First Official Smogon Mafia Game Preview: Metagame Mafia

By UncleSam. Art by Dragonith from DeviantArt.
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Mafia Banner by UncleSam

Introduction

Hello Smogon,

The Circus Maximus forum is excited to announce the first ever Official Smogon Mafia Game, Metagame Mafia!

What is Mafia?

Mafia is a widely popular strategy game commonly referred to as "werewolf" when played in real life; for an introduction to Smogon Mafia, I encourage newer users to read this article to get a better sense of how mafia has evolved on the Smogon forums, and this introduction thread for an overview of what happens in Circus Maximus.

What do you mean by "Official Smogon Mafia Game"?

This game is distinct from typical mafia games in several ways, but the primary answer is that, starting with the upcoming Metagame Mafia, big mafia games on a set cycle (~once per six months) will be sanctioned as "Official" games by the Circus Maximus staff. These games will be different from regular mafia games hosted in Circus in a few ways:

  1. The winners will receive custom banners until the conclusion of the next Official game.
  2. These games will have publicly-announced signups and game previews (like this one!) ahead of time.
  3. These games will be beginner accessible, enabling anyone who is interested in participating to do so.
  4. Participation in and, more importantly, hosting Official games will become the primary consideration for badging status in Circus.

So how do I sign up?

Signups will be posted Thursday, May 19th, at 8 PM CST, in the Circus Maximus subforum. To sign up you simply need to post "in" in the thread.

To improve your chances at being selected to play in the game, I recommend the following:

  1. Join the Circus Maximus room on Pokémon Showdown!—this will be the primary method of communication in this game, and demonstrating an ability to use Showdown as well as an active interest in the game will certainly improve your chances.
  2. Simply PMing the hosts (UncleSam and Walrein) indicating your interest and what your favorite mafia roles are (if you have mafia experience outside of this site) will help get you noticed.
  3. Please do NOT spam the signups thread.

Didn't you say this was going to be a game preview?

Right, well, with the logistical stuff out of the way, I'll get right to it. The full rules will be posted with the signups thread.

Metagame Mafia will be a conflict between a large number of uninformed Pokémon representing the UU, RU, NU, PU, and LC tiers, collectively referred to as The Rest, and two informed minorities: Pokémon representing the OU and Ubers tiers. Every player in the game will receive a PM indicating the Pokémon that will become that person's "role." Players win by eliminating all Pokémon from tiers not allied with their own team, and all "roles" will reflect Smogon movesets for that Pokémon. So, for example, Klefki might be able to use Thunder Wave each Cycle, paralyzing another Pokémon. The mechanics of the game, ranging from move effectiveness to Speed tiers, will reflect the mechanics of Pokémon battling as closely as possible.

In any case, I will leave you with a brief snippet of what the flavor for the game will look like.

Tiering. Tiering never changes. Since the dawn of competitive Pokémon, when the first battlers discovered the awesome Psychic powers of the Mews, 'mons and strategies have been getting banned from competitive play: from OHKOs to evasion to simple, repeated species. In the year 2016, after thousands of microcenturies of forum conflict, the destructive nature of tiering could sustain itself no longer. The world was plunged into an abyss of nuclear tl;drs and incessant banning. But it was not, as some had predicted, the end of the forums. Instead, the apocalypse was simply a prologue to yet another text-wall chapter of tiering history. For nerds had succeeded in destroying the forums—but tiering, tiering never changes. In the early days, thousands were spared the horrors of tiering by taking refuge in enormous underground social forums. But when they emerged, they had only the hell of the tiers to greet them—all except those in Circus Maximus. For in Circus Maximus, they never emerged—until now.

—UncleSam, Walrein, and the entire Circus Maximus Staff

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