 10 pages read. Switching my analysis formatting again because I'm a rebel:

VasudeVa continues to be incredibly scummy. I'm gonna save some time and direct you to my predecessor Seraphim's posts. I agree with them 100%. I also think that DGB's play is indicative of VV-scum. Why is he still alive?

I got distinct town vibes from ooba's attack against VV. His use of meta in posts like 933 strikes me as the kind of stuff scum wouldn't go to the lenght of to justify a vote on a player like VV.

SpyreX's continued attack against VV still smells like a bus to me. And even if I'm wrong about VV, I see him as more likely scum than ooba at this point in my read.

The KMD/Elmo tracker-vig business was unfortunate. None of the reactions to it struck me as particularly scummy or pro-town. That includes mith's treatment of the issue. The argument he makes made sense from a pro-town perspective at the time (it does kind of conveniently ignore the possibility of two vigs, but considering the lack of a third night-kill, I think that would have been a fair assumption to make for town-mith). It's also the argument I'd expect scum-mith to make. I consider it neutral.

Speaking of mith, he started backing up his DGB-hate (which he harbored since the beginning of the game) with a vote in this portion of a game. I don't see it as very indicative of his alignment at this point in my read.

SaintKerrigan (PokerFace) was barking up the wrong tree with her Seraphim-case, but I felt it was genuine. Continues to be the most pro-town playerslot along with Plumegranate.

Not sure I like ekiM (Fate) abandoning a DGB vote for ooba. Smells opportunistic. He continues to be a player I find vaguely suspect.

Papa Zito (iamausername) spent these 10 pages wierdly "guiding" VV to some kind of realisation involving night-kills and the like. I didn't really get it and I don't see the point. I have an issue with people dropping hints like that and inviting other people to piece them together (I've seen it used as a scum-tactic before), and I have an issue with it here, but I'm not sure to what extent. He's the player I'm probably most in need of reading in isolation.

Scum list as of page 40 is very similar to the last one, except bump ooba down a couple notches.

I'll finish this up tomorrow. Thank you for your patience.

[CrashTextDummie]

I respectfully decline, kind sir.

[CrashTextDummie]

I'd appreciate no hammer until I'm caught up, CAPSLOCK be damned. Shouldn't take me too much longer, I'm reading again.

[CrashTextDummie]

Up to page 50 read. Analysis:

Zoraster lynch happened in these pages, which I thought was terrible. The scummiest vote came from SpyreX. I don't see how the reasoning he provided for the vote indicated scum-zoraster in the slightest. Plum gets further town-points for catching this bit of opportunism. All the while, SpyreX continued being at arms with VV, which

continues

to smell of busing.

Second scummiest vote on the zoraster-wagon belongs to mith (the first one, not the near deadline one). I had a similar reaction to this as KMD had (I assume this is the "tracker was left alive because he suspected mith" episode Fate talked about), it didn't feel genuine.

[...] add the possibility that he's scum playing dumb and it's yet another point against him.

Nope, not buying it.

Didn't like miths defense against this line of thinking much either. It relied too much on "scum-mith would do that/scum-mith wouldn't do that" reasoning for my taste (Post 1150, Post 1171). Do have to admit that the football-analogy part of his defense went a bit over my head, though.

Interactions between DGB and mith felt weird and a bit staged in these pages. Mith unvotes DGB, votes zoraster -> DGB votes mith -> Mith votes DGB again -> DGB votes zoraster -> Mith votes zoraster. Can't really put my finger on it, but it left a bad taste in my mouth.

VasudeVa continues to be very suspicious. He was among the people who drove the zoraster-wagon to the point where it became feasible, at which point he abandoned it and seemed to make a conscious effort not to get attached to it again (his vote went to mith, then to SpyreX, despite claiming continued suspicion of zoraster). Behavior towards DGB also doesn't speak in his favor either. I don't understand why he's not dead.

At this point, I'm convinced there's more scum than town in this group of players: {VasudeVa, mith, SpyreX}

Plumegranate continues to be obvtown. EkiM's vote against zoraster doesn't bother me too much compared to the others mentioned. Ooba's play continues to be underwhelming (he managed 30 posts in the first 50 pages, and about half of them were of the "will catch up" nature (slight exaggeration)), but he's not a prime suspect. MME-Playerslot continues doing nothing. My patience is wearing thin.

Next 10 pages coming up.

[CrashTextDummie]

I read pages 51-60, in which everyone got replaced and things started getting painful again.

First of all:
What the hell @ Plum wagon. I refuse to believe there was only one scum on it. Fate and HackerHuck are the candidates. Oh hi, HackerHuck. Only 4 posts in the game so far and already I have every reason to believe my read on his predecessor was right.

I am not impressed by Fate's entry into the game. A lot of what he posts is pure rubbish. Treatment of DGB is bad. Treatment of other people is equally bad (as far as my reads are concerned). It's counterbalanced somewhat by his brashness and an apparent drive to get shit done. IGMEOY.

Iamausername's entry was a mixed bag: Clearly he put a lot of effort in it. Some of his reads are spot-on (Plum, MME), some are the opposite (all his top suspects sans DGB). I felt that his case against DGB was strongest, and yet she doesn't top his list. I also have a problem with his "if one of DGB/Rhinox flips scum, it clears the other and if one flips town it implicates the other" theory considering the alignment of these two players. I started feeling better about him as the game went on, but those are still things worth pointing out.

Ooba did just that. He continues not contributing a lot, but when he does, it's usually spot-on. Is something drastic gonna happen in those next 15 pages? Because I don't see myself hammering him at this point.

Mith continues hating DGB. It doesn't improve my opinion of him by much. Scum-DGB gets bussed, that's pretty much a law of mafia. In my experience, it's hard to make sense of DGBs antics irregardless of her alignment unless you're scum with her. Hence why it's usually easier for her scum-buddies to see her scum-moves for what they are than it is for a townie. This is not to say that I count his general correctitude re: DGB as a point against mith, because it's entirely possible for a player of his caliber to get DGB right even as town (I think he even mentioned having a good track record at reading her) and I'm trying to avoid falling into the trap of confirmation bias. It's just that I don't really award town points to players who call scum-DGB from the beginning of the game (particularly if that player still ends up on two town-lynches along the way).

Why is SpyreX voting ooba and not HackerHuck? Doesn't make much sense to me after he's been calling the latter scum for so long. Could it be that he was bussing a weak-ass scum-partner and stopped as soon as he was replaced? Just a thought.

PokerFace is also new, but he has done nothing yet. Quite frankly, I don't really care.

HackerHuck, Mith, SpyreX <- look for scum here

I will finish my analysis tomorrow just to spite Fate. Good night.

[CrashTextDummie]

If I'm wrong about one of those three, replace with Fate.

[CrashTextDummie]

By the by, could someone unvote ooba in the meantime please? I'd hate for HackerHuck to drop the hammer before I'm done.

[CrashTextDummie]

Praise the lord, I'm all caught up.

HackerHuck and SpyreX are scum together. I will eat my hat, my coat and my pants if they are not. SpyreX has been hating on HH/VasudeVa

all game long

. Not a day has passed in which he didn't lament the lack of VV death or thank the heavens when a wagon on him started to form. And yet he ended up on every single lynch (usually in very opportunistic fashion and on weak reasoning) and is currently voting ooba. Of further note is his extended period of ooba-voting on D3 when VV got replaced by HackerHuck.

Also take a look at VasudeVa in ISO and Control F "SpyreX". The first time he even

mentions

him is on page fucking 48. This despite his whole "people voting me are scummy" spiel he spent most of his time arguing against Seraphim for. It couldn't be more obvious that they are scum-buddies.

HackerHuck is individually the most scummy player by far, bar none, no contest. Iamausername has summed it up over the last couple of pages. No sane townie would ever make an argument or analysis under the assumption that he himself is scum. And this is just the icing on the cake made of a staggering amount of evidence that this playerslot has played a scummy game from beginning to end. Any lynch today that isn't HackerHuck is just poor town play.

I found it easier to see mith as town ever since DGB died. He made some observations that even a scum-player as good as him would have a hard time coming up with (the VasudeVa slip, for example). Based on the last couple of days, he's not one of my top suspects anymore, even though he ended up on yesterday's mislynch and has participated in todays ooba-wagon shenanigans.

Most likely 3rd scum alongside HH/SpyreX is Fate, who has done little but derail good wagons and fuel bad or suspect ones ever since he replaced.

I have no interest in lynching ooba today. Apart from a general lack of participation, I have little to object to in his play. Actual content contributions are more good than bad. I really don't understand how this wagon sprung up all of a sudden.

Iamausername has emerged as the most pro-town player thanks to heaps of :goodposting:. Plumegranate has slipped some due to undesireable voting over the last couple days, but remains uninteresting. The same is true for Pokerface, who has built some on the good faith I had in his predecessors.

Scum:
HackerHuck
SpyreX

Possible scum:
Fate
mith

Probably not scum:
ooba
PokerFace

Most likely town:
Plumegranate
Iamausername

Vote: HackerHuck

[CrashTextDummie]

I will answer questions directed at me by mith and HH tomorrow, provided we're not in night by then.

[CrashTextDummie]

Oi Fate, your thoughts on HackerHuck and SpyreX being scum together in 5, 4, 3, go go go. No capslock, please.

[CrashTextDummie]

Neither Fate nor SpyreX wants to hammer apparently. Even though they both claim not to really care either way and they've both been

really

impatient these last bunch of pages.

I don't mind the day going on longer at all, since I'd like for people to comment on my analysis, but what gives?

[CrashTextDummie]

L-1 actually.

[CrashTextDummie]

Grats to the scum!

Plum played a really clean game, and I felt her wagon on D3 (was it?) was inspired.

Pokerface was the most cleared player in my view, and I'm sad more people didn't realize it.