Long Game 83: The Survivor

[Steeldancer he/him]

Alright I survived my stupid exam (aside: it was such a massive pain in the butt I needed 24 hours just to mentally recover from that pile of crem. Gah)
Bort was an elim. Yay! However I don't feel super vindicated, as at the end of the day, they were scanned. I have always had mixed feelings regarding alignment scanners, so I'm not too thrilled about that. But that's aside from the load of information that this should give us.
@Araris Valerian I'm going to assume the reason the scanner used you as an intermediary is because they scanned you village night 1, scanned bort elim night 2, and then communicated that to you. 

So this leaves my current strong village reads as such: Matrim, Stick, Drake, and our new player that I'm forgetting the name of at the moment. I'm almost certain each are village, although Stick is my strongest trust atm. 
I'll say some more later or something. I'd like to get back on top of my RP as well. Don't want to get murdered before getting to a finishing point...

 

[Araris Valerian he/him]

1 hour ago, Steeldancer said:

@Araris Valerian I'm going to assume the reason the scanner used you as an intermediary is because they scanned you village night 1, scanned bort elim night 2, and then communicated that to you.

That wouldn’t be a bad assumption except for the fact that I explicitly stated that wasn’t what happened . There are Reasons(TM) that Hal, the player scanned N1, didn’t want to reveal themselves to the thread. Hal/Investigator had a decent read of me so figured me revealing would lower the risk. I am definitely unscanned, which means in theory I could be voted out. So the elims most certainly don’t need to eliminate me.

[Steeldancer he/him]

3 hours ago, Araris Valerian said:

That wouldn’t be a bad assumption except for the fact that I explicitly stated that wasn’t what happened . There are Reasons(TM) that Hal, the player scanned N1, didn’t want to reveal themselves to the thread. Hal/Investigator had a decent read of me so figured me revealing would lower the risk. I am definitely unscanned, which means in theory I could be voted out. So the elims most certainly don’t need to eliminate me.

Ah, I didn't catch that part. 

[DrakeMarshall he/him]

Spoiler

 

[StrikerEZ he/him]

And that's the turn! No more posting, PMing, or submitting actions/item requests!

[StrikerEZ he/him]

Day Four

I am definitely looking forward to coming back to this writeup.

---

Steeldancer has been killed! They were a Confederation Loyalist!
Drake Marshall was attacked, but survived!
Haelbarde has died! They were a Confederation Loyalist!
_Stick has been killed! They were a Confederation Loyalist!

There will be an Interrogation during this Day turn. There is no vote minimum (though no one is removed if no one votes), and tied votes result in a random tied player getting Interrogated.

As a reminder, you can grab one item from the Stockpile during the Day. Though this will be announced in the writeup for the next Night.

PMs are coming as soon as we can get them out to y'all. 

@Szeth_Pancakes If you do not post this turn, you will either be replaced by a pinch hitter or removed by the inactivity filter

Stockpile

Spoiler

• 2 Iron Vials
• 2 Tin Vials
• 1 Brass Vial
• 2 Bronze Vials
• 1 Gold Vial
• 2 Cadmium Vials
• 2 Bendalloy Vials
• 1 Aluminum Vial
• 1 Chromium Vial
• 1 Shade Gun
• 1 Attractor Fabrial

Player List

Spoiler

1. @Biplet - Edeis, a totally not immortal gossip
2. Ashbringer - Faleast, just a normal dude and definitely not a shapeshifter Confederation Loyalist
3. @Szeth_Pancakes
4. @Matrim's Dice - Dooku, a man whose name is unrelated to anything
5. @Araris Valerian - Arval, no the other one
6. Steeldancer - Leets, totally not the Flash Confederation Loyalist
7. Amanuensis - Genis, a little kid who’s too smart for his own good and his AI friend, G.E.N.I.U.S. Confederation Loyalist
8. @JNV - Kali, another kid who managed to sneak on board the ship
9. @Archer - Ivory Tarvis, Head Carpenter of The Survivor
10. @Kasimir - Kavar Aral, a seasoned operative who really should have retired ages ago
11. The Unknown Aon - ExMach Inadeus, an extraordinarily lucky guy Confederation Loyalist
12. @|TJ| - Kranvar, a wanted criminal who snuck on board somehow
13. @DrakeMarshall - The meme guy
14. @Orlok Tsubodai - Locke Tekiel, a seasoned veteran
15. Thaidakar the Ghostblood - Levin Venture, totally not a Ghostblood Confederation Loyalist Hazekiller
16. @Illwei - Kraval Aralis, who’s way too excited about potions 
17. @Karnatheon
18. Haelbarde - Haen Plaid, he’s still here, I suppose Confederation Loyalist
19. _Stick_ - The Stick figure Confederation Loyalist
20. @Sequence - Sfirm Kryt, they’re totally in the mission
21. Bort Traitor
22. @STINK
23. @Tani 
24. @Fifth Scholar - Christel Groenloben, a surprisingly cheerful old skaa lady who doesn't act like it

This turn will end at 8 pm CST on Sunday, February 27th. As a heads up, N4 will need to be longer than normal due to some fun stuff going on with my schedule. 

Edited February 26, 2022 by Devotary of Spontaneity

[|TJ| he/him]

I'd hoped Hael took out Archer to not eat up discussion today but I assume Knife backlash killed him. 

3 kills meaning they either powered up their kill N2 and used 2 vials and powered up one of them tonight OR used 2 vials N2 and dual-powered their one vial tonight. Whoever took Nicrosil N1 is likely evil. 

Archer

[Araris Valerian he/him]

Well, I agree that Archer is the obvious choice here. But as our safety officer would say if he were here, we don't want to waste the opportunity for discussion even if we have a clear exe target. Having 3 extra village flips should help with that a bit, not to mention a soft-clear on Drake.

[JNV]

I think the "has died" bit means Haelbarde was not killed from steel so knife or Hrovell

With last cycles deaths thats 5 kills from 3 steel so lots of nicrosil/duralumin. either 3 kills from 1 steel or 2 depending on how they doubled

Items last time

Spoiler

• 1 Tin Vial
• 1 Pewter Vial
• 1 Brass Vial
• 1 Bronze Vial
• 1 Cadmium Vial
• 1 Chromium Vial
• 1 Nicrosil Vial
• 1 Attractor Fabrial

Items now

Spoiler

• 2 Iron Vials
• 2 Tin Vials
• 1 Brass Vial
• 2 Bronze Vials
• 1 Gold Vial
• 2 Cadmium Vials
• 2 Bendalloy Vials
• 1 Aluminum Vial
• 1 Chromium Vial
• 1 Shade Gun
• 1 Attractor Fabrial

Delta

Spoiler

• 2 iron
• 1 tin
• -1 pewter
• 1 bronze
• 1 gold
• 1 cadmium
• 2 bendalloy
• 1 aluminum
• -1 nicrosil
• 1 shade gun

I'm willing to bet a lot of these are from deaths cause we have 10 items added at a minimum with probbaly more considering item snatching

Obviously Archer but yeah discussion. I'll look through Archer's posts nad be back with thoughts later but Im posting this now so it doesn't sit here

[Mat he/him]

What the what

At least my village reads were correct ;-;

I would say that the knife definitely hit Hael in backlash. I don’t get how there were three other kills, but that can probably be explained by metal shenanigans…

Archer is the way to go here but I’m voting Biplet for the sake of having more than one train

[Kasimir he/him]

Waking up to Archer being alive and having agreed to have my oldest friend in the game go to his death was not really how I planned to spend my weekend, I'll be honest. I'll get a cuppa and look this over. 

Agree in principle with an Archer vote, want to diversify pressure, and to go back and look given the flips—for instance, we now know Stick was V/V with TUA for sure, which is helpful for D1 analysis. 

Edited February 26, 2022 by Kasimir
justification

[Karnatheon he/him]

Archer 

Elims had to have gotten their hands on a couple of Nicrosil/Duralumin at least. Keeping any more of that out of their hands should be a priority if we can. None currently in the stockpile at least.

[DrakeMarshall he/him]

[Kasimir he/him]

4 hours ago, JNV said:

I think the "has died" bit means Haelbarde was not killed from steel so knife or Hrovell

My bet is on the knife. Bev'ika (M'Hael) agreed to target Archer with the knife. We don't see an attack and survival, therefore Archer won the 50% coinflip, Hael died, and my bet would be Knife backlash. Bort could not have passed the Hrovell as items cannot be passed, and looking at the OoA, the Hrovell is after the Knife/Steel on OoA, meaning that anyone who used the Hrovell had to: A ) first use it last Night, after the kills, and B ) use it on a player that some thought was Hal.

Moreover, they'd have to use it after they died. If we think Bort lied about having the Hrovell, it still clearly had to be under Elim control and we haven't had an Elim death last Night. So either way you slice it, it's clearly a knife death.

What's interesting and also a bother to work out is:

A. Type of deaths - Steel, Stick, Drake (attack, not death)

Probably just me, but all of these are odd shots. There are other just as Village read players to go after rather than Stick, seeing as killing Stick resolves the D1 CW for good. There's something concrete about having a flip compared to a good read. (She was light V for me.) Steel is definitely odd due to suspicion of Steel meaning he was a viable ML target - views on Steel were mixed in the playerbase. And I actually think Drake is a bad target on the assumption Drake is V because the moment Drake flips V, Archer is very dead.

It's arguable Archer was very dead anyway, I suppose, and just wanted to take Drake down with him, but I don't know. It doesn't quite make sense to me.

B. Number of deaths - Three, excluding Hael.

To recap: no N1 kill, and two deaths on N2, and three on N3. This would typically require five steel vials. The Elims only should have three as it's C3.

Here's a few possibilities I can see:

• They got their hands on 2x Nicrosil/Duralumin. 

One Elim could have spawned in with nicrosil or duralumin, or failing which, taken it off a kill or collected it successfully from the Stockpile. At a quick look, we have someone who claimed Nicrosil on N1 - the Stockpile began with two Nicrosils and ended with one. But - this is the Night Archer added +6 items to the stash, and it's unclear how many people really went for Nicrosil that Night. 

One option is that Ash went for Nicrosil on N1 as well, the D2 delta covered this, and then Ash died and the Nicrosil went to an Elim. That's another way of solving the 2x Nicrosil problem. The other publicly known Nicrosil claim was Mat, who lost the Nicrosil D3 due to a Chromium strike. As I have a moderate Village read on Mat by this point, and it matches with Bort's focus on obtaining Nicrosil, I'm considering this claim to be prima facie plausible.

In this world, FYI, the knife kill failed but Archer should have lost all Allomancy. If he's Evil, it doesn't matter, because Striker ruled Evil players retain the ability to make a steel NK. I also double-checked with Striker to be very sure. In a world where a Nicroboosted Traitor uses two steel vials, they only get three, not four kills out of it.

• Bev'ika was targeted by Bendalloy, so the knife kill was redirected and hit one of <Steel, Drake, Stick.>

In this world, Hael was hit by Bendalloy because he was known to have the knife, and to be quite likely to use it in case of a kill. Hitting Hael with Bendalloy would ensure a redirect, and from an Elim perspective, the odds favour them since Hael wouldn't hit his original target (even better if E!Archer as it was likely predictable Hael would go for Archer), and Elims are still the minority.

Archer can't have been bendalloyed because another player targeted Archer successfully last Night. So if bendalloy was used, it had to have affected Bev'ika. Drake has claimed to have retained his Allomancy, so if we accept that at face value for the moment, the redirect had to have hit Steel or Stick. Steel is the odd one out here on the kill list, so I'm going to assume that Steel, rather than Stick was hit by the redirect.

This points us to the pool of Araris and Steel - impossible for it to have been Steel as Steel flipped Village. However, Ash did have bendalloy, so this could have been taken from him when he died. Again, an Elim could have spawned in with Bendalloy, and/or taken it off an Ash kill. So that's a problem for us. The D2 delta continues to be an exceptionally pernicious problem.

• Someone started with steel and finally used it.

This would read more like a Village vig, IMO. But this Elim team has a weird kill doctrine.

Anyway, I'm going to be lazy and use JNV's delta analysis for now:

4 hours ago, JNV said:

• 2 iron
• 1 tin
• -1 pewter
• 1 bronze
• 1 gold
• 1 cadmium
• 2 bendalloy
• 1 aluminum
• -1 nicrosil
• 1 shade gun

Stick claimed to be using Iron and Chromium last Night, and it's credible to me. Bronze comes very low on the OoA and so I would bet Stick died with it and dropped it back into the Stockpile - huh. Wait.

Okay, let's look at last known inventory. Steel had electrum and bendalloy. Stick had iron, chromium, and bronze. Iron and Chromium precede the kill, so no matter what, Stick would never have had those in inventory when she died. Hael had nothing except the knife, so would not have dropped anything.

@Tani, how many items did the Attractor Fabrial add, could you tell us, please?

My current read of the delta: prima facie, assuming nothing dropped, we have 10 items. That's clearly implausible, as JNV rightfully points out. But this means that since electrum is missing and Steel didn't claim any metal actions, I'm going to assume he didn't burn his electrum - yet it's missing. There's been no further painrials and I targeted Steel for confiscation last night and my action failed because Steel was already dead (I have thoughts about security officer confiscation being this insanely low on OoA), so I would say that Steel's killer took his electrum.

So I re-read my PM with Bort and he claimed two vials to me. I don't really have any excuse for missing that, so w00ts. 

Here's the really funny thing. We have...two possibilities, on the assumption Tani added 8 items (which I think is reasonable given how kayana everything is at the moment.)

I think one way or another, the lack of electrum means that Steel was killed, and his killer took the electrum. Which means Steel absolutely had to be NKed.

Possibility A: Steel was NKed, Drake was NKed, Stick was hit by the Knife Redirect

On this possibility, the killer takes electrum off Steel, and Hael takes bronze off Stick. But as Hael dies, the net difference is zero - the bronze goes back into the Stockpile, giving us two additional items.

Possibility B: Steel was NKed, Drake was NKed, Stick was NKed, the Knife failed to kill Archer

On this possibility, Steel basically had to have collected an extra vial from Bort's lynch, which could be anything along the lines of our additions: Tin, Iron, Bronze, Gold, Cadmium, Bendalloy, Aluminium. Steel dies, and the killer takes the electrum, and the extra bendalloy and second vial drops. This also requires the Elim team to have done a two Nicrosil/Duralumin situation overall to account for our two missing kills.

If the Knife failed to kill Archer, then Archer has lost all Allomancy (if he's Evil, then he can still burn steel.)

But this is just odd, because what happened to the Hrovell then? If Bort lied about having it, it must at least clearly be under Elim control.

Possibility C: Steel was NKed, Stick was NKed, Drake was hit by the Knife Redirect

This requires Drake to have lost all Allomancy. I feel like if he's lying about this, he'd probably have to be Evil. Leaning towards Village Drake right now, though. Also, this still requires Steel to have collected the extra vial since Stick's bronze would have gone to her killer.

I think Possibility A makes the most sense now, but Steel and Drake are not the most intuitive NK targets, which is itself a problem. Interested in everyone's thoughts.

P.S. Would like to collect the Shade Gun today and request Village do not contest it, if possible. Suggest someone takes the AF and uses it tonight for vial summoning.

Anyway I've spent enough time trying to puzzle this out. I'm going to go chill and then redo vote analysis later. But Archer.

Edited to add: Tbh we now have a delta of +11 items. At this point, I'm starting to wonder if we had a Metallurgist pull alongside the AF, because I really don't otherwise see how we get that volume of item drops. But if we did have a Metallurgist pull, then what? Postulate +12 with someone else having taken the AF last Night but a new one spawning for +5/+5, Stick drops bronze, Steel drops bendalloy?

• Request any AF taker just claim it.
• Request Tani clarify items added.

Edited February 26, 2022 by Kasimir

[---]

Hi

[Archer he/him]

I don't suppose Investigator Gadget bothered to scan me yesterday? I was stabbed, so I'm hoping someone realized I can't use Gold now. Not that I had any. I'm confused because I thought the chance of the stabber dying was predicated on the victim dying first, but if not, that's very unfortunate. 

I haven't done any rereading yet and I don't think I will unless my runway suddenly extends. I'm aware of how this looks and don't blame anyone for making the call they are. I messed up, so I'm counting on the Hal Mary play to sort this out. 

[Kasimir he/him]

Rough Vote Analysis:

Tired and not in the mood to do my usual in depth step by step analysis so I'm not going to.

D1:

Spoiler

So it begins:

Quote

The Unknown Aon (4): TJ, Thaidakar, Stick, Fifth Scholar
_Stick_ (2): Szeth_Pancakes, TUA
Biplet (1): Archer
Tani (1): Biplet
JNV (1): Araris Valerian
Matrim's Dice (1): Steeldancer
Steeldancer (1): Drake Marshall
Illwei (1): Karnatheon

-Fifth's vote is still odd: tempted to v-read him for slotting late onto a train where E!Fifth basically had no investment.

-Szeth's stable vote on Fifth looks odd: even worse now that Thaid, Stick, and TUA have all flipped Village; given my light V-reads of Fifth and TJ (lighter for Fifth than TJ), I'm committed to practically zero main train presence for D1 Elims. Which makes sense but then we have to ask: where are the Elims?

We can look also at the non-voter pool D1: <Mat, JNV, Kasimir, Orlok, Illwei, Sequence, STINK, Tani.>

 

D2:

Spoiler

The Day Thaid Died

Quote

Thaidakar the Ghostblood (6): Biplet, Archer, Drake Marshall, _Stick_, Araris Valerian, Kasimir
Steeldancer (1): Thaidakar the Ghostblood
Archer (2): Steeldancer, |TJ|
Biplet (2): Matrim's Dice, Fifth Scholar

-I feel less good about Fifth today. Again, we had poor voter turnout, but the other side is we have to ask where the Elims are. I think we can expect at most two on the Thaid train, given how bad the Thaid train was, but both Bip's and Araris's votes aren't very inspiring.

-Fifth is the only side-train voter here whom I don't feel especially strongly about. And if he is V, then this makes the location of the Elims even more mysterious.

We can also look at the non-voter pool D2: <Szeth, JNV, Orlok, Illwei, Karn, Sequence, STINK, Tani>

 

D3:

Spoiler

The Great Train

Quote

Bort (15): Biplet, Matrim's Dice, Araris Valerian, Steeldancer, JNV, Archer, Kasimir, |TJ|, Drake Marshall, Orlok Tsubodai, Karnatheon, Haelbarde, _Stick_, Bort, Tani
Archer (1): Illwei

Given the scan, I don't think this result is really very informative. Probably looks a bit better on her that Illwei DGAF though I can't remember if she logged in to see the results of Araris's scan. Let's look at the pre-scan result:

Quote

Bort (4): JNV, Drake Marshall, Mat, Illwei
Archer (4): Kasimir, _Stick_, TJ, Bort
Szeth_Pancakes (1): Araris Valerian
Biplet (1): Archer
Drake Marshall (1): Tani

-JNV does indeed vote early on the Bort train and couches it as an info vote, but okay, gets credit for it, more if Archer flips E. Tentative V read, shutting down Urbain paranoia or Stick will yell at me from the dead doc.

-At this stage, the Bort train looks pretty V. Bort goes off onto Archer, which is eh. Take Stick's point, but at this stage, again, too many other issues with Archer for me to place the tone of one post as washing everything else out.

-Tentative V on Bip in this place - Archer trying to CW on her doesn't read like distancing. If E!Archer and E!Bort, then for being the CW, Bip looks more Village as E!Archer can't actually be seriously trying to CW on a third teammate - low credence. 

-Tani's vote on Drake backs Archer's push in theory, and quick/signalled withdrawal could indicate lack of commitment/preparation to bus but eh. Not really sure what to make of it.

-If E!Archer and E!Bort, where tf is the CW??? Bip? Where is the rest of the team? Again, non-voters: <Bip, Szeth, Orlok, Karn, Sequence, STINK, Fifth.>

I'm disliking how little info we are getting from this general pool, FYI.

Overall Thoughts:

Spoiler

If I look at the overall pool of people I have no strong feelings on:

<Bip, Szeth, Araris, Orlok, Illwei, Karn, Sequence, STINK, Tani, Fifth.>

Removing the people I do have even the slightest reason to V read, I'm left with:

<Bip, Szeth, Araris, Orlok, Illwei, Karn, Sequence, STINK, Tani, Fifth.>

A Bort, Szeth, STINK, Tani, Archer team isn't impossible but feels a little unacceptably passive. Szeth also isn't too much of an issue right now due to being on death row.

So I want to maybe go over each reason and try to see where I'd revise:

• Bip

No strong feelings; side-train voter with Tani focus that is potentially convenience. If Archer flips E, looks better IMO due to apparently being designated CW. If Archer flips E, I'd feel pretty okay about this V read. If Archer flips V, then Bip and Drake are the other two from the Thaid train I'd want to look more closely at.

• Araris

Doesn't feel like his kill doctrine. But I'm also concerned about how far this point can stretch. Not a fan of Araris's D2 vote and he is in the Bendalloy pool. Suppose that Araris simply wasn't present for the kill doctrine deviation - I think that might explain it a bit. I'm okay with committing to revise this one, I think.

• Orlok

Also doesn't feel like his kill doctrine. But the counterpoint is that Orlok hasn't had the bandwidth to focus on this game, which means that his kill doctrine might not matter. One way or another, not enough info to make any strong commitments on Orlok. Commit to revise. 

• Illwei

Still had a good response to the phish, but I also do feel as though Illwei is responsive enough to meta to know what the right answer is. I might be fine with revising that downwards, though the dgaf vote on Archer D3 does look good if Illwei has been on since - you'd be expecting people to be scrambling for items and Village cred. Vote on Bort train rather than Archer looks good too, TBH. Feels a bit too soon for it to be a bus.

• Karn

Honestly I just get slight Village gut from Karn and feel Karn should get a bit of Village credit for pointing out we need to factor in items that Ash and Aman might have dropped, but I don't feel that's particularly strong. Okay with revising.

• Sequence

Sequence's confusion and responses just feel outright Village, and further interactions seem to reinforce this. Comfortable with my V read.

• STINK

No real read one way or another. Would be okay with a vig shot to FAFO.

• Tani

Gut says Village but okay with revising I guess? Not sure.

Edited to add 2: Fifth - still think D1 vote looks more Village to me. Not sure why E!Fifth would be invested in working off the two trains. I guess there's an element of IKYK here but I feel as though Fifth was bound to attract more sus than trust for it, so I'm not sure about the pay-off. But I do feel :| about Fifth's Steel stance, so I guess I could be convinced to revise.

I think the conclusion is really that I need sleep.

Edited to add: I'd be okay with more pressure on STINK or Karn or Araris at this juncture. But I do think that my evaluation on the need for an Archer flip hasn't quite changed.

Edited February 26, 2022 by Kasimir

[Mat he/him]

1 hour ago, Kasimir said:

Edited to add: I'd be okay with more pressure on STINK or Karn or Araris at this juncture.

Karn

[Kasimir he/him]

3 minutes ago, Matrim's Dice said:

Karn

You called, I came.

Archer, Karn

[STINK he/him]

There's just a lot going on really isnt there

[Kasimir he/him]

3 hours ago, Archer said:

I was stabbed, so I'm hoping someone realized I can't use Gold now

Given the knife had a 50% chance of killing you rather than 'just' removing Allomancy, why would the Invest (not that I know) want to double up on you and risk a wasted scan when you'd flip? That doesn't make much sense.

[Quivil she/her]

Pre-read report: AF gave 7 items to stockpile

Ed1t: @Kasimir

Edited February 26, 2022 by Tani

[Kasimir he/him]

3 minutes ago, Tani said:

Pre-read report: AF gave 7 items to stockpile

Ed1t: @Kasimir

Thank you! Will edit in thoughts later or just in a new post - essentially I'm happy to let the raw reads people do reads, but I'm hoping that if we can work out the discrepancies against the action gaps, we may be able to PoE.

[Archer he/him]

3 hours ago, Kasimir said:

Given the knife had a 50% chance of killing you rather than 'just' removing Allomancy, why would the Invest (not that I know) want to double up on you and risk a wasted scan when you'd flip? That doesn't make much sense.

You make a good point. Should have skipped the stabbing and just done a scan :3

I have decided that instead of rereading, I should write bad NFL playoffs-inspired poetry in hopes of encouraging people to vote for the guy who openly admits to not being village. 

Arrowheaded for Disaster

He's out here on an Andy Reid trip,

Big presence in games, not lurking. 

With his luck, always wins coinflips,

And makes magic overtime working. 

Defense is soft, needs better Safety, 

Though might get interceptions as a Thief.

Hear, the crowd cheers go ma homie, 

But he'll be out, the Kas-as Sec'ity Chief. 

[Quivil she/her]

23 minutes ago, Archer said:

I have decided that instead of rereading, I should write bad NFL playoffs-inspired poetry in hopes of encouraging people to vote for the guy who openly admits to not being village. 

There's a problem with this idea.

We can win if Kas wins. We can't win if the elims win.