Micro 661 | Scumteam UnPick - Pressure Done

[BlackVoid]

Hey everyone. I'm replacing Tenshii.

Jaack, hi! I'm actually town here so if you're town, you're wrong. Who should I be voting?

[BlackVoid]

Finished up to the bottom of page nine. I can't see any of Jaack, Gamma, or ZZZX flipping scum here. It's pretty much got to be two of Prohawk, Smart, or Dunhallym. Going to try and figure out which of them is town. I'm leaning towards lynching ProHawk though.

[BlackVoid]

Updated Chart after removing ssbm/Jin:

Name	ZZ	DH	PH	BV	GE	SS	Jak
ZZZX	X		O	O	O
Dunhallym		X		O			O
ProHawk	O		X		O		O
BlackVoid	O	O		X		O	O
Gamma	O		O		X	O	O
Smart				O	O	X
Jaack		O	O	O	O		X

[BlackVoid]

On page twelve right now. I think it's Prohawk and Dunhallym. Maybe Smart on the off-chance I'm wrong on one of those. I'm somewhat surprised ssbm_kyouko got lynched because he started towntelling later on in the day.

My impression is that Prohawk and Dunnhallym took advantage of Jaack's tunnel of Jin/ssbm and hopped on. Prohawk's reasoning was particularly bad and Dunnhallym looked like she was recycling some of Jaack's points.

[BlackVoid]

Okay, I'm pretty sure both scum are within Prohawk, Dunhallym, and Smart to the point I won't be considering anyone else before lylo. We have limited time. I'll try my best to make sure we lynch scum today but I'm having a hard time finding the town in Prohawk, Dun, and Smart. I think it's Smart but I'm not really sure on that. Because deadline's approaching, I'll also try and see what outcomes I can live with in case we're wrong and place my vote based off of that. Let's see what happens if each of Prohawk, Dun, or Smart are lynched. I'll assume Jaack to be the nightkill since he's the most universally townread player.

If the scumteam is Prohawk and Dunhallym:

- If

Prohawk

is lynched, Dun would need to lynch both me and Smart to win. This is a decently good outcome.
- If

Dunhallym

is lynched, Prohawk has options from ZZZX, Gamma, and Smart. He'd need to lynch any two to win. This is a fantastic outcome because I have confidence in making good decisions as conf-town.
- If

Smart

is lynched and Jaack is nightkilled, it would be either BV/PH, Dun/PH, Gamma/PH, Gamma/BV, Gamma/Dun, or Dun/ZZZX. We'd likely lynch Prohawk next and have a 3-way between me, Dun, and Gamma. Not something I find appealing because I'd rather not get to 3-way in the first place.

If the scumteam is Prohawk and Smart:

- If

Prohawk

is lynched, Smart would need to lynch both me and Dun to win. This is a decently good outcome.
- If

Smart

is lynched, Prohawk has options from ZZZX, Gamma, and Dun. He'd need to lynch any two to win. This is a fantastic outcome because I have confidence in making good decisions as conf-town.
- If

Dunhallym

is lynched, and Jaack/Gamma is nightkilled, it would be either BV/PH, Smart/PH, Gamma/PH, Gamma/BV, or Smart/ZZZX. We'd likely lynch Prohawk next and have a 3-way between me, Smart, and conftown Jaack/Gamma/ZZZX. Not something I find appealing because I'd rather not get to 3-way in the first place.

If the scumteam is Dunhallym and Smart:

- If

Dunhallym

is lynched, Smart has options from ZZZX, Prohawk, or Gamma. This is a fantastic outcome.
- If

Smart

is lynched, Dunhallym has options from ZZZX, Prohawk, and Jaack. This is a fantastic outcome.
- If

Prohawk

is lynched, here's where things get a little complicated. ZZZX, Jaack, Gamma, BV, Smart, Dun. If we assume Jaack is nightkilled, it sets up Gamma and me against Smart and Dun. I have a decent amount of confidence, we'll get one of them lynched hopefully Dunhallym. It would confirm me as town and set up Gamma and ZZZX to go to three-way with Smart where they'll likely make the right choice. This doesn't seem like too horrible an outcome.

Overall, I want to hedge my bets here. Lynching one of Dun/Smart is high-risk, high-reward. If they flip scum, it'll be great but if we're wrong, lynching Prohawk and me back-to-back loses us the game. On the other hand, lynching Prohawk is low-risk, low-reward. If he flips town, I can live with that. If he flips scum, it's going to be between me, Dun, and Smart but we got two lynches to figure it out and I'm decently confident that we can.

So, unless something happens in the next three days where I get a confident read, Prohawk is who I want to lynch. I'm in the middle of page fifteen right now. I'll vote when I'm caught up.

[BlackVoid]

Well, I don't think it's Jaack. If you are town, the team I see as likely is Smart and Dun. Do you think they make sense as a team? Why are you townreading Dun?

[BlackVoid]

Active, sure. But the way she went after Jin/ssbm felt like she was just playing off of Jaack's suspicion there and riding on his coattails. Jaack on the other hand was a lot more pro-active with how he pushed Jin/ssbm. I could follow his thought process easily and I can tell why he went for that lynch.

[BlackVoid]

@Gamma, you are posting a lot on site but haven't posted here since yesterday after I gave you my reads. Is there a reason for that? I was hoping for your take on them.

[BlackVoid]

I'm on mobile, so I'm not going to 'formalize' my case this moment, but the gist of it is that they scumread each other right from the get go but have slowly devolved into town reads overtime. In a game where bussing is bad, that's kinda what I'd expect from scum.

I agree that bussing is bad. I think you should look at Prohawk/Dunhallym interactions. Each has the other as town for inexplicable reasons. Dun says that Prohawk is town but that there is a potential link to my slot. In other words, she doesn't want to lynch Prohawk, but if he does get lynched, she's setting up to go after me next. Their early play also has a lot of the distancing vibes that I tend to look for from scum.

I don't know what Tenshii was thinking when he townread Prohawk but it almost seems like when Tenshii backed off, Prohawk did too. This is beneficial for him as scum to townread a townie a backed off of him precisely

for

backing off of him.

The interaction basically went like this:
Tenshii: <backs off>
Prohawk: "oh look, he backed off despite me being an easy mislynch, he must be town!"

That's not a scum to scum interaction. That's scum being relieved that town second-guessed their read on him.

Jaack, look - I get why you might think Prohawk and Tenshii were scum but I like to think I'm fairly readable guy as town. We worked together decently well in mhsmith's game. I think you are town and right about Prohawk, work with me here.

[BlackVoid]

I can get Jaack at this point but can you explain gamma and ZZZZX ?

Sure.

ZZZX

1. My initial read there was gut. He just seemed very present in the game and looked like he was trying to move the game forward in a way that might be a bit hard for scum to fake naturally. His plan in 20 and 39 is an example of that. I don't agree with him but I got the impression that he's looking for ways to solve the game.
2. The townread on Prohawk despite breaking his plan shows that he's not just throwing out surface-level accusations but looking deeper into motivations. In the early game, it's hard to scum to make up convincing scumreads before people have settled into the game. Prohawk did something that ZZZX could have easily pushed on. But instead of going "Damn it Prohawk, you ruined my plan!" and using it as an excuse to have an early scumread, he looks deeper to analyze why scum would out their picks first, concludes that they wouldn't, and townreads Prohawk for it.
3. I agree with something_smart that 318 was genuine. I didn't find his surprise to be fake. I see it as a minor towntell since mafia have daytalk so they would have discussed this and planned accordingly.

Gamma

1. The scumread on Prohawk in 64 gives me slight townvibes because firstly I agree, and secondly, he doesn't seem able to explain it well. Early on in the game, he's taking initiative to develop reads even if he can't articulate them which I think scum is less likely to do.
2. I disagree with this scumread on Jaack in 102 but I understand where Gamma is coming from and it's actually a good point. I don't think what Jaack pointed out about Jin in 94 was alignment-indicative.
3. I agree with his 118 that your push on ArcAngel9 wasn't alignment-indcative and I liked that he pointed it out. I had been mildly scumreading your posts at that point.
4. Overall feel for Gamma is that the things he's pushing are stuff I can easily follow and understand and probably would have said if I was in the game. 160 is another post that makes sense to me and I did wonder what Arc was going on about there.
5. Although I don't agree with this point in 218, I don't really see the scum motive in trying to confirm Tenshii now I replaced in and know that it's a town slot.
6. I'm not sure I understand his Prohawk townread in 375 but given Prohawk is a potential lynch, I think if Gamma was scum, he'd be encouraging it rather than townreading Prohawk after Prohawk's intense desire to lynch him. It feels like an honestly wrong read (Gamma can't be scum with Prohawk so that option is out).

[BlackVoid]

BlackVoid writing Jaack, Gamma and ZZZX off as town makes me more than a little uncomfortable, as those are my townreads too so I wonder if he's either trying to appeal to me or keep me as a townbeard to protect his buddy Gamma.

Why does it make you uncomfortable? Why are you voting Prohawk if you Gamma and I are partners?

[BlackVoid]

Caught up. I think the scumteam is Prohawk and Dunhallym. Something_Smart is a hard read but he's the towniest of the three and some of his points are good. ZZZX, Gamma, and Jaack are stronger townreads.

VOTE: Prohawk (Lynch-1)

[BlackVoid]

Okay, that's fair. What changed your mind on Dun? Who do you think is the scumteam?

[BlackVoid]

Well, this is the second game in a row someone told me I was playing for the scum - with very similar wording even.

[BlackVoid]

So, here's my problem Prohawk. Your whole paragraph reads very far-fetched to me. A few things wrong with it:

Jaack doesn't

need

to mislynch you to win. He could have mislynched Tenshii and after my slot flips town, turn on someone else. He could have mislynched Gamma or Dun if he's scum. You haven't explained why he needs to mislynch you and that just feels a bit like rhetoric.

If Jaack was scum and worried about scrutiny or the need to change his reads, he wouldn't have pushed as hard as he did on Jin/ssbm. He led the lynch from the front and was the primary pusher. Portraying someone like that as scum who wants to avoid responsibility for the lynch isn't very convincing to me.

[BlackVoid]

Welcome to the new replacements.

@Grey, why would you just hammer like that? Dunhallym wasn't even voting Prohawk. Right now, he's got four votes: Jaack, Smart, me, and you. That's a lynch. In any case, I really think Prohawk is scum which would confirm you as town. But if not, this needs to be looked into tomorrow.

[BlackVoid]

Alright, so 45 clears Jaack and 47 clears Ms Columbo. That just leaves me, Smart, and Dun in the lynchpool.

I'm still leaning towards Dun as scum but I'm going to do a close re-read and I have a ton of questions for both of you first. Needless to say, don't quicklynch today. We have two shots to get it right but I want to make sure we win it today. I've seen people throw games by quicklynching way too many times.

[BlackVoid]

I'm going to continue later with game-relevant questions when I get home but I do want to get to know your playstyles a bit so I can get a baseline for both of you.

@Dunnhallym & Smart, can you talk about your playing history and playstyles as both alignments a bit. For example, how long you've been playing mafia, what alignment you prefer, your survival rate and winrate as mafia (approximation will do if you don't keep track), mislynch rate as town, and how accurate you think your reads are when you are town?

It'll help me profile you as players when I try to read you in-depth.

[BlackVoid]

All my stats are on my wiki.

[BlackVoid]

The one worry I had about Smart was that I didn't understand why he was scumreading my predecessor so hard. I skimmed Tenshii's ISO before I replaced in and he seemed town to me gut-wise, just easygoing and off-the-cuff. But you are right about his latest posting, he had a lot of good points.

[BlackVoid]

@Dun, what games of Prohawk's had you looked at and what conclusions did you draw from them?

[BlackVoid]

Dun, I didn't vote for Prohawk because of anyone else's case. It was a combination of POE and Prohawk's scummy play. Jaack was town obviously (you agreed as well). I explained why I townread ZZZX and Gamma. That just left you, Smart, and Prohawk. Smart was the towniest and Prohawk was the scummiest of the three of you. I found a lot of his arguments and stances to be fake. I didn't make a case on him because I thought I could get him lynched either way but if momentum had stalled, I would have written one out.

Smart may have voted before me but that was only because I was still catching up. I committed to voting Prohawk first. I've wondered if Smart saw that and put down a vote to look better than me in comparison. Anyways, I'm town and if you are, we've got today to explore the possibility of Smart being scum which I'm going to do when I re-read the thread.

[BlackVoid]

Finally got a chance to go over the game. Dun and Smart, if you could respond to stuff that's about you and clarify what you were talking about, that would be great. I'll do this in bits and pieces.

Game Review D1: Pages 1-4

9 - So, ArcAngel9 shows that she does know what the rules are. I'm not sure what her later confusion is about. I do get 53 but 55 seems a bit incoherent. 58 just seems to misunderstand Prohawk's wording as saying that neither player in his pairs is scum.

23 - I'm intrigued by Dun's vote on Prohawk here. Is there a reason for picking him to vote?

25 - Prohawk's vote back on Dun seems odd for it to be a co-incidence. I also want to note the mildly condescending tone ("this is scumhunting, darling") and regret that he didn't have her in his picks. Not sure what to make of it now but I'll see if there are any patterns. He's also condescending towards Tenshii in 27 so it might be nothing.

33, 34, and 35 seem to be a theory discussion. I agree with Dun but since Jaack seemed to agree with Prohawk, I think it's not indicative of alignment. If Dun is scum, they have obviously been using that to have a "disagreement" early on in the game. I'm curious at Dun's lack of comment on Gamma joining her RVS wagon on Prohawk for serious reasons and whether her vote became serious at that point.

38 - Prohawk switches his vote to Gamma for sheeping. Potential excuse to leave a partner's wagon.

50 and 52 - Both ArcAngel9 and Dunhallym have repeats in their picks. I'm thinking about what the scum's best strategy here is. If I were scum, I would have an extensive discussion to decide what my fake picks would be and I probably would leave my buddy out of it entirely and pick two non-repeating townies so as to not arouse suspicion for repeats. AA9's repeat is a Prohawk pick which would be an odd choice.

57 - Prohawk's question to Gamma right after a VC was posted. He seems worried about Gamma's vote on but not Dunhallym's.

59 - Prohawk's reaction to AA9 is much calmer than how he interacts with Dun. This is a minor point but it points to AA9/Smart not being his partner.

60 - This is Dunhallym's first content post. The questions to AA9, ZZZX, and everyone are fine. The last bit does look like a town-motivated question. What I have a problem with is the question to Gamma. There are two sides to the issue: either claim pairs immediately, or scumhunt first and then claim midway through D1. Gamma first agreed that we should claim immediately. Then Dun suggested scumhunting first and he agreed with that. Then Jaack brought up the point that it gives scum less info to fake strategic picks if we do it before scumhunting and Gamma thought that was a good point and changed his mind again. Given he's sixteen and seems fairly inexperienced, I didn't see any of this as reason to be concerned. I'm not sure what original arguments Dun expected him to come up with here. It feels like a manufactured reason to go after him.

78 - Jaack lays out his intention to lynch from Jin, Dun, and AA9 here. Prohawk's partner is definitely in here so his reaction would be informative I think. We know it isn't Jin and Prohawk sheeps Jaack on Jin so not that helpful but I'll look into this more in a bit.

Once the picks are laid out, it became apparent that Prohawk's only partners could be Jin, Tenshii (my slot), AA9 (Smart's slot), and Dunhallym. I think whichever of them are scum would be laying out suspicions of the other three so they can get a lynch if Prohawk flips. This isn't concrete though since when I replaced in, my two other suspicions also winded up being people who could be Prohawk's partner.

87 - On that note, this could be an early setup by Dunhallym to link my slot with Prohawk.

95 - Right after Jaack and Jin vote each, Dun votes AA9. The reasoning is somewhat weak (that AA9 accused her but didn't vote). As for the rest of your reads: What did you like about the way Prohawk engaged you early on? Can you go into specific posts and what you liked about them? I also don't understand what you mean by Jin "changing tone" so go into that as well.

[BlackVoid]

@Creature

- can we have the deadline extended another week? It's the holidays and I think a lot of people will have limited access the next week. I know I will and Dun seems to be V/LA entirely.

[BlackVoid]

Hi, I'm back. I want to take this slow. If we're wrong here, I'd hate to get in a 3-way where one of you have to make the final call. I'm going to continue with my re-read tomorrow and I definitely want to wait for Dun to return so we can comb through all options before we lynch. We've got time so no need to rush. Just want to make sure we end the game this game day.

[BlackVoid]

Continuing with my review. This is until the point ssbm_kyouko and Smart replaced in. ArcAngel9 is pretty much a blank for me so I'm probably going to rely on Smart to read that slot once I get there.

Game Review D1: Pages 5-8

108 is a decent point from Dunhallym. What bothers me is that it seems opportunistic to hop onto the wagon as Jaack was pushing it and Tenshii hopped on.

119 - This post by Prohawk could go either way. He puts both Dunhallym and AA9 in the lean town group and so doesn't have to push either of them. The rest of it is obvious. He was buddying Jaack to push an SAJ lynch through but that isn't helpful.

I'm not sure how people came to the conclusion that Tenshii/Prohawk were the team. It could be my bias but the entirety of page six is Prohawk trying to convince Tenshii that SAJ was scum and Tenshii cutting through his read although conceding that SAJ's post could have been ATE. I guess it could look like two scum "disagreeing" in order to distance. I'll try and keep this in mind when looking at people's reasoning for linking my slot and Prohawk. Tenshii's reasoning for suspecting Prohawk was actually spot-on.

156 - Weak point but this looks like scum calling their buddy out asking them to do more.

163 - Here's another post I'm ambivalent about. I could see why Dun would think SAJ was scum for backtracking on his read of Jaack by unvoting. This post and the continued questioning of SAJ in 165 looks a lot like what I would do as scum though. In fact, my primary reason for suspecting Dun was that she reminded me of my scumgame and at a lot of points, she approached the game exactly as I have done as scum in the past even in my newbie scum game on this site. If I were scum in her place, I'd notice that Jaack was a vocal town voice and would probably get SAJ lynched so would be "questioning" SAJ, calling him out on his inconsistencies and backtracks and slide onto the wagon as the deadline approaches. That's exactly how Dun approached this game. She seems thorough enough to pick up on minor details and competent enough to analyze the game in-depth. I just wonder how it never occurred to her that SAJ could just be a town player that's new to mafia. It's even more concerning that she didn't back off of ssbm_kyouko because he towntold a whole lot more. I'm going to get to that later. This is also a note to read through Dun's completed newbie game as town to see if she picked up on things that were non-obvious at first glance. Should read Smart's games as well.

There's also the fact that Dun is subtly parroting Jaack which is another behavior that I can't help myself with when I'm scum and a vocal townie is pushing a mislynch. It's not so much a blatant "I agree with Jaack" which would be null but rephrasing Jaack's arguments in her own words. Take for example Jaack's 173 where he asks SAJ if anything he does is alignment indicative. Around three hours later, Dun makes 174 asking SAJ what he considers indicative of alignment which is such an empty question and just piggybacks off of Jaack's push. Didn't like the Prohawk townread either. Looked like an easy way to slot a partner as town.

185 - These are all good, factual points from Dun but they also feel really mechanical and surface-level. I think I would have been bothered that SAJ said he never townread Jaack. I think Prohawk's ATE point is terrible but I guess I could see it from someone who doesn't read tone very well. I had the same impression when Dun grilled Tenshii on why he thought SAJ repeating that he was town was townish. Her last point on SAJ scumreading people who are voting him is weirdly phrased. I don't disagree that it's a good point but she said "

If he was a newb, I'd think that he may be biased as I have made the same mistake of trusting people who defended me and distrusting people who accused me but here it makes me seriously doubt the reality of those reads.

" But he is a newb. He joined a month ago. He was indeed biased and made the same mistake Dun claims to have made. So, why exactly is she doubting the reality of those reads even while acknowledging that they could come from town? The way he justified his reads in 186 tells me he is looking at the game from a very newbie-ish mentality that scum wouldn't defend town.

I also don't quite understand why Dun keeps repeating that SAJ "hasn't done any scumhunting" and telling him to "stop saying that he's town and do something to prove it." How the hell do you do something to prove that you are town? He's a new player, getting grilled on his play, he's explaining himself but digging himself a bit deeper. It looks a lot like empty posturing. On that note, SAJ's 197 seemed really genuine although I doubt Dun was being evil enough to try and rile him up. It just seemed like she was using his inconsistencies as an excuse for looking like she's scumhunting and making a push she thinks is believable.

Dun's read on Prohawk isn't all that damning though. Tenshii and ZZZX both seemed to think that Prohawk's emotions and aggression looked town. So, this was mostly about Dun. I'm going to come back later and continue. Will have to see how the game changes upon ssbm_kyouko's and Smart's replace in.

[BlackVoid]

Yeah, that was 194.

[BlackVoid]

Game Review D1: Pages 9-13 (till end of D1)

210 - Smart enters the game pushing a Tenshii-Prohawk scumteam with SAJ as scum if Prohawk isn't. I think it makes sense if he's scumreading Tenshii since my slot could only be scum with Prohawk, SAJ, or Gamma. Smart seems very sure that Gamma is town and there was no reason to think Prohawk was bussing SAJ. So, I get the Gamma townread. I get the Jaack townread. I can understand ZZZX and Dun floating around in the null pile but since they can't be scum with Tenshii, I could see a town-Smart plausibly not zoning in on them initially. I think the big question is why you were scumreading Tenshii. I want to see if there is a good backing behind this read because I glanced through Tenshii's posts before I replaced in and was fairly convinced he was town. Let's go over Tenshii's twenty posts until you replaced in:

• 10 - He advocates scumhunting first and revealing picks later on. Since you suspected Dun for similar reasoning, you were at least consistent.
  
• 11 - Non serious RVS fluff.
  
• 72 - Reveals picks and says they were random.
  
• 73 - Talks about the matrix and Gamma.
  
• 74 - Disagrees with lynching based on probabilities.
  
• 76 - Follows up with Jaack on what his ideas were.
  
• 85 - Asks about SAJ's townread on Jaack.
  
• 99 - Pushes AA9 on why she was acting like Dun was tying her and Jin together. I agree with him. That post by AA9 just doesn't make any sense.
  
• 105 - Switches vote to Jin because of how he phrased his post. This was a weak argument by Tenshii.
  
• 127 - Explains why he's townreading both sides of the Jaack and Jin argument. This shows an evolving read on Jin.
  
• 128 - Changes vote from Jin to Prohawk based on Prohawk's pushes on Jin and Gamma. This was the post I thought was spot-on.
  
• 136, 140, 145, 149, 152, 157 - Engages Prohawk and his read evolves from scum to town.
  
• 181 - Declares townread on Prohawk and moves back to AA9, his previous scumread. Justifies it in 182.
  
• 184 - Defends SAJ.

So, he had solid reasons to think AA9 and Jin were scum. He then starts to townread Jin, moves onto Prohawk, interacts with him, comes away with a townread and returns to his original read on AA9. So, I don't understand what exactly you were scumreading here. He just came across as carefree and easygoing and his pushing and changing reads seemed natural. I'm actually very interested in seeing you justify this read because my read on you is mostly dependent on understanding why you had this scumread. All your other reads make perfect sense if you had Tenshii as solid scum. How was he avoiding scumhunting or commenting on the game? You've basically called both his evolving reads partner-reads, as if the only reason he would change his reads is if he was partnered with them. You explicitly said he was partnered with Jin and later implied that he could be partnered with Prohawk. What agendas was he pushing? His interactions are being guided by his mindset? What does that even mean?

Funny how ssbm_kyouko was so spot on about one of Dun or Smart being scum. I know it to be true at this point but it's completely unhelpful. I'm skimming over the math stuff between ssbm and Smart. Seems tangential and not relevant.

237 - This Prohawk post might point towards Smart being town just based on Prohawk's tone. Seemed more like he was bothered that Smart correctly nailed it down.

244 - I agree with his point about Prohawk's opportunistic push and I can see Smart not being entirely sure on SAJ but thinking Prohawk is clear if SAJ were scum.

248 - The unvote on Smart is something scum kind of has to do because of how much content Smart posted so I'm on the fence there. Not impressed with the ZZZX push based on the fact that he didn't have a plan.

252 - This post by ssbm is a pretty good one and the distancing vibes that he saw from Dun and Prohawk were similar to what I saw during my first catch up of the game. 261 is pretty kickass too. I love this guy.

259 - I like that Smart recognized some of the towntells ssbm was giving off. Something that Dun was apparently oblivious to.

264 - I don't like this Dun's post at all. First off, telling ssbm that he needs to post non-probability based reads is ridiculous because while he did make a few probability arguments, he also made a really stellar post on why Prohawk was scum which Dun seemed to have glossed over. I also think the way she reacted to being called out as a Prohawk partner was a bit too cautious and hesitant and does re-affirm my belief that it was the right call. She keeps insisting that there doesn't necessarily have to be scum in herself, ssbm, and Smart which is true but she also ignores that ssbm's perspective betrayed a very townish and non-survival oriented strategy. It's the thing Smart picked up on but Dun didn't. She then committed to voting ssbm which I could see as her wanting to eliminate someone who nailed the scumteam via lynch.

283 - @Dun, could you go over why you asked this question at this particular point?

287 and 291 - This makes sense with Smart's reads and Smart is right that ssbm came off a whole lot more town than Dun. I don't entirely agree with ssbm's 306 because while Smart did jump on the Tenshii flashwagon idea, he had a strong solid scumread on Tenshii and it's only natural that he would hop on. In fact, if he didn't vote Tenshii at that point, I would have been more suspicious. Prohawk and Dun both doubled down and drove the ssbm_kyouko lynch through at this point which does make me think he nailed the scumteam and they reacted by getting him lynched. Smart's moves make perfect sense if his Tenshii read was genuine. The key is figuring out whether it is and for that I'll wait for his response.

So, after reading D1, I'm leaning

very

strongly towards Dunhallym as scum. I'm going to read the rest of the game tomorrow and see what I think and vote in the next couple of days. Hopefully Dun will be back too to respond to my points.

[BlackVoid]

@Dun - I don't need to show anyone that you are scum. Jaack, Columbo, and Smart have all agreed that you were scum and the only reason the day is being held up is because I want to make absolutely sure because if I'm wrong here, three-way is going to be tough and the outcome of the game will be out of my hands. I've detailed my thoughts in absurdly long walls so I can give you lots of stuff to respond to and potentially show me if I'm wrong. Normally, I try to be concise unless it is lylo.

Regarding your points, you say you wanted Jin to explain himself. But I'm trying to look at it from both angles. If you are scum, that's exactly the line of questioning I would expect you to make. The way you postured yourself during D1 is pretty much exactly how I would play when I was scum: see that Jaack was pushing hard on Jin, see Jin contradicting himself and latch onto that push. I don't think it's impossible for you to do it as town but I have to weigh whether Smart's play makes more sense as scum or whether yours does and on balance, I still think it's you.

Jin may not have been new but he was certainly biased - which was something you said you have been too in the past. I didn't think it was scummy of you to argue that Jin was pushing players that pushed him. It has more to do with how you phrased it - giving a possible reason why he would do it as town and then negating it. It didn't seem like you believed your argument.

As far as Smart's Prohawk push on D2 is concerned, look at it from a Prohawk-partner perspective: Prohawk was under pressure on D2. There were only three people who could be his partner - you, me, and Smart. Whoever is Prohawk's partner would have to get both of the other two lynch in order to win. So, I don't think a hard-bus is out of the question here. The partner would have to make themselves look like the towniest of the three so I think powerbussing is one option that shouldn't be discounted. Of course, the more likely option is that they didn't and could have been caught off guard if they were townreading Prohawk hard.

I do have a question - you keep insisting that you could have bussed Prohawk but you had him as a weak townread. How could you have bussed convincingly without it looking like a weird as hell, last minute bus?

[BlackVoid]

Honestly, if I were scum, I'd just take the free mislynch and then push a case on Smart tomorrow.

I have a soft spot for what you were doing earlier (accepting your lynch and telling people who to lynch the following day) which is what made it harder to pull the trigger. But I don't understand why you would give up without first catching up fully, re-reading and making sure you've got it right. I'm town so if you are town, your plan pretty much gives us a loss. That almost read like you knew you couldn't win the game so might as well throw in the towel.

[BlackVoid]

Well, if you are town, we're pretty much headed towards a loss. Do get well soon. I'll finish reading up and look through both yours and Smart's previous games and see if I still lean towards you.

[BlackVoid]

I have only one completed game here. You can look at a very old town game of mine here
Don't remember that game at all honestly but it's one of the only ones that is still available on Ran's board, which is not alted and in which I played (most of the games that are still there are from after my big mafia period). It's also from the time I was playing best as I had a few games under my belt and was playing regularly, which hasn't been the case for years. You cannot ISO by player in a thread but I was killed night 1 so it shouldn't be too long. If you want to check other games, there are a couple on Soph's board but you'll need to register first. I still have admin powers so I can validate you quick if you wish.

Okay, submitted my registration request. It said I have to register for some other board as well and have the same username. I haven't done that but I can do it if necessary.

The towngame you linked was ten years old and not very informative as you didn't post much but that's fine. I'll just look through the one on mafiascum. I'd really like it if you could link a couple of your most recent or best games as scum.

[BlackVoid]

@Smart

, I came across your 432 while doing my re-read. In the last paragraph, it seemed like you were saying that the scumteam is either me and Prohawk or me and Gamma - because you said you feel better about Dun after your exchange with her. In that case, shouldn't you be voting me? Why did you vote Prohawk when from your POV, he could only be scum with me or Dun and you were townreading Dun? I would be an infinitely better lynch under those circumstances. You also seemed pretty sure Tenshii was scum and although he wasn't your strongest scumread, the read didn't seem to have gone away entirely.

I also wouldn't mind you detailing exactly what you found scummy about the Prohawk posts that you quoted. Because Prohawk had been scummy throughout the game and the posts you quoted didn't seem much more scummy to me than the rest of his ISO.

[BlackVoid]

And I think that there were more reasons to townread Smart than ZZZX for example (won’t comment on myself since I’m obviously biased).

You had your vote on Smart for the entirety on D2 so this seems like bullshit.

[BlackVoid]

Thanks for the links Dun. I skimmed over your towngames and read some pages of your scumgame but didn't get much in the way of useful info. It seems like your play here is within the range of your play as either alignment but I'll finish reading Slow Game 4 and post my thoughts after this post.

Day 2 Review

324 - This is the first instance of someone (Jaack) calling a Prohawk/Tenshii team. I'll have to see who latches onto this. Before this point, Smart expressed suspicions of Dun and Dun said Smart was the best lynch, townread Prohawk and Jaack but said she'd have to look them over. So, the question is, how was Smart townier than Gamma and ZZZX if you were considering him as the best lynch? I assume you changed your mind in the few pages until the point I replaced in. Smart's 322 on Dun was pretty spot-on.

Overall, from the page fourteen interaction between Dun and Smart, I pretty much agree with nearly all of Smart's points. I do think Dun was piling on to ssbm_kyouko when he was getting lynched. I know you justified it by saying that you had suspected his slot for a long time. But the thing is, you never re-evaluated that read which I think town would do because ssbm was towntelling a lot. But it wouldn't be convenient for scum to back off especially when he was calling a Prohawk/Dun team.

If I'm being paranoid, I could see Smart and Prohawk making an elaborate ploy to make Dun look guilty by having Smart telling Prohawk to vote Dun and Prohawk dodging the question. But based on probability, I think it's more likely Smart just put him in an uncomfortable position by asking him to vote his partner. If Smart is scum, he's very, very good so that's something I'll have to check if that's the case when I read his games.

Smart's Tenshii case in 372 is okay. He does make a couple of good points and a couple of points which I disagree with pretty strongly. I do like the confidence that this is obviously his townplay. Dun's vote on Smart just looked like an elaborate omgus. I think there were a couple of points where Dun sounded town though especially when she kept telling us what she would do as scum. I think that level of wifom is something scum are less comfortable with. She has also highly active and made pushes on nearly everyone which is a bad strategy as scum in general. If I were scum, I'd be buddying someone and considering how similar I though Dun's play here was to my scumgame, this makes me second guess a bit. Also, the insistence on everyone giving reads.

374 - Dun's read on Prohawk is pretty bad here. She re-iterates her townread on Prohawk but says that she could see him being scum with Tenshii. This isn't an original idea. Jaack brought it up. Smart said he could see it. Then Dun was the last to latch onto it. Then she's careful to say that she doesn't want to lynch Prohawk just based on a possible connection but could see Tenshii as scum. As far as transparently scum-motivated posts go, this one takes the cake. I don't think it would have been so scummy if Dun drew the link herself but it seemed like she saw Jaack linking her partner to a townie and re-iterated that for the two most obvious reasons: lynching Tenshii after a Prohawk flip, or clearing Prohawk after a Tenshii flip. She also seems to subtly be guiding Jaack and Smart towards a Tenshii or Gamma lynch, indirectly telling Jaack that she won't help him on Prohawk but would on Tenshii, and lynching Tenshii would have been pretty advantageous for a Prohawk/Dun scumteam.

I like Smart's 397 because when he backed off of Dun, it seemed like he saw that posts seemed genuine. If Dun is scum, she's certainly gifted at "genuine" sounding posts somewhat like the EpicMafia players so making a note to look if that's present in her scumgame. Smart catching onto ZZZX's post about it being a nightless is another reason I like this post.

409 would be pretty cheeky if Prohawk and Dun are indeed scum. Don't know if I'd put it past Prohawk though given how cheeky his play has been in general.

432 by Smart is an interesting post. At this point, I replaced in and said that I would likely be voting Prohawk. ZZZX also expressed mild suspicion of Prohawk. Prohawk was being pretty obviously scummy and pushing Jaack based on weak reasoning. If Smart was scum, he'd know that if Prohawk goes down, he'd have to lynch me and Dun after. I seemed like a pretty sure next-lynch at that point after a Prohawk scumflip and he'd be looking to 1v1 Dun in lylo where he'd be able to use the fact that Dun and Prohawk hard-townread each other. On the other hand, I could see him thinking that a Prohawk townflip means that it's very likely me and Gamma.

Prohawk's 433 reads like caught scum more than a partner interaction. 434 and 437 just leaves me scratching my head about whether he's blatantly wifoming us or whether he wants to tie himself to a town player. Given he's got four and a half years of experience, I'd lean towards wifom, I think.

Dun's 466 is the second most super-scummy post of the game. She's been townreading Prohawk for the entirety of the game so she can't bus at the last minute without it looking exactly like a bus at the last minute. So, she then brings up me/Prohawk as a team right when Prohawk was about to get lynched. Funny thing is she "agrees with Smart" but that's not what Smart actually said. What he said was that he was paranoid that me and Gamma could be a team because if I were scum, I'd be hiding my partner as a townread.

468 - A couple of questions here: you said that I was the one more likely to be Prohawk's partner but then on D3, you said it was Dun. What changed your mind? Dun never made any significant posts in between that might have caused this. You also waited a while after D3 opened before you came into the thread to say that you thought it was Dun. Second question: you simultaneously said that Prohawk was approaching me as if he knows I'm town while calling me the most likely Prohawk partner. Can you reconcile these two thoughts?

Okay. I thought I'd be closer to making a decision but I'm not. Still leaning Dunhallym quite strongly but not to a point where I'm certain which I want to be before casting a vote. I'll look through 1) the scumgame Dun linked, 2) then Smart's previous games, 3) then D3 of this game to see if anything changes my mind. Hopefully, I'll feel good about voting then.

[BlackVoid]

Yeah, but you said there were more reasons to townread Smart than ZZZX. You are essentially calling me scum because you think my reads are strategic and if I were town, I'd be townreading Smart more than ZZZX. Except if I'm town, from your POV, Smart would be scum. Expecting a town-me to townread scum seems like a weird expectation.

By the way, ZZZX may have posted less than Smart but he came across as more pure, innocent, genuine whatever you want to call it. Smart seemed like a more competent player who is playing his standard game. He did have more content than ZZZX and I had conflicting views of that content so he was a weaker read.

[BlackVoid]

So, I got around to reading that scumgame of yours Dun, and it just re-iterated my feeling that you're scum. All the things I found you scummy for here, you do there as well - like tying your partners to townies and only pushing the townie, not committing to positions, trying to find excuses to not push your partners, etc. Also, some of the things I thought were town from you seem to mostly be null because you replicate them in your scumplay as well - the genuineness, the resignation, the suggestion you be lynched. I also thought a few other players made a good point that you tunneled a lot which you certainly did here. I'm just wondering why if you were scum, you'd go to the extent of providing these games, even validating my account on that site when you know that it'll be damning for you. On another note, wish the site was still up. The game I was looking over had a lot of good analysis by many players and I I love mafia forums that emphasize that kind of play but no one's posted there for a year.

I'll just look over Smart's games now to see what I think. I really want Smart to post more today. Part of my hesitance is that he seems to not be trying to gamesolve as much, but I guess it makes sense even from town who's widely townread because if he lynches both me and Dun, he'd still win. I definitely want him to finish up his analysis and answer my questions though before we end the day.

[BlackVoid]

Managed to glance through a couple of games of Smart's and I haven't found anything highly relevant. His townplay does seem somewhat similar to here though. Moving onto reviewing D3.

Day 3 Review

494 - So, you saw the connection between Tenshii and Prohawk because their reason to townread each other seemed weak but you were townreading Prohawk yourself and your reason wasn't particularly strong either.

496 - This point on you being more decisive if you were Prohawk's partner doesn't take into account that you weren't here when Prohawk started attracting pressure. You were townreading Prohawk and then stopped posting because you were busy. When you came back, Prohawk was at L-1. You didn't actually have the opportunity to do much to either save him or bus him. You did say in 374 that "Jaack and SSmart both bring points against Tenshii/Gamma and there's no reason not to trust them on that." That looked like you were trying to nudge them into the direction of Tenshii/Gamma as opposed to Prohawk.

498 - If Dun is scum, she's pretty good at the game. Reading through a partner's previous games is a somewhat odd thing to do for scum. But it was an hour and a half after I asked the question so I wouldn't entirely rule out her quickly glancing through those games after I asked the question.

@Smart, I do want to know how you thought I was appealing to you by having the same townreads as you. I had you in my scumpool and if my intent was to appease you, I'd start by townreading you. This just seemed like a weird accusation. Can you elaborate?

513 - Smart's reaction test of Prohawk here makes me lean towards town. Regarding committing to vote, it's true that a hypothetical scum-me could have decided to vote elsewhere. But my point is that if you are scum, you saw that I was going to join Jaack on Prohawk, knew that if Prohawk was lynched, you needed me and Dun lynched as well to win the game, and quickly voted before I could so you'd look better than me by comparison. It just seemed like an odd co-incidence that your vote on Prohawk came after I replaced in and said I would vote him despite you suspecting him earlier.

536 - @Dun, I really don't understand your townread on Smart here for not pushing Tenshii yesterday. You are expecting scum to behave in a very narrow way and saying he's town for not doing that specific thing. I think a potential scum-Smart has several options for what he could do. For instance, push you the way he was doing. Pushing Tenshii would also give him away because he said Gamma was town and Tenshii could only be scum with Gamma or Prohawk. So, if he scumread Tenshii and Prohawk and townread Gamma, he'd HAVE to push to Prohawk. The option of pushing Tenshii didn't really exist unless he wanted to blatantly look like a Prohawk partner. So, why exactly is this a reason to townread him? Also, if Smart was town and scumreading Tenshii, I think it's perfectly reasonable for him to push Tenshii. I really don't get this townread at all for not pushing him.

Regarding your points about me apparently misrepresenting you, I'll try and list them out in point form.

In 537:
1. You say that I'm misrepresenting you by claiming that you "hopped on the wagon" when you hadn't yet as of 108. Maybe I should clarify: I was talking about this from a bird's eye view of knowing what happened D1. You started questioning Jin after Jaack pushed him so you were preparing to push Jin as well. You eventually did hop on the wagon. My point is that you saw him as a likely lynch because of Jaack's push and decided to back up that push.

2. You say that Jin was not a newb because he was playing for years. Fair enough. But he still had a recent joindate and didn't look as though he was comfortable playing mafia based on how he was reacting to pressure. I did miss that bit though.

In 540:
3. You say that your suspicion of ZZZX was bigger than just lacking a plan - that he was seeming to have ideas and doing nothing. That looks like the same thing rephrased but I still don't find it a compelling argument. And it doesn't matter whether you were pushing for his lynch or explaining that read to Prohawk. My point was that I found that read unimpressive.

4. You asked ssbm_kyouko for non probability-based reads

before

he made the Prohawk case. In my re-read, I misremembered the timeline so I retract this point. You also did give him a blow-by-blow of his Prohawk case but you weren't taking into account how good it was and how town it made ssbm look. In short, you were on the wrong end of Prohawk vs ssbm and I feel that there was scum motivation behind that. ssbm thought you and Prohawk were the team and voted you based on probability and the fact that you fit into more scumteams than Prohawk. What's scummy about that?

549 - I still don't see why a scum-Smart is limited to mislynching Tenshii - and only Tenshii - on D2. Why can't he mislynch you on D2? Why can't he hard-bus Prohawk, look townier than both of us, and lynch us both for the win? Why are you acting like his *only* option was to mislynch Tenshii and because he didn't do that, he's town? And if you didn't understand why he wasn't including Tenshii in his lynch list, why are you dimissing that to call him town? Also, questioning the motivation for your question is something town should be doing because he should be trying to figure out your alignment. That's just a really weird read from you. You also say you would have firmly refused to lynch Prohawk because without Gamma and Tenshii, he couldn't get lynched if you didn't vote him. Except you pretty much said in 374 that you weren't going to lynch Prohawk. I replaced Tenshii so now we'd just need one more to lynch Prohawk. Then when it seemed like he was getting lynched, you start throwing around the possibility that he and I were a team setting up for my lynch the following day.

551 - You would have ended voting Prohawk? You seemed to be reading him as town throughout so explain?

565 - I'm not sure I buy the distinction between your town tunneling and scum tunneling and that in the latter, you push based on a single reason. I think it's perfectly possible that you can come up with multiple reasons to tunnel someone as scum which is what you with Jin and later ssbm. ssbm did look town and it bothered me that you never picked up on this when Smart did. Smart also picked up on ZZZX's towntell on not knowing there wasn't a nightphase.

[BlackVoid]

The one thing that bugs me about Smart is that he seemed to have taken a backseat today while Dun has been pretty intensely active. I think I'd feel more comfortable with Smart once he finishes his analysis of me and responds to my points. But overall I looked at both possibilities and I'm voting Dun once Smart comes back and unless Dun responds to my latest post with something mindblowing that changes my mind.

[BlackVoid]

Yeah, I agree that all the evidence points towards Dun. I just want be a little more sure because the outcome of the game depends on it. I've pretty much decided to vote Dun. I just want Smart to finish up his analysis in the unlikely event that she's town. In that case, that'll at least give information to whichever of you have to make the final call tomorrow. I know I'm holding things up but endgame is the time when I want to make absolutely sure we've covered all our bases. I rarely lose towngames where I survive till the end and I don't want to start now.

[BlackVoid]

@Dun, I read your last two walls but at this point, we've been going back and forth for a while now, and I really want to see Smart post.

not to mention clearing town when we nail scum in a pair.

This post by Prohawk shows that he was aware of the dangers of putting his scumpartner in his pairs and makes me think he wouldn't. He put AA9 but not Dun.

[BlackVoid]

The turning point for me is that I just have a really hard time seeing Smart pulling that "reaction test" on his scumbuddy, suggesting that Prohawk should vote Dun and trying to assess the possibility of a Prohawk-Dun team at that point. It requires him to be really gutsy and he doesn't seem like the kind of player who would do that. Then there are all the things he noticed like ZZZX's towntell, and realizing why ssbm_kyouko was town where Dun just plowed on and pushed his lynch and pushed ZZZX as an easy target. Smart's play around Prohawk is also a whole lot more believable than Dun's which does look a lot like she was defending him but towards the end decided to link him with me. I still think Dun's D1 play looked exactly like my scumplay and here current play of townreading Smart for weak reasons and not really considering the possibility that he's scum fits with the scum motive. Because I'm the only one she can plausibly lynch and has to do it first.

[BlackVoid]

@Dun, part of the reason I'm scumreading you is that you never really seemed to have considered Smart as an option. For me, the biggest priority was to sort his alignment because there almost seemed to be a "if not Dun, then BV" sentiment floating around and if he's scum, I needed to figure that out today which is why I spent so much time trying to make absolutely sure.

I'm town here so if you are town and Smart is indeed scum, show me the best case you can to explain why. Right now, the only real concerns I have with him is his lack of activity while the two of us have gone back and forth for the better part of a month. I also don't understand why you'd want to end it quickly if you are town because if I were getting lynched, I'd want the day to go on as long as possible so that I milk it for every bit of information I can. If you are not set on Smart being town, shouldn't you be trying to engage both of us until you are more certain? Even if you get lynched as town, whether you win or lose the game depends on who gets lynched after you so continuing to scumhunt seems more optimal even if your lynch is set in stone.

[BlackVoid]

In other words, your mindset seems to be "if I'm getting lynched, might as well end it" which fits with scum motive more because your lynch ends the game. As town, your lynch is pretty much inconsequential and the real outcome would be based on who gets lynched tomorrow so that's where you should be focusing.

[BlackVoid]

What have you been turning over and over in your head? The possibility that me or Smart are scum? Can you over the comparitive analysis that you've been doing? Because that's the only thing you would be thinking about if town because that's the only part of the puzzle left to solve.

[BlackVoid]

You are right about Dun making the most sense as Prohawk's partner no matter how she dresses up those interactions now. A lot of what's made me unsure is tonal - just comes across as really genuine (stuff like "once I'm lynched, good luck tomorrow") etc because I sometimes feel that way when I'm a consensus scumread the day before lylo.

Anyways, I'm down to vote Dun once Smart finishes up his analysis of me/Tenshii and Prohawk. I think I might be going overboard and hyperanalyzing everything at this point but better be safe than get into three-way without making Smart take strong positions.

[BlackVoid]

I really don't think I'm going to change my mind and we've gone over this enough. Hopefully, we're right.

VOTE: Dunhallym

[BlackVoid]

Okay, I'm going to outline my case for me-town and Smart-scum and if you have any questions, we'll go from there.

First off, Tenshii's play. I don't know why he was being scumread but he was super town to me right from the beginning. He pushed Prohawk, then Prohawk pointed out some semantic holes in his argument and Tenshii backed off. Then Prohawk saw this as an opportunity to buddy up to town and townread Tenshii back. It was similar to what he did with Dun where he called Dun the towniest and buddied her hard. He was buddying townies that townread him so he could coast on that.

Secondly, look at my town and scum meta. There is no way I can play like this as scum because I'm not capable enough of doing it. I love playing town. I replace into slots that I think are town. I'm really passionate about the game when I'm town. It's something that doesn't happen to me as scum because solving games, and putting the pieces of the puzzle together is the ultimate thrill and why I play mafia. The amount of thought I put into figuring out which of Dun or Smart were scum, going so far as to make an account on another site and compare her play to here is something I'd never do as scum when the lynch was all but assured, and if you've played with me even a few times, I'm super easy to read.

Third, Smart's activity level. I think Smart is somewhat like me in that he's less passionate about playing scum than town. He's consistently been "busy" all of day three. If he had been playing in any other games and posting there, I'd have nailed him but this was his only game which makes it easy to feign "busyness." The regular once every two day posting is something that comes from scum doing just enough to coast by. I was posting whenever I could find five odd minutes to look at the game. When I'm town, I can't stop thinking about the game. Scum who bus well and have lynches lined up often find it hard to keep posting content especially if they prefer playing town. Smart never tried to solve the game. He made a token analysis post saying Dun was scum and was pretty inactive. This may have been over the holidays but it was for a massive period of three weeks. It's so unlikely that he has no time at all to play mafia for nearly three weeks.

Fourthly, Smart had motivation to bus because the theory being floated around at that time was Prohawk/Tenshii and Dun's interaction with Prohawk and townread there made her look pretty bad, not to mention I was calling her a Prohawk partner. I should have seen this but Prohawk had basically given up. He was calling Jaack scum for the most bizarre of reasons and hard-townreading Dun. He was trying to sew in partner-like interactions with Dun before going down so that his lynch would be followed by mine and Dun's leaving Smart free and clear to win.

Finally, Smart's change of stance from me to Dun at the beginning of D3. At the end of D2, he said that neither of us fit as partners but I was more likely and hedged his bets without taking a position either way. By the way, if neither of us fit as partners, he shouldn't have been voting Prohawk at all.

On D3, He WAITED to post until every single other player had already posted and Dun became the universal scumread over me. THEN, he showed up and said that he thinks it's Dun all along. I can't emphasize this point enough.

More than once, he stood back to see which way the town would go and tailored his stances in a way that helps him. I also suspect he was following along with the game before his replace-in and his very first wall was likely his honest thoughts on the game which is why they seemed so town.

VOTE: Something_Smart

[BlackVoid]

No, it really isn't a hard decision. When I replaced in, Gamma and Dun were both voting Smart. Prohawk was posturing against him. If he was town, I'd have pushed his lynch and killed Jaack to get to 5-way lylo. There were still people townreading Prohawk. I voted Prohawk even when it seemed like I was going to be the next lynch after him. If I was partnered with him, I didn't need to bus and it would seem like last minute bussing anyways. Smart on the other hand had two likely lynches that he could chain after Prohawk. He also voted Prohawk after I replaced in and said that I was going to vote him. He voted before I could finish catching up because he needed to look better than both Dun and me.

[BlackVoid]

As far as our predecessor's posts go, Tenshii vs AA9 is no comparison. AA9's posts have been completely nonsensical. I didn't read much into it because I dismissed it as playstyle/someone who just doesn't make sense as either alignment. But Dun is right that her response in 91 was overblown. There is nothing at all scummy about Tenshii's posts. I ISO'd him before I replaced in so I have an idea of the alignment of the slot I'm replacing into. I was overwhelmingly reading Tenshii as town even before I saw his role PM. Columbo, seriously read from 128 onwards and see how Tenshii interacts with Prohawk. You can tell he's genuinely trying to read him.

By the way, the odds of both Prohawk and AA9 having each other in their unpicks is pretty low. I think they picked each other because they decided that it would make them less likely to be put on the chopping block.

[BlackVoid]

Also, Smart saying that he pushed Dun because he thought he couldn't possibly be right about both his top suspects is dumb and fake. It makes much less sense than him opportunistically waiting to see which way the wind blows D3 and then taking that mislynch.

On his activity level, everytime he posted, it seemed like a chore for him which is mostly indicative of him just wanting the day over with so he could get his lynches and win.

Also, if he really was uncertain about me and Dun, he'd be spending a lot of time thinking about it even if he didn't have as much time to post. Yet, he never once calls me scum on D3. I think it's because he didn't want to antagonize me yet - he needed that Dun lynch to go through first whereas if he started pushing and questioning me, I'd be more likely to scrutinize him and figure him out.

Both Dun and I considered both possibilities even though we landed on each other in the end. It's the way he went from not being sure but slightly leaning me at the end of D2 to being wholly certain that Dun was scum D3 after everybody else said she was scum that's most indicative.

[BlackVoid]

Just waiting on Columbo so we can go over specific points you have questions about because I generally find the "making cases on each other" approach less efficient than direct interaction but you said you'll be back today and it's been nearly 48 hours since I last posted so I'll go over Smart's points.

1. Let's go over how the Prohawk lynch went down. Before I replaced in, Smart was paying lip-service to a Prohawk scumread but not voting there. It was four to lynch. It was only after I replaced in and said I'd lynch Prohawk that he changed his vote. ISO both me and Smart together and look at the posts where I replaced in. In 418, I state three townreads (Jaack, Gamma, ZZZX), and say scum are among the remaining three (Prohawk, Dun, Smart), and say that I'm leaning towards lynching Prohawk. In 431, I outline my reasons for wanting to lynch Prohawk. This is more of a strategic decision than a reads-based one but I commit pretty heavily to voting Prohawk and my reasoning is solid. I had already read fifteen out of the eighteen pages at that time which means it's very unlikely I'd go back on my read.

Then

, Smart voted. I really hope you notice the trend here: multiple times, he's figuring out which way the wind blows and positioning himself accordingly. He claims I didn't vote until he did but ignores the fact that I was in the middle of catching up and repeatedly saying "yeah, I'll vote Prohawk" and once I finished catching up, I did that. My anti-Prohawk stance was actually the deciding factor because if Tenshii was still here, Prohawk might not have been lynched.

2. Tenshii stuff - a) Prohawk was condescending to Tenshii but also to Dunhallym. b) Smart literally just argued that Prohawk is good enough to make a readslist where he won't put his buddy in the null pile but will omit him from the list entirely. c) Prohawk played in a way that got him townreads. See Dun's and ZZZX's townreads on him. I think Gamma was townreading him too. Tenshii's read there wasn't unusual or fabricated. He just seemed like the kind of guy who would townread Prohawk's aggressive, emotional style. Prohawk latched onto the fact that Tenshii backed off of him and townread him back to make an ally. And of course Tenshii then focused on other things. What else would you expect from town that no longer scumread a player?

3. When I replaced in, I was sure Jaack was town, and pretty confident that he was right about Prohawk so I asked him to work with me to figure out Prohawk's partner. Conflating town collaborating with scum sucking up is something I see way more often from scum. See a recent game where I replaced in as town and said that one player (Implosion) was making a ton of sense and was really town and backed him on his push on Boring (who was scum). Boring immediately said I was trying to appease Implosion which is exactly the reaction that Prohawk had to me here trying to work with Jaack and what Smart is now arguing. Scum hate it when town correctly townread each other. In fact, that game is so similar to this one. I replace into a game with seven players alive and two scum left, and immediately nail one scum (there it was Boring, here it was Prohawk) and we lynch the scum. The following day, we mislynched (there it was Dierfire, here is was Dunhallym), and the last day, I'm fighting to clear myself. That game was actually the reason I spent so long trying to read Dun because I didn't want another situation where we went into lylo and I had to prove I was town because for whatever reason I don't understand, people always start misreading me in lylo - whether it's paranoia or what I don't know.

4. My immediate townreads on ZZZX, Gamma, and Jaack were unlucky for me because those were the three people who couldn't be Prohawk's partner. As such, I didn't gain any new revelations from Prohawk's lynch. I was basically playing a mountainous because of how my reads aligned. But Jaack, ZZZX, and Gamma were very, very town. I correctly figured out four reads upon replacing in (those three and Prohawk) and had the partner down to one of Smart/Dun. The fact that I was scumreading Prohawk and that ZZZX couldn't be scum with him did play into my reads a bit. If not for the Matrix, I think I would have explored a Prohawk/ZZZX connection. But I narrowed down scum to two of three which is actually pretty decent. I don't need read progressions when I make correct, confident reads. There were only two reads I was iffy about and those were Smart and Dun. Strategically, it makes sense for me as scum to have those reads so I could lynch them both but that's probably exactly why I would have different reads so I could appear uninformed.

5. Prohawk knew he was caught. That much was obvious. Smart and Prohawk planned the bus after seeing me accuse Dun of being Prohawk's partner. Because if they could sell Dun as a partner, since they already have Tenshii looking partner-y, they have all the lynches they need to win.

[BlackVoid]

When I replaced in and Jaack was in full swing about Prohawk + Tenshii, there's no way I would have bussed then because I'd be likely lynched after for the loss. My best bet is that point would be to hard-push a mislynch, get to 5-way lylo and keep a ton of options open. But Smart's best move was to bus because he had a mislynch chained to Prohawk, and once I accused Dun, he had a potential second mislynch too.

My commitment to vote Prohawk came at a time when the lynch was up in the air. When it became obvious that I was going to vote there, Smart voted him. He's distorting the timeline. Make sure you read through this part.

Finally, I also want to address the meta argument. He claims that it applies to him just as well as me but it doesn't. I'm the only one who's been here in the thread, been incredibly active and engaged with the game. I'm saying I can't do it as scum. His situation is not analogous because he hasn't been here. He's been feigning busyness all through three weeks of D3 which fits scum who aren't stellar at the game. I also think he's misrepresenting his ability as scum by pointing to his last scumgame where he was lynched D1. If you go back and read, you'll see games where he survived and won as scum too. Please do spend time reading my games though because my meta can be shocking obvious.

[BlackVoid]

I don't care how much you draw it out as long as you make the right decision. I'm more interesting in us winning. Take your time.

[BlackVoid]

Okay, but do say who you intend to vote so if you're not convinced I'm town, I can perhaps explain it better. See this incredibly annoying thing that happened last game and I don't want to repeat that especially when this game seems to be going down such a similar path. That guy (nn30) kept saying that I was making good points and out of nowhere voted me which came as a shock. Luckily the scum hadn't cross-voted me yet so he was able to unvote and put his vote down on scum. In fact, keep reading the previous few pages and it'll show you how much thought and care I put into lylos as town. Contrast that with my lylo play as scum and it's beyond hilariously obvious that I'm town here.

[BlackVoid]

1. It's not an emotional appeal, my meta really is that obvious. Read it for yourself and see. What Smart is trying to do is get you to willingly suspend disbelief with the paranoid assertion that

maybe

, despite all evidence to the contrary, I've played amazingly as scum despite my scumplay being pretty average. I'll indeed be frustrated if you pick wrong because we'd be handing the game over to scum who coasted through D3 when me and Dun were putting our best efforts into gamesolving. If we're going to lynch both townies who showed up and were active and let Smart slide to a win, it would really suck.

2. Tenshii was wrong about Prohawk but his reasons were far from manufactured. He called Prohawk out on his shitty push on Secret Agent Jin and Gamma but after interacting with Prohawk, Prohawk made him second-guess his reasons. That's town genuinely engaging his suspect and changing his mind based on new info. If you want proof of this, ISO Tenshii and see how many times he changed his mind and his vote. For a player at Tenshii's level, this is not only a towntell but you can see that

Tenshii never treated Prohawk differently than he did anyone else.

He pushed Jin but then changed his mind and townread him too. How Tenshii treated Prohawk is similar to how Tenshii treated everyone else. Also, read through 925. Posting stuff like "I don't really have a case to support it" isn't something a player who's relatively new to mafia would say as scum. This guy is so obvtown I don't know how he got suspected in the first place. Prohawk's interaction with Tenshii matched his interaction with Dun in that he wanted to sell them both as being in a team with him while distancing from Smart.

3. See where Smart put Prohawk in his initial readslist. It's exactly the place where scum distancing would put their partners. His other suspects (Tenshii and Jin) were both people who could be partnered with Prohawk.

4. Don't forget the point that AA9 and Prohawk both had each other in their unpicks. The odds of this are pretty low. Prohawk also hits upon a minor partner tell when he says he wants to hear more about AA9. Ask me about this if you want elaboration. I can point to more examples.

5. The fact that scum post less than town is true for an overwhelming majority of players who prefer to play town. Of course anyone accused of lurking will say that they're busy, not "oh, yeah I'm scum guys." In the towngame of his he linked where he got lynched, he had one one of the highest postcounts.

6. Regarding bussing - the reason I don't have motivation to bus is that the alternative (lynching Smart) would be more attractive. Dun and Gamma already had their votes on him so me and Prohawk could have added to that. I could also have pushed Dun because Jaack was open to lynching there. ZZZX was inactive and an easy push. Smart said Prohawk was going down. The fact that he was pushing Smart as opposed to me when going down is quite telling.

Bussing is an attractive option for Smart because two lynches are chained to Prohawk. It was a potential gamewinning move for Smart but not for me given the climate at the time.

Before Smart and I voted, Jaack was heavily pushing Prohawk/Tenshii, a lot of people were getting replaced and the lynch seemed up in the air. Then I came in and said that Prohawk and Dun were the team. We both pushed Prohawk. Ask yourself - who had motivation to bus here? I couldn't guarantee Smart's lynch after Prohawk. Pushing Smart then and there would have been optimal. But Smart had a very good chance of convincing me to push Dun and convincing Jaack to continue along the vein of Prohawk-Tenshii.

7. Regarding the fact that he showed up last. He went into N2 thinking I was Prohawk's partner but changed his tune D3. You just have to see that him sitting back and observing the gamestate before jumping in is overwhelmingly more likely than that he magically decided that it was Dun after all once everybody else said it was Dun.

[BlackVoid]

Anyways, if you still have any doubts about me, read through at least the links I gave you and bring them up. We've got over nine days so there's no rush.

[BlackVoid]

Also, in over a month of playtime, everything that I've done has been to advance the town wincon. There's not a single thing I did that helped scum besides being wrong on Dun but that wasn't an unreasonable read given you and Jaack were wrong there too. I've been fully transparent with my thoughts every step of the way partly so that I can be easy to read because I knew this game may come to my ability to make my alignment obvious.

Contrast this with Smart's constant disappearance from the game, his strategic change from me to Dun as Prohawk's partner, his reluctance to post analysis on D3 and just wanting to get it over with.

[BlackVoid]

There's also the crucial part during D2. Smart's vote never came until I replaced in and explicitly said that I would vote Prohawk. He only voted after because he knew that if Prohawk was lynched, he needed me gone and so voted before I could catch up and put my vote down so he could chain my mislynch to Prohawk's.

Prohawk was going down - even Smart agreed to it. When scum are obviously going down, they try to make sure their scumbuddies make it through. That means distancing. If Jaack was already calling me and Prohawk scum and he knew he was going down, why townread me and re-iterate that connection? I'm town and he did it because he wanted Jaack to become more certain that we were the pair. Prohawk didn't push me at all because he didn't want people to start doubting the Prohawk/Tenshii connection. He also hard-townread Dun I think because he wanted Dun to be lynched next. He pushed Smart because that's who he needed to go the distance. Alternatively if Smart was lynched, Prohawk would look great, the Prohawk/Tenshii connection would have been void and he would have many other options to push.

[BlackVoid]

You know, the exact same thing happened in the game I linked for you. The guy we lynched D5 went down calling me scum and nn30 voted me partly based on that reason. Here's the link:

Spoiler: Mini 1838

I've nothing further to add; I'm just avoiding a prod.

I guess that I'll put my vote on BlackVoid, but unless Prism comes back with a radically different opinion I thought that we were mostly defaulting to lynching me and then sorting things out at LYLO.

VOTE: BlackVoid

VOTE: Black Void

Final answer.

... <clip> ...

My promise to Dierfire.

It's amusing and annoying at the same time because for some reason, everybody coalesces on "BV is scum" close to lylo and I have no idea why the heck that happens despite how hard I try to show that I'm actually town.

Regarding Jaack, here's what he said last:

Okay now I'm very drunk but I wanna rant and I'm conftown so whatever.

I super respect how all three of dunhallym, bv, and ssmart have played so far,

well I guess SSmarts d3 has been blah

bit he still was pretty cool the first two days but anyway.

I respect how dunhallym has basically tried on her own to keep this game running. I mean of the original crew, only me and dunhallym and I guess prohawk didn't abandon and I kIndia wanna townread her for that but at the same time it makes way too much sense for her to be prohawks partner and even if I were to shift somewhere else on a whim there's basically no way I would vote for anyone other than her lylo.

Blackvoid after that one normal game and this game is probably my favorite mafia player

and I kinda feel bad about how we lost that other game even if I was more right about the last scum but oh well if he is scum in this game than he's playing awesome replacing into a slot that was totally wrecked from the start and maybe winning. I don't like losing but I'm okay with losing to that especially when I had his partner and predecessor nailed.

SSmart was so obvtown at the end of D1 that he also deserves to win if he's scum or town I guess. I remember when I was in that micro he nodded and got scum killed like 3 pages in and then everyone else replaced so I got a town win for doing like nothing. So I kinda like him.

It's so annoying when your conftown and basically have nothing to do.

Underlined is mine. My guess is that Smart killed Jaack precisely because I think Jaack was very receptive to what I have to say whereas you never said anything contrary to your initial read that you'll lynch both me and Dun before Smart. Jaack was the one who originally brought up Tenshii/Prohawk idea but after Prohawk was lynched, he said that Prohawk was acting like was right for the wrong reasons so abandoned that read.

I feel like Smart thought Jaack would hand me the win if it was a 50-50 shot and that's why he killed him. Jaack did say nice things about Smart but saying I'm his favorite mafia player vs he kinda liked Smart because he got an easy town win in a game Smart modded, there's a stronger lean towards giving me the game. Look, bottomline is that Jaack would have listened to what I had to say and Smart couldn't have that. I'd have kept Jaack around as scum precisely because I'd have been able to manipulate that if I were scum.

---

You say I'd have to make the play regardless of alignment. I don't think that's true. I pointed this out but if I were scum and lynched Smart over Prohawk, we'd have been in lylo with Jaack possibly dead. Everyone's reads were scattered and the lynch was up in the air. Who'd be there to continue to push me?

On the other hand, Smart had to bus because the other option was HIM. If one of them had to go down, it's overwhelmingly better to have Prohawk lynched, take the two mislynches chained to him and win the game. Now that I think about it, what options did Smart have when he had two votes on him, me making a clear statement that I would vote Prohawk and no link between Prohawk and himself?

From your POV, both of us voted the flipped scum. Here are the key differences you need to look at:

- Smart was suspected independently of Prohawk and had two votes on him (neither me or Prohawk were voting him meaning we could have both voted him if we were the team instead of me bussing Prohawk.
- I had suspicion from Jaack and it was suspicion specifically based on being on a team with Prohawk meaning I'd likely go down after a Prohawk lynch.
- I said that Prohawk was scum and that I would vote him. Smart then voted Prohawk and the two of them hard-pushed each other. This is extremely good for Smart because it ensures the lynch of one of them while semi-clearing the other. My vote on Prohawk and Prohawk saying I'm town isn't something that'll change Jaack's mind.

This is a very important point. When Jaack was wrongly calling me and Prohawk the scumteam, Prohawk doubled down on his townread of me, said I cannot be scum, and did a lot of distancy-looking stuff like saying that I was playing for the scumteam. He wanted to re-iterate the Prohawk-Tenshii connection and he didn't want anyone second-guessing that.

He also called Dun town a lot.

[BlackVoid]

Since we have time, I don't plan to rush this. We have an ice storm headed our way, so unless I'm without power for a long length of time, I have a lot of free time in next 24-72 hours to consider the options. What I do hope to avoid is overthinking it and go with what makes the most sense. I also don't want to draw it out needlessly.

I appreciate the time you've taken and the amount of consideration you are putting into this. More than once here and offsite, I've been annoyed at my lylo companion because despite the care I take to vote correctly, more often than not, the other person doesn't put in that same consideration or read the entirety of the game.

Take your time. If you need, open up both mine and Smart's ISOs in separate tabs and go over them when you don't have internet so you can get a better picture of what the game turned out like.

[BlackVoid]

I woke up at 3:30 in the morning because I figured that's when you'd likely be online hoping to get some interaction in real time. Trust me, I'm not this obsessed with mafia games when I'm scum. I'm giving it my best shot. I can't play like this if I were actually lying or trying to fool you and reading through my past games will show you that. But when I'm town and honestly trying to show you that I'm town, nothing is off-limits. I'm heading off to bed. Please don't hand scum the game because it's a 50-50 shot and the others have called me scum. Other people

always

call me scum for I don't know what reason even if I'm oozing town all over the place.

I won't deny that Smart played well, but he also had large gaps where he didn't feel like he wanted to contribute. There was also a whole lot less content from him than me which makes it easier to hide his motivations.

Anyways, I need to head off to bed, it's 4:15 where I am. Please take the time to thoroughly go over both my and Smart's meta and if you're still not convinced that I'm town or have any issues whatsoever with my play, bring them up and I'll respond to them.

[BlackVoid]

Also, don't fall into the trap of trying to uphold what others wanted. First off, people dynamically change their minds. Secondly, most people can be wrong. Here's a game where I replaced into 3-way lylo as confirmed town. Vedith was scum and Shadow_Step was the townie. The game was all but lost because my predecessor was heavily scumreading Shadow_Step. But then he flaked, I replaced in, voted Vedith and that turned a likely town loss into a town win at the last moment. I really, really want us to win. Smart will say that's ATE or whatever but look over everything I mentioned, re-read and see if what I'm talking about makes sense.

The biggest difference between me and Smart is that there's an enormous difference in content. What Smart posted is a whole lot easier for scum to fake than what I've posted in the game.

[BlackVoid]

There's also the matter of initiative. I've taken the initiative every time I made a push. I immediately stated that I was leaning towards lynching Prohawk the moment I replaced into the game. Smart is going to make a huge deal about how he voted first and how only a vote is a commitment, while ignoring that the only reason he beat me to it is because I hadn't caught up yet. It would be irresponsible of me to vote before I'm caught up but I made the commitment in the way I could make when I only read a part of the game. I've also posted immediately on D3 with my thoughts. Smart was hanging back both times. He voted Prohawk after I said I would and pushed Dun after everyone pushed her and it became the safe option. It's a lot easier to feign being town when you observe the direction that town takes before you make your carefully planned move. I've been spontaneous throughout the game in a way Smart has never been.

[BlackVoid]

I really need to sleep now but tomorrow, I'll write up a checklist explaining major points for you to consider. Stay safe during the storm and don't forget to save or print-out a combined ISO of me and Smart so you have something to do when there's no power.

[BlackVoid]

You've been giving Smart quite a bit of leeway for pushing Prohawk but it actually fits better with him knowing too much than by him being 100% right about the scumteam upon replacing in

page nine of day one.

More likely, he put Prohawk down as his secondary scumread because he wanted to distance/bus. If you look at his scumgames, he distances and busses a lot so it explains his interactions with Prohawk pretty well. Here are a few of his most recent games as scum:

Defcon Mafia 4.0 - He got lynched D1 here. One thing you notice by looking over the game is that he's fairly distance and bus-happy.

Spoiler:

re: reads, initial feelings say:
towny:

Cheetory, mastina

,

UT

,

MoI

,

Spiffeh

scummy:

Nukebringer

,

GiF,

Cephrir

conflicting feelings:

RC, LLD, Nahdia

discussion tabled for now-

Reck

In his first reads-list, of his four partners, he put two as town and two as scum with two-thirds of his scumreads being his partners. Later on, he still scumreads one of his partners and votes another partner (UT) several times. One thing that struck me as odd in his initial readslist in the current game is how he had Prohawk as a scumread but Tenshii as a super-strong scumread because I never thought his reasons for scumreading Tenshii made any sense whatsoever. I think he just wanted to push my slot in conjunction with his Prohawk push.

The Walking Dead: Season 1 Finale - This is one of the games I was referring to where he made it to lategame. He's part of a hydra with Creature called "Young and Witless." He was mostly townread all the way to the end but lost because a town player used a one-shot dayvig on him. His first non-RVS vote is a vote for his partner hebichan. His second vote was for a townie. His third vote was for another partner (PeregrineV). After he busses two of his three partners, he mostly pushes mislynches on town to get to late-game. If you look at the VCs of that game, you'll see that he had early positions on both Hebichan's and PeregrineV's wagons although he unvotes the former later on.

New York 194: Guns N' Roses Mafia! - This is the one he linked earlier.

Spoiler:

Ira's and Killthestory's reads are both pretty good. Kuroi's are questionable (as far as I can tell the only time he mentioned me in his catchup was to say that I was towny on page 2, so...).

Town-

DrippingGoofball

,

KickAssAndGiggle

,

Yume, Killthestory, Egg

Null/town-

Performer, Ilikebugs, Slandaar, iraonavp

Null-

KuroiXHF, SnarkySnowman

Null/scum-

Fraggernaut

,

Aristophanes

,

Ozgin

,

GuyFawkes

Scum-

Drixx, Firebringer

From his readslist, he had one of his three partners as town and the other two as null-scum which is where he put Prohawk in the current game. There's a recurring pattern from Smart's scumgames where he consistently likes to distance and bus from his partners and I hope you see how it's way more likely that he's simply bussing as usual by putting Prohawk as his second scumread as opposed to somehow against all odds nailed the scumteam on page nine without even interacting with anyone or questioning people. He was approaching the game from an informed perspective.

Then there's his lampshading of this by saying he suspected Dun because he didn't think he'd be right. But nobody really thinks like that or change their reads because they don't think they could have nailed the scumteam. That's something that can only be seen externally. In fact, most people like being right about their initial readslist and tend to be more attached to them. The motive I gave - that he saw Dun as the safest push - fits a whole lot better for why he showed up and suddenly switched to Dun.

[BlackVoid]

Another thing to consider because this is important: Narrowing my scumpool when I replaced in to Prohawk/Smart/Dun makes sense for me to do as scum. They also make sense as the reads I have as town because my top scumread, Prohawk could only be scum with Smart or Dun from my POV. The fact that I narrowed it down to those three people is null.

On the other hand, Smart's reads don't make sense as

either town or scum

. In 322, despite his scumread on Tenshii weakening, he said he could see Tenshii/Prohawk. In 432 (the post where he votes Prohawk), he claims that he's paranoid that I could be appealing to him to protect my buddy Gamma. Except if he could see me with Gamma and Prohawk, how come he's voting Prohawk as opposed to me? This doesn't make logical sense coming from an uninformed townie. The fact that he voted scum when logic dictated that he should be voting town is what gives away that he knows more and is bussing like he usually does. There's a lot of really vague language there "a townflip would give us a ton of information and a scumflip would almost solve the game." He's hesitating to state the facts outright because (and this is something that scum with a middling amount of experience do) he thinks blatantly tying someone to a scum that he's lynching is going to look bad. In my experience, newbie scum tie their partners to townies. Semi-experienced scum tend to avoid doing this too obviously (see how he worded 468 "I don't really see you or her particularly being ProHawk's partner, but I'm pretty confident that he is scum). But if he can't see a partner to Prohawk, then he

cannot

be confident Prohawk is scum and he should be exploring other options.

I really wanted to bring this up because Smart argued that my POE made sense for scum to do. But it also makes sense for town. His makes sense for neither and is an indication that he's going out of his way to make it look like he's not partnered with Prohawk without realizing that if he truly didn't know Prohawk's alignment, then his stances don't add up.

[BlackVoid]

I'm here if you want to chat but might fall back asleep. Been disappointed in lylo too many times and don't want it happening again. Hopefully you've seen why Smart's play fits as scum and even if he distanced well from Prohawk, he lost motivation to play for most of D3 and was no longer really trying to gamesolve. Don't let the idea of going with Jaack's and Dun's reads lose us the game. They'll appreciate if you come to your own conclusion and get it right. I'm town here and I'm playing out of my mind. I don't know if I can ever bring myself to be so motivated as scum because my primary source of enjoyment from playing mafia is from finding and lynching scum and gamesolving.

[BlackVoid]

In all three town games I've played on this site, the dead people winded up being wrong. In Mini 1843, all the dead people including me called scum-Cloudkicker town and he won the game in lylo because Creature just went with that. In Mini 1838, Dierfire went down calling me scum and the other townie nn30 promised to vote me. He did but luckily the scum hadn't voted yet so he was able to retract his vote. Then in Dragon Age Mafia, Iraonavp went down calling Shadow_Step scum but after I replaced in, I disregarded that and voted correctly. Going with the dead people's latest reads statistically worked out in 0% of the games I've played. You just have to see that literally nothing I've done this game had any scum motivation whatsoever, that Smart's view of the game was informed and he coasted after his bus got him towncred while Dun and I spent a crazy amount of time trying to gamesolve even if we unfortunately ended up being wrong. The amount of info we had was low (AA9 was unreadable) and we both made the wrong call. And of course if anything I did doesn't make sense to you and you want an explanation, I'm happy to walk you through it again.

[BlackVoid]

Smart's latest post doesn't take away from my point which was that he busses when he thinks he can ride on that towncred. Smart listed out seven games. In two of them (Newbie 1663 and Micro 567), he claimed that he townread his partners. I'll take his word for it. If his partner is townread, then he obviously wouldn't bus. Why would he? If we're going to use his logic, you'd look at my only completed scumgame, see that I hard-townread my partner throughout and conclude that there's no way I'd have bussed Prohawk. But I'm not pretending that's a strong argument.

But look at the other five games he listed. One of them (mislead) barely even classifies as mafia and is heavily dependent on night actions. Look at the ruleset for yourself. Smart passing that game off as relevant is not even being intellectually honest.

Four more of the games (Worst role idea, Fire and Ice, Princess Bride, TwoFold Matrix6) that Smart listed above are multiball so there's no cred from bussing your partners. Why would you bus in multiball rather than hunt for the opposing scum faction? Who's cherry-picking irrelevant data now?

---

I also want to address his "my vote was the most important one on Prohawk's wagon" which is meaningless rhetoric. This guy could give Trump a run for his money. How was his vote more important than mine? My replace in and voting Prohawk changed the flow of the game because my predecessor was townreading Prohawk and Jaack was the only one hard-pushing the Prohawk/Tenshii angle. It doesn't help me as scum to lynch Prohawk at that point and confirm Jaack's suspicions that Prohawk was scum which would lead to me being the natural next suspect. If Prohawk was alive and townread, then I'd be safe because people weren't going into Prohawk-Tenshii if they thought Prohawk was town but lynching him removes all doubt.

Secondly, if you see the votecount in 400, Smart had two votes on him, Prohawk had one, my slot had zero. This was when I replaced in. Smart was the one under pressure, not me. Dun was wavering a bit but didn't remove her vote from him. Gamma had Smart as his strongest scumread. Prohawk was posturing against Smart. If I were partnered with Prohawk, I could have easily planned out a Smart mislynch and get to 5-way lylo with Prohawk as a near-universal townread.

Look at it this way: a Prohawk scumflip would make me look superficially bad but Smart look superficially good. Only he had motivation to bus because the towncred he gets from that bus outweighs his chances of winning without bussing. Because if I pushed Prohawk hard and got him lynched and Smart wasn't on the wagon, how do you think that would look for him? He was forced into bussing as soon as I made my intentions clear. If I were scum on the other hand, my victory path would be significantly different and would rely on taking Prohawk to lylo and clean-sweeping the town with no scum-lynches.

An important thing I learned on my homesite - don't bus unless you can chain at least one or two mislynches to that bus. Smart had clear motive to bus here because he had a lot to gain. The only thing I'd get is to show everyone who townread Prohawk that he was indeed scum and make them start to wonder if Jaack was right.

[BlackVoid]

I mean, the prevailing thought at that time was that there were two people that weren't Smart who could plausibly be linked to Prohawk. So, bussing him and chaining those mislynches after is a pretty straightforward strategy. And if I hadn't been so involved and engaged with the game and fought tooth and nail to the end, Smart would have won by now.

If I drew scum, I'd have tried my best to bring Prohawk to 5-way either by lynching Smart or pushing a lurker lynch on ZZZX or maybe even Gamma.

One thing I completely forgot to mention that I can't believe it escaped my mind: Prohawk fit into more scumteams than I did. So, anyone who scumread me had to lynch Prohawk first (unless they thought I was partnered with Gamma which no on did as far as I remember). So, as long as Prohawk was townread, I was shielded from the lynch. It didn't matter that Dun thought Tenshii was scum. Because she townread Prohawk, she didn't even consider lynching me. Going to lylo with Prohawk would have been immensely helpful for me because he was townread by quite a few people and no one who townread him would vote me. That pretty much guarantees a win. If you seriously think I bussed here, I don't know what to tell you.

[BlackVoid]

Here are Dun's and Gamma's last reads-lists before I replaced in:

I scumread Tenshii but not Prohawk. I can see why the pair makes sense but I also think it's easy to build associations or to be wrong about associations.
Jaack and SSmart both bring points against Tenshii/Gamma and there's no reason not to trust them on that. They can be town and wrong but the fact that they both make points in the same direction leads me to disregard this connection.
I've not reread ZZZX but I scumread him yesterday and Jaack's and SSmart's refusal to consider him raises all kind of flags.
I'm wavering on SSmart. His last post sounded more genuine than the previous one.
I have a huge paranoia attack on Jaack.

From town to scum
Dunhallym
Prohawk
Tenshii
Jaack
ZZZX
Something_Smart

The options would have been endless for a hypothetical me-scum. Lynching Smart would have been one option. ZZZX was another if me and Prohawk voted him. Prohawk had ZZZX as scum anyways so he wouldn't even have needed to make any major stance changes. There was even an outside chance of swinging the lynch to Jaack given Dun and Gamma had reservations about him. Could have killed Gamma if that happened to ensure that Prohawk was the only one I could be partnered with. We could pick kills in a way so that people townreading Prohawk and scumreading each other would be alive and they obviously wouldn't vote me if they townread Prohawk. I'd be shooting myself in the foot by bussing at this point. If you think I bussed, you'd have to believe that I passed up a much easier chance of victory with a plethora of options available to intentionally shoot myself in the foot by flipping someone who could be a partner to me but otherwise townread.

[BlackVoid]

Great. What are your thoughts currently at?

[BlackVoid]

Okay, I've been refreshing the page for the past ten minutes that it's almost unhealthy so I'm going to stop and just point out: don't vote until you've discussed all of the points brought up and just explain what you are thinking in thread and walk me through your thought process (unless you are voting Smart in which case feel free anytime). I don't want a repeat of what nn30 did in Mini 1838 where he just voted me out of the blue and for a full five minutes, I was under the impression that I just lost the game and I spent most of this lylo too concerned that the same thing might happen again,

[BlackVoid]

Here's the checklist I promised. I'll preface this by saying that people's reads change constantly and optimal town play is not to go with the reads of players who had far less information that you do now. D1 lynches are almost always mislynches for example because the town doesn't have a lot of information. As you gain more information, you can make more accurate choices. I hope you understand that what Jaack and Dun expect of you is to make the right choice, not sheep their reads. With that said, look at the evidence against me vs Smart:

1. I had very little motivation to bus since Prohawk being townread means neither me nor Prohawk get lynched.

At the point I replaced in (page 17), Smart was the one under pressure, not me so the entire narrative he's spinning twists the facts. Neither Gamma nor Dun backed Jaack on his Prohawk push, and ZZZX's reads were an enigma. As long as Prohawk was townread by Dun and Gamma, he wasn't getting lynched, and I wasn't getting lynched as long as people townread Prohawk because he fit into more scumteams and anyone scumreading me had to lynch him first. Smart's case is different because he had two votes on him and I had him in my POE pool and there was the possibility he'd get lynched and Prohawk after him.

2. Smart had motivation to bus because bussing is more likely to win him the game than not bussing.

He bussed right after I made 421 and 431 calling Dun as Prohawk's most likely partner. Jaack was hardcore pushing me as the partner. So, he had two mislynches set which is all he needs to win. I have no motivation to bus because with my partner getting townread, swinging a lynch on someone else is more likely to win me the game than bussing and if you think I'm scum, you also have to think I'm deliberately, purposefully making it so much harder on myself than it has to be. Smart painted it as some desperate move to prove I wasn't scum with Prohawk. But if people weren't buying Prohawk as scum in the first place, why would I even flip him rather than go for a sweep?

3. Smart just doesn't have the same energy/activity that I do to win the game.

You can say that I'd have to push hard as either alignment but what's ideal to do as scum and what I'm capable of doing as scum are two completely different things. Smart is coasting, only popping in from time to time afraid that he'd say something that might give him away. The entirety of D3 while I looked for every indication that Dun might be town, Smart barely did anything and let us push each other while he sat back. It's classic scum.

4. I was a whole lot more pro-active and spontaneous than Smart ever was.

I was posting my thoughts as I read through the game. I said I wanted to lynch Prohawk as early as my second post a few hours upon replacing in. I immediately called Dun scum D3 where Smart waited for everyone to take a stand first. If you're reading both of our posts as townish, know that mine are much, much more difficult to fake. I'd also encourage you to read every single lylo I've been in, scum and town and see the incredible level of difference there.

5. Smart has been known to bus in a fairly high percentage of his scumgames.

It's fairly routine for him. To counter this point, he brought up examples where he townread his partner. That's meaningless because no one busses every single game. My point is more that he

can

bus, not that he never, ever townreads his partners. In fact, more often than not, he busses. He also makes a very arbitrary argument that he wouldn't bus a single partner. In normal circumstances with town power roles, that might be a bad idea but like I pointed out in #1 and #2 above, bussing here gives him a very clear path to victory so it makes perfect sense to bus here. Not bussing at this point would have been disastrous. I'd like you to really think about what other options a scum-Smart had here at the time of my replace in. Then think about whether those options would be more likely to net him a win after I voted Prohawk than the bussing option.

6. Smart's vote on Prohawk betrayed additional information.

Voting Prohawk over me when he was considering a me/Gamma possibility while also thinking that neither of me/Dun make sense as a Prohawk partner. This was a hasty vote and in his haste to beat me to a Prohawk vote to look good, he didn't realize that if he were town with the reads he claimed to have, he would not be so quick to vote Prohawk at this point.

---

So, against all of this, what do we have for me:

1. That Tenshii voted Prohawk early on, engaged him, then reading through Prohawk's emotional, aggressive posts, decided that Prohawk was town after all. This isn't any different from how Tenshii treated Secret Agent Jin (or anyone else really). His style has been to push and prod people, get a read and back off if they came across as town. The main case was made by Jaack but even Jaack recognized that he could be wrong in 483 saying that "The more I thought about it, the more I felt that ProHawk's attitude toward me felt like scum caught for the wrong reasons." Except, he thought it was Dun rather than Smart.

2. That if I were scum and the secondary suspect after Dun, I'd have to do something D3 to make myself look town. To be perfectly frank, if I were scum, I'd have taken that mislynch asap and then argued against Smart. But I don't expect you to believe that because you only have my word for it. It's fine if you don't believe me but that still makes it null as you said yourself. I think the real tell is that combing through the game and faking analysis on every single page is not something I would enjoy doing and I wouldn't waste hours and hours of my free time doing it. Actually analyzing the game as town is a different matter.

If there's literally anything else, you're going to have to bring it up because you said you wanted to vote me at the beginning of the day. I hope you changed your mind and are ready to vote Smart at this point. If not, bring up what other concerns you have.

[BlackVoid]

@Columbo - I know you've been going over the game with a fine-toothed comb and seriously trying to do justice to this game. Smart's implication that you'd be "overwhelmed" with information isn't true. He's almost implying that you'd be unable to parse good information from bad. I think you are perfectly capable of parsing information and taking everything into consideration. In fact, lylo is the time when you need to throw everything out there, be completely 100% transparent and hide nothing which is what I'm doing. Unlike Smart, I don't believe that you are incapable enough of solving the game that everything needs to be dumbed down.

I'm not saying you should vote Smart because I "deserve" the win although I certainly do way more than him. I'm saying that for people like me and Smart who prefer playing as town, activity level can be alignment-indicative. When you enjoy gamesolving and putting together puzzle pieces, it's a lot easier to post a ton but when you draw scum and need to plan out every single thing you say so as to not slip, activity level tends to decrease a lot. Smart has never tried to gamesolve past D2. All he did was let town go after themselves and offer apologies for his low level of content.

I strongly believe that every mafia game is solvable if there's enough information on the table. The more closely you analyze the game, and the deeper you look, the more evident it will be who scum is. I've been encouraging you to read the re-read the game, look at my behavior in lylo as town and scum, see who had the motive to bus. Smart just wants you to end it because he knows the deeper you look into it, the more likely it is that he'll get exposed.

In his last post, you'll notice that he didn't address any of the salient points I made choosing instead to handwave them away by calling them bullshit and trying to sound sincere. He doesn't have an answer. He knows that all the evidence is stacked against him so he throws out vague generalities like "situation is complex." But analyzing that complexity is part of what wins games. Read into it closely and see who would win if they bussed at that point and who would have been shooting themselves in the foot. It's easy to say "I just found Prohawk's posts scummy" to handwave away the fact that Prohawk had only two possible partners and if he didn't think either fit, he wouldn't have been so confident. And if he thought I could be scum with Gamma, he should have been voting me especially given how solidly he was scumreading Tenshii.

The only way we're going to win this game is you explain thoroughly exactly where you are at, what arguments you agree with, what you disagree with and we have a back and forth dialogue. All the evidence points towards Smart and I'll do my best to show you exactly why if you are not yet convinced. But you need to give me the chance to do it. My job as not-confirmed town is to be as transparent as I can. Don't ignore everything that points towards Smart as scum and decide in his favor because "Tenshii backed off of Prohawk." The notion is laughable. I've done everything possible to show that I'm town with actual facts and evidence rather than meaningless rhetoric. Please don't let me down here.

[BlackVoid]

But he doesn't deserve to win; I deserve to win, because I'm town and have made that as evident as I can in all of my posts thus far. And you deserve to win, because you were on the right track at the beginning of the day.

This by the way is 100% pure emotional manipulation. Funny thing is, I think he believes he played well enough as scum to deserve the win. The part about making it evident he's town is false. It actually applies to me. He's been coasting since the point it seemed like he had two lynches set in stone after Prohawk. You obviously deserve to win but won't win with him because he's scum. The appeal to you being on the right track is hilarious in light of what I mentioned earlier about people being attached to their initial reads and wanting to be right. He's trying to obfuscate the facts and evidence through manipulation.

[BlackVoid]

If you need further proof that Smart has not been spontaneous and only posting the minimum amount necessary, just look at the timing of his posting patterns by ISO'ing him in reverse and seeing the dates that he posted:

Tue Jan 17th (one post)
Sun Jan 15th (he made two posts one of which was fluff)
Fri Jan 13th (one post)
Thu Jan 12th (one post)
Tue Jan 10th (one post)
Sun Jan 8th (one post)

That's it for D4. His posting pattern looks like he's trying to avoid being prodded by posting once every two days. Now look at D3:

Fri Jan 6th (one post)
Wed Jan 4th (one post)
Mon Jan 2nd (one post)
Sat Dec 31st (one substantial post + 1 fluff saying he'll get to it that night)
Thu Dec 29th (one fluff post)
Tue Dec 27th (one post)
Thu Dec 22nd (one post)
Tue Dec 20th (one post)

That's it for D3. In light of that, please see how his "I've done everything to show that I'm town" rings like hollow rhetoric. He's basically telling you what he thinks you want to hear. He never went V/LA which is what someone would do when they are legitimately busy. Instead he constantly posts hollow apologies for why he's unable to contribute.

This is because taking a V/LA when you don't need it is as good as lying to the mod and is highly unethical.

But simply saying he's busy is the sort of vague excuse that scum can use to lurk it out. If he was legit busy, he'd go on V/LA and post when he can. He wouldn't have a posting rate that's deviously designed to avoid prods by posting once roughly every 48 hours. This is so ridiculous I'm kicking myself for not catching it on D3 and lynching Dun instead.

[BlackVoid]

And if he believed any of the nonsense he's spewing about not "overloading you with information," he'd have been transparent about it and just say that he's prod-dodging and waiting for you to make a decision. But he isn't. Because prod-dodging looks bad. He wants to make it seem like he's engaged without actually being engaged. That this extended all the way through D3 is actually an even bigger tell because he just wanted us to lynch Dun quickly and then me without much effort on his part.

[BlackVoid]

@Columbo - I hope all is well on your end and the Ice Storm subsided. Hopefully, you show up tonight. There are a couple of things I'd like to bring up for you to consider.

I understand why you might be tempted to vote for me. Both Smart and I pushed and voted Prohawk so you know for sure that scum bussed. Jaack and Dun who have been in the game from the start both suspected me more than Smart so you feel that as a more recent replacement, if you are undecided on who to lynch, honoring their last wishes would better reflect the will of the town. There are three major problems with that approach.

The first is that if Jaack was alive right now and been able to read the arguments I posted against Smart, he may well have changed his mind. Instead of sheeping his read, try and see what his read is based on. Basically it comes down to him thinking that Prohawk and Tenshii pushing each other early and then backing off could point towards scumteam interactions and he got it into his head that that was the team. However, if you see Jaack's latest posts, you'll notice that he recognized that Smart's D3 has been "blah" and he was slowly catching on to him. Dun and I went into an unfortunate mutual tunnel but those are the sort of interactions that are often town vs town while scum coasts - which is exactly what happened here. Smart hung back and let me attack Dun and face the full blast of getting tunneled back.

The second issue is that mafia is a game where every player is responsible for making their own decisions. You are the one here in lylo. You are my teammate here and it's you I need to work with in order to secure the win for town. Jaack and Dun never saw the arguments I brought up against Smart. They are no longer in the game. I can't interact with them anymore. They can't judge the content that Smart and I have brought up this game day. You can. They don't need you to sheep the reads they had before the mass of content that's been posted today. They need you to give your very best effort into solving the game.

The third point I want to bring up is that I'm town just like Jaack and Dun. I've been busy but mafia is one of my favorite hobbies and it's hard to not get addicted. I've given this game everything I've got. I've woken up in the middle of the night at odd hours every night for the past week hoping to catch you in real time so we can work together and go over any issues or questions you may have regarding my play. For those three reasons, I don't think it would fair to rule tossups in Smart's favor, and rather than decide to hand him the game because you are on the fence and might as well go with Jaack's and Dun's decision, I hope you give me a fair chance here. I always wind up being the person everyone scumreads close to lylo. The person who got lynched the day before lylo almost always thinks I'm scum. It's almost tiring how wrongly people read me and I'm hoping this time will be different.

[BlackVoid]

But I don't think it's a tossup at all. I've brought up a lot of evidence that highlights Smart's scum motivations and I definitely think I've done my job as the non-confirmed townie to show you that he's way more likely scum than not, the standard of proof you asked for.

Smart is trying to scare you away from analyzing the game deeply by complaining about the quantity of information. I don't expect you to be overwhelmed by a few walls given how thorough you've been this game. What I hope you will do is actually analyze the quality of the content I brought up. Read my checklist really, really closely and talk to me about the points I've made.

The core of the game comes down to this really: you know from your POV that scum bussed. Given the situation at that time, who stood more to gain by bussing than by allying with Prohawk and mislynching townies? Prohawk could only have three possible partners (me, Dun, and Smart). Scum needed two mislynches to win. Dun and I were both linked to Prohawk leaving Smart to bus and take both mislynches to win. The alternative where he doesn't bus means that the mislynches are no longer guaranteed and makes it harder for him to win especially since he himself might have been lynched before Prohawk - something that doesn't apply to me. I'd

never

be lynched before Prohawk the way D2 turned out simply because anyone who scumread me would have to lynch Prohawk first as he fit into more scumteams and since quite a few people townread him, that was unlikely. Me subbing in for Tenshii turned the tables against him a bit and made him a likely lynch. When Tenshii was in the game and townreading Prohawk, Smart never voted him - only distanced. But when

I

replaced in and said I'd lynch Prohawk, Smart immediately puts down a vote.

Then there's the plethora of other stuff like his illogical vote on Prohawk while calling out a me/Gamma scumteam which shows he's going out of his way to look like he's uninformed. There's his voting Prohawk despite saying neither of the two possible partners make sense which shows he knows too much. There's also him having Prohawk as his #2 scumread, the place where scum normally puts their buddies - the place where

he

normally puts his buddies and not voting him until after I replaced in. Contrast that with me replacing in and immediately within a few hours, having Prohawk as my #1 scumread. I simply caught scum. If you look at my ISO, you'll see my posts have not come from the perspective of someone with additional info or from someone who was trying to distance and bus at the opportune time. Then there's his prod-dodging and posting content because he feels like he has to put up the image of doing so just long enough for you to cave in his favor.

I hope you see through all this and see that I'm town and Smart is scum. If you need more time, I'm sure you can ask the mods for an additional 3-4 days on account of the storm. We have less than two days left currently. But I'd much rather you actually take the time rather than be hasty because the game's gone on too long and you just want to end it. Other than that, let me know if there's a time you are free where we talk in real time.

[BlackVoid]

Like I said, I don't care about "dragging out." What I care about is making sure you engage with all of the points I brought up before time runs out. It's not that you "ask questions" to both of us, read the answers, then decide to vote. I'd like you to state where you are at arguments-wise, what you agree with, what you don't, etc so I can help you with the decision by walking you through it. I want to see you explain where you intend to vote and why. You are acting like you need to keep it a secret which way you are leaning until you vote. You don't. Every post you make, I'd prefer you say exactly what you are thinking. You are not doing me a favor by trying to rush the decision. I can keep going until you feel very, very confident that you are making the right decision. I've made two lylo calls on this site so far and both times, I only voted until I was absolutely sure that I was right and I was. The one time I voted before I was certain was when I had to choose between Dun and Smart and we know how that turned out.

@Mods

, can we have a 72 hour extension on account for the fact that there was an ice storm in most of the United States over the weekend?

[BlackVoid]

In other words, in your next post, if you could please say, a) which way you intend to vote right now with reasoning why, and b) what time you are available to have a real time discussion, I'd very much appreciate that. Thanks.

[BlackVoid]

And please take every bit of time you need and "drag it out" as long you you think you need until you have confidence that you are picking right. Don't feel like you have to apologize for taking your time and "dragging it out." You don't. Don't give in Smart pressuring you to end this. You have not been here for most of these two weeks so of course you didn't have the time to sort through our alignment. You haven't had a chance to engage us even once in nearly twelve days. It's not your fault there was a storm. So, please take an extension, set down a time and talk to me about where you at and don't give in to his artificial "it's been so long, end it already" bullshit. It would have been a different thing if you were actually here talking to us during this lylo.

The most pathetic thing I've seen happen in lylos are quickvotes. For example in a very recent game I followed:

Spoiler:

I've just been here watching you guys waste your time from bed since I'm already sure of who I'm voting.

VOTE: Formerfish

The above were the only posts that the conftown made in lylo. It was over in eight hours with a very predictable scum win. So, take your time. Run me through what's going on in your mind in-depth. I think I've made as good a case as I possibly can without knowing what's going on in your mind and shown you every single piece of evidence that points towards Smart as scum and me as town. There's a massive mountain of it. All I can do now is wait to see where you are at and address your concerns.

[BlackVoid]

I don't get how you can say you can appreciate "both" of our efforts when Smart's "effort" literally consists of making half-heated responses to my points every two days and handwaving it away as "oh, that's complicated" when there's really clear and convincing evidence. He has

barely

put in any effort into the game since Prohawk got lynched.

[BlackVoid]

I'm sorry to hear that. Hope all is well. No hard feelings if you do wind up needing to replace out. Real life always comes first. But if you can continue, I'd really suggest asking for an extension as we only have a little over a day left, and we never had a chance to interact in this lylo at all, partly due to the storm.

[BlackVoid]

@Smart,

Given it's morning and Columbo hasn't responded, I'm assuming she needed to leave. I've asked in this thread as well as PM'd Creature yesterday for an extension. He saw my message but seems to have ignored both requests even though I think the circumstances warrant the deadline being paused.

Here's the situation as I see it:

1. Columbo will somehow return and continue to play. If she has the time to ask questions and such, that would be helpful but I'm not banking on it.
2. Someone new will replace in and the deadline will be extended. There's a more than a decent chance they vote against you.
3. Deadline expires.

I'm just going to talk to you in an alignment-neutral way because it would be impossible to have a conversation otherwise:

For whichever of us is town, #3 would be a terrible outcome and they wouldn't want to lose that way. For whichever of us is scum, #2 is a pretty bad outcome because more often than not, new replacements come in with fresh perspectives of the game and can undo everything that the scum worked for. In fact, I think it's very likely that a new replacement will vote correctly given only people that like solving games will replace into 3-way and whoever is scum has not had the opportunity to play to them. That just leaves option #1 which I'm not sure we can bank on. Given the game will end before Columbo needs to be prodded in 48 hours and a further 24 hours before the mods look for a replacement, I don't know what's going to happen there. Game ends tomorrow at 4PM PST.

I'm impressed by your D1 and D2 play. We've been around this game day even when Columbo wasn't and have been presenting arguments at least. Winning because of a last minute replacement or expiration of the deadline isn't fulfilling. So here's my proposal, do you want to draw the game? That way we can both say we haven't lost this one after how well we played.

[BlackVoid]

So, yes or no? I want this game out of my mind now. If no, then I'm going to bug the listmod to do something about it.

[BlackVoid]

Never mind, misread your post. I PM'd Creature. Going to PM callforjudgement as well asking if they'll allow it.

[BlackVoid]

PM'd CFJ. Basically I don't want Columbo to make a rushed decision tonight. I asked him if we can either draw the game right now, or if he could give us a long extension (maybe five days) and/or a replacement because we lost several days due to the storm and now Columbo's emergency.

[BlackVoid]

@Columbo, glad to hear things went well.

On your most recent post: it's not that Smart "could have posted more," it's that while me and Dun were trying to figure out the game, his lack of posting betrayed that he just wanted it over with. I don't know how many games you've played but it's way more likely for scum to coast along than town.

The situation around Prohawk is also not as simple as which of us voted or indicated a FOS on Prohawk first. I think the point being missed is to look at who had motivation to bus Prohawk at the time and I don't see how you arrived at "the net result is a wash" from the evidence I posted.

[BlackVoid]

If this is what you came up with after two weeks, it's literally just pissing me off. But please continue with the rest of it.

[BlackVoid]

I made most of these notes offline, I think I managed to link most of them.

@BV

I think you’ve played a hell of a game since you subbed in. If it wasn’t down to you vs another player, I wouldn’t be considering you possible scum. What I don’t know is if this is your honest town game or if I’m being played. Honestly, it does feel like you’re attempting to overwhelm and confuse the situation. I was thinking that before Smart mentioned it. I’ve seen scum do this all too well. Much of your play makes a lot of sense as town and seems genuine, but then there are pings that seem like you are exaggerating/bending/twisting the facts to make your case.

You kept saying that you were reading everything so I was under the impression that you actually were. If I had known that you were being overwhelmed or confused, I would have tried to explain things in simpler terms. Part of the reason I had to post so much is because you posted barely anything and I had no idea where you were at with your decision. I did think that you had a good idea what was going on though. It seemed like I was talking to a wall the whole time.

Such as:
Near the start of D3 you said of Tenshii: “he seemed town to me gut-wise, just easygoing and off-the-cuff” and you say something similar later in a more thorough examination of Tenshii’s posts. At that point you ask Smart why he was scum reading Tenshii.

At the start of D4, that read ratchets up: In post #600 you say: "I don't know why he was being scumread but he was super town to me right from the beginning". A couple of posts later you say:
“There is nothing at all scummy about Tenshii's posts.” And in the same post “I was overwhelmingly reading Tenshii as town even before I saw his role PM.”

These latter descriptions are much stronger than your initial assessment. It feels like your trying too hard to make this argument. Town doesn’t need to exaggerate. Multiple players thought Tenshii was scummy at one point or another. Saying “There is nothing at all scummy about Tenshii's posts.” Is a unnecessary (and false) over-exaggeration.

Just because other people found Tenshii scummy doesn't mean there was anything scummy about him. I was always townreading Tenshii. It's possible I had more convinction in my later posts because I re-read his posts to make sure that there wasn't anything that could reasonably be considered scummy. The first time I mentioned Tenshii, I had only read the game once so I must not have come across as so confident.

You also over-exaggerating in your assessment on Smart on D4: (emphasis added)
“On his activity level,

everytime he posted

, it seemed like a chore for him which is mostly indicative of him just wanting the day over with so he could get his lynches and win.”

I'm not? I literally posted a list of all the times Smart posted during D3 and D4. He never once posted when he didn't have to. Almost every single time he posted, he was just about to hit the prod-timer. Can you point out a single time he posted D3 or D4 where he didn't have to and just had something on his mind, or a question, or he wanted to gamesolve? It's always to avoid a prod. Every single time. I think there is about one post where there's a 24 hour gap and one other post about Trump that he posted the same day. So yeah, I don't think it's an exaggeration at all to say that he didn't really

want

to post. Just look at 644.

In #604 – you say of Smart: “Yet, he never once calls me scum on D3.”

Did you ever call Smart scum on D3? Both of you at one point or another stated suspicion of the other. But you both seemed to be reading Dun scum and ergo the other town.

I had to go back and look at the context to see what you were talking about. I think you are misunderstanding my point. It's not about whether I also called him scum. The point is, he said "one of the reasons I think I thought it was Dunhallym was because I didn't think that I'd get both scum immediately upon replacing in." That's a ridiculous reason to suddenly think it was me. If that's what he genuinely was thinking, he'd be exploring the options of both me and Dun. But he didn't. It was mostly just pushing Dun along with everyone else and re-iterating our suspicion of her but in a more under-the-radar way.

As far as what I was doing, I was completely 100% transparent with what I was thinking during all of D3. There were times when I suspected that it was Smart, I've asked him questions and told him to respond to my re-read of the game, and ultimately was swayed by his "reaction test" on Prohawk and early call out of Dun where he pushed her based on how she pushed ssbm_kyouko.

#558 – In your analysis of Smart’s vote on PH in post #432 you said “ZZZX also expressed mild suspicion of Prohawk”. Where did ZZZX do that?

I was referring to post 424. On a re-read, the suspicion was very mild though so I'm not sure this is as strong a point as I originally thought. ZZZX quotes a post from Prohawk and says that he saw scum saying "seems forced" as an argument in nearly every game he played. It certainly seemed to me as if the tide was turning against Prohawk and that if Prohawk was up for lynch, ZZZX might not have put that much effort into stopping it.

This is also leads to an example where it seems like you’re twisting content to fit your argument. Post #639 in regards to your motivation to bus PH you said “Neither Gamma nor Dun backed Jaack on his Prohawk push, and ZZZX's reads were an enigma.”

So

Smart might be voting PH because ZZZ (among others) had suspicion on PH but when it comes to yourself, ZZZX’s didn’t have a read on PH??

To the bolded, that's correct.

424 is the ZZZX post we're referring to.

The posts where I said I wanted to lynch PH were 418 and 421. Before ZZZX's post.

Smart voted PH in 432 which was after.

Or the one that Smart pointed out that you later called his fluff post.

Inconsistencies like these give me pause about you being town.

I called his post "fluff" because there was no game advancing content in his post. He corrected a difference in semantics. I misread his initial post as "my vote was the most important one on Prohawk." He corrected me and pointed out that he said "my vote was one of the most important votes on Prohawk." I don't think he was wrong to correct my mistake, but I do think that when I'm trying to explain to you that he's barely posting every two days, the fact that he corrected my post doesn't really count as an additional game-advancing post and is mostly just filler.

[BlackVoid]

Honestly Columbo, you are focusing on things that aren't indicative of alignment. What you should be looking at is who had motivation to bus Prohawk. From your POV, we both voted scum but one of us bussed.

Is Smart's Prohawk vote a gamewinning move if he bussed when he did?

Is my push on Prohawk a gamewinning move if I was scum?

That's what will tell you the difference in alignment.

[BlackVoid]

I know Smart is scum so I'm going to be way more confident in the push now than I was before. "It seems like you are exagerrating" is a red herring really because both of our motivations right now (as town and scum) is to get the other person lynched. So, that's not going to tell you about what alignment we are. Look at our play when another scum was still in the game. Then compare and contrast our play on D3.

[BlackVoid]

But do you see that as scum, I would have a much easier chance of winning the game if I supported Prohawk rather than bus him?

[BlackVoid]

I haven't.

[BlackVoid]

Also, did you catch that Smart was at L-2 without either me or Prohawk voting him at the time meaning he was an easy lynch if I was scum and was talking to Prohawk during the day?

If Smart really was town, I'd know that a Prohawk lynch makes it hard to lynch him because of how much they pushed each other. I'd also know that bussing Prohawk means I would HAVE to lynch Smart to win. The alternative of lynching him before Prohawk flipped would have been way more appealing.

On the other hand, do you see how easy it would have been for Smart to win by bussing Prohawk at that time? The Prohawk-Tenshii connection was being thrown around and I basically said Prohawk and Dun were the team. That's two mislynches in the bag. The only reason he hasn't won a month ago is because of how hard I tried to read Dun and take things slowly and how much I'm fighting now to save the game.

[BlackVoid]

No wonder you are paranoid then, lol.

But that's why I keep asking you to look at my scumgame. Then you'd know I don't have a great scum game and that'll help you read me. I'm really straightforward as scum. I wouldn't make a play that makes it unnecessarily harder for me to win.

[BlackVoid]

Also, if Smart was scum, what other options did he have after I came in and said I wanted to vote Prohawk?

[BlackVoid]

I want to keep my identity across the internet separate for safety. Sorry about that. I know one is a small sample size so I understand it if you take it with a grain of salt.

For my last question, going after me or Dun would have been incredibly risky and here's why:

Jaack and I were both pushing Prohawk. There's a chance ZZZX might vote him. It definitely seemed like Prohawk was more likely to get lynched than me or Dun. There is very little chance I was going to get lynched D2 because anyone thinking I was scum with Prohawk had to vote Prohawk because he fit into more scumteams. In fact, there was very little chance I'd get lynched before Prohawk did.

Between Prohawk and Dun, Prohawk seemed to be a likelier lynch. Jaack was hard-pushing that lynch and I said I was going to vote Prohawk. There were also a lot of people who townread Dun. How would it have looked for Smart if he pushed me or Dun and Prohawk winded up getting lynched?

[BlackVoid]

Hit submit to quickly, but at even with PH's play at that point. He couldn't know how gamma, dun and zzzx would react. The first two seemed pretty pro-PH.

But does he have any motivation to save Prohawk in the first place if bussing him means the odds of him are ridiculously high? For a scum-Smart, bussing is actually the safest move at this point. There were already two town connections to Prohawk. To bus and seal himself as the least likely partner is great for him. Why take the risk of pushing outside Prohawk and looking worse than me in case he's unsuccessful in getting Dun lynched and Prohawk got lynched instead?

[BlackVoid]

*odds of him winning.

[BlackVoid]

On Smart's wall, let me know if you want this elaborated on, I'll try to keep this short:

1. Someone noticing a connection between two scum is a reason

not

to bus because the cred would be limited as people still wonder after the flip.
2. Smart has many scumgames where he bussed and survived till lategame. He's playing them down by saying that most of them were an exception in some way.
3. He and Prohawk putting each other where scum put their buddies is a point against them, not for. So is Prohawk brushing aside AA9 to encourage the SAJ push.
4. Tenshii votehopping around was actually a towntell. Scum tend to switch their votes less because they need to post new explanations and new stances.
5. What motivation do I have to "test the winds" for a Prohawk lynch as opposed to just townread him so he's not even on the lynch table to begin with?

I mean, your theory is that I bussed Prohawk to make it more difficult for me to win because a guy you know likes making absurd plays. I'm not like that. I've been either staying up late or waking up in the middle of the night almost every night for the past week. If you honestly think I'd be setting up absurd challenges for myself and messing up my sleep schedule for nothing when I could have just teamed up with Prohawk and won, you're jumping through hoops to see me as scum when I'm not.

The simpler explanation is that Smart bussed because it would win him the game. Both he and Prohawk were under-fire and individually getting votes but no one was calling them partners together. It would have been difficult to drive mislynches they want. Bussing each other gets them towncred when one of them go down so the other can carry the torch. Smart bussing Prohawk is ideal since he could lynch Dun and me.

[BlackVoid]

@Columbo - in fact, would you mind looking at 390 and 398 to see where Gamma and Jaack put Dun in their readslists? How likely do you think a D2 Dun lynch really was? If scum-Smart wanted to mislynch Dun, he'd have to really commit to persuading me and Jaack to switch when we both preferred Prohawk. And if he failed, he's now tied to Prohawk whereas before he was clean of associatives. Do you think any decent scum would take that risk? Prohawk's 409 is also relevant. He was townreading Dun. How would it look if he suddenly switched around and voted her? Lynching Dun isn't really a viable option for a scum-Smart. Lynching Smart would have been a viable option for scum-me because two votes and Prohawk was already pushing him so no sudden change of stance needed.

[BlackVoid]

Smart's whole "he could have switched away from Prohawk" is just trying to play on your paranoia. Anyone could have hypothetically changed their reads at any time. But I didn't. I voted Prohawk, I stuck to it and ensured he got lynched when not doing so would mean a very likely win were I scum.

[BlackVoid]

By the way, @Columbo - curious what is setting your gut off against me.

[BlackVoid]

I never knowingly lied or stretched the truth. What I was saying was a red herring is most of the things you questioned me on aren't directly indicative of alignment. I was hoping you'd be investigating more deeply where we got our reads from or what we were thinking at certain points. Stuff like the fluff post Smart made about Trump are more of a distraction.

When I replaced in, Jaack was the only one pushing Prohawk. Smart had expressed suspicion but never pushed him. I think Jaack said Prohawk was "flailing" as rhetoric or to sell his case but I don't think the lynch was already set in stone at the time I replaced in. There were still a lot of people townreading Prohawk and he may have legitimately thought he could get Jaack lynched. Which post are you referring to by the way?

I've been trying to explain this but here's the major difference between Tenshii and Smart - Tenshii never posted strategically to avoid prods. He posted when he could. He got prodded from time to time. When he was engaging Prohawk, he posted a lot in a short time frame. It was unself-conscious and natural. He WAS replaced out. Smart is still here. Can you see the difference? That's because Smart was posting just enough to stay in the game. There's a difference between inactive players and active lurkers.

[BlackVoid]

That's a great question. And I've been trying to find a way to articulate it. It's mainly a difference in feeling. It feels like you are trying to sell me something. I don't get than from Smart.

The things you indicate you would only do as town are things I've watched scum do. I don't know what your scum game is like and one game is not enough to establish a meta.

Ah, that makes sense. Out of curiosity, how many times have you been in lylo before? Also, curious how many mafia games you played total.

I've been trying extremely hard to sell you on Smart as scum because he is and I need to do that to win the game for town. I'd probably also need to do it if I were scum so it's null. Right now, both me and Smart are in identical situations where we both need to get the other lynched in order to win whereas you win by choosing correctly. I have nothing to figure out right now. I'm not scumhunting. I already know everything there is to know about the game: who all the town are and who all the scum are. I have the same information scum do and my job is sell you on the fact that it's true. Only difference is, I'm trying to sell you on something I know to be true rather than selling you something I know to be false. To be fair, I would try hard even as scum although I genuinely don't think I would be as motivated as I am here if I didn't rightfully believe that what I'm saying and knowing that I'm town and it's just a matter of communicating that effectively.

Smart knows he hasn't got the truth on his side. He hasn't got the evidence on his side. His major advantage is that he knew you entered the day pre-biased towards him so if he could just respond to questions and survives, he would be fine. His play I think would actually be majorly different if he were town. I think he'd check in more often, he'd be a little more concerned with how things are going.

Why were asking me for additional games if you're not even going to read the one game that you do have available?

[BlackVoid]

Saying I'm selling you too hard is a self-defeating argument because you came into the day about to make the wrong decision. If I didn't explain all the ways Smart's behavior made sense to a scum wincon, we'd have already lost the game. But selling you on Smart as scum makes you hesitate because you seem to think only scum have motivation to try and persuade you when in reality, both sides do. So, I'm not going to stop that. Your gut needs recalibration.

I think you're probably coming from a good place though since play intended purely to convince is probably scummy earlier in the game when town still has to scumhunt. But how I and Smart are playing and making arguments on D4 is mostly indicative of our playstyles rather than our alignments. In fact, there are some people who when they become conftown in lylo, insist that both other players stop talking entirely. I don't think that's a smart idea because they haven't played the same way throughout the game and how they explain their previous actions is alignment-indicative. But the point is, the majority of alignment-indicative things we've done have been before this lylo.

I'm not sure where you got the idea that I was exaggerated anything. I didn't. If you look at my response to your initial question, I explained all my points there - the point about ZZZX as well as Smart's activity level pointing to him being not really motivated to do much. You can't ignore such a huge part of scum-motivated play by saying Smart's activity pattern D3 is not alignment-indicative. It is. Everyone in the dead thread is probably saying "Smart is just coasting, how is he getting away with it?"

[BlackVoid]

The things you indicate you would only do as town are things I've watched scum do.

Are you saying you've never seen scum coast through the game when town argue amongst themselves?

[BlackVoid]

Hands down, you outplayed Smart D3 (as either alignment), but D3 is not the entirety of the game. It is a big part in why were are still here debating this.

I also think hands down, Tenshii outplayed AA9 on D1.
I also think hands down, I outplayed Smart D4.

D2 is the most ambiguous one and Smart did play well enough that I thought Dun was more likely to be scum than he was. But that's where he had the most motivation to bus.

[BlackVoid]

Kyouko was pretty dead on in that the likelihood of both Dun and Smart being town are really low.

[BlackVoid]

Oh, by the way, if you are paranoid that I could be really good scum and do all the things I'm doing as scum, see my wiki where I state that I have a moderately strong preference towards playing town.

I can be good as town. I have a decent track record of lynching scum more often than not. I've instantly figured out scumteams or narrowed them down pretty well upon replacing in late-game which is what happened here. But there's always more motivation to win when I'm town. So as far as trying to win games, I try a lot harder as town which means selling you on my being town.

I know why you are having misgivings. I often tend to not push so hard as scum because standard sales tactic is to pretend you don't desperately want to win in the same way salespeople try to make the customer think that they don't really, really need the sale. Because pushing too hard can look suspicious or cause them to tune it out. You should try and understand that whatever misgivings you have about scum really badly wanting to win actually apply to town not wanting to get mislynched as well. The standard scumtell of not wanting to get lynched goes out the window at this point because town is fighting just as desperately to not get lynched. Look at the actual evidence from D2 and see how much Smart had to gain from making the plays he did.

[BlackVoid]

You are not even trying to figure the game out anymore. You are paranoid that I could be playing a wonderful scumgame, probably because I remind you of someone who does. Then you are actively looking for reasons to justify your gut feeling so you can feel better about it. Those reasons are getting more and more convoluted. Is it possible that I could have bussed Prohawk for the heck of it just because Jaack suspected him, then spent the entirety of D3 pretending to read Dun and and use hours of my time making an account on another site, going over her games there, all to look town, and finally going up against Smart? Sure. But mafia is not about what's possible. It's also possible Jaack misread his role PM and you are not actually clear and you are screwing with me for two weeks. (I'll admit this was an exaggeration to drive home my point). Why wouldn't I bus? It's simple. With how much the Prohawk-Tenshii connection was thrown around, I wouldn't want to be STUCK having to mislynch both Dun and Smart. It makes sense to take a risk and lynch outside Prohawk.

If you stop trying to justify why I'm scum and look at it objectively, do you see that it's not only possible but LIKELY that Smart bussed Prohawk because he knew that with the way things were going, he'd win? That he coasted through D3 because he knew it was always Dun that was getting lynched and he needed to save his energy to go after me next rather than genuinely trying to see which of me or Dun were scummier and trying to end the game then and there like I did.

[BlackVoid]

So Smart is so busy that he could not analyze my interactions with Prohawk for a period of over three weeks but miraculously, he has free time roughly every forty-hours so he can dodge a prod.

@Columbo

- let me know when you are here tonight. This is our last chance to talk things over and make sure we win.

[BlackVoid]

I expected Jaack to die but he was more predictably against me so I suspect Smart wanted him around for another day. If Jaack dies, there's pretty much no one to hard-push the Tenshii-Prohawk angle so it may have been a waste to bus.

[BlackVoid]

Are you still online? Want to go over a few things in real time.

[BlackVoid]

I did look at your scum game, I'll take another look. Problem is one game is not a good sample.

Okay. So, you think one scumgame is too small a sample size to read me. I'll show you a recent game I was in as town in 3-way lylo. I eventually voted scum and it was a 1v1 between me and the scum - pretty much the EXACT situation as here. Start reading from here which is where I put down the vote on Prism. NN30 posts to confirm himself and then I continue selling him on Prism being scum and fielding his questions. Let me know if my posts in that game give you a similar feeling to what twinged your gut here. It's only a couple of pages from there to the end of the game. (Shadow_Step was the guy I replaced by the way and I was pointing out reasons why he was town.)

[BlackVoid]

12 hours left. It's somewhat annoying that you don't engage any points that aren't directly brought up to you in real time but the only times you are online are at three in the morning? I still seem to have missed you somehow despite waking up in the middle of the night.

[BlackVoid]

@Columbo, if you read nothing else, read this:

Please don't lose us the game when the most straightforward evidence points to Smart because you are paranoid about the possibility of me being able to play like this as scum. To win the game, both townies need to work as a team, me with being transparent and you with figuring that out. I've left no stone unturned as far as transparency is concerned. This was actually a pretty good game of mine where I was able to put in consistent effort throughout and never had any off moments. I'm not this town even in my other towngames let alone scumgames. I make sense because I'm town. You're being a bit unfair to me by suggesting possible but fairly unlikely scenarios over the more likely one. I can't convince you that it's absolutely 100% impossible that I'm scum. Occam's razor points to Smart as far more

likely

scum than me and that's why you should vote him.

Can I ask what's holding you back? Is there anything else you need from me? Then let me know when you'll be online next. I should be online again this morning and will keep checking in until the deadline.

[BlackVoid]

When I replaced in, Jaack was the only one pushing Prohawk. Smart had expressed suspicion but never pushed him. I think Jaack said Prohawk was "flailing" as rhetoric or to sell his case but I don't think the lynch was already set in stone at the time I replaced in. There were still a lot of people townreading Prohawk and he may have legitimately thought he could get Jaack lynched. Which post are you referring to by the way?

I'm annoyed you make sense.

This is basically the most important part of D2 contrasted with Smart's motive to win by bussing and chaining two mislynches. His suggestion that you bus when your partner is tied to you is nonsense. You bus when your partner is tied to a townie (if tied to multiple townies, even better).

I don't think I need to argue that Tenshii was far townier than AA9 nor that my D3 play was far townier than Smart. It's because I'm town and he's scum. I'm not Yogsloth or whoever he is and you need to set aside your paranoia and see that.

[BlackVoid]

Whoo. Finally progress. I really thought you were just ignoring my posts until now.

Yeah, Kyouko's post had to do with probabilities. I was just remarking that what he said was true. I knew it was true even D3 but it's amusing that it didn't help me at all.

[BlackVoid]

BV - You thought the Secret agent Jim slot looked town near the end of D1 (when it was his sub). I thought perhaps Smart looked like he knew too much. Do you think that was a read town should of spotted - should Dun have reevaluated her position instead of pushing harder?

That's an interesting question. I didn't find Smart's defence of SAJ particularly concerning. That was actually one of things I liked when I was comparing him and Dun. To me, Jin and Kyouko were both towntelling and Dun just kept pushing that through. Smart then called out Dun very convincingly which was one the major reasons that swayed me into thinking Dun was scummier.

Knowing now that Smart is scum, yeah he was probably whiteknighting Jin for the cred. Prohawk was pushing on the wagon so they must have decided that one of them would stick up for the D1 mislynch so they get towncred.

[BlackVoid]

What Smart ignored is that if he was actually town and he and Prohawk had pushed each other, knowing Prohawk's alignment makes it much harder to get Smart lynched later. Lynching him when everyone thought Prohawk was town was actually a safer play so as to get a mislynch in that would otherwise become hard.

Second thing, if I were scum, I'd push Smart because the next phase would be 5-way lylo which is not only notoriously difficult for town to win, nobody would be clear. ZZZX, Gamma, Jaack, Dun all had some pressure on them and it would be easy to get lynches on lynchbait like ZZZX. Whereas if I did what Smart claims I did, I'd box myself into

needing

to lynch Smart to win.

Sure, pushing Smart would mean dealing with some suspicion. But players are rarely lynched just for pushing a mislynch. Jaack pushed SAJ/Kyouko and was still universally townread. Also, putting town in 5-way lylo with basically no information and no clears would have been a very advantageous situation.

As I said, I can't prove that it would be impossible but it's a lot less likely I passed up on those chances than that Smart bussed because he thought he could chain Dun's and my lynches to Prohawk and win outright. Smart also didn't have any other truly viable option since the most likely lynch outside Prohawk was Smart himself.

[BlackVoid]

And if I were hoping he'd get lynched without my help, I'd push in a completely different direction like Dun, ZZZX or Gamma with unpersuasive arguments, not contribute directly towards Prohawk's lynch.

[BlackVoid]

That's bull. You didn't force me to do anything. I was midway through catching up. I already said I was going to vote Prohawk and you put down a vote before I could finish reading the game.

[BlackVoid]

At the risk of twinging your gut like crazy, vote him before you go. I'll heave a huge sigh of relief.

[BlackVoid]

Smart is pushing pretty hard on the "really wants to win" argument. Well, yeah I want to win. I'm also town. He's going on about vague stuff like "look logically not holistically" which isn't really a meaningful argument. I have actually been very keen on making sure you examine all of my arguments, pointing you to specific posts, games, and engaging you one on one. Saying I'm hoping you'd skim over them is very far from the truth. If he were town, he wouldn't care about "looking like a bad guy" because he'd know the evidence favors him.

---

That quote by Prohawk was actually him complaining of being caught and lynched for the wrong reasons. Jaack even pointed this out after Prohawk's lynch. That's why he was emphasizing the ridiculousness - to save his own skin. Prohawk knew that association wasn't true. But he was getting lynched anyways.

In fact, early D2 when there was relatively little pressure on him, Prohawk's reaction here:

If you're wondering about my ProHawk, it just that I think that Tenshii-ProHawk pair is too likely to ignore at this point, and ProHawk is more likely to independently be scum.

Moar Please? All I can see is "I think Tenshii is scum, and ProHawk and Tenshii pair is the most likely combo so I am going to flip ProHawk first??"

shows him subtly insinuating that Tenshii should be flipped first. He's suggesting Tenshii should be lynched first in a roundabout manner because he knew a Tenshii townflip would erase those associations. That was the one way to refute Jaack's associative case. But he couldn't directly push Tenshii or that would have been a giveaway that we weren't partners. He needed Jaack to make that push.

Prohawk was also buddying and townreading me to both get me on his side, and to further propagate the idea that he was partnered with me.

---

If I were trying to go big or go home as Smart is claiming, I'd have set up scum theater with Prohawk pushing me back - which is

exactly

how he and Smart treated each other as the lynch went down. Yet Prohawk never voted Smart or risked putting him at L-1. Instead he pushed Jaack - a much harder lynch than Smart.

you get as much as you can out of a bus to offset its cost, and that's what BV did.

You see how this applies much more to Smart than me. He's the one who stood to gain two mislynches and a win out of the bus.

I never claimed that I shouldn't be considered scum because I pushed ProHawk.

Yet, that's clearly the conclusion he was hoping the town would draw without him explicitly having to argue it. I mean, what would you be expecting town to think when you bus? You don't have to go "hey guys, look I pushed scum." You just expect people to notice.

[BlackVoid]

Awesome. I was refreshing the page quite a few times.

[BlackVoid]

You ready to vote Smart or do you need to talk over anything else? I've got an interview in a while and just wanted to go out on a high note rather than be anxious. 384 from Prohawk should seal it though. He wouldn't be encouraging Jaack to flip Tenshii first as that would mean a loss. But I think he was hoping that a Tenshii-townflip would clear him because then the associative case would fall apart.

[BlackVoid]

On Smart's points:

But you are explicitly arguing that you are town because you pushed ProHawk, while at the same time calling it scummy for me to do it.

The entire point of this lylo has been for you to decide which of our pushes are more likely to be a bus. And I think I've sufficiently demonstrated that Smart's play around Prohawk is much more likely to be a bus than mine.

[BlackVoid]

Columbo - we've both made a lot of points and it basically comes down to this: we both lynched scum. By lynching scum, whoever is the partner did something that was against the scum wincon in the short term for a long term gain. To evaluate which is more likely, see that Smart bussing Prohawk would get him to a win almost effortlessly and hand him two mislynch for one scumlynch. With me, it wouldn't. Lynching Smart would be the strategy that would get me the win. My interactions with Prohawk were pretty muted and if I were somehow bussing, I'd theater it up even more.

Smart did this. He and Prohawk had a showdown to get him out of the lynch looking wonderful with me and Dun both implicated. It's just way more likely Smart is scum. Don't be fooled by his last minute ATE. He's very good at that. If you look at the evidence, it all points to him.

[BlackVoid]

I don't think Tenshii was going to get lynched. I can't say that Prohawk believed the same thing. I really he really WANTED that flip. See, it only became obvious that Prohawk was going to go before Tenshii when Jaack explained it to him in response to that post.

[BlackVoid]

Jaack was scumreading Tenshii more than Prohawk. So, I think it seemed to him that if he could just get Jaack to push another mislynch while keeping his hands clear, he'd get into lylo after the associative case fell apart.

Thinking about it a little more, I think that's actually not as strong of a point as I thought it was so you are right.

[BlackVoid]

I'm really not scum Columbo. I'm serious. All the stuff I said, I genuinely didn't think I'd have it in me to fake it.

[BlackVoid]

YES! I was town by the way. Fuck yeah, this was the best win ever. Nice job. Heading out now.

[BlackVoid]

Thanks for modding Creature and CFJ. Just to address the point on extensions - I wasn't really shopping around for one. It's more that I asked Creature and he saw my PM but didn't respond and I was worried that the deadline would just run out with no resolution which is what made me offer Smart a draw. I do think extending it ultimately was the right decision though.

Sorry Dun for mislynching you especially with your pristine record. There were a bunch of things that I saw in Prohawk's ISO that pointed away from you two being partners and I really should have held Smart accountable to answering my questions especially as the day lasted so long. I just wish I figured it out soon enough. When I saw your townflip, I thought we pretty much lost but Columbo did a great job taking her time and making the right call. At least you got a win. But that was my major screw-up this game. You are right that I was conf-biasing myself a bit, will keep that in mind next time.

Good game scum. Mad respect for Smart's play for tricking me into thinking it wasn't him when it was down to just him and Dun. Was great playing with Jaack again and several people I haven't played with before.

[BlackVoid]

Now, it depends a lot on players choices, the number of redundancies, that is random factors while with PR the player's skill factors more.

I enjoyed the way this setup played out partly because it could only confirm town, not scum i.e. there's no chance of getting a guilty on anyone and scum knowing all the lynches beforehand led to some interesting strategic decisions. I think in that way, it was probably better than having power roles.

Looking forward to the rest of your thoughts.