Mid-Range Game 53: Unmade, Remade

[Azmine_king]

22 hours ago, Matrim's Dice said:

and I touched on earlier that Az not making an action is a bit convenient and they fit the low-profile.

I mean maybe, I can't really get Illwei to back me up here but not only am I used to day/night cycle as that's the only setup my home community uses, also I'm prone to forget to do actions even then which is a bad habit 

 

EDIT:

4 hours ago, Kasimir said:

Az's remaining vote on TUO is easily explained if Az saw TUO's claim last cycle so left it on. @Azmine_king, any reason you went for TUO over Tani when you saw both visit Illwei?

I questioned both of them, TUO was the only one at that point in the day that posted, so I just went with him, not much too it.

Edited September 28, 2021 by Azmine_king

[Archer]

For all the time she had to plan it, I'm surprised e!Tani tried to go onto TUO then backtracked suddenly. I think it's possible they have the real PM person on their team and covering for them, and the post was well planned out to be a solid claim. On the other hand, the AAAA seemed genuine. And Tani acted weirdly in the Zelda game in a similar situation when village. Based on her PM info dumps, I'm convinced she's not Sja, so I'll retract my vote. 

Working assumption: Kas and TUO are village. 

So far, Mat has been okay killing Tani, Xino, me, and Az. That leaves Squirrel and Elandera as possible teammates, with Squirrel as the probable Sja who missed a conversion while still busy!Mint. Squirrel being willing to kill Tani and Mat not wanting to kill Squirrel feeds into this theory. But the key takeaway is Elandera and Squirrel have to be evil if you suspect Mat, so look there first if you're aiming your coinshot rifle.

If you instead view Mat as village, along with TUO, and Kas, we're looking at Elandera, Xino, Squirrel, Az, because I saw Squirrel asking the thread what Tani was in a not e-e way. That config works because it keeps not e-e TUO and Az apart, but I think Az is village from their interaction. Which drops us to a three person team.

Xino hasn't said much, but what they did say I actually liked. Although they didn't directly confront anyone. But they likely negated their own vote, so that makes them non Sja. Squirrel tripped my radar with their vote movement based on 'I read the thread and changed my mind' which felt a little easy to me. I think I'm okay with exing them today. Friendly reminder that that vote will count as double, because I have magic powers.

I'm hesitant to kill Elandera because we know she isn't Sja. I'd rather kill any other possible Sja's who are likely to be evil. But I can't think of any, based on the assumptions I've made. Every elim team I can make has both Squirrel and Elandera in it, so that's probably a sign they're evil. 

Tani Squirrel 

1 minute ago, Azmine_king said:

I mean maybe, I can't really get Illwei to back me up here but not only am I used to day/night cycle as that's the only setup my home community uses, also I'm prone to forget to do actions even then which is a bad habit 

Yeah my read on you is almost solely based on your interaction with TUO, but it did feel like your style, so I'm sticking with it. Who ya voting? 

[Azmine_king]

1 minute ago, Archer said:

Yeah my read on you is almost solely based on your interaction with TUO, but it did feel like your style, so I'm sticking with it. Who ya voting? 

I think Mat is a decent lynch, could spew a couple players.

[The Unknown Ajah]

I would like to vote Squirrel due to the arguements of above (and sideways) posters.

[Elandera]

Squirrel

From what I've read, they're probably the more likely Sja candidate than Xino.

40 minutes ago, Archer said:

I'm hesitant to kill Elandera because we know she isn't Sja. I'd rather kill any other possible Sja's who are likely to be evil. But I can't think of any, based on the assumptions I've made. Every elim team I can make has both Squirrel and Elandera in it, so that's probably a sign they're evil

I'm hesitant to kill me too, because it would be nice to get two elims today. Preferrably Sja so they can't get another conversion off. It would be better to hit someone who's actually a Sja candidate and not just a conversion candidate.

[Kasimir]

4 hours ago, Matrim's Dice said:

I’ve liked Squirrel’s posting, as opposed to a nothing from xino.

Ashertmarn?

Elk, dead. 

Will catch up with everything else later. It's a busy day :/

[Squirrelwatcher]

9 hours ago, Kasimir said:

I feel a bit weird about Squirrel's @ing Drought that late in the cycle. I feel like an earlier response might have been better and I'm curious about what exactly set @Squirrelwatcher off about Az.

I saw that drought had appeared in the 'recently browsing' section and I was hoping to get something more from them (reads, defense, etc) before they got exed.

I also wanted a relatively close vote so that way we could look for associatives if an elim flipped.

With regards to Az, I found it odd that they voted TUO for not answering the question about night actions, despite TUO's opening post that cycle very clearly having some sort of night action.

---

4 hours ago, Archer said:

Working assumption: Kas and TUO are village. 

So far, Mat has been okay killing Tani, Xino, me, and Az. That leaves Squirrel and Elandera as possible teammates, with Squirrel as the probable Sja who missed a conversion while still busy!Mint. Squirrel being willing to kill Tani and Mat not wanting to kill Squirrel feeds into this theory. But the key takeaway is Elandera and Squirrel have to be evil if you suspect Mat, so look there first if you're aiming your coinshot rifle.

There's another underlying assumption here; that e!Mat doesn't want to bus. I'm not sure about Mat's meta, but I think eliminating all of Tani, Xino, you, and Az is a bit of a stretch. 

4 hours ago, Archer said:

If you instead view Mat as village, along with TUO, and Kas, we're looking at Elandera, Xino, Squirrel, Az, because I saw Squirrel asking the thread what Tani was in a not e-e way. That config works because it keeps not e-e TUO and Az apart, but I think Az is village from their interaction. Which drops us to a three person team.

Fair enough, I suppose. Though I think Tani should still be included in here, just not as an option for a team with me.

Including Tani would still result in a three person team, assuming Az is still village - Elan, Xino, me/Tani. In which case, I'd feel better exing Xino because they have yet to claim and can still be Sja.

5 hours ago, Archer said:

Squirrel tripped my radar with their vote movement based on 'I read the thread and changed my mind' which felt a little easy to me. I think I'm okay with exing them today. Friendly reminder that that vote will count as double, because I have magic powers.

I'm assuming this was today? I backread myself and the only thing I could find that even remotely matched what you were saying was in regards to Tani. Which is fair, but I was tired and figured sheeping someone early on in the cycle probably wouldn't matter too much. I would much rather see Xino or Elan voted out over myself as they haven't even claimed. 

 

[Kasimir]

Final-ish thoughts, thanks to the amount of OTing I've been doing, though I anticipate being on intermittently. Guess I'm going to put this up before returning to work so I'm hopefully not too late.

• If we assume we are in [WORST CASE], we are 5-4. If TUO is Evil, we've lost. If Archer is Evil, we've also lost. This exposes us to a hammer and a powerful laxative an extra kill. The hammer could misfire. But assuming Team Evil has got their game together, well yeah. This isn't an argument for exonerating Archer and TUO, but it's indicative of my approach, which means that I'm probably not going to consider them as targets for my final vote.
   
• We may not be in [WORST CASE]. I suspect we are in some intermediate case between [WORST] and [BEST]. I think a decent case can be made for acting as though we are. Which does warrant the claims party of this cycle.
   
• If we are in [WORST], we need to consolidate. This should not be last minute, but should ideally be done before the cycle ends. This does generate some problems for us with regard to e.g. Xino, who has evidently checked out of the game (whether RL or otherwise; understandable, but unfortunate for us if xino really is Village.) If we are in [WORST] and xino is Village, our effective voting power is 4-4, before taking into account voteswings due to Nergaoul and/or the Soother. One consideration I have in mind is if xino is going to be much more engaged next cycle - because if xino isn't, then on the assumption there is a next cycle, I'd rather take the stab in the dark now than later on. This is not an argument for a CC lynch; in my view, this is only going to hold true if all else remains equal, i.e. there is absolutely no reason to prefer Squirrel to xino, or vice versa, apart from them both being in the PoE. Then there might be a pragmatic reason to.
   
• I'm going to go over the reasoning one last time. This is really more for my own sake, because I need to think aloud (as unfortunate people in PMs with me have since discovered on prior occasions.) And I kind of want to get this out with enough time that if I have to switch for consolidation purposes, I can do that.

14 hours ago, Elandera said:

From what I've read, they're probably the more likely Sja candidate than Xino.

Why? What exactly?

Az's comment on spew analysis strikes me as weird, by the way. Informational reasons are okay depending on context - lylo is not the time to go pure informational. It's not a bad difference if you're indifferent, but why would you be indifferent between, IDK, Mat and xino?

Let's go back to what Sja could/would do.

Clearly, Sja can't roleclaim accurately. Doing so would be potentially gamethrowing, considering how suicidal a move it would be.

So there are three main options:

1. Claim an Unmade role
   
   I feel there are two sub-options here. A: We could postulate that Sja claimed Re-Shepir, as Mat did. This entails picking a random Unmade and hoping to get lucky. Note that Mat's Re-Shepir claim came before any other Unmade claim, though we already had evidence of Cher, Moelach, potentially D-G (weak), and Nergaoul. Certainly, Mat could have selected his claim to avoid collision where possible, therefore avoiding BAM, Cher, Moelach, D-G, and Nergaoul. What's interesting is that he asks about Ashertmarn earlier, which might indicate he's not tracking Unmade identities too closely, because Elk was Ashertmarn and died C2. The other issue with this line of thought is that it requires Mat to have some idea of what actions Tani and xino were taking, in order to make the fake claim plausible. Certainly, low activity players could be a strategic choice: it doesn't look as suspicious as always targeting the dead, and they're less likely to call you out. But in this game with a decent number of roles with actions, that seems like a semi-suboptimal choice. So I take it as prima facie reason to have some credence that Mat is who he claims he is.
   
   That being said, if Mat is in fact Sja, someone on his team is likely a nightspren or Re-Shepir, enough for him to feel confident about the Tani claim. So I guess I'd shift him to the [MODERATE] tier, but still low credence. 
   
   B: We could postulate that Sja claimed the Unmade identity of a teammate. This requires the teammate to have claimed yet another role to disguise, in a switcheroo. (Or the teammate could simply fail to claim.) First, this is only a promising strategy if Sja still has conversion abilities. When Sja is out of charges, Sja basically is a vanilla, and therefore the most expendable member of the team unless there's another voidspren out there. If so, then you want Sja to take the kill, so the team can have the tactical flexibility of existing role abilities. Our options for these aren't particularly great: TUO claimed Cher without contest, and certainly simulated a roleclaim early in the cycle C3. In fact, he tried Moelach, which got him called out by Az. I think the oddness is this: TUO said that he claimed Moelach because Cher was more likely to get him converted or killed - true, but why claim in the first place? What pressure was TUO responding to? Because the first time TUO got voted on that cycle was when I @ him over the couplets. And I still don't see how Moelach isn't still a conversion/kill magnet. At the same time, it'd be odd to claim Moelach and then get called out for it, and then fakeclaim another pre-existing Unmade! On this line of argument, if TUO were Sja, why not just claim the teammate's identity to begin with?
   
   Az @ ing TUO and Tani definitely implies either he is in a doc with actual Moelach, or he is actual Moelach - noticing correctly that they targeted Illwei is a big call to get right. Az also volunteered this earlier in the cycle, but I respond a bit better to this than TUO's claim because it was informational. TUO claiming he saw who killed Illwei but wouldn't say who isn't bad caution for a Villager, but it also reads like a straight-up call to get excluded from the Sja PoE.
   
   The main issue with Archer and Nergaoul is that there's no real counterclaim and it's not clear who the counter would be. (This, by the way, is a minor issue with postulating an Unmade claim switcheroo - if Sja takes Unmade Teammate's role and actions and claims them as hers, then what does Unmade Teammate claim? Voidspren/Regal voidspren? If not, do they claim another Unmade? But then why isn't the other Unmade counterclaiming? And so on. I will say a bit more about this in a bit.) That being said, if we take as true Az's claim that Illwei was targeted only by TUO and Tani C2, then the Nergaoul is likely a Villager argument falls apart because there simply was no interaction between Team Sja and Illwei. (Why, though?) Archer's claim also fits in terms of Chantara's timing and expressed thoughts, minimally.
   
   Finally, Tani. I am inclined to believe Tani because a series of predictions about existing PMs is a fairly tall ask. I think C2 does wash out looking a bit better for her. (Previous longpost.) What's interesting for me is that Tani says that her C2 PMs with TJ and Illwei failed. That's a very specific word - and it strikes me as the sort of thing that a GM would use, in terms of the action failing. I don't know if that's likely to be conveyed via doc. 
   
   Remember that this isn't establishing who is likely Village at this point. It's just establishing where Sja can be hiding because Sja is confirmed Elim, and because we really need to drain her charges (minimally) and take her down (maximally.) 
    
2. Claim a voidspren/voidspren Regal role
   
   We have just really one taker here, and that's Squirrel. Squirrel's roleclaim is initially plausible to me. In a conversion game, it makes sense there'd be redundancy built in for scanners, and Nightspren are more limited than Moelach. Claiming that no one targeted TUO C3 is a bit of a bold prediction; less so for an Elim, but all the same. (Perhaps it's not too bold, since we do have a Moelach claim for TUO C3, and with Araris dead and little sign of PMs, it's not particularly risky.) But suppose the results were in fact produced. What does an Elim Nightspren need to scan TUO for? Yelig-Nar is down, meaning that there are no more protect roles in the game. Even if we postulate that Squirrel is using the results from a teammate, my issue is that I can't see what there is to be gained from the teammate doing so. 
   
   One of my reasons for putting pressure on Squirrel is that this option seems to me to be a bit more plausible: whereas Unmade roles are unique, voidspren roles are not, meaning that Sja would not attract potential counterclaiming, particularly once Araris was dead. 
    
3. Refuse to claim
   
   I am hesitant about this, because our two outliers are Elan and xino, and we know Elan can't be Sja, whereas we have an unaccounted for Soothe on xino C1. If Mat is truthful, Mat made xino self-target C1. This means that if xino had a role and took an action C1, it can't have had a visible result. Unfortunately, that's not terribly helpful because it's possible to have not taken an action. Refusing to claim is also a strange strat for Sja because it just looks bad in a game where everyone else has already claimed at lylo - it makes you stand out. Claiming a voidspren role, in comparison, is pretty uninvolved, I think.

But here's the problem. We can merge 2 and 3 together due to numbers: <xino, Elan, Squirrel>, of whom Elan can't be Sja. If Sja isn't hiding in this pool, she has to logically be hiding in the <Az, Mat, Archer, TUO, Tani> pool. (I can't be Sja.) But we know that every Unmade mentioned thus far except Re-Shepir has to exist. (Moelach because Death Rattles do, Nergaoul because of the C2 votejack, Cher because of the C2 kill. It is possible that Dai-Gonarthis doesn't but it requires us to postulate even more lying, due to needing at least two envoyspren and requiring Elims to link themselves blatantly.) In other words, consider this scenario:

Az (random pick) is really Sja. But Az is claiming Moelach, which is X's role, in order to divest himself of suspicion.

Who can X be?

Suppose X is Archer. (Random pick as well.) This requires not just that Az fakeclaim Moelach and that Moelach be Unmade, but it passes the problem down one step. Well, why didn't Nergaoul call Archer out, then? Since we are assuming in this scenario that Archer is actually Moelach (X), there are only two logical answers: Nergaoul is inactive, or Nergaoul is in cahoots with Archer.

The first option is odd: it requires Archer to pick a role he knows exists but that he doesn't know who the player is, and might get called out for it. The second option is odd as well: if we postulate that Nergaoul is Archer's teammate, then we pass the problem down yet another step: who is Nergaoul going to claim?

The point is:

A. Sja doesn't have the charges to convert all the living Unmade. Her maximum is two Unmade. At some point, one of them is going to have to claim voidspren. Our only voidspren candidate is Squirrel.

B. Nergaoul could simply decline to claim. This points us back to Elan and xino. 

The fact that we have claims from pretty much every player not Elan and xino points, in my view, to the fact that either we postulate Sja is hiding in the <xino, Squirrel> pool, or that one of <Archer, Tani, Mat, TUO, Az> is Sja. If we do, then with the exception of Mat (and weakly in the case of Tani), we have to postulate that one of <Squirrel, xino, Elan> is also Evil, to help cover for Sja.

In other words, it keeps coming back to those three.

It's possible Mat is lying about being Re-Shepir, but I think I've laid out why it seems to be prima facie plausible to me.

All of which is a long way of saying that I'm still cool with a kill on Elan but I feel like it's really down to <xino, Squirrel> right now. I'm tempted to go xino, but at the same time, I don't really know if it's just activity bias at work. 

Ah, hell. xino, Squirrel.

If there's something I'm missing and we need to consolidate on Squirrel, @ me. I'll be OTing so I'll be able to catch this before rollover and swap accordingly.

Edited to add: Alright, better to consolidate. xino, Squirrel lesgo @Ashbringer

Edited September 28, 2021 by Kasimir

[Ashbringer]

... oh yeah.

Cycle's over in about half an hour! 

 

Edit: Vote Count!

• Squirrelwatcher (4): The Unknown Order, Elandera, Archer, Kasimir
• xinoehp512 (2): Matrim's Dice, Squirrelwatcher
• Matrim's Dice (1): Azmine_king

 

... I hope.

Edited September 28, 2021 by Ashbringer

[Kasimir]

...I still feel nervous about voting with Elan. I also feel nervous about voting with Mat and Squirrel.

And I sure as hell don't want that Mat train.

#why

Damnit @|TJ| bro why'd you have to leave me alone  

[Elandera]

2 hours ago, Kasimir said:

we have to postulate that one of <Squirrel, xino, Elan> is also Evil, to help cover for Sja.

If it helps, I'm not covering for Sja. I'm probably the only vanilla person in this game, though I know that doesn't help my case. It's why I've avoided claiming once Araris confirmed me as not Sja.

[The Unknown Ajah]

Just now, Elandera said:

If it helps, I'm not covering for Sja. I'm probably the only vanilla person in this game, though I know that doesn't help my case. It's why I've avoided claiming once Araris confirmed me as not Sja.

I think Drought was vanilla, but honestly, I don't think you're Sja or covering for them, I think you were converted. 

[Kasimir]

1 minute ago, Elandera said:

If it helps, I'm not covering for Sja. I'm probably the only vanilla person in this game, though I know that doesn't help my case. It's why I've avoided claiming once Araris confirmed me as not Sja.

Drought was too.

[Elandera]

2 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

Drought was too.

Oh, that makes me feel better. I haven't paid much attention to roles in the game. OT has been killer these last two weeks.

[Kasimir]

1 minute ago, Elandera said:

Oh, that makes me feel better. I haven't paid much attention to roles in the game. OT has been killer these last two weeks.

I know the feeling. Been OTing since someone lost their chull over some stuff on Sat, then there was the database clusterchulls last week. Feels like I haven't slept in weeks.

Hmm. The sacred coin says to stay on Squirrel. I don't know if that calms me, but okay.

[Elandera]

mat

[Ashbringer]

That's time!

[Ookla of Colors]

um... I think I forgot to make PMs...

[Ashbringer]

Hush... Things are happening...

Edited September 28, 2021 by Ashbringer

[Ashbringer]

MR53 Cycle 5: Retribution

[Writeup to come, and if I haven't finished it by tomorrow you can nag me about it because this deserves one]

 

 

Squirrelwatcher was executed! They were Sja-anat!

• "Thanks for the acorns"

The Unknown Order was killed! They were Loyal Chemoarish!

• [No Death Rattle Recorded]

Elandera was killed! They were a Defector Voidspren!

• [No Death Rattle Recorded]

 

Final Vote Count:

• Squirrelwatcher (3): The Unknown Order, Archer, Kasimir
• xinoehp512 (1): Matrim's Dice, Squirrelwatcher
• Matrim's Dice (2): Azmine_king, Elandera

 

The cycle will end on Thursday, Sept. 30th at 12:00 PM (Noon) PST. 

 

Player List:

Spoiler

1. @Matrim's Dice - a random voidspren
2. @xinoehp512
3. The Unknown Order - Jimmith - Loyal Chemoarish
4. Elkanah - TBD (not to be confused with tbd) - Loyal Ashertmarn
5. Araris Valerian - Winnie the Pooh - Loyal Ba-Ado-Mishram
6. |TJ| - Loyal Yelig-Nar
7. Frozen Mint - Emma - Squirrelwatcher - Sja-anat
8. @Azmine_king
9. Elandera - Defector Voidspren
10. @Tani
11. Droughtbringer - Loyal Voidspren
12. Chantara - Veeda, or V - @Archer
13. @Kasimir - Aizu
14. Illwei - Loyal Nightspren

 

[Kasimir]

Thank you, TUO. You really helped.

@Ashbringer - If Sja had two charges left, would Sja get lynched, or survive the lynch?

That's the third time the sacred coin has come in clutch for me, holy hell o.O

[Ashbringer]

1 minute ago, Kasimir said:

@Ashbringer - If Sja had two charges left, would Sja get lynched, or survive the lynch?

She'd survive.

[Mat]

…Why am I alive

I suppose that TUO was more of an immediate threat but I’m still surprised lol

[Kasimir]

8 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

…Why am I alive

I suppose that TUO was more of an immediate threat but I’m still surprised lol

Why would he be?

This is C5. He can't kill C5. I suppose him killing Elan would have confirmed him.

Edited to add:

10 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

She'd survive.

Cheers.

So we know that Sja must have one charge or less. We also know that Sja burned one charge converting Elan. Let's look at the possible cases/permutations, ignoring order:

• [CASE #1]: 1 + 2 + 2 = 5 [Sja converts Elan and two Unmade.]
• [CASE #2]: 1 + 2 = 3 [IMPOSSIBLE; Sja would not have died.]
• [CASE #3]: 1 + 1 + 2 = 4 [Sja converts Elan, and one other Voidspren, and one Unmade.]
• [CASE #4]: 2 + 2 = 4 [IMPOSSIBLE; doesn't account for Elan.]

I don't think I'm missing anything else. In [CASE #3], I understandably still haven't been converted, so our only real candidate would be our Soother/smokespren.

Anyway - @Archer, thought you said you were going to Nergaoul the lynch?

@Azmine_king, what did you see?

Also, xino.

Edited September 28, 2021 by Kasimir

[Mat]

4 minutes ago, Kasimir said:

Why would he be?

This is C5. He can't kill C5. I suppose him killing Elan would have confirmed him.

Oh, right, that's true. Huh. I suppose a confirmed is pretty important at this point though, so I think it still makes sense.

Exeing in Tani/Az/xino today, right? I guess Archer in there too but I want to somewhat limit the PoE lol