First of all Varsoon it seems like we're mostly on the same page now. One of the things I was getting at was that, regardless of how good your plan is, the hypoclaim (where everyone says who Arthur is) is objectively better than yours. It seems like that's been established.
In post 774, Varsoon wrote:No, I disagree entirely.
I disagree because what I want (and what we should want) is a plan that works REGARDLESS of town cohesion, and that works AS SOON AS POSSIBLE and that GIVES US THE MOST GUARANTEED LEVERAGE OVER SCUM;
If we have 2 confirmed in Merlin-Arthur on D2 with a hidden third BP player that can later confirm, that's the best possible situation for us.
Our lynch pool shrinks from 15 to 12 on D2 which is HUGELY SIGNIFICANT.
People have been trying to shade the sword-claimant thing but so long as our Sword-Holder just claims THE DAY BEFORE LYLO, counterclaims don't beat it and we are guaranteed a BP IC going into LYLO.
This is literally the only way we are guaranteed any ICs going into LYLO as every other plan hinges too much on keeping Merlin/Arthur hidden until at least D3 or later without realizing one of two things:
1. LYLO is D5 in this setup.
2. Every Night that Merlin/Arthur go unclaimed is another huge risk we take that scum kills Merlin and we lose two ICs.
So, to REITERATE because I know some people might just be dense and not get it:
1. The problem with 'wait to confirm Merlin' plans is that they are very high risk for relatively low reward (to get an single extra IC into LYLO, Merlin would have to claim D4 at the earliest and go un-gladiated and un-killed until then)
2. The problem with 'use the sword to cop players' is that it only works if both town and scum agree to play around it AND if we fail to catch scum with it the first time, it literally won't work because the sword won't become unclaimed unless the townie that claimed it suicides.
I understand where you're coming from in most of this, but I object to some of it. First of all, a plan that requires some town cohesion is not necessarily worse than a plan that requires no town cohesion; in fact it's likely to be better because we can assume that town can put its cohesion to good use. So really the best thing to do is to accurately predict how much cohesion town is going to have, and if you can do that then please do.
Assuming the sword is claimed N1, our lynchpool always shrinks from 15 to 12. As long as we give both potential duelers a chance to claim before the duel, neither the sword holder, Merlin, nor Arthur will be in danger of being lynched, no matter WHAT plan we adopt.
And yes, I realize it's hard to keep Merlin and Arthur hidden... but it's even harder to do so if Merlin claims.
Every strategy has some way to fail; just because you've made a strategy that fails equally well no matter how good scum are at PR hunting doesn't mean you've made the best strategy.
And finally, just because townies have to suicide in order to use the sword as a cop doesn't mean you should automatically discount it. That strategy DEFINITELY has the best chance of Arthur getting the sword, and maybe you should trust literally everyone else when they say that's a huge plus for town.
