Open 853 - PYP X/Y S_S [game over!]

[Ausuka]

Without even seeing the other slots, Dwlee's vote stands out to me because it started out as a sheep on Ari because of how impressed they were of Ari's game.

I think HEM asked why I voted him — Last time I saw Aristeia like this she nailed Prism into a coffin. She gets my baa privilege until I have more effort into sorting personally

Be back later

I noticed it because it immediately implies Ari is town. So maybe this is Dwlee's first read? But we really didn't see much of a progression on why they thought Ari is town.

I can forgive that.

what do you think about dwlee

what do you think about HQ coming in to kind of soflty defend dwlee only

FMPOV HQ looks town for this

This is Dwlee's second read. If you squint really hard, you can almost see that it's a pocket.

But maybe that doesn't mean they're not town.

However things really break down when Math comes down hard at Dwlee. Dwlee immediately launches an OMGUS but uncharacteristically doesn't vote Math. (ignoring the urge too, they say.) I can understand if they would OMGUS as town, but what I can't understand is why they wouldn't move their vote towards Math to sort and to pressure when I'd be absent for a long time.

Now that's not town. Town wants to use their vote to pressure. Even as they approach 100% certainty, Dwlee doesn't move their vote.

I really feel Dwlee is scum.

Titus hasn’t given a reason other than “matching” and “trying”

I don’t see that here from them.

That has to be BS because you only think I'm scum rn because of things that aren't there rather than things that are. So you can't be that confident of anything

this is also a BS response from them.

MathBlade and HEM probably are SvS

Math just ignored my response to his terrible read on me

And this read was made without due consideration for what motive would scum!mathblade have for defending scum!me.

If I'm scum and Mathblade is scum, why risk their neck on protecting a buddy that has no way of defending themselves for 3 days when you score easy deepwolf points trying to woo people's confidence in you?

Here's what I'm thinking: They made the SvS read so they can still park their vote on me
And they did it without developing their read on anyone other than slots who they were 1. sheeping, 2. encouraging to townread them 3. omgusing. without regard

VOTE: Dwlee99

My vote can change as I ISO the rest of my wagon (and the rest of the game)

I guess the question is what we would expect scum to do with HEM

Generally the thing I would have expected back in my day ™ is that there are ABSOLUTELY one or two scum bussing HEM

It didn't especially feel like scum were trying to save HEM at the time, it felt like an uneasy sort of 'mostly consensus we are going to lim HEM' iirc?

The post above from hem feels like it could be distancing from Dwlee and I scumread Dwlee's day 1 in general but like

Idk dude if they have this whole setup where Dwlee is sheeping Ari on HEM, HEM is pushing Dwlee in return to townspew them, does Dwlee make the reactionary jump onto the Math counterwagon???

Someone help me out here

[Ausuka]

Ari you were hard toanreading Titus right? Is that still true

[Ausuka]

I dislike Dwlee's read on me but am aware I am heavily biased on that so

Does anyone else think it's weird?? Like the progression of Ausuka is tunneled, Ausuka is single mindedly tunneling me (which I don't think I was?) to being willing to vote Ausuka based just on that reasoning

I also don't like their progression from scumreading Bella at the start of the day when that was a pretty fashionable read iirc to then going onto Implo when that again iirc was looking like an easy push toward the latter end of d2, seemingly dropping their earlier scumpool not including implosion

But again I might be like *actually* tunneled at this point so I'm interested in hearing other perspectives on their ISO

I know I was going to keep my reads private but... It's not like I'm always going to jail my top scumread, I would be willing to jail anyone to reduce predictability and because of rather low read confidence, so it's fine I think. A hypothetical world with town Wallflower and Enchant where Ari dies tonight and we don't have much reads discussion going on seems like a very bad world!

[Ausuka]

I will distance myself from this thread until I hear more from Dwlee and std

im not 100% sold on ari's case but of the two of you i think you're more likely to be the scum here

but i'd happily wagon someone else if something more interesting comes my way

Hmm is this a scumpost or a townpost

I guess the whole "I will happily embrace an alternative wagon to my scumbuddy" feels a tad blatant to be SvS

[Enchant]

I dislike Dwlee's read on me but am aware I am heavily biased on that so

Does anyone else think it's weird?? Like the progression of Ausuka is tunneled, Ausuka is single mindedly tunneling me (which I don't think I was?) to being willing to vote Ausuka based just on that reasoning

I also don't like their progression from scumreading Bella at the start of the day when that was a pretty fashionable read iirc to then going onto Implo when that again iirc was looking like an easy push toward the latter end of d2, seemingly dropping their earlier scumpool not including implosion

But again I might be like *actually* tunneled at this point so I'm interested in hearing other perspectives on their ISO

I know I was going to keep my reads private but... It's not like I'm always going to jail my top scumread, I would be willing to jail anyone to reduce predictability and because of rather low read confidence, so it's fine I think. A hypothetical world with town Wallflower and Enchant where Ari dies tonight and we don't have much reads discussion going on seems like a very bad world!

Just in a case, i taked BP to meme.

I don't remember Mala being in any way memetic.

[Ausuka]

I mean yeah I agree
I can definitely see a case for not taking ascetic cop as top slot (although taking BP instead is wild to me)
I don't see why anyone takes BP over cop if they're not obviously PR?? Like if I was a low slot I was going to choose cop tbh

But I don't think we let mala/WF slot endgame either way

[Ausuka]

Just in general STD's progression on HEM feels a bit unaligned because it feels sort of weird and messy and unplanned, if that makes sense

I like STD's tone vibes in general I guess

One question I have from his iso is the implosion read. He doesn't really talk about it but he says he's willing to jump on Implo at one point and later lists him as null, significantly townier than Math iirc?? @std I know you're not exactly a wall player but could you explain your thinking around the Implo read (and your WF read too I guess)

[Ausuka]

I still feel like Bella is town

I guess is WF reds Bella is further townspewed by the scumread Bella has had on wallflower all game? Although I'm not sure if Bella ever explained it?

[Wallflower]

Wallflower who should we be looking at after you flip town

I actually want to say I really appreciate you asking. I think I have been more self-defeating than I should have been here and while I've had the "no one listens to dead town" mantra going through my head it really is just perpetuating my self-indulgent wallowing.

I'm much more dayplay-focused than mechanics-focused, and so I'm not sure if I've completely gotten my head around everything, but I consider the almost-certain town to be:

Harley Quinn - Possible (probable?) N1 kill target. Appears genuinely confused as to why scum would try to kill Ausuka N2. The turnaround on Math was very much not like scum positioning etc.
Ausuka - The paranoid world where Ausuka has made all this up is... not likely? Ausuka in no way needed to frame me if scum.
Ari - HEM-interactions very probably not distancing. The paranoid world where Ari as scum no-kills in order to claim doctor saves is also... very unlikely.

I've had Titus and Implo in my mind as possible scum, but I'm still questioning Titus in particular and whether she would "take charge" as she has. But, the interactions with Mathblade reminded me of Titus-scum/Math-town dynamic I've seen elsewhere and reading back on Titus' play around the Mathblade wagons, it just feels agenda-driven to me.
Implo just keeps coming up for me because of reasons I've said before, but also I wonder if him being the most willing to consider the possibility that scum targeted Ausuka, is because he knows that scum did target Ausuka.

Roden, Enchant, even Gamma also feel possible to me but less likely. I often have Roden as town in my mind, but then I keep forgetting he exists. The way Enchant claimed yesterday felt unnecessary for scum to do, especially since I think scum would have considered claiming BP there to be a bad idea. And I still don't know whether Gamma knew they were hammering Math or not, but the votes against Ari felt needlessly inflammatory for scum to do.

STD, Bella and Dwlee feel a bit more town to me based on play but I guess there's nothing ABSOLUTELY ruling them out.

I guess the main thing is I want to make sure not to make any premature assumptions. I've had experiences before where I've just town-binned scum for what felt like good reasons at the time. But I know that it might be my flip that's needed to get people to think in a more open-minded way. To think about what might be going on that isn't the obvious.

[Wallflower]

I don't see why anyone takes BP over cop if they're not obviously PR?? Like if I was a low slot I was going to choose cop tbh

I don't either!!!

[Wallflower]

I could've been a doctor gosh

[Bellaphant]

I feel really good about my town play this game. I got frustrated day one because it seemed obvious hem was scum and math was town, And then we started day two having the same chat. I'm really bad at mech stuff but I get a lot of reads through interaction.

Day one I could argue that most people were town apart from mala/wallflower, enchant, and then my null pile. I had/have a huge town pile, that only really needs reassessing if we get today and tonight badly wrong.

There was a weird pile on me start of day two, most of it from my null pile. Like, it's something to go back to.

[Ausuka]

Implo if scum will probably struggle because of the UB claim

[Bellaphant]

...oh. I like a lot of that post though.

[Ausuka]

I guess I haven't really been considering Roden

TBF the way he's been handling the voyeur claim and some other things from him townpinged me iirc and I think he's been a pretty decent consensus townread?

I guess what you're saying is to look at Titus?

[Ausuka]

Yeah unsure how to read Gamma's play there. He was willing to go in for the hammer on Math but iirc was mostly agreeing with Math and calling Ari dense? Maybe I need to have another look at that part of d2

[Ausuka]

I was mostly townreading Gamma though and I think taking vig over like, RB or something is fairly towny especially if he used it on MB

Scum don't have multitasking so if he's holding onto that shot for elo he has a partner he expects to survive probably

[Ausuka]

But, the interactions with Mathblade reminded me of Titus-scum/Math-town dynamic I've seen elsewhere and reading back on Titus' play around the Mathblade wagons, it just feels agenda-driven to me.

I will take a look at this

[Wallflower]

I guess what you're saying is to look at Titus?

I think that's the main takeaway yep

[Ausuka]

Ok I've had a look

First thought is I'm probably not seeing what you are seeing BUT I am missing the meta context

Other players in this game probably have Titus/Math meta so I guess if they agree this actually does look like scum Titus I'll listen to that?

[Ausuka]

What do you think of the massive Ari push thing and the n3 vig thing? Are those things scum!Titus would do? I've never played w/ scum her but those felt towny to me

[Ausuka]

Spoiler: Why I am convinced the answer is HEM, Math, Ari... but we save Ari until the end in case I'm wrong

Question: What options are available for someone who genuinely holds a belief and they are presented with conflicting information?

Answer: They double down on their opinion, they change their mind, or they acknowledge the cognitive dissonance.

Remember this. We'll be coming back to it.


HEM is a pretty confident universal scumread for everyone. So I'm not going to waste my time there.
Then, we get to Math. His meta is unquestionably strange and hard to put the finger on. I was dealing with the fact Math wasn't pushing theories at all, but he didn't seem to have an agenda. Roden acknowledged this too. Harley Quinn thought it made Math scum, but I wanted to sort out the lack of an agenda.

We're at 1929, I began to get suspicious that Ari was defending a scum!Blade here. Why would Math be suddenly able to play the game after voting out his townread and in an environment where he feels like he cannot give townblocks?

I sat on this for a bit (not long LOL) and discussed HEM + Math together with Roden for a moment. We both observed the same behavior from Math, so that likely meant it was significant and worth exploring. If I could get Ari alone, I could get Ari to articulate a reason to townread Math beyond he'll be useful after HEM flips or he'll give a scumread. I wanted to corner Ari to see if she was actually townreading Math. I didn't predict it to be as illuminating as it was.

In 1945, I start to put feelers out on if Ari is ever willing to vote Math because it does no good to catch Math if the people who have the stomach/fortitude to flip Math are all dead. That's most likely me and HQ. Ari said that she persuaded Math of something which is a rare feat. So Ari would be in that class. So it was worth a line.

In 1952, I claim that scum are going to argue that Math is town because they're a counter to HEM.
Ari immediately does that in the next post.

Ari then starts going back to my old Implo/HEM theory.
I didn't even bother reading the rest of the post for detail once I saw Ari claiming Math's flip spewed him town. I was like nuuhuh biatch.

Ari's post sets out two premises
1) HEM is anti-spew (not 100% sure I agree but I see it and I scumread HEM so ok)
and
2) Math hasn't anti-spew because his flip clears so many.

So that makes me think, was the odd behavior from Math anti-spew?

In 1967, Ari says that when Math sees he's going down that he goes straight into anti-spew and gives a link.

In order to check my theory, I go to the game. I find out who Math is (he's under an alt). I then go to the back of his ISO because that's the most relevant part, establishing how Math sounds when he's anti-spewing. Math's refusal to form a townblock or a cohesive readslist sounds like anti-spew to me.

So I test this theory through a series of questions that I can use no matter the answer. The idea is to get Ari to compare an "unknown" speaker to scum and then compare it to Math's game to see if I can get Ari to defend Math's actual play here or whether Ari would think Math is scummy in a vacuum.

This lets me read Ari to see if Ari is genuinely believing her Math defense and if she is to give her an opportunity to defend the root of the issue, Math's "odd for him" play.

When I posted 1975 asking if the speaker was town or scum, that wasn't the point. No matter what answer Ari gave, I would have told her it was scum that posted. It was a softball designed to have a casual conversation and not inform her that I was actually hunting any particular read in particular since I go off on tangents all the time. That "no tangents" thing might have been ruined but non essential.

Twenty minutes later, Ari says the post is "scum anti-spew". Ari and I both know that Ari has to say it's scum anti-spew. Otherwise, her linking the very game the post comes from is pointless.

Now, unpredicatably, Math comes in and claims ownership of the post in 1994. Now, if I was Ari and a player claimed a known scum post as their own, I'd at least be a little concerned. Instead, Ari is replying to a post from earlier stating she'd be "confused" if Math was scum.

Ari then states that Math stops posting when faced with going down and that's how he "anti-spews". Now, how many of you think that Math can actually stop posting when he gets on a roll? He literally cannot. His anti-spew matches more the text of the post from his micro game that putting in effort isn't worthwhile.

you are talking about one post...

i am talking about the entire iso

math when hes antispewing just shuts up and stops posting

That made me think to compare Math's ISO. Math's tonal irregularities match the last post of that microgame. His ISO is full of it and excuses about why he's not the regular math with theories. No one would listen etc. This isn't a micro game where Math can prod dodge and if he did that would be a scumclaim.

So he just picks fights and never solves.

In 2008, Math says he vibes with himself...when he's scum. Like Math could not be waiving a bigger red flag. He then says if it's not this game it's not relevant which is LOL but adorbs.

In 2011, Ari says that she reads Math by volume and

intention

but how can she be reading Math's posts for intention when she "stopped reading" his posts "awhile ago" according to 1998?

After a bit, Math realizes that he should probably 180 on me. He tries to claim my reaching out to him was scummy in 2020 in an abrupt about face. The rationale is laughable.

Ari's response to this conflicting information and sibling fight is to turn back to the implosion read. 2022
Math just tries to copy this theory by adding me with HEM and Implo.

Now remember that question from before...

Question: What options are available for someone who genuinely holds a belief and they are presented with conflicting information?

Answer: They double down on their opinion, they change their mind, or they acknowledge the cognitive dissonance.

Wallflower's wrong post in 2064 is more consistent with what I expect town to do. Wallflower's wrong, but she's defending the read with substance and not deflecting like the repeated attempts to turn to HEM without saying how Math is town. Wallflower says how Math is town. (No Town!Math never does a full reset here, but it's important that Wallflower defended the position and not the accuracy.) Wallflower still has a chance to be scum if I'm wrong about Ari but I fully expect not to be.

Like especially if this is town WF, the way she pushes Ari as scum just seems ??? Why does scum make this push here

[Ausuka]

Not just talking to WF although I'd like to hear from her about Titus since both her and Math had claimed to have meta and scumread Titus, I feel like I might be missing something there even though I townread that slot, if that makes sense

[Wallflower]

Fwiw I was reminded of this game:

https://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=88987

[Bellaphant]

Titus is definitely on the list of slots to look at again. It was what wallflower said aboth Roden that got me, coz when I go to justify my read my brain gives me 'those two really town posts on day one' which ..isn't great.