I'll write a defense towards urap2's posts if I get the opportunity, but I want to make sure that I get the chance to write my closing thoughts before the end of the day since I have the potential of getting hammered at any moment.
Two clusters have emerged during the day. The "core town" cluster which has composed of TW, urap2, Urist and Lavender, and the "scum suspect" cluster which has composed of myself, Denmon, Ryno and Marcus(recently replaced by Teacher). Shoshin probably could have integrated herself with the town cluster, but due to her extremely lurky nature after the start of the game, she has just turned into a massive question mark. All of the members of the town cluster have been almost solely focusing their scum reads towards players in the scum cluster while the focus of the players in the scum cluster haven't been concentrated in the same way.
This isn't that insightful since the general existence of this dynamic should be fairly obvious to everyone. However, it's worth remembering that the emergence of these two clusters along with it's members was fairly clear very early on in the game.
Beyond this, there are a few other factors that are going into my current opinion...
1) Even though I know urap's conclusion that I am mafia is incorrect, it's clear that he has put far more thought into his argument for scum reading me then I initially believed back when I thought that it was just based on the "greeting tell" and that the exemption on TheWhig/Urist slot might have just been sheeping The Worst. As such, I have even more doubt about my case against TW/urap2, and I think that even if there is a scum among them, my approach may have been incorrect and based upon a flawed belief.
2) My lynch is unlikely to upset the overall balance of the game in terms of lynch priority. That is to say, if I'm lynched, the next day will most likely begin with the players who pushed for my lynch giving their shocked reaction to my town flip, then rationalizing it off as the correct call due to my scummy appearance, then once again looking to lynch from the remaining players in the cluster (Denmon, Rhyno, Teacher; most likely Denmon or Rhyno). Night actions might have some impact, but the likelihood of this scenario should be pretty clear to whoever the scum are, which carry's on into my next point...
3) Even if my case towards a scum among TW and urap2 was completely unfounded, it still presented an opportunity for scum to try and point suspicion towards the town cluster. However, there was relatively little movement in spite of this. Denmon was the only other player to point suspicion in that direction. Rhyno and Marcus/Teacher have both been content to go along with the lynch, even though there is a high chance that the attention will turn back to one of them tomorrow as mentioned above.
My current opinion...
I don't think that both of the scum are in the Rhyno, Denmon and Teacher group. Main reasons for this are that...
A) If both of the scum were in that group (especially if it was Rhyno + Denmon) I think that there would be a lot of movement from those players since it should be fairly obvious to them that they will be at the top of the suspect list tomorrow (hard to say whether the players who voted for Marcus will carry their suspicions over onto Teacher). As mentioned though, Rhyno is playing way more passively then what would be expected if this was the case.
B) It is unlikely that the scum team is Denmon + Teacher due to the interactions between Demon + Marcus when Denmon first subbed in (I'm pretty sure that TW picked up on it if I remember correct). It's possible that the interaction was staged (which would have been clever), but it seems genuine from my perspective.
C) I still lean town on Rhyno and I'll take one more swing at trying to articulate this point. Generally when players are scum, their focus is to act pro-town to avoid getting lynched and whenever they do something more overtly scummy, it's with some intent to swing the gamestate into a more favorable position for scum. I don't think this matches how Rhyno has been playing. With some of his posts, they have been openly controversial or borderline contradictory with other posts he has made. For example, he has been openly criticizing the use of reads, then immediately engaging in the use of reads. He has also been actively uncooperative with some of the people who have questioned him even when there isn't that clear of a scum motive to act in that way. I think it's less likely he would be playing this way if he was mafia and I think that calling him out for being uncooperative when there isn't much of a reason for mafia to be uncooperative is lazy.
Then between Denmon + Teacher, I lean scum more on Denmon. Firstly, his reaction to the greeting tell just seemed odd.
In post 214, DENMON wrote:
Eh? How do greetings correlate with being mafia? I've never seen this before in my experience
In post 219, DENMON wrote:
Huh, that is pretty strange. I think it is more of a coincidence than something that mafia just does. But just in case, I guess I'll keep my eye out for Godmid then O.o
In post 222, DENMON wrote:
This actually makes sense. (Should I not introduce myself in future games to reduce possible suspicion xD I normally do this when I don't know many people)
I'm actually gonna take this, and see if it checks out from where I usually play. I'm playing another game there that recently started that has a good amount of noobs O.o
In post 268, DENMON wrote:
I wanted to question it before I made assumptions as I never have seen the greeting tell before. I also don't think it is a very strong tell and that we should rely on other reasons to find who is red. You mentioned you had experience in forum mafia, right? Maybe the greeting tell doesn't apply to us because we aren't complete noobs, but I haven't looked too much into this to say it doesn't.
Not sure what else you would want me to say here. It's a bit of a vague question
While this is partially based off of his reaction being different then my own reaction (hard skepticism), it has the feel of someone who isn't sure how to proceed with the situation. It goes from heavy skepticism to softer skepticism + shading another player for the tell to acceptance of the tell back to uncertain skepticism. Additionally, some of his posts seem opportunistic.
Some of Marcus' posts did seem odd or forced which is a point that has already been brought up, but I'm still not scum reading the slot that heavily off of it.
If Denmon ends up being scum, I think Urist makes the most sense as the second mafia. As mentioned above, I don't think that Denmon is on a team with Rhyno or Teacher. urap2 and TW are also unlikely teammates, leaving Urist, Lavendar and Shoshin (as mentioned, Shoshin is pretty much just a wild card after her massive lurking). Among these options, Urist makes a lot of sense due to the people he chose to push on. Even though his accusations towards Marcus and Rhyno seemed pro-town at the time since he wasn't just sheeping the most obvious targets, he was still targeting two of the more vulnerable lynch targets which was clear at the time that he posted. As such, if Denmon is mafia, there is a decent chance that Urist may have been positioning himself to appear pro town, then once urap2+TW caused a D1 mislynch on me, he would have looked to take control of the lynch after lost credibility onto urap2+TW, leading the town into more mislynches.
I'm not really thinking of the possibility that myself, Denmon, Rhyno + Marcus/Teacher are all town since I will show some faith in the ability of the experienced town players within the town cluster to not completely misidentify the suspects day 1. Of those, Denmon is the one whose behavior I see as the most suspicious.
I will be sad if TW is mafia and chose his lynch targets to match with urap2.
Again, I'll respond to urap2's case in full if given the chance. The meaning behind my opening posts concerning Shoshin have been heavily misinterpreted and quite a few of the other points are just scum reading my normal habits (I'm naturally quite wordy with my sentence structure). However, these are the main points I want to give before days end.
Tldr; I don't think both of the mafia are among Rhyno, Denmon and Teacher. If I had to make a guess towards the scum team, I am leaning towards Denmon + Urist. Denmon because I think he makes the most sense as mafia from the players being suspected and Urist because I think he is the player who makes the most sense as being Denmon's teammate if Denmon is mafia. If Denmon is town, Urist is probably also town and the scum team possibilities become quite wide.
