Araris Valerian

Well, hopefully the elims haven't figured that out yet . Do any of the village flips have an impact on your read of me? I feel like some of the suspicion of me came from my interactions with certain players that have since flipped green. I'm just trying to sus out whether you have concrete reasons for suspecting me, or if you have vague bad feelings lingering from the exe last cycle. Both are valid, but it's nice to know the landscape. On Aeoryi, I do wish she'd push for someone else. I haven't gotten the impression that the main discussion-drivers are resistant to reconsidering (case in point: myself). I've been bouncing the idea around that she's the SK, since I think her play is kinda in line with what the SK would want, it's just that most people wouldn't be quite so in-your-face about it.

The normal benefit of bussing is that you get a teammate out of the POE, which basically means they won’t die. The SK could target folks that exe an elim though, so you potentially lose the death protection. So the risk/reward ratio skews way more risky. Not quite sure what you mean, but I think it’s plausible that the extent of the elim strategy was “exe one of Araris/Cash today, exe the other next cycle, hope the SK misses us and we win”. Of course given current killing patterns the elims would avoid the SK best by just not voting. Feel like Aeoryi is obvious, she’s not making a clear attempt to help the village win, and at times seems to be doing the opposite. Neil feels alright but I don’t know his play style as well as you and Aman. Aman’s tricksy, so there’s a not-too-distant world where I exe him before Neil. Would need to do a more focused reread of his posts for that. And nothing you’ve posted has seemed anything but solvy to me.

If you grant that I’m village for a moment, the elims could have banked on exeing the alternate train today, which means they have a lot of leeway with who they NK. Avoiding the protect might be higher priority for them than killing discussion, especially since the SK has hit 2 villagers so far. Maybe I’m biased, but I think the presence of the SK makes bussing a much less attractive elim tactic, and in general favors going for a sweep, especially with 1-2 early village SK targets. Of the 4 “talky” player’s you list, I’d exe in order Aeoryi, neil, Aman, you. But realistically Aeoryi is miles more suspicious than the rest.

On the one hand, I totally agree. On the other, anytime someone brings this up I get a little worried that they are elim trying to get themselves or a teammate out of the spotlight. Definitely have used this as an elim tactic before. Definitely won't hurt to pressure some of the quite folks at the start of this cycle. Maybe JNV to start. Haven't really read what they (haven't) said.

Nobody needs to feel guilty about exeing me btw, I'm chilling with my family right now (which is also part of why my contributions are lower). Not gonna respond to anything else this cycle, I've got some things to take care of. See y'all either on the other side or in a doc .

That would be a pretty impressive play, I have to admit

It's not really that they are connected; I suspect an elim voting on me, think you and Aman are coming at me honestly, so that leaves the other two. Aeoryi and Cash voted together C1 (on Aeoryi), so I doubt they are teamed. That leaves me with extra suspicion on coffee if cash flips red.

The only time I can recall killing a "new" player was when said player was an alt account for someone we'd banned. Might also have done it another time to a returning player in a small QF or something where options were limited.

I'm not sure, tbh. I feel like the origins of the votes on me are fairly honest, but might look at Silber/Coffee on an elim flip, or Aeoryi on a village flip. There might also be an elim hiding on the folks voting for me, and a third in the folks that didn't vote C1.

Well, perhaps that just shows I'm not in my elim headspace .

I suppose the uspide of all this is that I'm rather unlikely to get NKed. I may have this problem, which is why those folks tend to see the sharp end of a spike sooner rather than later. Except Kas, who I can always count on to rethink.

I'd say the main thing is that e!me would have played the NK differently. Of course, with teammates you can't always have your way, but my voice in a doc tends to carry a fair bit of weight. In terms of my thread contributions, you've kinda got me there. But I'd say that's fairly characteristic of my play in larger games anyhow. I'm the slow-rolling guy that comes out swinging once everyone else gets murdered.

I'm not writing you off as village for the whole game, I'm leaning on confidence in my ability to read you later in the game. And nobody has challenged my proposal that your claim was more village-positive than Archer's was. I'm going to vote on Cash, both in the interests of keeping myself alive and because of his fixation on Wiz/myself. If the elims killed in the group of Archer voters then it seems to me that they'd also want to try and exe in that group.

Yeah, Aman's claim is more likely to yield village-positive results, and there is basically no cost. Archer's claim was a lot more neutral. It might also be relevant that I was wrong about Archer's alignment.

Or I'm just ignoring your claim because you're you . I do think it's the sort of attention-grabby proactive thing that a villager would do to be rude to some poor elims that are just trying to kill everyone. But every time I've figured you out as elim it was later in the game, so I'm not worrying too much about you right now.

There are numbers in there, not my kind of math.

MR 56 was a complete train wreck for the two of us, so I hope you’re not implying I’m an elim trying to replicate it. That seems about as reasonable of an explanation as anything I can come up with. Might be a bit biased since it makes Cash and I look kinda village. But in reality, an Archer NK just seems odd, he had votes on him all C1, so there was always a risk he’d get switched onto. And he wasn’t widely village read, that I could tell.

Alright, I think I see where you're coming from, and how it's kinda a NAI thing. In response to the folks voting me because of mass raven death, is there an implication that I was trying to save Aeoryi/some other teammate? Or does e!me just really want Archer dead C1? And bonus food for thought: Why do the elims kill someone voting for Archer in the first place? If one of the Archer votes is elim, that narrows a POE. If the elims wanted a low-info kill, plenty of folks didn't vote. It may be possible that there are 2+ non-voting elims, and that they would want to avoid narrowing the non-voting POE.

I don't think I ever got a response about your comment about Ash last cycle, would still like to hear from you about that. *proceeds to fly under the radar*

Is this because you are more confident that Ash is a villager than that you are yourself? Because usually we exe people based on what we think their alignment is.

I was reading through quickly and thought I saw you responding to suspicion. It would for some folks, but the ultimate nature of the play is to make people feel awkward about leaving a vote on you, and Archer definitely understands that. Villagers have been pulling this kind of thing frequently enough that I think it’s inevitable an elim does it just for the cred, and a D1 SK claim fits right with that for the reasons I mentioned earlier.

I am making a claim about the usefulness of an obvious trap for an elim.

I'm still content to leave my vote on Archer; his stirring up noise doesn't say anything about his alignment, and doing a "reaction test" like that is an easy way to get village points. Nobody should believe your claim. And on D1 sticking your head out is just asking to get voted on. I think the natural variation in players is going to far outweigh any alignment distinguishers with this ploy. I saw something about Kas and just want to mention that exeing Kas D1 is never a good idea. If he's village we want the elims to worry about Brandon protecting him, and if he's elim it will become patently clear (perhaps not to me, but definitely to others) well before the game ends. And if it doesn't, then that means Kas has become more comfortable with elimming, which I'll gladly trade for a loss.

Welcome! Here’s to hoping we can be village bros this game. And if not then that we can have an epic showdown. Gonna start off with a vote on Archer for the murder of cereal.

Glad to hear it! Hopefully some folks that read the game will be a bit less intimidated by it in a rerun.