Open 646 - Semi Nightless - Game Over (D6)

[mhsmith0]

because it looks like you're bum rushing a wall.

clarify what you mean here? Just that he's not been responsive or something more?

[Wingback]

Went through Io's ISO and noted some interesting points:

1. Io was hard-townreading Rosske to the point of calling him obvtown (Post 931). Rosske was under pressure and not a very articulate player. He needed someone defending him at least for a while. So, killing Io over Thor makes no sense from him. He's also not experienced enough to take a bold risk and kill his biggest defender hoping that people townread him as that's always going to be a gamble. Io does put KTS above Ross though because of zero interactions between Ross and Karnos (Post 1134) but later says that she doesn't see Ross as scum (Post 1184). Her last post on Rosske was to defend him against Transcend's case (Post 1556).

2. Io clears several players in Post 1125 (Thor, mhsmith, Gigabyte, my slot). The former two are the more interesting ones, especially mhsmith. I think he too has a reason to leave Io alive and kill Thor. I also thought his over-analysis on why Thor wasn't killed seemed natural and not like he purposefully didn't kill Thor and then started spreading paranoia around because he just doesn't seem like that kind of player. In fact, there's nothing about mhsmith I find scummy which is part of the reason I hate that Transcend is lining up a lynch on him.

I've been thinking, Transcend is probably the one who gains the least from killing Io over Thor.

Killing Io while scum isn't Thor or Tenshii implies that Tenshii is being set up for a mislynch. But Transcend has been doing everything to keep Tenshii alive and is townreading him. I think that scum!Transcend would be trying to buddy Tenshii and lower his risk of dying by killing Thor.

I'm actually a lot more concerned about Transcend than any other player. I'll outline some of the reasons for my suspicion so you can go over it and if you think I'm wrong, show me where I'm going wrong.

The way Transcend has been playing by hard-pushing Rosske and mhsmith sets up a Transcend/Thor/Tenshii lylo which is the most winnable lylo there can possible be for Transcend.

If he kills Thor, we don't know what Tenshii's reads would be so "buddying" isn't going to be as useful. Transcend's reads makes sense from a scum perspective but there are so many reasons they don't from a town perspective.

1. Luna Fox was obvtown even before she replaced out and the early push on her by Transcend for defending him felt contrived in a "LAMIST, scum won't attack their defenders way."
2. Having Tenshii as a bank-the-game read in the same level as you and me also reads as off. Tenshii may be town but he's not that obviously town. There's no real basis behind that townread. I could maybe buy it if it's interaction-based because I found some good reasons why he's not partnered with Karnos but Transcend's read basically comes down to "gut" and "tone."
3. I simply don't get the scumread on mhsmith at all. I'll hunt through his posts to see the reasons but mhsmith has been very town to me although he makes strategic sense as a lynch target if Transcend wants to be in lylo with Tenshii and Thor and it seems like he pulled that mhsmith scumread out of nowhere.
4. The Rosske read. While I understand that you also have reservations about Rosske, I see two major reasons he's town: a) Meta, b) Io kill. Both are somewhat controversial but nka when there's only one scum alive is infinitely more reliable than nka when there are multiple scum left because the decision is an individual one. I don't see Rosske killing his defender given he desperately needed someone in his corner to have a chance of making it through the game.
5. I see the Io kill from Transcend in order to open up a mislynch possibility on Rosske.

[mhsmith0]

VC 1-3 and 1-4 is strongly suggestive of it being inside {Thor, Transcend, Rosske}
The interactions between karnos and everyone else is strongly suggestive of it being inside {Tenshii, Transcend, Rosske}

The combination of the two points to {Transcend, Rosske} more than any others.

Transcend: Nothing strongly indicative in either direction. I'd agree with Wing's point above that his kill motive is plausible if he wants to set up Thor for a late game mislynch and set up Rosske to get mislynched today. That said, it's kind of weird for him on D1 to be screwing around with vanity one vote wagons (rosske and luna) while his buddy is getting lynched; normally I'd expect bussing or a more active/aggressive effort to save his buddy there. OTOH his luna effort may have been that, just not something that caught on. I need to go back and re-read late D1 to see how strong transcend's counter-wagon efforts were.

Rosske: It's not impossible for him to have kill motive here, but it basically involves him either not paying attention (plausible given his involvement this game I guess), or doing a hail mary WIFOM effort to confuse the town by killing his defender to hope that he somehow shoots up the town read charts as a consequence. That's not impossible, but I'm not sure why I should think that's likely either.

[mhsmith0]

luna is being townread by all when i think she's a reasonably decent candidate for scum. but my vote is vain at this point andi like the points you make about rosske, they more or less parallel mine. with that said i'm comfortable changing my vote.

VOTE: Rosske

sheepy vote here, and it came at a point where rosske was under some stated suspicion. plausible attempt to save karnos here.

[mhsmith0]

Who's your biggest scumread, and who's your biggest townread. Which wagons would you agree to vote on, and which wagons wouldn't you agree with?

Fun times.

KTS, you are my main townread.

I'm voting my scumread, Io. I dunno, can't say I read her as 100% scum. I thought she was just trolling me by spelling my name wrong, yet she has been in complete denial about that... so I have to default back to thinking scum.

Rosske, I get this odd feeling about him like he is trying to be my friend by voting my scumread, but without giving independent reasons for his voting. Maybe if he shared his reasoning and it made sense I could consider him more likely to be town, but his current play gives him a scum lean.

Thor, I'm unsure about. Had some heated back & forth but in retrospect I'm thinking we just both are stubborn and wanted to be right, doesn't mean he is scum. Wouldn't want to push him while he is on V/LA anyway.

The Thor read doesn't seem w/w, rather it seems much more like an attempt to somehow make the pressure go away.

Rosske read isn't completely outside the range of doing a fake read on a buddy, but this seems closer to the range of soft-pushing a possible counter-wagon to himself.

[mhsmith0]

Luna I'm reading you townier then I am KTS so that's why I'm more curious about why KTS is reading someone i think is weird as town. Right now understanding KTS's reasoning and motivation is more pressing to me than understanding yours. And KTS didn't give me much honestly unless I'm willing to blindly trust someone else's meta.

reasonable response to luna's question

[mhsmith0]

Looking at karnos's two D1 defenders...

Spoiler: late D1 posts

Tone

Ok so you like the tone, but you've only seen karnos as town right? Why do you think tone is AI and not just indicative of karnos playing style in general?

Okay look I was at work on a tight schedule to give you an answer.

I'm not gonna suck this guy off, but he's town because of several reasons

1. My past game match with him parallels him right now, he's acting like noobtown.

2. The tone given in his posts appears genuine and consistent. No mood swings like other players.

3. His vote on Io seen as "reaching" is another reason I solidly townread him. While I don't think that he is voting mafia at the moment, I think that his vote was justified and the way he voted was towny. I just think it's wrong.

I can probably think of more, but those are the three main reasons.

@mh So I will preface this with saying that I think Karno's 70 is NAI. This can be town asking an earnest question (as he justfied in 140). This can be mafia, as you guys are interpreting it. Therefore, it is NAI. Does this logic make sense?

75 - Io attacks Karnos on an NAI post
83 - Making implications on yet another NAI. Then trying to support her argument by putting words into Karno's mouth. Karnos being adamant about a Thor lynch =/= Indirect attack
89 - Io retracts the fact she made an implication. Then runs back 83.

Even if I was stretching that a little bit his reaction to the accusation by voting me is plenty enough to make a full case on its own because really just accusing your accuser for stretching an interpretation a little isn't even a defense it's just dodging the accusation entirely to get me to stop attacking him. A defense from him wouldn't have even been that hard to make as all he would have needed to do was to explain how I was interrupting his intentions wrong.

Accusing for stretching an interpretation is a valid defense. And he did point out how it was wrong.

And do you think karnos has defended himself in an honest and forthright manner? I feel like his defense has been sketchy, like he doesn't want to engage with the the actual case being made. And there's been a lack of clarity towards what he was even trying to do with his original posts (attack? Not attack? Just Thor? More than that?) that suggests that he's manly interested in just making the case go away.

Yep. Not exactly the way I would've wanted it but good enough. What posts made you feel this way?

Pps players who are bad town or mislynch bait type get more room to screw up in general before you can be sure they're wolves. It's annoying, but part of the game.

That is sooooo degenerate. Getting away with being bad town just because you've done it in the past is words I can't even explain. What actions would they have to do to convince you they's scum? Aka if they get "more room," where is the line drawn?

I could explain why in detail but it'd involve text walls and based on the way things have gone down I figure that town isn't actually interested. But some of the highlights:

I'm interested

"I meant ____" is a specific, direct answer. Karnos didn't do that

Semantics

Tenshii is working fairly hard at developing that read and thinking it rhough, to the point where the town read on karnos seems earned, and the push against his voters seems consistent with the stated perspective.

Transcend's read here isn't completely lazy, but it does lean that way, and shows a notable lack of concern with considering karnos's scum game (vs his town game) as opposed to just karnos as a player. It's a poor level of scrutiny given the situation, and suggests a lack of ownership of that read, to the point where "he's legitimately town reading karnos and that's why he tried to save him" wasn't a perspective that strongly holds together. Plausible, yes, but also entirely plausible that he was just looking for counter-wagons to his buddy and avoided putting together a strong defense becuase he knew there wasn't a good defense to be made.

[mhsmith0]

wait never mind

VOTE: Giga

nice slip, dude.

you said you townread kts most of the game, but you were willing to put him into what you thought was L-1 and told me to vote him so he could self hammer.

gott'em.

KTS, Rosske, and Luna are the only people I want to lynch and in that order.

It kind of does, if you're sure you're partner's going to get lynched and not self-hammered, it throws off the town's traing of thought.

wait never mind

VOTE: Giga

nice slip, dude.

you said you townread kts most of the game, but you were willing to put him into what you thought was L-1 and told me to vote him so he could self hammer.

gott'em.

well at least i redeemed myself from that garbage of a d1 i had.

good game though. slip-ups happen sometimes
pedit: o.

wait no.

no no no.

my vote was on rosske and i gave a solid reason to vote him, and you just votehopped to KTS.

nope. not happening. it's curtains for you buddy.

the thought in here is interesting though; does scum!transcend hop on and then hop off giga on a dime like that? This is the closest thing to a sequence that gives me decent feelings on Transcend. Need to think that through a bit more I guess.

[mhsmith0]

I'm bad at this. I thought this was town!kts since his play nearly replicated last time i played with him. Then again, i thought the same thing about karnos and look where that got me. Sig changes when i get home.

This is the first game I've won without voting a single scum all game.

Somewhat town-indicative reactions to KTS fake claim. OTOH, giga's looks substantially more genuine.

That leaves PC and Rosske, I think. Rosske could be town from the township, so lynch PC tommorow. Rosske's hammer on me was iffy as fuck though.

KTS last will. Adds wolf equity to rosske.

[mhsmith0]

me too!

VOTE: PhantomCobalt

How long will this twilight take?

This was a pretty awkward hop onto a wagon post hammer.

[mhsmith0]

Decent non-info kill option from scum.

Why did you think this was a decent non-info kill option? Io had a low post count, but had actively staked out positions (including a town read on rosske). I'm not going to say it was a terrible kill (she'd been productive in her postings), but it was a surprising kill. As a counter-example, I think that a shooter going for a "decent non-info kill option" would probably have shot giga, since that avoids eliminating someone with a meaningful counter-consensus opinion, or just you for obvious reasons. Do you disagree?

[Wingback]

@Mhsmith, what's your opinion of Transcend's scumread on you?

[Wingback]

Went over Transcend's D1 ISO again (until Post 800/ISO #126) and I don't have a solid read locked down there. His basis for townreading Karnos seems to be that in a previous Newbie game that he and Karnos played, they were both town, he was right, and that Karnos' behavior here is similar because of "tone."

He then scumread Thor for pushing on Karnos which I could see from either alignment. If he thought Thor was pushing an easy mislynch, I'd expect the scumread. He spends a lot of time casting around for different wagons to save Karnos which also is null as that's what a town player would do to save a townread as well as what scum would do to derail a partner's lynch.

His play after the lynch leaves me conflicted. He claims mhsmith is scum for talking to Karnos like he's town (but doesn't change his read after Karnos flips scum). He calls 2/3 of Luna/mhsmith/Rosske as scum but also doesn't change those reads with Karnos' flip. I think his scumreads on Luna, Rosske, and mhsmith were all poorly reasoned which is why he's still on my suspicion list.

I'll go over everyone's ISO to see if I get a stronger feeling on anyone else. Tenshii is next.

[mhsmith0]

Mhsmith has towntold a bit, but his d1 was also weird and the way he voted karnos was weird, I can see a possible bus there. Plus he responded to KTS' flip in a weird way. Like he was an advocate for his lynch all day, KTS claims scum, mhsmith said that he was trolling. One final thing that concerns me about him, and this is recently, but he said that Rosske is in his wolf pool, but has made no conscious effort to lynch him and laughed off every attempt I've made to lynch him.

I think his case is basically this, which is IMO a really lazy case. Some notes:

1) I'd note that my reaction to kts flip wasn't weird; IMO it was obvious the moment kts started spamming reads. Instead of actively playing along in an obviously fake way (since it was obvious to me it was a gambit) I let it play out. I guess I could have jumped in before he claimed gambiting, but I fail to see what the point of doing so would have been.

2) I don't see how the way I voted karnos was weird and bus-like.

3) wrt rosske, I'm making an active effort to decide who between him and transcend is the better lynch, or if somehow someone else becomes the better lynch. I also don't think I've "laughed off" transcends attempts; do you think I have, or that's a legitimate thing to read into my iso?

[Transcend]

Please stop with the novels

[gigabyteTroubadour]

I like reading them. Waiting for computer access to be useful but they are nice reads

[mhsmith0]

It was the best of games, it was the worst of games...

[Wingback]

Decided to look for Thor's views on bussing first and found some quotes:

Subject: Newbie 1725 Scum PT

Thor I dont want to bus you. Im just trying to distance us. I hammered Peng yesterday because I felt like you would get lynched if I let him spill the beans about the similarity in your playstyle in Newbie 1724

There's actually a fine distinction between bussing and distancing - at the end of the day distancing is good, and bussing is (to my mind) noot a good play at all.
Thus far you're walking the distancing line pretty well, but have on two occasions actually made me a lynch wagon when I would not otherwise be, which toes it into bus territory.

The real goal is to do about what you did yesterday - be violent and aggressive towards the scumbuddy, but have a valid excuse and logic to, at the end of the day, not be voting them. I think bussing is a bad strategy because town *expects* scum to bus, and at that point you're weakening one of scum's biggest strengths (controlling votes) while doing exactly what town wants (putting votes on scum) for the gain of not looking like a buddy afterwards - which is why distancing is better, because it creates the only benefit of bussing, without the issue of actually helping the town wincon. You do have to be mindful however, distancing without ever voting or pressing will look fake, scummy, and stupid - so you can't go too soft either.

Subject: Newbie 1710 - Kittens (Post-Game)

And here's why I think bussing is a bad strategy.

Let's say I'm scum, and I'm desperate to not get lynched if my buddy is lynched due to our associations.
That's the goal of bussing, right?
To, after the death of the partner, look more likely town than scum.

Okay - after Zyf's flip, which I was a clear and strong supporter of, did ANYONE suggest I wasn't his scumbuddy due to how aggressively I tried to lynch him? ANyone at all? (the answer is no).

So, I basically called the guy scum Day 1. He attacked me Day 1. I attacked him back. On Day 2 I listed him as a top scum read, tried to lynch him, after I shifted a wagon off him I shifted a wagon back to him and got him lynched as he called me scummy to his last breath and...Everyone still finds it totally reasonable that I'm maybe his scumbuddy.

So, what we learned from this is, even with a VERY aggressive bus, the site has trained people to still think people are scum because people do aggressive bussing.
Therefore - we learn that bussing is meaningless, and you might as well hard defend your scumbuddy constantly, because, yeah, maybe they will get lynched and you will look suspect by association - BUT AT LEAST YOU AREN'T HELPING TOWN LYNCH SCUM, WHICH IS AGAINST YOUR WINCON AS SCUM.

Because people are married to the idea of bussing.
But bussing is dumb play.

Either Thor decided to in this game, change up his meta, or he's town. I'm going with the simpler explanation that he's town than the most complicated one that he decided to bus, hoped that someone would remember that Thor doesn't bus and townread him for it. I also think my reasoning that him explaining his survival late into the game would be challenging if he came off as pro-town as he did. He could have pushed Io or someone else instead of Karnos. Karnos had his defenders who would have helped Thor pursue a different wagon so it's not like it was unavoidable.

While I disagree with his push on Tenshii, it fits with Thor's philosophy on gameplay. He clearly sees hard-defending buddies as optimal scum play so I can see why he'd go for Tenshii and argue that Tenshii defending Karnos was scummy. Going to put Thor pretty solidly in my townpile for this.

[Wingback]

Reading through Tenshii's ISO, I have a couple of questions and comments:

VOTE: Kcdaspot

Some of you guys are finding this dude obnoxious to deal with. And all he's done so far is poke people for a few posts, then say "x y z is mafia and a b c posts are town" without giving any substance behind it. He's trying to give off the vibe he's being productive and scumhunting without actually proving it.

This is actually really, really bad. You're voting someone because some people find him "obnoxious?"

@ Phantom, I'm willing to temporarily unvote you if you temporarily unvote Karnos.

What's this about? Why do you need him to unvote Karnos for you to unvote him?

PC is the main lynch I want right now. Worst case scenario, non-contributing VI is lynched. Best case scenario, scum is lynched. Anything else, I'd have to reevaulate. I've kinda been debating on hopping on the Karnos bandwagon for the past few days, mainly cuz I do think that they plan on fighting to the death and they won't stop attacking each other until it happens, even to Day 2, 3, etc. So the sooner we can stop it the better.

I do think this would be an odd way to bus though. No towncred, just voting Karnos (a townread) so that the argument stops.

I don't like the focus on Phantom and it seems like a policy-lynched push dressed up as a scumread.

I don't like the diversion to dodgeball and the multitude of fluffing about everyone is dodging.

I don't like his putting himself in a townbloc in Post 1231 and suggesting lynching the rest given how much he defended Karnos.

[Wingback]

My current townreads are Gigabyte, Thor, and Rosske. Rosske primarily because the Io kill doesn't make sense from him, secondarily because meta points more to him being town but it isn't a strong meta read.

ISO'd Tenshii and Transcend and neither came off as overwhelmingly town. That still leaves Mhsmith on my list of people to ISO. Thought he was town earlier but will look into it very closely tonight after I grab dinner.

[mhsmith0]

Oh and also i fos luna fox for early defense on me before i had even allotment told.

Karnos' response to the questionnaire doesn't read fabricated to me.

VOTE: Luna Fox

[

Honestly tho Transcend's logic is so far out there.
That i hardly believe they'd try to mislynch me with it.
So maybe they're prob town.

It's notable that transcend didn't comment on the actual case developing against karnos, just the relative non issue of whether the rqs response was forced (even though his #7 did look awkward). "Distract the town from the karnos case" is a plausible scum reason to have pushed Luna there without actually being interested in her lynch.

[mhsmith0]

I look at every slot in the game other than transcend and I can think of a reasonably convincing reason to town read them. Wrt transcend the closest thing is the reaction to the kts fake wolf claim... And

I'm bad at this. I thought this was town!kts since his play nearly replicated last time i played with him. Then again, i thought the same thing about karnos and look where that got me. Sig changes when i get home.

This is the first game I've won without voting a single scum all game.

Aren't super hard posts to fake. Best guess at this point
VOTE: transcend

[Transcend]

ok if i get roped promise me you won't play with your head in your ass tomorrow guys.

my goal isn't to towntell, i don't give two shits about towntelling.

my goal is to find scum.

i did not sign up for this game to appease you mofos i signed up to lynch mafia.

[mhsmith0]

Incidentally, wrt the kts fake scum claim thing, another one of those moments where I'm like "no shit thats what's going on" was http://forum.mafiascum.net/viewtopic.ph ... 8#p8194138, where it was super obvious dgb was softing a doctor claim, but apparently no one in the game (including the wolves!!!) picked up on it. So idk.

[Transcend]

cool story, bro