MAFIA WIN
To start off, I will be the first to say that in hindsight, I thought this game was a little scum-sided, but I’m curious to hear what y’all thought. The fact that Town even came close to 2-1 is a testament to their resilience. With that being said, I thought there were a few fundamental errors on both sides. I’ll try to evaluate each player’s gameplay based on what I saw in hopes of providing constructive criticism.
I’ll start with RationalTheist. Your role was designed to disrupt a lot of scum’s actions, namely the Bus Driver and Deflector. The role is definitely not an SOP claim either and gave scum a leg up in working their night actions. The best use for your role is targeting a townie so their actions are not interfered with. I also disliked that Mharman wasn’t pushed for a full claim after he was literally supposedly seen visiting himself.
Mikal, I feel like you were just busy with work in life. You definitely could’ve prevented your own lynch, not much to discuss tbh. I also think that your role isn’t an SOP. It has great utility if you hid behind scum or at least someone who was never going to be NKed by scum.
Whiteflame, not much to talk about. You got a taste of what I feel every game being killed NP1. Your role definitely would’ve been fun though. I can already see Mharman raging over losing to a coin toss. It’s partially why I gave scum some pretty OP roles to compensate, but scum just chose pretty well.
Casey, I definitely feel you too. I thought that you missed an opportunity by going for the soft claim early on. If you just asked let’s soft claim fief, I don’t think you would’ve gotten much pushback. Plus it would’ve locked scum into fake claims even better. I also think you were busy with work and so inactivity didn’t help. I also think you should’ve pursued Mharman a lot more based on the “Tracker” result. This is a recurring theme tbh. Mharman speculated that the Tracker was messed with and it all just seemed to disappear for some reason.
REF, you’re one ballsy dude. I would never have used the Roleblock NP2. Your logic thought definitely made sense to me, and it helped town out a lot in securing Mharman’s lynch. As you mentioned, I think you get tunnel vision sometimes. If you had lived instead of Lunatic, you probably would’ve hammered Wryly too. You also got super unlucky targeting WF. Like I mentioned, the role was intended to confirm potential townies ie the Hider at the expense of yourself. You were supposed to be the investigative role powered with various protective roles.
Wryly. I think you actually did very well in this game, especially considering this was your first game by yourself. I thought you acted very townie, bolstered by the fact that you were a noob. Whiteflame and I both thought that in DP4, you were on fire. Your logic and everything made sense and was incriminating. The only bad thing for you was that you were on the wrong wagon DP1 and DP2. My other comment is about waiving DP1. As a Doctor, you definitely shouldn’t have done that. Target the towniest person in your eyes. It was such a noob move, and one that didn’t even ping scum’s radar. You definitely have a bright future once you start learning the behavioral cues and how roles work.
Luna, I know you were bamboozled by Thoth. He definitely played a really good game, and I know you think I’m being condescending, but I think you just overlooked so many details that matter and rushed a little to end it. You know that I focus on the details, and I acknowledge it’s a flaw of mine, but I feel like you’re basically on the opposite side of the spectrum, and that’s a flaw as well. Thoth isn’t really a noob; he’s played countless games of mafia before. He knows the rodeo. He’s far likely to be a manipulative bastard than Wryly who theoretically would be playing her first game as scum. You’d have to assume that Mharman coached her to say she targeted REF when it would’ve been easier to say she targeted you. There was a lot of noob behavior that you overlooked, which is fair cause it could be noob scum. However, there were just some facts (that Wryly mentioned) that you missed. The biggest is the fact that Mharman was the 1x Strongman. That is a known fact. Thoth saw Mharman visit himself during NP1. How would this be possible. Let’s say Mharman did use the Strongman, then the Tracker would see him kill Whiteflame. Let’s say he waived; then he can’t be tracked. Let’s look at what the townies did. RT waived and REF blocked WF. There is not a role that exists that can create a result that Thoth saw. Redirector doesn’t work. Neither does Bus Driver, or Deflector. That’s why Mharman had to come up with a Mirror Maker and even that doesn’t work because it would involve Mharman having a usable/manipulatable ability in the first place. Let’s say Thoth, who you believed was town was manipulated. Redirector, Bus Driver, and Deflector don’t work because Mharman never visited and the townies didn’t visit themselves. Anyways, I’ve failed at 2-1 as well, so don’t take it personally. Just providing some details that were pure fact and not subject to WIFOM.
Okay, now moving onto mafia. Mharman played a good game in terms of determining night actions. It didn’t help that townies just openly claimed for no reason, but his night actions were solidifying for scum. Also, evading a full claim in DP2 was a major plus point. I can’t believe town let him get away with it after he was seen self visiting. Especially since the only roles that really do that are Lawyer or maybe activatable BP. Either way, that evasion and lynch on Casey was really well done. I know there were moments of tension in the scum chat, but as I said. Argumentative scum are better than inactive you. You’re there to bounce ideas off of each other and point out the flaws in each other’s logic. Better to talk about a plan before going out and executing.
Thoth, as everyone has already said, you played a really good game. Staying off of the wagons is always something you want to do as scum. I thought you tried just enough to avoid seeming like a try hard. I’m mainly referring to the counter arguments you gave to Wryly and everyone else. They were obviously garbage, but you did just enough to seem like you’re providing real analysis while not taking advantage of the town cred you gained. It was like putting shade on someone and then taking credit for it even though you were implicated by it. Also, the fact that you responded to a lot of people in one post was hard to follow for me, and I’m sure for other people. I’m surprised people were following along. I won’t let it slide though, so be warned.
Anyways, long story short, I thought this game was relatively scum-sided, but town put up a really good fight. One piece of advice I would give to townies is to ask questions. The worst I can say is that I won’t answer them. Scum asked a million questions about mechanics and roles, especially for flipped ones that I thought town missed. Scum made the mistake of linking themselves to each other, but it ended up benefiting them because of the “it doesn’t make sense to do that” argument during DP2 and onwards. Oh I almost forgot, the theme split was Rangers vs Non-Rangers or Ranger and his apprentice was everyone else. I was also surprised there wasn’t much discussion of characters and justifications for this game. Some were more reasonable than others, but that’s usually by design. As always, I hope everyone had fun, and any constructive criticism is appreciated.