Here's the deal unwnd. I'm prepared to vote you. I'll explain my reasoning so you have your chance to call me out as stupid or an idiot or whatever. But really, if you're town, I'd love it if you tried a strategy that wasn't just guilting me into voting Kazyan because the AtE doesn't actually make me want to vote you any less.
If we talk about purely gut reads, my town read of Kazyan has basically just steadily grown throughout the game, while I keep having to talk myself into town reading your slot. NPOM I town read heavily for D1, but I fear now I was just pocketed.
And, honestly, the facts seem to point towards town!Kazyan and scum!unwnd.
For the most part, I'm assuming you aren't scum aligned with 2ndchosen1. Maybe it's possible, but looking at your guys' rather unproductive back and forth over the last couple day phases, I have a really hard time seeing it as theatre. It looks either TvT or SvT. If it really is just distancing, bravo.
So, let's look at the objective facts of the game because my gut is so twisty turny and AtE has not helped that one bit.
1. NPOM is the sole hard defender of the Alchemist wagon D1. It is an IC backed wagon on town that looks like it's the surefire end of day wagon. NPOM makes posts like
this,
this, and
this to state his opposition to the Alchemist wagon. He also lists 2nd and Elements as the most suspicious on the wagon while he votes Penguin Power. Shortly after these posts, I change my mind on Alchemist and come in with several lengthy posts detailing why we should switch to Hayker, backing up AGar's original case.
Immediately after this, NPOM votes like so:
2. After AGar posts a case on Hayker and details his reads coming into the game, Lunar Martian votes him
here. Citing this reasoning:
In post 627, Lunar Martian wrote:
His reads seem backwards and he's being overly aggressive. Feels like he's trying to bully his way into having people think he's Town.
Then as the Alchemist wagon picks up, only to switch to Hayker due to me backing up AGar, Lunar posts this series:
In post 642, Lunar Martian wrote:I think I figured something out and won't be voting for Papa today. I'd go for alchemist, and AGar is actually making sense about Hayker too. Want to see more from Hayker before I decide. For now I'll vote alchemist.
VOTE: alchemist
In post 670, Lunar Martian wrote: In post 645, Kazyan wrote:VOTE: Hayker
AGar's "screw Hayker" masterpost is convincing. I basically have no idea what Hayker's broader reads are.
Willing to switch to Alchemist at a moment's notice, though.
Dislike this.
In post 702, Lunar Martian wrote:At this point we've been around in circles so many times that I'm getting a bit lost. I think the day needs to end. I had a very good feeling about Hayker before, but if that's the direction people want to go I'll vote there if people want. Still prefer Alchemist I think.
3. After I try to solve the game on Day 2 and fail miserably by putting both Papa Zito and the NSG slot in my scum team, Kazyan posts this:
In post 853, Kazyan wrote:Going to partially object to Section 5 in the gamesolve post, here, and shine a light on 2ndchosen1. He is the only other player who cast some kind of doubt on Hayker being scum, in
820. This was a WIFOM argument, and PZ's defense of the "neither Hayker nor Dannflor died, but that was all according to plan" is
also
a WIFOM argument. These ideas feel like they're following the same side-chat playbook. Further, HWS has offered a reason for not voting for Hayker tonight, while 2nd has merely made commentary, the same way that PZ has.
My vote is already placed on Hayker. Everyone in this conversation aside from PZ has also done so. To the next person to show up: please hammer before the end of the forum page.
They also continue the next day phase with posts such as
this and
this.
4. We know that the night kills were: AGar, Papa Zito, northsidegal, and in that order. We know that the vig shots were: PenguinPower, Gamma Emerald, and either a holster if Kazyan is the vig or an attempted shot at 2ndchosen1 if unwnd is the vig.
5. Finally, Kazyan immediately responded to AGar's initial case on Hayker with:
In post 645, Kazyan wrote:VOTE: Hayker
AGar's "screw Hayker" masterpost is convincing. I basically have no idea what Hayker's broader reads are.
Willing to switch to Alchemist at a moment's notice, though.
=============
My interpretation of this game's events is that unwnd/Lunar is the scum team.
If we refer to point #3, I have a really hard time seeing Kazyan/2ndchosen1 has scum aligned. If you are town unwnd, I'm surprised you haven't noticed this yourself and that you seem to have so little paranoia about Lunar Martian. Post #853 is *really* unnecessary from a scum buddy that just saw the IC make a game solve post that includes two townies and one of their buddies. Kazyan is basically saying, oh well you've caught Hayker? Let me throw 2ndchosen1 in for you too! And like, it's not just random either, they vote and push 2ndchosen1 for a little while before they flip their read in
#1224 which reads to me like a genuine reappraisal of the slot. There's no real reason for this flip to if Kazyan had decided they wanted to soft-bus or hard-bus. It's just too weird of a progression to come from scum buddies in my opinion. Am I missing something here?
I feel points #1 and #2 are fairly self explanatory. Obviously, you can't answer for your predecessor's actions. But to explain my thought process, NPOM's defense of Alchemist doesn't feel real. It feels like the type of defense scum does when they KNOW town is about to flip and they want to absolve themselves as well as setting up future eliminations. NPOM specifically names 2nd chosen and elements as scummiest on the wagon, but doesn't actually try to push them in any discernible way even after the flip. It just feels like setting them up to set them up. His vote on Hayker only comes *after* I specifically drive the wagon over to him and only as a compromise.
Lunar's progression is all over the place too. First Lunar immediately pushes AGar after AGar posts his reads list, stating it feels fake and too aggressive. Later, Lunar revises this into "AGar is making sense about Hayker" and eventually votes Hayker as a compromise even though Lunar 'would really rather switch to Alchemist.'
In retrospect, both of these progressions are *really bad.* They smell of scum hoping they can get the Alchemist wagon in while setting themselves up with as much plausibly deniability as possible. Lunar's reaction to AGar's case and AGar's subsequent death also both make A LOT of sense if AGar had managed to nail the scum team coming into the game.
On the other hand, let's look at Kazyan's response to AGar's case in #5. They immediately vote Hayker. Granted, they do say they'd be willing to switch to Alchemist, but there's really no reason to come in here and back up AGar, the new replacement's, case. This also comes directly after Kazyan speaks about picking a wagon and sticking to it since D1 is getting close to done in
#632, which makes it even weirder that Kazyan would stick onto their scum buddy instead of going for the IC approved wagon on town.
Finally, I don't know that I really believe shooting 2ndchosen1 is a decision you make as town? As I've been over, there are serious reasons to doubt that Kazyan/2ndchosen1 are aligned, and the fact that you took such a risk and risked forgoing another day phase of discussion seems really... I mean, I get the impression you are a good mafia player, unwnd. That wasn't a good decision if you're town. Meanwhile, Kazyan claims they holstered as nsg advised in
#1309.
And here's the thing about NSG, I thought that night kill would have made most sense coming from a 2ndchosen1/Kazyan team, but that's really not true at all. Checking her ISO, NSG was pretty opposed to the idea of that specific team. In fact, she stated that she thought Lunar/Kazyan was more likely and starting turning around her read on Lunar towards the end of the day. She starts to make more sense as a night kill target from a potential unwnd/Lunar team than Kazyan/2ndchosen1 in that case.
Papa Zito and AGar both suspected the NPOM/unwnd and Lunar slots. Really basic night kill analysis and yes you can always argue WIFOM and that scum were just looking for the vig... But here's the thing, if scum were looking for the vig, they'd also want to shoot slots they suspected of shooting the scum team. There's no point in shooting a vig that's just gonna shoot town. When you put these three night kills together the scum team starts to feel obvious. There's also the small fact of me being alive and basically having NPOM and Lunar as two lean town to town reads the entirety of the game until now.
Also, let's look at this day phase. Honestly, I don't feel like either unwnd or Lunar is still attempting to figure out the game. They feel informed. Of course, Kazyan and unwnd should both lock scum the other. However, I still see Kazyan and 2ndchosen1 expressing some lingering doubts and paranoia despite the game being relatively straight forward. It still feels like they're trying to work things out. Unwnd and Lunar, neither of you feel this way. It just feels like you're waiting for me to make a decision and you have no need to double check yourself. The closest I got was Lunar's weird "SvS" comment but after I corrected that Lunar immediately went to scum!Kazyan as the solve. I just feel like if either of you were town you'd be doing something more right now, reading back over the thread, doublechecking yourself on things, anything. On the other hand, although Kazyan and 2ndchosen1 yes do monologue "without purpose," it does still feel like they are *trying.* And that reads town to me.
In post 1578, unwnd wrote:I had a better thought while I looked at it last night, but to summarize it's just a lot of monologuing without purpose, which is funny to me because 2ndchosen/Kaz have basically taken the same approach. The other landmine there is at the end of the post where they say
possibility and just accept that if
, I will use my
on Lunar and leave the rest to Datisi.
Like...cmon Dann.
In response to this I don't really have anything to say. I don't see what's bad about this wording. Yes, it'll be the big last shot of the game. I don't think "tonight" instead of "today" is a slip. This feels like a weird reachy thing to go all "cmon Dann" over.
In post 1579, unwnd wrote:Need I remind you they've also questioned if the 2nd shot was a SK which is such a bizzare thing to do if you know you're the one making the shots
It feels a bit cheap to point something like that but why would a townie by thinking about a night action that involves more than one person
I was actually quite satisfied with Kazyan's explanation that they threw that out there to throw scum off the scent that they might be the vig. Like, yeah it definitely caught my eye at first. But Kazyan seems pretty self aware and I almost don't think they would even try to fake claim vig with this in their ISO. I dunno, if this is the best you have, then I don't know what to say.
I'm sorry if I'm wrong and I hope you can point out the glaring flaws in my thinking if I am but... I'm not seeing it currently.
