Open 804: Popcorn Mafia Redux [Game Over!]

[Happy Unbirthday Boon]

Spoiler:

So I'm a pretty big dork and when I realized you were referencing Zuko I was like oh hey so we've got Cobra Kai who introduced a similar fighting technique as we saw in Avatar. They're totally meant to be a pair.

Zuko is one of my favorite characters from that show. I was a Katara/Zuko shipper all the way.

Imperium are you scum?

But why do you ask?

Because I don't know if you are town or scum

But why do you ask?

Because I don't know if you are town or scum

They said they are town already why would they lie

Hm I wonder

idk what to do with this but kinda thinking s/s? like SC pushing Imperium when they're randomly going into anime talk on like page 3 is pretty legit but then he backpedals to like "cause I don't know if you're scum" and then nothing comes of it, very awkward interaction

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Hello, HUB. I'll give you time to catch up anyway, because I want more data from other players. I want to close in on a solve before I even dare shoot, and I want to know that the town has enough solid data to line up a future shot accurately if I miss.

But yes, you read me wrong, because I'm the only living player whose alignment is universally known, and that alignment is town. Normally, I'd call it townie or NAI for you to not know this immediately after replacing in, because that's just sensible. However, for reasons I am leaving mysteriously unstated, I will call it scummy instead. This is non-negotiable, I will not explain, and I do still expect you to react to it.

For the record, Norfolk was a hard null for me, was leaning town the last time he posted, and his replacement does not factor into my decision on you.

[Happy Unbirthday Boon]

MUSHSHAGANA

Not_Mafia
unwnd
WhemeStar

petapan/Rockhopper
Dunnstral

ScrewTheTells
Imperium
SirCakez

Quick skim of isos gets me about here

[MUSHSHAGANA]

Also, I recognized this flaw in myself during Death Curse -- I have a bias towards townreading replacement players for at least one dayphase. I do wonder what could have possibly made me come to this conclusion.

And with that data now before me, I'll float my interim solve here: unwnd, HUB, Dunn, Wheme.

I want to see what other have to say about this.

PEDIT: Oh jeez that's a hell of a list if I'm right, two buddies in town and one in null.

[Happy Unbirthday Boon]

Normally, I'd call it townie or NAI for you to not know this immediately after replacing in, because that's just sensible. However, for reasons I am leaving mysteriously unstated, I will call it scummy instead. This is non-negotiable, I will not explain, and I do still expect you to react to it.

OK, although I feel like you saying this makes me want to ask, because otherwise you'd just say "that's kinda scummy"?

I would say it's more indicative of me thinking I was going to be quickly shot than anything else, otherwise I'd probably have spent a bit more time to organize thoughts

[Happy Unbirthday Boon]

And with that data now before me, I'll float my interim solve here: unwnd, HUB, Dunn, Wheme.

Wheme would be louder as scum unless he's like, mellowed a looot since I last played with him, I can reread that iso though I'm just going on a tone guttake right now

for unwnd, if you want to put a bet, I think you could go into his scumgames and look through all of them and not once find the word "submissiveness"

Dunn I don't really scumread, I just saw in his early iso him fossing my predecessor so I'm kinda keeping him low until I've read his slot closer, and my readrate on him is historically pretty low anyway

I *could* believe you have identified a PoE of four town though

but I wouldn't say that having not read ~40 pages completely and just going off my hottakes from what I have read

[Happy Unbirthday Boon]

Have you ever played with Imperium?

[MUSHSHAGANA]

I have played with absolutely no one in the player list, and I never pay attention to meta.

You may find my ISO informative, especially the second half.

[Happy Unbirthday Boon]

What I'm concerned about here is this: if Cakez has a strong, overwhelming sense of Scum off of Imperium and is town, I can see Cakez assuming that the familiarity and the strong gutping override logical debate, but that he has to be /convincing/ somehow to ensure his pet scumread gets shot. I think many people forget that having many different arguments that you abandon rapidly as they are shot down weakens how people perceive your argument as a whole rather than strengthening it, but I understand the impulse and am often tempted to succumb to it when it would serve me better to say "Fair, but I'm still scumreading them and you can't stop me."

I don't see how you have 0 scum in Cakez/Imperium after this reasoning

Like, if you have Cakez as town, which I guess you do, then I would strongly consider the possibility he's right on Imperium

Cakez I think is scum because he tries to get my slot shot while replacing out 100% of the time as scum and only 45% of the time as town, so until he gives me a reason to townread him I functionally just have to regard him as scum because he tried to kill my slot

Imperium, if you review Tenet, is very capable of being a proactive town player. I know they were IC in that game and so that can warp meta, but they like, posted the WIFOM image and then a video and didn't seem to care about anything. I feel like Tammy was playing to anti-spew early game and I'm not seeing that Tammy charm that makes me paranoid but hopeful she's town

I know you literally just said "I don't care about meta" but if you know these players like I do, both look pretty bad, and I suppose on the whole Nachotammy looks a bit worse becuase they don't look town but can be very town, whereas cakez just always looks scummy no matter what so there's more room for error there.

if you want to flip my bottom two you can put Imperium below Cakez, but I always shoot cakez given I am informed of my own alignment and can see how wolfy his play toward my slot has been

[Happy Unbirthday Boon]

I wouldn't mind Imperium having the gun, yeah. The concern with my other nulltowns is that I think they'd be some degree of hot garbage with the gun, but Imperium I feel would be pretty excellent with it. Probably the three players I trust to do /literally anything/ useful with the gun as of right now are Imperium, unwnd and Duchess, so if that's a strong part of your consideration, that's where I'd place bullets. I strongly think unwnd is town though, so maybe not there so much.

Could you get into why you think that unwnd is town?
I'm having major doubts at the moment.

It's a garbage reason.

Ready?

1: I weakly townread Albert based on approach, so they inherited a bit of that.

2: Because they're one of the few players whose take on the gamestate I actually agree with at all right now. Almost everyone else is talking so differently that it feels like they're playing some totally different game. I mostly see where you and unwnd are coming from, and anyone else currently in play may as well be on another planet at the moment.

This does mean I'm technically at risk of being pocketed by you, unwnd or both here, but I need to have some stable baseline to parse the game with before I can try to get rid of my garbage bullshit reads and replace them with actually useful ones. Which is why I keep reaching out to other players like Duchess and Wheme for input on things: I'm trying to connect myself to the game that /they/ are seeing being played, because I'm clearly not in the same one, and it means my reads are garbage.

You should also look at Imperium undercutting your correct unwnd townread here and be having *alarm bells* go off rather than explain yourself, 986 definitely deserves a bullet

[SirCakez]

Also, I recognized this flaw in myself during Death Curse -- I have a bias towards townreading replacement players for at least one dayphase. I do wonder what could have possibly made me come to this conclusion.

And with that data now before me, I'll float my interim solve here: unwnd, HUB, Dunn, Wheme.

I want to see what other have to say about this.

PEDIT: Oh jeez that's a hell of a list if I'm right, two buddies in town and one in null.

I think it's decent
Not convinced on Unwnd and NM should be in there somewhere

[Happy Unbirthday Boon]

To rephrase that last part a bit more bluntly, if Cakez is actually town in this interaction and Imperium is scum in it, then the gamestate is very likely to be scum-controlled, and information is being spun to keep town from finding each other. In such a case, I'm inadvertently on the scum side of things, and need to very rapidly figure out how I got here and who I was taking cues from.

lol you might actually be able to sell me on Cakez town because this looks like a crystal clear description of the gamestate. I still think Cakez is scum for trying to kill me, but if I was to do a Titus-style play here and kinda just go off what you are interacting with and saying, then it is usually the case here that Cakez is actually town and Imperium is scum, in which case I guess maybe I'd move Cakez up a bit and move peta/Dunn down for just not being townie enough? Or maybe just bracket off cakez for the moment and say no matter what cakez's alignment is, s or t, that your reads list being at such heavy variance as mine strongly implies that your thought process here is largely correct

[SirCakez]

HUB is going for the spam replace in approach to try to overwhelm the thread and older reads on their predecessor
No one should fall for it

[SirCakez]

Like his scumread on me is basically just explained as OMGUS
Krazy is not this bad

[Happy Unbirthday Boon]

I think it's decent
Not convinced on Unwnd and NM should be in there somewhere

this is not helping convince me that you're town off gamestate cakez

Musha, you might be struggling so much because you're looking at Cakez/Imperium this game and thinking it's T/T when really it's S/S and that read is just warping your entire view of the gamestate

[SirCakez]

I still think Cakez is scum for trying to kill m

[Happy Unbirthday Boon]

Like his scumread on me is basically just explained as OMGUS
Krazy is not this bad

I literally just explained why you could be town and that I could be wrong on you, but you continue to kinda tunnel me while ignoring my evaluation of you which seems an awful lot more like what you'd do as scum than as town

[SirCakez]

Like the way he's coming here and putting widely scumread players in his townreads and somewhat townread players in his scum pool reeks of scum trying to hero save the team

[SirCakez]

Like his scumread on me is basically just explained as OMGUS
Krazy is not this bad

I literally just explained why you could be town and that I could be wrong on you, but you continue to kinda tunnel me while ignoring my evaluation of you which seems an awful lot more like what you'd do as scum than as town

Why would I listen to an evaluation from a player who I strongly SR and who immediately attacked me when they entered?
Scum have been on my ass all game.

[Happy Unbirthday Boon]

Cakez, I doubt you actually remember this, but the one time I was *right* about CabD in Tenet was when I just straight omgus'd Ceph lol

OMGUS is a great tool when I know a player likes to play wolfy as scum like you do

[Happy Unbirthday Boon]

Why would I listen to an evaluation from a player who I strongly SR and who immediately attacked me when they entered?
Scum have been on my ass all game.

Well you're trying to sell the argument that my read on you is superficial, I gave an indication that I would shoot you on replacing in which... isn't even an OMGUS, but more an indication of intent to help me enter the game. You tried to get town to suicide on me, so if I had the gun I'd shoot you. In this game that's potato level play, but against people who *can* open wolf, it's a viable strategy.

Based on what Musha has been saying, I could see a world of you town, but you trying to bury me makes me think you're just scum

[SirCakez]

I don't OMGUS as scum just look Xeno 2

[Happy Unbirthday Boon]

cakez can you give me like your full reads list, not just the part that includes me needing to die?

[Happy Unbirthday Boon]

I don't OMGUS as scum just look Xeno 2

I didn't say you were OMGUSing me? I said you were trying to get me targeted with a shot, not really the same thing

[MUSHSHAGANA]

HUB, I'm not giving you anything as far as my reads go. Nothing at all. You get no explanation and no elaboration and not even a hint to work with. You might be able to pick those up if someone else asks, but my answers may just as well be total red herrings, because that's the Mafia game I play.

You are in the dark without a matchstick when it comes to what I am doing, and that is both intentional and a very good thing. You are on the list, so are others, the reasoning for all of them is wholly connected and I believe what I've got is a complete solve. You are only convincing me I am right.