TM 2021 - Black Flag Nightless

[chennisden]

tl;dr I have a yellow role pm and id have to be actively bad at the game to be scum here

[chennisden]

CHENNIS NOT TOWN THOUGH: ROLE PM CLAIMS HE IS "YAWFIA"

[chennisden]

I have lost a fair share of scum games actually. People opinions of my scum game are mostly based on Baton Pass / JK9 ++, which probably may be skewed samples and maybe the paranoia around me will decrease eventually the more games I play?

Dunno.

maybe. although i remember your scumgame being quite good based on a decently large sample size, though with any sufficiently large superset one could easily cherrypick

[Shirou]

fun fact - i don't think i've lost a serious (non-hydra, non-bastard) scumgame minus the FIRST GAME I EVER PLAYED ONSITE. shirou can probably claim something similar. do you think we just.... allow this to happen for zero gain???

wait, didn't we lose that game I was talking about early with RC?

We were mechanically guilted which is fair if you don't want to count I guess, but we still lost.

[Shirou]

God, that game was a trainwreck in the last day. Mostly my fault I admit.

RC blacklisted me in that game and I only got around it by asking him in private if he could take it back since I wanted to play Baton Pass and I thought I had learned my lesson.

Now that I remember this, all of it sounds a bit ironic.

[Shirou]

I didn't say that it was BP specifically I think because of site-rules, I said in hypothetical, just in case mods are reading.

[chennisden]

fun fact - i don't think i've lost a serious (non-hydra, non-bastard) scumgame minus the FIRST GAME I EVER PLAYED ONSITE. shirou can probably claim something similar. do you think we just.... allow this to happen for zero gain???

wait, didn't we lose that game I was talking about early with RC?

We were mechanically guilted which is fair if you don't want to count I guess, but we still lost.

wait i do not think i was ever scumpartners with you

[chennisden]

this makes me sad, i want to be scum with you now

[joqiza]

I'm going to be backreading the thread on and off throughout the evening.

General sense of my reads pre-backread:

Mena/Lilith/Chen
Koba-slot/Firebringer-slot
Auro/Flopz
Autumn

I don't really have it fully formed and these might be subject to change. Chen moved up a lot after the Johnny flip because of the way he hard OMGUSed Johnny. (I went through that progression somewhere in 3193.)

As of rn I'm open to eliminating Auro, but going to read through everything and talk with him again before placing my vote.

[chennisden]

actually i have no idea why i've been townreading flopz and autumn this entire game, and i think i was just being stupid the whole game

[chennisden]

i will look VERY STUPID if i spent all of d1 resisting autumn elim in favor of johnny elim

to be fair, it had a non-negative effect on the game, but still funny to think of nonetheless..

[Autumn Leaves]

Chenn do you think

I

played a good game if I'm scum here?

[Shirou]

fun fact - i don't think i've lost a serious (non-hydra, non-bastard) scumgame minus the FIRST GAME I EVER PLAYED ONSITE. shirou can probably claim something similar. do you think we just.... allow this to happen for zero gain???

wait, didn't we lose that game I was talking about early with RC?

We were mechanically guilted which is fair if you don't want to count I guess, but we still lost.

wait i do not think i was ever scumpartners with you

You were actually. Check it out, I think we were partners for sure.

By the way, very disgusting/evil of me but I was laughing remembering how I had fakeclaimed vigilante in the last day and would basically say

"ok guys I'm ignoring consensus and vigging RC" (RC was close to confirmed town in the game, if not confirmed town)

make RC go absolute apeshit over me and how they should eliminate me, drama happens, I fake calming down, everyone back to normal until

"ok fuck it sorry guys but I really want to vig RC"

RC go absolute apeshit again²

I had to do it because our other partner Inferno was being wagoned, but they were already associating me/Inferno, and we were 90% already mechanically guilted, and Inferno being limmed that day made it 100%, so I had to dismantle Inferno wagon by creating drama with RC, and hope that they don't return to Inferno wagon, but unhappily, the returned to Inferno wagon and I just scum claimed after the hammer since it was a mechanical guilty.

After the scum claim, there was still one or two players that thought they should "take their time" discussing the events of the previous day, but soon they all voted me and yeah, that was it.

You were bussed by me in the early days for me to get town credit. I tried to save your slot initially, but after I sensed that people would lim down you sooner or later I bussed you to try to make Inferno/me alive in endgame.

[chennisden]

fun fact - i don't think i've lost a serious (non-hydra, non-bastard) scumgame minus the FIRST GAME I EVER PLAYED ONSITE. shirou can probably claim something similar. do you think we just.... allow this to happen for zero gain???

wait, didn't we lose that game I was talking about early with RC?

We were mechanically guilted which is fair if you don't want to count I guess, but we still lost.

wait i do not think i was ever scumpartners with you

You were actually. Check it out, I think we were partners for sure.

By the way, very disgusting/evil of me but I was laughing remembering how I had fakeclaimed vigilante in the last day and would basically say

"ok guys I'm ignoring consensus and vigging RC" (RC was close to confirmed town in the game, if not confirmed town)

make RC go absolute apeshit over me and how they should eliminate me, drama happens, I fake calming down, everyone back to normal until

"ok fuck it sorry guys but I really want to vig RC"

RC go absolute apeshit again²

I had to do it because our other partner Inferno was being wagoned, but they were already associating me/Inferno, and we were 90% already mechanically guilted, and Inferno being limmed that day made it 100%, so I had to dismantle Inferno wagon by creating drama with RC, and hope that they don't return to Inferno wagon, but unhappily, the returned to Inferno wagon and I just scum claimed after the hammer since it was a mechanical guilty.

After the scum claim, there was still one or two players that thought they should "take their time" discussing the events of the previous day, but soon they all voted me and yeah, that was it.

You were bussed by me in the early days for me to get town credit. I tried to save your slot initially, but after I sensed that people would lim down you sooner or later I bussed you to try to make Inferno/me alive in endgame.

wait i remember that game now holy shit

[chennisden]

yoooo i was really bad at scum then

[chennisden]

actually still am probably bad but THAT was another level of bad

[Autumn Leaves]

Chenn if you're frustrated about people scumreading you despite you having played badly if scum, imagine my frustration when it's been years since I've gotten a good chance to actually prove I'm competent as scum. If I'm scum here, you have to admit I played terrible.

[chennisden]

Chenn if you're frustrated about people scumreading you despite you having played badly if scum, imagine my frustration when it's been years since I've gotten a good chance to actually prove I'm competent as scum. If I'm scum here, you have to admit I played terrible.

yeah this is like, the reason i didnt think you were scum for a very long time

[chennisden]

i dont mean any offense by this if you ARE scum, but the way you've played seems so planless that i think it's just more likely you are town

[Autumn Leaves]

Mena is scum

When mena replaces in, his opening posts strongly ping me, and I start pushing him. Supposedly, mena wanted us to work together as town after having good synergy in PyP (2024). But his reaction to my push isn't immediately "I was hoping to work with you this game, but you're engaging me in bad faith and that's frustrating", but instead "that's unusual and unhelpful" (1650), and a few posts later he tries to argue that it's scummy (1679). Odd for someone who says this:

my general approach to town is just to turn off the filter as much as possible

He also tries to argue that I'm pushing his slot because he's an easy mislim (1702), which I don't think he would ever believe. In PyP, I saw town!him explode with towniness multiple times after being pushed, avoiding a n1 soft guilty until d4. Also, mena actually breaks off the engagement (itself out-of-character for a frustrated town!mena) and calls me scum engaging in bad faith before it's even clear I'm unwilling to re-evaluate. It's true, I wasn't really planning on re-evaluating, but he didn't engage me for nearly long enough to determine that for sure. He also wasn't very interested in asking me for all my reasons for scumreading him, despite a large part of his case (1996) based on me not having enough evidence to support my read. Normally if a townie thinks player x has insufficient evidence for a scumread on them, they'll push player x to out their reasoning so they can attack it. It looks like mena knows that me outing my reasons won't actually be good for him.

Mena also spends a lot of time buddying super, and not in a towny way. He presumably thinks most of super's case on me isn't valid (he doesn't really push super's points except for "mena is an easy target"). However, he doesn't actually engage with the points, or even say "I don't think super's case is correct but infinity is still scum".

Once again:

my general approach to town is just to turn off the filter as much as possible

Instead, when questioned on his thoughts on super's case, he says:

Yeh but more than that I just really dislike the way that he’s handled my entrance compared to chenn/fb and it’s very at odds with what I’d expect from town!him

Plus you’re like my top TR and you seem competent so if you also think he’s scum this seems like a good jumping off point

Pushing alongside reasoning someone doesn't think is valid causes a conflict in a townie's head, which they would generally voice. It feels more like he wants to maintain a good relationship with super and not undermine super's push, despite being unable to justify agreeing with her points.

Then, I talk a bit more about why I SR mena (1951: his play, specifically his response to being pushed, isn't as explosive/towny as when he's town). Mena then starts acting a bit more like what I'd expect from town!him (like using what he knows of me to form his read in 1996), though I'm not sure why he didn't say that earlier. I say that I'm having doubts on the read, but still think mena is scum, and lilith seems somewhat convinced by my other reasons to SR mena (2268, 2270). Mena is starting to feel the heat a bit, and he realizes he has to do something really outside the box to get TRed. Maybe he thinks he'd have a similar outburst as town, maybe he's just frustrated about the very high standards he needs to reach to get TRed. Obviously his outburst was unethical regardless of his alignment. In any case, mena had an outburst and it was actually a quite scum-indicative one. When confronted about their behavior (especially by multiple people, as in 2440, 2485, and 2467), reasonable townies will usually take a step back and reconsider their actions. Scum, however, don't want to reconsider because the toxicity is serving their agenda. Here's town!koba taking a step back after being overly tunnely/toxic:

hi im home from work and am willing to toss aside my previous reads into the trash.

i admit in my eagerness to find scum and use my methods I went and pushed myself too hard to the point of being stressed.

the only read im retaining atm is the clidd scumread. the very fact they sat there and let me tunnel onto gimli like that just doesnt sit right with me.

idk

im fucking lost.

i hate d1s.

theres a lot of emotion fueled things i want to say about the takes expressed in my abscence but i will decline to in favor of letting game breathe from my presence and letting other discussion permeate it. I think I helped create good enough content to start legitimate scumhuntning and alignment telling reads/actions from occuring.

Mena simply says:

I’m taking a day or two away from the thread to get some breathing room and to let everything calm down. See you guys in 24-48 hrs

Even if mena got overly frustrated in the moment, eventually he would realize he was out of line, so it's very odd to not get an apology. He probably just forgot to fake that part.

Unrelated, this feels like an excuse to not vote johnny when he can't make up a reason to TR him:

I do think Johnny could be scum, but I still think the reasons for infinity being scum are valid

And if Johnny flips town I feel like a lot is left unresolved going into tomorrow, whereas if infinity flips town then my model of the game is very wrong and I can start re-evaluating things

I think there’s some definite partner equity between infinity and johnny but I have a strong preference for still doing infinity first

Because I think the game is basically won if we flip!infinity scum on D1

It’s probably still winning if Johnny is scum and we do him today but maybe slightly harder

But I also think from a risk management pov it’s more damaging to the gamestate if we get a Johnny townflip today than if we get an infinity townflip

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Once I start TRing mena, here's his progression:

And if infinity is town, he still ought to die for it as a learning experience to not treat people in bad faith when town. The only connection to me/my ego here is that it’s generally much easier to identify when someone is acting in bad faith in the first place when they’re dealing with you

I will admit that part of why I want infinity dead at this point is that I am very sold on this read and think I won’t be able to move on in the game without receiving confirmation one way or the other

I think it’s much more likely that he flips scum, but if he is town then my continued belief that he’s scum will continue to colour my perception of the game in an inaccurate way and make it much harder for me to actually get to correct SRs

And infinity said exactly one thing (that I don’t wanna disclose rn) that made me worry if he could be town

All of these posts indicate that there is a real possibility of me being town in mena's mind, but in every case he forgets to fake a key part. In the first quote, town!mena is likely to say something like "if infinity is town I'll be so pissed/disappointed", because I'm someone he had a positive opinion of and could be town playing "terribly". As for the last two, despite supposedly reconsidering his read on me, and having expressed a desire to want to work together as town, mena doesn't engage me again (with one exception). Maybe once I started engaging him in "bad faith", he gave up on doing that, but if that was his thought process you'd think he would've just...said that. (Again, the "turn off the filter" comment). Instead, he needs to keep me as a mislim opportunity while avoiding reigniting my SR on him. The one place mena engages me again:

I like shirou for scum a lot

I do not, why do you?

Idk, he was arguing theory with me, and it seemed like he believed it strongly, and then he equivocated and started buddying me a bit. Felt like a scum way of dodging a 1v1

I don’t think scum!shiro is worried about 1v1ing literally any player on site

Doesn't mean he'd necessarily want to get into a 1v1/think it's beneficial

If memory serves me right he actually tends to believe that 1v1s will be perceived as TvT if there’s sufficient force from each side/that he’s good enough to still be perceived as town for the way he pushed someone to guillo even if they flip town

This is one of the reasons I think shirou might still be scum with mena. Mena isn't really interested in working with me to find the scum, but he's very interested in making sure I don't SR shirou (despite me probably being scum). Even if shirou isn't the partner, it's a very odd pattern of behavior from town.

Ok that's d1, there's more scummy stuff on d2 but that should be enough for now. I'm not gonna get into a giant 1v1 with mena about this, but if someone disagrees with a point/wants me to explain something better I will.

VOTE: mena

[Shirou]

is it bad I don't want to read your post Autumn...

Sigh

Look, you're right, it's me/menalque, and if you vote with me in Auro now, I literally

I kid you not,

literally

get automatically limmed in D3

while if you vote mena now, you'll not get his wagon at all, and in fact may get limmed instead because if I don't get my Auro wagon, I'm probably switching to you.

[Autumn Leaves]

Ok but I'm worried that you're town and mena is scum atm

[Shirou]

I can never understand why you think it's scum / mena but isn't simply voting Auro here to force me in D3.

In fact, I've no idea how you can think it's Shirou/Mena when Mena is angling everytime a lim on me in the next days.

Sometimes I start to think you're really just scum and mena is right Autumn.

I can't make head or tails of your reads.

[Shirou]

Ok but I'm worried that you're town and mena is scum atm

what are the possible mena partners in this case

it's not mathblade, let's not go wifom route.

who is it?

Chennis?

Lilith?

Joqi?

or literally again inside Auro / Flopz which means you should vote with me.

If I'm not scum with him, it's literally inside Auro/Flopz again unless you disagree with Lilith/Joqi/Chennis.

If you disagree with town!Chennis at least for the next 2 days, you think scum!Chennis bussed his partner instead of taking your head easily in D1.

I don't know what to say. I truly don't. Maybe you're scum idk.

This game feels insane.

[Shirou]

It's either Shirou/Mena or Auro/Mena or Flopz/Mena

You can counter all of those voting with me Autumn. Literally.

The unique one you can't counter is Chennis/Mena, while Chennis is one of the responsible slots for your wagon not getting through D1, and either way you can think about Chennis/Mena later no? Especially given Mena is throwing shade on Chennis.