"Replacement" ShenanniesI definitely did make a point of "milking" my status as replacement. I bet that Marv comes in here and says that's unsportsmanlike, but it was definitely the right move as far as I was concerned. I replaced in at night, and immediately I had identified Hapa as the only real threat to getting me lynched early. BH I felt would be sore from misreading me last game. And everyone else I felt wouldn't be taking the lead in determining who should be lynched, especially with Axle and Shao looking so "townie." As such, I knew that when Hapa had been removed I'd be in a spot of relative safety.
And as for Oats's suspicions of me from my first post, I was never really worried that he'd get me lynched. He may have been right about me, but I felt it was for the wrong reasons. To be sure I probably would have had reads out sooner, but my first post would have been the same regardless of alignment. And what's more, if he was serious about lynching me he should have been at the very least spamming his case in addition to saying I should be killed a bajillion times. I'm under the impression that town kind of lost sight of why Oats wanted me dead so bad, and what that meant is he kind of came off as a bit of a mad-man.
As for his case, it literally came down to "omg your first post," which certainly wasn't that hot. But I hadn't read the game, only skimmed it. And as a replacement I felt compelled to full-read it before taking any real stances. Like that is something I would have done regardless of alignment. I'll definitely try to keep up with any game I might replace into in the future so that such shenanies don't occur again.
Soft Pushing BH Mislynch:Because of how handily cheesed town was this game, people seem to overlook the implications of looking super-townie for scum after a mislynch or two. Like town tends to be pretty emotional and fickle, and will easily turn on you the moment it's clear that you were steering a mislynch. While Axle and Shao were pushing their own wagons, I made a cute little case on BH and sat my vote on him. When it became clear that no one cared to move their votes around to prevent the mislynch, I decided to sit there and literally afk lurk from thread.
I felt BH looked townie enough that he shouldn't be mislynched close to the end of the day cycle, and as such I just let it happen. It was far easier in my mind to lurk it out, than to explain how I actively pushed a mislynch the next day. I mean it was pretty clear the results were the same. The main objective I had as scum was to see to it that the town was lacking any kind of leadership ability whatsoever, so while BH was playing pretty poorly, I was moreso worried about the discussion he could draw than of any of his actual analysis (if that makes any sense).
Post-BH Lynch: Setting myself up for possible Bus and Buddying VayneIt was pretty clear that the game was almost, if not already won, at this point. However, I was aware that if night actions went the wrong way things could fall apart. I made the decision to bus Shao a bit, as I was pretty certain that if it came to choosing between the two of us I'd probably get lynched. And Shao would come off as looking very townie in the process. If somehow we didn't get mayor the next day, "town cred" was (even at the expense of me) all our scumteam needed, because if we ever got mayorship town would be changed from a LYLO situation to a losing situation. In the scenario where it lasted another day (without us getting mayor), I felt getting me lynched was a way to secure the mayorship.
In the background, I was thinking of NK'ing Oats that night. He was not really a threat as far as getting us lynched, but then again he did look townie and kept talking. Above all else, I wanted a lurky-town without direction, so he seemed like a reasonable target. But then we saw in-game Syl came out with that great post calling all of us out. On top of that, he in-thread suggested he wasn't a vanilla-townie. We took this to mean he was blue, but turned out he was 3P... We had a big argument in scum QT over whether he was RB-er lol. Thankfully, Stutters RB'ed him for us though it really didn't even matter if our shot went through.
And with Vayne, it was pretty clear he'd be an easy mislynch the next day. If anyone were to look at his prior townplay, it's pretty obvious he isn't the most transparent guy with his thoughts and actions. He definitely wasn't playing stellar this game, but if you compare this game to his scumgame, you really should have been asking yourself if he'd attract attention to himself the way he did. The Oats shot was especially bad, but kind of a towntell in some ways. Like he could easily have asked for more town feedback, and taken an opportune shot as scum. And in the process, looked a little less suspicious. The big thing though, is there were no counter-claims to his cop claim. And sure he could have faked it, but why would you take the chance when you haven't flipped any scum yet? Like it was pretty much LYLO, so if you don't get everything right you're finished anyway. So why not seek to lynch the other scum first, and see if the RB-er even exists?
As town, people tend to suspect those that suspect them. This is a bit subpar imho, but it is something that happens just as an emotional aspect of this game. As such, I figured I might as well suggest Vayne wasn't a good target. Going against thread sentiment in that way I felt made me look townier. And on top of that, lynching Vayne was flat-out bad given the circumstances. It kind of surprised me how much town wanted him lynched tbh.
I mean hate on my lurkish scum-play all you want, but in the end I somehow came off as townie enough at least to Vayne to get the mayorship and effectively end the game day 3. I also had WoS fooled, which doesn't really surprise me given that he has some lowly opinion of me as "lynchbait" which I fully exploited this game. I also "townread" Stutters a bit because it felt natural to do so (I mean I do this a lot with him). Honestly, though, his early play really didn't warrant it. It came down to choosing my enemies. I didn't want to go down hard on too many townies, and townreading a few definitely helped me make enough friends to survive until the end of the game.
Regarding Our Overall Scumplay:Syl was able to spot our whole scumteam. What that should show to
all of town is that we were definitely all spot-able. There was a profound degree of bias running in this game, as in people would set in their mind who was town and
never reassess their reads. Most notable here is Axle, who
everyone seemed to believe was town. The lesson that should be learned here is that effortfulness =/= towniness. Like Axle spent pretty much half the game half-heartedly pushing Wave, and no one seemed to care... He asked a lot of questions, but never really seemed to spend a whole lot of time actually pushing a case. This was pretty much exactly what Syl was saying, and it was spot-on.
Shao also had some pretty telling moments. Last-minute voting a candidate that had literally zero chance of getting lynched was certainly one of them... As was how wishy-washy he was in taking a stance on me. But more telling than any of that in my mind was activity. Axle and Shao were both guilty of this: post-day one they posted far less content. Which if they were paragons of town makes no sense, since
town needed them more than ever at that point. They literally coasted by on day one reputation for most of the game.
That's not to downplay their scumgames, they were incredible.
Anyway, those are my thoughts. Thanks to the hosts for putting up with scumteam submitting day 2 actions three times (lol), for putting up with my wishy-washyness in replacing in, and for putting together a fun game
And thanks to my scumpals for playing such crazy good scumgames <3
EPT
