TM 2021 - Black Flag Nightless

[Shirou]

Hi there, I'm a player in this game now I suppose.



I'll probably lurk quite a bit after giving my thoughts (reading the game at the moment).

I would normally do a catch-up posting spam but I don't feel like tryharding this game/it's easier to just do it once when I've collected my thoughts

[Shirou]

By the way, just as trivia, I feel like DKKoba slot did something which can kinda be constructed as a minor scum slip or at least a blatant lie, but I didn't see anyone point it out.

My read on the slot is independent of that, but it's a shame I can't question them about it since they replaced out, because it just doesn't make sense from where I'm coming from.

What I'm talking about is that DKKoba said early in the game that "Nancy had shared a secret" with them to read Auro, but when Auro questioned her on it, DKKoba had to ask Nancy the secret.

This literally means that Nancy didn't really "share" a "secret" with DKKoba early, at most only mentioning that she (Nancy) could read Auro, but DKKoba still acted early as if them "knew" the secret method of reading Auro.

Either way DKKoba is all over the place. Can't relate to any of their posts and I'm on page 55.

[Shirou]

I don't know about you guys, but to me it seems like DKKoba lied about her teammates participation in this game (Nancy about Auro), which to me is particularly very scum-indicative, and if DK is town and just lied for the sake of "putting Auro on edge" or something, it sounds quite silly and it's their fault, not mine, that it looks bad on them.

It may look like minor but other than being intentionally silly, there's 0 reason for town to fake teammates participation in the game and DKKoba ISO is already full of "I'm playing 5D chess but in truth it just looks like random, but believe me it all makes sense somehow".

In a recent page skim I've also noted some players saying that being this messy/scummy is "DKKoba's meta" and I just want to say I think it's bad reasoning.

Nero Cain is also someone known for "scummy posting" as town, but in Fungus Mafia he actually rolled scum, and when I was making my case on him, everyone was too sure he was town because..."his town meta is being scummy".

Look, that argument doesn't make sense. If you don't have a 100% ~ 90% read rate on someone (with a good sample size), don't think you understand so much of their meta that you can differentiate between them being scummy because they're town, and scummy simply because they're scum.

[Shirou]

The thing is that I don't think koba's play is actually scum-indicative for anyone, especially not koba. Ultimately I think poking around randomly without a plan is town-indicative because it's from an uninformed perspective. Yes it's true that they could've changed their meta here, but occam's razor says they're just town. Most of the way I read koba comes from gut, and it's difficult for them to know what to do to make me townread them on gut.

I'll have to politely disagree with anything about "my experience with Koba".

If you think that random reads, constantly shading a player but backing off on pursuing it because "Black Flag" or "Teammates said", and consistently voting only the most consensus scum reads are "town-indicative" just because it looks unplanned rather than planned, I must say that you're overestimating the current amount of planning that scum teams do nowadays.

I used to be a scum player enthusiast, and I was always a bit sad that in almost every game nowadays, scum just do random things and hope town to eat itself. Very few scum or scum teams actually have any plan in today's meta.

As an extra note,

Kooba did the exact same thing about shading/hedging on Super for no good reason

in their scum game in Epic Mafia. I've also read 4 or 5 Super games because she was confusing me, but that's another topic.

[Shirou]

DKKoba scumplay in the Epic Mafia game I saw is legit just shading/hedging on slots for their lack of contribution or etc.

Coincidentally...exactly what the slot did here. Not once DKKoba actually hard pushed anyone with a good degree of investment, it was just a circlejerk of calling the consensus suspects scum/voting them out, and going back to say "Super you're scum but I'm not gonna fight you because Black Flag".

I'm quite a bit astonished people write all of this off just because "It looks unplanned/spontaneous so it must be town".

That's exactly why I just spam post as scum if I'm tryharding because people think that going along with the flow in-thread is a lot harder than it actually is as long as you're a naturally spammy player.

[Shirou]

DKKoba also said "it's ridiculous to have confident reads on early game", and 20 pages later "it's ridiculous to not have reads on this stage".

I don't know, the slot is just all over the place and the best I've seen people come up with to defend it's:

"It's DK's meta"

or

"It looks unplanned so it must be town"

so far the unique thing I've seen from Johnny that made me raise an eyebrow is how he was targeting Chennis, because so far although I wouldn't say Chennis posting is "towny", it's very solid. He pinpoints that the game was just not progressing at that stage because everyone was just circling their votes/opinions on the same consensus suspects, and there was too many "town reads" in an early stage of the game.

Could it be scum!Chennis trying to break a townblock? Yes, but it's still solid reasoning because having most players as town reads/town leans and only talking about the same 2 - 3 suspects in the first few days does look quite random.

[Shirou]

Chennis/Ampharos/AL

These slots were all very consensus scum reads in early game, most of the time scum just usually circle between taking hotpots on those kind of slots rather than investing in a different take unless the player has a particular higher scum ceiling.

I do find uncomfortable that most people did just that though a good 40 or so pages (I'm at page 55 at the moment), and the unique person to point that out (Chennis) was being suspected.

I don't even dislike that much Chennis being suspected because his posting do look a bit stiffy early on, but the logic is just so solid, and no one comments much on it by dismissing him as "meh slot".

[Shirou]

I don't feel like anyone's actually understood 3359 yet. I'm pointing out a complex and fluid thought process. Koba demonstrated

1) paranoia of Super
2) belief that they could not evaluate nor lim her d1
3) a desire to find her partners first if she was indeed scum.

The progression I linked shows all of these things. It's not unfakeable but it does read like a villager. I would rather eliminate the players whose thought processes to me feel artificial.

Joqiza...this is the kind of excuse I would give to keep hedging on a player, but since I don't want to actually confront them since I would be lying through my teeth, I just deflect with "It's still D1", or "The setup incentives finding the partners".

This is what I would highlight in Koba:

In no moment in the first 55 pages it did feel like Koba was actually evaluating Super's slot rather than just saying "Eh, Super has good scum game so she's scum".

To me there's literally no flatter progression than Koba's about Super. Their stance doesn't change from the beginning to end, and they just give excuses to not pursue it or explain in greater detail exactly why they scum read Super vs just saying Super has a good scum game.

[Shirou]

"But DKKoba didn't REALLY scum read Super"

So why focus at least 1/3 of their time talking to/annoying Super?

They think they can't evaluate Super in D1 but keep beating the dead horse?

I don't know, I respect other people opinions but it seems just so made up to me. I can't relate to any of the logic in this.

[Shirou]

UNVOTE:

I'm not gonna vote DKKoba slot (MathBlade) yet because I want to look at Johnny more and understand why he's the top wagon.

[Shirou]

Historically as town they've had a nasty tendency to view the game completely backwards, aggressively pushing bad reads and refusing to dialogue or re-evaluate.

My opinion on this is if a player is being a liability, the town majority shouldn't feel that they must go through X player shenanigans to discover if they're town playing in bad-faith or if they're just scum.

Because if you do give the "but their pushes are awful as town as well", you're not only enabling they to keep playing town like that, but you're also enabling they to get away with mediocre scum play.

I do understand your opinion, and I even used to try to look in-depth at those kinds of situations, but nowadays I just have no mercy.

If someone is taking random shots on slots and their progression is all over the place, I'm not responsible for incorrectly reading them on what is objectively detrimental town play.

I've lost many, many games because I tried to give a chance to those kind of slots, and it's just saddening because in the end, they won without me feeling like they played actually played a good game.

[Shirou]

I also just don't agree with the philosophy of "if x is town, they played bad and therefore it's their fault". A lot of people play bad as town, and it's your job to distinguish between bad town and scum. I can link multiple games where koba played very similar to this as town, and if you're saying that's not a reason to townread them, fine, but at the very least it's not a reason to scumread them. Especially when they're not even in the game anymore.

Politely hard disagree. I don't think it's anyone fault if someone is being objectively anti-town, I don't want to call out people for having bad or good reads, but I do think that this whole "X player plays scummy so you shouldn't highlight the fact they are scummy here" is very detrimental to sorting the game.

You say DK does this as town, but I just also showed a case she played similarly as scum. My conclusion is

"If you can't trust the player slot and they acted funnily, limming them is a good idea"

your conclusion is:

"Since they do that both as town and scum, we should overlook it"

How are you supposed to ever catch that player if you're essentially overlooking their actions?

It sounds good in theory to call it NAI/irrelevant, but in practice it never works, point-in-case, Nero in Fungus Mafia.

[Shirou]

In my experience it never, ever works in town favor to try "overlooking" problematic slots, because those slots just end up used in late-game/final day for scum victory.

Another real example:

My most recent scum game, I intentionally delayed discussion on problematic slots that people had the "It's NAI for them to be scummy" just so that we could win late-game easier.

I didn't even need to vote in the final day. I lurked out in the last day and when I came to hammer, the game was already won.

That kind of thing just never works in practice especially in town's favor.

[Shirou]

TL;DR for me is that I do believe at this point that DKKoba is scummy.

It doesn't matter if they ever played similarly as town, they also played like this as scum, and that's all I need to find this behavior problematic.

If they turn out to be just town doing questionable things, eliminating the slot wouldn't be the end of the world for me.

I do understand that this is an unpopular opinion though, which is also why scum nowadays just wait town eat itself.

[Shirou]

Well, this is a very pleasant surprise, hi Shirou!

Hello Mena, nice to see you around here

[Shirou]

But that line of thinking makes no sense when we have a replacement for koba that you can use to sort the slot.

I don't think you understand my view

I hard scum read Koba at the moment, I don't need to sort anything else, I'm confident on them being scum from what I've read and I don't want to go into the whole "meta thing"

Meta has lost me more games than it has won games for me. I'm lazy but I could link a good deal of games where I had correct reads but changed it after analyzing "meta".

My opinion is that meta isn't so simply, you may feel something is similar but it isn't, I could link you two post from town!me vs scum!me doing the same thing.

You would say that therefore it's "NAI" for me to do it, but it isn't NAI, it's just that the differences are a lot more subtle and harder to pick, so unless you're meta-diving someone for many many hours, there's little benefit from meta other than confusing yourself.

[Shirou]

My funposting itself, from my point of view, is very different in town vs scum, but I don't expect anyone to come in and understand the subtle differences or when it's used.

It's just too much personal.

The player that people look up to when talking about meta is Elli, but Elli did

massive, enormous amount of meta-diving

on players to get meaningful tells, what is NAI and what is AI.

Just because something superficially looks similar, doesn't mean it's identical. I don't feel DK posts/reads are genuine and that's it.

I'll go back to reading the game/looking at Johnny now though.

[Shirou]

I don't understand how I'm supposed to scumread koba for something that

Don't in that case to be fair

I think I've come off as more confrontational than intended because up to page 55, DK is almost a consensus town read and it did bother me a bit.

Controversial but I don't have any intention on trying to make everyone change their minds on DK slot or anything, I'm playing this very casually/chill

I'm gonna just do my catch-up, say my reads and sit here open to voting consensus if it comes to that.

I know, being open to vote consensus doesn't sound good but I'm just exhausted of the usual route my games take really. Last Team Mafia was me 24/7 burning myself out by screaming for town to lim 3 players, which 2/3 were scum, and it was mentally draining to me.

I don't really care too much about this game compared to what I used to care, I'm here mostly to give my opinion and have fun.

In fact, if we're objectively speaking, DK has high chance of being town here/me being wrong when the people that knows them the most are town reading them, but I've just become a bit of a bitter person when it comes to "I know X meta" because in my experience it has rarely ever worked out.

[Shirou]

Well normally when there's gonig to be a replacement I'm like "ok cool, I can re-evaluate my read then" rather than just basing my read off of one slot whose playstyle I could be reading as scummy.

I used to be like that until I noticed I'm losing more games than winning them by that philosophy, really.

I'm open to anything MathBlade has to say/will post, but I shouldn't magically overlook everything DK did.

[Shirou]

I can be flat out wrong on DK, there's a good chance of that because I do think they would be slightly chaotic even as town, I just think there's way too much chaos for it to come from town in this game particularly.

But who knows, high chance I'm wrong here, but I'm gonna stick with my opinion I guess...

[Shirou]

That makes sense, but now I'm worried you're scum who was pissed about koba getting so many townreads despite playing badly.

Weird way of seeing it but...ok?

Autumn is one of my favorite seasons so I'll forgive you

[Shirou]

also if u want to enjoy the status of the "let people let u slide" or w/e, ur gonna have to learn how to not care about how others view ur slot. Which u have yet to learn in ur mafia career. I think you see people giving me passes for not giving content and wish u get more leeway but ur not going to get that leeway till u learn that appeasing those people is always going to end up with u doing a dance in front of them to get that read u want. idk just tips for mental health.

Firebringer posting is just...SS tier, I don't mean in an alignment way (It's my own slot anyway) but I just want to point out that the most interesting thing about Firebringer to me, is that he usually doesn't do much in the game or takes things seriously, but in sudden moments he drops a few truths in the table or some well-developed reads.

I'm yet to get used to his playstyle but I do feel more comfortable everyday.

[Shirou]

ah that game. what a disaster

Yeah...I don't want to repeat those kind of games. I want to try being casual even though I always fail...

[Shirou]

I think you’re kind of trying to get at an occam’s razor thing, like let’s assume anyone playing with agenda is doing so because they’re scum.

Essentially, maybe yes, to me it's one of two things:

1) DK is scum

2) DK is town that does very random things for no good reason, pushes everyone without properly investing on it, think that they can keep "scum on the edge" by doing empty wagons, beats "scum!Super" dead horse just because, complains about most things in game, call anyone scum and backs down in the next 3 pages, and is mostly thinking they are super contributing towards town wincon even though it's debatable.

I'm gonna proceed with the simpler version indeed...it may be the second but dunno, not gonna torture myself over it.

[Shirou]

Shirou if you're so convinced DkKoba is scum how do you feel about Johnny's comment where he said "in no way is this DkKoba's scum game"

I'm quite used to having weird reads that no one gets, and even strongly opposes. I don't really think of anything at the moment out of people saying them town read DK.

I can understand why they town read DK, I truly can. I simply disagree with it.

The unique thing that bothered me about Johnny is his Chennis comment, because at that point in game Chennis felt like Low Hanging Fruit.

[Shirou]

I do maybe think it may imply Johnny/DK aren't partners, but I need to look at it myself first.

[Shirou]

Hello Fumuki. We have played before, right...?

Yes, I forgot the name, but it was a game where you had a hydra with Nancy, and we were separated in two different micros.

[Shirou]

Frankly, so many people are saying this is DK town play that I may want to take back my read for now and read some of their town games just to be sure that the overall lack of substance in the reads, actions and no goal-orientation coupled with other small things that they have here, is not something completely meaningless.

I don't think it'll be but sigh, maybe I should take a look later because it does make me have some doubts.

Again, I do think however that I'll probably end up at the same place after taking a look.

[Shirou]

Do I really want to waste my time reading DK games though...ah...playing mafia is so much work...

[Shirou]

I take it back:

I may or may not read DK town games to give my thoughts on it. No promisses. Hm.

This sounds more workable, I like to post-pone things.

[Shirou]

Shirou, do you have a read on me yet?

I only did read 2/3 of one of yours posts replying to math, but I do like the fact you're voting math slot.

I wouldn't say it's anything close to a town read but I'm fine with your slot at the moment. Your positioning in the gamestate feels fine right now, but I need to read your posts I guess.

[Shirou]

I remember in that game (Doubles Mafia) we had a chat about dedication, didn't we Fumuki

I don't remember...actually.

I usually remember most games but I only remember bad things about that game so I think I may have intentionally forgot all of it.

[Shirou]

what everyone is saying is we have math now, read math instead because you can interact real time and then we don’t have to go through this question of “would koba do this as town?” without being able to ask them questions

I'm of the weird philosophy that early game content is more readable than late-game content, because late-game content is mostly playing around the same wagons and opinions.

I do intend to hear what Math has to say but DK is still a big part of my read on the slot and I doubt it's gonna change, although it's possible.

When I'm lost in a game, I tend to get back to the first pages because it shows the best to me how players are approaching the game, since there's yet no consensus, no townblocks, and everything can be original.

[Shirou]

As scum I legit turn off my brain the more the game goes on, because most of the effort has been put into early game, late-game mostly consist of parroting the same stances and playing around the blocks that form.

Only my opinion though, I think most people think the opposite.

[Shirou]

Doesn’t that make it really hard for you to read slots like me this game where I replaced a p lurky slot like 50 pages in?

Yeah, I find replacements much less readable than people that started the game because they already know who the consensus reads are, what looks good to say, what looks bad, what to focus, the position their teammates are, etc.

But you seem to be going against the grain, and voting math, which is interesting and likely a good thing for me, although again, I need to see how you come to this.

[Shirou]

Going against the grain is also a reason I like Infinity slot more than most of the playerlist does, because his takes are surprisingly original although stiff.

He was there agreeing with Chennis when everyone was shading Chen, or saying that the game felt off/too easy and maybe Super was scum.

But at the same time I just...don't vibe a lot with his posts, they feel a bit stiff, so I'm torn in his slot.

[Shirou]

If there's one player that'll pocket me in this game and I'll never see it coming it's Lilith...I don't know why but I've trouble seeing her as mafia, at all.

I think she's a very good scum player if she's scum here to the point I don't think I've a chance against her without deep meta-diving, which I probably won't do.

Maybe I should just give her a town read already...

[Shirou]

I'm more just like, complaining about the general masses *gesticulates wildly* you know? cause I'm petty and shit

Firebringer vs Lilith banter about mafia is the best content in this game

I doubt anyone can change my mind on this although Chen rap battle also was good.

[Shirou]

Shirou I'm a bit confused about your position on koba now--you SR them but you think there's a decent chance that you're wrong but you don't really want to put in the work to re-evaluate your read--is that right?

Yeah

I've already spent around 6 hours reading this game + Super EM games + posting here, and I'm only halfway through the game

Going the extra mile of looking though a good amount of Koba games, and trying to understand the suble differences to argue against consensus doesn't seem worth it. I would rather do something else.

[Shirou]

i think auro/lilith/me towncore sounds good rn :3

super can join if she finds a scum for us

first good post from DK I've seen in 58 pages.

[Shirou]

wait, I just realized I only need 4 correct town reads to win this game?

That...

that sounds kinda townsided but I'm not gonna complain

I think Lilith/Super are town so I only need two more.

I can see Super being scum by the way, but I couldn't find any instance of Super going as hard on AtE as she did here with Koba, especially considering I expect her to replace out later in the game due to conflict.

I may take back my Super read after reading her replace out but at the moment I guess I only need 2 other town reads...

I'm accepting bribing propositions by the way.

[Shirou]

Shirou, what's your impression of my slot?

Nothing impressive, but I do put a bit of value in Firebringer/The Worst opinions on you to be fair, even if I usually ignore meta reads nowadays.

Overall, I don't really like your slot as town but don't dislike it to the point of actively thinking it's scum. I like lilith slot so I disliked you trying to play around her overall.

[Shirou]

I feel like you will get to me town correctly unless you start having excessive paranoia

I'm gonna be honest, take in consideration I may change this as I read more, but if someone came to me and said "gun to your head, who do you take to endgame as townblock?"

I would say Lilith/Super/Chennis/Mena, and if I'm wrong on someone it's probably only one which means we still win?

I can be easily be wrong on someone there though, especially given I haven't read much of your posts. But the way you're talking to me, talking about DK, your stance on the gamestate which is voting math, etc.

It just feels town.

[Shirou]

I disliked you trying to play around her overall.

Huh, that was an unexpected reason. And by "playing around her" you mean what, exactly?

dunno, it's not a question of what exactly you were doing, it's a question of:

I think Lilith is town, anyone trying to discredit a bit, throw shade on her slot or etc in my eyes, is probably not going to look good. It's the same reason I raised eyebrows on Johnny about Chennis, and I don't even seriously town read Chennis yet, while I do town read Lilith a lot.

[Shirou]

I feel like you will get to me town correctly unless you start having excessive paranoia

I'm gonna be honest, take in consideration I may change this as I read more, but if someone came to me and said "gun to your head, who do you take to endgame as townblock?"

I would say Lilith/Super/Chennis/Mena, and if I'm wrong on someone it's probably only one which means we still win?

I can be easily be wrong on someone there though, especially given I haven't read much of your posts. But the way you're talking to me, talking about DK, your stance on the gamestate which is voting math, etc.

It just feels town.

You’re getting better at reading me, well done

I think this makes it two games in a row! Excite

This post doesn't make me paranoia you that much neither means much, but you do know that in a mafia game it's never going to not be weird saying "hey, you've read me correctly congrats" right...

By the way I don't remember, did I read you correctly in our last game?

[Shirou]

Also Menalque, what's your opinion in my slot since it seems "scum!Shiro" stock is rapidly rising on the market for some reason

[Shirou]

I warn you folks though:

scum!Shiro stock is a trap. A trap I tell you.

You may see the sudden rising in its values through the stock market, but I assure you it's just a bubble that will soon pop off and leave countless investors saddened by their wasted lims.

Do not invest on it. I repeat, do not invest on it.

You were warned...

- Shirou, mafia stock market analyzer, analyzing the value of wagon coins since 2018.

[Shirou]

The best gimmick alt to me up to this day was one where they talked about reads as if they were stocks.

Every post of them brought me a smile, I don't remember the name of the alt though.

[Shirou]

Also worth noting in 3563 he asked Menalque specifically, though I'm not sure what that means

Me and Menalque have a short story of staring at each other in games and going

"so, how do you read me?"

because we weren't the best on reading each other in the beginning but we're hopefully working through it.

[Shirou]

I love that concept, incidentally

Up there with JokeExplainerBot

JokeExplainerBot...?

Ok that one may be better, I may search it up later.

[Shirou]

I'm laughing at just the name of "JokeExplainerBot"

mafiascum.net does certainly hold geniuses in shitposting...

[Shirou]

The best gimmick alt to me up to this day was one where they talked about reads as if they were stocks.

Every post of them brought me a smile, I don't remember the name of the alt though.

"Wagonomics"?

Ah yes, that was the one.

I'm afraid I'm derailing the thread a bit too much, but we're having fun...right?

[Shirou]

I could have a deep philosophical chat with myself about if Autumn Leaves is town just having paranoia about me, or if AL is scum and arguably I'm probably a decent choice for a scum to invest in since most other slots seems to already have been talked about a lot, but since realizing that I only need to find a few correct town reads I can't help but feel like scum hunting may indeed be a bit pointless here, since I think I've decent good reads?

I may be down to just go for Johnny route today, I need to think about it. This setup favors a lot PoE / Townblocking, rather than very precise scum hunting which is more often the case for normal games.

For what it's worth, I can't help but feel that maybe AL isn't scum at all though. But if Johnny/Koba aren't partners, who is scum exactly hm...

[Shirou]

This game feels weird now that I've taken the setup into account.

I did know Black Flag was Nightless/Mountainous of course, but I didn't realize we've such a high ratio of town to scum that you only need a few correct town reads to win the game.

I don't see how I can reevaluate scum reads other than replacing my town reads, since there's just not enough town to put people under "may be town but I don't trust a lot"

You mostly seems to form a townblock here and the remaining ones are...very likely scum. The unique way to truly reevaluate scum reads here seems to reevaluate your town reads first, and I think it's gonna be hard for Auro/AL/DK to get into my townblock, because although in Auro/AL I may like certain things, I do have distrust towards some part or other of their game so far.

Flopz is kinda up in the air, truly neutral slot to me.

[Shirou]

Page 58, I may begin to skim the game quite a bit more in this case.

I think I'll go eat something first and be back later, but now that I've my foundation, the unique thing I really need to do is to check my Mena/Chennis reads, because if I truly trust them, there's not much point to super precise scum hunting here.

Going for one of Johnny/DK may be a good idea if they're mutually excluse as Jo said.

(I'm a slow reader in mafia games so I was reading this super slowly because I like to think about the posts while reading, so yeah, I've already spent around 8 ~ 9 hours in this game, maybe 10)

[Shirou]

memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=27163

Up there with Cromulent Simpsons Quotes

bookmarked, thanks mena

[Shirou]

I'm back and We wait now I guess

If Johnny is scum maybe I should let DK/Math off, need to look at their interactions

[Shirou]

B) They are a naturally tunnelly player similar to me and once they get a read they get it and have to be sold otherwise and will do this as any alignment.

I'm a notorious tunneler if it helps anyone read on me

look no further than the last team mafia, where I tunneled the same players for amazing 3 in-game days or so.

[Shirou]

okay abr is permabanned

I’m pretty sure it’s against the rules to communicate about these games outside of your MS-ordained PT and discord server

So you’re just.... casually accusing shirou and team of breaking rules by conversing with a permabanned user to get ahead in a game?

I think he means that ABR left instructions in their discord or PT for Shirou to do that

Which is ridiculous, obviously, given that ABR was a profoundly average scumplayer while Shirou is one of the absolute best on site

Mena you overestimate me...but thanks

Either way to this discussion, I actually had no contact with ABR, I only came to replace-in here while talking to Norwe in discord about anime.

[Shirou]

Apologies I did not think about how that sounded. My bad. No I would never accuse another player of cheating.

It's fine, I don't really mind speculations, but yeah you can rule out that possibility.

[Shirou]

I know this is approaching grey area, but as a sidenote, although I think it may be NAI, if I had to place between "Towny" vs "Scummy" to Math doing weird speculations, I would put it under scummy.

In a Mastina's modded large (I forgot the name but it had to do with Wolves), Math was scum that always speculated weird things which were objectively very hard to realistically take place. In the last days if I remember right his speculation was as weird as speculating wheter vampires were considered supernatural or not, or something similar.

I just remember it was strikingly weird assumptions that at the time I did doubt anyone would genuinely make.

I think that due to this one having different circumstances, it may not apply, especially also given it's been 2 years since that game, but still I would like to point that out?

[Shirou]

Mena you overestimate me...but thanks

I don’t think so, there’s few enough players that completely snowed (not just fooled but completely

snowed

) RC when he was playing and you did so in a p spectacular fashion

RC didn't know my scumrange had improved in that game to be fair, I think I would have a much harder time winning against him again.

I would genuinely very much dislike playing against town!RC again as scum because it just sounds very hard work if he doesn't tunnel a random person in D1/D2.

I honestly think I lose a round 2 against town!RC.

[Shirou]

Since we're talking about my scum game here...

I don't expect anyone to believe me I suppose, since my alignment is still not confirmed, but after game rest assured that whatever idea you had about my scum game before, it's significantly weaker now.

I simply don't have the same stamina to play mafia that I used to, I'm barely caught up here but I'm already quite tired/want to do something else, I don't have any particular motivation to tryhard as either town or scum as I used to before.

Scum play is less, say, frustrating than town since you know everyone alignment since the start, but it's much more exhausting than town if you're really trying to win, because as town you can just give up on town and say "it's not my fault if we lose this", but as scum you're much more responsible for your team's fate. There's much more responsibility in being scum than there is in being town, whether people shoulder that responsibility is another story.

I don't have even stamina enough for town play nowadays, completely rule out of the possibility I could spam as scum as much as I used to, because good scum play does require you to constantly talk, argue and pick fights against town to deceive them. It's just not in the range of what I can do today.

Look at my last scum game for example, I used a much more passive/weaker way of playing simply because I already didn't have enough stamina back then, and I've even less now.

[Shirou]

Mena you overestimate me...but thanks

I don’t think so, there’s few enough players that completely snowed (not just fooled but completely

snowed

) RC when he was playing and you did so in a p spectacular fashion

this sounds like a juicy story

They’re announced as being Fumuki and I know that they don’t generally care about being ID’d but I’d rather they confirm that they don’t mind me saying who they are here before doing so/specifying where that happened

I don't mind

[Shirou]

(but again I really think that the game in question is not a very valid game because the circumstances on it were...

there were just too many circumstances in that game).

I do think we probably should change the topic though

Yeah...not going to do that. I am not even caught up on this game and you want me to hunt for a game that says your point? Not gonna happen.

I'm not really saying for anyone not interested to take a look?

I'm just saying mostly to mena or anyone that knows my previous scum games already.

[Shirou]

Didn't you just say you wanted large samples of meta before using it at all?

Math does this as both alignments

I said that it's mostly NAI didn't I?

I just wanted to point out because it was the sole reason I suspected math in scum PT

look you can scum read me but don't engage me in bad-faith or I'm gonna start completely ignoring your slot (I don't mean this in an aggressive way, it's just that there's a difference between casually saying something about someone game vs basing your entire read on that).

[Shirou]

Wtf

Lunch is over I gotta go but something stinks here

Why...

Why...do you think that was me talking to you and not just using an example of how my scum game changed to the general playerlist?

I didn't even mean "take a look" as literally "please read this game". It was mostly "if anyone is interested in an example, in X game I...".

But...ahh ok.

[Shirou]

English isn't my native language. I may be missing some context here, I don't know.

I don't understand math's interpretation.

I kinda do, but at the same time not really.

I didn't mean "Take a look" literally, isn't "take a look" contextually similar to "if you want an example" or something?

But again, english isn't my native language.

[Shirou]

for context, the only other time I’ve played with math, I was town and he was scum, and I felt this

exact

same frustration of like... math deliberately misunderstanding everything and blowing up these arguments that didn’t even make sense

yeah this was my experience in the wolves game as well, that's why I pointed out that I personally don't like when he sees to be deliberately saying unrealistic things, but contrary to you I don't really have that much of a bad impression on his (what I assume is) misinterpretation of what I said.

Saying it "stinks" is kinda in bad-faith but at the moment I don't have any deep feelings about it.

[Shirou]

I'm kinda slightly raising my eyebrow on the fact that suddenly there's a rise on "scum!Shiro" stocks going on here, but I dunno?

It feels a bit cheap to think that the exact scum team is targeting me now or something, there's probably a simpler explanation...maybe?

I want to see Johnny flip first before proceeding though

[Shirou]

I really don't see how I'm engaging you in bad faith here, your starting point was "I don't use meta at all" until you had a large enough sample size to get consistent results. Am I misinterpreting that?

@Shirou

Sorry, it must be confusing to you and I don't want to derail this to a "Shirou Ted Talk" thread, but I do notice certain habits people do in their games, but I don't really base my reads on them fundamentally on that.

For example, even if I was to scum read Math here, my main reason would be the lack of logic in saying that my slot "stinks" because I...recommended people to look on a past scum game (which is also a misinterpretation).

The fact that this act itself feels similar to what he once did as scum is secondary to my read.

Most of the time I only accept meta as a supportive/auxiliary reason for a read, but not the main bulk, but there's many exceptions.

I did read Norwe out of pure meta in my past games with him for example, both my reads were correct, I'm human after all, I've a general philosophy but there's many cases where I'll give an exception to something if I see fit.

Humans aren't as logical defined beings as we would like to think, sometimes I'll just consider meta because I find relevant contrary to most cases.

I've already talked about my opinions on meta in multiple games, I can't exactly link them to you if you ever feel interested, but if you do feel interested in searching up, you'll find it in case you think I'm lying here (only a recommendation, not saying for anyone to go look for it).

[Shirou]

My final argument isn't that meta is bad or anything, the arguably best player in this site, Elli, did mainly use meta.

My take is that it's very common for people to misunderstand meta, and draw conclusions which are untrue, which also causes more drawbacks than benefits.

Properly done meta is very strong, but if you compare the amount of work that a meta player like Elli do, and the average we usually do while looking at meta, it's like comparing cooper to diamond. It makes no sense.

There's way too many things to consider to take meta at face value in most cases, and it can hurt you more than help if you draw wrong conclusions from it.

It's very very easily to draw wrong conclusions from bad meta, regardless of the sample size, for example.

[Shirou]

Right, only the only person here is chenn who fits that description and i really don’t want chenn in the townbloc

I'm very aware of Chenn being a good scum player but I can't help but think he's the best pick out of the rest of the players.

Maybe I could try to consider other options more but I just think Chenn posting is solid even if tonally it's not towny.

He consistently pointed out the problems town was having in the gamestate, he actively played more pro-town than any other player in early game in my view.

It doesn't make him town, but I do have a bit of a soft spot for him here, because even if he's scum he seems to deserve the win more than the other options (again, my opinion).

[Shirou]

I guess I should stop defending Chen so much though just in case people misinterpret it as me trying to fit him into the consensus townblock

if people don't want him there out of cautious, I won't fight, I'm not confident enough on it to try to override other people opinions. It's mostly my gut.

[Shirou]

The more I read Koba the less sure I'm the slot is necessarily scum and not just town doing questionable things (even if Super is scum), but at the same time PoE dictates I should look at the slot either way hm...

[Shirou]

Leafy you don't wanna make enemies with town!super 0;)

progresses to:

I'm incredibly suspicious of Infinity after today and I finally feel like I have a push I am confident enough on to attack since I was fairly stuck on my reads the last few days.

You were aiming threats at people for antagonizing you, and looking back, the progression from 1337 -> 1443 feels weird: Leafy had already stated his intuitive suspicion of you just before 1337... and you wanted to converse with him more then but then disproportionately respond in 1443? How come your reaction in 1443 wasn't immediate?

VOTE: Super

I kinda like this post, not a lot but still

Maybe I shared reads too early, who knows

[Shirou]

This game is playing out a bit different than I expected and I only advanced 10 pages.

I would like to say my final reads may change. I'm getting different vibes from some slots.

I should have waited until later to say my thoughts I guess...I'll do this properly now (wait until final catch-up).

[Shirou]

Autumn, I want to talk to you.

I'm on page 70 and I agree with what Firebringer said on you having the most unpopular opinions, which may indicate you're town.

What's your problem with my slot exactly in a director cut version? Would you have any interest in looking up past games by the way (I saw you doing meta work before)?

[Shirou]

I did express that before I think, but the more I read you, the more I become interested in your slot because you just don't act like scum, even if your tone isn't good, and if I could become confident that you're town, I would be able to have a much better look at the gamestate.

[Shirou]

game aside i think super and nancy drew 39 would really get along

mood

[Shirou]

super and mena are partners.

Also, vote me then

Im voting scum already thx

I want to highlight this post. This is odd.

[Shirou]

To be fair I don't think meta will super help you in my case but dunno, it may?

You're not wrong on me trying to position myself in the game, but I'm still trying to solve it? I mean, I'm reading the game from scratch for 10 or so hours now, that's some dedication to solving it no?

What I want ideally to do is to have final reads by the time I completely catch up, and play the rest of the game very calmly/chill, I probably won't change a lot my opinions after I get my foundations solidified.

I think that reading one or two games of mine may help in this case, because if I'm changing my reads too much in a game, I'm likely either scum or having a bad town game.

I can think close to zero games where I did well after changing reads, and I can point out a fair few games where I had ok reads in D1 or so. It's just how I work. I semi-lock reads as early as D1.

[Shirou]

mafia games are about D1/D2 to me. I don't think I even remember being town alive in D3 except in large themes or very specific games.

I mostly do my solving D1/D2 and that's it. In fact, I've done a few challenges of spectating random games and trying to solve them in D1/D2, with like, 20 ~ 30 pages or so. In my opinion I did ok in most of them.

[Shirou]

Johnny, did you just chill out until you discovered you weren't dead?

[Shirou]

Johnny we need to talk, if you've the time and could talk to me in real-time I would appreciate it because I think I could potentially solve your slot if you would talk to me right now.

[Shirou]

I still want hammer and personally I think we should end the day asap, and also johnny is probably not going to show up again. What do you think you’re going to get out of him, shirou?

If he were to show up right now and have a talk with me I could potentially become very very confident on his slot, rather than taking a coinflip by hammering him now.

There's something about what he did here I need to chat with him about.

[Shirou]

Your rush to end the day is slightly out of place considering how methodical you seem to be lilith.

Any reason in particular? It doesn't need to be logical or anything.

[Shirou]

Fair. But I do think that Johnny did something worth talking about if he shows up soon.

If he doesn't, I may be fine voting him out of consensus. But I want to give him time at the moment because I find it very relevant.

[Shirou]

Okay. I’d like to hear what this thing is at some point (either after he responds or if he doesn’t come back)

I'll explain eventually.

Either way how are you lilith? You seemed pretty stressed out in early game, I hope things are going better for you now.

[Shirou]

Hi Johnny. It seems you're on so reply this real quick:

1) What did you do related to this game in the past 24 hours?

2) Your reactions to the recent stuff

[Shirou]

2) uh, anything specific?

Uh dunno

[quote="In post 3800just marveled at the fact that I'm still alive [/quote]

Maybe your reaction to potentially finding out you may have been suddenly hammered?

[Shirou]

Also, why change your vote now? What are you hoping to accomplish by changing your vote and nothing say anything else when you almost died?

[Shirou]

nothing say anything else when you almost died?

I meant "saying nothing else" ***

[Shirou]

and...still, what is that last post? what were you hoping to accomplish? didn't you have anything to say before mod showing up when you were hammered in your pov?

[Shirou]

Johnny, you don't seem to be replying as I would have wished so I'll make it straight

In what kind of world town!you sees that they've been hammered, but instead of posting some final thoughts or something before the mods come, you keep following the game until the mod shows up, only post when you see you aren't dead, and apparently don't try to do anything about it?

It's a bit of an alien behavior to me if you're town.

Could you try to explain your thought process on those actions?

[Shirou]

P:edit oh lol I legit just logged on.

I've trouble believing this johnny...

I do understand it may look quite unfair to you but you posted here 4 minutes after the mod posted a updated VC + said that you were relieved that you were still alive which makes me think you saw how people wagoned on you in the early pages, which suggests you were here for more than 4 minutes.

[Shirou]

The timing is just very convenient.

[Shirou]

The two times I've suspected someone for timing of something were both Norwe and Roster, both scum, I don't want to get you out of the game just for that but like, are you really claiming that it's all a coincidence that you logged on exactly around the same time the mod did, and caught up with the game votes in roughly 3 minutes?

[Shirou]

Johnny, let's be precise:

Your last post is in page 135

Mena/Lilith "hammer" on you is in page 147

Mod VC is in 152

Your post difference against the mod is between 3 to 4 minutes.

Are you saying that somehow, you started reading out of page 147 for some reason?

If you logged in now, you would either have started at page 135 or in page 152

How exactly did you see the votes on page 146/147 + posted under 3 - 4 minutes if you just logged on now?

[Shirou]

I don't want to claim you're lying yet, but work me through how you did this.

[Shirou]

Tbh Shirou I don't get what you're saying

I've those weird timing reads that no one gets, if you want to ignore feel free to, but my most recent example of this is against scum!Norwe, which he also said he things in a very convenient timing that suggested he was following the game along without saying anything, even though the situation seemed to say he should have wanted to say something.

There's only two possibilities to me:

1) Johnny had very incovenient timing, logged in, began to read from 135 onwards or retroactively from 152, and checked the "new posts" to find out T-bone posted he's alive before he could comment on anything


2) Johnny saw he was likely hammered, stayed silently, checked the updated VC, saw he was still alive, posted, and now claims he just logged on.

I don't think there's any chance of him being town if it's option 2). Not only he didn't say anything about getting hammered when he saw (last thoughts, etc), he also claimed now to have just logged on which in scenario 2) would be a lie.

[Shirou]

Ok step by step

Step 1: log on
2: Click view your posts
3: navigate to my own ISO
4. Start reading from my last post
5. Skim through the thread
6. Post a cool vote for Joe cuz I'm a cool guy. The most recent post happened to be a VC

I see Johnny, unfortunately I'm not really able to fully believe in you here:

How am I not dead yet? Shirou welcome

VOTE: joqiza

Dying like I lived, correctly.

What's good everybody?

You begin your post by saying "how am I not dead yet?" rather than joqi vote > talking in post edit or etc about the VC

I also have trouble believing you were reading 146 - 147, when you thought you were hammered, and kept reading until 152 without saying anything.

Neither I think it makes sense you would like to make a Joqi vote if you didn't know you were still alive in the game.

If I'm mistaken it sucks, but it just sounds unconvincing at the moment, I don't think we've much more to talk...

I want to get read a few more pages in and I'll make my decision.

[Shirou]

Anything else you would like to say Johnny?

Feel free to come up with anything.

[Shirou]

I'm mostly waiting for Johnny if he has any last thoughts, words or etc.

I don't think I can overlook the coincidence of the timing here, early I thought his wagon was a bit of a coinflip and I just didn't want to oppose it because I had not confidence on his alignment either way, but now I can see a legit reason on why he may be scum.

[Shirou]

Page 83, my reads at the moment are Lilith/Super/Chennis as town

one of Mena/AL as town, maybe one scum here, maybe both town, but it doesn't matter because I think their slots are a bit mutually exclusive unless their 1v1 was theater. I don't think it's impossible their 1v1 was scum theater by the way, I just think it's probably not what we should assume, it would be a very overly ballsy/risque play, and either way my core is still independent of those two.

The reads above are quite a bit more solid than my previous one, except I do wonder if this game feels a bit "easy" because I'm being negligent on Lilith/Super, but I don't want to stress myself out with paranoia.

[Shirou]

The reads above literally win me the game if I don't get limmed, It's just weird how simple the solve ended up being.

[Shirou]

I'm not sure I'll be able to parse through Mena/AL dichotomy though. I'm beyond very glad that:

1) They did 1v1

2) Both of they had likely anti-partner interactions with Chennis

Because it means in this game specifically I don't need to hypersolve this, and can just round up it as they are either both town, maybe one scum, or unlikely both scum but we still win the game if the core is right and I'm somehow not limmed.

If my core is correct I think we're in the right track here. I'm significantly less worried about Chennis at the moment because I think I've...soul read him or something like I did in last TM? I may be wrong on him which would make me heartbroken but I'll stick with my guns.

I don't want to talk too much in detail about why I read Chennis the way I do unless necessary because I feel it's a bit too grey/personal.

[Shirou]

VOTE: Autumn Leaves

I might switch back to Johnny but I want time to read again this evening. Sorry for delaying it further just want to go over these last few pages a bit closer and don't have time rn.

VOTE: Johnny

I don't think AL is a good vote compared to Johnny at all, even if AL is scum.

Johnny is a inevitable lim at this point if I want to be fair.

inevitable

.

Delaying it beyond today is a bad idea, trust me. It would be a lot better to end this already and get a flip to evaluate if we're correct or not on him, because he's getting limmed after the lasts posts sooner or later.

[Shirou]

I only held off my vote in those 2 hours or so because I thought maybe a miracle could happen and he could make me believe his version of the history, but I can't.

Let's not delay this beyond today/tonight.

[Shirou]

Limming AL when we can make a decent assumption that one of AL/Mena is likely town due to their 1v1 is opening the path to losing this game.

[Shirou]

Autumn posted a reads list in 3777 where he's ranking ppl, sans johnny. But Johnny hadn't even been flipped yet.

I understand your point but that doesn't really indicate he thought johnny was scum or town before the flip.

It may look weird but is it really a reason to delay Johnny which seems inevitable by this point?

[Shirou]

Dooooooooomed

The fact you're posting this instead of anything else makes me think we're right johnny :'/

[Shirou]

T-Bone is still on at the moment so I do recommend doing so, but if you want to take your time, fair.

[Shirou]

Yea Johnny is just scum trolling at this point

I guess

If he's town he already gave up on this game / don't think he can change our minds, which is fair.

Rather than giving his last thoughts/words when I asked, he memed me saying his lim is inevitable (which to be fair, it is).

[Shirou]

I don't want to sound pushy but I really would like for us to get the flip while T-Bone is online today if possible.

[Shirou]

Actually out of curiosity what happens if we dont elim before deadline

in theory there should be no drawback, but to stimulate the deadlines to be respected, I'm sure the mods could invent something to punish town for not obeying it.

[Shirou]

Yes Lilith, hammer away.

[Shirou]

One of my teammates wanted to ask the thread if there's anyone who knew johnny wasn't hammered earlier

This is a funny question which I would have an interesting reply to if I was scum, but I'll wait people to reply this before speaking, if I do speak about it at all later.

[Shirou]

Shirou prob fine but need 1 guillo to make sure chenn not partner (3 guillos left, 2 before lylo)

I knew you would say this to be fair.

I will be clear, as long as I'm alive, unless I change my mind I've no intention of touching Chennis/AL slots.

I still need to finish catch up but I'm decently confident on my read on Chennis, and AL/You are mutually exclusive in my view, and shouldn't be touched because we only need 2 mafia.

Do you've anything to say to this?

[Shirou]

I don't want to touch Chennis/AL/Menalque at all

I don't think Chennis is partnered with either AL or Menalque in the off chance I'm wrong on scum!Chennis

I don't think AL/Menalque are partners

Keeping those three alive do seem to make it possible to not need to hyper solve their slots if we disagree on who is town there, as long as we agree on the basis on what doesn't look like partners.

Touching AL/Menalque/Chennis is the path to scum victory that I can see now, regardless of Johnny flip as long as Lilith/Joq are town.

[Shirou]

Full disclosure seems to be:

Chennis/Mena doesn't seem like partners

AL/Mena doesn't seem like partners

AL/Chennis doesn't seem like partners, if you think acting too buddy in-thread is partner indicative, I strongly disagree, I think they would have tried to distance themselves a bit more here instead of constantly feedback loop in early game.

Those three all give me reasons to think they may be town in varying degrees, especially Chennis, and doesn't seem to be partnered.

The unique way I see we losing if Lilith/Joqi is town is by limming one of them.

[Shirou]

To make this simpler, are you basically saying you think there’s max of 1 scum in the three of us?

Yes.

It's the unique path to victory I see for scum at the moment as long as Lilith/Joqi are town.

Either this or limming me I guess.

[Shirou]

I don't understand the logic behind not touching Autumn when he might be scum, but we can discuss it further tmrw ig.

We know that by their 1v1 and mena insistence on AL, they are likely not partners right?

However, they may both be town.

If we do lim AL, and he's town, we've not only lost one lim, but have also lost a pairing that should give us good confidence that there's only 1 scum in at max.

We don't need to catch all scum, we can let one escape. A pairing that have at maximum 1 scum in this setup is effectively a

double town clear

because you can ignore one of the mafia if there is one in that pairing.

It's especially useful in my opinion when we're divided on Mena/AL slots, and I think there's high chance for mistake there.

[Shirou]

If Mena/AL only has one scum on it at max, we only need 3 other town reads rather than four, because we effectively guarantee that one of them at least will be town.

Therefore, with Mena/AL alive, and assuming Lilith/Joqi are town, we've basically won finding someone else, as long as we don't touch on Mena/AL and they aren't partners.

This does lose us the game if they are partners, but are they? They couldn't know I would propose this plan, so unless you think the team is Mena + AL + Me, you need to consider they've been playing a pretty weird game especially if Johnny is scum.

[Shirou]

Again, I’m not saying that I think that’s what’s happening, but more than you shouldn’t write off shirou!scum as a possibility because he’s locking the game off into a specific set of elims

I need to see johnny flip and check the math, think about it etc.

But it's not impossible that in this game, I would even offer myself to be limmed up if it meant no touching on Mena/AL/Chennis.

I'm that confident that as long as Lilith/Joqi are town, this wins the game.

I do need to check if I need to be alive in this case though, or if it isn't just pointless to offer myself. But the alternative is not impossible to me.

[Shirou]

Him being not partnered with someone I already think is town does nothing for me

You don't know if Menalque is town or not, you only think he's.

I thought I would like Menalque posting in this game a lot more than I actually did reading up to page 83.

[Shirou]

I think it would be stupid to offer that deal early even if you do reach sufficient confidence in it being winning, as opposed to just finding a remaining scum to kill in the next 2 days if Johnny scum

Of course I would first try to win it early, but if it comes to that, I'm putting the option in the table, because I think the unique way I lose with my current core reads being right, is by people trying to waste a lim on you/AL/Chennis, when I think there's at max only one scum there.

[Shirou]

And I would just counter that you don't know Mena/Autumn aren't partnered, you only think they aren't ??

We've way more mathematical chance of being right on at least one of them than being wrong on both, no?

[Shirou]

I thought I would like Menalque posting in this game a lot more than I actually did reading up to page 83.

What did you not like about it?

The forceful way you got into the thread only focusing on wagoning people up didn't give me a good vibe mena. I don't think it's particularly off for town!you to do it, but I think that kind of strong opening rushing things up would just be what scum!mena tries to do. It doesn't help that you seem to be suggesting Chennis/AL when I think that's the path to scum win.

[Shirou]

I can explain with math later joqiza, but essentially if there's only one scum at max on Mena/AL, limming them up essentially makes scum victory possible, when it shouldn't be if You/Lilith + Third Townread are all correct.

[Shirou]

Because of the way this setup works, if you can make a pairing where there's at max only one scum, it's effectively a mason pair, because for all that matters you could consider this a 8v2 game rather than 7v3 game, since one mafia doesn't need to be killed.

I'll explain with math and etc when the time comes.

[Shirou]

This is effectively 6 v 2 v 1 if you manage to make a way where one of the scum is locked and can't do anything, which is why I'm suggesting a lock of Mena/AL. I need to think more about it and see if I'm not miscalculating stuff, but it should be how it works.

[Shirou]

To be frank Shirou if we keep Autumn alive I don't want you also in the block because I think he's scummy and I'm suspicious of your motivations in wanting him alive.

That's fine. If I can't be on it, I would like to wager all of the game on Chennis town, and as bargaining chip I would like to say that in the previous Team Mafia game, I had the same strong TR in Chennis that I do here, for the same motives.

I can be wrong on Chennis though, so yeah I guess it would be optimal for me to be in it, but I'm confident enough in town!Chennis that I'm willing to entertain me being out of the block, but I think even if I was to stay out of the block, Me/Chennis would be confirmed scum to each other in final day if Mena/AL isn't a scum pair and the game hasn't ended, so it may be pointless but...

Yes, for all intent and purposes, I can stay out of it at the moment.

[Shirou]

And finally, idk if you’re talking about the chennis/AL about what I’m suggesting *now* or if that’s also referring to my earlier posts, but if it’s the latter isn’t the only reason you’re happy with that solve bc of my interactions with both slots as a result of my entry?

I'm happy with your entry, but that doesn't mean I think the content is towny, I think it was very helpful to solve the game though

I don't know mena, I don't have any huge issues with your slot but if you were to ask me "do you've considerably confidence on mena being town, alone?", I couldn't answer a soundly yes without lying.

I do need to read 40 + pages though, I may become more comfortable with you.

[Shirou]

This is effectively 6 v 2 v 1

I meant 7 v 2 v 1. Quick explanation that I can do a better job later:

Consider the playerlist w/ flips

chennisden -
JohnnyFarrar -
Flopz -
Auro -
Lilith2013 -
Infinity 324 -
Menalque
Joqiza
Shirou
Mathblade

We've 7 townies, 3 mafia, and 4 lims here to eliminate 1 mafia, and an extra 1 to eliminate the last one. We begin with 10 players to sort though, if we consider Lilith/Joqiza being town, it means we've 8 players effectively in the game to be sorted.

If Mena/AL aren't partners, since we can ignore one scum, it means we can ignore both of them, bringing the players to be sorted to 6.

Within the rest of the 6 players, if we can find only one more that is town to add to the block of Lilith/Joqiza, it means we would have only 5 players to sort.

If there's only 5 players to sort, Lilith/Joqiza/X player are all town, Mena/AL aren't partners, and we've 4 lims, it means it's an auto town-win.

Inside those 5 players, there should be 2 mafia, and with 4 eliminations we'll at least get one, and getting one mafia we get an extra elimination, which adds to a total of 5 lims, effectively auto-winning the game as long as our base assumptions are all right.

Therefore:

If Mena/AL aren't partners, and Lilith/Joqiza/Third Player are all town, we can't possibly lose the game by this route.

The unique way to lose it if our assumptions are right, is by limming one of Mena/AL and making it so that we've an extra player to sort + one less lim if we turn out to be wrong.

[Shirou]

TL;DR

Regardless of Johnny flip, as long as:

1) Lilith/Joqiza are town

2) We can find a third player for the block

3) Menalque/AL aren't partners and we don't touch them

We're effectively in a town auto-win.

If we're wrong on any of those assumptions though, we may be looking at game loss, but there's no way you can convince me that discussing whether Menalque / AL are a team + Giving an extra town read is harder than pinpointing scum. At least in my opinion.

[Shirou]

The unique way I win as scum here being left out of the block is if I'm planning to flip the table against the third player in the block in the last day.

Honestly, although it's a bit novel, I wouldn't place it outside of the realm of possibility for scum!me, but that would mean I'm planning to flip the tables on Chennis, which would mean we're not partnered.

The other unique way for me to win as scum here is if it's exactly Chennis + Me + one of Mena / AL.

Therefore this is either an town auto-win or auto-loss based on whether you think the team is exactly that / Lilith + Joqi is town / Mena/AL aren't partners.

I'm not gonna try to hide any of this stuff from you, there it is in the sun on all it's glory and I think it's the plan I want to put forward.

[Shirou]

If me/Chennis are partners but I'm not partners with any of Mena/AL

We still lose this by eliminating one of Chennis/Me in the final day.

We're essentially now in a state that based on the assumptions we take, we can lock the game.

[Shirou]

I do think also that my interactions with Mena / AL are decently anti-partners until now unless you think I did mastermind this whole plan from the start. Which I guess I don't have anything to say, I just didn't.

[Shirou]

In fact, final checkmate:

1) If I'm not partner with one of AL / Mena

2) If Lilith/Joqi/Third are all town

We effectively win this game, don't even need to consider Chennis/Me because Chennis/Me still can't win in final day if I'm not partners with one of AL / Mena.

[Shirou]

If Chennis/Me are partners, but I'm not partners with one of AL / Mena, we still lose because we would need to do a 1v1 in the final day, and we would already have limmed one of our partners before.

Chennis/Me can't win in that situation at all unless we turn against Lilith/Joqi.

[Shirou]

Shirou has said if I assume that my townreads are right then we win, you’ve assumed what you’re trying to prove.

In that case you need to talk about:

Why Lilith / Joqi aren't town.

Why AL / Mena are partners

If you do think they are town at the moment but may change your mind later, it's still to our benefit to follow this plan.

Therefore, give us reasoning why you don't believe in Lilith / Joqi town, or why you think AL / Mena are scum together when all their interactions in the game in my opinion point otherwise.

[Shirou]

Explain it like I am 5.

I already explained as if someone is 5.

Read my posts.

[Shirou]

If Johnny is scum, the unique part of the plan that changes is that we need even fewer requirements for it to be a auto-win so *shrug*.

[Shirou]

Math, the fact you're instantly trying to go for "AL + Mena" are partners yeah don't make your slot look good at all.

I need to check your ISO later but I doubt you had anything close to that opinion before, and I don't think you had doubt about Joqi/Lilith either likely. Even if you did, I still don't like you trying to shut down the plan by saying "but you can be wrong!!!" instead of firstly properly understanding the plan, seeing if it lines up with your reads, and if yes/not proceed to give your feedback.

You've instantly gone to the route of "shutdown the plan".

[Shirou]

It doesn't even matter if you read the guys above that way or not, this logic is still solid and at minimum I can see you suggesting different pairings.

In this game, you need to assume some people are town or at least not likely scum either way, I'm only suggesting a more efficient/clear way of doing it, but you don't want to understand any of it, you just want to shutdown the whole thing.

[Shirou]

If you think the plan isn't solid because the reads are wrong, the optimal route would still be to put your own reads on the safe mechanisms and suggest it.

There's nothing to lose by at least entertaining it.

[Shirou]

I could literally swap this with anyone. I am not trying to shut down you’re plan I am asking you to either explain how that list is different from just randomly picking names and explain how you got there.

You need to make assumptions in this game either way

For you to vote someone, you need to assume that they're the least towny person in the playerlist (The PoE), and for you to make town reads, you need to assume that the person is town (Lilith/Joqi), and to make associative reads, you need to assume what looks like partner/anti-partner interaction (Menalque / AL).

You're essentially telling me that in a game of assumption, where you're constantly assuming things, it's dangerous, suboptimal or wrong to assume things to solve the game in a more efficient way.

I can't help but feel your argument is silly Math.

[Shirou]

What I would like to see discussion about, is if everyone agree on those reads, because it doesn't matter the names, we're still in the same situation:

1) If we can have 3 consensus town reads

2) If we can have a pair of 2 that aren't scum together

We essentially auto-win the game.

[Shirou]

So Shirou. The issue I have with your plan is that for me, this "third player" to add to the block of me/lilith is already just Menalque.

So if possible I would want to find an additional not!SvS interaction that's not Mena/AL.

But I understand what you're saying in theory, I think.

That's fair, I don't plan to bruteforce this, but at the very least, I want us to consider delaying limming in Mena / AL if we don't think they are both partners.

[Shirou]

The main reason I'm explaining this is to understand the importance of Mena / AL pairing, and also, we shouldn't make any other similar pairings in my opinion now that the plan is out, because scum could simply try to distance themselves from each other to be inserted as the anti-partners pairing.

That's why, I don't want to touch Mena / AL at the moment, and I'm a bit opposed to Chennis naturally, I would like for us to look elsewhere in Day 2, that's all at the moment.

[Shirou]

Do you feel that no other pairing exists?

Yeah, there's no other pairing that gives as much synergy as Mena / AL to me, because my third player suggestion is without a doubt Chennis, and Mena / AL / Chennis only has one scum regardless to me, so to me it's even more of a safe plan in all angles.

[Shirou]

I also think Chennis/ Mena / AL can be all town.

But again, I do need to finish reading I guess..I've a bad habit of speaking too early sometimes.

[Shirou]

Theoretically though, as long as it's before I outed it, I guess you could look for that kind of pairing, but I don't think I've seen anything like Mena / AL.

Maybe Super / DK, but the fact is, Super slot, which is you Joqi, is already in the town block, so it can't be the pairing.

[Shirou]

For argument/example sake, in my most recent both town/scum games, that happened in the same setup, I also did propose plans which arguably gave town a chance to auto-win.

In the first one I was town, and my plan would be a success if only RNG wasn't against us (Long story short, we did everything right but since our PRs were random, we didn't have power enough to activate town cop ability, but if RNG wasn't stacked against us / the game wasn't cancelled because of a certain player, our plan N1 would be a success)

In the second one I was scum, and I made an improved version of my plan, with the following caveat:

I gave everyone a standard overall better version of my previous plan (no deceit here), but,

I offered an even better "auto-win" option of my plan, but with the caveat that for it to work, town needed to blindly trust me N1 because I couldn't say out aloud what I would do without it being countered by scum.

You may look at this and think "I see, you were trying to deceive town with your second plan", but that's in fact the real deceit itself. My plans were all logically sound because I don't think it's worth trying to deceive town mechanically unless I'm very sure no one will ever discover the hole in the plan (I don't take pointless risks). My real plan was that in fact, the second option was better even considering I was scum, because it would lock scum!me into being outed or on a hard 1v1 in Day 3, but I knew that the specific playerlist would be too scared of accepting the second plan especially considering they didn't trust me a lot in that game, so I would look better in endgame with my fakeclaim because my plan would suddenly "make much sense" and make me seem very town/give credibility to my claim, making LyLo much easier.

TL;DR is, even when I'm scum, my deceit is never the plan itself because that's too obvious, but the implications that come along with the plan or proposition. I don't think this setup is complex enough that I could do an elaborated mechanical plan that town couldn't understand the hole on it. This setup is as simple as lim or not lim, no PRs. There's a limit to the level of novelty I could pull off here.

[Shirou]

About reads, I want to finish reading the game before going about it I suppose.

[Shirou]

Fingers crossed I guess

[Shirou]

Anyone on right now?

VOTE: Auro

[Shirou]

I'll wait for a bit more and go to bed as well if there's not enough people

Out of curiosity, where is your head at the moment in the game joqi?

[Shirou]

@Joqi

Then you think Johnny bussed Autumn Leaves (Johnny only voted you and Autumn Leaves in this game as far as I know), and Autumn Leaves early bussed Johnny, and scum!AL think we should take a look inside the wagon for a busser?

In that world, considering we're in Black Flag, don't you agree that it's necessary for scum!AL partner to be outside of the wagon?

[Shirou]

Anyone on right now?

VOTE: Auro

good vote

I'm mildly confident that we can wrap up this game today

[Shirou]

If not today, tomorrow.

[Shirou]

I'm actually a bit surprised on everyone reactions.

I thought there was a chance everyone would come to the same conclusions but I'll try to explain my line of thought here.

[Shirou]

We've 5 players present at the moment counting me, therefore it's enough for an execution, so if possible/no one needs to do anything else, I would like for you to be online for the next 10 ~ 15 minutes or so, since I'll make a proposition.

I suppose we can call this night meeting a brief Round Table. For what it's worth, I think all online players at the moment are more likely town than not.

[Shirou]

I suppose I'll begin by my thesis on this game at the moment:

As long as we're not in a distorted/dark timeline where one of the following happened/is factual:

1) Lilith / Joqi being scum together or with one of Chennis / Mena / AL

2) Mena / AL being partners that bussed even though Johnny wagon was up so they couldn't afford a buss

3) Johnny being insistent on one of his partners being obvtown (DK)

This game should end at maximum in the next 2 eliminations, which are respectively Auro/Flopz, where there should be at least one scum, if it isn't exactly the remaining scum team in the game.

[Shirou]

In fact, I would even go as far as saying that if the game doesn't end with Auro/Flopz, this is Baton Pass V2 but in this edition I'm not one of the scum.

Therefore, I don't think this game continues past that, at the same time I fear the thought of it doing.

I'll explain my reads in Auro/Flopz as well as why they're, outside of even reads, mathematically good eliminations.

[Shirou]

At the risk of sounding incredibly dumb, I am the DK slot. If you think I am partners with Johnny wouldn’t you elim me to end the game? I don’t see how you get from paragraph 3 to 4.

I'm saying as a hypothetical in that scenario.

I don't think you're scum, because I don't think Johnny relates himself to his partner this hard in a Black Flag by insisting that their partner is obvtown.

You're one of my weakest "town reads" if I can even call it that, but I don't think I want to assume you're his partner at the moment, especially considering what I've found during my read in the later pages of the game / looking at Flopz and Auro ISOs.

[Shirou]

I'm not going to quote a wall of posts here, I'll mainly address points that you can try to check yourself on their ISOs if you feel interested:

- Chennis was the initial pusher of the Johnny wagon, but it happened very early in the game with no traction. During those times, Chennis slot credit in the consensus opinion was low, and although FB (my own slot) did shade Chennis, I think it's important to note that both Auro / Flopz seemed to try to undermine / shade Chennis in some way.

In this game scum has no nightkill, therefore I do believe that they may be much more inclined than usual to want to eliminate potential threads through eliminations if possible. Chennis wasn't only pointing out the problem with the gamestate early, but he was also voting scum, and if I remember right he didn't have much of a good impression on many pages from Auro.

It's very curious to me that both Auro/Flopz shaded Chennis, voted Autumn together with Johnny, and mostly didn't seem to want join Johnny wagon.

Auro did join Johnny wagon with a naked vote for a few pages, but he soon parked his vote on Autumn.

It's also interesting to me, that while talking to me about how I didn't like his slot very much / had raised an eyebrow on Johnny suspecting Chennis, Auro proceeded to scum read me.

[Shirou]

Any objections to Flopz?

Auro has been objectively the most pro-scum player in this game to me.

His shade on Lilith was pro-scum

His throwing paranoia on Super was pro-scum

The way he tried to make people converge into wagons that were non-johnny but what I consider the LHFs of this game such as Ampharos or Autumn, maybe even Chennis, was also pro-scum

Not many or even maybe none of Auro's actions to me sounded pro-town.

They only seemed pro-town in the surface, but all of those with the gamestate I've at the moment, seems to point out to be pro-scum.

[Shirou]

I'm not unwilling to trade Auro for Flopz, I just feel a bit more confident that it ends today with Auro than Flopz.

[Shirou]

Let's look at this from a mechanical perspective:

Let's assume that Lilith / Joqi are town, since this seems like the consensus for town at the moment.

Let's also assume, that Menalque / Autumn aren't likely partners, therefore at maximum there should be only one scum in them.

This leaves a pool of [Chennis, Shirou, MathBlade, Auro, Flopz]

I'll ask of you, if you can consider Chennis out of that pool for at least today considering he very early did lead the Johnny wagon

I'll also suggest, to try to consider for the moment MathBlade out of that pool considering Johnny insisted on DK being obvtown, which doesn't seem like common partner-behavior. We can revisit this on another day, but let's try to get the simpler answer.

This leaves a pool of [Shirou, Flopz, Auro], where there should be from 2 to 1 scum at minimum with the requirements above.

I know my alignment of course, so I know that it's very likely that there's at least one scum in Auro / Flopz, maybe even both being.

Therefore, I would like for us to focus on [Shirou, Flopz, Auro] if we agree on the premises above. scum!AL alignment doesn't matter for AL enthusiasts, especially considering AL said we should look into the wagon for bussing, if there's a AL partner, it's outside of the wagon, again implicating [Flopz, Auro].

I would like for us to focus on [Auro, Flopz] today in this case, although I understand that I may be under consideration as well, I did in fact come a bit late to the Johnny wagon.

[Shirou]

Auro, and to an extent Flopz.

You're free to engage with other players but I'll not engage with you.

I can't think of anything but one, if not both, of you being scum, and your lims being necessary in this game.

I think it's a waste of time/effort to engage any of you, especially you Auro since you're my strongest SR.

[Shirou]

shirou happy bday!

Thanks Lilith

ok legit please describe how I could be scum, you’ve just been trying to discredit townreads on me for most of this game and have put like 0 effort into solving me???

Have you considered the fact that maybe the unique player that seems to be shading/suspecting you, out of many that town read you, also share the most non-majority alignment along with their opinions?

Politely think about it Lilith.

[Shirou]

Shirou I'll review everything closer tomorrow, it's late for me.

One thing to think about is that in 2344 Johnny didn't want to vote either Mena/AL, in the universe you're proposing Johnny basically didn't bite at all at a TvT.

No, that's not the universe I'm proposing.

The universe I'm proposing is even if AL is scum, his partner is still one of Auro / Flopz, and his posts about "scum bussed" should also point that out for you.

I highlighted because I think Menalque/other players is going to talk about the same thing.

[Shirou]

I'll be honest:

I thought there was a non-zero chance that we would just drop votes on Auro / Flopz in those upcoming days and get this out of the way, but it seems I was mistaken.

Even if AL is scum, even if Mena is scum, even if one of Lilith/Joqi are scum.

Their partner still should be most likely inside Flopz / Auro according to what our consensus premises were yesterday.

[Shirou]

@shirou

back to game-related content: I think auro has decent chance of being scum regardless of what infinity flips

I see, I'm glad we seem to be coming to a consensus.

I think there's a non-zero chance that there's 0 scum in [Auro / Flopz], but it's small to me at the moment, especially given the fact Auro is still shading the same slots and acting all snarky in-thread.

[Shirou]

The universe I'm proposing is even if AL is scum, his partner is still one of Auro / Flopz, and his posts about "scum bussed" should also point that out for you.

I mean, I agree. The universe I was considering was Autumn/Flopz, as I've said.

I see

I would like in that case, even if it's hard, to pick the off-wagon players to eliminate rather than AL, since this is Black Flag and we can ignore one scum, but if we are mistaken about AL by any chance, we lose our way to auto town win as I detailed early.

[Shirou]

VOTE: Auro

I'll vote for emphasis once more and ask for [Menalque, Math, Chennis, Autumn] for votes or opinions on Auro / Flopz considering what I said in the past page.

I think I'm gonna go sleep for now.

[Shirou]

I feel like both Autumn and Flopz would have rather had their presence on the Johnny wagon given Johnny going down was an eventuality anyway?

The impression I got was that Autumn and Johnny voted each other, than Flopz said he thought it was TvT and tried to move the votes off them to chen. I mean Flopz didn't try very hard, but I feel like if I were mafia and my partner was Johnny I wouldn't be very motivated, lol.

I guess if Autumn were gonna go ahead and bus it does make more sense to have both votes on the wagon, so that's a decent point and something to think about.

Please don't consider what someone with a literal 50% chance of being, in your perspective of scum!AL, the off-wagon partner, has to say.

Engaging with very likely scum candidates is a mistake. One of the best town players in site Elli never engaged with them, and they did it for a good reason. After you're confident enough of something like you seem to be of scum!AL, therefore that scum is likely off-wagon, I don't recommend engaging much with them at all.

This is only a suggestion though I guess. I'm just not in the mood of sitting here waiting for "politely" discussion with Auro about how scum would or not buss in Black Flag to finish.

The fact Auro is defending Flopz when he was voting him yesterday should already be a red flag.

[Shirou]

Happy birthday btw.

Thanks, and goodnight Joqi.

[Shirou]

happy birthday shirou

Thanks Chenn

[Shirou]

Please don't consider what someone with a literal 50% chance of being, in your perspective of scum!AL, the off-wagon partner, has to say.

And when the same person flips town in 50% of future universes, would you blame them for not playing the game while actively having asked no one to engage with them?

The fact that you think this is a matter of reads and not simple mathematics at this point if we consider Chennis town for leading Johnny wagon, is kinda...???

You're likely doubling down on your wincon though so I guess I understand

I guess you can try to make a case of scum!Chennis ultra-bussing Johnny from the early pages + never wavering on it in Black Flag, where even if Chennis himself survives their partner can still lose them the game.

The easier solution is also to latch onto scum!Shirou. Feel free to, you seemed to be going that way yesterday anyway.

[Shirou]

I really doubt that there were no scum on johnny’s wagon

Even if there was scum in the wagon, I do believe that in your pov it would be likely Mena or AL?

Since Mena / AL aren't likely partners together, one scum at least should still be off-wagon Auro/Flopz.

I guess you could count Math, but I don't think Johnny/DK is SvS at the moment.

[Shirou]

Sorry Shirou but I think I'm going to be a heel in the mud here even though I think Auro/Flopz nearly always wins the game, mostly because my ego would never recover if I was wrong

Do you mean you'll engage with them?

I'm fine with it but this is like, opening the door to scum victory when even if for some miracle Flopz/Auro are both town, we still have 2 elims left and a solid mechanical play I described

It's like, beyond suboptimal in my opinion to engage them because if I was scum in their shoes, I would rejoice anyone trying to interact with me, because it gives me a chance to disturb the collective thought process with constant bullshit, parroting, strawman, misrepping, derailing, etc.

[Shirou]

It's very rare for me to adopt the "no engage policy", but I do feel that it's needed here at least from me because I've nothing to gain from interacting with them.

I've re:read the game, thought about it quite a bit, looked at their posts, the VCs, considered our mechanical advantage, and to me it's a question of getting this out of the way which in most cases wins the game.

If it doesn't win the game, at the very least it confirms scum in the town block which is already another important piece of info.

[Shirou]

If by any chance we derail our votes to people outside of Auro/Flopz first, we will give them the opportunity to WIFOM:

"but what if there's people in the townblock? or Mena / AL partners? or etc etc etc".

While if we get them out of the way first, we either win the game or get confirmation about how correct our townblock is.

It's a no-brainer to me. Too much of something usually backfires, this includes even dedication to solving in this case.

There's a point where enough is enough in my opinion.

[Shirou]

Which is contingent on AL being scum, as I understand, and disagree with

This is the kind of misinterpretation that you'll have to endure engaging with them

I've consistently tried to make Joqi look outside of AL, and my plan has nothing to do with AL being scum as I do often mention the possibility of both Mena / AL being town, in fact being my belief coming to today, but he'll still latch on to those misinterpretations

I'm not even sure Auro properly read my post rather than being intentionally obtuse about what the plan is about. It has nothing to do with assuming AL is scum, it's about assuming AL is either town, or at least not partners with mena, but Mena / AL can be town/town and the plan is the same.

I digress, if this is the kind of thing you guys want to sit through when we've 4 eliminations now, I'm gonna just sit in the corner and wait.

[Shirou]

I'm gonna act as a treestump for now for awhile, but if I feel that Auro/Flopz is managing to somehow convince you guys of what most likely will be bullshit, I'm not gonna be happy.

I'm gonna secretly look for anything useful they may say, in the smallest of possibilities, but from that Auro post alone I feel that nope, we may be right and it's just a red role pm.

I

[Shirou]

Now that I'm acting as a treestump (I guess you can still vote me but I'll ignore it for today unless I get to E1), I'll stop acting aggressively towards Auro/Flopz, but my game opinion is still the same, I just have no reason to hate on the player, only on the alignment.

[Shirou]

This is the kind of misinterpretation that you'll have to endure engaging with them

"as I understand"

"didn't actually read the posts gang"

[Shirou]

On second thought I may still look arguably aggressive but...I don't mean it?

Hmm...

[Shirou]

What's the line of elims after Auro->Flopz?

There's no line past that

it means one of our primary assumptions about the townblock are wrong so we would need to talk about it, which is why I think this just wins the game even if you're town most of the time, because Flopz is still likely scum vs reconsidering the assumptions which everyone seemed to agree by the end of D1.

You don't seem to have read attentively those posts at all to be honest, I do recommend you to take a look again regardless of alignment.

[Shirou]

I had an illumination

Since I'm a treestump now, I'm not even a town treestump, I'm a Serial Killer Treestump that also helps scum so I may give advice to scum

That sounds more fun I suppose...until I re-enter as town!Shirou and get back to arguing if you guys don't vote them today maybe?

[Shirou]

(by the way if it's not clear i'm mostly memeing, im a freaking SPAMMER for crying out loud)

I dunno Chennis, I did agree with Firebringer that I don't see you as a spammer necessarily.

But I suppose you're spammy, and can be a spammer in some games, but being a bit spammy doesn't directly translate to being effectively a spammer in some games?

I think we need to theory discuss the functions, responsibilities and meaning of the title spammer...

[Shirou]

No, I would objectively case why Lilith is a godtier scum player if she turns out to be scum here

I'll even give a quick example of something

The fact that Lilith focus now is questioning Auro inconsistencies but not immediately voting would be very good scum play in my opinion. Lilith simply could engage me and get me to say for her to sheep me, or she could act indignant in Auro still scum reading her and insta-vote, but instead she still seems to be trying to sort him to solidify her mind.

I don't think that much of my scum game, but if I was scum here, I wouldn't have that patience at all of perfectly replicating cautious town process. I would just vote Auro and work from the point of accusing him in most cases, although I do the same quick votes as town so I guess it's NAI to me, but still I think in many angles Lilith is playing an amazing scum game if she's scum.

[Shirou]

Btw shirou is the prime example of why replacements break the game and I think it's pretty ridiculous the site has such a lenient culture with replacing out

I don't necessarily disagree with this, I had something similar happen to me with okapoka replacing in a game I had as scum considered virtually won because I had setup the stage for the last day be Tunneled Town vs Pocketing Partner vs Sacrificial Lamb, but hmm...what happened surprised me a bit although I predicted it a bit when the replacement took place.

However, elaborate?

[Shirou]

Actually would like to point out that you don't even have to be very good at scum to do what you're describing

I guess I partially agree on this as long as we also agree on this:

Most people don't seem to enjoy or put that much effort into being scum, therefore although it's arguably not that difficult, in practice it's rarer to encounter those kind of behaviors because scum often just get greedy, impatient, low-effort etc.

I would consider Lilith here as very good scum play either way especially considering other points, but dunno, to each their opinion.

[Shirou]

who has the most USELESS posts in this game?

Unless some unexpected flips happens...DK?

[Shirou]

Not all scumhunting techniques require direct engagement, and sometimes direct engagement can work *against* your efforts to read someone when they're competent at responding and carrying out conversations~

Wow, this just describes the way I feel about your slot

I can see it.

Now I'm going for real. I think I may lurk from now on until we get the flips, maybe not, I don't know.

I mostly consider this game wraped up/solved until I'm proven wrong with mod confirmed info. It's a lazy way to think about it, and it may backfire, but I can't help but think like this under those circumstances.

[Shirou]

VOTE: mathblade

Actually I’ll share what I guess are the main 2 things now:

(1) she thinks there’s approx a 10% chance that joqiza (the person most responsible for Johnny dying yesterday) was bussing

(2) she thinks that if we decide to do shirou’s plan from yesterday then it’s non-negotiable that shirou dies first, but then gets to pick the elims for the next 2 days

This seems like it's gonna be a long day...