TWG CLXXIII Postgame Thread

[the sun fan]

Re: TWG CLXXIII Postgame Thread

pls send me games btw I have 0 submissions

[the sun fan]

Re: TWG CLXXIII Postgame Thread

Mechanical thoughts and game summary below, individual notes and other things will be posted later tonight

Aite

Just gonna go through general thoughts on the game, might have a little bit of a line for everyone too.

I do want to say beforehand that I read a grandtotal of 0 private logs between players so whatever happened in private is almost certainly unknown to me. As such, I will only talk about what I know happened or about mechanics so long as I can do so.

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n0 mostly speaks for itself; its a guessing game all around. Wolves did what most people would do; picked a SPK that could be a PR and went with it. blind seered probably the hardest person to read in the game and the wolves yolo'd the wizard 0rb a bit. All is fine there.

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d1, the game becomes a lot harder for me to understand. blind claims his red to haku and says that he's going to claim it at a specific time. Haku, presumably bored more than anything else, decides to out the check ahead of time. This is bad all around. The only reason that blind would ever hold onto a red like that would be to see Charu's interactions without the pressure of a red check, which is fine. Its not really something I think is really worth doing on a player like Charu on d0, but its by no means a bad plan. Haku claiming ahead of time completely took that away from the game for no real game related reason.

I've debated whether or not I was going to chastise blind for claiming that to Haku when just about any other player would've been a safer choice of confidant, and I did say it was a bad idea in deadchat, but I think I've since reconsidered. I cannot fault someone for assuming that another player would not blow up a check like that for no real reason despite Haku's history.

So, the red check is out, Charu knows he's probably dead, blind is pissed at Haku, and the wolves decide to put in motion a play that I need some justification for, because I really don't fully understand it.

My understanding of the play was that DBP thought that he could get away with lynching blind by arguing that blind lied about his check. DBP and at least Charu from what I understand believed that this is something that towns would more than just consider as something that blind would do.

Now, I want to make an aside here as this is something that I think really perplexes me. I get that sometimes people shit on blind for not necessarily being the best player here. But assuming that someone will lie about the results of their check out of stubbornness is like... beyond the realm that anyone has ever assumed about the skill level of a player on this site. If this is truly what the wolves had in mind for their plan, then I think there's a 0% chance that it would've worked. When blind flips, because in that scenario he /is/ the correct lynch, Charu always either gets vigi shot or lynched the next day, almost certainly followed by DBP. That's a terrible plan for the wolves because no town member will ever believe that blind, or really anyone, would lie about being roleblocked out of sheer stubbornness.

But that's not what happened. DBP claimed that he roleblocked blind, and there was a fight. I don't want to beat this to death because it is something that I don't think any of us enjoy talking about (lol I've typed a shitload on it oops), so I'll touch on a few points here.

1) I should've modkilled blind. I was a huge supporter of the rule that says that publicly asking for a replacement will result in a modkill. I should have upheld this rule. For whatever reason, it was not in my mind at the time, and it should've been especially later on when I think Yoshl pointed out to me that blind should've been modkilled.

2) This kind of reaction from blind was largely because of the frustration he felt with DBP continuously shitting on him as a scumread in games, I understand that. I do want to say that I think the reaction was largely unwarranted. I get that it was emotional because it was a cc battle, but in this situation, if I am in blind's spot, I advocate for my own lynch and am happy to do so. Trading myself for, in my eyes, two wolves, is always a trade I will take 8 days a week, and I think blind got a little caught up in the moment (which is completely understandable). This is why DBP should have, in my opinion, gotten more flak for claiming that he blocked blind. Its not a play you can really do as a reaction test as the play for a lot of people is "Lol, 2 wolves for me, a VT? Yeah, you guys can kill me first idc." The most interesting part about it was even when blind was having that reaction, and even after he had left discord and people thought he was going to be replaced, DBP still held the claim. That should've shown that he was serious about holding his claim.

3) The state of the game when blind had left the discord was a little bit weird. I don't think the game should've been paused, and if I hadn't been out at the time, I would've worked to resolve the state of the game as fast as possible. Unfortunately, the game was in a limbo-state while I was gone and I think that took away from the game a little bit unfortunately.

Either way, blind doesn't get replaced, and DBP eventually rescinds the claim, and Charu is lynched.

(but not before XelNya defends him looooooooooooooool)

Another thing that I couldn't really work in anywhere that I think is really fucking funny to me is that Gradiant had just finished saying that he really hates wolfing by himself (alluding to Perfect Blowjob when he solo wolfed for almost all of the game and won) and that he didn't want to do it this game, and literally minutes later and on the same scroll page in discord DBP says he wants to try and save Charu by claiming that he blocked blind. I mostly just think this situation is funny, but I was confused as to why Gradiant let DBP try that plan if he didn't want to be in a situation where he would wolf by himself because that's exactly what would happen if DBP held his claim.

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Alright, Charu down, we get to n1. Seer 0rb to Freezin, Wizard 0rb to Gradiant, vigi 0rb to Xel.

My first reaction to seeing Xel get the vigi 0rb was "Oh man, he might actually shoot blind... that would be awful." Thankfully, that didn't happen and we instead got a rather comedic doublestack on Haku.

Seering dAnceguy is whatever, Freezin's reads at that point were I think 0/3 and I think that helped clear up some confusion for him (though his reads were still mostly off after that).

Wolves were debating their night actions more this night than any other, and I think for good reason. The nightkill here really matters, and if you hit the tracker, then you win the game a lot more of the time.

Interestingly, Haku had told DBP(?) in private that he was the tracker, and the wolves believed it (which is... neither bad or good I think).

I've thought about this a good bit, and I say this as someone that likely wouldn't have gotten there if I was a wolf, but I think what the wolves needed to look at was the lasts time haku was a power role in an OOTC game, he told everyone and their mother. He told so many people that people were mad at him. There was zero ruckus about Haku claiming to people privately this game, and I think that's what the wolves needed to pick up on, even though its rather hard to realize and I don't think I would've realized it myself.

Secondly, and this is the easier and safer option here, if haku told me that privately, I would always bring this to blind because

a) it makes me look better regardless of my alignment (even though I'm a wolf in this scenario)

b) it could potentially out the real tracker or confirm haku as real and allows my team to make a better, more informed nightkill choice

Either way, none of those things happened, and the wolves killed haku, and its hard to fault them too much for doing so.

They decided to roleblock roundbox because I forget why and its not really too important why I think.

So we have a green seering on danceguy, a block on roundbox and a doublestack on hakulyte, which really, really is an interesting combination that I think will exceedingly rarely happen if you run this game many, many times over.

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Freezin outs the green on danceguy very quickly, no problems there.

Xel outs the (rather bad imo) vigi on Haku, no problems there aside from the vigi choice is rather bad but w/e.

Gradiant claims the block on roundbox, and the biggest problem I have with the wolfteam here is that Gradiant continued to bus DBP for imo, no real reason. Yes, it creates distance, and distance if why it was so hard for town to put all the pieces together late game, but it looks forced (or at least I am quite sure it would've looked this way to me if I were in the game) when you're calling someone scummy for the same reasons as before despite compelling mechanical evidence that roundbox is a wolf (from what should be your POV as a wolf; obviously he knows that roundbox is not a wolf). I think, in this situation, you want to try and lynch roundbox because it will never look bad for you if you do so. You have a perfectly good reason for why he would be a wolf because a doublestack there is rather ridiculous (despite it being what happened) and a no kill is absolutely, positively a terrible decision for the wolves.

This is part of what I think the most confusing part of the game is for me. I have no idea how people rallied behind the fact that the wolves could've no killed, and after thinking about it a lot, I think I have to chalk it up to OOTC being powerful. blind appeared to be quashing the idea that roundbox could be a wolf despite the compelling mechanical evidence, and I guess that's what saved roundbox there. inDheart and I were rather perplexed when roundbox didn't instantly claim tracker and say "THERE'S BULLSHIT ABOUT WITH THE NIGHT ACTIONS," but I think I have to give credit here where it is due and say that blind et al(?) did a good job preventing the roundbox lynch from ever starting up (bar Freezin) and partially because the wolves imo missed a big opportunity by deciding to push elsewhere instead of trying to kill roundbox (with Gradiant calling roundbox his #2 and DBP hard defending roundbox).

I want to take the time here to talk about why a no-kill is an awful idea for the wolfteam and why, as such, town should not have been seriously considering it as an idea, and even if it /was/ worth considering, why it was still mishandled.

Lets start with something that I think DBP brought up which, imo, hit the nail on the head. Wolves are incredibly decentivized to no-kill in order to set up a lynch because of the 2/9(?) chance that the wizard 0rb holder blocks a wolf and then the wolves both lose a nightkill and a member for literally zero gain. If this ever happens, I will confidently say that I have never seen worse wolf play in forum mafia. Taking the gloves off for a second, there is no way that anyone should ever think the idea is remotely worth considering. I get that roundbox was between two very unlikely worlds, but the doublestack is, though still ridiculous, the more likely world just because of how absolutely unbelievable the alternative is.

Something that I think no one brought up that is another reason why wolves should never no kill there is the rather obvious fact that it removes a kill from the numbers. Now, in certain situations, this is a perfectly neutral thing to do. However, in a game where items are randomly distributed to players and two of those items seer or kill players, the wolves have to work fast and clean. Making a no-kill is not fast, and has the potential to be extremely messy.

Lets ignore my last two points and say that town is in the world that the wolves performed no kill. Lets say they somehow know that haku wasn't doublestacked and the only situation that is explicable is that the wolves sent in no kill. In this situation, you never, ever lynch Xel that day and probably ever.

Xel is the only visible KP that was applied the previous night. If Xel has the vigi 0rb, his vigikill never, ever fucking stacks with the wolfkill if he is a wolf. There's actually zero reason to ever do that when there are probably at least 10 alternative plays that are better just mathematically. If you believe that the wolves nokilled, then why would they send in one kill via vigi 0rb but not a wolfkill... two kills plus a lynch is almost always better than one kill plus a lynch of the wolves choice. When you think about this, it would seem that roundbox would be the kill town should make, but its actually not that either.

In this situation, its still ridiculous for wolves to have no killed at risk of losing a member for no gain. Because of this, if you believe/know that no kill is what the wolves sent, then they only ever make that play when there is zero risk of being blocked by the wizard 0rb, and that only ever happens when they possess the wizard 0rb that night. So in this situation, you actually lynch Gradiant.

But, that didn't happen. Town believed that no-kill happened as opposed to roundbox being blocked when he made a wolfkill or a doublestack occurring.

I do want to say that I do think it would be rather difficult to get to a doublestack occurring. Its kind of like in poker having to decide whether your opponent has three of a kind or four of a kind when you have a full house. Its a really messy situation and because it both happens rarely and has many stipulations that must be accepted, its a very hard call to get right.

I don't want to say that I think town misplayed too terribly by thinking that there was a no-kill because the most logical situation that roundbox's wolfkill was blocked was being quashed by pseudo confirmed town blind, and the two alternatives are rather strange. What I do want to focus on was that Xel was the wrong lynch there if you believed no-kill occurred.

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Anyways, Xel is lynched and the next night begins without roundbox claiming tracker. Seer 0rb to Gradiant, wizard 0rb to star-crossed and vigi 0rb to mellon.

Gradiant had a roleread on raeko for a while and since wolves really need to go ahead and deal with blind since he is causing problems by being alive and coordinating things, they kind of have to kill him. A perfectly fine check for the wolves and they, of course, lied about the result and Gradiant was able to stop reversing and driving the bus over DBP.

star-crossed blocks kirkfan who, in my opinion, if she is a wolf, rarely sends in the wolfkill as she is probably not the deepest wolf, but whatever. Not too big of a point but I think there were better targets. if star was instructed to block kirkfan (which I don't think happened but if it did), then obviously I cannot fault her for this decision at all, and its a very minor thing anyways.

raeko vigis kirkfan, which is kinda fine imo as she wasn't really doing anything and if she is a villager she is the least impactful villager at this point. I think blind instructed raeko to shoot neither Gradiant or DBP which is funny, but I think also correct if he was coordinating night actions. If not, its just funny.

Wolves send DBP to nightkill blind, and I think this was a mistake if blind was coordinating actions as Gradiant would never get blocked there and basically has a free nightkill whereas there is a nonzero chance that DBP is wizarded.

Anyways, it didn't matter as kirkfan was blocked and the day begins with blind and kirkfan flipping VT.

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Gradiant claims the green on raeko in wolfchat instantly and outs the green on DBP right after. Fine.

star-crossed claimed the block on kirkfan at some point idr when, doesn't matter too much when.

raeko claims the shot on kirkfan again I don't remember when but it doesn't really matter much.

This is where I think the wolves needed to make it or break it. roundbox claims tracker very early on, that takes away from the person they were going to try and lynch the most. This situation seems like it is bad luck, but I think more than anything else, the wolves were punished for not taking the push on roundbox when they were given the chance.

Their lynches are really thin at this point. Raeko is pseudo confirmed via private chat shenanigans, danceguy was seered green, freezin seered him green and star-crossed has been posting really cleanly through the whole game. In this spot, you really need to find a crack and capitalize on it. You need to try and force OOTC shenanigans in your favor or take down someone else who is getting cleared from them. I think wolves should've been trying really hard to do this, and they weren't. No lynch also really helped town and I think wolves either needed to find a way to convince roundbox that the plan was bad or something similar, because their chances of winning go down a lot without a mislynch on someone that day

At 7 alive, sleeping here is fine with 2 wolves for town. vigi 0rb cycling means that the numbers probably end up odd instead of even, and that's what you want in a day phase. It forces town to lynch the next day, but that's fine as you likely want to do that anyways.

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Seer 0rb to DBP (useless for the wolves, but good for them that town didn't get it), wizard 0rb and vigi 0rb swap holders from the night before.

DBP could've seered anyone and he knew it (he tried to seer himself since he knew it didn't matter), ultimately he seered Shado, which was fine.

raeko blocked shado which... surprises me. I'd have to hear why she did that.

star-crossed is instructed to kill Gradiant, which I think spelled doom for the wolves ultimately.

Wolves sent DBP to kill roundbox, and I think that is more correct than sending Gradiant there because of Gradiant's green on DBP.

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Day begins with roundbox flipping tracker and gradiant flipping wolf, and at this point the game is basically over.

Props to DBP for throwing the hail mary and greening shado, which I think increases the win % chance because the tide at the time was pushing for his lynch, and it was an attempt to change the tide. Honestly, it was pretty smart, it just narrowed the pool too small to really work out, but it was a good idea.

I'm not going to go through the exact math here and I think DBP already worked it out in wolfchat, but the chances of town winning are extremely high at that point in the game and it'd be a pain in the ass to say the 100000 reasons why that's the case when this post is already really fucking long.

I think DBP conceding there is fine, he probably would've been lynched that day and had more important matters IRL to focus on.

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There's some more I want to say, and I definitely made a few mod mistakes this game that I want to talk about, but I think I'm gonna take a break for now.

I'll talk about each player's individual game later on as I feel like just focusing on the mechanics left a whole bunch of really good stuff out.

[Hakulyte]

Re: TWG CLXXIII Postgame Thread

I've debated whether or not I was going to chastise blind for claiming that to Haku when just about any other player would've been a safer choice of confidant, and I did say it was a bad idea in deadchat, but I think I've since reconsidered. I cannot fault someone for assuming that another player would not blow up a check like that for no real reason despite Haku's history.

After reading the setup with all the orbs + tracker, I concluded that the best wolf play was to create a red check scenario on a wolf to dissociate another wolf from being a wolf.
The idea was to create a scenario where you can dodge all the seer checks/roleblock/vigi shots.

I spent the entire game thinking Blind was either the tracker or a wolf after he claimed to me. I didn't consider the wait valuable and I wanted to throw this claim as fast as possible on the table to produce interactions.
I don't think Charu was going to be caught red-handed in any way by the time Blind was planning to claim so, I saw this like a waste of time compared to letting everyone know.

I decided to be selfish and throw myself into this to see if the real Tracker would notice my fake claim, but Roundbox never talked to me at that point and I ended up concluding that Blind was really the tracker.
I also ended up chatting with Charu because I wanted to solve the potential unlikely world where Blind is a wolf doing a red check and also the possible Charu/Blind W/W because red check N0 Charu felt too good to be true to me.

I eventually noticed that blind was asking others about if they're the tracker and I thought he was either PR hunting as wolf or trying to see if someone would CC him as Tracker.
His frustration with the Charu/DBP segment also confused me more than anything because I expected town to be hyped at the idea of finding people lying to them with "not being red checked" and "getting blocked".

I seriously thought it was because he really didn't want others to see his game like a W/W scenario with Charu.
On the off chance that Blind was Tracker, I ended up softing that I could be the Tracker to a few players by saying things that doesn't make sense as a VT, but I didn't seriously expect it to work.

I also had DBP as town because I thought it would be too ridiculous for DBP to be a wolf in the Charu/Blind W/W universe.
Anyway, that's where I was during the Charu/Blind phase. (not a good spot rofl)

[the sun fan]

Re: TWG CLXXIII Postgame Thread

why would blind claim a red on his partner though? yes, it clears him, but he took out one of the best players in the game and presumably the best wolf in the whole game for... a dice roll at winning the game?

it doesn't really matter what it looks like or doesn't look like with regards to blind making it look like he and charu aren't together because... the red check means that he's never with him

I've played hundreds of games with a cop and I've seen a player red check their partner probably less than 5 times and none of them were good plays.

[dAnceguy117]

Re: TWG CLXXIII Postgame Thread

I haven't done the math (god I said that a lot of times in DMs during the game), but I feel like that's an especially bad play in this particular setup, with so many meaningful night actions

[Hakulyte]

Re: TWG CLXXIII Postgame Thread

why would blind claim a red on his partner though? yes, it clears him, but he took out one of the best players in the game and presumably the best wolf in the whole game for... a dice roll at winning the game?

it doesn't really matter what it looks like or doesn't look like with regards to blind making it look like he and charu aren't together because... the red check means that he's never with him

I've played hundreds of games with a cop and I've seen a player red check their partner probably less than 5 times and none of them were good plays.

You're pretty much answering yourself.

As an example, hypothetically reroll this game with me as your wolf partner. Start the game with a red check on me and notice how no one in town will seer/block/vigi you.

Suddenly, you don't have to fear a random check on you and town will eventually start being confused because they can't put the game together at all because you're cleared which will lead to a bunch of mislynches.

You can almost safely find the tracker at that point and get it NK'd.

Town is going to self-destruct even if they find the other wolf because being cleared creates a nonsense in the game. Town cannot win if they don't "unclear" you.

Blind trading Charu for that advantage is so ridiculous that I don't believe anyone would have seen it coming and even if they did, others would be unlikely to support them.

I don't believe this play is viable in standard setups, but I can see it work in a game like the one with orbs to counter the RNG by forcing bad decisions assuming town decides to play logically.

[Charu]

Re: TWG CLXXIII Postgame Thread

I've played hundreds of games with a cop and I've seen a player red check their partner probably less than 5 times and none of them were good plays.

Maybe, but you saw how no one practically touched blind after that night, right?

I mean, I guess a thought could spring up down the line going "'ey wait-a minute... this guy could've done some massive bussing strat!"

But in the hypothetical situation in which wolves got the seer 0rb and then just said one of their partners was red...

...That'll just look really good for that person I feel in this setup just because the wolves HAVE access to declaring seer shots.

In other setups, it's probably not as beneficial, lol.

[inDheart]

Re: TWG CLXXIII Postgame Thread

i get what you guys are saying about the element of SURPRISE but

it still seems like something i wouldn't do as w/w

it already assumes wolves have control of the seer orb and there's so many ~better things they could do with it really

[the sun fan]

Re: TWG CLXXIII Postgame Thread

well they could still check someone else but claim the red

the game would almost certainly enter a state of auto even with blind or whoever getting massive cred

yes, its unexpected, but the reason its unexpected is because its a bad play

[the sun fan]

Re: TWG CLXXIII Postgame Thread

you're trading your partner for /maybe/ the tracker and probably some mislynches, but you will not win the game off of that play alone

[Charu]

Re: TWG CLXXIII Postgame Thread

i get what you guys are saying about the element of SURPRISE but

it still seems like something i wouldn't do as w/w

it already assumes wolves have control of the seer orb and there's so many ~better things they could do with it really

Sure, but I can see it since I saw players reacted to blind thereafter. I don't think it's as bad as you're making it out to be.

But until something like that is successfully pulled off, I doubt y'all would think it's beneficial.

Maybe it's trouble for the player if they get pass maybe 2-3 phases without someone going "why isn't blind dead yet?", but I strongly feel that the mechanical reason will always trump whatever logic reasoning anyone would come up with (That's like lynching the declared vigi when there was a block in a pha- oh wait...). Even then, town, if they really wanted to get to the bottom of it, would need to waste a seering on the specific player.

Anyways, like I said, I don't think doing this would be helpful in a normal game at all, unless wolves have access to something that allows them to "seer".

...

Maybe I'm just dumb and the TWG gods at the moment are thinking beyond my comprehension.

[Charu]

Re: TWG CLXXIII Postgame Thread

Lets just say...

I can make it happen and work

Hee hee hee

[Charu]

Re: TWG CLXXIII Postgame Thread

At least I think I can make it work.

[the sun fan]

Re: TWG CLXXIII Postgame Thread

MVP to star-crossed. Ill do player write ups later today v sorry for the delay

[the sun fan]

Re: TWG CLXXIII Postgame Thread

I double dog dare you, dog
@Charu saying he can get away with seering a partner red