Albert is scum. SerialClergyman is town.
When I voted him, it was a combination of self-preservation and a belief that he best filled the role of Albert's scumbuddy. The first point is still true but irrelevant – my self preservation is no longer the best chance for a town win. Several things have happened that have made the second one false.
The first is
SerialClergyman's post 947. Calls for my lynch should SC die, and gives scum an easy target (anyone on my wagon) for a nk. At the time I chalked it up to scum trying to put on townie airs, but then SC never brought that point up again. I think that's a big thing to notice.
When he posted that, I honestly considered self-voting for a little bit. The reason is that SC had set up a situation where, if he's townie and we lynch him, scum win. Lynch SC, town flip, NK someone on my wagon, vote me the next day. Let's call this 'the mechanism' – it's the understanding that, if SC is town, the scum win by lynching him because it leads to another misylnch on me. Now, I didn't have quite that confidence to do a posthumous call, so my death would at least not guarantee the death of a townie tomorrow. But I kept the thought and self-vote to myself because I still thought SC had a good chance of being scum.
Now fast forward. It happened so fast it's hard to keep these in chronological order. But look.
ABR starts D3 thinking SC is certainly scum. But then the mechanism is installed: and in post 952, only five posts later,
ABR suddenly floats out SC's name as scum. By 964, we're equally good candidates for scum. 970, he goes ahead and votes SC.
Now what made his strong town read turn into a vote so fast? Simple: because circumstances had arisen where he could lynch SC without ever stating he thinks I'm town. SC's townie flip would, in fact, give him the ammunition to secure my lynch and win the game. The mechanism has been installed right in front of everyone's eyes, and Albert is ready to turn it on and win.
It's also interesting to note that
VPB post 966 says that ONE of us have to be scum. This both validates the mechanism and installs a reciprocal one of mine pointing at SC without my input – VPB is apparently willing to lynch one and then the other of us, resulting in a scum win.
Let me go ahead and do this.
Vote: Albert B Rampage.
This is more or less a death sentence for me. While I dearly hope the town can see my points now, pragmatism tells me nothing will come of it because I've long since been yelling in to the wind regarding Albert. I did not vote for Albert at the start of the day because I knew it would do nothing, and I vote him here knowing it will probably do nothing and with it doing I will be the only viable option for a lynch.
But that's fine. Because the difference is when I go town, my dead hand will not be pointing at the heart of the other popular wagon. I'll be pointing at scum.
Now, of course, this looks on the face of it to be nothing more than another townie directing another mechanism. What's to say my interpretation is right where SC's was wrong? After all, if the town lynches ABR and he flips town we will lose just as much – and not only that, the players will be able to point to me and say, "We lost because of hito." Our loss would have been entirely my fault.
I think the fact that my vote remains shows my confidence in my read. If Albert is lynched tomorrow and flips town, resulting in a town loss, I will be apologetic but not embarrased or ashamed.
Let's assume I'm lynched. SC is more or less confirmed town. ABR could be doing another Reck-level bus, of course, but I just don't see that at all in his interactions with SC. The one switch made sense with a scumbuddy relationship (from 'wanna go? Right now?' to 'probably town') but I just don't see this events with an ABR/SC scumteam. The mechanism is the only interpretation of these events that I can find possible.
And here's the thing – he claimed vanilla. Which means that, should the scum nightkill, they can hit either the basicially-confirmed town or keep trying to mason hunt. Either way, we'll have, MINIMUM, two masons/confirmed towns.
Six alive. Four to lynch.
ABR is lynched. Nightkill.
Four alive. Three to lynch.
At least one confirmed townie. (This is assuming the masons made sure to breadcrumb each other's names – I think this is a pretty reasonable thing to assume.)
I like our odds.
And of course, if we lynch ABR today instead, we're a day ahead of the curve.
Now, who is ABR's scumbuddy?
It's a big list. As I said, I think there's a good chance that with Albert focusing on the 'both scum bussed Reck' angle he was exonerating his scumbuddy. That would mean Vi or Sando is his scumbuddy. I also think there's a good chance that VP is his scumbuddy – although admittedly, this is mostly because of his recent posts (966 in particular) and when I first read his interactions with ABR I had no doubt in my mind that they were not scumbuddies. Still, it's worth considering.
I have no idea on DDD. I doubt Zorblag is scum. I also have a weird gut town read on Sando, which is especially odd because I've been thinking of him as scum for most of the game and I can't tell you where I switched. Well, actually, I can – I like basicially all of his D3 content.
So my personal top picks for Albert's scumbuddy are Vi or VP. But don't let that sway you too much – those are gut guesses I'm floating and should not be confused with my conviction that Albert is scum. Stay loose and follow the confirmed townies and you'll do alright.
And so there we are. Ask me questions on anything I didn't clarify enough.
If you can see my sincerity, if you agree with my reasoning, please - vote for Albert.
If you can't accept the idea that I'm not scum, vote for me.
If you think SC is scum - I would rather I be lynched than SC.
As I said, there's a chance I just lost us the game by setting up the town for an Albert mislynch, but I think the fact that I have no anxiety, no worry about this possibility is the single best response I can give to the question 'how sure are you that Albert is scum?'
"Don’t buy a dozen eggs if you just want a hardboiled egg. Don’t buy a head of lettuce if you just want a salad. Don’t buy eggs and lettuce if you want egg salad because those are not the right ingredients." -Julius Bloop