Mafia CLIV: Bigger, Medium, Smaller Mafia (Town Win)

[condude1]

Is there a way to end the day quickly?

No Lynch, Unvote and Abstain are valid votes. If a majority of remaining players vote to END DAY, I will end the day.

[Happymeal]

Jordan767

End Day

[Happymeal]

However, I hope you guys recognize that by doing this you commit almost no one to a position right now. By doing such you give us no insurance if Jordan nor Justy is mafia. To me, it would be optimal if we killed all the birds with one stone:

1. Kill Jordan (and as a byproduct Justy)
2. Force everyone to commit to their reads in some way
3. End the day with a jordan stomp and justy alive tomorrow while also lynching somebody to give us more information.


To me, just stomping Jordan, forcing everyone to vote for their best read to be lynched would do the trick. Of course you guys believe that you're 100% correct on this issue so you won't do it. I just think there are a lot of coincidences surrounding the vote yesterday that show you guys might not be as right as you think you are. Having confidence is fine, being conceited isn't. Personally though I can't stop you guys from doing what you want, I'll play along and hope that we win today despite not covering all our bases.

[Happymeal]

Also, I think Blues Traveler is a really good band. I think some of their songs are too forced, though the singles are really amazing in my opinion.

[UpsideDownChuck]

@everyone

LYNCHING JORDAN IS THE WRONG PLAY. STOMPING HIM IS THE RIGHT ONE.


Recognize this, justy, if jordan is lynched today, is doomed to stomp someone large assuming jordan is town and the game continues. Tonight, Justy still has a chance to stomp jordan if we wait to stomp him. If you lynch jordan today, justy is dead tonight. I highly recommend you stomp him instead.

So I think if the last wolf is large, they pretty much always stomp justy tonight if we no lynch and agree to stomp jordan.

In general I think if the last wolf is large I think we always end up in a game state where it's the five larges left figuring out who to lynch. I'd sort of rather get there sooner rather than later since 1) I don't want to invest a bunch of time scrutinizing some very long posts if the last wolf is just jordan (or theoretically justy) and the game is already basically over. 2) I'd rather do that analysis, if I have to do it, with the firm knowledge that jordan/justy are definitely town.

So that's where I'm at.

[Jordan767]

OK, so... a few things.

I'm actually okay with a No Elimination vote if we blue vote Jordan. I understand Harb's point about it probably being okay to dip into the Large's if possible, but right now I am sort of playing this game by the book from a town perspective. It's why I didn't stomp Jordan last night, despite being tempted to. Right now this town is overall doing well, I don't want to needlessly accelerate games because we feel pretty good. Time is usually a town positive asset.

Also, Harb's vote on Jordan in response to Harb's questions is good. Best evidence I've seen D3 emerge through engagement. But let me address HAppy's concerns:

First, I do think yesterday was scum v. scum, and I do think both mafia are non-large. We have two consecutive killess nights. If there is deception on size, it will out itself shortly. The simplest explanation is the mafia badly missed on anticipating the town size selection choices. I know I had a Large-Large theory on D1, because it is what I would have recommended as a mafia sided player. But the fact that SJG was small shows I was wrong, and so my unthinkable double not-large thoughts on D1 are overtaken by the evidence of events.

On the vote itself, it's really important to understand how it shook out. We were kind of meandering around, but at around 5 hours to deadline, here is where we are:

SJG11 (1): Justy
Jordan767 (3): shadowfriend1, UpsideDownChuck, Zoomzip
Justy (1): Harb
Happymeal (1): SJG11
UpsidedownChuck (1): Jordan767
ShadowFriend1 (1): Happymeal

So, we are in end phases of D2. Jordan767 is our lynch leader on a day with not much movement, SF1 puts him into the lead in the middle of D2 and he's the first to 3 votes that day.

At this point, barring something dramatic (heh, heh), Jordan767 is going to be eliminated. There is no coherent counter to that. Note that SJG is not on the lynch -- he and Jordan are both trying to push into the large -- Jordan on Chuck, and SJG on Happymeal. Now, SJG has a bit of a problem if Jordan is scum -- we're about to lynch his partner and there's no real appetite for anything else. He still wants the large lynch, but senses he can't get it. But note the equivocation on the vote:

I'm going for Jordan over justy because justy seems less interested in self-preservation than Jordan is. Thus, justy's play aligns less with what I'd expect of Mafia in the day even though I do think that Jordan's position is a reasonable one for a townie to hold, or certainly not a ridiculous position for a Mafia to hold.

This is not "I want to lynch Jordan" -- this is a safe, let me have it all ways vote that sort of gets around the fact that people are starting to townread Justy. If Jordan is scum, it is the vote he needs to cast to get on the right side of the lynch and potentially preserve himself for D3. If Jordan is town, zoomZip and SF1 are there to take the fall for killing another townie. Either way, it's the best play available to him as scum.

Then things move on him. A few hours later (and only 2 hours to deadline) I suddenly move to SJG with Justy and we have a counter in place to Jordan. Harb is wondering what will happen, but he moves to kill SJG with me, and momentum to SJG is moving strong. I mean, we can expect Jordan will self-defend, so Harb's move essentially puts 4 on SJG at that point (and Harb has plenty of narrative space to move to Jordan if he wants). Now, Harb is openly aware that I may switch (and I'm concerned I may be lynching a townie -- I am not reading SJG as pure scum until the reveal, which is part of the reason I like Jordan's death curse on Chuck), but he makes a killing call anyways. Good. Jordan now, with limited time, has to defend.

In this time period, we get some interesting dialog. Jordan's vote on SJG is pure self-defense:

Votes are 3-3-1-1 right now. There isn't really a good dog pile candidate. I'll vote sjg as self-preservation, but I'm not happy about it. Still, 4-3-1. I'm willing (personally) to give the situation some time to develop before dogpiling.

Emphases added. In a scum v. scum race, this is a nightmare now for the scum team. So Jordan defends, but expresses a desire for a counter-move other than SJG, and really hopes one develops with time.

Similarly, Harb is looking for a way not to kill SJG, and appeals to SJG for an alternative. He gets this:

Grrrr.... I'm really not seeing a pro-active sjg case here.

SJG, you around? Tell me I'm wrong on Jordan in a convincing manner?

Wish I could but I don't have anything.

The best I have is that I was around and working harder earlier today and throughout yesterday while Jordan's more in that peripheral/active lurky zone. Not sure I can really describe that as a case though.

Neither SJG nor Jordan really want to vote on each other. They are both being forced. We know SJG was scum. We know scum would have loved to breach the firewall D2. Both wanted that outcome, and were looking to see if they could get an entrypoint. SJG is commiting to getting Jordan eliminated D3+. Jordian ditto on SJG. Scum v. scum is a reasonable interpretation of this. Explains the vote both made, the tepid hunting from both at the end, and the lack of kills. Balance of probabilities -- Jordan is SJG's partner. Could it be a well-hid large? Possibly. But it's not the best vote you can make on a read of the evidence before us.
Jordan767

I still felt like sjg was unlikely to be scum. And I was willing to wait because 4-3-1 is not (except in American electoral politics...) a very big majority. I wanted to see if anyone unsure about both cases whose head wasn't on the block (zoomzip, happy, harb) had an alternative lynch they wanted to propose or if the town was going to develop an actual majority on sjg. The latter happened at which point I red-voted sjg.

Harb and zoomzip both also fit the mutual-townreads, want-to-vote-somewhere-else narrative you're pushing here.

[Jordan767]

I'm not about to vote for my own mislynch.

UpsideDownChuck for being unwilling to follow already-in-motion town plans and not justifying reads well.

To rephrase SF's comment to something that might actually encourage Jordan to participate if he's town:

Jordan, is Chuck your best read for scum or the one you think has the best chance of other people voting for him? You say you're voting him because he's unwilling to follow town plans, and he's not justifying his reads well. Why does that make him more likely scum than town? Is there a town explanation for his actions? What are you referring to when you say he's not justifying his reads well?

If I'm looking for reasons to think you're town, showing me you're active an invested in smoking out the remaining scum is the first step.

Chuck is a good scumread where I might be able to actually develop a counterlynch.

I mean, I guess there's a town explanation for it, but I think his sheer stubbornness in refusing to reveal and sucking up valuable daytime debating its merits seems to point more in the direction of scum. When I say he's not justifying his reads well, I feel like he sometimes simply drops opinions into thread with little to no explanation. Yes, this is a slightly hypocritical thing to say, but isn't that a scummy thing to do?

[justy]

I'm also willing to end this day early and lynch Jordan. I hear Happy's concerns but at this moment, I really can't get my head around Sjg/Jordan scum team. I think after Sjg flipped scum, every way I look D2 seems to support Sjg/Jordan pair. Unlike Happy, I don't really think they had other choices than voting each other. Sjg could have waited a bit longer to see if others accept my reasoning that we should be voting small or medium, but as others had already challenged Sjg's large-large position, I think he felt it necesary to vote Jordan asap and try to buy himself some town points while doing so.

So yeah, I think that if Jordan is town, best way for us to win this game is to get rid of Jordan and I and make it 4-1 with no night kills. Before Jordan's alignment is resolved, it's difficult to move this game into other directions.

Jordan

End of day.

[Zoomzip]

Jordan in case I am not on later.

[Happymeal]

Jordan767

]End Day