Long Game 74: You Want It Darker

[Ashbringer he/him]

Well, the main reason I didn't explicitly state any stances or analysis off of the megapost I did at the end of D1 was because it was... midnight and I needed sleep. And that megapost was supposed to be everything that caught my eye, and Reading... had been saying quite little of substance at all.

I'm here, but I'm in a class, so I'll respond more in an hour or so.

[Quivil she/her]

@Illwei: I've asked you for a reason for your vote on me and gotten no response, so I'm going to vote Illwei until I have your reason why you voted me.

[StrikerEZ he/him]

Okay, so Tani, Ash. I'm sorry Ash, but I'd like to have a chance to live. And, even though I was slightly suspicious of Stick earlier, that latest post of hers really makes sense and does not make you look good. I probably won't be back for another few hours, only really had a minute or two to spare to type this.

Tani(1): Illwei,
Striker(3): Matrim's Dice, The Windrunner Supreme, Maill, 
Ashbringer(4): Young Bard, Stick, Quinn, Striker,
Illwei(1): Tani,

[Mat he/him]

From what I can tell, the points on Ash aren't about what he's done, they're about what he hasn't done. Which I don't like.

[Araris Valerian he/him]

I'm going to temporarily vote Ash just so that I'll have something concrete on the record for this cycle. This vote is by no means final and is based solely on a gut feeling from a PM with Striker. It has nothing actually to do with anything Ash has or hasn't done, and I'm still planning some analysis this cycle.

[Mailliw73 he/him]

2 hours ago, StrikerEZ said:

I’m not trying to attribute it to just your newness. I’m just saying that I think you’re acting in a way that like...makes people just go “oh you’re just a new player.” Either that or you’re just not used to the meta around here and are just going for it however you want.

Like I've said at least four times between PMs and the thread, I think this is exactly what's happening and I don't think we want to discourage that because that's what new players bring to the games. 

Edited March 2, 2021 by Mailliw73

[Ashbringer he/him]

Okay, let's see here.

46 minutes ago, _Stick_ said:

Their next post commented on guessing the elim team distribution, and the content of the post - well I agree with what it says, but it kinda sticks out how the post covers almost every possible combination of an elim team and talks about how everything is likely which...I don't know. It seems like they wanted to sound as unbiased as possible, and I mean it worked. I didn't think much of the post when I first read it because I agree with the stuff that it says in general, but the way it's written out is just kinda odd bc it almost looks like they're going around in circles.

(The Post:)

Spoiler

Generally Elim teams are never all one "group". Some newer players (either just-joined new or only-a-few-games new) and some more experienced players. I wouldn't be surprised if for this game it's also split between newer, mid-gen, and the much older players.

That being said, I really don't like trying to out-meta the Elim team distribution. It works, but 1) it's really sucky for someone to get voted out for being experienced or inexperienced in lieu of actual evidence, (especially because experienced players also get more often fear-killed); and 2) I could definitely see some GMs making a small team with a lot of the experienced players or a large team without them (especially Kas with the former ).

So, pretty much any experience level can be an Elim. Basing suspicions on experience isn't the best without more things to be suspicious of, though.

 

That that being said, both the voters and the Elim kills usually have a unspoken rule of not killing new players or returning experienced players for the first 2-3 cycles. But this game has so many of both that that may prove difficult... and D1 votes are usually guided by these and other meta-reasons anyways.

Aaaand this topic is a page old already. Oh well.

 

I think what I was trying to get at (without really saying it because putting it out there makes me nervous) is that experience-based Elim team building works as a strategy, but is a really unhealthy strategy long term. Take the last LG: the Elims were Connie, Lotus, The Unknown Order, Flyingbooks, and Devotary. All of those people except Devotary are newer than me, and all of them died before Devotary did. With so many older returning players in that game, like Kas/Alv/Burnt, it... really didn't make sense for another newer player to be the last Elim. That's not what got Devotary executed, but I'd wager it's something that sits in the back of people's minds.

But if we do that, GMs may start ignoring the experience balance, and that could end up with an Elim team made of nearly all new players or all grizzled veterans. Neither of which are great, because of fairly obvious reasons.

... this is me talking in circles again. Well, that's what I do to stop myself from tinfoiling I guess. This issue is more a meta one than a me one, because I'm happily in the middle experience zone where I'm free game to get killed by anyone.

1 hour ago, _Stick_ said:

Then there's that big post, where they basically summarised what everyone had done in the turn (that was helpful - thanks! ). The only actual thoughts and/or reads in that post were these:

And they ended up voting...Reading xD In the post all they really said about Reading was:

Quote

"Joe of the Reading - that name seems more confusing than even this own strange convention - was first to suggest a number for those spiked - six or seven, which seems reasonable."

Which doesn't really explain the vote xD

Quote

...READING!, if only to make things more entertaining for you," Derrick finished. "Derrick is curious. And if it's between those with Books and those who Read them..." He collapsed to the pounded earth. "It's almost like a chicken-and-the-egg-type thing. But... let's see, now. If it comes to a tie, Derrick will attempt to prevent, if he's awake... but for now let's keep options open, you see?"

Here they explain that it's essentially just a random vote, and that they would prevent a tie if it comes down to it (which it did, and they followed through on this, changing their vote to Books). I'm curious though, why didn't you vote for TJ, who (as far as I could tell) was the only player you expressed actual suspicion on in the post? @Ashbringer I mean cuz, the vote was meant to be tentative anyway like you admitted yourself, so why not vote on somebody you're actually suspicious of?

The main reason I picked Reading was because he already had votes. TJ had... one from Illwei? Reading had two. (And then Illwei moved to Reading).

And... Derrick's worry of TJ was simply from this:

Quote

While on the the way back home, Fleur stumbles on a weird looking guy, who got kinda skittish when he got close to him. Merrick, yeah that's right. That was his name. Something odd about him. Situation felt kinda awkward with them just standing there, not saying a thing, so he felt he'd break ice with a joke.

"Hey there, Merrick. You...you must be a kandra, because I kan(t)draw my eyes away from you, ha!" 

Fleur didn't even have time to blink as Merrick sprinted away as quickly as his legs could take him. "Huh, wonder what it was I said that was wrong"

Derrick gets nervous about people talking about kandra too much  so that wasn't really a serious suspicion. Which is what I meant by the fact he doesn't think it's a spike, but that obviously didn't come across well.

TJ is RP'ing more than usual, but we're in a post-Alcoholics Autonomous world so I can accept that more readily. So... I'm not really suspicious of him? Much? Not really more than the average person who's contributing less than they look, and TJ doesn't do the half-serious stuff very often either. Like I will do, especially when trying to view suspicions through an immortal maddened kandra who has no real stake in the fate of Fallion's Tears.

1 hour ago, _Stick_ said:

Quote

I voted Reading mainly because they seemed to be around but saying almost nothing of substance, which... seems to follow a few other players as well.

...That and for the pun with Reading Books 

In my opinion this isn't a reason convincing enough, mainly because 1) They did not mention this at all in their reads post, and 2) They admit that there's other players that are also showing similar patterns

So...why Reading? I still don't completely understand  

Well, obviously I didn't do it for the pun, I made that after. I didn't specify a reason because, again, it was 12:15 in the morning for me and I really didn't want to spend another giant chunk of time trying to reason through everything I'd just written down.

I mainly chose Reading because the fact they had more votes - I've had some really bad luck when it comes to starting vote trains lately - and because I couldn't really out-meta a reason to exe them like I could the other saying nothing of substance groups (like Dannex, who I got exed last LG and has I think gotten D1 executed... 3-4 times now?).

Of course now that it's not midnight I remember that I eliminated Reading D1 in the Rithmatist FFA, but that doesn't count.

1 hour ago, _Stick_ said:

Just like that post about the elim team distribution, what rubs me the wrong way is how they present one possibility, and then immediately follow it with another possibility that directly opposes the first? I mean yes both of them make sense but it just comes off as though they don't want to commit to one opinion, and are trying really hard to play it safe.

I think that generally speaking, roaming protective roles are better than ones that just sit on a certain role and don't let them die. There's the chance to block a lot more kills that way, especially with multiple protectives that can't really coordinate. However, most protectives can't continuously self-target until they have a reason not to. That's not the case with Lurchers here.

Let's say we have one Seeker and three Lurchers, somehow. If all three Lurchers are sitting on the Seeker, you're just wasting Lurchers. If none are on the Seeker, problem. So the best thing when you have one player you want protected, but multiple protectives to do it who can't yet coordinate, is to have the Lurchers randomly decide whether to protect the Seeker or protect someone else/themselves. Statistically that should work, and practically it should work enough to dissuade Elims from striking the protected role while still having roaming protectives to block kills.

So, I don't like to give just one option. That's just something I do when I don't feel like I have enough say to do things. I look at both options, and when I feel like either works or a split works, I send out both options.

1 hour ago, _Stick_ said:

Interestingly, Ash was the first player to post D2, and did not comment on the NK or the Ventyl kill until later on. As opposed to, let's say, Mat, whose comment about how the Ventyl kill might be the NK makes me read them village, (albeit not to a great extent or anything because I have certainly feigned confusion around these things as an elim). The fact that Ash only said anything about the kills doesn't sit well with me, and the way they claimed to not know about the fact that they kills are distinguished in the write-up is also kinda just awkward.

Anyway wow that took a lot of time Ashbringer I guess for now

I was 99% sure that Ventyl was the Elim Kill and RandBy was the Coinshot kill. I'm used to writeups never giving out any factual information, as that's been the case in... essentially every game I've ever played. And to me it made more... sense. Ventyl was (widely, apparently not widely enough) read Village and had a claimed role. RandBy was largely just RP'ing and nearly inactive. That feels a lot like a somewhat-contribution-crusading-coinshot and an Elim team who wants to stop claimers.

Then it came out it was the other way around. So now Ventyl, a claimed role read Village, was killed by a presumably-village Coinshot, and a near-inactive, quite-new player was killed by the Elims.

Queue confusion.

That's all I got. It enough? Probably not, who knows. Between wisdom teeth and midterms I've been busy, but that's not really something I want to lean on all week. I will likely be busy today, though, so don't expect more megaposts.

 

Other people!

1 hour ago, Quintessential said:

Okay Ashbringer I've been feeling less and less certain about my Striker vote (which does not surprise me at all, since I placed it less than a half-hour after I got up), and Stick has some good points. Ash does, in fact, seem to be avoiding taking stances on anything, and that Reading vote (especially the retroactive justification for it) is odd. 

Edit: Striker why do I always forget to retract : P

7 hours ago, Quintessential said:

So it's 7:30am here, I just got up, and I'm probably not fully awake yet (that is to say, this is almost certainly gonna change), but Striker. Would bother to provide original reasoning or at least reiterate everyone else's but I'm tired and the idea of doing thorough rereads sounds like torture to me right now so here this is XD (no, Ash, you aren't the only one who can keep up but not reflect. That is exactly the boat I'm in right now)

*Cough* Quinn

 

54 minutes ago, StrikerEZ said:

Okay, so Tani, Ash. I'm sorry Ash, but I'd like to have a chance to live. And, even though I was slightly suspicious of Stick earlier, that latest post of hers really makes sense and does not make you look good. I probably won't be back for another few hours, only really had a minute or two to spare to type this.

Eh, self-pres is fair.

50 minutes ago, Araris Valerian said:

I'm going to temporarily vote Ash just so that I'll have something concrete on the record for this cycle. This vote is by no means final and is based solely on a gut feeling from a PM with Striker. It has nothing actually to do with anything Ash has or hasn't done, and I'm still planning some analysis this cycle.

LET THE RECORD STATE THAT ARARIS VALERIAN USED PMS FOR PERSONAL GAIN.

That is all. Emphasizing the fact it's about Striker and not me is odd, but if Araris thought it was important instead of just 

 

[Quintessential she/her]

13 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

*Cough* Quinn

Note that in spite of being in that boat I've done plenty of AI things, voted (probably way too) frequently, done analysis, and managed to force myself to write RP, somehow... Well, that last one is neither here nor there, but still. It's different.

Maybe we're not in the same boat, idk

Edit: Gah Ash's response makes me feel uneasy about my vote on him though... why does everyone I vote on have to respond so reasonably? Can't the elims just hand themselves to us on a silver platter or something? smh 

Edited March 2, 2021 by Quintessential

[Quivil she/her]

2 minutes ago, Quintessential said:

Can't the elims just hand themselves to us on a silver platter or something? smh 

Nobody likes silver. It doesn't burn.

[Quintessential she/her]

Just now, Tani said:

Nobody likes silver. It doesn't burn.

Well that's why we can afford to make platters out of it, obviously XD

Also, out of curiosity, I'm gonna... Illwei. My read of her is village but my gut keeps shouting at me that I'm wrong and it's very confusing. So I'd like to look into that some more (and I suspect that looking back at C1 will be biased in favor of my gut reaction, since stuff in C1 convinced me she was elim the first time around, so I won't do that just yet). 

Ashbringer

[---]

22 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

LET THE RECORD STATE THAT ARARIS VALERIAN USED PMS FOR PERSONAL GAIN.

Tani

Araris

--

Erm

I've been kinda busy this cycle.

uh

get back to me tomorrow on my thoughts

wait no

I'll get back to you tomorrow

or PM me.

Edited March 2, 2021 by Illwei

[STINK he/him]

thats one long vote there

[|TJ| he/him]

Work was a bit busy today and what little time I had dedicated it to QF because I figured there's 24 hours more in the day. Catching up right now:

21 hours ago, Elandera said:

I absolutely think Ventyl's death was a village vigilante. There was enough suspicion about him yesterday because of his claim which would be very, very easy to keep faking. Why exactly would elims use a Mistborn/coinshot kill to get rid of someone drawing attention away from them? Ventyl would have likely drawn a lot of attention for today's exe, or even a few exes if there was enough dissention.

I think quite a few of us here have played LG67 here where the exact same thing happened and we would have prevented that, I would have, and it seems like Illwei and Mat would have too. So yeah, very much disagree with the kill choice, it was someone quite a few read as village. Also, it probably wasted a Seeker scan as well if they had decided to scan Ventyl.(to clarify, agree with Elandera that it is village vigilante, the above message is to the said vigilante).

16 hours ago, Devotary of Spontaneity said:

In a game with protection roles, the other consideration for elim kills is not wanting to hit someone who might be protected by a Lurcher. Not wanting to run into protection may have also played a role in the elims leaving Ventyl alone, while a low profile player like Ruby is less likely to be protected by someone else.

Good point *sigh* I can't not read Devotary as village. Help.

4 hours ago, StrikerEZ said:

So, I'm not gonna have much time to get on and defend myself today. And definitely won't be on for the last 8-9 hours or so. At best, I'll be around for a few hours before I go to sleep. I'm switching from Stick to Tani. It feels like they're overemphasizing their newness as a player, probably due to being coached by an elim team about doing that. If they flip elim, I'd look at some older players, because that was a pretty popular strategy when new players got elim. So like, Maill, stick, Araris, etc. Of the people voting me, I'm most suspicious of Tani and Maill. Mat and Quinn feel normal to me, even if they're sus of me (which, I mean, when does that never happen? ), and Windrunner hasn't done much, so idk about them.

This entire thing sounds village, agreed on the Tani and Maill part. But it's only C2, so let Tani play. Striker's feeling more and more like LG73. 

Continuing the village read on Stick, seeing nothing contrary to it. Ashbringer's train is weird because no one seemed to think about him, then Bard voted and everyone were like "oh yeaahh" and fell in. The reasoning is there, Stick made some good points, but the way everyone just fell in line... doesn't feel right to me. Will come back to this if nothing materializes off my top suspect.

Quote

Stuff from this cycle makes me feel a little better about him. But I'm... still suspicious of him. The only reason I'm even hesitating a bit is I went back and read through Gears' EoD posts because I felt something off about them, and the more I read them the more I feel like Gears was using TMI to defend Illwei, Quinn and sorta Striker. And if Gears is evil, I think Striker is not evil with him. 

Stuff from last night. Went back and read them again, to see if it was a one time thing, but no Gears feels off here - as I said it appears like he's defending Illwei, Quinn and Striker, to an extent, to appear very villagery. Gears.

Close to 2 AM here, so done for the night. I'd like it if someone goes through them to see if they feel the same.

[Ashbringer he/him]

16 minutes ago, Quintessential said:

Note that in spite of being in that boat I've done plenty of AI things, voted (probably way too) frequently, done analysis, and managed to force myself to write RP, somehow... Well, that last one is neither here nor there, but still. It's different.

Maybe we're not in the same boat, idk

Edit: Gah Ash's response makes me feel uneasy about my vote on him though... why does everyone I vote on have to respond so reasonably? Can't the elims just hand themselves to us on a silver platter or something? smh 

Fair enough, Quinn.

I guess I just tend to have different priorities when it comes to what I want to do vs what I force myself to do 

[Gears]

13 minutes ago, TJ Shade said:

Stuff from last night. Went back and read them again, to see if it was a one time thing, but no Gears feels off here - as I said it appears like he's defending Illwei, Quinn and Striker, to an extent, to appear very villagery. Gears.

Inform me if I'm misrepresenting your arguments: You read me as elim because I seem overly informed as to the alignments of Illwei, Quinn, and Striker, and I'm defending them with such confidence that I must have inside knowledge, yes? I will take that as the compliment that it is and also point out that your argument hinges on the fact that I wouldn't defend my village reads as a villager. You assume that the only reason I would defend people that are under fire for no reason other than normal NAI things is because I know that they are village. Do you understand why this seems odd to me? You immediately discount the possibility that I genuinely read them as village. You assume that Illwei, Quinn, and Striker are village. You assume that elim!Gears would actually care about breaking out of the 'thunderdome' that had sprung up around Illwei and Quinn. Why would elim!Gears care about Illwei's death? Why wouldn't elim!Gears just let Illwei die? Gears status quo is to not vote D1. Why would elim!Gears violate the status quo to result in a world that is arguably identical to the one where they didn't? Why do you assume that Illwei, Quinn, and Striker are village?

The points against Ash: The Reading vote and their tendency of recounting every possibility when they elaborate on a point. I acknowledge the Reading vote, but discount the other point as NAI since they do that as either. I don't particularly like this X option since I don't suspect them at all.

The points against Striker: I genuinely don't know. People have either said, "Look at my previous reasoning" or "The others had good points" and I don't remember what the 'previous reasoning' was. Is this about that one post we talked to death earlier? Them forgetting Smokers? I don't like this X option either. 

I might abstain here because I don't have any suspicions [except for lingering paranoia about people agreeing with me]. Also because I have a lot of schoolwork for the rest of the week, so don't expect much out of me. I'm so behind on this game. My spreadsheet hasn't been updated since the beginning of N1. I do not look forward to filling that in.

---

Roko the Basilisk stared at 'Derrick', pondering the nature of masks. This was the kandra it had known, but also not. The porcelain had sunk into the flesh and burned its visage upon the bones. Something new, something old, something different. This entity was interesting. It pulled out a small metal orb from a pocket and handed it to Derrick before slipping back into the shadows. That was a risk, a danger, but perhaps worth the cost, if it could just see... If it could just know the inner workings of this new thing that walked the earth. "An offering," it said calmly, holding itself still lest the humming of its circuits reveal the anticipation crawling within the flesh it wore. "Traverse the corridors of madness and you will always be free."

It left, the loss of the bauble weighing on its mind, the snake of paranoia coiling around its throat with fangs brushing over the vulnerable places. But if the gamble paid off... If this profited, then perhaps the loss of the town would not be a net deficit.

[Quintessential she/her]

49 minutes ago, Gears said:

You assume that Illwei, Quinn, and Striker are village.

This is something I'd actually noticed, and intended to point out but forgot: wouldn't it make more sense for elim!Gears to be defending me and Illwei if one of us (presumably Illwei, because otherwise he wouldn't have had to) is his teammate? Why do you assume that we're all village if Gears is elim? ( @StrikerEZ ) Edit: wait why did I @ Striker? XD I mean to @TJ Shade

49 minutes ago, Gears said:

The points against Ash: The Reading vote and their tendency of recounting every possibility when they elaborate on a point. I acknowledge the Reading vote, but discount the other point as NAI since they do that as either. I don't particularly like this X option since I don't suspect them at all.

Right, I guess I should have made this clear but this was my exact reaction as well; Ash being NAI is... NAI XD (Edit: rereading this I realized it's not exactly clear what I meant; I voted Ash for the Reading vote, and while the NAI thing is... I guess somewhat notable, in general, it's also pretty much normal for Ash.)

49 minutes ago, Gears said:

I might abstain here because I don't have any suspicions [except for lingering paranoia about people agreeing with me]. 

It's not my fault that you keep saying things that either make sense, or that I was thinking in a kind of amorphous way but hadn't put into words yet! That's on you  

Edited March 2, 2021 by Quintessential

[The Unknown Order he/him]

26 minutes ago, Quintessential said:

@StrikerEZ ) Edit: wait why did I @ Striker? XD I mean to @TJ Shade

Don't worry, I've gotten about four people mixed up with Striker.

[---]

Welcome to PoE with Illwei

where we think Striker is village

but why do we think striker is village? I donno

and I honestly don't have the energy to think rn.

I don't think striker is an Elim

Argument for ash is Meta. Well my argument. my argument for him being village is meta. unless i'm- hold on-

idk.

idk.

50 minutes ago, Quintessential said:

Ash being NAI is... NAI XD

I-

Enough NAI things adds-

^^ that's where I left this like two hours ago idk where I was going with this. fun times.

[Experience he/him]

Well. I don't really know what to think. I'm having some bad gut feelings about Araris, but I have absolutely reason why. They are Araris though, so that might be a good enough reason to vote on them. I have a slight elim-null read on Quinn, but that's also gut so... Not very helpful. Not sure about striker. I'm going to put my vote on Araris for now.

 

[Ashbringer he/him]

So, here's the thing. I am very busy today, and I don't think I'll have time to assemble a read list with actual, you know, data.

What I do know is I really don't want to kill Striker here. He's put himself much more... out there, for lack of a better word, and I read him at least moderately village which is much better than a standard null on most everyone else. Which means I need a new plan if I'm going to avoid dying without just self-preservation voting on Striker, which would be both counterproductive for the village if I'm right and... boring . 

 

I have reasons for some of these, but mostly they're just gut.

Village Reads: Striker, Illwei, Elandera, Araris,

Low Village Reads: Quinn, Mat

Low Elim Reads: Maillaw, Reading, Dannex(???), The Unknown Order

New and Old NAI: Fifth, Young Bard, Stick, Tani, Daisy, Biplet

No idea: Gears, TJ, Devotary, whoever I'm forgetting to put places

STINK: STINK

 

... well, that didn't help my brain at all... hmm. The Unknown Order, any general thoughts? @The Unknown Order

[---]

1 minute ago, Ashbringer said:

Maillaw

my good friend Mail law

[Quintessential she/her]

5 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

So, here's the thing. I am very busy today, and I don't think I'll have time to assemble a read list with actual, you know, data.

What I do know is I really don't want to kill Striker here. He's put himself much more... out there, for lack of a better word, and I read him at least moderately village which is much better than a standard null on most everyone else. Which means I need a new plan if I'm going to avoid dying without just self-preservation voting on Striker, which would be both counterproductive for the village if I'm right and... boring . 

 

I have reasons for some of these, but mostly they're just gut.

Village Reads: Striker, Illwei, Elandera, Araris,

Low Village Reads: Quinn, Mat

Low Elim Reads: Maillaw, Reading, Dannex(???), The Unknown Order

New and Old NAI: Fifth, Young Bard, Stick, Tani, Daisy, Biplet

No idea: Gears, TJ, Devotary, whoever I'm forgetting to put places

STINK: STINK

 

... well, that didn't help my brain at all... hmm. The Unknown Order, any general thoughts? @The Unknown Order

Okay yeah so Ash feels vil to me from this and I don't want him to die : P (my reasoning is definitely not just "wouldn't elim!Ash self-pres"? nope. if anyone says it is I will deny it). So Striker. I guess. I... ahhhh this is hard but I don't think starting new trains this far into the cycle is going to either help or work very well, so... yeah.

[STINK he/him]

8 minutes ago, Ashbringer said:

STINK: STINK

cheers

[Ashbringer he/him]

7 minutes ago, Illwei said:

my good friend Mail law

... I'm too used to seeing Maw, apparently...

Mailliw

[Fifth Scholar he/him]

I have been super busy with classes hooray but I owe the world a post instead of using my 5-10 minute breaks to just PM people or jump in Discord and chat about random things so here we go. Don't expect a lot of multiquoting though because my brain is too tired  (narrator: he then proceeded to multiquote)

On 3/1/2021 at 5:19 PM, StrikerEZ said:

Like Quinn and Elandera said: I highly doubt the elims have a coinshot. Mistborn? Maybe. But I highly doubt they have a coinshot. And even if they do, I highly doubt the Ventyl kill would be from the elims. If we're going to assume that the Rando kill is indicative of the elim profile (granted, it's one kill, so we can't make too many assumptions), then it seems they would prefer to go after more low-profile players. Killing Ventyl doesn't fit that MO for our team, following this profile of who the elims might be at least. Plus, literally speaking, Ventyl surviving would cause doubt about his alignment. Keeping Ventyl alive would leave a villager to focus discussion away from the elims. 

Also, I'm going to vote on Stick. They've been giving me some odd vibes throughout the game and I don't like how she went about trying to plant the idea that it wasn't a village coinshot that did the kill. Feels almost like she's trying to make us really suspect that the coinshot, whoever they may be, is an elim. 

This post confuses the storms out of me so I guess we'll start with it.  Assuming "Rando" is Random Bystander, Striker's argument is essentially that the elims were intending to go for low-profile targets (an assumption to begin with, given our sample size of one kill), and that an Elim team with an opportunity to kill Ventyl thus...wouldn't? I really don't understand the logic present in his hypotheticals, as elim teams are usually multiple people with varying opinions, so extrapolating the behaviour of one from a single kill to say that there's little chance of Ventyl being targeted just doesn't make sense to me. And to be clear, I agree that the Coinshot / Mistborn was likely village, mostly because I think any elim team had a strong incentive to avoid the IKYK trap that Ventyl was when he all but asked for protection, but Striker seems to be trying to push a sort of behavioural logic that doesn't apply. I'm not really suspicious (other than from my pre-existing suspicions of him) but it's something worth noting. 

The Stick vote is a lot more suspicious (seriously, what is it with people this game dropping poorly explained votes on Stick and backing off immediately?), even if it was retracted, and the logic here is even vaguer: "odd vibes" plus a valid take on the Coinshot is a weird combination for voting. Given that Stick remains one of the few people left doing cogent analysis, that she's a returning player and it's only D2, and also that she's of my few village reads, I'm not really happy with this vote on her (or Illwei's yesterday), and the quick retractions in both instances make me think one or both votes were designed to see if people would take them up, rather than being founded in actual suspicion.

9 hours ago, Tani said:

Is there a reasoning behind this?

Edit: PS I AM NOT SELF VOTING IM JUST QUOTING SOMEONE'S VOTE

A lot of people are voting for Striker and seem to have sound reasoning for doing so...

So yeah.

I mean, I'm reading Striker as mild elim, but I was under the distinct impression that none of the votes on Striker had terribly much reason, and just cited the "reasons" of other votes which were conspicuously absent (thinking @Quintessential's vote belongs to this category as well). So I'm left in this weird situation where I suspect Striker but don't like the reasons most people are voting for him?  

7 hours ago, StrikerEZ said:

So, I'm not gonna have much time to get on and defend myself today. And definitely won't be on for the last 8-9 hours or so. At best, I'll be around for a few hours before I go to sleep. I'm switching from Stick to Tani. It feels like they're overemphasizing their newness as a player, probably due to being coached by an elim team about doing that. If they flip elim, I'd look at some older players, because that was a pretty popular strategy when new players got elim. So like, Maill, stick, Araris, etc. Of the people voting me, I'm most suspicious of Tani and Maill. Mat and Quinn feel normal to me, even if they're sus of me (which, I mean, when does that never happen? ), and Windrunner hasn't done much, so idk about them.

Tani(2): Illwei, Striker

Striker(5): Matrim's Dice, The Windrunner Supreme, Quinn, Tani, Maill

Ashbringer(1): Young Bard

Huh. Switching from a returning player to a new one is a curious pivot, and I'm actually going to defend Tani; if anything, I get the feeling just as many elim teams would tell a newer member not to play up their newness because it attracts suspicion, and their actions have been consistent with a new player figuring things out and trying not to die or get killed. I don't trust Tani, but wouldn't say that any of the points raised against them have been AI either. Again, I'm very curious what Striker thinks about the practices of most eliminator teams, or whether he's just making these sweeping assertions with the idea of finding easy targets.

The swing onto Ash was weird both in who did it and how quickly it happened; if for no other reason than that, I'm happy voting Striker to keep Ash alive, who's another of my village reads from last cycle, as well as for the reasons above from his posts (inciting wagons for weird reasons based off assumptions about elim teams he's constructed in his head). When I get the time I will probably take a look at the votes from this cycle but I need to get dinner so I'll leave a reads list here and be done with it.  

(if you can't tell tired!Fifth is posting now )

Village: Stick (good analysis, helpful, put what seems like village thought into case against Ash even if I disagree with it); Mat (gut, tbh, and a sense he's being helpful); Stink (good PM vibes)

Slight Village: Quinn (weirdly bandwagon-y this cycle, though, and doing less raw analysis (not like I'm any better though)); Araris (liked him more before the Ash vote); Elandera (having fun, is nice in PMs, is being helpful inthread now too); Ashbringer; TJ (usual analytical self, need to look at Gears thing again); Bard (more active / helpful this cycle, better than C1 when I thought he might have been keeping his head low)

Null: Gears (too tired to read argument with TJ, will do later); Devotary; Experience; Maill (been getting weird vibes in PMs and the Illwei focus is just odd); TWS; Burnt (disappointed I have not received a PM); Biplet; Daisy; Pyro; Tani (don't buy the arguments against them)

Slight Elim: Shard of Reading (suspicion hasn't disappeared but the lynch train has ); Illwei (connections to Striker + very active but somehow can't remember anything specific beyond arguments with Quinn + seems to be content to post filler and not give suspicions); TUO (did not like the weird IKYK stuff from last night, also belongs in active-but-nothing-terribly-firm); Striker; Dannex

I need food so this concludes my gloriously scattered post