whoops I wrote part of this days ago and never posted because sth bad happened that evening
I have always wanted no doctor trait claims unless we try to lynch the doctor, at which point we are accepting even the risk of killing our own doctor. I don't think it confirms anything substantive that isn't already inferable. The hosts aren't going to confirm anything anyway. So until we commit to lynching the doctor I think it's probably more sensible to hold off. To be fair I've had an operative hypothesis all day and I see no reason the Fire Mafia shouldn't already have it. But we need the FM
What I
would like to know is if you guys have access to your hypothetical previous protect (i.e. does
U-Turn Out have access to the action Walrein sent in on Night 1, and does
rssp1 have access to the action UltrasPlot sent in on Night 1?). I don't wanna know who it was at this stage if you do, I just think this is a possibly interesting question with little to no risk. I should've asked it when I asked the doctor to claim, sorry.
Also it's cool, UTO, I'm getting better but I could use more sleep (I just looked at my clock and thought it was 6 AM, it's 9 PM and I read it upside down??? pro.. LMAO I came back to this when I went to post this and it's actually 9 AM, we went right around). Sorry for the raging!!
Celever
I'm more frustrated with Celever because I can't fully pin him as scum but he is doing everything in his power to convince me he is when he could literally just try to defend himself on basically any of the points I've ever commented on, plenty of which have even
raised the possibility he's town, and he's wasting my efforts which I'm beginning to conclude
must be intentional. About anything. His words are not in accord with his behaviour and he does not seem to feel beholden to the town. If even I feel the need to defend myself to eliminate any possibility of village/acid overthinking and self-impaling, what does it say that Celever does not consider defending himself relevant?
I went through D1 again because it's the part of the game I know the least about. I was surprised by how many town players suspected Celever for reasoning similar to my own: non-contribution posts in flurries of activity; meta reads; diplomacy > play; aggressive lynches while acting in isolation from the rest of the game; buddying.
On D1 Celever stated that he does not see defending himself as important so much as ensuring the village processes. Well, that is fine D1 reasoning, but it's D3 and we cannot outpower the Fire Mafia, as Celever knows; our win route is self-organisation. Instead, what has been consistent about Celever's play is that he has focused more on building relationships (through buddying people like UncleSam and rssp1... this behaviour was called out quite a lot D1 by townies like Haunted Diamond and Spiffy, as well as repeatedly by UncleSam and Yeti) than analysing the games (almost all of Celever's major declarations have little to analysis given behind them over the whole six week period). This is remarkably transparent scummy play.
Yet I do not think Celever is truly that incompetent, and at this point individual scumreading is necessary but not sufficient to conclude someone is the Fire Mafia. It does raise the question though: why would Celever not buddy me? UTO knows I'm the only active person positively inclined towards his claim, so of course UTO is going to cling to me. Well, put simply, I've been antagonising Celever the whole game (that I've been subbed in) from a strong position with lots of long posts. It's
effort to buddy me if I think you're scum. So instead, by his own admission, he shies away from me.
Celever also said on D1 he'd rather be read for intention than tone. He's stated this over and over again, that his tone genuinely reflects his current mood (which I don't buy as a negation, since his tone has always coincided with shifts between aggression and pacifism), but I agree that the most important thing in NOC is to understand where someone is coming from when they post, and what they gain and lose.
The thing is, I'm searching for town intentions in Celever's posts and I can't find any. Yes, at this point Celever is probably tired; I stated myself I wanted the game wrapped up but don't want to hamstring us on an important turning point just because I'm tired. (And my school resumes on the 31st then leads into my very heavily-weighted finals, and I have to do my homework by then, so it's not like I don't have ample reason to want this game concluded soon.) But Celever isn't doing
anything to get this game over and done with, just pure non-cooperation, and whenever anyone asks Celever anything, unless he's already commented on it (so he can point to his old posts and be like, look, see, I
am answering questions!), he just repeats himself: I read it, but somehow I found absolutely nothing worth commenting on.
If I suggest things that literally contradict themselves about Celever, I cannot draw him out to comment on which one is likelier to be true, which is remarkable. On an earlier day, or from a worse player, I'd read it as ButteredToast-esque type obstinacy. But Celever doesn't pull his own punches when he's bullying players not his own size, and he's been willing to shift.
And the thing is, there should be town intentions. Celever knows at this point he's suspected heavily by the 'other' (from his PoV) two town members, the real doctor (who he may be trying to get rid of if it's UTO) and me. Obviously PokeguyNXB, but qualitatively PGNXB and Celever's alliances are mutually exclusive (qualitatively due to the assumption I'm town). The point is that that's a terrible situation to be in to even stay alive. And I'm going to address later that Celever is not trying to keep himself alive very hard except through banking upon my confusion.
If he's thinking from a town PoV, he realises he needs to make himself clear town for the next day, maybe even the night, if he has this ironclad on rssp1 he realises he needs to convince me to vote along with him, etc. There's been zero dynamic play from Celever today, or attempts to muddle out the game (PokeguyNXB has made a more substantial effort to analyse what will happen, actually).
Or perhaps it's my very dangerous conclusion Celever and UTO are not allied, but again, I just cannot see them playing this way today, not with me townreading PokeguyNXB/nullreading rssp1 and trying to lynch UTO yesterday; it would require a complete acceptance of the likelihood a Fire Mafia is dying today in the hopes of immunity from acid's kill, when more cautious play could keep them both alive and render acid's kill irrelevant. Can I see them being desperate enough to coordinate this play overnight? Yeah, both of them were under the gun and they're intelligent, and the Fire Mafia kills, as I've previously commented, have been anti-doctor kills. But then how would they set it up? What if I'm doctor (to be fair, if I'm doctor, the FM probably lost)? What if PokeguyNXB actually is doctor? etc. etc. There are so many things that can go wrong with it that I just can't view it as within the realm of plausibility, especially compared to the rssp1/Celever shit, which looked way more staged (remember, Celever started a lynch on rssp before Pokeguy started a lynch on Celever). Yet how do I reconcile this?
What's remarkable is that both doctors want to lynch him. At face value, that would confirm Celever as town, because the FM wants to protect PokeguyNXB and the real doctor doesn't know which is which. It also bothers me that everyone is happy to lynch Celever, because it means if I'm wrong and he's town, he has no protection whatsoever from the lynch. That itself makes it more bizarre that he is not trying to defend himself; the only reasons I can find for that are a) true apathy, which is not backed up by Celever's continued participation b) inability to defend himself, which could only arise from being unable to present a better case for a lynch on anyone else that anyone would buy (so, he can't argue I'm FM, he can't try to lynch acid, he said himself making the case against PGNXB is very difficult -- although I am not sure how deeply he tried, did he only read PGNXB's posts or did he look at how other players had interacted with PGNXB? --, he can't argue for the lynch on rssp1 because they could be partners, he already is insisting weakly on a UTO lynch who is the last possibility left to him).
But, like I said, I suspect that someone lied when answering about their lynches. If I could stick each person who claimed to be doctor in a room with Celever and PokeguyNXB and hand them a secretly unloaded gun, I'd like to see who they'd shoot. (Allegorically speaking...) I'm not sure how to draw more accountability about lynches without actually just lynching. And because I can plausibly read PokeguyNXB as either of the doctor's partner, the only value in Celever's flip is if rssp1 and he are scum, in which case it's just a way of testing rssp1's claim without risking either of the doctors claimant.
I feel like a real town player would have actual opinions, or a standpoint from which to defend themselves and not just push. And Celever has been completely on the offensive today, which is really risky play for someone who prolly needs a restraining order against me at this point, but the only team that has anything to gain from hands-off offensive is the Fire Mafia. He was also on the offensive on D1, a time that was safe for him to be aggressive and where he could (and needed to) blend in. Although he kept pushing and pushing despite people thinking he was scum... how is it that someone can stick to their guns so stubbornly but play so wishy-washy?
rssp1/Celever team
from
U-Turn Out:
U-Turn Out said:
How likely do you think is a rssp1/Celever team, especially after you have outlined it as one of your top teams and have saw many connections? ik you have considered it but it doesn't show in the beginning of the post and the post above it so it would be chill if you can answer it.
Hm, I'm not sure, only way I can develop an opinion is thinking it through though. If Celever is mafia then the Fire Mafia took a different day strategy than I anticipated in the first place, so some of my reasoning becomes null. I think an application of Occam's Razor suggests rssp1 is Celever's likeliest partner. But from the perspective of assuming rssp1 is mafia and having to pick between PokeguyNXB/Celever I'd probably say PokeguyNXB > Celever after having looked at PokeguyNXB. Celever is almost definitely not your partner. So it depends on whose flip you start from first, basically.
The conflict you see in my reads on you and the reads on the Fire Mafia team is pretty much a reflection of the distortion Celever and PokeguyNXB cause. Which is a situation one of them is satisfied with, probably. Neither of them seem in any great desperation to amend it. Both are reacting badly to being asked about their partnertells as well. I was thinking the worst case scenario where we can still win through lynch is PGNXB is the townie left alive in the 2/1 situation, but at least PGNXB is exhibiting some form of reasoning unlike Celever, which does abnegate him of having to do any actual analysis at this stage, but nonetheless, it is reasoning and cognitive engagement with the game. The thing is, Celever has actually been contributing all game, but I wouldn't expect any different regardless.
You see, Celever's whole 'I'm not THAT bad, come on, why would I lynch my partner at the start of Day 3' post really soured me because it struck me as a telegraphed bus. But I did go back and look at Day 2 and I realised Celever and rssp1/Ultras
were trying to lynch each other all through Day 2, but rssp reacted differently than Ultras. Ultras antagonised Celever at the same time as Celever was antagonising Ultras over the Haunted Diamond lynch and UncleSam buddying, but then Celever straight up crawled to sunny when sunny subbed in because of sunny's slam dunk reads and tried to lynch rssp1. The thing I didn't like was rssp1's absence of a response to that except 'Celever is town because Celever told Gale he was lynching himself', which, like, that's just free town cred for literally anyone, nobody is going to let Gale lynch himself to majority. There
is an unfortunate amount of WIFOM here because if Celever and rssp know they're partners, rssp subbing in is a great opportunity for them to drop the heat on each other and transition into lynching the Ice Mafia / a townie. (And Celever's lynch candidates were rssp + the two Ice Mafia, then UTO.)
Probably the only post I'd point to on Day 2 is this one by Celever,
#495:
Sorry, but I care more about keeping my vote on UltrasPlot for now. He's been useless today, and I think that he's skating by just because your townread him so hard, UncleSam.
So, like, you can't fault Celever for consistency there.
The nice thing is Celever's never been subbed. So I went back and searched repeatedly (including rereading D1) looking for interactions between Celever and TIK. TIK had three (two, but three because he quoted the second and said Gale was escalating and it couldn't be ignored, so indirect interaction) and Celever just utterly ignored him because he was doing his prodding-inactive-people-demanding-reads thing while providing little original content schtick.
So the thing is Celever might actually be telling the truth, and just doing that Celever special where he never gives a fuck if he looks scummy (which, btw, is a brilliant meta to have for someone of Celever's skill level, so I'll be pissed if I lose to it).
Here are the TIK-Celever points.
#1
You wanna know my thoughts? That DaLetterEl post and then your response to it looks like some sort of pre-planned bullshit between you and him, but the thing is your 10/10 acting wasnt rlly able to hide it all that well, AND you look like a gigantic tryhard mafia thats trying to look town. Lots of filler and stretching your points out unnecessarily to make yourself seem like you are contributing a lot when you really arent saying much of anything.
Also I dont like the fact that you tagged three people at the end of your post to try to then veer the discussion away from yourself and your post. It just looks like you responded to DLE to fufill your daily "Im gonna respond/nitpick my partners post to make it look like we arent together" quota. It also looks like you are tagging to try to gain momentum and lead by getting people to think you are village.
I know in these NOC mafias people are inclined to really get reads and discuss shit at great length, but you have to realize that sometimes you are gonna get these slam-dunk reads like this that make lynching for the day easy, and you need to be open to that fact. I will literally eat a shoe if I'm wrong about this. Too many scum flags are going off for me right now.
UncleSam and DLE clearly a mafia duo together, probably FIRE due to DLE weird wifom thing he did that makes you think "Well, hes clearly not going to say celever is FIRE mafia so as to get us to never consider hes FIRE for the rest of the game." That stuff is red flag city for me too
this is the thing he means by the fire mafia wifom
#2
I like DaLetterEl, and I think the last mafia is either GaleWingSolrock or Celever. They give off that repeat your points without adding much themselves, GaleWingSolrock more than Celever in that regard.
Now I've said repeatedly and obliquely that I have a blind spot when it comes to TIK's 'playstyle'. And I don't see these as substantial interactions, more the total and utter absence of them as remarkable. And it's explained by TIK and Celever both having their little gimmicks. I only find these interesting in themselves because the reasoning TIK used to claim DLE is Fire (DLE was Ice) could be used identically to claim Celever and TIK are Fire... which is the scenario we're looking at today, weirdly! It strikes me as a little specious though. #2 was completely truthful except Celever was being far worse than Gale after rereading D1, Gale was saying weird shit but that's exactly it, there was plenty of Original Content Do Not Steal in Gale's posts and that's why people were reacting so extremely to Gale over their other scumreads. So there's a weak weak weak weak weak weak avoidance of each other there (perhaps Celever did not consider TIK's post a real threat because they were allied) but that's like.. not much. If TIK had reacted strongly to Celever that would suggest selfconsciousness to me tbh. But the thing is Celever really was being noisy (saying this as the noisiest player in the game).
The penultimate thing I want to point out is that one of my major arguments with Celever in Day 2 was over the possibility of Celever protecting UTO. Also I'll just drop UTO's abbreviated reads for reference but no commentary necessary IMO
here. Now here is a point where I think Celever has been lying blatantly.
Celever said:
Because rssp1 is above and beyond the scummiest player in the game. I could see UTO, acid or even DLE being town, but I think that rssp1 is under no circumstances.
citation
Great docread,
Celever! Now Celever read rssp1 and acid as mafia together and that obviously became an irrelevant scenario when DLE flipped, but so did the simultaneous read of UTO/DLE. That's a very bold statement for someone who thinks there's an offchance their top scum is doctor. That is exactly what happened with me and DLE and why I waffled a bit over the lynch, because I couldn't outright say 'I think there's a chance DLE is doctor' without risking too much and I couldn't say 'I think there's no chance DLE is doctor'. Remember, Celever?
Celever said:
This is still a worrying amount of certainty. Townies generally can't be this certain about anything.
I still think those are literally the most damning words Celever wrote all this game, except maybe this possible scumslip here which was the final thing I wanted to point out.
#1 #2
Did Celever here accidentally indicate he knows what the mafia role PMs look like in trying to insinuate that's what U-Turn Out did? The vanilla townie PM is not perfectly identical to the information posted in the signups thread (that's all I'm saying for now, might be useful in the future).
In the same post Celever moved his vote tiering towards the two Ice Mafia and cooperated with the village. What is really remarkable there again is not voting UTO but I'm satisfied with Celever's explanations about UTO and am confident enough to say at this stage it is unlikely that Celever and UTO are allied. So I think that was just a 'I don't have this many votes to place' thing. But
Celever. Why did you lie about rssp1? What did rssp1 do to change your mind before the doctor claim to make you read him as potential doctor?
But you see, I love pointing out why Celever is scummy as shit because it's so damn easy, and ultimately while I think rssp1 + Celever is the only possible permutation of a Celever scumteam I don't think it's a given, pending Celever's answers about rssp1. But there's a serious history between the two players of earnestly trying to get each other lynched to the point of disregarding almost everyone else, so... it may be that one of rssp1 and Celever reacted honestly to the other, and maybe even both. btw I wrote this section nearly all today so there might be conflicting information elsewhere in the post (probably in my prior individual analysis of Celever) since I hadn't finalised my opinion on the nature of the rssp1-Celever connection (still haven't, but much closer).
PokeguyNXB
My reasoning for putting you and PokeguyNXB above rssp1 and Celever is that there is simply no conflicting data on the theory like there is with all the rssp1 teams (
most of it I laid out in my original post before rssp1 counterclaimed), and I already have had strong reasons to suspect you are scum since Day 2, although I think you have a more consistent history of telling the truth. I can't conclude PokeguyNXB is town either after sunny subbed in and went after DLE and UltrasPlot with literally no reasoning. sunny had a life crisis too and I don't know them well enough to read anything but I inferred from the reactions they can indeed be counted upon to do better than that in normal circumstances. Now I'm not sure what to make of those reads because DLE was a safe consensus read on someone they definitely weren't allied with (Ice Mafia), UltrasPlot was a less consensus read (although if sunny didn't read the thread they may have just assumed it was a safe read to make at the time due to the change of the winds), but the UltrasPlot read is relevant to the PGNXB/rssp1 scenario. I can definitely see sunny scumreading their partner without actually explaining why to cover their tracks, but there's no pattern of play really inferable.
Now there are only two really interesting things PGNXB has commented on all game since iirc before this day (when you could logic it out) I don't remember him getting around to reads posts.
These kills just seem baffling to me, particularly Spiffy... why would mafia kill such a strong supporter of the HD lynch... though BT makes a little sense, as it gives us very little info, something the mafia would definitely want from a kill in my experience on Epicmafia.
This is exactly the victim profiling I have outlined for the Fire Mafia. And here PokeguyNXB has just outright fingered it. Yeti might've noticed that as a potential confession, not sure, her
response to PGNXB (sincerely) denying that he would kill Spiffy was pretty canny. It got overshadowed by UncleSam thinking PGNXB was responsible for the Spiffy kill (and then ignoring PGNXB in general because he wasn't posting reads). PGNXB did admit he would've killed ButteredToast if he were mafia but said he didn't and he couldn't prove it otherwise, which, yeah, ofc. One of those is true at this stage. I see this as a really sincere play but I'm not sure what to make of it. PGNXB explicitly wanted to redirect discussion to the kills, something he could offer a lot more analysis of than reads. Which makes sense if the kill could be by anyone at all (the point of the kill). I'll return to that though.
In that context, UltrasPlot showing up with
UncleSam Celever
Explain yourselves.
Double post, but note that this is pseudo-LyLo.
straight up after US votes PGNXB for the Spiffy kill looks a lot like defending PGNXB implicitly. Before I just always assumed that was a timing thing because one of the things that bothered me was Ultras obsessively dogging Sam and Celever for the Haunted Diamond lynch (when UP was culpable too and put it at L-1 or hammered it iirc) and not reacting to nightkills, and the posts were made within five minutes of Sam's, but it's the second post that really interests me, the two look like deflection.
UncleSam's suspicion that PGNXB killed Spiffy was based on the other interesting thing PGNXB posted early:
PokeguyNXB said:
Okay real talk. Why am i acting so different? Because i'm a fucking blue. I HATE not having a night action, and i joined this game hoping on 5/13 odds i'd be Doc/Maf so at night, the only part of the game i'm actually GOOD at, i could actually DO SOMETHING. As anything other than blue, be it scum or a pr, i'm pissy about not getting lynched, but when i'm blue, i'm not unless it's mylo/lylo, cause i'm useless anyway and wouldn't mind being mislynched. Remind me not to join setups with mostly blues ever again please
spiffy's response, not needed to quote but in case anyone wants context
5/13 < 2/5 btw but that's neither here nor there.
Okay that leaves UTO, Celever, and rssp. (unless we're all wrong and jumpluff is mafia, but that's probably just me being paranoid like i was with US)... Honestly i'm extremely unsure of which 2 of these 3 are actually scum. Seeing as there's most likely a 2/3 chance of lynching one between these three, i'm going to Lynch Celever right now because he only has 1 person townreading him, and said person is his most likely partner, but do keep in mind this is subject to change if anything else comes up... and i believe hammer is 4 votes currently? So nobody else vote this yet please as it's at L-3 already and if I'm wrong (even if that is likely a 1/3 chance) Fire Mafia can easily blitz.
This was actually a very strong post on the part of PGNXB, and one of his better contributions. He relied on both mathematical analysis of the situation and qualitative analysis of reads, which is good play. But let's look at it deeper. Assumptions at the time: acid Ice Mafia, jumpluff town, PokeguyNXB non-doctor (already cited a post about this, plus PGNXB never cc'd). So
PokeguyNXB is yolo lynching between the 2 Fire Mafia and the doctor. Absurdly risky play. And that is actually what happened from his PoV, but at the time UTO and rssp had not claimed. Some permutation of PGNXB/Celever UTO/rssp accounts for the 2 Fire Mafia + doctor + vanilla townie. So what if PGNXB was Fire Mafia? Then PGNXB doesn't know who the doctor is yet (because I do not believe UTO and PGNXB planned a doctor claiming situation due to how awkwardly theirs played out). So it doesn't seem as inherently obviously a risky play, because if PGNXB doesn't have those base assumptions in place as part of his PoV because he's not town, he might have forgotten to take them into account. He thinks he's lynching between two townies (good chance they are doctors but mightn't be evaluating how that reflects on him, also leaves open the chance I'm doctor) and a Fire Mafia, and he knows his partner is one of UTO and rssp (I logically deduced PGNXB and Celever couldn't be allies anyway), so he can just safely go after Celever, who has a good chance of getting rushed anyway.
If rssp is one of his townies (i.e. UTO is his partner) then he can also bandwagon on the Celever -> rssp1 lynch, so that's some soft evidence PGNXB + rssp1 is likelier than PGNXB + UTO. Again, UTO is devoid of partnertells by any of the living players (except myself, blah blah blah). We also have PGNXB backtracking on his FoS rssp1 after I requested the show of hands. PGNXB is very clearly trying not to drop info there IMO. The thing is that FoS protects UTO substantially, so idk, but the reasoning PGNXB used for Celever originally may not be valid because rssp1 FoS'd Celever. So I'm not sure if I read his play as sincere town play.
So how did Celever react to this?
Celever said:
Well I say that, Pokeguy just shot up my scumreads list. I've been reading him town all game, but I don't understand why the fire mafia haven't lynched me yet. I guess UTO wasn't on? The scumteam is probably UTO and rssp1 at this point, I sorta doubt Pokeguy is on it though recent happenings make it totally possible and jumpluff almost certainly isn't mafia.
I literally don't remember Celever's reasoning for thinking UTO - rssp1, I think it was just combination of scumreads but I might've just extrapolated that, or it might've been the part I bolded. But that's a lot more of a relaxed reaction in the sense that from Celever's PoV PGNXB/UTO/rssp1 contains the 2 Fire Mafia who are likeliest not PGNXB for... whatever fuckin reason, if I were Celever I would've reacted pretty violently tbh. It suggests uncertainty. If Celever is Fire Mafia there he knows PGNXB is village so we can use wifom to say thats why Celever didn't react so heavily, and scumreading
both UTO and rssp is actually a pretty safe play. I'm not sure how to read it in context of Celever's later commitment to rssp1, obviously he had to pick one out of his scumreads but it strikes me as bizarre he can read them both as scum and then suddenly be totally sure one of them is town. (
Celever MAYBE YOU COULD COMMENT ON THIS.)
I really like having to play defense and prosecution for Celever AND PokeguyNXB, real fun.
My problem is that UTO is playing the towniest right now, but both rssp1 and UTO have a strong incentive to be active right now and I do sense some buddying (which I have commented before is the only recourse for UTO regardless of alliance), it's still pretty consistent since Day 2 though with the exception of UTO flipping after rssp1 counterclaimed. The real issue with UTO is that UTO was the scummiest all game out of any of them except Celever maybe but has consistently contributed in a reasonable manner and lacks solid partnertells.
---
I would like to lynch PGNXB, although I'm down to lynch Celever for fun at this point just for not convincing me to lynch anyone else, unless he can answer the questions I posted (hint: everything I wanted Celever to respond to is tagged, but to avoid Celever dragging this out more, ctrl+f these:
Great docread,
Celever! Now Celever read rssp1 and acid as mafia together and that obviously became an irrelevant scenario when DLE flipped, but so did the simultaneous read of UTO/DLE. That's a very bold statement for someone who thinks there's an offchance their top scum is doctor.
(especially with the D3 lynch)
But
Celever. Why did you lie about rssp1? What did rssp1 do to change your mind before the doctor claim to make you read him as potential doctor?
[context ..] I'm not sure how to read it in context of Celever's later commitment to rssp1, obviously he had to pick one out of his scumreads but it strikes me as bizarre he can read them both as scum and then suddenly be totally sure one of them is town. (Celever MAYBE YOU COULD COMMENT ON THIS.)
I don't feel confident enough on the doctor lynch, even though I agree lynching the false doctor is optimal, and I think Celever is probably town as much as it doesn't sit right with me. So I default to lynching PGNXB who is plausibly the partner of either, although that does not reveal who the false doctor is but points maybe more to UTO. Everyone here seems a lot surer of the false doctor than I am anyway so...