It's pretty late for me and I just saw that this was live, so I'm not going to start in tonight.
By the end of the weekend, however, I vow to be a functioning member of society (ie I'll be caught up and extremely active - by MTGS standards, at the very least).
I apologize again for the way D2 unfolded. I'd have never replaced in if I had known what was going to happen, but I suppose that's the way of RL things.
Okay. My grandmother died, her funeral was earlier, and I have pneumonia. It has been a genuinely awful week. I will not be able to read this before the deadline.
So.
Do we have a lynch together? I will help us come to one if we need to, but otherwise I'm out for this game day. I /promise/ this will not be the case for tomorrow. I'm really sorry guys.
I've had a tough week with some pretty unfortunate RL stuff going on, and I haven't looked much at this since my last post. I'm very sorry about that - the slot was dead in the water before I replaced in, but you guys deserve more than that regardless.
So what I'm going to do is just dump the handful of notes I did have into the thread. I was planning to makes a few big walls to catch up so I didn't thread spam, but I'm going to give you the from the first few pages of the thread where you can at least see where my head is at a little bit (although the game has long since moved on from this point).
I'll be back as soon as I can. The catchup post I started writing starts below.
~~~~~
Alright, let's do this.
I've looked at the flips, so I know that we know know there are 4 scum living, and there are 4 confirmed town players+me. So there are four in:
Grapefruit21
quixotic72
shadowlancerx
Mindreaver
killjoy
Gruffinchops
Cantripmancer
TheRealStinkyJoeTerry
Cyan
Rhand
Rodemy
First interesting thing I see is the Rhand/Rodemy slot scuffle on the first page (starts ~30). Pretty sure they're unaligned. I think the accusations they made are fairly unlikely to come from scum partners - in my experience, when scum open with distancing, they poke at something that doesn't really hold up as objectively scummy. A claim (and counterclaim) of mudslinging is somewhat more significant, because it's the sort of thing that I think does hold up as objectively scummy. Mudslinging cuts through sort of gutty interpretive readings to an issue of mindset (ie the person isn't actually trying to solve the game, they're just trying to keep town stirred up and divided without commuting to any risk themselves), which is much more reliable as a tell. I don't think partners open the game that boldly.
Hard to point at scum out of their exchange, though. I have a sort of gutty light townread on Rhand for making the mudslinging read, because it indicates to me that he was actively trying to solve the game vs. passively letting it unfold. The Rodemy slot is pretty null - he did a ton of over-explanation, but I also agree that the tone that he did it with was kinda towny/pure, and I'm sometimes accused of overexplaining as town too. Could go either way on him.
I'm light townreading Shadow and Gruffin for their early approaches as well - Shadow mostly because I like his tone and we seem to agree about most of the early part of the game, at least, and Gruffin because he seems to be trying to figure things out but is sort of loose and breezy at the same time? For instance, see 62 and 77. It's a good look. By the end of that page, Gruffin is officially my first real townread. It's early, but I'm really liking him.
Rhand is still kinda a gutty light townread at the end of the page as well. It's hard for me to properly distinguish aggression from pouciness, which is why he's a gutty townread rather than a townread simply. I think he's being the former rather than the latter, and the observations he's making are pretty indicative of a solving mindset.
Mind's post right at the end of the page strikes a bad cord with me. Not just because we disagree about Shadow, although that's part of it, but because whenever people start in on "coaching" I always kinda feel like they're trying to make people jump at shadows. It's just... kind of a bad argument, pretty much always.
Also, the whole thing feels kinda like it's a post written to make sure it touches on every single person it reasonably could, without paying special attention to anything? Maybe that's just a playstyle difference between us, but it feels constructed/artificial to me. I'm pretty comfortable with calling Mind my first light scumread.
Like Rhand prodding people to vote in a considered way - that's straight up +EV town.
The quix slot looks pretty bad with his weird retraction but not retraction thing. Hard to say if that's an experience thing, a scum thing, or just a weird personal quirk, but it pinged me a bit that he admitted that he had mixed up two names but then tried to justify his original incorrect statement as well. It was pretty placating in a way that I think is likely to only really come out of inexperience and scum. Light scumread.
Holy ***** this is going to be incredibly slow.
Shadow can join Gruffin as a real townread. Still liking the way he's going about his business.
The KJ slot has a terribad entrance. Light scum.
Mind continues to kind of trigger me in 115. Like, the Shadow point (Shadow is making a bunch of gutty reads, not a lot of stuff being cited as evidence) is fine, although I don't agree that he's scummy, obviously, which appears to be the implication. But the rest is a little gross. It looks like him backpedaling away from a conflict with a person he's sort of calling scum already. It just doesn't seem like a town play. The scum read solidifies.
Mmm. Surprising that Gruffin isn't bothered by the quix slots's weird retraction not retraction. They do know each other, but I'm not really sure that I buy that it's a shrug thing either, that was super awkward. My Gruffin read is much stronger than my read on the quix slot, so maybe that tempers the quix slot scumread a bit, but ehh? Think Gruffin might just be offbase here.
And then Shadow goes and agrees with him, so maybe I'm the one who's offbase. Still kinda think they're wrong, but open mind for now.
Cantrip has potential to vault up into my townreads here if he follows up on the questions he asked - if he doesn't, he's probably a light scumread. Asking a wall of questions like that is never really a null, imo.
Kinda hope the dude is town, because I straight up agree with all of his early reads except maybe the Bur one - I don't really feel strongly about him at this point, although that could be future knowledge informing me on that point as well.
Mind is just scummy as hell. I'm not really sure how you guys didn't lynch him by like page 4.
I'm super unimpressed with TRSJT so far. Gruffin is an incredibly weird choice of person to scumread in this game, and him using Mind's awful gotcha post to jump onto that is... well, also awful. Sticking with a vote on Gruffin because his posts were too towny was also bad. No clue what to do with that.
That having been said, I also didn't know you guys didn't use daychat here. That does make the coaching argument from Mind earlier somewhat less ridiculous/more compelling, which weakens that read. Don't think it changes my top scum suspect, though - Mind is scummy for a lot of reasons.
Alright, cool. In that case I'm not going to rush to get this all done. I should be completely caught up in the next few days regardless, but I'm afraid I'm going to miss stuff if I try and for a quick runthrough to just quickly catch up.
When is the deadline, currently? I want to get caught up and contribute before it hits, but this is going much more slowly than I had anticipated after spending most of my morning on it. Are we still in a pause while we wait on a Gruffin replacement?
I'm going to start catching up now. I don't want to spam the thread because I think that's against the site rules here(?), so I'll probably just do a stream of consciousness catchup post (or a few - it depends on how far I'm able to get in a sitting or two). If there's something going on in real time that is important/needs my input now rather than after I'm fully caught up, give me a shout and I'll give that priority.
I'm very sorry, I've run into some personal life issues. I'm not disappearing on the game, the reread has just been delayed. I'll try to at least make a start at some point today.
Hey guys, looking forward to hopping into this properly. I know almost none of you, so this should be interesting.
I mentioned this to Proph already when he asked me, but just so everyone else knows: I'm a little strapped for time for the next couple of days, so I probably won't be around much until Thursday/Fridayish. I'll go pretty hard when I get back, though, so catching up in a timely manner shouldn't be an issue.
Really sorry that I not only dipped, but did so in a way that drug things out and sort of screwed over town. I certainly didn't intend to do so, everything on my end just happened in such a way that I thought I was going to be fine in a couple more days for a little while, and then I realized that I was a lot worse off than I had thought. I'd say it was a once in a lifetime thing, except that makes two health crises in two games here for me - hopefully the third time will be the charm if you lot let me come back.
I just updated Wheat, but I wanted to toss this in the thread as well so you guys have some clue as to what's been going on/aren't overly harsh on whoever it is that comes next for my slot.
The very short story is that my health sort of imploded, and I had to undergo a stopgap surgery to try and remedy some of the issues yesterday. Resultantly, it is exceedingly unlikely that I will be able to give you guys the time the game/you deserve here, so I'm withdrawing. I'm sorry to have dallied this long when you could have had a replacement in my slot days ago, but I had no idea things were going to go ass up quite so quickly, and had been quite looking forward to this, so I was trying to avoid bailing if I could. Hope to one day catch a game with the lot of you again (preferably on MTGS when I don't have some sort of clusterf**k make me replace out -_-), catch up with you when my body isn't trying to end me.
I'm incredibly sorry about how this has gone on - as much as I was looking forward to this, I would have just passed on this if I had realised I was going to be missing a monster hunk of the day very first day like this. Things have not gone as expected.
Nevertheless, by this time tomorrow I will be back and providing enough content to hopefully smooth over the void in the game that my inactivity has created. Sorry again, and see you guys then.
I informed the mod, but I thought I'd drop this in here as well.
Something unexpected has come up, and I'm probably going to have to be V/LA for about 48 hours or else I'll be semi-V/LA for like a week. Will make it up when I'm back, sorry for the absence.
I see all fluff posting as a weak scum read, but since I am asked to analyze Newcomb specifically, I have to point that out. Yes, I scumread all of you based on that. But if everybody is doing that, I don't think fluff posting is going to outweigh town tells, which you and Nacho both exhibit.
I am planning to examine pozzai and reg because pozzai is seen as scum by multiple people and is rather easy to read, while I did not really have a feel about reg's alignment, so I have to read again and get a feel of it.
How was Newcomb's lack of content different from anyone else who fluff posted in RVS - I assume you didn't scumread everyone from that section?
Newcomb's lack of content extended to page 2, while others stopped early.
Ehh. Nacho and I were both still meme'ing/fluffing on page two. Was it especially scummy for Newcomb for some reason, or are/were you scumreading me/Nacho as well? If you find that behavior to be scummy, why not pressure me or Nacho next?
Equally, why are you planning to examine Pozzai and Reg next? Names out of a hat, or are there specific reasons? I know that those are a lot of questions, but I'm trying to see in your head a bit and I'm having a hard time with it.
By the end of the weekend, however, I vow to be a functioning member of society (ie I'll be caught up and extremely active - by MTGS standards, at the very least).
I apologize again for the way D2 unfolded. I'd have never replaced in if I had known what was going to happen, but I suppose that's the way of RL things.
So.
Do we have a lynch together? I will help us come to one if we need to, but otherwise I'm out for this game day. I /promise/ this will not be the case for tomorrow. I'm really sorry guys.
Hopefully I'll be able to come help out soon.
I've had a tough week with some pretty unfortunate RL stuff going on, and I haven't looked much at this since my last post. I'm very sorry about that - the slot was dead in the water before I replaced in, but you guys deserve more than that regardless.
So what I'm going to do is just dump the handful of notes I did have into the thread. I was planning to makes a few big walls to catch up so I didn't thread spam, but I'm going to give you the from the first few pages of the thread where you can at least see where my head is at a little bit (although the game has long since moved on from this point).
I'll be back as soon as I can. The catchup post I started writing starts below.
~~~~~
Alright, let's do this.
I've looked at the flips, so I know that we know know there are 4 scum living, and there are 4 confirmed town players+me. So there are four in:
Grapefruit21
quixotic72
shadowlancerx
Mindreaver
killjoy
Gruffinchops
Cantripmancer
TheRealStinkyJoeTerry
Cyan
Rhand
Rodemy
First interesting thing I see is the Rhand/Rodemy slot scuffle on the first page (starts ~30). Pretty sure they're unaligned. I think the accusations they made are fairly unlikely to come from scum partners - in my experience, when scum open with distancing, they poke at something that doesn't really hold up as objectively scummy. A claim (and counterclaim) of mudslinging is somewhat more significant, because it's the sort of thing that I think does hold up as objectively scummy. Mudslinging cuts through sort of gutty interpretive readings to an issue of mindset (ie the person isn't actually trying to solve the game, they're just trying to keep town stirred up and divided without commuting to any risk themselves), which is much more reliable as a tell. I don't think partners open the game that boldly.
Hard to point at scum out of their exchange, though. I have a sort of gutty light townread on Rhand for making the mudslinging read, because it indicates to me that he was actively trying to solve the game vs. passively letting it unfold. The Rodemy slot is pretty null - he did a ton of over-explanation, but I also agree that the tone that he did it with was kinda towny/pure, and I'm sometimes accused of overexplaining as town too. Could go either way on him.
I'm light townreading Shadow and Gruffin for their early approaches as well - Shadow mostly because I like his tone and we seem to agree about most of the early part of the game, at least, and Gruffin because he seems to be trying to figure things out but is sort of loose and breezy at the same time? For instance, see 62 and 77. It's a good look. By the end of that page, Gruffin is officially my first real townread. It's early, but I'm really liking him.
Rhand is still kinda a gutty light townread at the end of the page as well. It's hard for me to properly distinguish aggression from pouciness, which is why he's a gutty townread rather than a townread simply. I think he's being the former rather than the latter, and the observations he's making are pretty indicative of a solving mindset.
Mind's post right at the end of the page strikes a bad cord with me. Not just because we disagree about Shadow, although that's part of it, but because whenever people start in on "coaching" I always kinda feel like they're trying to make people jump at shadows. It's just... kind of a bad argument, pretty much always.
Also, the whole thing feels kinda like it's a post written to make sure it touches on every single person it reasonably could, without paying special attention to anything? Maybe that's just a playstyle difference between us, but it feels constructed/artificial to me. I'm pretty comfortable with calling Mind my first light scumread.
Like Rhand prodding people to vote in a considered way - that's straight up +EV town.
The quix slot looks pretty bad with his weird retraction but not retraction thing. Hard to say if that's an experience thing, a scum thing, or just a weird personal quirk, but it pinged me a bit that he admitted that he had mixed up two names but then tried to justify his original incorrect statement as well. It was pretty placating in a way that I think is likely to only really come out of inexperience and scum. Light scumread.
Holy ***** this is going to be incredibly slow.
Shadow can join Gruffin as a real townread. Still liking the way he's going about his business.
The KJ slot has a terribad entrance. Light scum.
Mind continues to kind of trigger me in 115. Like, the Shadow point (Shadow is making a bunch of gutty reads, not a lot of stuff being cited as evidence) is fine, although I don't agree that he's scummy, obviously, which appears to be the implication. But the rest is a little gross. It looks like him backpedaling away from a conflict with a person he's sort of calling scum already. It just doesn't seem like a town play. The scum read solidifies.
Mmm. Surprising that Gruffin isn't bothered by the quix slots's weird retraction not retraction. They do know each other, but I'm not really sure that I buy that it's a shrug thing either, that was super awkward. My Gruffin read is much stronger than my read on the quix slot, so maybe that tempers the quix slot scumread a bit, but ehh? Think Gruffin might just be offbase here.
And then Shadow goes and agrees with him, so maybe I'm the one who's offbase. Still kinda think they're wrong, but open mind for now.
Cantrip has potential to vault up into my townreads here if he follows up on the questions he asked - if he doesn't, he's probably a light scumread. Asking a wall of questions like that is never really a null, imo.
Kinda hope the dude is town, because I straight up agree with all of his early reads except maybe the Bur one - I don't really feel strongly about him at this point, although that could be future knowledge informing me on that point as well.
Mind is just scummy as hell. I'm not really sure how you guys didn't lynch him by like page 4.
I'm super unimpressed with TRSJT so far. Gruffin is an incredibly weird choice of person to scumread in this game, and him using Mind's awful gotcha post to jump onto that is... well, also awful. Sticking with a vote on Gruffin because his posts were too towny was also bad. No clue what to do with that.
That having been said, I also didn't know you guys didn't use daychat here. That does make the coaching argument from Mind earlier somewhat less ridiculous/more compelling, which weakens that read. Don't think it changes my top scum suspect, though - Mind is scummy for a lot of reasons.
I'm going to start catching up now. I don't want to spam the thread because I think that's against the site rules here(?), so I'll probably just do a stream of consciousness catchup post (or a few - it depends on how far I'm able to get in a sitting or two). If there's something going on in real time that is important/needs my input now rather than after I'm fully caught up, give me a shout and I'll give that priority.
I mentioned this to Proph already when he asked me, but just so everyone else knows: I'm a little strapped for time for the next couple of days, so I probably won't be around much until Thursday/Fridayish. I'll go pretty hard when I get back, though, so catching up in a timely manner shouldn't be an issue.
Really sorry that I not only dipped, but did so in a way that drug things out and sort of screwed over town. I certainly didn't intend to do so, everything on my end just happened in such a way that I thought I was going to be fine in a couple more days for a little while, and then I realized that I was a lot worse off than I had thought. I'd say it was a once in a lifetime thing, except that makes two health crises in two games here for me - hopefully the third time will be the charm if you lot let me come back.
Well played scum team.
All the best.
I'm incredibly sorry about how this has gone on - as much as I was looking forward to this, I would have just passed on this if I had realised I was going to be missing a monster hunk of the day very first day like this. Things have not gone as expected.
Nevertheless, by this time tomorrow I will be back and providing enough content to hopefully smooth over the void in the game that my inactivity has created. Sorry again, and see you guys then.
Something unexpected has come up, and I'm probably going to have to be V/LA for about 48 hours or else I'll be semi-V/LA for like a week. Will make it up when I'm back, sorry for the absence.
What were the town tells that Nacho exhibited?
Ehh. Nacho and I were both still meme'ing/fluffing on page two. Was it especially scummy for Newcomb for some reason, or are/were you scumreading me/Nacho as well? If you find that behavior to be scummy, why not pressure me or Nacho next?
Equally, why are you planning to examine Pozzai and Reg next? Names out of a hat, or are there specific reasons? I know that those are a lot of questions, but I'm trying to see in your head a bit and I'm having a hard time with it.