Mini 2254 | Subreddit uPick | Fin

[mastina]

Generally both mods see upicks as a love letter to each players choices

This was why I was so miffed with my role.

Not only did it make my job hell as I was scum with a role

mod-provided

that didn't fit flavor-wise, but I knew those criticisms to be valid because *I* didn't think it fit flavor-wise.

I got the short end of the stick in terms of League uPick roles.

Yuumi fit perfectly; Poppy fit perfectly; Arcane was a good fit; etc. But Ashe as a messenger who has a puppetmaster (when puppetmastery is more of LeBlanc's flavor thing or if you have one in the Freljord is Lissandra's realm because Lissandra is literally manipulating things behind the scenes) doesn't really fit at all. And as someone who doesn't fakeclaim and truthfully claimed, I got stuck with a role I knew wasn't a good fit and knew that nobody else would think was a good fit even though I wasn't fucking lying about it, it just was a shit fit compared to the brilliant fits of the others.

[Lukewarm]

I think that it was less to do with ashes abilities, and more to do with her lore?

It has been YEARS since I have looked at anything lol related, but she was a politician, and there was some political intrigue stuff maybe? Idk

[mastina]

like yes, LLD can have claws... but doing this ringamarole is a bit much just to placate somebody

I have the need to state once again that you don't know the full history between me and LLD.

I do.

When I said I genuinely was afraid LLD would /out due to me and that LLD had me blacklisted:

That wasn't me being scum exaggerating

.

That was true.

I came up with the plan to proxy-vote to LLD and make the promise from the moment I signed up for the game and saw LLD was in it. I was actually hoping to be town, specifically because I knew that if I got scum it would be seen as less sincere even though I fully meant it and it was designed regardless of my alignment.

[mastina]

I think that it was less to do with ashes abilities, and more to do with her lore?
It has been YEARS since I have looked at anything lol related, but she was a politician, and there was some political intrigue stuff maybe? Idk

Yes Cabd did mention that but that's what I mean; even there, Ashe is NOT the "manipulative" part of the Freljord; that is firmly Lissandra's lore.

Cabd gave me a role that'd be a perfect fit for

Lissandra

, which meant it was basically 0% a fit for Ashe as Ashe is basically everything Lissandra isn't.

Ashe is a clever politician yes, but she doesn't manipulate; she navigates things to find the most optimal solution to keep her people alive. There's no manipulation, just selection of the best option. Marrying Tryndamere was the best option she had available, but while it was initially politically-motivated, they developed real love and there was nothing underhanded or manipulative in the marriage. Ashe didn't need to manipulate or trick or deceive Tryndamere or her own people for it.

When Ashe even basically founded the Avarosans, taking the survivors from Sejuani's attack, there was no manipulation involved there. There was in fact basically the opposite of manipulation; there was openness and honesty and a commitment to honor and doing the right thing, showing empathy and committing to leading her new people. Ashe basically shuts down manipulation in the Freljord; she is not the one doing it.

[mastina]

Also if we assume ivan is not scum (or 3p i suppose), i'm very curious to see what scum has, since a lot of town seems p strong

imo in many was basically fuckall of anything since our tools couldn't actually counter the town's tools.

We had no way of stopping a Strong-willed Cop. If Rogue had chosen the 1x strongman over the poison, we'd only have a 1x bypass of the Strong-willed Doc. (And would otherwise be at the mercy of it.) We had no way of bypassing Ivan's parity cop.

My redirect was inherently tied to my message. I couldn't redirect without sending a message and that meant that it'd be very easy to figure out that the redirect was tied to the message.

Even then, our ability to bypass the watcher/jailkeeper was incredibly limited. The watcher is incredibly easy to get a guilty (because we had no ninja) and incredibly hard to kill (because of commuting on even nights). The jailkeeper we could only directly deal with twice and would've become a cop had it lived long enough.

We also had almost no way of bypassing LLD's role, especially if Piltover was selected over Zaun.

The scum also had no tools to bypass Shiro's role if Shiro had used it in almost any other way. If I was made disloyal first I wouldn't have been able to clear myself; if Shiro attached to town and the loyal/disloyal was used, we'd have no way of dealing with it especially if Shiro wouldn't actually die via the hide.

The town this game was ridiculously strong, and the scum, less so imo.

Now, granted: the town had one less elimination than normal; poison bypassed most of the protectives; redirect was able to bypass the jailkeeper used offensively. So I'm not sure that it was townsided given those factors. But I will say that I feel like the town didn't need to use their tools optimally to win, they just needed to have their tools used at all; the scum it felt like needed to use their tools incredibly optimally and then even after having used them optimally, have good luck. So I would favor most towns in this game regardless of the game's theoretical balance.

[mastina]

unless mastina has a reputation for bussing her partners (and flips scum).

Actually, I do.

Because I never am intended to be the deepscum and am always the weak link on my scumteams (I have never lived as scum in over three years and have always died prior to that), why wouldn't I bus? I'm guaranteed to die every scumgame I ever play, so when I die my flip will make my scumbuddies look a lot better.

...Which is why in this game when I specifically was feeling a revitalized scumgame I deliberately chose to invert that trend.

I knew that I was having a good scumgame. I knew that for whatever reason I wasn't sucking like scumastina did for the last three years. So I knew that I could do the opposite of what scumastina has done for three years straight and do the thing that scumastina

used

to be known and even infamous for; of hard-townlocking scumbuddies and hard-defending them. (I literally wrote an article called "Stop Bussing!"; that's because I know why bussing is so disastrous for scumteams. So scumastina in good form never busses; scumastina when in her three year funk basically did nothing BUT bus.)

[mastina]

unless mastina has a reputation for bussing her partners (and flips scum).

Fun facts that nobody picked up on;
I argued I couldn't be scum because I didn't know about the Shiro mechanics when scum would have via Suripoko being neighborized--
This was not an act on my part because Suripoko never told their scumbuddies about it meaning we were in the dark about it.

I argued that the mechanics people were using to say I wasn't conftown couldn't exist--because they didn't.

I argued that the way Loyal/Redirector should resolve would make me conftown--because that's the way they

should

have worked.
I didn't ask the mods about particular interactions because I assumed they worked in a specific universal way--even though the mods way was actually different. (So that wasn't an act.)

I argued things about my role and its mechanics truthfully--because the mods sent me the wrong PM.

A lot of the things I said made me town were due to things that really would indicate me as town if not for extenuating circumstances where they happened in spite of me being scum.

[mastina]

i can see the scum pt and i have no idea what they r doing

Why was it unclear to you and Cabd?

Shiro had been in a PT with Ivan and LLD.

YOU knew that Shiro was telling the truth about making my action disloyal.

*I* did not.

*I* had the, fairly reasonable, paranoia that Shiro wasn't as trustful of me as claimed because Shiro had voted me, stated suspicion on me, and was just in a topic with LLD and Ivan.

If Shiro made me Loyal a second night in a row, then I would need to do the exact thing I did on the previous night. So I did, as a precaution.

I also stand by what I said; my role was use it or lose it.

I had nobody to use my redirect on other than Rogue.
We were going into mylo.

So either we won (and thus no need for it), or Rogue died (and thus I had nobody to use it on), or I died (and thus would not be able to use it).

So even though I knew it'd be a waste if Shiro was truthfully claiming Disloyal (and it turned out Shiro was in fact truthfully claiming Disloyal), *I* had no way of knowing that so I used the action in that way as a precaution.

It wasn't stupidity; it was caution.

[mastina]

I spent forever dithering over whether to tell SM first, then Bombay (and by extension T3) that Shiro was a hider, only to find out the scum team knew from the getgo.

You'd

think

that we knew, but......

[mastina]

well if T3 is scum
he can't shoot Mastina
because he can't explain why she dies
as he's a claimed doctor
and has pontificated vigorously about why Mastina is town

Yes, if I had needed to actually argue T3 as scum, I'd have pointed out precisely this:

T3 (claiming to) protect me is the correct move regardless of his alignment.

If he lets two conftown die (because after the strongman flip the theory I was a strongman messenger was debunk), then he gets instavoted.
He couldn't realistically no-kill as scum there due to how it would give the town more.
Bombay was commuting that night so he couldn't kill Bombay.

Meaning that T3's only kill if T3 were scum was Ivan.

[mastina]

Welcome to Subreddit Mafia!

Ashe, in pencil!

You are r/AsheMains

Your Abilities are:

• Your voice and your vote
  
• You have a factional Private thread with Rogue and Suripoko here: (link)
  
• You are a Hawkshot (E) messenger. You can send a letter to a player each night. The letter has a 100 character limit. Three successfully delivered letters grants you a public crier role, also with 100 characters limit.
  
• If you successfully deliver a letter to a player, on the same night you can become their puppet master and redirect that player's night action (if they have a targeting action) to the player of your choice. You can use this puppet master ability two times.
  
• Your public crier ability, if accomplished, will have 3 shots in total.
  

Your Win Condition is:
You win when

Mafia

acheive numerical parity with

Town

, or nothing can prevent that from occurring.

The game thread is here.

Please confirm by replying to this PM with your alignment, and with the bolded line from the rules in the game thread.

Btw this is the role PM I actually got.

[mastina]

It does come down to the fact that every town player at ElLo should be considering why scum was willing to bring them there
Especially at 3-4p

I mean.

Shiro couldn't be killed due to being hid behind.
Bombay couldn't be killed due to commuting.

So the only kills available were {Ivan, T3, mastina}.
Whoever was scum in there (me in this case) couldn't die, leaving very limited options.

And before that?

StrangeMatter was mandatory because Jailkeeper with one scum left alive is a cop (especially if posting their target in a PT).
LLD was mandatory because of what I had intended to do. (I actually intended to kill her and claim that my loyal worked even knowing it wouldn't have worked. Or so I thought, except, apparently, it did.) It was also a good kill off of LLD being both conftown and LLD having a strong role. That not even touching into her reads and general competency.
skitter wasn't mandatory but it was a N1 kill; we had no information N1 so we were shooting blind that night and skitter was right on 2/3 scum so...

There wasn't any reason for Bombay or Shiro to question why they were alive; it was obvious that they were alive because scum

couldn't

kill them.

So from there, the only question would be who would have what reason to kill who among the three possible kills with one of the possible kills being scum.

[Shiro]

Fun fact, you could kill me, it's high time I say my hidden mechanic wasn't the normal one.

I simple was affected by anything targeting you except kills.

I find it hilarious that I hid twice behind scum and then bamboozled myself by confirming said scum as town who I was initially scum reading from the very first day.

Well played regardless Mastina. You had me fooled in the pt afterwards anyway and ngl I found the redirect for ashe even more unfitting so it played a part in my disregard for Ivan theory.

Sorry Ivan

I tried to outguess the mod and failed. Even worse that I was correct when I said there is no way ashe is just a messenger. So close yet so far.

[skitter30]

Gg everyone, thanks cabdffery for modding

Why *was* i killed n1?

[Lukewarm]

Gg everyone, thanks cabdffery for modding

Why *was* i killed n1?

I think you were arguably the most town read player at the end of day 1, and that is why you were my watcher target. You were our predicted night kill target

I also saw Mastina refer to you as "the best scum hunter on site" lol

So, you being good at the game + you being really town read probably

[fferyllt]

Mastina,

I'm really sorry that you are disappointed, nay angry, about our interpretation of your chosen uPick. We certainly didn't intend to do badly by Asha.

In all the games I've played with you, spectated and modded, I have never been impressed with your play to the extent I was impressed with your Night 2 choices here.

And when I realized that you weren't even trying to take advantage of an aspect of your role where we'd bungled the wordage in the conversion from town to scum, and yet took advantage of it perfectly. my jaw dropped.

Anyway, I meant to point up the part of your role card that was fixed in the mafia PT and talk about how your Night 2 decisions really brought the scum team back from the brink and set up the path to a win, but got distracted getting all the postgame info wrapped up last night.

Thanks again, everyone for playing. Your feedback is appreciated!

[penguin_alien]

General thoughts:

Like any uPick game, there were some really nifty things and some stuff that went off the rails. I really liked the chess game used as a way to circumvent a standard Follow The Cop.

Flavor aside, the roles interacted in useful ways for town and scum. I think balancing for a third party whose exit/existence means town starts down a miselim. Scum likely had the drift of that once town claims started coming in even without jjh's explanation via existing, but it sure made a lot of things click at the time.

Which brings me to noting beyond my initial congrats that jjh played a niche role very well, IMHO. You hit the right balance to get to your win con, and even without what sounds like maybe some RNG in your favor, I suspect you would have made it to a win con regardless as you were going.

The poison choice worked out well for scum in this game too.
It was definitely a complicating factor in balance to my outside eye, but it certainly changed up the days' paths.

It was fun to get to play with some new folks to me and with some old friends. I did learn that I'm not an alt player, for everyone who cares about my navel-gazing conclusions. But I'll use the alt to run a Vorkosiganverse mini theme, so all is not lost. Ivan will ride again!

Thanks to the mods for a good game, and I hope to see the rest of y'all in another game some time! And of course thanks be to the RNG for giving me so many Town neighbors. I was kept hopping, if nothing else...!

[mastina]

ngl I found the redirect for ashe even more unfitting
Even worse that I was correct when I said there is no way ashe is just a messenger.

I mean if I had truthfully

full

claimed and included the redirect aspect, then you'd have thought it was unfitting AND me claiming a scum role, instead of unfitting and underwhelming.

So it was a damned if I do, damned if I don't, moment.

I'm really sorry that you are disappointed, nay angry, about our interpretation of your chosen uPick.

Oh I'm not angry, I'm just passionate.

I am an active member of the subreddit I submitted; I am an Ashe onetrick; I love everything about her both lorewise and gameplay wise (and the fact that she's a female archer also helps as that's precisely the kind of character I like to play), so I'm not angry about anything, just very passionate.

It was annoying that I was telling the truth about my role and was disbelieved by other League Champion subreddits because theirs were closer fitted to their champion than mine was, since I genuinely feel like their roles hit the nail on the head with their picks and mine was an eyesquint stretch where you could

kind of

see the logic behind it but it didn't make as much logical sense.

But while I probably would've ranted if that had led to my elimination, ultimately, it didn't, so while I do admit to some disappointment to having a role that I felt wasn't a good fit for Ashe, I'm not angry.

In all the games I've played with you, spectated and modded, I have never been impressed with your play to the extent I was impressed with your Night 2 choices here.

And when I realized that you weren't even trying to take advantage of an aspect of your role where we'd bungled the wordage in the conversion from town to scum, and yet took advantage of it perfectly. my jaw dropped.

I mean, had I had my proper role PM I'd have done the same thing I submitted anyway because I'd have known it to be the correct play for that night. (It was obviously the correct countermove imo. Doesn't take a scum genius to put together the puzzle pieces when the town hands them to you.)

But, yeah, not having had the proper role PM, it was truly just me taking a "well I've got nothing to lose by trying this" moment where I figured that it might increase the odds of our kill going through. Because I had nothing to lose, and it seemed like it might have the

potential

to help.

[PookyTheMagicalBear]

Thanks for modding cabd/ffery !

Thanks for carrying Mastina :3

The reason I didn't understand what you were doing is because I am quite bad at mech and also allergic to reading things. ^__^

[T3]

gg

[Malakittens]

Thanks for modding cabd/ffery !

Thanks for carrying Mastina :3

The reason I didn't understand what you were doing is because I am quite bad at mech and also allergic to reading things. ^__^

[SirCakez]

Wowowowowowow who could have guessed Mastina was scum
GG

[SirCakez]

My reads were straight fire this game
Had Rogue and Mastina down as scum right when I died

[SirCakez]

My role was cool I wish I had known how it worked when I was alive q.q

[T3]

I should've repped out