Micro 789 - Alternating 9p - Mafia wins

[GreenLiquid]

VOTE: Christopher for not having an avatar. You're the goons!

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If you count my ten-year hiatus as "preparing for my triumphant return", definitely!

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lol im just coming off a 3 month break and it already feels like its been an eternity
newbie queue got a new setup, themes are now all like lulbalance memegames full of alts and hydras
maybe half the peeps ive been in most games with either left, banned or or taking it easy

After my 10-year break, this site is both surprisingly similar and surprisingly different. I'm glad to be back.

That's towny, I think.

I don't agree with this and it feels kind of LAMIST to me. Can you elaborate on why you think Raskie's answer is towny?

[GreenLiquid]

I don't agree with this and it feels kind of LAMIST to me. Can you elaborate on why you think Raskie's answer is towny?

I don't expect him to be bored if he's talking to a scumbuddy beforehand. Though, it could be scoping out the playlist, I guess.

I guess, but his first post was multiple hours after the day began so it's not as if he could have gone straight from conversation with his partner to the game thread. Feels like a stretch.

How is that lamist?

Basically because it doesn't appear very reasonable, and feels like you're trying to be on record townreading someone more than it feels like you are actually sorting Raskie.

[GreenLiquid]

All I said was it's "towny". You don't think so?

It's NAI to me.

huh I thought you were calling me LAMIST not lovebird
logically that is maybe early to go on record for a read which isnt necessarily that justifiable but I got the impression she might've been doing it to get things rolling too

Whoops, I can see now how my wording there was ambiguous. Your responses make more sense to me now.

I agree that she might just be trying to get things rolling... but her replies are doubling down on it being an actual read while also minimizing it ("early read", "All I said was it's 'towny'"), which could be either scum backpedaling or town clarifying.

Also, where the hell is everyone?

[GreenLiquid]

It's grasping but that's early d1 for you (and sometimes the rest of the game too ayoooo )
It was pretty much just us 3 around so that being the conversation that continued seems natural, there wasn't much else to talk about

I'm wondering what brings you to this prediction in general, but also if you don't think lovebird would've said what she did as scum. Do you just think it's weird/strange or can you speculate any scum motivation in the mix?
@Same to Iconman

I basically agree with this as a response to BuJaber, although I would add:

Prediction: one of GL, Lovebird, Raska is scum.

Don't think scum!love would be so eager to TR someone so early. It is weird and attracts too much attention.

Why is Lovebird in your scum pool if you don't think she would have acted that way as scum?

[GreenLiquid]

@Raskolnikov: Is your vote switch to Not_Mafia on the basis of anything other than lack of content?

gucci, my dude.

VOTE: Not_Mafia

Same question @Christopher.

Okay you want me to spill some secrets? Here's a small insight into how I play.
The prediction is based on WIFOM. That's usually how I narrow things down between a pool if there is nothing specific that pings me. (Such as this game). Since everyone is more or less a nullread I come up with a theory that makes sense to narrow down the field and split up the players into categories for further analysis.

I knew it pinged me but now I don't remember why. I may have misread it because I read it again now and nothing is pinging me.

I think my prediction is still solid though. I want to lynch one of you 3 but I promise I won't factor in the opening and my RVS vote. Whoever I find the most scummy today I will vote for from GL/Rask/Love.

Your POE strategy doesn't seem very useful to me but seems like an "idiosyncratic townie" thing as much as a scum tactic. But I don't like that you're mostly just talking about this instead of engaging with anything else going on. Are your reads still generally null?

A scum read on me wouldn't be what I call it, But if its about being defensive then, yea. I feel this is the best way to get what I need to get from people. It ends up working.

What exactly did you intend to get out of Raskie by being defensive here? All I really get out of this is that you were being being insincerely defensive and that doesn't feel like town play.

I just feel people trying to talk about people not posting enough or not giving enough content at the 2nd (or 3rd?) day is really... fakeLets keep it at thatVOTE: Raskolnikov

While I agree that activity is NAI, I Feel Rask has made enough other posts to not scumread him.

This seems contradictory to me; can you clarify?

[GreenLiquid]

N_M's been posting elsewhere onsite the whole time which to some extent just makes me want to say fuck him. Icon's statement there is also consistent with my skims and was mainly why I think icon might be paying attention, though from experience saying meta on people you've played isn't that difficult either when scum so eh.

But I'm also lacking a bit in scumreads atm.

Is it out of character for Not_Mafia, though? From what (little) I've seen of his posting, it seems normal enough for him, except for the fact he hasn't voted.

[GreenLiquid]

I'm waiting for someone to do something interesting

Be the interesting you wish to see in the world.

[GreenLiquid]

GL if you had to lynch 3 people right now, who would they be?

These are still weak reads but I'd go for:

Lovebird -- Still slightly pinged by that early and unnatural-seeming townread, and from her ISO. There's a lot of activity there but it doesn't read like scumhunting to me. It just looks like pecking (hah) at various things without enough reasoning for me to tell why.
ZZZX -- Mainly because his defensiveness is apparently not genuine and I question if that's town-motivated. Although if this is standard for him as you say, then I guess it may be NAI.

That's only two but that's all I've got here. Major Minor's 98 pings me slightly in ways I can't really put to words (too detached, I guess?) but that could be posting style for all I know. I don't scumread him in general yet.

I guess the theme drawing me towards Lovebird / ZZZX is "doesn't seem genuine". I'd rather see a lynch on that basis than on the basis of things that might just be playstyle and not really AI.

[GreenLiquid]

GL are you secret scum hiding in town by not making any mistakes?

No, although I get the feeling scum are basically getting away with that. We need more pressure or direction or something right now, and less voting and scumreading on the basis of activity/lack of content. And more people posting in the evenings, Christ.

[GreenLiquid]

It seems inconsistent to me in what you attribute to playstyle and what you attribute to alignment.

Before I started playing again late last year, I read through a few recent games to get an idea of how people are playing the game these days. In the games I read, a trend stood out to me: there were a lot of day 1/day 2 mislynches on the basis of some player adopting a playstyle that was generally annoying to other players. For example, being aggressive, multi-posting all over the place, tunneling, etc. Since these ended up being mislynches most of the time, I'm wary of scumreading a player just because of aspects of their playstyle. The relevant question to ask would be: if you think the way a player is posting/acting is something they would plausibly do as scum, why is it

not

something they would plausibly do as town? If you don't have a good answer to that question, you should reconsider your read.

I consider insincerity in posts to have much more direct bearing on alignment because scum cannot be sincere by nature (they're not in the game to hunt scum). That's why, for instance, I question your really early townread, because I feel it's more natural for a townie to start a game feeling suspicious and looking for scummy behavior from other players (at least from my own experience) than to start off by townreading people. That, and there's a scum motive in throwing out an early townread that seems stronger than the likelihood that a townie would do the same. But you gave a reasonable explanation for it and that mostly mollified my initial scumread.

What do you think of ico and chris?

Ico is null/leantown to me. I don't agree with your push on him -- his early posts don't seem empty to me, or at least not empty relative to what we've been dealing with this game. The only thing odd in my eyes is his 95 but I could be misunderstanding it.
Christopher didn't make much of an impression on me. Looking at his ISO I'd like more engagement with players and less commentary / stating reads but his posting doesn't read insincere or detached from me.

Your vote is still on chris?

Fair point. That was an RVS vote and we're out of RVS.

Unvote: Christopher

Still no real leads, so I haven't felt much of a reason to vote. I'm going to re-read and see if there's anything I've missed.

[GreenLiquid]

Good point.

As of now:
1 scum in {GL, Rask, Love}
1 scum in {NM, Icon} maybe chris.

I know it's a big pool but one of them flips scum it makes it less likely that there's another scum in the same group imo.

OK, this is really starting to bug me. I thought this might have been a playstyle quirk but now it feels like something else.

You're saying that there's likely 1 scum in {me, Raskie, Lovebird}.

In 62 you said that you townlean Lovebird, so presumably if you believe there's 1 scum in {me, Raskie, Lovebird}, that really just comes down to 1 scum in {me, Raskie}.

Then, in 65 you say that you neither scumread or townread Raskie, so he's presumably null to you. Then in 96 you say that upon a re-read, Raskie's opening no longer pings you. If you were null on Raskie with something actively pinging you, I would think you now lean town on him (if that's not the case, why?). So 1 scum in {me, Raskie} really just comes down to 1 scum in {me}. You haven't specifically stated any reason that you think I'm scummy yet, so either 1) you're scumreading me but going above and beyond to avoid taking any direct stances, or 2) this entire exercise is pointless at best and actively obfuscatory at worst.

What is your current read on me? If it's a scumread, why? If it's not a scumread, why are you sticking to this "1 scum in {me, Raskie, Lovebird}" thing when you don't scumread anyone in that group? It seems like this approach is not evolving in a natural way with your reads.
Also, you implied that this POE technique is something you've used before as town. Would you mind linking to a completed town game where you did this?

Finally, why are you pooling {Not_Mafia, Iconeum, Major Minor} together? The reason you originally stated to pool me, Raskie, and Lovebird together was our early-game activity. I don't see anything that {Not_Mafia, Iconeum, Major Minor} have in common.

VOTE: BuJaber

[GreenLiquid]

He doesn't go in either pool. He's town by PoE unless I'm wrong on both pools.

@GL - your pool has nothing to do with scumreads. None of you are specifically pinging me but I'm confident that three way convo you guys had was unnatural for TvTvT. One of you was playing along to keep the other 2 distracted and to inflate the thread. I made that pretty clear.
I do a lot of this if x then y sort of stuff and making hypothesies regarding 2 or three players at the same time. I wouldn't know a specific example to quote or link off the top of my head but if you really think that would be helpful I'll go search through my posts. It seems like a waste of time though because even if I showed you the examples how would that help you townread me? You're better off asking someone I've played with before. (NM, Lovebird, christopher, Icon) not all them might agree they've each played different games than me but they're a more believable source than I would be talking about myself. I think chris hasn't seen my town game at all we were scum together once and that's it as far as I recall.

If you showed me an example from a town game, that would make it easier for me to chalk this up as a playstyle quirk instead of a scum tactic.

You didn't answer my question about the {Not_Mafia, Iconeum, Major Minor} pool. What do they have in common?
ZZZX also isn't in either of your pools. What do you think of him?

[GreenLiquid]

Not chris.. I meant Major

So 1 scum in {ico, NM and maybe major}

Do you like townread chris or he just doesn't go either pool?

He doesn't go in either pool. He's town by PoE unless I'm wrong on both pools.

@GL - your pool has nothing to do with scumreads. None of you are specifically pinging me but I'm confident that three way convo you guys had was unnatural for TvTvT. One of you was playing along to keep the other 2 distracted and to inflate the thread. I made that pretty clear.
I do a lot of this if x then y sort of stuff and making hypothesies regarding 2 or three players at the same time. I wouldn't know a specific example to quote or link off the top of my head but if you really think that would be helpful I'll go search through my posts. It seems like a waste of time though because even if I showed you the examples how would that help you townread me? You're better off asking someone I've played with before. (NM, Lovebird, christopher, Icon) not all them might agree they've each played different games than me but they're a more believable source than I would be talking about myself. I think chris hasn't seen my town game at all we were scum together once and that's it as far as I recall.

OK, correct me if I'm wrong about this:

Your strongest impression right now is that the early conversation with Lovebird, Raskie, and Me is unlikely to be all town, therefore there's at least one scum in that group. You also are independently scumreading Iconeum, Major Minor, and Not_Mafia. However, since your conclusion about me/Lovebird/Raskie is stronger than those reads, you conclude that there's one scum in the former group and one of your scumreads is actually scum. Am I getting the right idea?

Can you explain why you scumread Iconeum/Major_Minor/Not_Mafia?

[GreenLiquid]

I consider insincerity in posts to have much more direct bearing on alignment because scum cannot be sincere by nature (they're not in the game to hunt scum). That's why, for instance, I question your really early townread, because I feel it's more natural for a townie to start a game feeling suspicious and looking for scummy behavior from other players (at least from my own experience) than to start off by townreading people. That, and there's a scum motive in throwing out an early townread that seems stronger than the likelihood that a townie would do the same. But you gave a reasonable explanation for it and that mostly mollified my initial scumread.

But, couldn't making early townreads be someone's style too? Besides, not like it was a choice, I just noticed something towny I thought, so said it.

I suppose it could be, but it doesn't seem likely. Townreading people very early in games as a playstyle would probably run someone the risk of feeling forced to townread someone for bad reasons and being called out on it.

Ico is null/leantown to me. I don't agree with your push on him -- his early posts don't seem empty to me, or at least not empty relative to what we've been dealing with this game. The only thing odd in my eyes is his 95 but I could be misunderstanding it.

What makes him leantown here? You only mentioned reasons for him not to be scum. And, I still think they're empty, though I guess that's lots of people. His stood out, though. Didn't think they were saying much.

It's partly gut, and partly that he's been engaging with people in a way that feels meaningful. If he's scum pretending to do that, he's doing it better than average.

Lazy reads in 59, townreading people for effort. Questions he doesn't seem to care about or follow up on later.

I agree that it's not an amazing entrance, but I think meh reads are justifiable at that point -- heck, mine were basically null at that point aside from on you. He also engages with people directly after that point. What questions do you think he didn't care about following up on?

bujaber is moonlogicing but low scum motivation in it atm imo, i'd lynch n_m or zzzx over him

The scum motivation is that he's avoiding committing to any stances besides "1 scum in me/you/Lovebird because early game didn't feel like all town" and unexplained scumreads on three other players (though I have a good guess about Not_Mafia). Although the fact that he's sticking so hard to his guns on it is weirdly giving me town vibes, I guess because I figure scum would be more likely to drop it if they felt pressure on them.

[GreenLiquid]

@Iconeum: BuJaber didn't correct my interpretation in 154, so I'm assuming he's implying it's accurate. If you consider BuJaber's strategy through those terms, what is your objection to it?

Shit I missed that chris had a townlean on me.

Okay

1 scum in {NM, chris, Major, Icon}
1 scum in {GL, Rask, Lovebird}.

And since I can't imagine the scum motivation to bus chris here if chris flips scum icon is automatically cleared no matter what (ie even if all 3 of GL, Rask, Love are town and I'd be forced to find the 2nd scum elsewhere wouldn't think Icon is scum if chris flips scum).

Why is Christopher having a townlean on you, in the absence of any other information, scummy? If you're town then Christopher is

right

to get town vibes from you. The only way I could see you making this observation honestly is if you believe people ought to be considering you scummy right now, and your posting to this point doesn't give me that impression. This feels like it might be a self-conscious scum post.

Also, 160 is nowhere near strong enough to constitute bussing, IMO.

@GL:

NM: NM's meta is pretty well known throughout the site. However he usually has one or two good posts from time to time that give you a little insight. This game he has nothing. And that copy paste math lesson is very tongue-in-cheek and completely out of character and unnecessary.

Icon: I guess I expect more from Icon as a leader in this group if he is town. I might be wrong about that. But then he seems to be spending a lot of energy, time and effort on my case but everyone else he either gives a weak read on or a small line about and nothing else. It doesn't seem like town tunneling where he just thinks he's right. It seems like an intentional attack and avoiding to talk about anyone else.

Major: not posting much but also he doesn't seem to scumread icon that strongly so it seemed like a weird choice to make for vote. He also took his RVS vote too seriously.

What Iconeum is doing with you feels more like sorting then tunneling to me. He's primarily making statements about why he's scumreading you in response to other people's questions about it.

On reread, Major Minor's 98 feels a bit scummier to me, but for neither of the reasons you give. The vote doesn't seem scummy -- it's natural to vote in a catch-up post since you've just gotten impressions from reading the thread. Taking Icoeum's random vote seriously can easily be confused/earnest townie behavior. What bugs me about it, and that I can put to words now, is that it feels like a detached play-by-play disguised as impressions on individual players. It's as if he didn't have a general impression of the gamestate and was instead thinking "here is a list of things I need to comment on to look like I'm gamesolving" and then he's gone.

Read in that light, taking Iconeum's random vote seriously might be Major Minor pretending to genuinely interrogate someone on a oddity/discrepancy that nobody else had mentioned yet. BuJaber might be right about his scumread there but the way it's presented is not at all incompatible with it being a distancing move.

Thank you chris for the explanation.

To townread you I'll need more yet. But since you explained there isn't a specific reason to scumread you so you're back to town by PoE.

He didn't explain anything; he just said your posting has been generally pro-town. This feels so artificial I think I heard your joints squeaking.

Then you say he has pro-town content, but fail to point those out or use them to validate your town read on Buj.

I'd like Christopher to expand on his townlean but I don't think they're both scum (assuming that's what you're thinking based on your pressure here). Their interactions do not seem at all like scum theater to me. It's most likely town!Christopher, scum!BuJaber.

[GreenLiquid]

Someone do something scummy pls

Why did you vote for Major Minor?

[GreenLiquid]

The townlean was scummy from chris for the reason Ico pointed out. He kept saying I'm null then sort of jumped to townlean without giving a reason. It's not the read I find scummy it's the change and lack of reason. If he had saud scumlean it would be just as scummy.

The rest is a matter of interpretation. It sounds ike you can see me being town just like you can see me beimg scum since you're interpretted me correctly and agree on my major read even if for different reasons.

It seemed pretty clear to me that he was referring specifically to your opening when he was saying "NAI", especially because he says that both before and after putting you as a town lean on his reads list.

It's not the read I find scummy it's the change and lack of reason.

If you found his lack of reason scummy, why was his extremely vague answer satisfactory?

I'd like Iconeum to answer my question before saying anything more about your opening.

[GreenLiquid]

@Iconeum: Why did you not answer my question? From your posting it seems like you agree with my interpretation of BuJaber's pooling comments from the start of day, but I would have appreciated a direct response.

Anyway, to follow up on that: I do think that BuJaber's opening is reasonable under that interpretation. That Iconeum is re-evaluating his BuJaber read in light of this looks town to me.

What still bothers me about BuJaber, though is his page seven:

@GL - I'm not expecting him to have a thorough case to be honest and his explanation was enough to put someone from a null to a townlean. I mean I think I'm being clearly townie here but given your and Icon's reactions that doesn't seem to be the case.

I can't buy this. The explanation he gave for the town lean was:

Setting aside the above meta, I read BuJaber as slight town. From my POV in this game, his content has been generally pro-town.

I don't see how this is convincing, and even if you accepted it for gut reasons, I don't see a townie legitimately looking to sort someone accepting this with a straight "thanks for the explanation" and dropping their scum read.

VOTE: not mafia

Nice Not_Mafia impression. If you're actually sorry, you should engage with what's been going on in your absence.

@Not_Mafia: You also ignored my question. In 175 you suggest no one is doing anything scummy, yet you voted Major Minor without explanation in 151. So which is it: nobody is being scummy, or the vote in 151 wasn't for show?

VOTE: BuJaber

Switching to the next-largest wagon with no explanation when you're at L-1, what an excellent move.

[GreenLiquid]

I'm fine with a Not_Mafia lynch at this point. Consider this intent to hammer in the absence of anything useful forthcoming from him.

Agreed with Iconeum though that we should wait until next week to lynch. We need:

1. Not_Mafia's claim
2. Content from ZZZX and Lovebird
3. To hear from CheekyTeeky

[GreenLiquid]

@CheekyTeeky: A couple of problems I have with your catch-up:

215: Iconeum couldn't have been fanning the Not_Mafia wagon here because there wasn't one yet -- the only vote was Raskie's random vote. I see that you read the vote count before you started re-reading, so this is a reasonable mistake.
224: I don't see this at all. Not_Mafia is literally the only person he'd pushed at that point.

I think also there is too much focus on Not_Mafia's supposed unreadability and not enough on what in particular he's been doing this game. I looked at a couple of his completed town games ([1][2]) and there is... quite a difference from his play this game. Even in the one where he was most laconic, Micro 773, he was still pushing players, agreeing with reads, and engaging at least in a minor way. In this game, he's not doing any of that, and in addition cast an unexplained vote in 151 before going on to imply no one was scummy in 175, and has been moving his vote around opportunistically nearly all of today. I'm also a bit annoyed that he's refusing to answer my questions on these points.

On the other hand, my biggest problem with lynching him is that his lack of content means we won't get much associative info from his flip aside from analyzing the wagon. He also gives me vibes that Virtuoso gave me in my newbie game (cast unexplained vote, refused to engage, etc.) who eventually turned out to be town and one of the best solvers in that game.

Saying that Not_Mafia can't be read, like he's some kind of Mafia enigma, seems like nonsense in light of the above. If the games I looked at aren't representative, let me know, but besides that I don't see any reason not to suspect him right now.

[GreenLiquid]

Saying that Not_Mafia can't be read, like he's some kind of Mafia enigma, seems like nonsense in light of the above. If the games I looked at aren't representative, let me know, but besides that I don't see any reason not to suspect him right now.

Can we talk about other scum reads you have? How do you feel about Ico and Chris?

My other scum reads at this point are Lovebird and BuJaber.

Lovebird's extremely early townread pinged me, and she's been spending most of the day pecking at comments here and there without giving me any impression she's trying to sort anyone, or caring about answers to the questions she's asking. She was absent for a while, then when called out returned quickly with a vote on the strongest wagon at the time. I see more scum motivation for what she's been doing than town motivation.

For BuJaber: his interactions on page 7 with Christopher seem extremely fake to me and he hasn't given a good explanation. The way he scum reads Christopher for having a town lean on him, then accepts "he's posted pro-town content" as a good explanation and drops his read, doesn't make sense from a town perspective.

Iconeum is a town read for me, primarily because it seems like his pressure on BuJaber is motivated by trying to sort him and it seems like his reads are appropriately responding to what happens -- for instance, after we got clarification on BuJaber's pool logic, Iconeum accepted it and stopped pushing that piece. He doesn't seem like an especially strong game solver, but he does seem to be trying to reason through his reads at least.

Christopher has managed to avoid making much of an impression on me. After reading his ISO, I'm getting scum vibes: he's mainly been pushing Not_Mafia for not providing content (and not for any other reason as far as I can tell), and it seems like he locked in that read early and is just sitting on it with no further attempts to sort Not_Mafia. He also doesn't seem to be looking around at all for other scum reads. On the other hand, his interactions with BuJaber earlier were almost certainly not scum/scum play in my opinion. Probably one of the two of them are scum.

[GreenLiquid]

Vote Count

Not_Mafia - 3 - Raskolnikov, christopher, BuJaber
BuJaber - 2 - Iconeum, GreenLiquid
Raskolnikov - 2 - ZZZX, CheekyTeeky
Iconeum - 1 - Lovebird
Christopher - 1 - Not_Mafia

Not Voting - none.

With 9 alive, it takes 5 to lynch

Deadline is April 2 at 1pm EST

I'm also finding it pretty strange that GL is so convinced NM is scum but he's voting Bu.

GL can you please explain how Bu is a better wagon than NM for your vote to be on him prior to your intent to hammer?

I'm not convinced that Not_Mafia is scum, but it seems more likely than him being town, and the problem is that he apparently has no interest engaging with anyone or doing anything useful, so there's no way that read will change except through:

1. An associative case later in the game, and I don't see that happening without him flipping; or
2. A cop investigation. He would actually be a great target for a N2 cop investigation, but this assumes cop survives to D3 and doesn't have a different target in mind.

I prefer the BuJaber wagon because unlike Not_Mafia, he is actually engaging with my questions, and (perhaps this is why Not_Mafia's is the better strategy?) his responses give me decreasing confidence in his being town. I feel that my read on him has "settled" in a way that my read on Not_Mafia simply can't due to his unwillingness to engage.

@CheekyTeeky: what is your read on BuJaber? I think his is the only slot you didn't really give any clear comment on during your catch-up posts.

[GreenLiquid]

Hi.

And, happy birthday greenliquid.

Thank you!

I think GL is scum. His push on me is bs and why anyone would defend Icon in this game is beyond me. He is a far better town player than this. He can't be defending him from a town pov. He must either know he's town or he is scum with him.

This is OMGUS if I've ever seen it. I don't see any kind of reasonable progression to this read except that I've been explaining my scum read on you.
The bit about defending Iconeum being scummy seems like it was tacked on to disguise this being an OMGUS vote. I don't get a sense of you having a strong scum read on him from your posting, certainly not strong enough to think that a player defending him is scummy.

Rask so do you actually townread GL/love or are you putting them there because you don't want to risk lynching a 'strong' townie?

In what world is Lovebird a strong townie this game?

Raskie's 305: It's pinging me that your top two scum reads are inactives. I get what you mean about having trouble reading strong town this game, but not having stronger scum reads than inactives + being impatient about ending day for some reason doesn't add up for me.
That said, scum reading Cheeky Teeky and Not_Mafia does make some sense. I'm mixed on Cheeky, but her behavior since replacing in is perfectly consistent with a Cheeky / NM scum team.

It's a bit frustrating that my two strongest scum reads right now are basically consensus town reads. I don't think I'm on the wrong track here but, then again, my scum reads were mostly garbage in my newbie game. My confidence in the read isn't slipping but my "meta-confidence" in my likelihood of having correct scum reads in contradiction to a town with experienced players is low and I don't know how to reconcile those. On the town read front, I think the case against Raskie is nowhere near enough for his wagon to have sailed to the top spot and that makes me worry about Cheeky, but I've been gut reading her as town while interacting with her.

@CheekyTeeky: What is your case against Raskie? Why is he a better vote than Christopher right now?

[GreenLiquid]

Also

@Mod

: GuiltyLion isn't in this game

[GreenLiquid]

Rask looks like eager town to me.

The posts quoted here are literally the worst possible ones for making this read. This feels like a way-too-lazy LAMIST post.

I'm kind of offended that you think I'd be so thuggish in my chainsaw defense of my scum buddy. I could tell you reasons why that makes no sense but it all boils down to WIFOM.

Slightly pinged by this. I'm not sure whether this is innocuous or is AtE + defensiveness to try to get me to drop the pos. association.

I don't like Lovebird's progression from 383 to 387 and 389 to 409 and 411. That's way too fast of a turnaround from a Raskie town read to an L-1 vote, and the timing is convenient given the wagon's momentum.

397 - 399 also stick out to me as overly-defensive, but I might be confbiasing off my read here.

@GL, Bujaber, Ico, etc

ordered list of lynch prefs like 419 please

BuJaber > Lovebird = Christopher >> Not_Mafia
I think of these, Christopher is the most realistic lynch and I'd like people who are scum reading elsewhere to take a second look at his ISO.

My town read on Raskie is wavering but I still think he's a bad lynch for today. For one thing, he was an early town read and I don't feel pinged enough by him to totally erase that. Also, at this point the core of the case against him is that he's pushing low activity slots and seemingly not developing scum reads based on content, which I'd expect a scumhunting player to have done by now. This is true, but as he points out (while this is admittedly WIFOM), he could have fabricated reads as scum easily enough and probably could have avoided this wagon that way. It seems to me like his overall trajectory thus far makes more sense coming from town!Raskie than scum!Raskie, because scum!Raskie could have relatively easily ended his suffering earlier by faking a read.

That said, there have been a couple of things bugging me and wearing down my read lately:

VOTE: Cheeky
feeling either with n_m or, if I'm wrong on n_m scum who knows n_m is town tbh

A white knight play from Cheeky is kind of plausible, but this vote switch seems way too convenient for the situation. It doesn't divest Raskie from his read on Not_Mafia, it lets him counter-vote the person pushing him the hardest, and I see potential for it to be contrived: if he's scum, I would bet that the bit after the comma was added when he realized that voting Cheeky on associative grounds instead of staying on the stronger read of the two was inconsistent, and he needed something else to cover for the switch.

Also, this post caught my interest:

the thing is, I've been in this situation before and every time just ending and seeing the flip made the game interesting again otherwise I'd have considered replacing or something (well and the game was explicitly dont replace)

This potentially contextualizes the vote switch onto Cheeky, but IMO Not_Mafia and ZZZX would be the

least

interesting slots to flip right now. A scum!Not_Mafia flip points towards scum!Cheeky but doesn't do much of anything else other than vindicate Raskie, and I have no idea what a ZZZX flip either way would indicate about the game at all. Actually, let me put it like this: Rask, if by some magic you got your way and Not_Mafia were lynched right now, who would you be suspecting tomorrow if he flipped scum? Who if he flipped town? You already suspect Cheeky, so in my opinion if your answer to either question is Cheeky, I don't see how that changes your view of the game state at all.

I get what you mean about Cheeky though because I do feel some paranoia about Cheeky, especially because she's voting alongside two of my scum reads and a slot that hasn't caught up to the current state of the game yet. But scum often avoid voting together so perhaps that feeling is mistaken.

@ZZZX -- I am interested to know if your read of Raskie changes at all after your full catch-up.

[GreenLiquid]

he was an early town read and I don't feel pinged enough by him to totally erase that.

Sorry if I'm making you repeat yourself but can you go over your rask read progression from the start?

Sure, it goes generally like this:

- His beginning-of-day interactions with me seemed fine. I wasn't pinged by anything he did at that point and felt a slight town lean because he managed to be posting frequently without pinging me.
- Early in the game I felt he was engaging players directly a lot more than most. He was also asking reasonable questions and seemed to care about the answers, to the point of poking people several times looking for responses.
- Wasn't a big fan of how Raskie dropped the vote and hopped over to Not_Mafia when called out on the OMGUS, but agreed with the scum read on Not_Mafia.
- For the middle part of day, I haven't liked Raskie's persistence in pushing inactive slots and not developing other scum reads. It's more likely for scum to fail to develop scum reads than scumhunting town. Also, he's been doing some potentially LAMIST stuff like pointing out associations and such; basically, posting that isn't impressing me.
- That said, his reaction to the switch in momentum over to Lovebird is restoring my confidence. He doesn't seem to be treating it opportunistically, and was considering his read on Cheeky especially in a manner that seems like sorting. It probably would have been convenient for him to push on either Lovebird or Cheeky there as scum, but he responded in a natural way.

367 is a town post.
368 has no scum motivation, scum would easily be able to follow the rask wagon.

Agree that the bottom part of 367 gives me pause.
Disagree that 368 has no scum motive. If Christopher's partner is on the Raskie wagon then there is reasonable scum motivation to claim a town read.

Christopher appears to be playing a low-risk scum game: a combination of seeming to not care about looking for scum reads, asking questions without appearing to be using them to sort players, and failing to take any bold or even unsafe stances, with the Raskie town read being the first such stance I've seen all game. I don't think his recent posting ameliorates this at all except for the Rask read, and even that's pretty weak.

In addition to what Cheeky asked -- BuJaber, you were voting me as recently as 390, so why are you suddenly scum reading three slots and having a null read on me?

[GreenLiquid]

I'm glad I can feel a little less crazy now that people seem to be seeing what I'm seeing in BuJaber and Lovebird, but:

Everyone should read GL's 443, and then reread it again. It's just a great post.
Lovebird is so obviously scum it's ridiculous.

Read especially the part about the read evolution from town to an L-1 vote.
Before that, I also called out his vote in 203, his vote in 198. Naked L-1 vote on NM. This was after being prodded. He also failed to mention that was an L-1 vote.

VOTE: lovebird


If you agree with this and agree with GL's read on love, you should be voting lovebird.
This lynch is so much better then Rask's or NM's...

Lol.

This post is making me paranoid.

First, this language is glowing to the point where I get a sense of dread that I'm being pocketed. Like, thanks for agreeing, but... this is way too over the top. I also don't like that you're taking retroactive credit for pointing out something scummy Lovebird did early in the day (even though you didn't pursue it beyond that point). What is the town motivation for doing this?

What is your order of lynch preference?

[GreenLiquid]

Lovebird, I want your top scum reads in order of lynch preference as well.

[GreenLiquid]

+1 on the deadline extension

We might also want prods although I don't know to what extent the inactivity is due to Easter.

[GreenLiquid]

First and foremost:

we do not currently have a deadline

. Enough with the talk of quicklynching. We have extra time to discuss

and

there's suddenly a lot happening for us to be discussing. And never mind that we haven't really heard from ZZZX or Christopher's inevitable replacement yet.

My immediate reaction to the last few pages is that both Iconeum and Raskie look scummier, and CheekyTeeky looks more like town. Starting with...

Raskolnikov:

The thing that pings me most is Raskie's insistence on lynching an inactive slot. The motivation he's given essentially boils down to 1) it will lead to information through associations (

note: I don't see this, esp. with ZZZX who has not interacted at length with any other slot and has never been in danger of being lynched, unlike NM

) and 2) his motivation this game is weak due to a lack of strong reads so he's just resorting to this. My sense earlier in the day was "okay, maybe he's just town who's been growing bored with the game, and his 'current interest in mafia' is 2/10 anyway so it makes sense; however, he's been getting away with being active without taking strong stances and that has strong scum motivation behind it, so it could be scum play". But as I was catching up through pages 22-23, it started to dawn on me that this doesn't exactly seem right. Speaking from my own experience, it is a lot more interesting and exciting to vote for scum reads than it is to vote for slots you want to lynch for associative reasons or for mechanical reasons or whatever. Pushing a legit scum read is part of the fun of this game. So when I see Rask continue to wallow in this "I'm bored; let's just lynch one of these idle nullreads for associative reasons" it seems decreasingly believable. A bored player would probably do one of two things: lurk, or do something ridiculous just to make something happen. Raskie, in contrast, seems content to follow along closely while also doing nothing whatsoever to move the game state anywhere new, aside from putting Lovebird to L-1, a brief interlude of "making something happen" followed by more wallowing.

Or, to give a tl;dr of the above: the narrative of Raskie being a bored player who's just resorting to lynching a lurker because he has no strong reads contradicts the fact that he's following along very closely with the game and is posting more than anyone else.

The other thing that caught my attention is that when I read Raskie's ISO to get a sense of what associations he was seeing involving N_M and ZZZX, I found this post, where he states a number of associations, with ZZZX and BuJaber not being on the list at all:

assocspec

Bujaber != christopher
Lovebird != Greenliquid
Bujaber != iconeum
Bujaber != cheeky (??? 354?)
Iconeum != Love ???
Love != Cheeky ???

I don't see how Not_Mafia and ZZZX can be desired flips for him due to associations when he has a harder time explaining those associations than any others. Raskie, if you have clear explanations for how a ZZZX or Not_Mafia flip provides associative info you should provide them in your next post.

BuJaber

still looks like scum to me. A couple of things that caught my attention:

- His read progression on CheekyTeeky from strongest town read in 467 to 561, then to 564 and 577, ending in 583 where he's apparently only barely unwilling to vote her. I don't see any justification for the turnaround and it looks like fishing for new lynch options to me.
- In 583 he wants to lynch Lovebird but has Not_Mafia as a second choice. Then after the fake hammer, in 621 he switches to Not_Mafia. What about the intervening posts makes Lovebird suddenly look more town? If he's ready to end day, why is he switching from a L-1 wagon to a L-4 one?
- Also, this is kind of minor but

People they want lynched (correct me if wrong)
Ico: buj/ love
Buj: love / GL
Cheeky: rask / buj / love
Rask: buj / nm / love / icon
Zzzx: need an update
Chris: need an update
NM: love?
GL: need an update
Love: not clear.. rask? Buj?

It pings me that this is "people they want lynched" and not "people they are scum reading", especially because he's including the whole pool of people Rask has scumread instead of the two slots he's actually pushing. This seems to be twisted to angle for a Lovebird lynch, which at this point in time was pretty convenient for BuJaber since hers was the other wagon dueling his.

Iconeum:

- Iconeum's hop onto and off of BuJaber on page 23 seemed weird to me. Everything BuJaber said between those two votes were basically AtE as far as I can tell. What's suspicious is that in 566 he seemingly calls out BuJaber's AtE but then decides to vote alongside him for Lovebird anyway. On the other hand, if Iconeum is scum this suggests intentional BuJaber / Iconeum distancing and Iconem's pressure on Bu earlier in the game makes me think they're not a team so perhaps this was Ico trying to look busy, or town being torn about BuJaber.
- His reaction to the fake Lovebird hammer immediately made me think he is scum freaking out over his partner being unexpectedly hammered, to the point of being comical. He starts by freaking out in 586 before remembering "whoops I said I scum read that slot didn't I" and being like "jk I'm fine with this outcome" in 588. 599 basically speaks for itself. However, I admit scum team speculation D1 is practically guaranteed to be wrong so I think we do better keeping this in mind for later than pushing it right now.

CheekyTeeky

:

- I think it's pretty clear that the vote on Lovebird was intentionally a fake hammer, as she 1) extremely blatantly contradicts her own reads by hammering, in a way that's practically... LAMISS if that's even a thing, 2) is clearly toying with Iconeum in the aftermath, and 3) foreshadows it by saying she's a reaction tester in 575. I think her play this game and especially over the last few days has been bold to the point of working against hypothetical scum motivation in all cases except if Not_Mafia is her partner. I'm still a little paranoid about that possibility, but aside from that she's a solid town read.

[GreenLiquid]

I continue to think that Not_Mafia is a dumb compromise lynch as it gives us little associative info and we have a lot of action going on right now. The irony is that I think I'm the only player who has posted a decent case against him, and yet everyone else seems to want this lynch.

[GreenLiquid]

GL what are your updated thoughts on Love?

Basically unchanged, as she hasn't done much of anything over the last few days other than place an opportunistic vote on Not_Mafia. She is still my most desired lynch for today behind BuJaber.

No need in replacing zz, he's been fairly active

Going to agree to disagree there.

and giving good reads.

???

However, I agree with what Iconeum is saying about Lovebird.

GL it's not lack of interest it's a lack of feel-good scumreads. Either I sheep onto someone I think more likely flips town than not with essentially no conviction or I be stubborn and lynch in leanscum or nulls which either scumflips or even if it doesn't at least then I know for sure then that one of my townreads is wrong.

Maybe this is a playstyle thing for you but I just don't see how this happens. Even considering the flurry of activity over the last few days, you don't have any good scum reads? The problem here is that I don't feel you've taken a hard stand on any player to any readable extent (other than perhaps a neg. association with Lovebird), and that's really convenient for you if scum. And, again, I don't see someone going this long without solid reads and feeling bored, yet still following along with the game as closely as you are. I see a scum motive and the town explanation is not very convincing.

Also I still want an explanation of what associative info we'd get out of ZZZX or Not_Mafia.

Finally getting my stuff sorted and I see NM being scum huh


VOTE: NM

Yes this is an omgus hummer. But u r scum..

Anyhow next game day big post I suppose. I promised it today but I'm barely half done writing it.

Seriously? Our deadline is suspended and discussion is actually happening again. Didn't have enough time to write your catch-up post, so you gave yourself an extension?

[GreenLiquid]

BuJaber's aggressive attitude coming right into the start of day doesn't match at all with his scattered reads. For one thing, he has CheekyTeeky completely backwards -- Not_Mafia flipping town makes me more confident that CheekyTeeky is town. When she replaced in, she could have achieved a mislynch by pushing Not_Mafia (or even just staying quiet). I don't see the scum motivation for launching into a defense of N_M at that point. The only thing that comes to mind is that she wanted to try to turn around the town's perception of her own slot, but I find that unlikely. Major Minor was not one of the most scum read players and scum!Cheeky probably could have done just fine turning that around D2.

BuJaber's read on me yesterday basically amounted to weird pooling logic + OMGUS, but now he's claiming I've been unhelpful all game? Am I unhelpful just because I scum read you?
My only worry here is that my scum read is starting to bleed into being irritated by him, and this is turning into a tunnel... but I'm pretty sure there's scum at the end of the tunnel.

VOTE: BuJaber

Other scum reads at the moment:

ZZZX: Failed to provide reads D1 and ended the day early with a hammer on a town slot. I'm pinged by the fact that he failed to provide a summary of this thoughts and instead kept leaning on "my giant catch-up post isn't done yet" as an excuse to not provide reads. I'll meta this later and see if scum!ZZZX is generally careful about his reads or posting.
Lovebird: Still hasn't provided reads or done anything to turn around my D1 perception.
Korina: My read on Christopher still applies.

[GreenLiquid]

CheekyTeeky: You said D1 you were going to meta dive BuJaber. Did you get around to doing that and, if so, did it turn up anything interesting?

[GreenLiquid]

@GL - town wouldn't have known NM was town. And you are talking about me in every post. Do you not have any other good reads?

It's hard to stop talking about you when you keep talking to me. "Do you not have any other good reads?" is lazy shading especially considering I just provided reads in my last post.

Rask is a strange kill. Points toward lovebird imo.

You knew I'd be pushing you this day, but it's too obvious to kill me so you took out one who'd follow me on you. Rask defending you?

Raskie didn't have any strong reads and he was sort of all over the place at the end of the day, so while I agree with the read on Love overall, I'm pinged by the fact that you've been leaning so hard on this night-kill-based logic right out out of the gate, which is IMO easily one of the weakest reasons to scum read Love. This gives me the feeling of scum who planned what narrative they wanted to spin around the kill but is coming in a bit too hot.

Ico: who is your third-biggest scum read after Love and ZZZX?

[GreenLiquid]

Good stuff. You can be town

Super pinged by this. Korina's catch-up post is mostly rhetorical questions in response to low-hanging fruit. This could be scum misjudging how townish Korina's post is supposed to seem.

You're calling NM as possible scum then saying you prefer Buj lynch? Is it just me that it doesn't make sense to?

Yep. I scum read BuJaber more than Not_Mafia, and anyways I thought BuJaber was the better lynch because Not_Mafia's flip gave little associative info other than on Cheeky.

Korina: Why do you think CheekyTeeky is scummy? What does "something" mean w/r/t BuJaber and Love?

[GreenLiquid]

Of course, people are scarce on the 10th and then everyone shows up the day I'm the busiest.

I managed to nearly put myself into a food coma tonight so I'm going to just provide quick impressions on the last couple of pages.

- BuJaber's push on Iconeum and eventual flip back to Lovebird makes me think BuJaber and Lovebird aren't a team. Unless someone else does something pretty scummy I think it may be wise to lynch in that duo on the basis of that association, as a red BuJaber or Lovebird flip could go a long way towards solving the game tomorrow.
- ZZZX: for the love of god, if you are town, please stick to that deadline. The prospect of either lynching an inactive today and possibly going into LyLo with another nigh-useless green flip, or not lynching him today and possibly going into LyLo and deciding a make-or-break lynch with a lurker alive is distressing. Players should not be able to get away with going this far into a game on nothing but repeated promises of content.
- Korina: Can you elaborate on your BuJaber vs. Lovebird thoughts? Trying to decide between those two is probably one of the best uses of our remaining daylight. Also, why are you scum reading Cheeky?
- Lovebird's posting on page 31 feels townier than almost all of her posting thus far this game (though that's not saying much, is it?) but my scum read on her is on the basis of her play in this game alone, so her defense against the meta case doesn't do anything to blunt my own case. Love, what are your scum reads? I actually think Lovebird's stated reads and reasoning might inform the BuJaber vs. Lovebird decision better than anything.
- Also Korina: I get that you can't really show a reads progression right after replacing in and catching up but none of your reads other than the scum read on Cheeky feel very risky to me, and none of the comments you've made on posts are outside even a very basic scum range. Do you have any thoughts on anything thus far you can share that could go some way towards me town reading you?
- Cheeky: What makes you prefer an Iconeum lynch over a Bu or Love lynch at this point? I'd be down for a Iconeum lynch except 1) I scum read BuJaber more and 2) I think lynching in {Bu, Love} does a lot more associative work for us than lynching Ico. I'm a little worried that if Ico flips green, I'm going to go into LyLo with 4 null/scum reads and that's going to be a crapshoot that scum could manipulate relatively easily.

PEdit:
Roughly in terms of associations:
If either BuJaber or Lovebird flip green, the other is likely red. If either flips red, the other is likely green.
If BuJaber flips red, Korina (this is based on interactions with Christopher, mind) is probably green.
If Lovebird flips green, Iconeum looks redder to me based on what he's been doing today. Could be a Bu/Ico team in that case.

I hate that I have trouble integrating ZZZX and Korina into my reads of BuJaber / Lovebird / Ico. I think at this point half of my hesitation towards reading scum!ZZZX and scum!Korina is the feeling that I'm going to be peeved if they turn out to be scum letting town actives whittle away at each other.

[GreenLiquid]

Nice green so only cheeky is safe from your finger of suspicion.

Look at my ISO. The only person I make sense as a team with would be ZZZ and korina (chris) but you actually think I can't be a team with chris. So that leaves zz who can be scum with literally anyone.

Really think about it man. I am not scum.

You're omitting Iconeum... is there a reason you think I shouldn't think you could be scum with him?

@GL

I agree that a Love-Buj team is unlikely, and as I said before a scumflip from Love would conftown Buj for me.
Ur going to easy on zzzx.
Can you also explain how you 'can be down for my lynch' and then provide a bunch of reasons why NOT to lynch me? Even provide reasons why I'm a bad lynch today.

ZZZX's flip either way doesn't tell us much associatively IMO, and puts us in a bind D3 if he flips green. He's scummy but I'm not convinced he's the right choice.
Again, with you it's the same thing except not quite as bad, as you have a lot of interactions we can review if you flip red.

I guess my problem here is what Bu said, that I have real lack of solid town reads this game. That makes it impossible to POE, and I end up leaning on associations instead. I think this calls for a full re-read of the game but I'm not going to be able to commit the time for that until the weekend.

[GreenLiquid]

Why does nobody ever post on days when I'm around? Tomorrow night I'm doing Board Games and just watch, there will be like 3 new pages when I get back Saturday.

[GreenLiquid]

Sorry guys I'm here. I hate to be the bearer of bad news but I think all 3 of GL, Bu and Ico are town. Atm Bu has actually become my top town read followed by GL and then maybe Ico.

I think we get rid of either Korina or ZZZX today as they're going to be a nightmare to sort later and I'm fairly confident at least one of them is scum.

Can we all agree to lynch one of those two? I'm really busy atm so if I've missed answering anything just hit me up and I'll keep a closer eye on this game.

I don't get this progression -- how did Iconeum change so much over the last couple of days? I feel like you might be getting suckered in a bit by Bu and Ico's extended interaction. The piece of it that most strikes me as "this could be TvT" is the end of it where Ico actually mentions that possibility, and Bu appeals to him to just move forward with Lovebird and worry about sorting him based on that, but at the end of their discussion the status quo hasn't really shifted and I see potential scum motivation to lock that narrative in, especially if Lovebird is town. This is one of those situations where I'd want to be like "Ico, if Love flips green will you commit to lynching Bu tomorrow?" but we'd be in LyLo in that case and asking anyone to commit to anything in LyLo is just unwise.

Regarding Korina and ZZZX: Korina could get easier to sort later (and we do have a bit of association from Christopher to lean on), but ZZZX is just going to be a pain to deal with no matter how we slice it.

PEdit: I just re-read the Bu/Ico exchange and uggh, it doesn't seem much like SvT but I still see the potential for SvS in there. I don't see how I'm going to sort that duo in LyLo of all places if we lynch a lurker instead. At this point I'm praying for a mechanical clear on Bu to upend everything and make the prospect of actually solving the game somewhat feasible.

[GreenLiquid]

Found a bit of time before bed to pop in.

Cheeky: Iconeum flipping red would make me feel a little better about Lovebird, and based on his interactions with BuJaber I don't really see one of them being scum and pulling the wool over the other's eyes as very likely, so I'd be inclined to read Bu more town if Ico flips green, or scum if he flips red -- but don't quote me on that until I can do a reread, as my memory of their D1 interactions is a bit weak at this point. Neither of these associations are honestly that strong but they have the potential to help narrow down the pool of active players. It's really unlikely in my opinion that

both

Korina and ZZZX are scum, so gaining a better understanding of the active players going into D3-possibly-LyLo is going to be important because there is almost certainly at least one scum in there. If we lynch wrong in {Korina, ZZZX} we'll have to either put all our hopes on the remaining of those two or try to sort out the active players under LyLo pressure and probably face a crapshoot.

Lovebird: What I really want from you is sustained pressure or some kind of case on another player. You're basically leaning on one meta-based reason to push Korina, and that does little to allow me to judge your thought process.

Also Cheeky: it doesn't look like a BuJaber lynch is going to happen, so yes, I'd be willing to lynch Ico.

[GreenLiquid]

Just to be clear, consider that an "intent to L-1" as I don't feel particularly safe dropping an actual L-1 with ZZZX still around.

[GreenLiquid]

It's about time we got a ZZZX replacement.

I've been feeling a bit under the weather and didn't get around to a full reread of the game, but I did reread half of day one. I wanted to get a quick summary of my thoughts posted now.

- I seemed to recall Bu and Ico pushing on each other quite a bit, but actually most of the D1 pressure was by Ico. For instance 59 was Ico's first non-RVS vote, and you can also see Ico putting pressure on Bu pretty frequently in their exchanges in 138, 157, and 162. Later, in 190, he wavers. This looks a lot less like Ico/Bu SvS than the impression I got from their D2 posting, to the point that I'm tossing out that theory. It would have to be either TvT, which seems unlikely, or scum!Ico pushing town!Bu, possibly because of meta reasons (trying to achieve lynch on someone who could identify his scum meta, then relenting when it was apparently Bu wasn't actually scum reading him via meta), or town!Ico correctly pressuing scum!Bu.
- BuJaber looks a little less scummy than he did when I first read through. Reading through his early-game posting with the benefit of knowing his eventual explanation makes it read fairly benignly. I don't know that this has much of an effect on my thinking, as I still scum read him on balance, but I guess I'd be more willing to reconsider in LyLo.
- Christopher's vote on the N_M wagon in 99 seems less benign on reread with the knowledge that N_M was town. My interpretation of Christopher's actions in terms of scum motivation was basically "lazy scum play", and this kind of convenient vote definitely gels with that approach.
- Christopher's reads list in 100 has Ico, Bu, and Love as town reads. I suspect if Christopher/Korina flips red, we'll find his partner in that group, and just based on the interactions I saw I think Love or Ico are more likely than Bu for that.
- Both Bu's and Ico's response to my point against Love at the start of the game (42. 43) are potentially scum-motivated if Lovebird is the partner of either. Ico's comment in particular seems intended to shut down the conversation without really taking a stance.

[GreenLiquid]

Based on the re-read thus far I'm more inclined now to lynch Ico than BuJaber, as a red Ico flip would make Bu much less likely to be scum and make Love look more likely to be scum. It helps that my scum read of Bu is a little weaker now.
Re-reading Lovebird's early posting has reminded me why I scum read that slot, and I'd be down for a compromise lynch there as well, even if her D2 posting has been a bit better overall.
I'm really not keen on lynching in {Korina, ZZZX} today unless someone has a strong case. Maybe that'll happen based on how ZZZX's replacement acts but for now I'd prefer to focus on {Ico, Bu, Love}.

[GreenLiquid]

Ditto. Any progress on that front?

[GreenLiquid]

The two things that stand out to me right now about BlackVoid are:

1. This is high-effort posting, which is a somewhat promising sign... although this is also catch-up posting, so I'm not sure I want to read too much into the level of effort since effort is basically expected.
2. He makes some great observations -- for instance, Ico's progression 43 -> 59 is something I never really noticed and that I don't think anyone else pointed out either. This level of observation on re-read makes me think he's town, as scum doesn't have to dig especially deep on a catch-up to look townie.
So basically, if BlackVoid is scum, he's tryhard scum, which is the polar opposite of ZZZX.

(As I typed that, I just realized that we never got an explanation of the N_M hammer/scum read from ZZZX and that we'll never get one, and that's kind of infuriating)

This is going to be one of those cases where I have trouble reconciling my pre- and post-replace reads, but at the very least I'm confident we should not be lynching BlackVoid today. I would rather focus on {Love, Ico, Bu}

BlackVoid: I generally agree with your reads but not with your Lovebird read. I concede that after reading your towncase on her, it occurred to me that the "pecking at posts" and not engaging at length I've been raising my eyebrow at might be more a playstyle quirk than conscious scum play, but I think there

are

a few moves in her posting that look like they could be coming from conscious scum.
I also disagree on town!BuJaber but I'm starting to second guess myself on that. The main thing driving my reconsideration is his tone, which in D2 has felt emotional (specifically, the exchange with Ico keeps coming back to me) but not to the point of being AtEy, and I want to say it may be genuine. On the other hand, my scum read is mainly on the basis of scum-motivated actions and a couple of stated reads that feel fake, and I'm resisting going with my gut over my brain on this one.

In all, townread on Blackvoid mostly because of the effort he put into the catchup, but it also sounds sincere.
It's wrong, but it's sincere.

This is an interesting stance. If this is coming from scum!Ico, he is town reading someone pushing him as their top scum read. On the other hand, this is a near-complete reversal from 831 / 833, and I can't see that seriously being justified by "he put in effort".
... Actually, I think I'm onto something here. This marks the second time Ico has townread someone on catch-up for dubious reasons: the first time was his reaction to Korina's catch-up. I called him out on it that time, so if he's scum, he's consciously doing the same thing again. I don't think scum!Ico would dubiously townread a catch-up on a townie, get called out for it, then do the same thing

again

on another townie, which makes me think that if Ico is scum, one of {Korina, BV} is more likely to be his partner. That could actually put us in a decent spot tomorrow with a red Ico flip!

I guess now that I'm done feeling proud of myself, the bigger point here is what a load of crap that turnaround is and that Ico needs to be at L-2 again.

VOTE: Iconeum

[GreenLiquid]

I am not the doctor.

@Cheeky: It seems pretty likely Ico is actually the doc at this point, but if for some reason he isn't, Korina is the most likely partner. I don't think Ico/Bu are a scum team, so that would make Bu look townier to me. Lovebird and BV have both been putting strong pressure on Ico, so I think they are relatively less likely partners.
If Ico is town, I think we are most likely to find scum in Lovebird, and, to a lesser extent, Bu, but I kind of doubt they are partners.

@BlackVoid: My read on Lovebird is basically due to:

1. Her turnaround on Rask on pages 16 and 17. She goes from town reading him (377) to, after a conversation with Cheeky, having doubts (387) but still not wanting to vote Rask (389). She gets pressure from Bu, reacts in a way that seems overly defensive (397), then starts asking about Rask (401, 402), then after a single post from Rask (406) drops a L-1 vote on him (411). This could easily be a scum play to try to get pressure off herself but dropping it onto Raskie, and seemed like it was working until I called it out.
I could see someone's town read plausibly reversing from seeing Rask's turnabout on ZZZX followed by (essentially useless) pressure on Not_Mafia, but for their town read to

go straight to a L-1 vote

during that interval, while under pressure from others, is way too convenient.

2. Lovebird was the L-1 on Not_Mafia, and she hopped onto that wagon with no stated reason other than "Doubting other reads. Fine with this" -- and that was right after she got fakehammered by Cheeky, too. To me that looks like skittish scum eager to ride someone else's wagon out of harm's way.

3. In general, Lovebird hasn't been engaging with the game in a sustained way. She has been hopping in and out, asking various questions she never follows up on or seems to care about the answers to. I haven't gotten the sense this entire game that she has been sorting anyone -- her Ico read appears out of nowhere in 51 and she doesn't bother to explain it until specifically asked later, and her vote on Not_Mafia is preceded with only the comment "Totally empty slots really annoying" (148). Her turnaround on Rask is the only thing in her D1 game resembling sorting and it's pretty suspicious as I said above, plus she unvotes in 420 and never revisits Rask again. These are the only three players she ever votes D1.
As I mentioned earlier, it's possible this is just something specific to Love's playstyle, and it's true that she improves D2, but taken as a whole this paints the picture of a relatively under-the-radar scum game reliant on appearing active without taking hard stances or engaging with players at length.

4. This is relatively minor compared with the above, but the Raskie kill does point slightly towards Lovebird, as he showed willingness to vote for her near the end of D1 (to the point of getting her to L-1). However, that could also point to Korina or BV.

My view on Korina is still summed up by my Christopher read in 479. Since replacing in, Korina hasn't done anything to alter that read.

[GreenLiquid]

Lovebird is the most likely player alive to flip scum in my opinion, so this one is a no-brainer. I'm going to trust we don't have any ZZZX wannabes around and place the L-1.

VOTE: Lovebird

[GreenLiquid]

If he's not doc, how could korina be partner? Korina's the only one not counterclaimed yet, right?

At this point I'm like 99% sure Ico is the doctor, so I was just expressing my thoughts on scum!Ico pairings from before the point of the doc claim. You're correct that Ico/Korina isn't mechanically possible anymore.

GL, why are you townreading Korina again?

I'm not? Christopher played a game I summed up as possibly "low-effort scum" and Korina's catch-up posting was underwhelming to the point of doing nothing to counter that impression.

Why are you nitpicking on my Ico partner speculation and yet getting something this basic backwards?

[GreenLiquid]

Why do NM pre-lynch shenanigans point towards Love/Cheeky? Her reaction to the Not_Mafia wagon is one of the strongest points in favor of town!Cheeky in my opinion.

[GreenLiquid]

I don't have any issue with BV's acceptance of Ico's claim because (1) I think the reasoning he gave is solid, and (2) BV does not strike me as the kind of player who posts sloppily, but the scum!BV interpretation basically amounts to "BV got impatient and scum slipped" and I'm just not buying it.

Oh right, this is a micro.

That leaves BuJaber and BlackVoid for right now out of PoE.

Uggggggggh walls

Am I right in interpreting this to mean that you have no scum reads besides PoE?

Also not liking GL putting Love to L-1 before we heard the replacement out. GL had a fair bit of resistance to the Ico wagon which I need to look into too.

As I said, no other lynch besides Lovebird or

maybe

Bu makes sense for me right now, so unless Ankamius does something legendarily bad and earns my scum read in 48 hours my vote is going to be on Love.
I don't recall resisting the Ico wagon but even so, I don't see why you'd be pinged by resistance to a town wagon.

I don't see you as scum, so I believe you're being genuine with this, but I really don't get what you've been doing over the last couple of pages.

[GreenLiquid]

By the way GL, what do you think about my reasoning for LoveBird being town? I'm aware you already aren't convinced by it but I want to know what you think about it itself.

699 was a solid observation, but there are two problems with it:

1. Most basically, scum can point out oddities as well as town can, so I don't generally consider observations like that AI unless they're especially good or numerous.

2. Lovebird's lack of follow-up after that point fits in perfectly with my D1 scum read of her. She never pushes Bu or votes him or really reacts to him at all other than pointing out some other oddities later in the day. These kinds of 'pop in and go' questions litter her ISO and in my view serve to keep her active without having much of an effect on the game state.

I agree that Lovebird's lack of opposition or pressure elsewhere while facing down a lynch does feel like a resigned town response, but it also doesn't feel out of line with her play for the rest of the game, so for all I know it could just be coasting rather than resignation.

To me it seems like your view of Lovebird is colored somewhat by the fact that you started reviewing from start of D2. Lovebird was significantly scummier in D1 -- if I had only her D2 to go by, I'd likely be reading her null at worst. When I consider her play as a whole, however, I don't see anything that counters my impression from D1.

[GreenLiquid]

Here's the problem with that: if you were scum knowing that you're in a significant amount of danger of being lynched and you find things to attack, would you point them out and then never reference them again?

I don't see why Lovebird would have felt under considerable pressure at 699. Scum can benefit from shading a slot without taking a stand on it, so I don't see why poking at Bu and then leaving would be town-indicative.

You're right that in the event on a Bu/Love team, it doesn't seem likely that Bu would be content to leave Love like this without applying pressure elsewhere, but I'm not convinced that scum!Love in this state would

necessarily

start going all out to defend herself. This is partly why Cheeky's shift over the past couple of pages is worrying me a little.

Has her play changed at all when she started gaining suspicion? You mentioned that her play under pressure has been the same as the rest of her play this game. If anything, doesn't that indicate that she's not having a self-preservation instinct kicking in?

No, I don't think her play changed much after facing suspicion. I feel like she might be the kind of player who doesn't come out swinging even under lynch pressure -- though, unfortunately, I didn't find any scum games in her history where she was facing down a lynch so I can't really argue for or against this from a meta standpoint. If I had to put it succinctly, Lovebird seems like a player more likely to respond to pressure with incredulity and light sarcasm instead of a lengthy rebuttal. You can see this in her ISO in a few places shortly after people pressure her or cast doubt on her.

[GreenLiquid]

Holy shit, we're on page 50 now.
Let me get caught up.

[GreenLiquid]

Going to UNVOTE: Lovebird just in case since people are talking about hammers

[GreenLiquid]

I'm going to do something a little different and just post reactions while I'm catching up. After that I'll dig deeper into what's happened.

Spoiler: stuff

VOTE: BuJaber

No Ico we aren't. We're lynching BuJaber first.

Still not liking this Cheeky turnaround. Is this turn on Bu really just from a quick ISO review?
I really don't like the possibility of Lovebird/Cheeky as that leaves me with zero PoE non-Doc townreads.

I'm the even-night cop.

This was shocking for a moment but I see the reasoning to claim now -- if cop doesn't claim until LyLo it invites a claim war that can result in a cop mislynch. Not sure that's worth surrendering the possibility of mechanical auto-win via clears (where's mhsmith when you need him?) but, eh, I get it.
Also, I'm not the cop.

Okay cop can counter claim tomorrow anyway if BV doesn't get killed.

VOTE: love

This completely undermines the point of a pre-LyLo claim. Are you just not thinking this through or are you planning on CCing in LyLo?
I don't like BuJaber's insistence that tomorrow

might

not be LyLo, so it's fine to hold off on a CC, in the slightest.
I think at this point I can relatively safely rule out a Lovebird/BuJaber team.

It was horrible and frankly insulting to my game breaking analysis the post before.

lol

Interesting how the activity picks up from both Bu/Ico when I push Bu. This is the second time this has happened.

I feel like you have a really poor read of Bu's personality if you think him pushing back against pressure is AI. Unless he's managed to fake an entire personality this game I think his reaction to being pushed is completely predictable.
Why are you shading Ico here? Ico is confirmed doctor at this point.

You have no option to scumread GL or you look bad and Void just claimed cop. I am the only townie left you can scumread without you getting scrutinized for it.

Cheeky was pushing you prior to BV's claim so this argument doesn't really make sense. She's clearly not just settling on you, though I guess we're agreed on not liking that sudden pressure.

Ok cool I'm so confident that today everyone vote me or Bu. This is not TvT.

When I flip lynch Bu.

Why would we ever commit to this when tomorrow could potentially be LyLo?

Ohhhhhh
Okay I get it now but next time please claim earlier in the day. This was too close to lynch.


Okay I am not cop

This reads fake to me. He explained his reasoning for the better part of two pages and yet it's the post you quote here that clues you in?

Alright, regarding Cheeky/Bu 1v1 in general: at this point I would be more likely to vote BuJaber, but I don't like the way Cheeky is framing this as "one of us is scum, so lynch one of us today and lynch the other if they flip town". If there's one time in the game when it makes sense for everyone to reconsider their priors, it's LyLo. If Cheeky is scum here, she could push a BuJaber mislynch and then potentially evade the lynch tomorrow by having everyone re-read and reconsider their reads. Committing to any kind of conditional lynching going into LyLo is almost always a terrible idea.

That said, I only see this being possible in a Cheeky/Lovebird world, because otherwise scum!Cheeky could have easily achieved a Lovebird mislynch by just... not pulling this stunt.

BuJaber's 1120 makes zero sense to me. You're seriously saying that trying to keep open the possibility of a cop CC tomorrow would cause scum to target you instead of

a claimed cop they would know is town??

Also, town!Lovebird most certainly does not point towards scum!Cheeky.

UNVOTE: lovebird

Wow you got him to unvote. Cheeky will actually win this game as scum?

Amazing.

How this game will end up with the lylo of me cheeky and GL:

siren.gif

Why are you certain that we're going to have a me/you/Cheeky LyLo?

Associations in 1133 still don't make any sense to me.
At this point I'm pretty sure this is either obvscum!BuJaber or potentially town!BuJaber getting baited by Cheeky into responding frantically and not making sense. So, as much as I don't like committing to a 1v1 facing the prospect of LyLo... this is likely TvS.

However either of them flipping scum clears the other because I don't think this was SvS. The interaction between korina/love followed by ank/love is so different and kinda weird.

Did you ever case this? I see no especially strong negative association out of Ank/Love.

Ok, these answers are acceptable. Let's shift gears a bit and go a different route: You mentioned before that she was significantly more scummy in day one. What were the top 1-2 points that indicate this?

The main things are the vote hopping and the Rask turnaround -- she hasn't had anything comparable D2, but those two things in conjunction are scummy enough that my read has survived to this point.
Her behavior today has not been as explicitly scummy to be but doesn't contradict the sense I get of her hypothetical scum game -- does that make sense?

Ank is basically the voice of reason on page 48 except I'm not a fan of the SvS speculation in 1197. Unless some shenanigans happen in 3p LyLo I don't see us lynching both of CheekyTeeky and BuJaber and floating the possibility of doing that rubs me the wrong way.
Why would scum!Cheeky and scum!Bu have agreed to do this, but not have executed the plan until being moments away from a mislynch? This is extremely far-fetched.

I'm not 100% set on BuJaber/Cheekyteeky but it's much more likely than either being scum with Lovebird for me.

You seriously can't see Cheeky/Lovebird but you think this is elaborate scum theater? If you're town, please, please, please reconsider this.

Suddenly have a useless slot get replaced with someone who's looking like they're on a trajectory to putting two and two together on who the scumteam is as well as hard defending the designated mislynch of the day is very dangerous to them.

What you're proposing would require significant coordination from the scum team. I can't see it having been an adjustment based on a replacement's reads near the end of the day.

Basically agreed with Cheeky at the bottom of page 49.

As annoying as this is, lynching Love might be the only chance for a town win despite being a likely town lynch.

Yet your vote is on BuJaber and you're not committing in any way to a Lovebird lynch, and you're suggesting a Lovebird lynch while also town reading her?

That's great BV. I would also rather lynch me today than tomorrow.

I'm going to self-vote as this game is actually beyond stupid now.

VOTE: CheekyTeeky

[GreenLiquid]

So there were three scum spec things that stood out to me during the my catch-up:

1. CheekyTeeky suddenly going to town on BuJaber is extremely convenient if we have a Lovebird / Cheeky scum team.
2. I have a very bad feeling about an Ankamius/Lovebird scum team. It's decently likely that scum were planning on killing me tonight, and if Ank/Love were planning on this, the Ico doc claim followed by BV cop claim would have suddenly shifted their plans. They would have realized they needed to achieve two mislynches in {me, BuJaber, CheekyTeeky}, requiring them to mislynch me if they failed to mislynch both of {Bu, Cheeky}. Both Love and Ank have been townreading me consistently, so Ank may have realized that getting both Love & Cheeky might be necessary at some point, in which case her speculation about a far-fetched Cheeky/Bu scum team is a play by scum to keep options open going into 5p and 3p.
3. BuJaber's response to BV's claim was extremely scummy and if he weren't under pressure from Cheeky at the time I would consider it a straight-up scum claim. At this point I'm leaning towards scum!BuJaber out of the two of them, but it could be the case that Cheeky was intentionally goading Bu into misplaying.

If I were considering players in isolation, I would rank lynch preference as:
BuJaber > Lovebird > Ankamius > CheekyTeeky.

Thankfully, I don't have to do that because we have enough mechanical clears to narrow down to a small pool of potential teams. From my POV, the following teams are still mechanically possible:

BuJaber / CheekyTeeky
BuJaber / Lovebird
BuJaber / Ankamius
CheekyTeeky / Lovebird
CheekyTeeky / Ankamius
Lovebird / Ankamius

Thoughts about each:

BuJaber / CheekyTeeky

: If their row over the past day was scum theater, that's both impressive and really dumb, as Lovebird very nearly got lynched and that wagon only seemed to get derailed once Cheeky and Bu started going at each other. The only way I see this making sense is if scum!Cheeky is doing this to buy town cred (by creating a pos. association with Lovebird), a la her defense of Not_Mafia D1. I guess now that I state it outright I do see the scum motivation in her trying the same trick again after hearing me town read her for doing it D1 but that doesn't necessarily point to Cheeky/Bu anyway so basically I'm rambling. Bottom line: I think this pairing is very unlikely.

BuJaber / Lovebird

: I think this pairing is somewhat unlikely. If I'm right about the potential scum motivation behind Bu's reaction to BV's cop claim, he was holding open the possibility of a D3 counterclaim because he expected it to by LyLo and wanted to have a claim-off against BV. But he returned to the Lovebird wagon right after he established the possibility of the D3 CC. If he were scum with her, he would have known that her lynch would result in D3

not

being LyLo and thus the whole trick wouldn't have worked. To be fair, I don't have much reason outside of that to posit against a Bu/Love team, so if somehow Bu is scum and was not actually angling for a D3 CC then, okay, it's possible this is still the pairing. But I think it's unlikely enough to rule it out for today.

BuJaber / Ankamius

: The only thing that makes me doubt this team is the stronger case for Anka/Love. Otherwise this feels plausible.

CheekyTeeky / Lovebird

: This one I've been paranoid about for a while now, as Cheeky's actions over the last dozen pages or so could easily be a scum play to try to derail the Lovebird wagon at the last moment. I recall as well that Cheeky settled on BuJaber over Lovebird before the original D1 deadline. If this is the scum team, it might also explain the fake Lovebird hammer from a scum perspective: if others believed her fake hammer, they might have refrained from voting even if they had originally intended to hammer, and thus this provided a (admittedly small) chance of Lovebird being saved. Admittedly, this is a stretch, and the heart of the case for this team is the D2 play.

CheekyTeeky / Ankamius

: Nothing is really making me think this is a potential team but I don't see any obvious reason it couldn't be the case. Korina scum reading Cheeky is a mild point against this, but he never really pushed her so I hesitate to read into it. This is relatively close to a null team read. Of this and the BuJaber/Ankamius team, I think the latter is more likely.

Lovebird / Ankamius

: Anka's play over the last couple of pages is making me worry a whole lot about this one, as I explained above.

If I rule out

Bu/Cheeky

and

Bu/Lovebird

, I'm left with:

BuJaber / Ankamius
CheekyTeeky / Lovebird
CheekyTeeky / Ankamius
Lovebird / Ankamius

We can spare one mislynch before entering LyLo, meaning we need to narrow down to the scum team with no more than one town flip. Just looking at the remaining teams mathematically, the least useful town flip would be BuJaber, as that would not rule out anyone as scum. The most useful would be Ankamius, as that would leave me with the Cheeky/Love team as the only plausible team. Of those two, I'd be more inclined to flip Love, as she could only be town at that point if the scum team is Bu/Cheeky, and that strikes me as the least likely of all of the teams right now.
The most useful scum flip would be Bu, as that would make me confident of either Bu/Ank (most likely) or Bu/Love (less likely), and we'd have a mislynch to spare so at that point it'd just be a bet against Bu/Cheeky and I would happily take that bet at this point. However, if we lynch Bu today and he flips green, any of Love/Cheeky/Ank could still be scum.

Mechanically, I'm inclined to lynch Ankamius, but I really don't like the idea of voting her over BuJaber, given my individual reads.

Also, I have to get up early tomorrow for a meeting so I don't have much more time to mull this over unless I want to cut into my sleep :/

[GreenLiquid]

@GreenLiquid, when you get a chance to dig deeper, I think it would be most helpful if you post all of your reads with some reasoning in an order based on how strong those reads are. You've posted a lot of reactions but I'm having trouble figuring out who you think is town and who you think is scum overall.

Going to put it briefly because my time is limited ATM:

BuJaber: My top scum read after his play over the past dozen pages. My case against him D1 is in my ISO; my scum read on him weakened for a bit D2 for tone reasons. If he's scum, he is a very competent AtE-r. His emotional reactions have felt mostly genuine D2, but there has still been potential scum motivation behind them. His tone in the aftermath of your cop claim felt less genuine than his tone has felt for the entire game up until that point, to the point where I'm thinking now I was right about it being AtE all along. However, I admit the possibility that Cheeky's pressure goaded him into that response. You should check my ISO for this one as I think your town read here is off base.
Lovebird: This one is all over my ISO, so I won't repeat myself. Hasn't changed.
Ankamius: She seemed like the voice of reason when she first came in to respond to the flurry of posts earlier today... until she started seriously floating a Cheeky/Bu scum team. That team is almost completely implausible to me and there's decent scum motivation in the case of Anka/Love to push for it. Other than suspicion about that one particular team, my main beef with this slot was Christopher's play followed by Korina's underwhelming posting.
Cheeky: This one pains me the most. I feel like after D1, Cheeky was very nearly locktown, but she's been pushing in directions that make no sense to me from a town perspective today and is potentially chainsaw defending Lovebird by pushing BuJaber. I find that really hard to square with her proactive play and defense of Not_Mafia D1, though, which felt extremely town to me. As scum she would have been passing up on laying low and letting a scum-favorable game state persist. On the other hand, I think her angry self-vote makes more sense from the interpretation of her as town than scum, as scum!Cheeky likely got (assuming paired with Love) exactly what she wanted out of her push on Bu and really should not have been feeling especially distraught.

[GreenLiquid]

Cheeky, get that vote off yourself and solve. What do you think of Love/Anka or Bu/Anka?

[GreenLiquid]

You reached the exact same conclusion as I did. Either you are really good scum that's playing to make me townread you or you're town. And I can't imagine why you'd spend all this time trying to fool me if you only have to do it for a few hours and then you get to night-kill me. But obviously you'd need to convince me to vote a mislynch instead of your partner. I think if you're scum, you can only be scum with CheekyTeeky pretty much. And that's an outside shot. I think you are focusing pretty heavily on BuJaber's reaction to my claim but BuJaber's overall play has been pretty townie.

But I think you're most likely town and town that will make the LYLO decision. I think lynching Ank -> Cheeky -> Lovebird wins the game for town. But I'm not sure if what I'm saying about BuJaber makes sense to you.

Do you have any meta history with Bu?

The biggest thing holding me back from an obvscum read on him has been his tone (up until today, anyway). If he has a history of not being able to project a town-feeling tone as scum, that might go some way in getting me to believe in him.

[GreenLiquid]

Cheeky: This one pains me the most. I feel like after D1, Cheeky was very nearly locktown, but she's been pushing in directions that make no sense to me from a town perspective today and is potentially chainsaw defending Lovebird by pushing BuJaber. I find that really hard to square with her proactive play and defense of Not_Mafia D1, though, which felt extremely town to me. As scum she would have been passing up on laying low and letting a scum-favorable game state persist.

What do you think of the post I quoted from her past scum thread which explains a possible motivation for defending Not_Mafia as scum? It doesn't conclusively prove anything but it does show that it's not a towntell for Cheeky to defend him because there

is

scum motive to do that.

Agreed that there is definitely potential scum motivation there, and that if she's scum with either Bu or Anka, her defense of Lovebird basically amounts to her doing it

again

. On the other hand, both of these defenses came at L-1 for what would have been extremely easy mislynches for Cheeky to achieve by just coasting, without likely even picking up heat for them. In my mind that counts pretty strongly as scum motivation against defending those players. If she had done the same thing while they were at L-2 or L-3 or merely being wagoned but not threatened with lynches, I'd be much more inclined to adopt the scum!Cheeky interpretation.

[GreenLiquid]

GL. There's literally no point. Town has lost whether I'm right or wrong with two conf towns with no brains. My posts say Bu/Ank and I got paranoid you/Love weren't here so looking back at Love I can see possibility of Love/Ank. If you're scum idc I'm actually happy for you as I'm not even considering that possibility today and you've played well. I am not usually this toxic, I'm just extremely frustrated with mafia in general atm. So sorry for being an ass but I don't see how town wins from here even if we lynch right today.

If you're town then you know there's scum in {me, Ank, Love, Bu}, and if you town read me, that narrows it down to {Ank, Love, Bu}. You literally have a 66% chance of hitting scum if town. I don't get the defeatism.

[GreenLiquid]

It's approaching midnight here and I can't really justify staying up any later at this point. It looks like it's going to be an Anka lynch and I think that's the wisest pick both mechanically and because I can trust you as conf!cop.
However, I am going to keep my vote off for now and pop on this morning to drop my vote if a lynch hasn't been achieved by then, so that you have a chance to post final thoughts and Cheeky has a chance to get out of her funk and help solve, and Lovebird has a chance to respond to the last dozen pages of insanity.

Anything else for me before I go to bed?

[GreenLiquid]

I'm going to shower for the night (maybe 15 mins?) and then pop back in, but I can really only spend 15 mins at that point. I've already been up about an hour more than would be ideal.

I'm agreed on lynching Anka.

[GreenLiquid]

Whoops, I thought Anka was at L-1 for some reason. I have no problem voting right now if it's not hammer.

VOTE: Ankamius

I think you're right that I'll have to cast a deciding LyLo vote at some point, whether 3p or 5p. I'll take your write-up and whatever other information I can use to make the best possible decision. I think we are in a relatively good position assuming my associations speculation is accurate, so top priority for tomorrow is making absolutely sure of them, or revising my priors if things change.

Have a good night and thanks in advance for your analysis!

[GreenLiquid]

Bu, we're in effing LyLo. Drop the vote.

So how much does everyone want to lynch Love?

Quite a bit. From my perspective, the only three possible teams are:

Love / Bu
Love / Cheeky
Bu / Cheeky

I think Bu / Cheeky is unlikely, and if I'm correct that they're not the scum team, Lovebird is guaranteed scum. So priorities for today are:

1. Review Bu / Cheeky interactions to make sure I have enough confidence to stake the game on that negative association
2. If I have confidence there, figure out which of Bu / Cheeky makes the most sense for a buddy

I think it's gl ank

OK so you have not been paying attention to the game at all. Good start.

[GreenLiquid]

Why dont you think ank could be on any teams.

Really?

[GreenLiquid]

VOTE: CheekyTeeky

[GreenLiquid]

Welp that was anticlimactic

[GreenLiquid]

Yeah, I'm pretty confident at this point that Cheeky is scum with Anka. I just pretended to be focusing on you so she'd bring me to LyLo.

Fingers crossed on the flip!

[GreenLiquid]

My mouse hand has been jittering like crazy since I saw Love's post after mine
I even checked BuJaber's profile twice to make sure he was really offline.

Good game Cheeky! I was expecting to have to work for this a bit more but I guess the 1v1 between you two was strong enough for him to commit too early.

[GreenLiquid]

I was surprised by the volume of replacements because the mod was pretty clear about not tolerating replace-outs in the sign-ups. It was a little frustrating in that regard but I'm glad I played!

[GreenLiquid]

I don't have any objections to releasing the scum PT if Love is okay with it.

[GreenLiquid]

I think if I were town this game I actually would have townread you -- I didn't stray very far from my natural impressions of your D1 because I was kind of terrified of being caught trying to pocket you. Back before I siteflaked, I was super obvscum in every game, so I've been anxious the whole game trying to not be blatant about anything.

[GreenLiquid]

I think I went wrong trying to look at who was pushing the NM wagon
I should know that scum are too scared to push obv. mislynch bait. I'll keep that in mind next time.

That was true of me. As soon as I saw you come in and defend him I knew I needed to keep my mitts off the wagon.
I know Not_Mafia is an experienced player so I'm curious what he was trying to do this game. I got the sense late D1/N1 that he might have been trying to be an obvious mislynch to draw scum into a mislynch trap that they'd be caught after later re-reads.

I don't know what was up with that sloppy LyLo vote but I thought BuJaber did an amazing job being obvtown this game and providing leadership without outright directing the town. I tried to keep peoples' focus on his being hard to understand and making weird associations, but even that didn't stop him getting widely townread D2. I was a bit scared by the prospect of facing him in 3p LyLo.

[GreenLiquid]

Huh, I had never seen the bump topic button before. I guess it does the obvious. Sorry if that caused any trouble

[GreenLiquid]

I just realized I made a mistake in saying that you'd be the most useful town flip, then proceeding to vote for you. I got kind of sloppy there -- just goes to show the danger of posting while sleepy as either alignment, I guess!

[GreenLiquid]

You caught me on the catch-up post too -- that wasn't actually a catch-up. I was reading along at work that day.
In hindsight I was very fortunate that consensus had already settled on you by that point.