In post 1897, Tierce wrote:Vi never said their purpose was 'malicious'. A replacement that is doing anything less than playing to win is a poor replacement.
The point is that replacements can strongly alter the gamestate. Town doesn't usually play for the long game, but scum have to. Therefore, replacing a weak scum player with a stronger one will help scum (less odds of being lynched and better odds of being a capable planner), but replacing lynchbait Town with a strong Town player can be utterly devastating for scum long term plans.
I don't know if "malicious" was the right word. What I meant to say was that I doubt they replaced in so they could "play the hero" which carries a negative connotation and perhaps they replaced in merely because they were interested and wanted to help.
The alteration of gamestate is an interesting point of discussion. From my experience, I don't really care if lynchbait is replaced when I am scum. I just try to lynch the new player. Open 448 was a good example. However, I know for a fact that if some specific players I was buddying to in that game got replaced, it probably would have effected the outcome, i.e. I care more about endgame-bait being replaced than lynchbait because those are the players you are ultimately planning your master deception on. I agree that scum have to rethink their entire strategy upon strong players coming into the game and that can be challenging.
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