Open 785: Secrets of the Anuket Topaz [Game over!]

[the worst]

Titus was pushing for an Ydra elim before being shot for what it's worth
soul tells me it's just one of raya/ydra

[the worst]

A50 why aren't you voting yet

[Ydrasse]

hello and welcome.

my case on raya is basically:

- there was some s_s/raya mutual ~scumreading going on between them and i don't think that it's genuine. there wasn't a lot of push from either of them, fmpov, to get a true wagon going. this is moreso true for s_s who had some point was like "raya won't be voted out, no one is interested in voting raya" despite there being a few sentiments where people were questioning why raya was being townread as thoroughly as she was. neither of them made a very strong effort to go for each other.

- raya, for a long part of the game, had a tr on me and believed we shared alignments. there is a small exchange in 1554 and 1557 where i feel that, despite the weird scumreading they were doing towards one another, s_s asked about me and i feel that (given the position i am in now especially) it was a place where s_s was publically offering raya a chance to disengage from their tr on me for later down the line.

- i feel that s_s slipped up at a certain point. he was pushing for a majority of the game that there was 1 remaining mafia on the snowblaze wagon, and 1 off on the mae wagon. 1832 and 1835 are the lapses in this that i feel now were just him... forgetting his narrative lol.

my wallpost says More but i feel these are the core things that i feel the strongest about right now.

[the worst]

- there was some s_s/raya mutual ~scumreading going on between them and i don't think that it's genuine. there wasn't a lot of push from either of them, fmpov, to get a true wagon going. this is moreso true for s_s who had some point was like "raya won't be voted out, no one is interested in voting raya" despite there being a few sentiments where people were questioning why raya was being townread as thoroughly as she was. neither of them made a very strong effort to go for each other.

first impression here is that it's very realistic for townies to nullread each other as well. it's doubly realistic for a townie to nullread a scum player who plays as .... delicately? carefully? as ss does. at what point did it strike you that Raya was interacting with a scumbuddy in the interactions which you've referenced?

I also think misreading the way the plist is treating a player is more likely a sign of Raya and ss not being aligned aorn? usually in anti bus gamestates, a scumread on your partner feels disproportionately heavy. the clawback ss & his partner had to do from losing their first member wasn't a small task. I'd have actually expected his perspective on how people were reading his partner to be more bleak than negligent (or just sassily blatantly incorrect)? Maybe that's just me. :p

[Eevee]

talk to me about menalque - our scumflip is offwagon, and the wagon was reasonably well padded with ICs
who struck you as opportunistic around it? who felt EMPOWERED AND RIGHTEOUS about menalque being scum?
do you think you were deceived, or do you think town danced off a cliff? noting that SS was probably not the immediate deceiver
what do you think about SS choosing to escape rather than ~whoever his buddy is~

Err... the Menalque lynch may or may not have been forced through by me...

Anyway, welcome the worst! I'll read Soon.

~Eva

[the worst]

I don't think I can really address the rest before I do a decent read. Your assumption that I'm tired and hung over was absolutely correct, so I'm not in the right head space right now. But I'll get back to you well before deadline.

[the worst]

talk to me about menalque - our scumflip is offwagon, and the wagon was reasonably well padded with ICs
who struck you as opportunistic around it? who felt EMPOWERED AND RIGHTEOUS about menalque being scum?
do you think you were deceived, or do you think town danced off a cliff? noting that SS was probably not the immediate deceiver
what do you think about SS choosing to escape rather than ~whoever his buddy is~

Err... the Menalque lynch may or may not have been forced through by me...

Anyway, welcome the worst! I'll read Soon.

~Eva

you villain!!!!
just kidding - it happens!
who if anyone resisted it with integrity? do you feel like there was anyone who felt like, unexpectedly keen to eliminate menalque?

[Eevee]

you villain!!!!
just kidding - it happens!
who if anyone resisted it with integrity? do you feel like there was anyone who felt like, unexpectedly keen to eliminate menalque?

To be fair, Menalque was under a lot of suspicion; us conftown heavily suspected him, as well as Montosh who flipped town.

For your readthrough, I would recommend focusing D2 and onwards. A summary of D1 is we had competing wagons at deadline - one scum (Mohab/Maemuki) and one town (Snowblaze/you). Menalque hardpushed Snowblaze, and A50 looked pretty bad too iirc so they were our prime suspects going into D2.

~Eva

[Ydrasse]

- there was some s_s/raya mutual ~scumreading going on between them and i don't think that it's genuine. there wasn't a lot of push from either of them, fmpov, to get a true wagon going. this is moreso true for s_s who had some point was like "raya won't be voted out, no one is interested in voting raya" despite there being a few sentiments where people were questioning why raya was being townread as thoroughly as she was. neither of them made a very strong effort to go for each other.

first impression here is that it's very realistic for townies to nullread each other as well. it's doubly realistic for a townie to nullread a scum player who plays as .... delicately? carefully? as ss does. at what point did it strike you that Raya was interacting with a scumbuddy in the interactions which you've referenced?

I also think misreading the way the plist is treating a player is more likely a sign of Raya and ss not being aligned aorn? usually in anti bus gamestates, a scumread on your partner feels disproportionately heavy. the clawback ss & his partner had to do from losing their first member wasn't a small task. I'd have actually expected his perspective on how people were reading his partner to be more bleak than negligent (or just sassily blatantly incorrect)? Maybe that's just me. :p

i mean... they weren't really nullreading each other? they were voting one another, they had an exchange at a certain point in the thread going back and forth.

for the most part my reads were set on a50/menalque for the game with raya/s_s inhabiting the ~middle of my reads, with rce being my strongest. when s_s managed to escape was when i went back and read through all of these things. really all of my stuff today has been influenced a lot by s_s escaping and i find that a50 trying to go on s_s more convincing now with that knowledge than i do raya's interactions.

a lot of what i'm posting today is from the perspective as the Person who is being mostly suspected. also i think that s_s made it a point to say that me/him was a Crazy idea, omg, lol it makes no sense before he escaped which is like... to me just seems like he was tying himself to me to get me eliminated today ultimately. idk!

[Eevee]

A readthrough of D1 EoD might not be bad as well actually. Everyone's final stances were just the final votecount though.

~Eva

[Eevee]

i wasn't deliberately away; i asked for the game from you, and then didn't revisit it like i said. if you think i manufacture that block of time i really don't know what to tell you except i like getting my sleep. i wouldn't have asked for the case as scum just because like... what's the point? i ask for it and then i have to make up something about my scum partner from it? i'm talking from my pov obviously but it would've been easier to not say anything at all about s_s to begin with.

my solve has involved you for a good stretch of this game and that has been pretty obvious. however, the longer it's went on the more inclined i've felt to go over things again and re-organize my thoughts a bit. s_s and raya were formerly filling up the same sort of space where they were in the middle of the pack and i thought it was one of them and one of you/mena.

right now though i'm like. 90% sure this is the correct move.

VOTE: raya36

This pings me as weird because isn't the first paragraph responding to a point A50 already said "fair enough" to? And it doesn't address the issues, which are:
- your progression on Raya from saying you'll never voting her, to being suspicious of her
- why you started townreading S_S

~Eva

[Eevee]

I thought about it more and now think that either both scum bussed or that raya is right in (1 on, 1 off).

My reasoning for this is that if you’re scum and there’s a strongly competing wagon on your scumbuddy, what is gained from trying to save them and push the CW? Yes, you stave off the guillo for one day, but there’s no NK and your buddy probably gets guillo’d the next day. If that does happen then you’re confirming 5 anyway (I suppose you can’t lose by default at least though, which is something) and it’s going to be /very/ clear that you were supporting the CW even if you leave as many people unconfirmed there as possible. I don’t think this is a smart plan for scum if they’re trying to win the game, it’s all about the short term gains.

If, however, you’re a canny scum, then you know that if there are competing wagons and one flips scum, the default response will be “the scum must have Ben trying to save their buddy” — this was my initial thought as it was of several others. But mohab/mae was a weak slot, and I think that’s important to factor in. When I’m scum, I often choose whether I’m bussing or not based on the strength and communicativeness of my partner(s). If I have faith in their abilities or they’re talking a lot with me in scum pt, I try for a perfect game or to at least minimise bussing. If I perceive them as weak or if they’re not talking to me, I’m more likely to go for the bus to set me up as the deepwolf carry for the team.

Based on what mohab/mae die while they were here, I doubt they fit the mould of “scumplayer who we really need to save to win” for the scumteam, which means they would have been a very strong bus candidate, with the idea that town will default to guillotining on the CW and that will be enough (given the fact that game ends at D4) to get the scumteam to a win. So I think actually double bus is plausible, or if not double then single is very likely.

I’m not totally sure who it would be — S_S looks scummy to me but I struggle to read him. All of them have trajectories onto mae which could be bussing. But I think I may have figured out a tell for ydrasse (if she is scum I think it’s accurate) and Titus says VCA implicates her as one of her top suspects. Therefore, I’d like to do ydrasse today

Re: the double-bussing point. I'm leaning towards double-bussing as well right now, since Menalque was town and as scum, it would've been very appealing to let him do the dirty work.

~Eva

[Eevee]

How moved was everyone by A50 correctly scumcasing SS?
did he have enough clout that this was unlikely to be a bus?

I was pretty touched. Just looking at the posts around it, there were other ways he could have gone, and it was a convincing case too.

~Eva

[Eevee]

Mmm, I still think it's Ydrasse...

- I don't think A50 cases his partner like that
- RCE has had some real towny moments, plus he's been TMI'd multiple different ways that I think he's just town
- Raya, I still don't buy; I've played with her as scum and if this is her scumgame, I'd be really shocked, cause she isn't just "more towny," she's gone above and beyond
- Ydrasse, apart from POE, I'm pretty suspicious of, so...

~Eva

[Eevee]

- Ydrasse, apart from POE, I'm still pretty suspicious of her, so...

[Ydrasse]

i wasn't deliberately away; i asked for the game from you, and then didn't revisit it like i said. if you think i manufacture that block of time i really don't know what to tell you except i like getting my sleep. i wouldn't have asked for the case as scum just because like... what's the point? i ask for it and then i have to make up something about my scum partner from it? i'm talking from my pov obviously but it would've been easier to not say anything at all about s_s to begin with.

my solve has involved you for a good stretch of this game and that has been pretty obvious. however, the longer it's went on the more inclined i've felt to go over things again and re-organize my thoughts a bit. s_s and raya were formerly filling up the same sort of space where they were in the middle of the pack and i thought it was one of them and one of you/mena.

right now though i'm like. 90% sure this is the correct move.

VOTE: raya36

This pings me as weird because isn't the first paragraph responding to a point A50 already said "fair enough" to? And it doesn't address the issues, which are:
- your progression on Raya from saying you'll never voting her, to being suspicious of her
- why you started townreading S_S

~Eva

maybe, but tbh trying to posit that i was or wasn't away when (to me) it seems simpler that i... actually just was away is an annoying sort of thing for me as a person, alignment aside. i don't like feeling like i have to defend the need that i actually just wasn't online though i get the why behind it?

and there was a point where i apparently found Some Things suspect about raya and i was like "oh, i'll get back to them when i am more awake!" and frankly couldn't remember what they were, LMAO. i think i posted about it because i didn't wanna like. leave people hanging on that one. (also i hope that you can recognize that scum!me has literally no initiative at all to out this sudden change and then go "nah lol nvm dunno why".)

also that i have no reason to suddenly out a townread on my scum partner if it's me/s_s. the reason that i did was that he wasn't voting with either of the wagons the day that montosh was eliminated, it stuck out to me and i couldn't think of a reason why scum would be doing their own thing voting elsewhere.

[Ydrasse]

okay. so why do i, compared to everyone else currently non-confirmed, choose to stay versus s_s?

[Ydrasse]

also, given that i don't fit into your scenario, who DO you read with raya now if she's maf?

p-edit: eeeeh *hand wiggle* fmpov you're Okay right now with a little bit of suspicious zest thrown in.

also i want to point out that s_s never answered me on this.

[Ydrasse]

like, as ever this is from my pov but i don't see any reason why people look at my slot and think that

a) i choose to stay with versus s_s.
b) that i would choose to suddenly start townreading my partner knowing that, between one of us escaping, it's going to stick out like a sore thumb.

it just doesn't make sense to me. i have the luxury of knowing my alignment, blah blah, but both the kill and s_s escaping (after making it a point to push how he and i were never the scumteam, etc) both single me out as the person who scum are trying to push an elim on through today.

[the worst]

ydra can you talk to me about why you have RCE & A50 cleared?
it would mean more coming from you than eevee. sorry.

[the worst]

that wasn't critical of you btw eevee
more like, it's another perspective and it's coming from an uncleared mindset which is a big comfort add.

[the worst]

wagonomics tell me rce should be a huge red flag. lol. he's also overwhelmingly competent. i could really use a peace of mind injection :p

[Eevee]

that wasn't critical of you btw eevee
more like, it's another perspective and it's coming from an uncleared mindset which is a big comfort add.

Spoiler:

None taken!

~Eva

[the worst]

oh god that's adorable

[Ydrasse]

also, what motivation do i have in that quote to townread s_s? like, how does that pan out in the exact scumteam where it is me and s_s; it'd be super weird for me to either a) townread my partner and escape during the night leaving that last minute change of opinion on him or b) townread my partner who is escaping during the night, begging the question of why i wouldn't just stick to my guns about "oh i think s_s is probably the scum on the mae wagon out of him and raya". it just puts way too much attention on either of us in that situation.

Scum can't bus, so I'm not sure what your argument is here with the "what would my motivation be as scum?" Is the counterargument it being too obvious? I already said in the Menalque case, but I don't think that's a good reason since it's still scum motivation + you can always try to explain it with WIFOM.

Can you explain your RCE read?

~Eva

i just don't see like... motivation behind a scum!rce this game. i will admit that i have a bit of bias towards being defended, lmfao, but in reality... i can believe the push on snowblaze and on menalque as being backed by townie thoughts. there's a consistency behind everything and i've not felt that any of the posts as we've gone later into the game are trying to push miselims through on shady reasons?

there's an active effort to gamesolve which feels natural, basically. 1353, 1621, 1884 are all examples of this. there's not really anything that i can sit here and think to myself as scummy.

here’s why i’ve been townleading rce.

for a50, i pushed him for a good portion of this game but the s_s flip made me reconsider given that a50 made a serious case and vote against s_s and i don’t think that it was insincere.