Scummies Nominations Thread 2020

[mastina]

White Knight
1/2/2021	mastina	MathBlade	Mystyry box of sylvyr I: Isis game	In this game, PlusJOYED was a slot that, while not widely scumread, had a fairly real chance of being an elimination at some point. The game, at the end of D1, was largely stalled, with less than 24 hours until deadline. Enter MathBlade. MathBlade immediately fingered both of the scum, made correct deductions, and even made the correct scumteam callout. Over the course of less than 72 hours, he turned a slot from elimination-bait into the best shot at the N1 nightkill, universally townread by everyone, and driving a commanding presence in the game. Had he not been immediately removed N1 by the scum (and removing him did become their top priority), he'd have singlehandedly led the town to victory on D2. And he did that in what amounts to less than 48 hours of posting. In two days, he managed to singlehandedly change the course of the game.

[Gloria Cleary]

What if you highlight it

Makes no difference.

[Ythan]

What skin ARE you using?

[Alisae]

Gloria I can fix it later

[Gloria Cleary]

What skin ARE you using?

Mafsilver why?

Gloria I can fix it later

Thanks.

[mastina]

White Knight
1/2/2021	mastina	Churros	Doubles Mafia	Prior to Churros's replacement, the game was, largely, a disaster. After Churros replaced in, Churros managed to turn all the players who were convinced the slot was scum into correctly townreading Churros, and helped to, more or less, singlehandedly turn the game around to secure the second scum lynch of the game--which, thanks to that game's mechanics, resulted in an instant town win.

[Ythan]

Mafsilver why?

Idk I assumed it was probably a skin related issue.

[MURDERCAT]

Rising Star
11/22/20	MURDERCAT	Noraa	I have participated in 13 games since returning to the site in September and Noraa has been in 7(!) of those games, so I feel well suited to make this nomination. Noraa is sometimes down on her ability to play town and famously hates being scum, but looking at the games that I played in this year Noraa was in all of my favorites either as herself or in one of her many hydras. In particular, her scum game has come a long way and, in only a few months, has gained a reputation for being very strong. For reference please see: MafiaSunny Death Curse FLvsPooky I didn't participate in MafiaSunny, but I have briefly scrolled through it and Noraa was able to win in the endgame and, from what I've seen in the postgame comments, played a very strong game. Death curse has been commented on multiple times in nominations, but the TLDR is that Noraa was able to avoid being elimmed D1 through pure force of will and made it to the final day. In the latest game, I was a mason spending the entire game trying to convince my partners and the rest of town Noraa (and her hydra partner gloria) was scum, and despite her reputation it wasn't until much later in the game that anyone else really began to scum read her. The effort that Noraa puts in as scum despite her dislike of the alignment is really noteworthy and the skill she has shown after just 4 months onsite is really impressive. Also, I'm not sure if this is considered, but Noraa's impact on the site generally should at least be noted as well. I don't think that I even need to explain this really, you can look at the fact she has a title and a 25 page GTKAS thread after 4 months as evidence that she has become a visible, well-regarded user very quickly.

[Flavor Leaf]

Game of the Year
1/3/2021	Flavor Leaf	Nachomamma8 (and Tammy)	Ilicit Substances	This game has a great narrative. It started off pretty rough, there was a FL-Cabd/Ffery duel, and there was a Remover role that wasn't fun, but the overall game I think is insanely memorable and created a fantastic game. Besides the Day 1 misfade, this game was essentially a perfect game, and not because the scum team rolled over by any means. Every single day was maximized, and strong play from the town was able to catch scum. Something Smart fake softing an investigation leading to their death Night 1 as Vanilla helped secure the Day 2 fade on scum, after a long day of back and forth. This happened again on Day 3, where after a long day of going back and forth, the town kind of just got it together. From then on, townies were able to create a strong town block, and Zmuffin lead a plan to secure a victory for town, essentially no matter what, and still Bork was able to get a situation where in final 4 they still had somewhat of a chance, no matter how small. Secret Tunnel hydra (Notscience/IV) was able to go from the main scum candidate to becoming undeniably obv town by play alone. Cabd/Ffery hydra was stellar at leading town. Bell was a great town support, 420 Blaze It got a clutch protect, I loved my pseudo masonry with The Bulge, and to top it all off, immediately after this game ended, Xenoblade II started, and Notscience, Ffery, Cabd, Myself, Bell, and Midwaybear were all able to almost immediately read each other correctly and mindmeld to an amount I have never seen before, and I believe that all was able to happen because of this game. Nacho/Tammy were great mods, and even though the Remover role wasn't fun to be removed, I actually don't mind it as a function for the setup they were creating. Very little power, but weird af power, and that was fun. Every single slot had a high amount of agency, and I gained a high amount of respect for every player in this game.

[chkflip]

I don't see anything that says I can't, though I know why I shouldn't, talk about my nomination for Game of the Year: Mainstream Mafia II (I don't think I ever thanked you, Bingle). I know this sounds super indulgent only a sentence in, but trust; from a moderator's standpoint, this game is top-to-bottom fucking STACKED and I loved every minute of the four months.

Spoiler: vote4me

From the top: the review team. Can I please just take a moment and gush about how cool and fun it was to work on a setup with former Scummy award winners RichardGHP and Nachomamma8 as well as guy-nobody-remembers JacobSavage (who all played in the first Mainstream Mafia, so legacy). Special shout outs to those who also helped but didn't put final stamps: Mr Flay and Empking. I had a saint of a Backup mod, I wrote updates in the sign-up thread as we got closer and closer to the big 40, the pre-game was just a lot of fun.

AND we're off. Let's be perfectly clear, now. 40 player games aren't signed up for because they're super balanced, or straight forward, or oft times even decipherable. Add a handful of players that hyperpost with an energy equivalent to the NUMA NUMA YAY kid dancing on a stacked as list of people. It was magical.

Happenings / Why it's GOAT'ed, chkflip?
- Pre-D1 1-shot Governor vote.
- Pre-D1 silencing of Mafia Don Korina (which... happened to coincide with their ban.)
- Speaking of fucking bans: a staggering total of six banned users have their name applied to my Goddamn game. That's a real thing I verified (myself, cyrus62, TrueSoulEnergy, Korina *coincidence is fun*, Miss Lynch [a lifer!], and of course davesaz) so... like... drama.
- I got in trouble and spent the rest of the year punishing myself by back-up and co-modding for a bunch of folks after this game ended. Yay altruism and showing we learn and grow as a functioning adult.
- This game featured four skittle colors with Pine, Untrod Tripod, xofelf [WHO PROLLY DIDN'T PLAY IN YOUR MAFIA GAME LOL] and ahem I'm not sure if you've heard of him but MOTHERFUCKING ZORASTER PLAYED IN MY GAME. As I was.
- Two returning players to mafia in BBmolla and Amrun with a fun mix of old and new players on the list not only including the aforementioned.
- Even with a 6-player mafia team (of which zoraster was the secret town traitor 7th wheel), a Serial Killer that had a back-up, and a CULT, the very militant and verbally superior town. Still. Won. Lemme run that by you again. The game started as 7 mafia : 1 SK w 1 Backup : 1 Cult Leader is TEN SCUM. IN A FORTY PLAYER ALL PR GAME.
- Oh yeah it's all PR. Yep. Every role. All of them.
- 7:2:1:29:1 btw. The Deputy (as depicted by Flavor Leaf) was a survivor. So, not only could they obtain any one of the four cop or cop-like roles, but all they had to do if they ever got access to such information (they didn't, lived to N5? and died a Deputy. RIP Gomer Pile) was survive.

I really do have a lot of respect for that list of players, the people that helped me make it, and the coolios that nominated such a "glorious mess" as Trimod put it not only for GOTY but me for Paperback and the really fun mason group got a nod as well.

I won't spoiler a why I should get Paperback, if it happens I'll let the Role PMs, pre-game flavor, night/day write-up flavors, PM flavors, VC memes, and of course the 52 flavors of Baskin Robbins speak for themselves. Okay that bit was actually self-indulgent and I'm not sorry.

Y'all the reaslest. I love you.

[Noraa]

7(!)

has it really been that many :O

[Pink Ball]

Rising Star
02/01/2020	Hectic	clidd	The first time I played with clidd, I was quite intrigued by what I saw. Doggos Among Us was the game, and his entrance was formal and extremely analytical - very unusual for a new player. A cute style for sure, but nothing CRAZY. He continued like this for a while and everything was normal, until... he dropped THIS bombshell of a post. He just casually posts a megawall and calls out all 3 scum on page 7 . That was the moment I realised clidd was no ordinary player. We went on to flawlessly win that aforementioned game, largely due to clidd's reads and him consistently pushing them for the remainder of the game. The first I saw him as scum was in a game that I was modding; Ultimate Conspiracy. They were short games and we played a couple of rounds - clidd rolled scum for both rounds, and oh did he perform in both. It turns out clidd isn't the type of player to sit back and coast as scum, he POWERWOLFs and attempts to control the town, and that's what he did in back to back games to win both times. The Sherlock v. Moriarty GIF-off he had with Datisi is adorable btw. clidd has incredible passion for the game, and is capable of breaking any game wide open with hard analysis and theory. Also, fun fact: You couldn't tell, but English is his second/third language, and he writes up all of his posts in Spanish first and then translates them to English; the dedication and effort he exhibits to SOLVE is simply off the charts. Examples of the insane walls he posts can be seen here: One / Two / Three / Four His first post on the site Fantastic solving prowess, impressive scumplay, and being a haemorrhagic pleasure to play with makes clidd a great Rising Star!

If clidd doesn't win the scummies are rigged

Thanks Hectic!

[Alisae]

If Clid wins the scummies were rigged by PB
you heard it here first

[Pink Ball]

I'd love to rig the scummies

[Noraa]

@Alisae.

I changed my nom to Moment of brilliance :O

[Noraa]

I'll go change the color and stuff to make it more obvious. One sec.

[Alisae]

make sure duckie knows

[Noraa]

will do.

[Aristophanes]

Historically, games that finished in the current year have been disqualified from last year's scummies - quality first nom for the 2021 thread though!

I can haz thread?

[the worst]

All in good time, Mr. Stophanes.

[Kanna]

Hannibal Lecter
4/01/21	Kanna	Auro	BooneyToonz UPick: Boon There, Done That [END]	When I think about Best Third Party Performance, the only one that comes to mind is Auro in BooneyToonz UPick. In this slightly bastard game, Auro rolled "The New Sorcerer’s ABoontice," a third party scum who had infiltrated the group scum's PT. To win, he had to dismantle the scumteam, find his allies and convince them to work with him, and burn the town to the ground. Auro did just that. By the end, his positioning was so good, he was regarded as conftown due to a fake innocent from a confirmed mason, which allowed him push the last elimination. It was not a feat anyone could pull off, and even up to the end, I didn't know what Auro actually was.

[Flavor Leaf]

lol 'slightly' bastard. Just full send the bastard. Most bastard game I've ever done. I like the nom for Auro, though, he did play his heart out in that game.

[Hectic]

GoodFellas
12/23/2020	Isis	Farkran and Chara	Undertale S Open	This was the third iteration of the Undertale themed series of opens. Like every other iteration, I deem it a bit too townsided, a flaw I can forgive myself for as it arises from the difficulties inherent in delivering on the conceit of the setup. The balance of the setup did not particularly matter this time around. Farkran and Chara played in a bizarrely effective manner, with Chara accommodatingly agreeing that the game's consensus townread should receive the game's healing mechanic, and Farkran petulantly opposing that UTR, and opposing Chara, and arguing for pages and pages. Farkran was not eliminated for several phases, for refuge in audacity, but when he flipped and his redflip was shown to the town, the game was over, the idea that Chara and Farkran were aligned with eachother seemed just about unthinkable. The game was heavily flavored, and by some miracle of luck they both had characters that were siblings in the game. I remember having to write sibling scenes into the flavor over and over again because of how the slots kept bussing so much. I know 3+ member scumteams tend to dominate this category, but it was one of the most memorable games I've ever been involved in and seems incredibly deserving of the award to me. It looked natural, but didn't come that naturally to them which makes it all the more impressive. I only didn't nominate it earlier because I could have sworn the game was in 2019. 2020 has been a long year, as we all know.

I'm just gonna add to this because I 100% agree.

Goodfellas
04/01/21	Hectic	Farkran and Chara	Undertale S Open	When I think of formidable scum performances, nothing matches that better than how Farkran and Chara played in Undertale S Open. Farkran played in an incredibly scumsided manner, pushing an agenda that greatly benefited scum - yet he survived for DAYS with some hard townreading him, simply due to the sheer audacity and DETERMINATION he exhibited during it. Chara meanwhile, played an astonishingly clean game, being universally townread for it's analysis and very logical stances throughout. They hard bussed for days while being townread for it and the theatre was exquisite. It's the most memorable scum performance I've seen during my time on this site, and feels very deserving of this award.

[MURDERCAT]

Game of the Year
1/4/21	MURDERCAT	Hectic & Nero Cain	Death Curse	Death curse has been mentioned in a lot of other nominations, but I thought it deserved another writeup for GOTY. To set the stage, this game had 20 players and at least 14 spectators, so there was a lot of attention on it. I think it's fair to say the game didn't disappoint. The mechanic was simple, but unique. The flavor provided by Hectic was entertaining. But above those things, the gameplay was engaging throughout with some very exciting moments. The game began with scum Noraa being called out very early, which led 8 townies immediately wagoning her all the way to E-3. As scum considered bussing, Noraa fought to AtE her way to back into the game. Amazingly, scum managed to avoid disaster and flipped 3 town on D1. Somehow they had gained the upper hand and town needed a scum flip. Luckily for them, MUSHSHAGANA took over the game and suddenly town was able to flip 3 scum relatively quickly. Town then seemed to have the upper-hand as they quickly sorted through what was left of the elimination pool. But inexplicably, Noraa had become a deepwolf and was poised make it all the way to the end. Town continued to eliminate themselves, each time more exasperated that the game wasn't ending. On the final day, in a grand crescendo, town found themselves with a 1/3 final shot to win the game. After much deliberation, finally town realized that Noraa was the final scum. With her back against the wall and time running out, Noraa executed the dayvig heard round the world. To me, this is pretty much the perfect game of mafia. This game isn't just the story of Noraa the deepwolf, it was a 400 page epic with strong gameplay from both sides. It was a back-and-forth affair and it wasn't clear who would come out on top until it was all said and done. The ending was satisfying and, in many ways, poetic. For all those reasons and more, it is certainly *my* game of the year.

[Noraa]

^Death curse truly was an incredible experience. If I have time tomorrow, I will consider doing a GOTY nom for it too.