Kasimir

Good on you for looking out for this, but just to note: He's not ineffectively denying it btw. He's choosing not to, hence the openwoofing comment. We're mostly playing along ( @StrikerEZ, might wanna correct if wrong.) Also hence my concerns because an Elim usually only openwoofs if they feel they've got no reasonable fighting chance, or if they've got the game won/locked. In those situations it's usually* considered a highlight of the experience. *I only openwoofed once but there are some players here who love to openwoof when they can.

I came off three disaster mafia games into this one and am going into two more tomorrow because I owe someone a favour though I might be pulling out on health grounds. I'm cool with chilling in the thread but I don't have the energy for this man. Sorry, I gave you a lot of leeway as it was Probably more than I should've. Alas, your TJ/Kas/Striker dreams will have to wait for a time it legitimately happens rather than when I go easy on my bros who ended up being Evil. I'll give you respect for your casual entrance though - I did say it was within your abilities to pull it off, but you did it more convincingly than TJ did.

I'm saying it's such an impossible world you might as well become Pope in it Or IDK, King of Alethkar if you prefer. My more serious/less dismissive answer because I think you are correct to ask regardless, even though I'm 90% sure Striker is the correct Elim here - IMO in that world, then we quite simply need to redo vote analysis because this means that TJ was saved by a Villager, and that the Penguin shenanigans happened via Striker, also a Villager. I would probably still think TUN and Polly are surefire clean, think I'd respect Aet's read on you and on TOW, for me that means Spirit as the next shot. However, there are two things we need to consider: A. The Penguin Soothe massacre IMO was premeditated. If you were online, you know better than me who was around who could've pulled it off. They would need to be able to react to the timing of Striker's post. Which points to E!Striker too, but in V!Striker world, you tell me who that was. B. I would probably not revise Polly and TUN prior to Spirit flipping regardless. I still go back to my line v. Penguin on the start of C5 - if you voted TJ, you deserve some credit, and that ekes him out a bit ahead of Spirit in my view. Polly is solidly Village due to the double TJ votes early on (you can respect Aet's read there if you like), and I'd argue Penguin pushing TUN that recklessly until I blocked him suggests Penguin was trying to follow the TUN set-up line of reasoning. But yeah, Striker's the best shot for the TJ save, Penguin Night Massace, the fact that as I pointed out contra Penguin, Striker is second in line to benefit from the Soothing, alongside TJ, and most importantly, bro is just openwoofing in thread right now. No reasonable Villager goes "yeah you know what I wanna live I'll just vote top train" right off the karking bat and then votes Polly. That says "I don't care who's Village and who's Evil" and that's outright Elim in attitude, and while I've honestly given Striker a lot of leeway assuming both rust and his playstyle being naturally Elim, this is not something I can overlook anymore.

Tbh I go the other way. I feel like E!Spirit knows to get the bussing vote in early. It's TOW not voting that looks okay to me, along with TOW voting TJ C1. But I don't fundamentally disagree with the PoE. I just do not want to see side-train adventurism right now guys >> I'm also minded to respect Aet's read here as he's slightly better at dealing with newer players than me. This game is just meant to be a clown game for me man. Evil bros and new players, it's just everything I can't read I say, as I come here off the back of another game where I got dogwalked by the Elims. Edited to add: Then you become Pope.

Are you then intending to vote Striker? I think we need consensus at this point because Striker is openwolfing and this indicates we should not be giving him any leeway. I note your v!lean, Aet, also voted Striker last cycle.

Maybe if you leave for another three hours his last teammate will pop out of the woodwork and openwoof too

Caffeinated Thoughts: V!Striker does not vote Polly or TUN here. In fact, V!Striker just doesn't vote without considering if he thinks is target is Village/Elim, if I need to spell this out. The fact he is choosing a CW carelessly, particularly given the first two targets, indicates he is Elim and just openwoofing at this point. Striker doesn't openwoof here unless his team has a PtV planned. I'm going to assume they have one. There are a narrow slice of worlds where they don't, and he's just screwed, but I think in general he does. My guess is we are 5v2, but could be wrong. Striker probably has a partner (will at least assume it since if he doesn't, the game ends when we exe him) and the Mercy shot, meaning we cannot afford more sidetrain BS at this point. My rough guess or his gameplan is something like this: regardless of whether he has a partner, Striker is probably going to try to do another sidetrain tie situation. The Soothe + the Mercyshot means we have to try to kill Striker (or the last Elim) twice so we really should not be trying to make this easy for him. I'm also of the view that if there is a partner, we might get taken by surprise. In light of this, unless there's a clear indication that this isn't correct, I'm gonna say we just converge on Striker, and assume anyone who refuses to do so at this point is Striker's partner. I repeat: Striker's first choice to save his life was pretty much one of the more Village ones due to her vote history. That's not an accident, that's refusing to gaf about whether a player is Village or Evil and that's an Elim mindset. I think the TUN move also looks pretty bad because last cycle, Penguin was pretty aggressively pushing for a TUN exe until I intercepted him. Proceeds to stay on TUO until quite a few posts later. If there are enough Elims to mob you, we've already lost this game. I'm guessing 5v2 - in the most optimistic world, 6v1, in the least optimistic world, 4v3. If it's 4v3 then regardless of what we're doing, we've lost (Mercy shot) so we might as well not care about it. [Note: In 4v3 world we might still win if the last Elim has enough votes we can tie them with Striker without worrying about the Soothe - however, I think the main candidate for last Elim is Spirit (subject to further backreading, I could see a paranoid TOW world but don't personally buy it at present.) so that's not gonna work.] In 6v1 world, we just have to stay on train until Striker is dead however many times we need to kill him (lol.) In 5v2 world, it's more down to the wire, but a similar kind of problem. Regardless the only world they can mob you in is 4v3, but I'd appreciate if you can do what you did last cycle and check for any potential places we have to close a gap in the votes. @The Unknown Order Yo. You too.

CHRIST THIS ISN'T BETTER, PENGUIN WAS DOWN WITH THE TUN PUSH AND ONLY STOPPED BECAUSE HE GOT CHALLENGED!

Imma respect Aet's read on you and whatbut BY GOD IF THIS IS ELIM DISTANCING I JUST WANNA HAVE BLOODY SAID IT >> Anyway I also wanna add that Penguin's flip IMO looks pretty good for TUO given the TUO push. I will now actually try to get caffeine and wash up and figure out what happened.

Dude I may be drugged out of my mind but there's no way in hell you reasonably vote Polly here. Now the only damned thing we need to do is to secure protection from a Mercy shot because this is probably at least a four-team.

Give me a while guys. I'm groggy since I left medical earlier and passed out for a while. I'm gonna put a holding vote on Striker because a quick scan gives me mad openwoofing energy here but probably won't be back for a bit.

It's a follow-up from D2 when I re-read. I've been bringing it up again and again including during C4 but with no real person to bounce it off but still have not gotten resolution. Null says this to KSauce when KSauce is begging for a save: Unless I've greatly screwed up the votecount again which is not surprising in this game, the votes were 3/3, i.e. in a tie at the time Null made this post. [NOTE: I DID ONE MORE CHECK JUST TO BE SURE AND THERE'S A DISCREPANCY BETWEEN MY NOTES AND JOE'S LATER VC. I CAN'T RECONCILE IT NOW ON THE GO BUT IF SOMEONE CAN CHECK IT FOR ME, IT'D BE GREAT.] tldr; Null's OG vote for TUN is passed off as "well let's force a tie and he's experienced." But there already was a tie - it was 3/3 between TJ and KSauce at that time. Subsequently, on KSauce's appeal, says they'll keep their vote for Unknown on pain of another tie. My original problem with it and why I've been yelling about it for the past couple cycles is I don't like Null walking back their attitude towards ties when it eventually meant a Villager ML instead of an Elim death. If it turns out there's yet another cursed vc, then that's fine. But I really cannot do this now, I'm rushing this right before I leave the clinic for the next stop so I'll do it after I'm home.

I'm curious too. If only because I actually find Null more objectionable.

Wouldn't need to if y'all didn't bring that place here everytime ಠ_ಠ /j But also their threads are a battlefield to wade through and I was only reading to support Ash so you get half a cookie for doing your job when you deal with worse regularly! Lord, I'm tempted to make it a quarter. I'm raising an eyebrow about purity reads ngl. Though at least unlike Stick, you have not gone on record saying you despise them. Even with a doc? Specifically referring to Triple B's opener - three pings repeatedly asking me to explain a TOW opener vote "because he hasn't said anything", then switching and taking an issue with me not saying anything about the Soothe and TUN while dismissing the post I made with reads as "a lot of words." I read as the most half-arsed way of trying to sus someone possible: CBA to commit and come out and say it, hence the fishing this cycle for reads, but also CBA to read the post and just trying to keep finding a low-lying target to attack me with. I disagree with Aman in that I feel new Elims can go one of two ways - they can definitely choose to just never confront the noisy Village player, or they can choose to go for it. This was Gaea's pattern in the White Tower game TJ ran (LG104), it was my pattern the first time I Elimed when I tried to get Meta killed, etc. The bad faith and lack of interest in the reads makes me think it's not a solving mindset, but a framing one. I just also wondered if I was being too uncharitable to Triple B. IMO this would almost make a case for Striker first from your point of view in that you want to establish there's no more anchor player there. But this is something I've been asking myself a little, which is whether TJ was the only anchor player, because I could see a panic Mercy shot burn for an otherwise new team at the prospect of losing their anchor player. I'm more concerned at the passive rate votes have been accumulating. Which is another tacit reason for my alarm behind Null I suppose - if the Elims are wiping a lot of votes off TUN, what about the rest of their team? Even in an E!TUN world, are they not balancing the implications to the rest of their team? In both worlds, it is weakly suggestive to me they're not terribly concerned about votes, which is one reason I'm looking back at the self-voters (easy to one-shot Soothe) and the ones with low persistent votes. I'm interested btw in why you ranked Null with Penguin prior to Striker but move from Penguin to Striker instead of Null. I don't expect you to say anything, nor do I give a damn. In life, there are several things to appreciate, which include: John Cena's heel run, R-Truth being a treasure, GUNTHER's snark, and getting to say "I *-ing told you so, but I guess you had to learn the hard way" to people. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader what I was intending to do with this one. You say this about my expected Elim range and yet you also wanna hold I make the tyro's mistake of not just writing TJ off decisively. Pick a lane But okay more seriously, other than me mocking this, I'd like you to say more about the Polly vote if possible? Want to understand why that's unpairing in a way TUN's was not, and also if I'm missing anything on TUN. I think you and Aster are tier 2, I am ok for the moment with not having either of you flip, so I will secure the lead train if need be, but ngl if Aster stays inactive, that might just end up being a shrug. I've never really known Aster to be this inactive, though obviously Discord and comfort level with the group are two different factors. I've wondered a little if that's extra time in the doc but kind of think it'd be easy af for Aster to just get on and vote and avoid a self-vote that way, rather than Elims needing to blow a Soothe on it in an environment where the Village is already paying a lot of attention to this.

Edited to add: You did catch the WiM differential. The one thing I haven't seen people who aren't Archer notice yet though I've wondered if Aster is saving it for a rainy day is that I struggle to fake uncertainty as an Elim. My reads don't significantly evolve much and they evolve slowly. Village me is capable of shifting three times on the same player in 24 hours and making an extreme swing from V reading to KILL IMMEDIATELY to grumpy "ok Village what was I smoking." Which as Archer noted, means I have very tame EoDs and cycles as Elim because I just want the Villagers to stfu and ML my target already. Which I think is why Octo realised I was behaving weird in my last E!game with him and Aster. I don't think it changes anything and maybe our own weaknesses are always easier to ID but I've been surprised more than once that no one has seemed to spot this.

Please, you play on MU. Those mfs spam like nobody's business. Okay, I think my question here is the same: where is this call on Null's comparative experience coming from? I swear TJ made something that sounded like it C1 and confused TUN and myself. Inb4 it's because it was an Elim doc conversation Can you spell out the thought process behind this read more please? Have Triple B in PoE and have wondered if Trips was looking for a ML yesterday due to bad faith valence of interaction. Had a big dump EoD C3 which I'm ignoring because post reads are my worst skill but if you want to essay it, be my guest. FWIW, I would say make the call off how close we are to potential lylo. With potential ties killing, we are probably looking at an explosive endgame state which accelerates before we expect. That being said, it's probably still callable. K I'm currently commuting back to the hospital and quoting broke on me so this gets The Chunk. 1. On my E!range—lol prepare to be disappointed. It hasn't significantly evolved since I want to say, MR62 (I forget the number for once.) I don't really care what you're gonna say about this in terms of ironic MU ~self-meta talk, I just want this on record for posterity and so I can say "I told you so" the next time a GM breaks my Village streak. 2. I think my question is, you state repeatedly you would give C2 TJ voters more credit. Is there some reason you think Polly deserves more and/or depress your TUN read? This guy was pushing back in thread on Aster raising framing worries and arguing with me that TJ had to be flipped (I didn't disagree, it's just complicated.). 3. FUD for Aet and whoever asked I use in two senses. It's literally Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt tactics. In the first sense, I use it to refer to when a player e.g. E!Mat will continuously try to erode thread confidence in Village reads or scans by continuously sowing doubt and forcing rethinks/fear that thread is wrong. The classic example IMO is probably QF62 where E!Mat talked the surviving players into exeing V!Danex, who was softcleared, by repeatedly emphasising to us that Danex's clear was based on things that could not be taken for granted. (Note: The error margins were so small it should have been ignored.) The second sense is my subjective sense of the game. I feel I've been throwing read attempts with little pushback or SAN checking which is increasingly frustrating and makes everything feel foggy and built on quicksand. Also goes back to my comments on how quickly/nearly we were committed to flipping a TJ C2 voter yesterday which would imply the thought he's bussing and the repeated comments about how we cannot know things e.g. from TOW and failure to set down good Village prioritisation.

I'm not going to interrupt what you're doing wrt Penguin, but things you might want to know (feel free to ignore if you worry this is misleading, though the others should be able to call me out if misleading) : This game has a higher than usual % of new-to-SE players, including Penguin, Triple B, YEVAD (whom you replaced), Demon (dead now), Tinwatcher, Null, Aster. Some of them play mafia IRL, e.g. Penguin, Spirit. I play with Aster on a Discord server. There is no NK. The Elims can Soothe all the votes cast by one player per cycle. On C1, this was TOW (who voted TJ, flipped Elim.) On C2, this was Triple B, who had first voted Striker, then TUN. On C3, this was Spirit, who voted Aster, then TUN, then TJ. On C4, this was Null, who voted TUN, Striker, Spirit, then Null (did not vote last cycle, therefore auto-selfvoted.) Because votes on TUN were Soothed a total of three times, some players feel this is E!indicative for TUN. The Elims have a oneshot power allowing them to prevent the top train from flipping. The second-top train goes over instead. This power has not yet been burned. TJ flipped Elim on C3, after we failed to exe him on C1 and C2. You can refer to the spreadsheet here for voting records, but noteworthy points are that Polly, TOW, KSauce (flipped Village C1) all voted TJ on C1; on C2, TUN was first voter on TJ, followed by Striker and then Polly. At EoD, TJ votes on RBM (a train I started) to save himself, Striker eventually pivots at three minutes or so to vote RBM as well. TJ survives, and is finally exed C3. The oneshot was not used. Last cycle had a whole bunch of trains and it's too much a clusterchull to summarise, but here's Jo's vc for it with all lead trains highlighted: Hope this helps. PHing is hell but I hope you can help us make some sense of the game as I feel there's too much FUD going on at the moment.

Basically why I pushed Penguin hard (sorry Penguin.) Just wanted to see what kind of reaction I'd get from Penguin, since I do actually suspect/am concerned about the way that particular push built up, and Penguin was around. I'm still mulling over what this does to my Penguin read; I like the subsequent Penguin post, but not necessarily the retraction: Same grain of salt as: But it's at least internally consistent on Penguin's part. I was more alarmed when Penguin mentioned playing IRL because then I was concerned Penguin was using the random voting and inexperience card to mask some pretty ? votes. Can you say a bit more about both? My problem is if I go back to strict/raw PoE: <TUN, TOW, Polly, Penguin, Triple B, Striker, Aet, Aster, Spirit, Null, Tinwatcher> Remove you, TOW, and Polly for voting TJ. I suppose I'll say just a tiny bit more about the bussing angle - bussing is absolutely possible and keeps an Elim team alive, RE: whether there could be an Elim in <you, TOW, Polly.> Polly is my bet for Village because she gets the least cred from it. I haven't worked out how I feel about TOW from last cycle but minimally as I mentioned, I find it weird not to give him cred for voting TJ. You can kind of slightly exclude bussing worlds by doing reads of the posts; I'm just not confident enough of that skillset. But there's also the element where it's a bit topsy-turvy in my view to instantly dismiss a rather villagery action by saying "nah let's vote this player over people who did Not Do Villagery things." A single bus case could be correct but when done repeatedly, that seems wrongheaded to me because Village should be tackling the non-Villagery ones first. Anyway. <TUN, TOW, Polly, Penguin, Triple B, Striker, Aet, Aster, Spirit, Null, Tinwatcher> I'm hoping Aet will be more readable but let's be real, anything is an improvement. I kind of think Spirit is not playing like E!him but that's...dicey. I do feel that Penguin is very upfront on pushing the Soothing angle, Triple B was more subtle about it last cycle, which could be informative, not sure. If I stick with the "E!Penguin probably doesn't blatantly struggle with the C1 vote" thought + headlining the Soothe push, then maybe: <TUN, TOW, Polly, Penguin, Triple B, Striker, Aet, Aster, Spirit, Null, Tinwatcher> Aster I've mentioned repeatedly my reasons. Striker too. <TUN, TOW, Polly, Penguin, Triple B, Striker, Aet, Aster, Spirit, Null, Tinwatcher> Still back to <Triple B, Null, Tinwatcher> until we get something clearer. Given Striker's votes, I could see myself being wrong about him. Probably the main Striker issue IMO is - head-to-head he probably looks worse than you? Like what would a you case v. Striker case look like. TUN: "Voted TJ C2 and argued for TJ, also argued for TJ C3, but this was likely just bussing as three votes were Soothed off him." Striker: "Voted to save TJ C2 at the last minute. Also, two votes were Soothed off him. But his interaction with TJ doesn't look very E/E." I feel like the second is just shakier than the first regardless. Even though I don't think Striker and TJ are E/E, it's just...like how do you explain this cycle and the last comparatively between the two of you? Objectively he just looks worse. Edited to add: I see Aet typing and if he's Village, this is objectively the most beautiful sight in the world*. *Ask me again after I rewatch Ron Cena's entrance and I might change my mind.

Edited to add: IMO the fact TUN is on three votes Soothed is pretty indicative that the Elims are putting significant investment into this regardless. It's why I think actively challenging the people making this push is a good move. Regardless of whether it comes from a sincere place or not for them (I don't rule out that Penguin is sincere), I think that any Elim team that is putting this much investment into Soothing votes off TUN is probably just wanting that pay-off, and will drive it regardless. Or, again, Penguin could be right and TUN could be Evil. But if you don't remotely contest this, you won't know. And while Penguin has ignored every single question I've asked, I do put it to you that I think in most normal worlds, pushing and getting an Elim exed should be a case to V!read the player and the fact we've completely just slipped into saying "nah it was a bus he's Evil" should be at least concerning because we normally don't go there so quickly. Edited to add 2: @IcedOutPenguin One question - if you've played enough mafia, why are you still random voting (or at least announcing you are doing so) by C5? Would you be able to explain how you normally play?

I'm saying I think TUO is Village, and have said this since last cycle. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. If I get voted out, e.g. if you wanna vote me out then I peace out as I've left enough of my thoughts in thread, and I don't particularly gaf because there's a great soap opera on TV right now. No one has offered any reason or attempted to talk me around to how E!TUO aggressively buses TJ this way when TJ could probably have survived or bled us out a bit more. Every post I have seen in this regard comes back to: "Three votes Soothed tho" and completely pretends C1, C2, and C3 just did not exist. When the Village refuses to engage with the past cycles, backread, or to actually engage with the totality of evidence and focusing on exactly one point—again, with Striker and TJ both being on two votes removed, which is just one less (although I don't E!read Striker either, so that's spicy, but that's a separate issue)—are you saying you don't think this is alarming or cause for concern, e.g. about narrative driving?

No, sorry, you're trying to reword this now. If it is a trap, which it may very well not be, then a trap is usually never set passively. It is laid with the mafs driving people into it. How you accuse, how you play, your general mindset affects how people read you as much as anything else. I didn't say it was an obvious trap: I'm saying that in most reasonable worlds, a guy who aggressively pushes and gets an Elim killed should be considered an obvious Villager. Has this somehow become a controversial statement? Now, in the world we do flip him and he flips Village, something has clearly gone wrong, given the previous statement. I would argue something has gone more wrong than usual, if the Village has been induced to ignore...basically every other Village-indicative factor for the fact of three votes Soothed. Is this also somehow a controversial statement? In that world, we need to look in the set of those driving the narrative and urging the exclusion of every other factor, including you, including Striker, and including Spirit to understand what went wrong and where the mafia involvement is. Has this also become a controversial statement?

If TUN flips green, i.e. a Villager, then you should be in the immediate suspect pool, i.e. a candidate for being voted out. This will be the world where TUN was aggressively framed and we blindly walked into what should probably have been one of the easier takes. Framing generally doesn't work without the Elims actively pushing that narrative. Reason being Elims cannot really do much if the Village latches on to other things. Therefore, as one of the more aggressive framers, you should be immediately back in the pool. If you're right, which I don't completely rule out, take a victory lap and stay in the core of cleared players. Basic readonomics. Edited to add: The table identifies all the wiped votes. Striker and TJ are in position #2. Funny they have not gotten as much as an iota of interest despite having almost as many votes erased. Does make one wonder.

If TUN flips V, Penguin should be in the immediate PoE. You do not set up a frame without counting on someone in thread to drive the narrative.

I've been repeatedly explaining why I think Aster is Village. This is probably one of the earlier reads I dropped despite doubts here and there. If the game is currently proceeding on the level of 'lol tldr; imma just vote whoever' then it is what it is. If anyone doesn't like my defending my Village read because you think it's mistaken, you're more than free to talk me out of it. I'm happy to see where I could be mistaken because this should never be static. Otherwise, I'm just going to vote with my reads, too bad. To be clear, this isn't directed at Striker personally. It's kind of an issue I've been having with the way the last cycle turned out. Edited to add: For the record, if TUN does in fact flip V, I'm going to say that at least one of the Soothe narrative pushers is probably Evil. Edited to add 2: Null until I can finish the chart. Reasons laid out in previous posts RE: Null's behaviour not adding up. @A Jo in the Bush (To notify I've edited a vote in.)