Anniversary Game 8 / AN11: Back to Beginnings

[Violet Axolotl]

Dyring stopped polishing a glass and glared at Scimon. "No more drinks until you start helping us out with this mess. The town's in shambles, our mistborn is dead, and what have you done about it?" He raised his voice, addressing the whole room. "That goes for the rest of you lot as well! No drinks or rooms for anyone that doesn't put some visible effort towards finding the Spiked."

[Magenta Albatross]

Vote Count where things currently are. Gonna put my vote on Pearl Chameleon cause Penguin brought up good points and I had completely forgotten about their PMs to me until Penguin asked me about them. Also their reason for voting me currently seems to be because I survived N1.

Pearl Chameleon(6): Amethyst Scorpion, Chartreuse Penguin, Azure Mouse, Quartz Zebra, Onyx Flamingo, Magenta Albatross

Magenta Albatross(2): Pearl Chameleon, Salmon Meerkat

Mint Heron(1): Violet Axolotl

Oxblood Beagle(1): Mint Heron

[Fuchsia Ostrich]

Re-read D1 and N1 and it's safe it say there's a lot of stuff that's sets off red flags about Pearl Chameleon. Penguin makes a good case for Cham as well. 

Here's a quote from Hyena, the very first read list, in which he seems to want to tie Crocodile to Pearl [when Pearl was in the lead] possible to sow the seeds of e!Pearl leads e!Crocodile

Quote

• Mauve Crocodile: For the most part, my read of Mauve was pure neutral. I'm not sure how I feel about the retraction off Pearl and subsequent encouragement for people to vote elsewhere. Possible E/E?

The entire time Chameleon is in the lead with 3 votes, Hyena is very very hedgy about them, refusing to change their vote after they dropped in initially on Scorp.

Link here shows Chameleon avoids voting for Gorilla here even in self defense with an out-of-nowhere vote on Swan. Go through the entire page here, the whole forgetting to post a reason for the vote ["oh man i totally forgot to give suspicion"] sounds very performative and when asked to give a reason, they just repeat what was previously given by other players [particularly Beagle's reasoning]. 

Their retraction after all the opposition to Swan's voting was also less than convincing.

Link below shows Gorilla voting Swan ahead of Cham and Hyena, and we see Chameleon and Gorilla [and Hyena] actively avoid voting on each other. 

Quote here from Chameleon again. Vote manipulation is what saved both Gorilla and Iguana. Look at the difference in the inferences - from "not a fan of vote manipulation that saved them" for Iguana to "confused where the suspicion on them comes from" for Gorilla. 

Some other thoughts - 

Scorpion is village, sorry. Not willing to entertain bus debates [and yelling my own paranoia away], this is a team that looks like it's extremely protective of each other [at least in D1] - even discounting Cham's alignment, we have Gorilla and Hyena trying to protect each other. I really don't think Scorpion would undo all that and bus in the very first cycle. Even discounting the last minute vote, their interaction with Hyena is very much does not feel e/e. 

Flamingo looks bad enough in D1-N1 that I'll have to reconsider if Hyena's cw push on them in D3 was performative. 

Axl looks to be village as well. 

Really don't know what to make of Dingo's non-intervention. Either scared to mark themselves as the vote to be responsible for a villager's death or just plain villagery nonchalance. 

Coming to Magenta Albatross, looking back, it seems that Hyena was the first to mention they seem like a new player which makes me hmmm but other posts and their thread situation are much much better than Chameleon's.

Edit: yikes 2 more votes on Chameleon as I typed up this post? That makes it seven to two, not sure what to make of this hmmmm

Edited January 17, 2022 by Fuchsia Ostrich

[Salmon Meerkat]

18 hours ago, Chartreuse Penguin said:

b)i doubt the events of cycles 3 to 4 have much to do with cham i think they were on the sidelines most of the time and we pretty much acted unanimously as a thread for the better part of those cycles

Gonna highlight that this in my view is untrue and is partly why I said I don't really care as long as one of <Alb, Cham> is lynched.

Cham had one of the odder responses to my gambit - I'm just going to link the summary thread here for reference:

Cham's response IMO maps partly onto Gorilla's because Gorilla asked me about my opinion of the Tineye message, whereas Cham asked me if I had really managed to end up Evil after all this time. I think the phrasing stood out to me at that time and I've flagged it in the analysis because it felt as though it was coming from someone who had prima facie reason to think I was not actually Evil! When the whole thread was more or less on the 'ok, kel is Evil, lynch him and let's ISO to figure out his connections' mode.

In contrast, incredulous reactions I find more plausible were like Ostrich's, who kept on insisting I had a gambit in mind - and that was to smuggle Swan into the Village's good books. It's a very Village puzzle-solving mindset, in my view. Instead of doubting that I'm actually Evil, he's doubting the scenario, yes, but extrapolating it to make Swan Evil as well!

I noted that I found Cham's reactions:

Quote

Thoughts: Subdued reaction, the way Cham phrased the first question was odd and that gave me a slightly weird vibe. Just that I get that Cham says it's phrasing, but it's weird that Cham is waiting for me to say I'm Evil when I've all but implied I am in thread, as though he has some reason to doubt, which was never apparent. (Actually I don't think I ever outright said I was Spiked. I don't know, Aes Sedai urges?) 

Conclusion: Subdued reaction isn't in itself suspicious but Cham seemed to have reason to doubt my being Evil. Maybe I'm overreading the first sentence, but that's what I got out of it. Reassess I guess.

And during D3 itself, Cham (alongside Beagle, whom I'm re-evaluating at this juncture) was one of the players to slow-walk the incident:

Also want to flag that D3, he was an early mover onto the Falcon train and defended Gorilla lightly - this matters because we know Gorilla later flipped E, and Falcon V:

Falcon likely a prospective CW. Here's the votecount:

Quote

Salmon Meerkat (3): Fuchsia Ostrich, Melon Dingo, Ivory Dragonfly,
Emerald Falcon (3): Salmon Meerkat, Amethyst Scorpion, Pearl Chameleon
Turquoise Gorilla (2): Coral Swan, Onyx Flamingo, 
Oxblood Beagle (2): Chartreuse Penguin, Emerald Falcon, 

Gorilla and Beagle are under threat, I can promise you the Spiked dgaf about me apart from the knowledge it was a poisoned train  - so Falcon looks like the designated CW since Penguin and Falcon are both in my eyes very much Village (GM confirmed, in Falcon's case.)

The lukewarm Gorilla defense and noncommitalness reads like distancing even as his actions essentially protect Gorilla by voting for Falcon.

Continues to slow-walk Gorilla as train gains momentum:

- Notable as I'd entered full Gorilla Delenda Est mode a couple of posts ago:

I'm still staying on Alb because idgaf as long as one of these two candidates are lynched (having highlighted my issues with Alb earlier), but in general, I would argue it's not quite true to say Cham has been on the sidelines for D3.

D4, yeah, but D4 was the Great Hyena Pile which we don't talk about >>

[Chartreuse Penguin]

47 minutes ago, Onyx Flamingo said:

With Alb flying under the radar since their almost-death, I feel like voting them out wouldn't be too bad of an idea. It's suspicious to me, and I'm still hanging onto that thug claim possibly indicating elim? An elim thug + mistborn does seem powerful though. Gah

I have to say this feels like hedging xD it’s almost like you wanna keep the Alb train as a backup vote option in case you wanna quickly switch votes 

i understand being uncertain as a villager but,,,

[Salmon Meerkat]

13 minutes ago, Salmon Meerkat said:

Salmon Meerkat (3): Fuchsia Ostrich, Melon Dingo, Ivory Dragonfly,
Emerald Falcon (2): Amethyst Scorpion, Pearl Chameleon
Turquoise Gorilla (2): Coral Swan, Onyx Flamingo, Salmon Meerkat  ---> Edit: This should be 3, im tired & kel
Oxblood Beagle (2): Chartreuse Penguin, Emerald Falcon, 

Oh, huh. His count actually misses my Gorilla vote earlier, meaning it was a real CW. Hadn't even been voting for Falcon before since I self-voted as that's the only correct response if there really was a 'Seeker scan' since I fabricated the whole thing.

Interesting he chooses to slot onto the Falcon CW instead of the Beagle CW.

Well, then.

Y'all are killing him fine without me, so carry on  

11 minutes ago, Chartreuse Penguin said:

I have to say this feels like hedging xD it’s almost like you wanna keep the Alb train as a backup vote option in case you wanna quickly switch votes 

what did i say about rolelynching >:(

what

what

Edited January 17, 2022 by Salmon Meerkat

[Violet Axolotl]

58 minutes ago, Onyx Flamingo said:

An elim thug + mistborn does seem powerful though. Gah

This rule set has plenty of room for powerful elim roles, because it also has plenty of room for powerful villager roles. If the entirely of the elim team’s roles are Thug+Mistborn, I would judge them severely underpowered.

I’m going to put my own vote on Chameleon. I also think that, largely independent of Chameleon, Albatross is likely to be village based on the vote interactions that Meerkat pointed out.

[Salmon Meerkat]

8 minutes ago, Violet Axolotl said:

I’m going to put my own vote on Chameleon. I also think that, largely independent of Chameleon, Albatross is likely to be village based on the vote interactions that Meerkat pointed out.

How so? Hyena setting up a fall guy?

[Violet Axolotl]

10 minutes ago, Salmon Meerkat said:

How so? Hyena setting up a fall guy?

This thing:

Quote

Note that my count missed a Penguin vote, which I've added here. It also added a Cham vote which didn't exist. Which means this is the juncture Albatross is the lead train, and we have a bunch of subtrains coming up. What interests me is Gorilla tipping the Albatross train. Meant to protect Flamingo? I don't know. Seems odd for Gorilla to go onto Albatross slightly six hours to rollover, but maybe Elim team risk tolerance is a thing. It's especially notable to me because Gorilla's votes have been historically sticky with regard to Albatross - Gorilla goes onto Albatross...for voting me as Evil...on D3, which is a bit of a hot take since I'd claimed Evil at that point.

 

[Salmon Meerkat]

1 minute ago, Violet Axolotl said:

This thing:

 

You think Gorilla wasn't distancing? 

[Violet Axolotl]

1 minute ago, Salmon Meerkat said:

You think Gorilla wasn't distancing? 

I don't think I know enough about who is behind Gorilla to make a good guess about that, and the only other good data point we have is Hyena, who Gorilla didn't explicitly try to distance from. I think the train on Gorilla sprung up rather quickly D3, so the elims might not have been prepared for distancing.

I also rescind what I said about Alb being village irrespective of Cham, mostly because I still want more than 1 elim to have voted on a primary train D1, and if Cham flips village, I think we need to look at Alb closer.

[Salmon Meerkat]

6 minutes ago, Violet Axolotl said:

I also rescind what I said about Alb being village irrespective of Cham, mostly because I still want more than 1 elim to have voted on a primary train D1, and if Cham flips village, I think we need to look at Alb closer.

I would agree that's really my D1 problem in a nutshell. I'm committed to at least one of Flamingo/Ostrich being Evil, or at least one of Albatross/Cham based off D1. I suppose if pressured, I would lynch Flamingo before Ostrich, since my Ostrich credences are robust, but I really require an <Albatross/Cham> pool lynch because if not, I just can't make sense of the Elim activity. If not Flamingo or Ostrich, then I'm sort of stuck with Albatross as the only guy in the position to have 'saved' Gorilla D1, if only by bringing a third train into the bargain.

I suppose I would be willing to lynch Flamingo (but I'm allergic to last minute switches, FYI) so my end result is <Flamingo, Albatross, Cham> for people who might be involved in our Croc-Iguana-Gorilla three-way end D1. Otherwise, the Elims seem unacceptably nonchalant about having a member caught up in a lynch, though I take your point about the Elim team's risk appetite being a function of its constituents - and likely Scorp's Gorilla vote was not anticipated at all, barring more complex paranoid scenarios which I'm not so gung-ho on - too close to the wire.

[Onyx Flamingo]

I don't like the pile on of votes onto Cham. That feels wrong. If cham was elim, wouldn't the elims be scrambling to defend them? Gah

[Magenta Albatross]

3 minutes ago, Onyx Flamingo said:

I don't like the pile on of votes onto Cham. That feels wrong. If cham was elim, wouldn't the elims be scrambling to defend them? Gah

Cham is leading 8-2 I doubt the elims could do anything about it at this point. At least without showing their hands.

[Salmon Meerkat]

4 minutes ago, Magenta Albatross said:

Cham is leading 8-2 I doubt the elims could do anything about it at this point. At least without showing their hands.

Real question is if I should make it 9-1 before going to sleep but it feels like it's a landslide either way and I'm satisfied with the candidates.

I also am starting to believe that there is: A. very low vote manip, and B. most vote manip is Village.

Latter is a hunch, the former is evidenced in the voting and what we know of distro, with the 25% unseen caveat.

Edited to add: To be clear, it feels like if Smoked Rioter worries were true, a 4 vote voteswing might've been enough on D3 since prior to the Rioting madness, we had I think an 8-4 wagon gap at one point.

Edited January 17, 2022 by Salmon Meerkat

[Pearl Chameleon]

can someone post something??

i wanna use my serious persona for this next post

it should be a big boi

[Fifth Scholar]

2 minutes ago, Pearl Chameleon said:

can someone post something??

i wanna use my serious persona for this next post

it should be a big boi

Appreciate the dedication to your CR, fire away  

for the rest of you: rollover in under 3 hours! All votes and actions must go!

[Chartreuse Penguin]

12 minutes ago, Pearl Chameleon said:

can someone post something??

i wanna use my serious persona for this next post

it should be a big boi

I- I was wondering why you went 

Quote

I was waiting for someone to post so that I could post my reads list.

in this post of yours from D3. CR, makes sense.

[Pearl Chameleon]

Well, to start things off, let us start with the current standing of the votes.

Pearl Chameleon (8): Amethyst Scorpion, Chartreuse Penguin, Azure Mouse, Quartz Zebra, Onyx Flamingo, Magenta Albatross, Fuchsia Ostrich, Violet Axolotl
Magenta Albatross (2): Pearl Chameleon, Salmon Meerkat
Oxblood Beagle (1): Mint Heron

At this point I am wondering if it is worth trying to defend myself. I will try, because I am positive that there is at least Spiked currently voting on me. First, I shall respond as best as I can to people's concerns about me.

21 hours ago, Chartreuse Penguin said:

Note that he subtly defends Cham while hedging on providing a definitive read. Cham never chooses to address this part of hyena's post.

I did not feel the need to comment on this because I felt like it was not really saying anything about me. I have learned from previous experiences that there is often no need to respond to someone discussing you if they are not factually wrong about something or voting on you. Perhaps this is not the best method of doing things, but it is what I do. 

21 hours ago, Chartreuse Penguin said:

Hedgy, no? Extremely non-committal.

I do not understand how I was being non-committal there. I still stand by my point. I do not see the reason for voting for someone if I do not personally find them suspicious. Clearly I was wrong about Gorilla in the long run, but I stand by my point.

21 hours ago, Chartreuse Penguin said:

If that was so, it would've made more sense for Cham to vote for Gorilla instead of Swan. That would've brought the exe to 3/2 split between the two of them instead of bringing it to a tie. As of then, the vote situation was:

• (2) Pearl Chameleon: Scarlet Octopus, Mauve Crocodile,
• (2) Torquoise Gorilla: Violet Axlotlt, Salmon Meerkat,
• (1) Charcoal Hyena: Chartreuse Penguin, 
• (1) Amethyst Scorpion: Charcoal Hyena,
• (1) Scarlet Octopus: Amber Vulture, 
• (1) Melon Dingo: Coral Swan, 
• (1) Coral Swan: Oxblood Beagle, 
• (1) Violet Axlotl: Onyx Flamingo, 
• (1) Mauve Crocodile: Fuchsia Ostrich,

(At some point in D2, Cham says something about how they might change their vote in a certain direction in order to solidify a lynch and prevent the tie, so Im confused as to why they were seemingly okay with it here. An explanation could be that e!Cham just wanted to save Gorilla.)

I do not remember if I said this at the time, but I voted on Swan at the time because I was not suspicious of Gorilla and, like I said, I do not like to vote for someone I do not suspect. And, at the time, there was still plenty of time to move my vote later on if I needed to prevent a tie. Or my own exe, depending on how things went down. As for the act of making a tie itself, I do find myself being drawn to them some of the time. They are very tempting, both because RNG is fun and because it can often force the Spiked to act to save one of their own.

21 hours ago, Chartreuse Penguin said:

Gorilla decided to vote Swan instead of Cham, despite the fact that voting Cham would've further protected gorilla from the exe. Unprompted, Gorilla claimed that this was because Cham seemed village to them in PMs:

This is a gross misrepresentation of how the votes were situated at the time that Gorilla made that post. Crocodile's post just before Gorilla's vote showed that I was in the lead with 3 votes and Gorilla had 1. Gorilla's vote on Swan tied it up between me and Swan.

22 hours ago, Chartreuse Penguin said:

Back to d1, Cham later switches their vote back to iguana from swan, breaking the 3-3 tie between cham and swan. One possible explanation i can see for e!cham doing this is that a tie would've meant that either gorilla (an elim) or swan (villager) would've gotten exe’d at random. If swan got exe’d and cham was seen on the counter wagon, it would’ve incriminated cham to some degree if gorilla flipped. Or at least, this is what I was thinking before it came to my knowledge that the entire Iguana wagon was coordinated by Cham via PMs (I mean that logic still holds true in this case too but). Was this common knowledge? If it was, why haven't more people been talking about it? Anyway I PM'd Alb today asking if their sudden vote on Iguana had anything to do with Cham's PMs with them and Alb explained that yes, Cham had coordinated it. Sus? At least a little? Also, of lesser significance but I think it's worth mentioning that Alb has claimed that Gorilla spoke to them not in RP-style, but OOC in their PM (recall that Cham claimed the opposite and idk, I'd expect consistency from Gorilla I think) I mean it's a tiny thing but hey.

Yes, I coordinated people voting on Iguana. If I remember correctly, that consisted of asking Albatross if they were willing to vote on Iguana with me. I am not sure how this makes me suspicious. If I had wanted to gather votes onto Iguana to save Gorilla, why not gather my teammates?

22 hours ago, Chartreuse Penguin said:

Again, hedging around Gorilla, neglecting to provide personal opinion on them.

Could I not be confused about where the suspicion was coming from at the time? 

8 hours ago, Salmon Meerkat said:

Long story short, my issue with Cham boils down to Gorilla waffling, and D3 commitment to Falcon over Hyena, and a pattern of really bad votes D1-D3.  Because I'm tired and I think this post has gone long enough I want some fresh eyes on it.

Am I not allowed to be wrong about my suspicions? I guess, to be fair, that our main method of solving this game is through seeing when people vote on villagers, though I have certainly gone several games as a villager and only voted on villagers.

4 hours ago, Magenta Albatross said:

Vote Count where things currently are. Gonna put my vote on Pearl Chameleon cause Penguin brought up good points and I had completely forgotten about their PMs to me until Penguin asked me about them. Also their reason for voting me currently seems to be because I survived N1.

What exactly about my PMs to you seems odd to you? Just the fact that I was asking if you wanted to vote on Iguana with me?

I was going to respond to more points, but I am running out of time. Both in real life and in the game. So I will cut it off here.

[Fifth Scholar]

Two Faces in the Dark

The phrase “in the dark,” as I’m sure you know, can refer not only to one’s shadowy surroundings, but also to the shadowy secrets of which one may be unaware. Every day, the sun goes down over all these secrets, and so everyone is in the dark in one way or another. If you are debating for your life in the Tyrian Falls town park in broad daylight, for instance, but you do not know that there is a cache of atium buried fifty miles away on an ash-covered hillside under a terebinth, then you are in the dark even though you are not actually in the dark, whereas, if you are on a midnight stroll, knowing full well that your alter ego is planning to ruthlessly slaughter another villager, then you are not in the dark, even if you are in fact in the dark. Of course, it is quite possible to be in the dark in the dark, as well as to be not in the dark not in the dark, but there are so many secrets in the world that it is likely that you are always in the dark about one thing or another, whether you are in the dark in the dark or in the dark not in the dark, although the sun can go down so quickly that you may be in the dark about being in the dark in the dark under threat of communal murder, only to look around and find yourself no longer in the dark about being in the dark in the dark, but in the dark in the dark nonetheless, not only because of the dark, but because of the alternate Var in the dark, who is not in the dark about the dark, but is also not in the dark about the Spike in your shoulder, and you may be in the dark about the townspeople plotting to take your life because of the spike in your shoulder in the dark, even though you are no longer in the dark about being in the dark, and so you are in fact in the dark about being in the dark, even though you are not in the dark about being in the dark, and so you may fall into the pit trap the townspeople have dug, which is dark, in the dark, and in the park.

---

Pearl Chameleon (Var, Two-Faced) was Spiked A person with a spike in them that granted no abilities except that of PURE EVIL! Props to him for sticking to his secret CR for so long  

Vote Count:

Pearl Chameleon (8): Amethyst Scorpion, Azure Mouse, Chartreuse Penguin, Fuchsia Ostrich, Magenta Albatross, Onyx Flamingo, Quartz Zebra, Violet Axolotl

Magenta Albatross (2): Pearl Chameleon, Salmon Meerkat

Oxblood Beagle (1): Mint Heron

Night 5 has begun! It will end in a little over 23 hours at 8:00 PM EST on 18 January 2022. Get those actions in!

Player List
1. Amber Vulture Vanilla Villager
2. Amethyst Scorpion - Sidor, newly resigned Hazekiller (Guardsman)
3. Azure Mouse
4. Charcoal Hyena Spiked Mistborn
5. Chartreuse Penguin - Aethex (Jester)
6. Coral Swan - Su (Jaist) Village Mistborn
7. Emerald Falcon Village Lurcher
8. Fuchsia Ostrich - Freddie (Glutton)
9. Ivory Dragonfly (Unlucky) (Replaced)
10. Magenta Albatross (Past Lives)
11. Mauve Crocodile (Gambler) Vanilla Villager
12. Melon Dingo - Scimon Tlag (Merchant)
13. Mint Heron - Tivend Elons (Casanova)
14. Onyx Flamingo (Gossip/Casanova)
15. Opal Lion Vanilla Villager
16. Oxblood Beagle
17. Pearl Chameleon - Var (Two-Faced) Spiked
18. Plum Rhinoceros (Prophet-ish)
19. Quartz Zebra (Drunk/Jaist)
20. Saffron Iguana (Helpful Heckler) Village Soother
21. Salmon Meerkat - Kellehrt, local farmer and possible madman
22. Sapphire Elephant
23. Scarlet Octopus (Neat, Extremist Priest) Village Tineye
24. Sunburst Toucan Village Thug
25. Turquoise Gorilla (Game Show Host) Spiked
26. Violet Axolotl - Dyring (Neat Innkeeper)

Good luck! Praise the Ja!

Edited January 18, 2022 by Elbereth
fixed cham's role

[Chartreuse Penguin]

Great job team <3

[Salmon Meerkat]

I'm slightly disappointed no one bit on the nice, sweet, tempting CW I'd parked for them, I have to say. 

But I'm glad we got another one

Requiescat in pace, Falcon. Your sacrifice will not be in vain. 

It's interesting there was little defense and it makes me think that their team us running out of active thread control players. I don't quite know if this entails looking at the lurkers — I think semi actives are a good take too. Apart from Cham's late post, I was the closest person he had to a defender and even I wanted him dead >>

Edited January 18, 2022 by Salmon Meerkat
justification pls

[Onyx Flamingo]

AHA

I was wondering if I would need to O7 Cham but I don't. Instead, I O7 you Falcon, for taking Cham out with you.

Time to look at everyone Cham defended ever.

[Salmon Meerkat]

Current State of Lion's Reads:

I'm tired and am just going to throw this out here as I may not be able to do further analysis at this point. It's a busy week for me though I try to carve time out to uphold my responsibilities to Tyrian Falls.

Three down, likely three to four more to go but we can't get complacent. Losing another regular might be starting to hurt them in terms of night actions economy, which is a good thing.

First, for your regular anonymised action claims: no one was Lurched last Night.

RADIANT [=STRONG VILLAGE]

Spoiler

• Penguin

Assess Village with high confidence. Validated by Hyena's flip, PM interactions indicate Village slant to thoughts and genuinely trying to solve the game. Pushed Hyena very early on and I judge it wasn't just a nudge or distancing, and broached Hyena again with me early N3/late D3. My previous reasons for trust stand. Penguin was annointed a Village contact point last cycle, just in time too, as Swan was killed. I guess this doesn't bode well for Penguin's life expectancy, but such as the burdens of being an info node  Strong push against Cham this cycle in my view gives me strengthened credence she is Village.

• Ostrich

Assess Village with high confidence. Promoted to Strong Village now. Clearly intended by Hyena to be the CW alongside Vulture. Has been consistent in pushing against Hyena since he entered the game, and voting patterns are okay - was on Gorilla when needed, and made a strong push against Cham, which gives me strengthened credence he, too, is Village.

SQUIRE [=MODERATE VILLAGE]

Spoiler

• Axl

Assess Village with moderate confidence. Promoted to Squire. D1 still looks more V to me, and I accept his explanation that family >>> SE for D2 to D3 and approve of it. I feel as though it's not possible to expect all Elims to be defending Gorilla, or attacking Falcon, and Axl seems to be on the level thus far. In addition, he's been zeroed in on Cham from D1, which looks good on him. PM reactions seem to be fairly Village, and so am currently fine with having him at Squire tier.

• Scorp

Assess Village with moderate confidence. Promoted to Squire. Relooking at the D1 voting, and with the sense that there seems to be a very poor vote manip landscape, I'm leaning towards Scorp's D1 vote on Gorilla being a Village one. Interactions in PMs have read more Village and game-solving than not, and was relatively fast and proactive in going on Hyena and Cham.

SHARDBEARER [=LIGHT VILLAGE]

Spoiler

• Alb

Assess Village with light confidence. Back to a Shardbearer read for Alb after he dropped in my reading. D2 seems to show lack of coordination between Alb and Cham in terms of having different pictures of the vote situation and I don't feel that's a plausible mistake for an Elim to make. Need to reassess my view of Alb's votes as I still regard the D1 vote as being a potential vote dilution tactic, but on this read, Gorilla's vote being sticky on Alb is Gorilla looking for a simple excuse to vote. I feel a bit more confident in my view that Alb jumping on the chance to vote me D3 isn't really an Elim move - all three of the Elims we've caught so far have slow-walked their responses to my gambit, though in Hyena's case, likely timezones as well. Too, I feel as though teammates might have counselled Alb against taking Falcon's bait. Most of us are used to screening out Falcon's spicier moves by now.

• Mint Heron

Assess Village with light confidence. Downgraded to Shardbearer tier. Heron has some odd takes, and I'm not thrilled by the way Heron is chronically allergic to making a defining vote on an Elim on any day at all, given we have had three Elims voted out so far. (I suppose we could conversely take that as a point in Heron's favour, since he dgaf and it can't be that hard to bus - look at Hyena.) Unclear if my player ID read of Heron is making me too charitable to Heron, or encouraging me to read Heron the right way. King of the side-train, may he reign in glory. Still believe his D3 response to my gambit demonstrates such a failure to read the room/read the general views/reads landscape that it seems to come more from a Villager mindset than an Elim mindset - I maintain Elims should be more sensitive to these things.

•  

BRIDGEMAN [=NULL+]

Spoiler

• Melon Dingo

Assess Village with low confidence. On the level of principle, it saddens me to have to do this, but Dingo is so thoroughly apathetic to anything apart from my D3 'Seeker scan' gambit that I'm convinced an Evil stick would have more reaction or investment in thread events than Dingo though I'm at least glad he's enjoying his RP. The fact he could intervene but just dgaf is both frustrating and also the sole basis for my diluted, milquetoast, equally apathetic Null+ read. Potentially reassess.

• Azure Mouse

Assess Village with low confidence. Do not like the convenience of sudden pop-up D2 Iguana vote, but Mouse 2.0 has been active in PMs trying to catch up, and vote on Cham is appreciated. Not implausible this is performative and advised by teammates, but benefit of the doubt for the moment. Potentially re-assess.

CHULL [=NULL]

Spoiler

• Ivory Dragonfly

Go back and forth; ultimately went into null. Was working hard to catch up at the start but we're not seeing much of that now, which raises the question of performativity. Given player ID guess of Dragonfly, worry that Dragonfly is inhabiting Elim meta. Slight reason to consider Dragonfly Village from interactions and Dragonfly did show up to vote when needed D4. On balance, null read.

• Flamingo

I go back and forth about Flamingo. PM and thread exchanges feel genuine and it's clear Hyena intended her to be CW but at the same time, it's not clear there was much commitment, and I wonder if it's really about distancing. E!Flamingo makes death of Ocho more mysterious, since killing Ocho focused attention on the CWs and pushed Flamingo into the spotlight by preference (rather than Gorilla) which is an odd choice for a team where we know Gorilla was a regular. At the same time, Flamingo's posts until D3 have tended to mirror Cham - defending Gorilla and condemning Iguana, and Flamingo's votes do not look good, especially if I'm still committed to some measure of Elim involvement in the D1 lynch. On balance, null read. Commit to re-assess.

CHOUTA [=NULL-]

Spoiler

• Sapphire Elephant

Continues to provide proof of life, and requests PMs but does not want to engage in them. Raises worries of filter-dodging, and potential Lurker Elim power role.

• Plum Rhino

Another terminal lurker who showed up D3 to vote on Falcon CW and then promptly recedes from the lands of the living again. Given Cham was on Falcon CW, and worries of Lurker Elims, may be worth scrutiny.

• Beagle

Another player I go back and forth about. In general, the deal with Beagle is that her voting patterns aren't that inspiring - Beagle is another side-train voter D1 and D2, and then there's the completely weird response to the gambit D3. I sussed her for it, decided I was too harsh, and have returned to sussing her for it because I feel Scorp didn't have the same reaction (despite also having seen my Tineye play in the past), and because I think that's worth exploring, given that both Cham and Gorilla had anomalous responses. I don't like the D3 push for V Falcon over E Gorilla either, and the resistance to Gorilla.

Interested in everyone's thoughts of where we might look for the remaining three to four Elims, team composition, and so on.

Edited to add: Forgot about Zebra, Zebra remains at Null+ for aforementioned reasons.

Edited January 18, 2022 by Salmon Meerkat
fixed spoiler formatting

[Amethyst Scorpion]

2 hours ago, Onyx Flamingo said:

Time to look at everyone Cham defended ever.

I think Cham defended you more than anyone still alive, saying more than once that they don't understand/agree with the suspicions of you. Also notable is Chameleon pushing suspicion on Albatross though did not commit to a vote D2 when there was an actually chance of Albatross getting exed.