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[Thestatusquo]

Also, you directly rushed Ausuka to hammer when she volunteered to color VCs for me. So forgive me if I feel your comments now are disingenuous.

lmao.

[Thestatusquo]

Have you read any of the thread? Is every single opinion you have on the game based on vcs and vibes?

[DeasVail]

Okay

So

Shea's play is obviously very loud, which is no big deal. And Shea throughout the game has expressed a lot of suspicion on flipped scum, in a way that in hindsight (and on iso) looks unnecessary and anti-scum. BUT, I don't actually think these are real reads, because reading through the game and paying attention to what Shea's reads

should

be and how they respond to events in the moment, there's a mismatch. Yes, Shea will loudly proclaim post scumflip that they suspected scum when other people weren't, which is true. But where was Shea when it mattered?

--

Progression on Obscure

It starts off pretty reasonable. We have 3687 which is expressing interest when specifically asked by Dann, to a vote in 3701. And then we get Shea really thinking that Obscure is scum (4006, 4021.
Shea responds to the HEM wagon that then forms with 4023 (essentially saying that both HEM and Obscure are good votes) and after an unofficial vote count from Dann in 4076 which shows HEM at 6 votes (likely all from town), Shea joins the HEM wagon.

After that Obscure really drops off the radar for Shea, despite the previously expressed confidence in the Obscure read (and as described by Shea, HEM, who they should think is town at this point, having popped up as a counterwagon to the Obscure wagon that Shea was pushing), and it's not entirely clear why Obscure becomes less of a townread for Shea. Indeed, there is 4731 and 4768, which are along a similar line of thought to when Shea was convinced that Obscure was scum, but the reason why page 191 onward is significant is that shortly after 4768 from Shea, there begins to actually be a bit of momentum on Obscure. GL votes Obscure on page 192 and there's talk of whether to wagon Obscure or get HEM to vig Obscure, but there's a clear change from Shea now that HEM is on borrowed time.

It almost seems like Shea will go for anything BUT scum.

4827, 4831, 4923, 4926

For someone who was all about Obscure being scum before, without much evidence of new thought to justify thinking Obscure town, this is lots of other people that Shea is wanting to wagon that are.... not Obscure.

Yes, it's messy, but this point in time would have looked DISASTROUS for scum. HEM has committed to a claim he can't back up. Obscure and Gamma both absent and looking in danger of being the elimination during the time that HEM's claim was supposed to buy. Scum gonna be freaking out there I think.

Shea's scumread on Obscure becomes a further distant memory in posts such as 5203, and 5220 (although putting the onus of fire-suspicion on Ausuka is a bit yuck)

--

Progression on Gamma/Tweet

Again, it starts off feeling as if there's real suspicion on the gamma slot. From a vote in 2726, Shea sinks their teeth into it in 2790. More expression of strength of scumread in 2953 and 2962. Cool, so Shea wants us to know that they suspect Gamma, nothing wrong with that. Seriously, there's a lot of posts about how Gamma is scum. Shea wasn't kidding! But this is when people aren't suspecting Gamma.

3853 is interesting in how it dismisses Gamma as "not happening" despite both me and Nero having fairly frequently also expressed scumreads on Gamma.
4080 really building up how much other people are townreading Gamma and how bad this is.

BUT

what even is 4279? Someone (Nero) actually votes Gamma and instead of a reaction of "finally", it's "nero ends up tunnelling random townies a lot" ??? That's not the reaction of someone who truly scumreads Gamma, right?

We've also already seen from my obscure section that Shea was not that interested in Gamma as an alternative to HEM when it came down to it, and when MT replaces in and people start suspecting the slot, Shea is weirdly... not a part of it. The reaction in 5328 just doesn't ring true when there were actually people suspecting Gamma.


Also bonus point but is 4837 tmi?


--

Overall, I think there's a clear increased reluctance from Shea to bus their buddies once they realise that their team is dying all around them. It was all fun and games before HEM was stuck with a claim they were going to get caught out on and Gamma/Obscure were potential alternatives.

I think the shift from being willing to vote Gamma/Obscure to being highly reluctant to vote either of them is actually quite clear once you realise it's there.

[Ausuka]

I see where you're coming from broadly but I don't really understand why scum shea would refuse to bus after it becomes obvious his partners are going to die?

[Ausuka]

Like I definitely agree the progression is weird but I guess I don't see the motivation

[DeasVail]

Like I definitely agree the progression is weird but I guess I don't see the motivation

That's the tricky part for me too. I wouldn't characterise it as a refusal to bus necessarily, because Shea does at least sort of vote MT, but the main thing for me is that the lack of interest in obscure/gamma when they are actually viable wagons makes me believe that the earlier STRONG SUSPICION wasn't actually real.

As for motivation, I don't know. Is it feeling self-conscious about how to join a wagon on a buddy when it's not Shea shouting into the wind? Is it Shea realising that they're the only scum member with real staying power and deciding that they probably shouldn't be an extra number against their remaining team members? I'm really not sure.

[DeasVail]

Honestly there could have even been some big argument in the scum PT about the bussing thing. I feel like there are possibilities there.

[DeasVail]

Thinking more about it, there could also be hope that the replacements would breathe life into the slots. Like, Eiralox was looking in a pretty bad spot but Dann turned that slot around. Theoretically MT and especially Mena could have made a real difference. They just... didn't.

[DeasVail]

like imo both MT and Mena were more scummy than their predecessors

[Ausuka]

Honestly there could have even been some big argument in the scum PT about the bussing thing. I feel like there are possibilities there.

I didn't think of this but I could like definitely see something like this actually

Probably not a big argument but I think the idea of, like, scum asking other scum not to bus would make sense

[Ausuka]

Thinking more about it, there could also be hope that the replacements would breathe life into the slots. Like, Eiralox was looking in a pretty bad spot but Dann turned that slot around. Theoretically MT and especially Mena could have made a real difference. They just... didn't.

This could also be true although I'm less inclined to believe, from the impression I get from shea, that he would want to bank his hopes on an unknown like that? Well, I think most people wouldn't want to do that anyway

[Ausuka]

Shea what are your reads rn I am kind of unclear on that

[GuiltyLion]

sorry I wound up watching the World Series and then sleeping on my flight instead of playing zz

ok I know no one wants to talk about it but I'm gonna talk about it

Why didn't nero either cc kitty scratch or like shoot her

I think the enchant shot there is massively odd

I know he's not here to talk about it and that's frustrating and replacements suck as a mechanic but like. Does anyone have an explanation that makes sense

My read on it is that if he's town, Nero wanted to play hero ball. He could aim to stay undetected by scum as long as possible, knowing that either he would die and expose CSF via flip, or CC/shoot her whenever it gets to be the critical juncture in the game. Which N2-N4 was not, necessarily.

I think that's where this post comes from:

do you guys think its only 4 scum, right?

I considered whether this was a SK being a bit cheeky in thread but I think the more likely scenario is Nero wanted to make sure he wasn't fucking up by possibly letting scum get majority earlier than he intended.

It's not how I'd play the role, a dead mafia is always valuable and I'd take the gimme scum shot on N2 every time, but maybe Nero thought he could shoot a different scum and/or hunt CSF for associatives and be even more valuable that way, a 'solo carry' performance if you will. He strikes me as someone who would be confident enough to play that way

[Titus]

VOTE: Deasvail

As much as shea is annoying me, I went through the D2 VCA and can't see myself voting anywhere but here.

[GuiltyLion]

I also think this is an attempt at dumb-telling to throw scum off the trail

How did everyone know csf was an even night vig?

if Nero is really a third party SK, he'd be inclined to take CSF's claim at face value and not post this, right? especially because he'd be locked into never CC'ing her at any point, regardless of whether she's town or scum?

[Titus]

My thoughts is that each and every scum was wagoned on D2 and they couldn't figure out who to sacrifice so they elected to have town decide and hopefully eat each other up.

[GuiltyLion]

I have a thought on DV's 9102 but I feel it'd be correct to let Shea respond first

[DeasVail]

Titus, I think that out-of-context VCA is more likely to be flawed in this game because of the less frequent vote counts and also gamma (and particularly obscure) often being absent and not here to respond to wagon developments etc.

In regards to Shea, I don’t think they are CLEARLY scum based on their play and I don’t think relly is clearly scum either, and I wouldn’t be able to fully understand why Shea did everything they did as scum here, but I’m reasonably confident of them being scum here. In large part because I don’t think it’s Ausuka, GL or Titus. But also that with the reads they claimed to have, I don’t think they behaved as I would expect town to at certain points in the game.

Going into this day, I expected that I would more likely than not be eliminated, and that is not a terrible outcome, but to be completely honest I don’t trust town to lim Shea the next day. (This being partly because I don’t understand Titus’ approach to this game and have no idea what she’ll do, and partly because I think Shea has been very good at responding to suspicion on them this game)

[DeasVail]

Also GL I’m not really sure what response you’re expecting from Shea, but I would be eager to discuss at whatever point you feel motivated to

[Titus]

Fwiw, I held off shooting because I went back and forth. Even if I'm wrong, it will be informative.

[GuiltyLion]

Also GL I’m not really sure what response you’re expecting from Shea, but I would be eager to discuss at whatever point you feel motivated to

I'll definitely bring it up, it's just one of those things that if I bring it up first it will poison the well in terms of whether it's relevant in getting a read on Shea

[Thestatusquo]

1) So the case against me basically boils down to the fact that I have uncertainty on gamma and obscure, which is uhhh, maybe because I was uncertain? Because I don't know their alignment. If anything these are points for me being town rather than scum. As scum I would almost certainly have a much cleaner progression on my buddies than this, and the fact that I don't is just not an argument for scum motivation. If the claim is that I was bussing my buddies then why would I have not just bussed my buddies and got the town credit for it? There's no reason for me as scum to play the game like this.

2) Saying that I'm willing to go for anyone but scum is a bit rich here considering your claim is that I transitioned off my one buddy (obscure) to vote for my other buddy (HEM) in your world view. So your claiming that I was not willing to bus my buddy so I joined a counter wagon on a different buddy? I would almost certainly not deliberately play this way as scum and I doubt you would either. This point doesn't seem genuine.

3) I think your case includes a lot of very selective reading of context. I.E. both Obscure and Gamma were extreme lurkers who eventually got replaced. To say that I went away from them to focus on other things actually happening in the thread is true, and that's because by and large I just don't like limming lurkers and get distracted by the game that is actually happening. Is that a flaw in my play? Maybe? Does that mean I sometimes get snowed by N_M when he rolls scum? Absolutely. But its just primarily not where my focus ever is and I think if you read some town games of mine you'd find that this is pretty consistent. In fact, and now I'm going to have to stop doing this because I'm demonstrating awareness of it, but I think that me continuing to pressure scum slots that are actively lurking is way more likely to come from scum me than town me.

@Ausuka. I don't know. I think Deas kind of is the most obvious scum candidate but I keep getting distracted by the n_m weirdness. I think any of the three of you are capable of playing this game as scum and I feel pretty useless because I'm not particularly good at combing through past interactions with a comb in order to tease out possible informed comments and I've now been wrong two days in a row so I don't really have a good sense of where I'm at because since I think everyone else is town (though Deas' case on me makes me think he's likely scum who is forced to make this play) the poe from my pov is by necessity everyone.

If I were forced to kingmake this day I'd pick deas but I do not have any high level of confidence in that.

[Thestatusquo]

Like there seems to be a sense in the case that I am simultaneously the intended deep wolf but not willing to actually go through with limming scum in order to accomplish that and I just don't know how you square those two worlds.

Combine that with the fact that I think its been very clear this whole game that I have not been playing to end game and the whole thing falls apart. In order for me to be scum for the points raised I would have to simultaneously be trying to deep wolf and not deep wolf and I just don't think that makes any sense at all. I'm a better scum player than that.

[Thestatusquo]

In a world where my buddies were obscure gamma and doomed hem slot to claim that my inclination would be to hang back and try to delay ALL of their eliminations is just kind of nonsense.

I'm not a super bussy player by nature but like...come on. In that game state it would be the fucking only play?

[Thestatusquo]

Especially after MT comes in and does actual fuck all you think I would hold back as scum? I don't believe that you believe that to be quite honest and if you scoured my iso and this is the best you came up with I'm kind of not sure why we haven't seen you do a similar thing for GL and Ausuka.