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[Expert] Pokémon TCG Mafia - Game Over! Postgame up!
- Thread starter Mekkah
- Start date
This was a pretty fun game. I got screwed pretty early by a combination of ipl being a general asshole, and Agape depriving me of my evolution card. I did start attacking Agape, and that's what probably got me killed, but after agreeing a future trade then screwing me out of it, I wasn't impressed. Besides, I wasn't sure if ipl's information about RB-G being Ralts (my role target) was true.
I also suggest for future versions of a game like this to have a way to utilise useless promotion cards better. In my case, I had the Garchomp Lv X card, which became pointless once Garchomp died (hence Mekkah's joking references to it through the first few turns). I advise either that these cards can be discarded to give either a scavenge priority, or that there be some sort of universal trade shop that all users can access, and the wares will be shown publically (much like the shop used in Fire Emblem Mafia).
Overall, this game was great, and I hope to see more like it.
I also suggest for future versions of a game like this to have a way to utilise useless promotion cards better. In my case, I had the Garchomp Lv X card, which became pointless once Garchomp died (hence Mekkah's joking references to it through the first few turns). I advise either that these cards can be discarded to give either a scavenge priority, or that there be some sort of universal trade shop that all users can access, and the wares will be shown publically (much like the shop used in Fire Emblem Mafia).
Overall, this game was great, and I hope to see more like it.
not my fault you didnt keep your side of the deal, i didnt care who traded with me, i just needed to do it in turn 5, which i told you about, and you didnt care so... your fault
Maybe have the useless evo cards turn into trainer cards after the corresponding pokemon dies.
Sorry for killing you toothache :(
I did it to try to buy out fatecrasher's 120 power attack in exchange for possibly hitting another stage 1 with a 110 power attack (which would only be 50 if i used it for myself). However, fate's scavenge apparently failed, so that went out the window. Not to mention i made that decision at about 4 AM, so I wasn't completely with it. Probably should have just done 60 to jumpluff; I would have killed midou then, but i was under the assumption that von was attacking midou, so I didn't.
I did it to try to buy out fatecrasher's 120 power attack in exchange for possibly hitting another stage 1 with a 110 power attack (which would only be 50 if i used it for myself). However, fate's scavenge apparently failed, so that went out the window. Not to mention i made that decision at about 4 AM, so I wasn't completely with it. Probably should have just done 60 to jumpluff; I would have killed midou then, but i was under the assumption that von was attacking midou, so I didn't.
Just... Wait... Till... Postgame...
nope screw unclesam (no hard feelings luxray)
but it is a shame billymills lost :( as well as shade and midou
dak and i are the best except dak is zeedled making me slightly better
Pokémon TCG Mafia: Postgame
Spreadsheet
I could make this either 1 or 100 pages long. I decided to do something inbetween. Disclaimer: in this postgame, I try to look smart by providing reasoning for my design that I thought up while or after actually hosting the game. (just kidding - this is not true for every bit of reasoning. just a few.)
First, I'll explain all the underlying game mechanics that I didn't reveal from the start or through answering questions. You can follow this on the sheet by looking at the Master Start tab, which is a copy of what the Master Sheet looked like at the start of the game.
This game consisted of four groups, each consisting of six Pokémon. I kept these numbers unknown to increase confusion and paranoia, even though there were very simple. This way, you only knew you had to kill four other Pokémon in your group, but you didn't know if that meant all of them or not. Of course, this kind of confusion never lasts for the entire game. In addition, it allowed the possibility of a neutral claim or rumor to take root. Or just people claiming to be in a group that doesn't exist, like Delta Species. Or "Pokémon that can evolve into two different species". Heh.
There were roughly 64 cards in the game that I distributed over people's hands. At first, I was going to include Trainers and Stadiums, but I didn't want to make it even more work to manage, so I ended up cutting them out. This gave everyone a 2-3 card hand. If I had to distribute cards again, I would have made sure Pokémon that had to evolve or Level Up to reach their full potential got 3 (with Stage 2s > Stage 1s > SP > Haymakers for my priority concerning this) before I started handing that extra card to Haymakers. They needed to trade more, after all.
There were four copies of every Energy card (including Double Colorless, Metal and Rainbow), and four Rare Candies. There was only one of every evolution/level up card. I tried to distribute them so that everyone had an easy time trading for cards they need. For example, Luxray GL starts with Steelix Prime, Fighting Energy, Water Energy. The Steelix could be traded with Onix in exchange for a Lightning Energy, the Fighting Energy could be traded with Phanpy for Luxray GL Lv X, and the Water Energy could have been traded with Horsea for a Double Colorless Energy. Of course, I figured many of the trades I "set up" wouldn't actually happen - this type of game has very low predictability. But I really wanted many roles to see their full potential before dying or winning, so I didn't want to make it unnecessarily difficult to do that. To my delight, a large percentage of those who could develop did so: 4 out of 6 Stage 1s evolved, 2 out of the 4 Pokémon SP who could Level Up got their card (Dialga G never used his), and from the Stage 2s, four of them reached Stage 2, one of them got to Stage 1, and one of the Stage 2s even got as far as Stage 2 Level X. Granted, out of these, only Charizard and Jumpluff made a real offensive impact as Stage 2s.
I decided upon the Unicycle system to keep things going. Lynches are very often boring, after all, especially in the first turns where they do little damage. Unicycle had been tested, and even though that game sucked, the system worked flawlessy, so I decided to give it another spin. It definitely improved the game, and it cut the playtime in half.
I have puzzled a long time about what to do with the discard pile. At one point, I had it figured out as some kind of Junk Yard a la Viva la Mafia, except its entire contents would be revealed at the start of every Cycle (which I ended up renaming Turn right before I started the game), but I settled with this way because it made it easier to manage the spreadsheet (since I wouldn't have to move KO'd people's cards around). The every other turn restriction was fair, in my opinion, or everyone would spam their scavenging instead of strategically planning it (see: UncleSam's Lightning Energy, where no less than four people whiffed).
For those wondering about scavenge priority and the whole "compatibility" deal, you can see this on the Priority tab:
"Trapinch > Steelix/Mewtwo > same type > others"
What it means is that Trapinch/Vibrava's Gather Sand gets priority on Energy, then Steelix Prime (when using Energy Stream while scavenging Metal Energy), then Mewtwo Promo (when using Energy Absorption), then people who were scavenging their own type of Energy (eg Charizard scavenging Fire Energy), and then everything else. If you tried to scavenge an evolution card you were compatible with, you would always get it. There was only one real all-around scavenging tie in the game, which was when Fatecrashers tried to dig out a DCE at the same time as RBG (Turn 6). Scavenging did have higher priority than poison damage, after all.
While you're looking there, the priorities on that very same tab have been publicized very early, and were very straightforward. The reason I let Trade go through even if one of the players is Knocked Out is because I wanted Trades to go through as often as possible. And I liked the idea of two people who had a soft alliance staying friendly even if one is about to die. This decision ended up being important a few times, and I haven't really regetted it.
The attack priority, surprise surprise, was almost entirely randomized. I was pretty sure the only time they'd really get into conflict was in the case of doing damage before or after being KO'd: most if not all side effects of an attack, such as Horsea and Hoppip's life saving attacks, went through even if higher priority people were KO'ing them. I am pretty sure there are very few really ways to resolve priority in this type of game, and I really wanted to keep it managable. Being able to ask your attack's priorities as a freebie was a minor but good idea of mine, if you ask me. It rewarded people who dug their way through the enormous amount of rules, and allowed you to plan attack orders with each other carefully, maybe even false claim priorities (I don't think anyone did this). Thankfully, attack priority has rarely REALLY mattered in this game.
I have little to say on the Safe Claims. I didn't expect any lies, elaborate or not, to last long, but I enjoy it when people lie to each other (games are more fun to watch when not everything is known about one another), so I made sure to provide as much help as I could to those who wanted to lie. Of course, the fact you have to trade to get your Energy and evolutions a lot of the time means you'll have to tell at least one guy what kind of cards you're interested in.
Weakness/Resistance were all +30/-30 because...that's easier. I avoided multiplication whenever I could. If I had to do it again, I'd do +20/-20, but I don't think resistance ended up mattering anywhere...I've seen a few instances of people being hit for their weak spot though. I haven't paid THAT much attention to weaknesses/resistances within groups, because it's way too hard to make perfect circles or anything else there that's completely fair. I did make sure there were no unfair match-ups in the secondary target system (type-wise, at least), and for the most part I tried to make each group as diverse as possible.
This way of making groups, trades and cards also made it very interesting to see if, when and how people would claim, since there was no village leader, and making your name public made you a target for your own personal enemy (which, by the way, was always mutual), as well as your own group. I knew people would call out for the cards they could trade WITH (for example, zorbees asking Charmander to come to him for a trade because he had Charmeleon), but I also hoped people would be paranoid of traps, and I hoped people would set traps as well (like LonelyNess saying he has a Rare Candy to lure other Stage 2s).
And now, the part everyone is actually reading (or skimming) this for: personal performances! Unfortunately, not everyone talked to me as much as I would have liked, and due to the amount of people you could work with, it is almost impossible for me to detail your entire journey through this game. I can, however, give accurate comments on the design of your card and group, and of course I'll try my best to talk about your performance as well.
I should note that I took very little creative liberty with changing cards, mostly staying true to how the cards work in the real TCG. Unless the design of the game didn't allow it, due to the lack of discard pile, deck, specific opponent, or bench, of course.
Pokémon SP
The Pokémon SP are the modern day Haymakers. They are actually Basic Pokémon (even in the real TCG), but they have the names of evolved Pokémon. While they will never be as strong as a fully evolved Pokémon, they start out better than most Basics, and some of them can Level Up to become even more powerful. All Pokémon SP except Dialga G have 80 HP, and all of them except Ambipom G and Crobat G could Level Up.
Use a Pokémon name followed by a * for easy Ctrl-Fing.
1. UncleSam - Luxray GL*
Luxray's Bite was cheap, and if he wanted to really hit hard he had to pay through the ass in either HP or Energy requirements. In the TCG, this guy needs to win matches fast or he often ends up losing, which is somewhat close to how I imagined Luxray to operate. He had no chance against a fully evolved Charizard, or a charged Dialga G Lv X (despite his Metal resistance).
UncleSam got very involved, perhaps a little too much for his own good, as he ended up being a target for imperfectluck and the general public. He managed to Level Up, but got Knocked Out with no room to spare (a Jab from Hitmonchan did 50 due to weakness, Dialga G's Second Strike added 40 to that, and the 20 lynch damage was his demise. A school example of one of the few things of this game I didn't really like: the people who did the most end up being killed. Thankfully, I know of a few ways to fix this.
Redirecting is one of the things I used instead of switching. It was a pretty powerful one-timer, but sadly the guy he told it to (Altair) ratted the way he used it to imperfectluck. I didn't allow him to use it on himself as I thought that'd be a little bit too much of a no brainer. In retrospect, it would have been pretty amusing if he could have done that, but still a little cheap.
2. Fishin - Blaziken FB*
Fishin tried his best to stay under the radar, but pretty much the only thing that could go wrong did go wrong: he traded for the Lv X with Agape, and Agape told it to a member of imperfectluck's clique. Fishin decided not to Level Up so he could cure status, which didn't end up making a difference as the combination of attacks that was used on him was enough to KO even his improved 110 HP.
3. Laundry - Garchomp C*
Alas, it wasn't meant to be, as Laundry was part of a group that would be devastated by vonFiedler and the rest of imperfectluck's alliance. Laundry's highlight was probably going up to Midou at complete random, and saying something like "what's up, Electabuzz?". A lucky guess that scared poor Midou to death (sacre bleu) but it ended up in an alliance between the two, as well as RBG. Laundry died early though, as the guy who held his Level X (Toothache) wasn't willing to trade with him, even though he had a perfectly usable Lightning Energy for him.
4. Colonel M - Crobat G*
Toxic Fang was actually pretty damn good: 20 instant damage isn't too bad for PC, but the next turn it does another 20. And he can use it every turn: in combination with Flash Bites, he could actually rack up damage pretty quickly. Crobat G had 3 cards when he actually really only needed two to do stuff, so that could have been another card on the Stage 1s/Stage 2s I guess. The main problem with Crobat G is, surprisingly, speed-related: Toxic Fang's poison damage is the last thing to happen during a turn. Which ended up screwing him over in his final stand-off vs Exeggcute, who was going to die at the end of that turn.
This was the Colonel's first mafia game, and I really only included him because of his TCG playing experiences. That's also why I gave him this role. Sadly, he idled Flash Bite one or two times, and mostly used Toxic Fang to benefit others, most likely because for a majority of the game, he either didn't know his enemies or nearly all of them were eliminated: for quite a few Turns, the only guy left for him to kill was the somewhat well-hidden Exeggcute. I don't think he played so astonishingly well that he totally deserved the win, but compared to blue_light, who has played and even hosted so many games by now but hardly played any better...I would definitely prefer having seen him come out on top. I did like how he blocked a lot of people from evolving by trading their evolution cards, though, especially Exeggcute's.
5. imperfectluck - Ambipom G*
imperfectluck played the way he always does. He goes around making "alliances" with people, always managing to find out something crucial about at least one player. He claimed to be in some nonexistant Pokémon Prime group which was really funny. He ended up making two spreadsheets: one not very serious one he shared with like ten people, and one more serious one which he shared with his close allies: Da Letter El, Fatecrashers, vonFiedler and Agape. The latter sheet ended up being rather complete, though unbeknownst to them they mixed up quite a few Pokémon (because their owners didn't talk enough...read: they didn't get tricked by ipl). He practically set up vonFiedler for a win by Tail Coding zorbees' Grass Energy to him, and died quickly after: Grinded to death by Trapinch's devastating lap dance.
6. vonFiedler - Dialga G*
But what really got vonFiedler his (relatively easy, but nonetheless deserved) win was that he managed to get on imperfectluck's good side, despite being in his group (a mistake of ipl's, tbh), and he got him to Tail Code an Energy from zorbees to him somehow. From there he had the most powerful attack out of everyone earlygame in Second Strike, which thanks to its low priority, and a partnership with the Jabbing Hitmonchan (Agape), could dispose of someone pretty much every turn. vonFiedler is not the guy you'd normally put in an Expert game, but since he asked me in private if he could be in since he was interested in designing a game of this type, I decided to give him a shot. Fresh blood is good.
Haymakers
Haymakers, like Pokémon SP, are high HP Basic Pokémon. The Haymakers generally have Energy requirements easy to fulfill, but a low damage cap, and to compensate for that I gave each of them an Energy card of their own type to start with. I imagined them to be calling the shots earlygame, until people manage to evolve. Generally, these "this group was intended to _____" things don't really work at all and I hate reading them in most postgames, especially when the goals are unrealistic. But in this case, I think it was justified.
7. Agape - Hitmonchan*
Agape was active and talked to a bunch of people...whether he talked too much remains to be seen as I forgot the details on everything. But he got into ipl's small circle and worked with them to land a bunch of KOs. ipl traded him his DCE on the Turn he died, and from there he went Special Punching people until he got hit by Exeggcute Hypnosis, Magmar Smokescreen and Crobat Toxic Fang at once, which had him die at the end of the turn after.
8. Midou - Electabuzz*
Midou was a good idea to put in just like vonFiedler was. I vouched for him to be put in big_bigest after Altair told me how well he played in FF3 mafia, and even though some could call his big_bigest_performance disappointing, I didn't mind his play much in this game. Laundry ruined any plans of his to stay anonymous though because he guessed what Pokémon he was at complete random, and from there it was only a matter of time before he was taken out by either Agape or someone working with him. It ended up being Da Letter El, his mortal enemy, who Mass Attacked him, which only barely KO'd due to the Metal Energy and all the deaths that had occurred in their groups so far (read Mass Attack if you don't get it).
9. zorbees - Scyther*
Unfortunately, zorbees crossed paths with his arch rival imperfectluck, and got his Grass Energy from turn 1 Tail Coded away. From there it would have taken him a while just to get into attacking mode again, but he also just had to get lynched and attacked. Perhaps another case of being active and getting mauled for it. zorbees is another guy that hasn't been in an Expert game before but he definitely hasn't disappointed.
10. shade - Mewtwo*
Because of that, I think the 2-card hand (one of which is an Energy he can use right away) and the mighty Donphan Prime as an enemy are justified. Still, dak ended up coming out on top here, thanks to Colonel M using Flash Bite on shade to bring him into Earthquake KO range. shade laid pretty low for most of the game, which paid off for the most part, but not when it came to it. Not everyone is as lucky as...
11. reyscarface - Magmar*
rey won, though whether he "deserved" to is debatable. He didn't really need to trade anything per sé other than to avoid the damage after Turn 5 - he could either have tried to get rid of his enemies through politics or just try not to draw attention to himself. Still, it says a lot that he didn't know he could scavenge until like Turn 5, or that he didn't bother to attach and attack until Turn 3. Considering that, I'd gladly try some other fresh Expert players out in this spot if I had to do it all again.
12. billymills - Lapras*
billymills' largest problem was that his weak attacks would never have been able to penetrate Dialga G: he would need the help of one of the many powerful Fire Pokémon to do it. He could of course be a major nuisance with Confuse Ray, and in fact I believe that was the plan at one point...I recall him asking about using Ralts (RBG) to use the "can't attack next turn" attack in conjunction with Confuse Ray to make vonFiedler completely unable to attack. Sadly, they didn't end up doing it. billymills was cleared out of the way along with many other SPs by vonFiedler's Second Strike.
Stage 1 Pokémon
The Stage 1s are something completely different. Their basic versions are all rather weak, capable of some cheap low damage attacks and very little else. They all had 60 HP to start with, which could reasonably have been lowered to 50, considering the Haymakers and SPs all had 70 or 80. The evolutions of the Stage 1s are all pretty powerful Pokémon in their own right: their average damage potential was somewhere in the 90-100, I estimate. However, they usually had large drawbacks to these attacks: usually a high attacking cost. Let's go over them. As I mentioned, everyone of these except Exeggcute ended up evolving. There were no Level X cards for these.
13. Toothache - Chinchou*
Lanturn could definitely have come far, but for some reason Agape (who had obtained Lanturn Prime from Fishin in exchange for Blaziken FB Lv X) was refusing to trade it to him. He still got his hands on a Rainbow Energy and was thus able to Aqua Spark people for 30, until he was bluntly killed by Da Letter El (Jumpluff)'s Mass Attack at the request of fellow Stage 1 Fatecrashers (Arcanine).
14. Altair - Onix*
Altair definitely didn't sit still. I don't remember all the things he told me, but I do recall that people were feeding him a LOT of information just to buy his vote. I predicted him to come out victorious halfway through, but the almost-dead Fatecrashers took the mighty Steelix down with him.
15. Veedrock - Jigglypuff*
Veedrock managed to get a DCE and the Wigglytuff card, but didn't manage to scavenge the last Energy needed for his attack. The fact that dak randomly (?) Flailed him for 40 damage earlygame did not help either. Magmar couldn't be found and before he knew it he was the target of a lynch that took away his chance to win.
16. Fatecrashers - Growlithe*
The cost reduction didn't really end up mattering because Fatecrashers was a beast at gathering cards, probably due to being in imperfectluck's circle. He hasn't even used Stoke once, but he did get imperfectluck to move an Energy card to him. This allowed him to use Heat Tackle, and on his final breath, Firestorm, but it couldn't help him from dying to Colonel M's Toxic Fangs, sent at him by Altair. It's funny how most of my hosting mistakes ended up concerning Fatecrashers: I miscounted his Energy requirement twice and made another error I forgot...but thankfully, all my errors in this game have been very minor and easily reversible, and it didn't really reduce anything from Fatecrashers' relatively fun and successful time in his first Expert game. Definitely not regretting adding him.
17. lambasto - Phanpy*
dak allied with just the right people to get his cards (Luxray GL and Charmander), and was pretty much set up until imperfectluck Tail Coded his only Fighting Energy away. After a lot of complaining and grumbling, he scavenged a new one from Fishin's body, and Earthquaked shade at just the right time to win. You can complain until you are blue in the face, but this was simply a good player with a good card playing a game just the right way to win.
18. blue_light - Exeggcute*
blue_light however, despite winning the game, kind of disappointed me. I got the idea that he didn't talk to a lot of people at all, he never got his Exeggutor card, and until he changed his target on his last Turn, he was going to lose. That may just be my perception because blue_light didn't talk to me...anyway, he does get props for obtaining the right Energy to fulfill his different Energy costs, of course.
Stage 2 Pokémon
The Stage 2 Pokémon are the most interesting of them all. Like the Stage 1s, they start out weak, but the final forms would have to be absolutely worth it. I made sure to pick a nice diverse bunch with cheap attacks, because when you have to trade for at least 2 cards (Rare Candy/Stage 1 + Stage 2) to get there, you don't want to spend forever waiting for Energy...I guess I was successful for the most part here. I really could not be bothered writing role PMs for the Stage 1s, as I didn't expect many of them to come to use: Stage 1 could either not be reached due to premature death, or skipped with one of the four Rare Candies. Turns out that in the end, all of them but one would have been of use. Still, I didn't mind the simple solution of "Stage 1 = Basic with 30 extra HP" (and the change to Vibrava's typing and weakness).
19. the pugilist - Horsea*
puggy never ended up evolving, perhaps because Kingdra Prime was being traded all over the place and he only ended up getting Rare Candies. Reverse Thrust has saved him from being killed ten times over, though, so perhaps it was for the better, even if it limited his damage potential. His mortal enemy Hitmonchan was rather informative, so he had to endure quite a few attacks, but he was saved by his own attack every time until the lynch got to him. Truth to be told, I was kind of glad he was lynched, as Reverse Thrust was looking awfully cheap at that point (even though there were so many ways around it).
20. Da Letter El - Hoppip*
I was very pleased with Dale's playing. He ended up working with imperfectluck's group, where vonFiedler had Skiploom, Fatecrashers a Grass Energy, and he did the trade for the Jumpluff with Colonel by himself. Sadly, he struck a deal with Fatecrashers to use Mass Attack on Toothache for 120, instead of attacking jumpluff (the user) in his own group. I think it had something to do with Fatecrashers agreeing to use his 120 attack for Dale's good or something. Either way, because of this, jumpluff could survive and evolve into Charizard a turn later, only barely killing Dale with Steady Firebreathing followed up by a Fire Wing.
21. jumpluff - Charmander*
I gave Charmander to jumpluff because of her SPL team name. jumpluff found dak (Phanpy) early, and they worked out a threeway deal with UncleSam (Luxray GL). She was furious when zorbees didn't end up completing the Turn 1 trade (Charmeleon for DCE), but it ended up happening the next turn, and from there it was pretty smooth sailing. It took a while for her to find Charizard, since Veedrock had traded it away to Midou, but once she added Midou to her little alliance she evolved, and none too soon, as Dale was out for her blood. While Call for Friends always always hit people outside of her group, she managed to find all her enemies through progress of elimination (and the help of her allies shade, dak, Midou and I believe Agape?), she took down the biggest threat in Dale (jumpluff killing Jumpluff......). She decided to work with RBG even though he was in her group, and together they pretty much wrapped the game up, getting some revenge on the lap dancer Lightwolf and her cousin Thorns.
22. Lightwolf - Trapinch*
Lightwolf seemed to be thinking about this game a lot, coming up with all sorts of crazy theories half of which I don't remember. Early on he thought there would be a group for Pokémon that have different evolution paths (since he had Gardevoir), he thought rey had higher scavenge priority because his hand sucked, and some other weird things. He tried very, very hard, but due to his evolution being cockblocked by reyscarface and then Colonel M, he was stuck at Vibrava. Vibrava definitely didn't do bad though: 90 HP and Trapinch's awesome Body and attack got him pretty far, and with the DCE he picked up near the end he could have been Grinding for 50 damage. If win output was equal to effort input, Lightwolf would have won this game and the next.
23. RBG - Ralts*
I made RBG this role because he played a Gardevoir/Gallade deck, and when I ghosted for him in a tournament match it was a lot of fun. Whether his experience helped, I don't know...he didn't use Future Sight once, instead spamming Hypnoblast to great annoyance of people. He ended up getting all his evolutions, but due to lack of Energy (he traded away his DCE and just couldn't get a new one) he stuck with Kirlia. When he found out Thorns was Machoke he just kept Hypnoblasting him into oblivion, only evolving and leveling up at the very end. RBG was in an alliance with Midou and Laundry early, and later he was working with jumpluff. He could potentially have handed the game to someone else if he wanted to, but he stayed true and it ended up benefitting both of them.
24. LonelyNess/Thorns - Machop*
LonelyNess started off good, openly stating that he had a Rare Candy in order to lure other Stage 2s. However, he had to be subbed out, and Thorns...well, his timezone didn't match up with anyone but puggy, but sometimes I dunno if he was really trying. At some point, he was being hooked by Kirlia, but he had Machamp and a DCE in his hand which he could have at least tried to use. I guess he thought all was lost at that point. It's a shame because it kept blue_light from evolving and Altair from one of the few Metals in the game that hadn't been hogged by vonFiedler.
That's it for my collection of Pokémon. Do you need awards? Fine...
Awards
The Golden Alakazam goes to Altair for having the first complete spreadsheet without errors.
Runner-up to the Prime Number Alliance of imperfectluck, Fatecrashers, Agape and Da Letter El. They were pretty solid info-wise as well, but about six mix-ups took place that spread through the entire game.
The Golden Chansey award goes to reyscarface for having some of the best luck to accompany one of the least deserved wins in the game.
Runner-up to blue_light for the exact same reason.
The Golden Chatot is for Lightwolf for his endless monologue and theorizing, overcomplicating my game in ways I could not dream of.
Runner-up is jumpluff who was doing the same thing to a lesser extent, just in another window. I guess we could call it vagina monologues...
And the Golden Yooterii for best newcomer is for Fatecrashers for beasting straight towards Arcanine's final Firestorm.
Runner-up to vonFiedler in this regard, who managed to do what pretty much no player has done so far: using imperfectluck to their advantage when he had no reason to win or even work with you!
Congrats to vonFiedler, reyscarface, lambasto, blue_light, jumpluff and RBG, and thanks for playing everyone!
Spreadsheet
I could make this either 1 or 100 pages long. I decided to do something inbetween. Disclaimer: in this postgame, I try to look smart by providing reasoning for my design that I thought up while or after actually hosting the game. (just kidding - this is not true for every bit of reasoning. just a few.)
First, I'll explain all the underlying game mechanics that I didn't reveal from the start or through answering questions. You can follow this on the sheet by looking at the Master Start tab, which is a copy of what the Master Sheet looked like at the start of the game.
This game consisted of four groups, each consisting of six Pokémon. I kept these numbers unknown to increase confusion and paranoia, even though there were very simple. This way, you only knew you had to kill four other Pokémon in your group, but you didn't know if that meant all of them or not. Of course, this kind of confusion never lasts for the entire game. In addition, it allowed the possibility of a neutral claim or rumor to take root. Or just people claiming to be in a group that doesn't exist, like Delta Species. Or "Pokémon that can evolve into two different species". Heh.
There were roughly 64 cards in the game that I distributed over people's hands. At first, I was going to include Trainers and Stadiums, but I didn't want to make it even more work to manage, so I ended up cutting them out. This gave everyone a 2-3 card hand. If I had to distribute cards again, I would have made sure Pokémon that had to evolve or Level Up to reach their full potential got 3 (with Stage 2s > Stage 1s > SP > Haymakers for my priority concerning this) before I started handing that extra card to Haymakers. They needed to trade more, after all.
There were four copies of every Energy card (including Double Colorless, Metal and Rainbow), and four Rare Candies. There was only one of every evolution/level up card. I tried to distribute them so that everyone had an easy time trading for cards they need. For example, Luxray GL starts with Steelix Prime, Fighting Energy, Water Energy. The Steelix could be traded with Onix in exchange for a Lightning Energy, the Fighting Energy could be traded with Phanpy for Luxray GL Lv X, and the Water Energy could have been traded with Horsea for a Double Colorless Energy. Of course, I figured many of the trades I "set up" wouldn't actually happen - this type of game has very low predictability. But I really wanted many roles to see their full potential before dying or winning, so I didn't want to make it unnecessarily difficult to do that. To my delight, a large percentage of those who could develop did so: 4 out of 6 Stage 1s evolved, 2 out of the 4 Pokémon SP who could Level Up got their card (Dialga G never used his), and from the Stage 2s, four of them reached Stage 2, one of them got to Stage 1, and one of the Stage 2s even got as far as Stage 2 Level X. Granted, out of these, only Charizard and Jumpluff made a real offensive impact as Stage 2s.
I decided upon the Unicycle system to keep things going. Lynches are very often boring, after all, especially in the first turns where they do little damage. Unicycle had been tested, and even though that game sucked, the system worked flawlessy, so I decided to give it another spin. It definitely improved the game, and it cut the playtime in half.
I have puzzled a long time about what to do with the discard pile. At one point, I had it figured out as some kind of Junk Yard a la Viva la Mafia, except its entire contents would be revealed at the start of every Cycle (which I ended up renaming Turn right before I started the game), but I settled with this way because it made it easier to manage the spreadsheet (since I wouldn't have to move KO'd people's cards around). The every other turn restriction was fair, in my opinion, or everyone would spam their scavenging instead of strategically planning it (see: UncleSam's Lightning Energy, where no less than four people whiffed).
For those wondering about scavenge priority and the whole "compatibility" deal, you can see this on the Priority tab:
"Trapinch > Steelix/Mewtwo > same type > others"
What it means is that Trapinch/Vibrava's Gather Sand gets priority on Energy, then Steelix Prime (when using Energy Stream while scavenging Metal Energy), then Mewtwo Promo (when using Energy Absorption), then people who were scavenging their own type of Energy (eg Charizard scavenging Fire Energy), and then everything else. If you tried to scavenge an evolution card you were compatible with, you would always get it. There was only one real all-around scavenging tie in the game, which was when Fatecrashers tried to dig out a DCE at the same time as RBG (Turn 6). Scavenging did have higher priority than poison damage, after all.
While you're looking there, the priorities on that very same tab have been publicized very early, and were very straightforward. The reason I let Trade go through even if one of the players is Knocked Out is because I wanted Trades to go through as often as possible. And I liked the idea of two people who had a soft alliance staying friendly even if one is about to die. This decision ended up being important a few times, and I haven't really regetted it.
The attack priority, surprise surprise, was almost entirely randomized. I was pretty sure the only time they'd really get into conflict was in the case of doing damage before or after being KO'd: most if not all side effects of an attack, such as Horsea and Hoppip's life saving attacks, went through even if higher priority people were KO'ing them. I am pretty sure there are very few really ways to resolve priority in this type of game, and I really wanted to keep it managable. Being able to ask your attack's priorities as a freebie was a minor but good idea of mine, if you ask me. It rewarded people who dug their way through the enormous amount of rules, and allowed you to plan attack orders with each other carefully, maybe even false claim priorities (I don't think anyone did this). Thankfully, attack priority has rarely REALLY mattered in this game.
I have little to say on the Safe Claims. I didn't expect any lies, elaborate or not, to last long, but I enjoy it when people lie to each other (games are more fun to watch when not everything is known about one another), so I made sure to provide as much help as I could to those who wanted to lie. Of course, the fact you have to trade to get your Energy and evolutions a lot of the time means you'll have to tell at least one guy what kind of cards you're interested in.
Weakness/Resistance were all +30/-30 because...that's easier. I avoided multiplication whenever I could. If I had to do it again, I'd do +20/-20, but I don't think resistance ended up mattering anywhere...I've seen a few instances of people being hit for their weak spot though. I haven't paid THAT much attention to weaknesses/resistances within groups, because it's way too hard to make perfect circles or anything else there that's completely fair. I did make sure there were no unfair match-ups in the secondary target system (type-wise, at least), and for the most part I tried to make each group as diverse as possible.
This way of making groups, trades and cards also made it very interesting to see if, when and how people would claim, since there was no village leader, and making your name public made you a target for your own personal enemy (which, by the way, was always mutual), as well as your own group. I knew people would call out for the cards they could trade WITH (for example, zorbees asking Charmander to come to him for a trade because he had Charmeleon), but I also hoped people would be paranoid of traps, and I hoped people would set traps as well (like LonelyNess saying he has a Rare Candy to lure other Stage 2s).
And now, the part everyone is actually reading (or skimming) this for: personal performances! Unfortunately, not everyone talked to me as much as I would have liked, and due to the amount of people you could work with, it is almost impossible for me to detail your entire journey through this game. I can, however, give accurate comments on the design of your card and group, and of course I'll try my best to talk about your performance as well.
I should note that I took very little creative liberty with changing cards, mostly staying true to how the cards work in the real TCG. Unless the design of the game didn't allow it, due to the lack of discard pile, deck, specific opponent, or bench, of course.
Pokémon SP
The Pokémon SP are the modern day Haymakers. They are actually Basic Pokémon (even in the real TCG), but they have the names of evolved Pokémon. While they will never be as strong as a fully evolved Pokémon, they start out better than most Basics, and some of them can Level Up to become even more powerful. All Pokémon SP except Dialga G have 80 HP, and all of them except Ambipom G and Crobat G could Level Up.
Use a Pokémon name followed by a * for easy Ctrl-Fing.
1. UncleSam - Luxray GL*
I like how UncleSam was number 1 on my sheet, and the first person to die. I also like how Luxray GL and Garchomp C were the first casualties (with Dialga G as first winner), what with those being pretty much THE best decks in tournament play right now.
Luxray's Bite was cheap, and if he wanted to really hit hard he had to pay through the ass in either HP or Energy requirements. In the TCG, this guy needs to win matches fast or he often ends up losing, which is somewhat close to how I imagined Luxray to operate. He had no chance against a fully evolved Charizard, or a charged Dialga G Lv X (despite his Metal resistance).
UncleSam got very involved, perhaps a little too much for his own good, as he ended up being a target for imperfectluck and the general public. He managed to Level Up, but got Knocked Out with no room to spare (a Jab from Hitmonchan did 50 due to weakness, Dialga G's Second Strike added 40 to that, and the 20 lynch damage was his demise. A school example of one of the few things of this game I didn't really like: the people who did the most end up being killed. Thankfully, I know of a few ways to fix this.
Redirecting is one of the things I used instead of switching. It was a pretty powerful one-timer, but sadly the guy he told it to (Altair) ratted the way he used it to imperfectluck. I didn't allow him to use it on himself as I thought that'd be a little bit too much of a no brainer. In retrospect, it would have been pretty amusing if he could have done that, but still a little cheap.
2. Fishin - Blaziken FB*
Blaziken could have been really, really scary to people, due to his cheap attacks - which is why I didn't have him start with a Fire Energy and only two cards (which could have been traded for his Lv X and Chinchou's Fire Energy - he would have to scavenge his second Energy). His first attack was Luxray's Bright Look in attack form, with an added burn, so perhaps even more devastating. It sets up the Lv X's Body perfectly, but even without it, it could have been a large nuisance. Being Burned made you take 20 damage the turn you got it, and then again 2 turns later. So it's as if you're playing the TCG and you flip heads 50% of the time, and tails 50% of the time. Vapor Kick, funnily enough, only did 30 against his own group by default, but it did 60 damage against the Haymakers and the Stage 2s due to the existence of Lapras and Horsea. Against the Stage 1 group, the only way he'd do 60 is if Chinchou evolved to Lanturn, and used its Poké Power (Deep Dive). And of course, Jet Shoot is just fantastic, doing 80 damage for so little.
Fishin tried his best to stay under the radar, but pretty much the only thing that could go wrong did go wrong: he traded for the Lv X with Agape, and Agape told it to a member of imperfectluck's clique. Fishin decided not to Level Up so he could cure status, which didn't end up making a difference as the combination of attacks that was used on him was enough to KO even his improved 110 HP.
3. Laundry - Garchomp C*
The best attacker in the current tournament format, but on here he is not as convincing due to the lack of a bench. I felt I had to deal with Earthquake in the way I did, which made Donphan more balanced, but it might have nerfed Garchomp C here a little too much. Then again, Healing Breath was very, very potent, and promotes allying with one other guy very closely (I didn't have the heart to make him able to only heal SP Pokémon like in the real game). Dragon Rush is an example of how I handled sniping: I turned it into spreading. This is obviously the most useful if you know roughly how HP people have left, which is hard to figure out if you're not close to them. The restrictions on Dragon Rush might seem a little harsh until you realize there were four Double Colorless Energies in the game, and he could also use every other type.
Alas, it wasn't meant to be, as Laundry was part of a group that would be devastated by vonFiedler and the rest of imperfectluck's alliance. Laundry's highlight was probably going up to Midou at complete random, and saying something like "what's up, Electabuzz?". A lucky guess that scared poor Midou to death (sacre bleu) but it ended up in an alliance between the two, as well as RBG. Laundry died early though, as the guy who held his Level X (Toothache) wasn't willing to trade with him, even though he had a perfectly usable Lightning Energy for him.
4. Colonel M - Crobat G*
Flash Bite had the potential to be so much fun, up until its very last turn. Until Toxic Fang was appropiately fueled, it acts as a weak, free attack. It had some amusing side effects like putting shade (Mewtwo) in OHKO range for dak (Donphan).
Toxic Fang was actually pretty damn good: 20 instant damage isn't too bad for PC, but the next turn it does another 20. And he can use it every turn: in combination with Flash Bites, he could actually rack up damage pretty quickly. Crobat G had 3 cards when he actually really only needed two to do stuff, so that could have been another card on the Stage 1s/Stage 2s I guess. The main problem with Crobat G is, surprisingly, speed-related: Toxic Fang's poison damage is the last thing to happen during a turn. Which ended up screwing him over in his final stand-off vs Exeggcute, who was going to die at the end of that turn.
This was the Colonel's first mafia game, and I really only included him because of his TCG playing experiences. That's also why I gave him this role. Sadly, he idled Flash Bite one or two times, and mostly used Toxic Fang to benefit others, most likely because for a majority of the game, he either didn't know his enemies or nearly all of them were eliminated: for quite a few Turns, the only guy left for him to kill was the somewhat well-hidden Exeggcute. I don't think he played so astonishingly well that he totally deserved the win, but compared to blue_light, who has played and even hosted so many games by now but hardly played any better...I would definitely prefer having seen him come out on top. I did like how he blocked a lot of people from evolving by trading their evolution cards, though, especially Exeggcute's.
5. imperfectluck - Ambipom G*
Ambipom the troll Pokémon, a perfect fit for imperfectluck. Tail Code and Snap Attack were both ridiculously powerful, but obviously I knew beforehand imperfectluck would never last long (and I made the priority really low).
imperfectluck played the way he always does. He goes around making "alliances" with people, always managing to find out something crucial about at least one player. He claimed to be in some nonexistant Pokémon Prime group which was really funny. He ended up making two spreadsheets: one not very serious one he shared with like ten people, and one more serious one which he shared with his close allies: Da Letter El, Fatecrashers, vonFiedler and Agape. The latter sheet ended up being rather complete, though unbeknownst to them they mixed up quite a few Pokémon (because their owners didn't talk enough...read: they didn't get tricked by ipl). He practically set up vonFiedler for a win by Tail Coding zorbees' Grass Energy to him, and died quickly after: Grinded to death by Trapinch's devastating lap dance.
6. vonFiedler - Dialga G*
I can imagine people saying this role was way too overpowered after how it performed in the game, but you have to keep in mind that he was pretty much helped in the saddle by imperfectluck's Tail Code and large amount of information. Consider that he needed 2 Energy cards just to do 10 damage, whereas most other SPs could put a hurting of around 30 or more with a combination of any Energy card types (except Fishin), and he's a lot less appealing. He did have a 3-card hand with some good straight-up trades, and of course an enormous amount of durability between his 100 HP and the ability to thrive off Metal Energy without the drawback. Deafen's side effect was, in retrospect, not very useful since by the time votes really matter you want to use your more powerful attacks, but I didn't want to put in more "Target can't attack next turn." than I already had. Remove Lost is absolutely ridiculous, both in price and pay-off. I never really had any hope of seeing it in action. But then again, the same could be said for Arcanine's Firestorm.
But what really got vonFiedler his (relatively easy, but nonetheless deserved) win was that he managed to get on imperfectluck's good side, despite being in his group (a mistake of ipl's, tbh), and he got him to Tail Code an Energy from zorbees to him somehow. From there he had the most powerful attack out of everyone earlygame in Second Strike, which thanks to its low priority, and a partnership with the Jabbing Hitmonchan (Agape), could dispose of someone pretty much every turn. vonFiedler is not the guy you'd normally put in an Expert game, but since he asked me in private if he could be in since he was interested in designing a game of this type, I decided to give him a shot. Fresh blood is good.
Haymakers
Haymakers, like Pokémon SP, are high HP Basic Pokémon. The Haymakers generally have Energy requirements easy to fulfill, but a low damage cap, and to compensate for that I gave each of them an Energy card of their own type to start with. I imagined them to be calling the shots earlygame, until people manage to evolve. Generally, these "this group was intended to _____" things don't really work at all and I hate reading them in most postgames, especially when the goals are unrealistic. But in this case, I think it was justified.
7. Agape - Hitmonchan*
This is one of those creative liberties I was talking about: I changed Special Punch from FFC to FCC so he could use a DCE or different Energy types, to match him up better with the other cards. I could have buffed the Haymakers in general since they were mostly facing cards from the later sets (which are generally more powerful), but I don't think it made a huge difference since they mostly had each other to kill. There is not much else to say about Hitmonchan besides the fact that his damage output is fast but vanilla.
Agape was active and talked to a bunch of people...whether he talked too much remains to be seen as I forgot the details on everything. But he got into ipl's small circle and worked with them to land a bunch of KOs. ipl traded him his DCE on the Turn he died, and from there he went Special Punching people until he got hit by Exeggcute Hypnosis, Magmar Smokescreen and Crobat Toxic Fang at once, which had him die at the end of the turn after.
8. Midou - Electabuzz*
Probably my favourite Haymaker, he can Thundershock people for 10 to stop them from attacking, and Metal Energy allows him to Thunderpunch for 30, taking away both the recoil and 10 from whatever attacks him. Alternatively he could trade away the Metal Energy for something else and Thunderpunch for 40 with 10 recoil, but I never considered that option a very serious one, it was just my way to simulate the TCG Thunderpunch (which flips a coin, and does 40 with heads, or 30 and 10 to himself with tails).
Midou was a good idea to put in just like vonFiedler was. I vouched for him to be put in big_bigest after Altair told me how well he played in FF3 mafia, and even though some could call his big_bigest_performance disappointing, I didn't mind his play much in this game. Laundry ruined any plans of his to stay anonymous though because he guessed what Pokémon he was at complete random, and from there it was only a matter of time before he was taken out by either Agape or someone working with him. It ended up being Da Letter El, his mortal enemy, who Mass Attacked him, which only barely KO'd due to the Metal Energy and all the deaths that had occurred in their groups so far (read Mass Attack if you don't get it).
9. zorbees - Scyther*
Scyther may very well have been the best Haymaker. He might not have been able to actually do damage on turn 1, but with just one DCE trade (which he could and did make with Charmander) he would be set for doing 60 on turn 2, and then 30 in subsequent turns. His weakness was to one of the weaker members in the group (Magmar Fossil) and he resisted Hitmonchan.
Unfortunately, zorbees crossed paths with his arch rival imperfectluck, and got his Grass Energy from turn 1 Tail Coded away. From there it would have taken him a while just to get into attacking mode again, but he also just had to get lynched and attacked. Perhaps another case of being active and getting mauled for it. zorbees is another guy that hasn't been in an Expert game before but he definitely hasn't disappointed.
10. shade - Mewtwo*
Silly shade, this role wasn't weak. Energy Absorption was only beaten in priority by Trapinch (and Steelix Prime getting Metal while using Energy Stream), which means a PPC cost isn't that difficult to fulfill considering all the Rainbow Energy out there. Which, btw, don't do their usual 10 damage to him if he equips them through Energy Absorption, just like in the TCG. 40 for PPC isn't too great in the TCG nowadays, but against the other Haymakers, it was a solid 2HKO (other than on Electabuzz if he had Metal equipped both times). Hell, he could OHKO Hitmonchan! And Mewtwo was weak to his own type, so nobody else in his group.
Because of that, I think the 2-card hand (one of which is an Energy he can use right away) and the mighty Donphan Prime as an enemy are justified. Still, dak ended up coming out on top here, thanks to Colonel M using Flash Bite on shade to bring him into Earthquake KO range. shade laid pretty low for most of the game, which paid off for the most part, but not when it came to it. Not everyone is as lucky as...
11. reyscarface - Magmar*
Magmar was very weak overall, pretty much unable to KO anyone but Fire-weak Pokémon by himself. Smokescreen had a nice side effect though, since the target wasn't told what exactly it did: they might have wasted a turn attacking him. Smog would essentially do 30 damage in one turn for RC, of which 10 was the low priority poison damage, and then another 10 next turn.
rey won, though whether he "deserved" to is debatable. He didn't really need to trade anything per sé other than to avoid the damage after Turn 5 - he could either have tried to get rid of his enemies through politics or just try not to draw attention to himself. Still, it says a lot that he didn't know he could scavenge until like Turn 5, or that he didn't bother to attach and attack until Turn 3. Considering that, I'd gladly try some other fresh Expert players out in this spot if I had to do it all again.
12. billymills - Lapras*
This role was probably a little too weak, but not by that much compared to other Haymakers. Lapras isn't actually a Haymaker, it's just the closest thing to it in the old sets...Lapras did have 10 more HP than other Haymakers, but I guess if he wanted to attack from the start he had to equip Rainbow Energy and take 10 damage. From there, Water Gun is about as efficient cost-wise as Scyther's Slash. Confuse Ray had potential to be very annoying. If I had to change anything about this card, it would be to remove the restriction of only being able to Confuse one guy at a time.
billymills' largest problem was that his weak attacks would never have been able to penetrate Dialga G: he would need the help of one of the many powerful Fire Pokémon to do it. He could of course be a major nuisance with Confuse Ray, and in fact I believe that was the plan at one point...I recall him asking about using Ralts (RBG) to use the "can't attack next turn" attack in conjunction with Confuse Ray to make vonFiedler completely unable to attack. Sadly, they didn't end up doing it. billymills was cleared out of the way along with many other SPs by vonFiedler's Second Strike.
Stage 1 Pokémon
The Stage 1s are something completely different. Their basic versions are all rather weak, capable of some cheap low damage attacks and very little else. They all had 60 HP to start with, which could reasonably have been lowered to 50, considering the Haymakers and SPs all had 70 or 80. The evolutions of the Stage 1s are all pretty powerful Pokémon in their own right: their average damage potential was somewhere in the 90-100, I estimate. However, they usually had large drawbacks to these attacks: usually a high attacking cost. Let's go over them. As I mentioned, everyone of these except Exeggcute ended up evolving. There were no Level X cards for these.
13. Toothache - Chinchou*
At base, Chinchou is only capable of vanilla damage. It's actually not much worse than some of the Haymakers with LW attached, but the real fun begins with Lanturn Prime. Lanturn's Poké Power allows it to shift between Lightning and Water. Shifting to Water gave Lanturn a 30 extra damage on Growlithe, Phanpy, and Onix (but not Steelix). Powerful Spark in the real TCG does 40 plus 10 for every Energy card attached to all your Pokémon...I thought it was pretty reasonable to limit it to just Lanturn. You're still looking at 70 for a Lightning and a DCE here (for example), and it could be boosted further.
Lanturn could definitely have come far, but for some reason Agape (who had obtained Lanturn Prime from Fishin in exchange for Blaziken FB Lv X) was refusing to trade it to him. He still got his hands on a Rainbow Energy and was thus able to Aqua Spark people for 30, until he was bluntly killed by Da Letter El (Jumpluff)'s Mass Attack at the request of fellow Stage 1 Fatecrashers (Arcanine).
14. Altair - Onix*
Steelix is just as tanky, if not moreso, than Dialga G, what with the absurd HP and the compatibility with Metal. Perfect Metal means Steelix did not have anything to fear from poison, confusion, all those hook-like attacks, Tail Code, etc. Energy Stream's cheap 30 damage is its main selling point, I'd say the part where it absorbs Metal Energy is merely a nice bonus. Gaia Crush is of course extremely expensive. Despite seeming like a mountain, Steelix had to be very careful of the three powerful Fire Pokémon in the game, all of who could one-shot him if he wasn't careful. Magmar couldn't really do much to him.
Altair definitely didn't sit still. I don't remember all the things he told me, but I do recall that people were feeding him a LOT of information just to buy his vote. I predicted him to come out victorious halfway through, but the almost-dead Fatecrashers took the mighty Steelix down with him.
15. Veedrock - Jigglypuff*
It should probably say Lullaby instead of Sing. Oh well. Wigglytuff just had to be in this game, seeing as I was going for competitively viable cards. Sing and Deafen doing the same thing could be a coincidence...but it's all about Do The Wave. Up to 60 damage for three of any Energy, or any one plus a DCE is nice.
Veedrock managed to get a DCE and the Wigglytuff card, but didn't manage to scavenge the last Energy needed for his attack. The fact that dak randomly (?) Flailed him for 40 damage earlygame did not help either. Magmar couldn't be found and before he knew it he was the target of a lynch that took away his chance to win.
16. Fatecrashers - Growlithe*
This is actually Blaine's Growlithe, but I didn't want to put that in the card as it looked silly. It's definitely my favourite Arcanine line, and overall the most viable one competitively. Due to the lack of a deck, I couldn't really make Stoke as good as it was, and I didn't want him to be able to steal Energy from other players. Body Slam is RCC in the TCG for some retarded reason, I meant to reduce it to RC but forgot to in the original PM. Arcanine got a pretty large buff as well: I removed Heat Tackle's 10 recoil, and made the Firestorm discard more manageable. I thought it was pretty fair, since Arcanine had to compete with mostly stronger, modern age Pokémon, boosted by the power creep.
The cost reduction didn't really end up mattering because Fatecrashers was a beast at gathering cards, probably due to being in imperfectluck's circle. He hasn't even used Stoke once, but he did get imperfectluck to move an Energy card to him. This allowed him to use Heat Tackle, and on his final breath, Firestorm, but it couldn't help him from dying to Colonel M's Toxic Fangs, sent at him by Altair. It's funny how most of my hosting mistakes ended up concerning Fatecrashers: I miscounted his Energy requirement twice and made another error I forgot...but thankfully, all my errors in this game have been very minor and easily reversible, and it didn't really reduce anything from Fatecrashers' relatively fun and successful time in his first Expert game. Definitely not regretting adding him.
17. lambasto - Phanpy*
This one was a bit controversial, and I can see why: 60 for a single Energy is good. Where most Stage 1s are held back by high Energy costs, Donphan's nerf is the enormous Earthquake recoil. dak actually requested Phanpy, and before he knew what he was going to evolve into already proclaimed that Donphan Prime was broken. Personally, I don't think this card is easy to win with at all. He has a two card hand with which he has to obtain his evolution and the Fighting Energy, and even though they were fairly straight up trades, a lot could have gone wrong there. In addition, Earthquake has a very heavy recoil: realistically, he could use it twice at most without a significant death risk. Exoskeleton and 120 HP were definitely key to survival.
dak allied with just the right people to get his cards (Luxray GL and Charmander), and was pretty much set up until imperfectluck Tail Coded his only Fighting Energy away. After a lot of complaining and grumbling, he scavenged a new one from Fishin's body, and Earthquaked shade at just the right time to win. You can complain until you are blue in the face, but this was simply a good player with a good card playing a game just the right way to win.
18. blue_light - Exeggcute*
Exeggcute and his evo are clearly from before power creep, but I think Exeggutor was up for the challenge. Exeggcute is mostly disruptive, while Exeggutor can use about any Energy card and get a 20 damage return on each of them. Exeggutor is my personal favourite Pokémon, so I couldn't leave it out.
blue_light however, despite winning the game, kind of disappointed me. I got the idea that he didn't talk to a lot of people at all, he never got his Exeggutor card, and until he changed his target on his last Turn, he was going to lose. That may just be my perception because blue_light didn't talk to me...anyway, he does get props for obtaining the right Energy to fulfill his different Energy costs, of course.
Stage 2 Pokémon
The Stage 2 Pokémon are the most interesting of them all. Like the Stage 1s, they start out weak, but the final forms would have to be absolutely worth it. I made sure to pick a nice diverse bunch with cheap attacks, because when you have to trade for at least 2 cards (Rare Candy/Stage 1 + Stage 2) to get there, you don't want to spend forever waiting for Energy...I guess I was successful for the most part here. I really could not be bothered writing role PMs for the Stage 1s, as I didn't expect many of them to come to use: Stage 1 could either not be reached due to premature death, or skipped with one of the four Rare Candies. Turns out that in the end, all of them but one would have been of use. Still, I didn't mind the simple solution of "Stage 1 = Basic with 30 extra HP" (and the change to Vibrava's typing and weakness).
19. the pugilist - Horsea*
The immortal Horsea...the idea was that it was a bit of a gamble to use, since even if you got attacked by, say, Hypnosis, you would still end up with 10 HP remaining and unable to attack next turn. Reverse Thrust had plenty of work-arounds: Crobat G's Flash Bite, any kind of Poison/Burn damage, preventing Reverse Thrust from being used next turn with a disruptive attack like the paralyzing ones and Tail Code, and of course the lynch. Kingdra is a force to be reckoned with: it has a Flash Bite with higher power (and priority, by the way), and then a 60 damage attack for one Energy card. And like most if not all Stage 2s, it has impressive HP.
puggy never ended up evolving, perhaps because Kingdra Prime was being traded all over the place and he only ended up getting Rare Candies. Reverse Thrust has saved him from being killed ten times over, though, so perhaps it was for the better, even if it limited his damage potential. His mortal enemy Hitmonchan was rather informative, so he had to endure quite a few attacks, but he was saved by his own attack every time until the lynch got to him. Truth to be told, I was kind of glad he was lynched, as Reverse Thrust was looking awfully cheap at that point (even though there were so many ways around it).
20. Da Letter El - Hoppip*
I thought Jumpluff was pretty damn scary despite the low HP: Mass Attack had the potential to do up to 120 damage for just one Energy, and alternatively he could use Leaf Guard to keep himself alive while still doing a reasonable 30 damage. And Hoppip's Bounce was just as annoying as Horsea's Reverse Thrust (except this one could also be bypassed with Kingdra Prime's Spray Splash). Because of that, I decided not to give Hoppip a Grass Energy to start with, but the cards in his hand are all easily traded for the ones he needs.
I was very pleased with Dale's playing. He ended up working with imperfectluck's group, where vonFiedler had Skiploom, Fatecrashers a Grass Energy, and he did the trade for the Jumpluff with Colonel by himself. Sadly, he struck a deal with Fatecrashers to use Mass Attack on Toothache for 120, instead of attacking jumpluff (the user) in his own group. I think it had something to do with Fatecrashers agreeing to use his 120 attack for Dale's good or something. Either way, because of this, jumpluff could survive and evolve into Charizard a turn later, only barely killing Dale with Steady Firebreathing followed up by a Fire Wing.
21. jumpluff - Charmander*
Definitely a great role off the start. Call for Friends is one of the very few informative roles in the game, and Charizard's Fire Wing has the potential to be both cheap and powerful, while 140 HP and Fighting resistance keeps it alive. Fire Formation had the potential to add 60 damage, feeding off Blaziken FB, Magmar and Arcanine. I didn't expect Burning Tail to be used, like most expensive attacks on evolved Pokémon, but there's no reason not to include them, right?
I gave Charmander to jumpluff because of her SPL team name. jumpluff found dak (Phanpy) early, and they worked out a threeway deal with UncleSam (Luxray GL). She was furious when zorbees didn't end up completing the Turn 1 trade (Charmeleon for DCE), but it ended up happening the next turn, and from there it was pretty smooth sailing. It took a while for her to find Charizard, since Veedrock had traded it away to Midou, but once she added Midou to her little alliance she evolved, and none too soon, as Dale was out for her blood. While Call for Friends always always hit people outside of her group, she managed to find all her enemies through progress of elimination (and the help of her allies shade, dak, Midou and I believe Agape?), she took down the biggest threat in Dale (jumpluff killing Jumpluff......). She decided to work with RBG even though he was in her group, and together they pretty much wrapped the game up, getting some revenge on the lap dancer Lightwolf and her cousin Thorns.
22. Lightwolf - Trapinch*
Woah, lots of text here. The Flygon line is interesting, they have a lot of little neat tricks and it was a lot of fun to make it into a mafia role. Except Rainbow Float, I couldn't think of anything for it besides a boring "Prevent all effects of attacks excluding damage" one, and I decided I had enough of those. Trapinch was the closest thing this game had to a real scavenger, able to pick up dead Energy from people. Grind worked very well with that. Sand Wall is one of my favourite attacks here, sadly it never got used...Power Swing had ridiculous potential, especially since so many people managed to evolve. As for Flygon Lv X, I'm of the opinion that if you reach Stage 2 Lv X, it doesn't matter how broken your powers are: you deserve to win at this stage. Wind Erosion had the potential to be very annoying, though lategame you'd think most people have the things they want to use attached. Extreme Attack might as well say "kill this if it's a Pokémon Level X".
Lightwolf seemed to be thinking about this game a lot, coming up with all sorts of crazy theories half of which I don't remember. Early on he thought there would be a group for Pokémon that have different evolution paths (since he had Gardevoir), he thought rey had higher scavenge priority because his hand sucked, and some other weird things. He tried very, very hard, but due to his evolution being cockblocked by reyscarface and then Colonel M, he was stuck at Vibrava. Vibrava definitely didn't do bad though: 90 HP and Trapinch's awesome Body and attack got him pretty far, and with the DCE he picked up near the end he could have been Grinding for 50 damage. If win output was equal to effort input, Lightwolf would have won this game and the next.
23. RBG - Ralts*
The next Stage 2 that had Level Up potential. Note how Flygon and Gardevoir have each other's Level X cards...I had to put em somewhere. Like Trapinch, Ralts has access to some interesting side effects. The disruptive Hypnoblast that ended up being called Psyshock for some reason and the informative Future Sight were both useful, and that was just the beginning of the line. Telepass and Teleportation obviously had to be replaced by something, I kind of like the solution for Telepass even though it is nearly useless since 60 dmg should KO anything, and Teleportation is of course very generic. Psychic Lock, in the real TCG, shuts down all the opponent's powers. I thought just the target was too little, but every Power was too much, so I picked this way. Gardevoir Lv X's Bring Down is of course totally borked, but as I said, if you get to Stage 2 Lv X, you deserve it.
I made RBG this role because he played a Gardevoir/Gallade deck, and when I ghosted for him in a tournament match it was a lot of fun. Whether his experience helped, I don't know...he didn't use Future Sight once, instead spamming Hypnoblast to great annoyance of people. He ended up getting all his evolutions, but due to lack of Energy (he traded away his DCE and just couldn't get a new one) he stuck with Kirlia. When he found out Thorns was Machoke he just kept Hypnoblasting him into oblivion, only evolving and leveling up at the very end. RBG was in an alliance with Midou and Laundry early, and later he was working with jumpluff. He could potentially have handed the game to someone else if he wanted to, but he stayed true and it ended up benefitting both of them.
24. LonelyNess/Thorns - Machop*
The final Stage 2, and this one has a Level X too. Because of the sheer threat of Machamp's attacks, I left Machop without a Fighting Energy, confident he would be able to get one somewhere else. Low Kick was very good after all - if it had one of the 20 damage and the inspection it would be good already, but both of them is veeery good. Machamp is downright ridiculous, and that's after I nerfed Take Out. In the TCG, it does 40 damage to Evolved Pokémon, and Knocks Out anything else. Here, it does nothing against Evolved Pokémon or Pokémon Level X, but it still OHKOs Basics. Anyone not fast enough with their evolutions is threatened by that one Energy attack. Hurricane Punch was possibly my favourite way of implementing a quadruple coin flip, and his most viable way of attacking evolved Pokémon. Rage was of course way too expensive, but it would've been great if it happened. Machamp Lv X, I had no real confidence in. The Body is more of a hinder than a help in this type of game, but Strong Willed was a slightly worse Reverse Thrust/Bounce that had the potential to keep him alive for a while. The wording was a bit weird, but basically it means that Strong Willed only saves him once per Turn max.
LonelyNess started off good, openly stating that he had a Rare Candy in order to lure other Stage 2s. However, he had to be subbed out, and Thorns...well, his timezone didn't match up with anyone but puggy, but sometimes I dunno if he was really trying. At some point, he was being hooked by Kirlia, but he had Machamp and a DCE in his hand which he could have at least tried to use. I guess he thought all was lost at that point. It's a shame because it kept blue_light from evolving and Altair from one of the few Metals in the game that hadn't been hogged by vonFiedler.
That's it for my collection of Pokémon. Do you need awards? Fine...
Awards
The Golden Alakazam goes to Altair for having the first complete spreadsheet without errors.
Runner-up to the Prime Number Alliance of imperfectluck, Fatecrashers, Agape and Da Letter El. They were pretty solid info-wise as well, but about six mix-ups took place that spread through the entire game.
The Golden Chansey award goes to reyscarface for having some of the best luck to accompany one of the least deserved wins in the game.
Runner-up to blue_light for the exact same reason.
The Golden Chatot is for Lightwolf for his endless monologue and theorizing, overcomplicating my game in ways I could not dream of.
Runner-up is jumpluff who was doing the same thing to a lesser extent, just in another window. I guess we could call it vagina monologues...
And the Golden Yooterii for best newcomer is for Fatecrashers for beasting straight towards Arcanine's final Firestorm.
Runner-up to vonFiedler in this regard, who managed to do what pretty much no player has done so far: using imperfectluck to their advantage when he had no reason to win or even work with you!
Congrats to vonFiedler, reyscarface, lambasto, blue_light, jumpluff and RBG, and thanks for playing everyone!
I gotta reiterate that this was a very well-designed game. I really enjoyed the format and I hope to see it again in the future, though there is always too much of a good thing -- remember that, hosts. :p Mekkah paid a lot of attention to detail and even though I felt there were some natural imperfections that's ... natural, and some of them worked out anyway, like the trades slowing down, everyone dying created scavenge opportunities for the rest of us. I now know how lucky I was to survive, but I don't consider it undeserved luck !! I greatly enjoyed this, and allying with friends~, so thank you to everyone who helped me.
One thing I wanna know is why blue_light Hypnotised me. I thought he knew Mewtwo's identity that turn. Puggy raised the possibility of him being afraid of my Fire attacks, but wouldn't it have made more sense to Hypnotise Colonel_M? Maybe I'm just missing something. It did make me a bit uncomfortable since I had to hold off a turn as well as hide it from RBG since I didn't want to risk him running off with Thorns, though I wasn't really scared, just wanted to play it safe.
gg everyone, and congrats to the other winners ^_^
ETA: And sorry, LW, I would've liked to win with you as well as RBG, and you deserved it for sure. I wish that you were a Pokémon SP since then your group wouldn't conflict with mine or my allies'. ^_^
One thing I wanna know is why blue_light Hypnotised me. I thought he knew Mewtwo's identity that turn. Puggy raised the possibility of him being afraid of my Fire attacks, but wouldn't it have made more sense to Hypnotise Colonel_M? Maybe I'm just missing something. It did make me a bit uncomfortable since I had to hold off a turn as well as hide it from RBG since I didn't want to risk him running off with Thorns, though I wasn't really scared, just wanted to play it safe.
gg everyone, and congrats to the other winners ^_^
ETA: And sorry, LW, I would've liked to win with you as well as RBG, and you deserved it for sure. I wish that you were a Pokémon SP since then your group wouldn't conflict with mine or my allies'. ^_^
sorry for not doing shit mekkah, but i had like 0 attack power to use and as i told shade, i thought my opponents would go out early and start to get enemies, so backing off while acting alone seemed like a good plan (which worked).
things really didn't go in my favor but I can't say I played great either, I was way too hesitant to talk to people and share information and made a couple mistakes, like not realizing that Blaziken FB could be identified as a Pokemon SP from the name alone. The format was cool and I'd definitely play in another though.
Can't really fault rey either. I knew early on that keeping a low profile would be a good idea, but where things really started working for me was when ipl let me into his "fake" spreadsheet. I figured out before the turn had even changed that the sheet was rather desolate and that it wasn't gonna work with new people being added every other hour. IPL for his part asked me if I'd be subordinate to him if he got me an energy. Probably where others failed and I succeeded was that I tight-lipped up until I got that energy. No tail code, no cooperation.
He originally thought I was Staryu, but on Turn 2 I figured out he was Ambipom G. I told him who I was, and explained how foolish it would be to turn on me. Not because I could kill him, but because I could sweep all of our mutual enemies (which I did). The new deal then was that after zorbees was dead I'd get a spreadsheet. IPL actually made good on that. I don't know if ipl would never have turned on me (and vise-versa) and I guess we'll never find out now.
Up until that point ipl had done more work and had taken more risks than I did. I wanted him to. I knew it was foolish of him to lynch UncleSam and I told him so, but I did nothing to stop him. Gotta say I love bantering with UncleSam. But after he died I tell you I connived and conspire throughout the entirety of Turn 4 and up until the last minute before deadline (and even during deadline, just in case I didn't win). I had to do even more work to win just because Agape was also trying to connive and conspire to win immediately. Agape made some major changes right before deadline that could have really screwed me over if I wasn't paying attention.
Overall I played honestly I think as well as I could have albeit with a really good starting hand. I'm really happy I won my first expert game, I expect they won't all go according to plan in the future.
Props to fate and dle, sorry to screw you guys but as far as I was concerned I was entitled to that sheet. I was rooting for ya. Oh well.
And sorry Midou, I conspired to get him the spreadsheet through puggy but puggy never passed it (and admits he wouldn't have to Midou anyway).
He originally thought I was Staryu, but on Turn 2 I figured out he was Ambipom G. I told him who I was, and explained how foolish it would be to turn on me. Not because I could kill him, but because I could sweep all of our mutual enemies (which I did). The new deal then was that after zorbees was dead I'd get a spreadsheet. IPL actually made good on that. I don't know if ipl would never have turned on me (and vise-versa) and I guess we'll never find out now.
Up until that point ipl had done more work and had taken more risks than I did. I wanted him to. I knew it was foolish of him to lynch UncleSam and I told him so, but I did nothing to stop him. Gotta say I love bantering with UncleSam. But after he died I tell you I connived and conspire throughout the entirety of Turn 4 and up until the last minute before deadline (and even during deadline, just in case I didn't win). I had to do even more work to win just because Agape was also trying to connive and conspire to win immediately. Agape made some major changes right before deadline that could have really screwed me over if I wasn't paying attention.
Overall I played honestly I think as well as I could have albeit with a really good starting hand. I'm really happy I won my first expert game, I expect they won't all go according to plan in the future.
Props to fate and dle, sorry to screw you guys but as far as I was concerned I was entitled to that sheet. I was rooting for ya. Oh well.
And sorry Midou, I conspired to get him the spreadsheet through puggy but puggy never passed it (and admits he wouldn't have to Midou anyway).
I don't like the way weakness worked, taking 40 damage for a 10 damage attack sucked pretty hardcore. I was scrambling to organize a dak lynch on the day of the zorbees lynch to avoid getting hit again (info compliments of ipl), but the Smogon down time meant everyone that I had talked to wasn't on at the new deadline. billymills did tell me that dak lost his energy though, so the heat was taken off of me even if I couldn't retaliate. I stupidly tried to scavenge UncleSam, which should have known I wouldn't win. Then the next night there were two DCEs on zorbees which I definitely would have been able to grab, but alas..then the next night I tried for a Rainbow Energy so I could start hitting people, but I got hit by a trap(?) and took 10 damage, knocking me down to 40HP, just enough for the lynch to do me in. I still stand by that that lynch was poorly utilized, I quite frankly could not do anything for at least two nights, eliminating me just shows a lack of priorities in players. I'm glad Altair got his just desserts that day though. I hadn't suspected rey to be Magmar in the slightest, Agape certainly didn't help by accusing multiple people incorrectly.
Lots of factors out of my control, but I definitely would have done better if I hadn't tried to scavenge UncleSam. I don't have any problems with the way the game panned out or the winner list. Also blue_light, besides being too small to be epic, what's wrong with my avatar?
Lots of factors out of my control, but I definitely would have done better if I hadn't tried to scavenge UncleSam. I don't have any problems with the way the game panned out or the winner list. Also blue_light, besides being too small to be epic, what's wrong with my avatar?
Nice and original game.
I tried hard to win on cycles 3&4 but alas inaccurate info and backstabs (perhaps did too much myself too :) devastated it. Getting into ipl's sheet mainly changed my game strategy, otherwise I would've used a fakeclaim and tried to get the DCE elsewhere. Biggest mistake was not to speak with rey, the only guy who I didn't talk to :( and perhaps I should've traded with ipl for the dce on cycle 2.
Unicycles are nice, in the time this game finished there have been only 4 deaths in Metroid Prime Mafia. Talk about efficiency.
I tried hard to win on cycles 3&4 but alas inaccurate info and backstabs (perhaps did too much myself too :) devastated it. Getting into ipl's sheet mainly changed my game strategy, otherwise I would've used a fakeclaim and tried to get the DCE elsewhere. Biggest mistake was not to speak with rey, the only guy who I didn't talk to :( and perhaps I should've traded with ipl for the dce on cycle 2.
Unicycles are nice, in the time this game finished there have been only 4 deaths in Metroid Prime Mafia. Talk about efficiency.
Altair
just who is the coon?
First off large apology to the would be winners had I not poisoned fate :( plus sorry to the people who I backstabbed (dak, agape, midou kinda, unclesam, veedrock, puggy, and eventually jumpluff).
I would also like to say that this is an amazing format, almost perfectly balanced and no host mistakes, making for a great game, which it sure was.
This game was pretty cool! Earlygame was pretty eventful, I talked to a bunch of people and got access to ipl's spreadsheet. I also cemented an alliance with midou where I did nothing and he told me info, which lasted the duration of the game.
In the whole IPL v. UncleSam thing, I was conflicted. On one hand, UncleSam had my evo card and...not much else. IPL had his Tail Code ability and a shitload of friends. So, I decided to screw over UncleSam. I made the "anti-ipl" alliance post that he asked for, but I also formed a pact with ipl that saved his ass and guaranteed me the use of his Tail Code ability. The perfect plan, until ipl decided to help someone else that turn then died. A pity.
Turns three and four weren't all that eventful, I got bribed by agape a couple of times and screwed puggy over (sorry!) a few other times. All of this happened while freeloading info off of Midou, always useful.
Turn 5 things started to heat up. Agape was bribing me to attack Colonel M iirc (by the way I could not attack ONCE for the duration of the game, I would have been able to attack turn 7) while trading me for a DCE (which he didnt give) and giving me info (which was false). This as also the turn where I made the regrettable decision to poison Fatecrashers, because I thought that me and Veedrock would be coasting to victory together, and he was a stage one that needed to be taken care of.
Turn 6, the judgement day of this game, started out with me narrowing my spreadsheet down to four unknowns: dak, reyscarface, blue_light and lightwolf with four spots to be filled: Magmar, Phanphy, Exeggcute, and Flygon my mortal enemy. My plan for the day was to "pretend-lynch" veedrock to extort reyscarface's role PM from him, then switch the lynch to him (I thought he was Phanphy / Exeggcute at the time). Meanwhile, Veedrock would do 90 (!!) damage to whoever flygon was, enough to finish him quickly. However, when I got rey's role name, it turned out he was in fact Magmar, the last Haymaker! It also turned out that Veedrock was completely useless and didnt have enough energy to attack anyone. So we lynched him, since he was the only confirmed stage one alive at that point who wasnt me or fatecrashers, my main ally. Also, dak contacted me proposing an alliance, saying he was Phanphy and I got that lightwolf was Vibrava out of him, meaning my spreadsheet was complete! So me and Fatecrashers, my ally that I forgot I poisoned, formulated a new plan.
Anyways that was supposed to leave Veedrock and Dak dead, which meant that next turn fate would kill jumpluff (fate told me he needed her dead fsr), colonel m + rey + thorns / shade / rbg / jumpluff would attack blue_light, and the lynch and I would take care of Lightwolf the Vibrava, making the rest of the game (me, fate, shade, rey, colonel m, rbg, thorns) the winners.
But it was not to be, thanks to the ill-advised poison...
Great game though!
I would also like to say that this is an amazing format, almost perfectly balanced and no host mistakes, making for a great game, which it sure was.
Here's my spreadsheet, updated up until my death :xMekkah said:
This game was pretty cool! Earlygame was pretty eventful, I talked to a bunch of people and got access to ipl's spreadsheet. I also cemented an alliance with midou where I did nothing and he told me info, which lasted the duration of the game.
In the whole IPL v. UncleSam thing, I was conflicted. On one hand, UncleSam had my evo card and...not much else. IPL had his Tail Code ability and a shitload of friends. So, I decided to screw over UncleSam. I made the "anti-ipl" alliance post that he asked for, but I also formed a pact with ipl that saved his ass and guaranteed me the use of his Tail Code ability. The perfect plan, until ipl decided to help someone else that turn then died. A pity.
Turns three and four weren't all that eventful, I got bribed by agape a couple of times and screwed puggy over (sorry!) a few other times. All of this happened while freeloading info off of Midou, always useful.
Turn 5 things started to heat up. Agape was bribing me to attack Colonel M iirc (by the way I could not attack ONCE for the duration of the game, I would have been able to attack turn 7) while trading me for a DCE (which he didnt give) and giving me info (which was false). This as also the turn where I made the regrettable decision to poison Fatecrashers, because I thought that me and Veedrock would be coasting to victory together, and he was a stage one that needed to be taken care of.
Turn 6, the judgement day of this game, started out with me narrowing my spreadsheet down to four unknowns: dak, reyscarface, blue_light and lightwolf with four spots to be filled: Magmar, Phanphy, Exeggcute, and Flygon my mortal enemy. My plan for the day was to "pretend-lynch" veedrock to extort reyscarface's role PM from him, then switch the lynch to him (I thought he was Phanphy / Exeggcute at the time). Meanwhile, Veedrock would do 90 (!!) damage to whoever flygon was, enough to finish him quickly. However, when I got rey's role name, it turned out he was in fact Magmar, the last Haymaker! It also turned out that Veedrock was completely useless and didnt have enough energy to attack anyone. So we lynched him, since he was the only confirmed stage one alive at that point who wasnt me or fatecrashers, my main ally. Also, dak contacted me proposing an alliance, saying he was Phanphy and I got that lightwolf was Vibrava out of him, meaning my spreadsheet was complete! So me and Fatecrashers, my ally that I forgot I poisoned, formulated a new plan.
- Fatecrashers would use his base 120 power attack on dak, leaving him at 20 HP.
- Colonel M, who again I totally forgot couldnt poison, would finish dak off with Toxic Fang.
- Rey would finish off Veedrock, who was apparently gonna survive the lynch.
- I would get all the Stage twos to attack lightwolf (which didnt go so well...)
Anyways that was supposed to leave Veedrock and Dak dead, which meant that next turn fate would kill jumpluff (fate told me he needed her dead fsr), colonel m + rey + thorns / shade / rbg / jumpluff would attack blue_light, and the lynch and I would take care of Lightwolf the Vibrava, making the rest of the game (me, fate, shade, rey, colonel m, rbg, thorns) the winners.
But it was not to be, thanks to the ill-advised poison...
Great game though!
Firstly, I loved the game. That had to be said, best Expert game yet even(in my opinion, sorry other hosts).
Keeping a low profile was my plan early, worked nicely even, but then the whole Magmar team happened, at which point I had to jump at RBG and rey to get support in case Agape changed his mind, again...
On the ipl matter, I decided to help with his removal, since his presence made talking to others much harder, I saw his work a few times already...
One questionable thing is, why Fate attacked me, though if I had to guess, it was on Altair's orders.
And last are, my regrets... Firstly, I wish I had checked my comp in the morning when RBG sent me a PM that he'd actually want to trade the Lv X cards that turn and not the next. Had I done so, I'd have most likely traded my X for the normal Flygon, since it would have been useless other wise.
The other regret of mine would be, not staying up to meet Thorns... His attack might have changed nothing, but talking with him could have changed things.
tl;dr fuck school
Keeping a low profile was my plan early, worked nicely even, but then the whole Magmar team happened, at which point I had to jump at RBG and rey to get support in case Agape changed his mind, again...
On the ipl matter, I decided to help with his removal, since his presence made talking to others much harder, I saw his work a few times already...
One questionable thing is, why Fate attacked me, though if I had to guess, it was on Altair's orders.
And last are, my regrets... Firstly, I wish I had checked my comp in the morning when RBG sent me a PM that he'd actually want to trade the Lv X cards that turn and not the next. Had I done so, I'd have most likely traded my X for the normal Flygon, since it would have been useless other wise.
The other regret of mine would be, not staying up to meet Thorns... His attack might have changed nothing, but talking with him could have changed things.
tl;dr fuck school
Learned mainly that I need to not slip up information too much. I let IPL know I had a Grass Energy, when i meant to say Fighting as a lie I had been formulating in my head. I later slipped this again, to billymills this time, when I told him my energy was stolen. He didn't believe me, so I c/p'ed from my PM, forgetting to snip the type of energy. I was narrowing down IPL towards Ambipom G, but I wasn't quite sure. Not much to say since I wasn't in the game that long, but it was a fun game while it lasted.