The List - Winner revealed!

[MURDERCAT]

Hi!

[MURDERCAT]

Welcome back! Or have you been lurking for 6 months?

[MURDERCAT]

Same, my AIM is sadly long gone.

[MURDERCAT]

Some inspiration for anyone still putting your list together:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lists_of_lists

[MURDERCAT]

How are people feeling about their first challenge performance?

[MURDERCAT]

I feel I did middling for the record, kind of unsure where the bar will be but I expect to be near it

[MURDERCAT]

I just kept hitting random page until I reached the goal.

This should count as a viable strategy lol

[MURDERCAT]

Sorry to see you go Mist!
Guess I need to step it up

[MURDERCAT]

Can we talk freely about the challenge now?

[MURDERCAT]

I spent like 5+ minutes getting to this page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O._J._Simpson_murder_case

Where gloves are mentioned 56 times without a link to what a glove is! Was pretty dumb haha.

[MURDERCAT]

Fungus - Greek Language - Syria - Syrians

Also this was either me or very close to what I did so it really was the last round that killed me

[MURDERCAT]

I realized it would have been smart to check before I committed to that path, and then I realized I could just use the disambiguation but I was too slow to figure it out.

[MURDERCAT]

I did this:

Spoiler:

Gauntlet_II
Atari_Games
Video_game
Esports
ESPN
Major_League_Baseball
Sydney_Cricket_Ground
Cricket

Which I actually thought was decent, but I guess I could have done much better haha

[MURDERCAT]

Sorry I've had a busy few days and will probably make you all wait

[MURDERCAT]

I spent a long time refreshing my knowledge of the German tank problem when I should have just checked some stuff around the forums

[MURDERCAT]

Spoiler:

[MURDERCAT]

An attack that does 25% or 50% damage is called Not Very Effective

0x isn't "not very effective", it is no effect.

[MURDERCAT]

thanks <3

I literally noted this when doing it but then thought I was going for the higher number and still got it wrong lol

[MURDERCAT]

You really couldn't do baseball

[MURDERCAT]

Let's all hope for many blernsbaskets for our players!

[MURDERCAT]

I actually like sports but making fun of sports is still hilarious. And I know nothing about basketball so I'm right with you all.

Spoiler: me picking my team today

[MURDERCAT]

I read some articles and picked those players haha

[MURDERCAT]

I guess we will find out!

[MURDERCAT]

I mean, if you were actually good enough you'd be one of the people pulling in a million+ a year betting, not getting ad revenue for writing articles about it.

[MURDERCAT]

I believe

[MURDERCAT]

Nooo

[MURDERCAT]

xof nooooo

<3 <3 <3

[MURDERCAT]

Same!

[MURDERCAT]

I'm going to write a short speech anyway because it's my first time

Then I will get to questions

[MURDERCAT]

First of all, thanks everyone for making this a super fun game! I really enjoyed getting to talk to both the friends I’ve known for a while and the people who I didn’t get to interact with much previously. Genuinely this has been one of the most fun things I’ve gotten to be a part of on this site.

First I’m going to talk about challenges and we can talk about the social stuff after.

Challenge	MURDERCAT	Xalxe
1	13th	1st
2	7th	10th
3	7th	2nd
4	1st	7th
5	2nd	4th
6	1st	3rd

As you can see, I had a terribly slow start. I underestimated how quickly I would have to go to be competitive in the early challenges and I overcompensated by not checking my work in the pokémon challenge. These rounds will come up when I talk about social game, so I want to focus on what I did differently the last 3 rounds to perform better.

Round 4 was a much-needed confidence booster for me. While I don’t know much about basketball, I at least have played fantasy sports before and I knew that I was capable of performing well in any nontimed challenge. To get this win, I read a lot about daily fantasy sports and studied different sources about all the players that I was considering. I was able to get 88% of the score of the optimal lineup, which I was extremely happy with. This was also the round that Ceph’s threat level became extremely obvious to me, so going into round 5 I knew I needed to try to get first somehow. I practiced both types of puzzles for a few hours and, while Ceph was still out in front, I came ahead in a close battle in a challenge type that I would normally consider myself an underdog in. This gave me some momentum going into the last challenge. I knew that to have a realistic chance to win I needed to get first and finally knock out Ceph. I don’t think I’ve ever even done a slide puzzle, so I panicked a bit when I first saw it. But something about it just clicked and I knew I at least had a decent time. I honestly still expected Ceph to somehow have done it in 7 minutes, but luckily everything came out in my favor. Halfway through the game I thought I had no chance to get to the end (let alone win) so to do well it the final 3 challenges was a big deal for my game.

So how did I actually survive to the 4th round despite my poor performances early? That's where the social game came in. In the early game I knew that coming off as a gamebot would be bad, so I just reached out to everyone (expect the player who was MIA) and let people I already knew that they would be high on my list. Xof and I in particular wanted to work with each other right away and so that partnership was very important to me, because I knew xof knew everyone I didn't know. Still, 1 partner is not enough to reach the end, so in the early game I had deals with Noraa and Jumble as well. I also talked a fair bit to Silver and Raya to move up their lists after losing Jumble early. I also used my poor early challenges as a way to make myself look like someone who should be kept around. I made sure to mention how badly I had done knowing that, if any challenges ever came that were in my wheelhouse I would be able to take advantage. Towards the endgame, I made deals with everyone in the F5 besides Ceph, while also pushing for everyone to keep Ceph low on their lists (while I'm sure everyone would have done this anyway, it was a good way to be sure I was seen as less of a threat by comparison while making game moves). While I was able to make a lot of deals to ensure I was high on lists, I'm happy that I never had to lie to anyone to make that happen. I think keeping a social presence up with most of the players throughout the game made it easy to ask for deals when other allies left.

So to wrap this up, I think that my game had a great mix of social and challenge performance. I was able to coordinate deals that kept me alive when I performed poorly and in the endgame I took it upon myself to perform well and finally knock out the biggest threat to win. I leave you with all of the lists that I submitted, in case you want to ask any specific questions.

Spoiler: lists

Round 1

1. xofelf
   
2. Silverclaw
   
3. Noraa
   
4. NotAJumbleOfNumbers
   
5. Cephrir
   
6. Mist7676
   
7. Save the Dragons
   
8. Aronis
   
9. Raya36
   
10. Cheery Dog
    
11. Xalxe
    
12. Racefan12
    
13. ButItsLegalInJapan

Round 2

1. NotAJumbleOfNumbers
   
2. xofelf
   
3. Noraa
   
4. Silverclaw
   
5. Raya36
   
6. Save the Dragons
   
7. Racefan12
   
8. Cephrir
   
9. Cheery Dog
   
10. Aronis
    
11. Xalxe

Round 3

1. xofelf
   
2. Noraa
   
3. Raya36
   
4. Silverclaw
   
5. Xalxe
   
6. Save the Dragons
   
7. Cephrir
   
8. Racefan12
   
9. Aronis

Round 4

1. xofelf
   
2. Noraa
   
3. Raya36
   
4. Xalxe
   
5. Racefan12
   
6. Save the Dragons
   
7. Cephrir

Round 5

1. xofelf
   
2. Xalxe
   
3. Save the Dragons
   
4. Racefan12
   
5. Cephrir

Round 6

1. Save the Dragons
   
2. Xalxe
   
3. Cephrir

[MURDERCAT]

If I had a block of immunity cheese and it was F3 with Xalxe, Murder, and I, who would you(both of you can answer) tell me to use it on?

As you know I am vegan, so it couldn't be me! I would of course use it on you as I have a feeling you would appreciate it the most.

[MURDERCAT]

Hello friends. I have several questions for you.

The first being the obligatory gif the jurors question.

I assume this means I need to provide a gif that somehow relates to or describes each juror? It's my first time
(I will do this tomorrow when I can put some thought into it!)

The second, what were your strategies for your lists? Did you have any? Did you every do any shady trading deals or purposefully try to screw somebody by placing them at the bottom?

Early on, my strategy was basically to rank order people in terms of how likely people were to work with me in the future, as those were the people I wanted around. Even if I thought they would be good at challenges, for the first 3 rounds I didn't worry about that as much (however, people that were good at challenges who I didn't think I was likely to work with went right to the bottom). I didn't do anything shady, except perhaps being a bit generous when describing someone would be "high" on my list where high could have been e.g. 4th. But all of my trades for spots were straightup. Around F6 I started to encourage people to place Ceph at the bottom, but otherwise I didn't concern myself much with where anyone else ended up on other's lists.

The third, how happy to not have to write a speech are you?

oops

[MURDERCAT]

hello i'm going to make you write speeches:

what did you do this game? i don't actually know what happened

Hopefully answered! Mostly I made it my mission to get you out

[MURDERCAT]

Is Xalxe a good?

Xalxe was a pleasure to meet and play with

[MURDERCAT]

What should the jury value more: challenge performance or social performance, and why?

I think, given the way they interact, you have to look at them together. I don't think I would be particularly compelled by a player who won out like Ceph almost did if they didn't have the social game to back it up, and I don't think I would vote for a player who got saved every single round. I think I would look at it as, how safe were you each round? If you had lost that challenge, how high were you on players lists? Did 1 ally keep saving you or did you have multiple backup plans? How did you do in the must win challenges?

[MURDERCAT]

My vote has been unlocked. Murder why should I vote for you?

In short, better challenge performances overall, strong social game that utilized relationships with many different players, and taking out the biggest threat to win to get myself to the F2.

[MURDERCAT]

Alright jury, I don't care about ither of you as much as I care about

me

. The person who gives me the better reasons for how I'm so great will win my jury vote!

Yes, someone had to be "the salty juror". Yes, even in this XD.

Silver, without you no one would ever be able to find the hot dog buns.

[MURDERCAT]

Followup, what's your favourite kind of salt?

Flaky finishing salt!

Or, is that not what you meant?

[MURDERCAT]

Challenge time!

I don't really feel like giving a question related to LSGs at all, so here's a Scattergories list!

Spoiler: the list

Please fill this out in 120 seconds, and if your list is better than the other person's list, you'll get my vote!

I will also do this tomorrow even though I don't know this game

[MURDERCAT]

how did i specifically affect your game if at all

I got info about what you were doing in F6 from xof, which is why I felt like I could approach you for a deal in F4. While we chatted a bit early on, I didn't want to get too close to you because I didn't want to reveal you weren't super high on my list (as there were others I was very close to). Once those allies were gone I knew I wanted to work with you!

[MURDERCAT]

Who knew coming up with questions would be so hard

This is basically my first lsg, so could each of you give me a piece of constructive criticism based on your interactions with me?

What's your favourite animal? (saying wolf =/= brownie points)

Talking with you was an absolute pleasure! I don't know if you talked to everyone like we did but if you did I think you have a social game to rival Noraa

Turning relationships into deals is what kept me alive, and could have helped you the round you went out (it's why I saved xof instead of you).

As for favorite animal, mine is elephants

[MURDERCAT]

*gasp* I wasn't first on your list once? Friendship ended with MURDERCAT, Xalxe is my new best friend now.

Jumble had saved me and I knew someone else would have saved you, whereas Jumble wouldn't have as many friends. Sadly Jumble left too soon as I wasn't able to do well that round.

[MURDERCAT]

This is a long one so I'm gunna spoiler it

Spoiler:

So first off, as every good juror should be, I am insanely bitter about the way I was eliminated. I came into this game with the infallible strategy: win every challenge, but unfortunately got screwed over by a bad one. So how did you feel about the challenges in this game? And specifically, how did you feel about the round 3 challenge? Do you like pokemon? Was it a good challenge?

I quite liked the challenge variety actually. Looking back through the list of them there really wasn't a ton of overlap. I would have probably done better if there was a creative challenge, but those are kind of subjective so I'm not sure it would have worked for this style of game anyway. As for pokemon, I am in fact a fan as you can probably tell from my avatar. That was the perfect challenge as I specifically asked D3f3nd3r pregame to "design a challenge that would get out Aronis in round 3, he's too big a threat." So there you have it.

Murdercat, what was your list for round 3? Had you won immunity, would you have saved me? If the answer is no, then I would most certainly like an explanation for such a cruel backstabbing.

Not only were you last on my list, I threw the challenge because I was worried that I would still, somehow, end up saving you had I ended up in the top half. It was clear you would have won out had you been allowed to live. I felt bad about it so I asked xof if I could put you first anyway and they said "if you do that you are playing against your win condition and as a listmod I would have to ban you."

Also, can you please talk about how you generically feel about me as a person. While I may be bitter, this section can be overly harsh provided it is an acceptable form of harshness. The key is that you must be truthful.

I quite liked talking to you! You seem very nice and given the game had gone on longer I am sure we would have worked together eventually. But having a 1st and 2nd place performance made you way too scary to keep around for free when I had other less scary people putting me high on their lists. I hope we get to talk more on

May 22nd for that cool weakest link game you are organizing with Malkon

.

Oh and if I’m gonna vote for you I need to understand your game, so can you please explain where I was ranked on your list every single round I was in the game?

Please see my full lists for all the details, but you were in the middle of my first list as we had a nice convo on the first day. After getting 2nd in the first challenge, you dropped to 2nd to last. And in the last round of course you were at the very bottom. I knew you were very likely to continue to win challenges and save people who were not me so it was actually quite good for me that you left.

Can you please explain how my elimination from the game made your path to the end much much easier and elaborate on how you probably wouldn’t have got here if I didn’t get unluckily eliminated and backstabbed by the people I loved?

How good are you at slide puzzles?
I don't think I would be in final 2 if I hadn't taken myself, so while I still think I would have performed well enough to get to F4, you would have gotten in my way in a real way in the final round. I think my time was good, but I was somewhat inefficient getting to the slide puzzle and it took me a minute to get the pattern down for moving the numbers around. It is entirely possible to save a minute or two if you were super efficient, which I have no doubt you would have been.

Noraa created a ponderosa chat and honestly some of the stuff said about you two was sickening in there. I had over 500 unread messages when I logged on to discord yesterday and didn't get a chance to read all of it, but a couple of people have described you both using a variety of terms such as “heartless,” “very lost,” “completely unworthy,” “rude,” and “a really sickening person to play with.” What is your response to this?

Whatever it takes to win. You were all my pawns, sorry.

I’m also looking at your gameplay and all I see is a lot of weaknesses and a lot of holes and a cinderella story that doesn’t even have a fancy dress, can you explain to me what your biggest strength was in this game and how it helped you? If you even had a strength that is.

It was clearly my social game. While my challenge performance picked up, it was social game that got me there. In the first round I was saved by Jumble (4th), in the second round I was saved by Xof (3rd), and in the 3rd round I was saved by Xalxe (2nd). So I was being saved by a variety of people and early on, suggesting I was high on many lists. Even in the 4th round, had I not been first I think I would have been saved by Raya and in the 5th round I had deals in place that were likely to keep me safe in a wide range of scenarios. I am excited to see average list placement post game as I wouldn't be surprised if I was top 3 (Noraa and xof likely have me beat, but I'll take it).

Lastly, (and I'm bolding this because it is the most important question), Malkon and I are hosting a marathon game on May 22nd. Malkon is like the best mod ever and so you should definitely sign up to play in his game. Have you signed up to play? If yes, what would getting cast in such an amazing game mean to you? And if not, why not? If you would like to send me valid documentation excusing your absence my email is jab695@txstate.edu

Not only did I sign up, I've been hyping it up! Everyone should come play! I signed up for the last try and not enough people joined so please sign up now!!

[MURDERCAT]

Just out of curiosity, what did you get on the slide puzzle?

I got around 4:15

Obviously my foresight in conspiring to take you out was rewarded!

[MURDERCAT]

I got around 4:15

Obviously my foresight in conspiring to take you out was rewarded!

I tried again and got 3:01 so yeah even in a not panicked state

[MURDERCAT]

Spoiler: I tried Jumble

1. Nose bleed
   
2. Nectarine
   
3. (All I got was NYC which didn't apply)
   
4. ?
   
5. ?
   
6. ?
   
7. ?
   
8. ?
   
9. Nick Jonas (why is this all I could think of)
   
10. ?
    
11. ?

[MURDERCAT]

>:( Excuse you Mr. Death Kitty sir, you know damn well I never said that. Implying I was conspiring to get Aro out, how rude. Last time we even talked about Aro was me grumbling that he said something about making a list that was alphabetical which if he was being serious instead of just mean meant I was last.>:( >:( >:(

Hmm maybe I misremembered

[MURDERCAT]

>:( Excuse you Mr. Death Kitty sir, you know damn well I never said that. Implying I was conspiring to get Aro out, how rude. Last time we even talked about Aro was me grumbling that he said something about making a list that was alphabetical which if he was being serious instead of just mean meant I was last.>:( >:( >:(

wow, even after all the backstabbing when I was still in the game, you're still not done lying to me murdercat? I'm upset--well like i already was, but now 10 times as much.

i'm literally left choosing between the most dishonest person on the planet and someone that ignores me what is this awful finale

also i just want to point out that this is what i said to xofelf (and I do quote): "do like...reverse alphabetical..." which for those of you not well versed in the english alphabet meant xofelf would've been at the top of my list like they deserve, but they insisted on "strategy" being the deciding factor. I would never engage in any of the mean spirited gameplay our horrible finalists have

Please refer to my "you are all pawns" answer <3

[MURDERCAT]

can i ask you reveal your f4 lists is that allowed

It has already been revealed! You were 1st as we discussed

[MURDERCAT]

Hey come on, remember all that stuff I said about you being a challenge threat I had to take out?

[MURDERCAT]

Noraa doesn't know this character either I'm guessing

[MURDERCAT]

Spoiler: NotAJumbleOfNumbers

This is Jumble keeping me safe in the early game.

Spoiler: Silverclaw

Spoiler: Aronis

Spoiler: Noraa

Spoiler: Raya36

The closest I could get to a reference to Raya's cool job.

Spoiler: xofelf

Spoiler: Racefan12

Representing my fear of racefan throughout the game.

Spoiler: Save the Dragons

Representing our conversations that mostly revolved around how we sucked at a challenge.

Spoiler: Cephrir

[MURDERCAT]

I love that they're all cat gifs <3

It seemed fitting

Okay question for you both: Why should I vote for your opponent here instead of you? And THEN you can tell me why I should vote for you instead of your opponent?

Xalxe I think played a similar to game to me. Strong challenge performances in some rounds, but not dominant throughout the entire game. Good social game with some unlikely allies (e.g. Noraa in round 1) to get saves when needed. Xalxe made some big moves you might respect more, specifically I am thinking about the decision to cut Noraa who I think would have continued to put him high on her list (but unfortunately was unable to convert on the challenges). You might also vote for Xalxe if you consider the early challenge placements more impressive as there were more players left to beat.

As for why you should vote for me instead, I think there are three main reasons. Firstly, I think I have a good story as I thought I was a goat after round 3 and doomed to fail and instead went on a tear through the last 3 challenges to get to F2. Secondly, I took out Ceph, the biggest threat to win the game and put myself here. And finally, I worked with a really wide range of people throughout the game (though it is possible Xalxe did as well) I know I had relationship/deals with almost all the jurors at some point.

[MURDERCAT]

Nice things about everyone <3

Mist7676 - I'm glad you finished your finals, I think if the timing of the game had been different you would have gone a lot further. I was excited to get to talk to you more this game, but alas. One day we will actually get to play together for a significant amount of time.

Cheery Dog - Not getting to talk to you more was one of my biggest disappointments of the game. I hope you consider playing weakest link because you seemed interested for the first signups.

NotAJumbleOfNumbers - By far my biggest disappointment of the game was not getting to save you the round you went out. You had some connections, we just didn't come through for you. I was really excited to work with you to the end. You are fun to talk to, I think if you put yourself out there some more you would have been a big threat.

Silverclaw - It was fun to actually get to play with you this time around! I liked having an excuse to catch up since it's been a bit since Barely Survivor and it was nice to just get to chat instead of memeing (though we did get to do a fair bit of memeing here too, which was also appreciated).

Aronis - You were pretty scary for me because I knew you were going to have a bunch of friends who weren't me and that you would do well on the challenges. I've quite enjoyed your jury questions and now that we know each other I hope I get to be one of those friends in the next game.

Noraa - Noraa you were wonderful as always. I wish I could have given you lineup tips in the challenge you went, even if you ended up in F2 I would have never had the heart to cut you. It's obvious even to this fellow newbie that you are super close to being a huge LSG threat.

Raya36 - Raya I really wasn't expecting to enjoy our conversation as much as I did because I didn't know you well at all when the game started. There were a few times that I mentioned to xof how much I was enjoying our conversation, it felt like it never really died out and we could always pick it right back up again. I am very excited to get to play with you again, I really had a blast getting to know you.

xofelf - Xof, my number 1! I think we decided we were working together within 10 minutes of the game starting. I liked that we could share game info and then be right back into talking about whatever random life event or whatever was going on, I feel like I got to know you so much better this game. I would have never made it to the end without your guidance. I mentioned that I was glad I never had to consider if I had to stab you <3

Racefan12 - I was very scared of you because I knew you had some very strong connections and I decided not to talk too much to people I couldn't put high because I didn't want to have to make deals I couldn't keep. It would have been very scary to be sitting next you in F2. There was definitely a possibility we could have worked together though. I hope we get to hang out at a meetup sometime.

Save the Dragons - My fear of Ceph carried over to you unfortunately, but once I found out from xof there was some flexibility in your list I wanted to work with you right away. It was nice talking about my challenge insecurities with you, I wish we could have talked more.

Cephrir - Of all the new people I met this game I felt like we hit it off right away. That made me really nervous though because I knew you could do that with everyone. And then when you started getting top half in every challenge I knew there was no way I could ever beat you. It was really fun talking to you though and I'm glad I feel like I know you now.

Xalxe - A very worthy competitor! We actually got to work together so I'm glad we both ended up in F2. As you said, whichever way this goes I think the game will have a good winner. Very glad you came back for the game, and glad to hear you are planning on sticking around.

D3f3nd3r - Maybe this should wait until post game, but oh well I'm doing it anyway. Thanks for a great game! I'm sure it was a ton of work to judge all those challenges, let alone design them. I'm glad you brought this format back, I think it's really interesting in a way that survivor voting sometimes is not.

[MURDERCAT]

who do you think I will vote and why?

I don't know! You worked with both of us and it's not totally clear to me what you value in a winner. If I had to guess, I think you value social game more. Whether my social game was the better of the two I think you have good insight into. Either way, it's a good vote so I'm sure you will come up with some reasoning that makes sense.

[MURDERCAT]

Then I think me! Because I think I had better challenge performances, never stabbed you, and took out Ceph and those are the only other things I can think of.

[MURDERCAT]

Thanks everyone! I had a lot of fun playing with you all

[MURDERCAT]

I thought the gif was a good representation

[MURDERCAT]

I enjoyed that a lot!