WW39. Escape from the Congo.

[Gazglum]

Day 3 can come later. I want chocolate.

[AdrienIer]

Gazglum you've expressed my thoughts on the first days better than I could have. Either that or you're a wolf doing a superb job. But I doubt you could be so right if you were a wolf.

On an other matter I just realized that I was going to be mostly unavailable for the last half of the last day.

[Gazglum]

Of course you are Adrien. Of course.

Encyclopedia Zakonica

DAY 3

I come out voting Adren. Shadeun votes Adrien.
Zak then does a big post pushing pretty equal suspicion against Adrien and Matt, but doesn't vote. Options: open.

Me and Adrien fight, Adrien says its Zak/Matt

Zak and Matt still haven't voted. Are they looking for an opening?

Shadeun plays minimally.

Matt now points the finger at Zak and makes a good case for it, building on what he said Day 2. He's almsot certain that Zak is with Adrien though. This could be crafty ScumMatt though, because Adrien already has two strong votes on him. So Matt is in a position where he can swing to Adrien at deadline without suspicion (because he thinks its Zak/Adrien), and he also looks good if Zak hangs.

Adrien and Matt are both very friendly to me Day 3. Overly sure on their town reads on me? I guess they both need my support either way.

BTW, AdrienIer, why would I kill Novice? As far as I'm aware, he was the only one with a strong town lean on me.

Why indeed? Zak has ridden patsy Novice to victory before. This is a strong anti-Matt tell, because he was the only one Novice had voiced suspicion of. Novice is always a good kill of course, but I think that Adrien/Zak might have preferred the Shadeun kill. I suppose Shadeun/Zak could have wanted Novice gone.

The main argument against Zak/Matt is how Zak played Day 3. Very badly, in that case. If it is Matt and Zak, they could probably have won yesterday if Zak had just slammed the hammer down on Adrien, because it was Zak's wishy-washiness that made me suspect him more. And when Zak moved to Adrien he did it so half-arsedly. A misplay, but it would have been a very tense day for Matt/Zak or Adrien/Zak.

Matt keeps a low profile, again, after his main post. Then says:

We do need 4-1 to be safe against the last minute switch if it's not town aligned (and it's currently not; there's at least one scum voting Adrien). Only issue is, 4v1 means at least one scum voting - and is it because they're trying to blend in (good for us) or because they're fine with the lynch (bad for us)?

I'd honestly prefer the pile to be on Zak. His actions today, since Gaz doubled down on him, have been really bad. On the other hand, That would involve coordinated switching, and I've had a scum read on Adrien for a lot longer than just today.
Lock in AdrienIer

If we can pull Shadeun, then Zak. Else, we're all now on Adrien, and in my mind they're almost certainly both scum, so leaving as they are is not exactly bad.

Hedging again? He keeps beating the drum on Zak, but he joins us on Adrien and implies that it will be too difficult to cordinate a move off. But i mean this is really a null tell, because Town Matt plays it the same way.

Me and Shadeun swtich to Zak, and then Matt is the last to change over, but it all happens very fast.

At this point Zak knows he's done, and so I will ignore what he says as psy-ops.

Matt does not join in the celebrations after Zak's death.

[AdrienIer]

Of course you are Adrien. Of course.

Huh ? I have an exam from 1:30 to 4:30. So no way I can be around from noon to 5:30. And then my town's football team has won the French third division so I'm going to their last game at 8:30. Which means I'm not sure I'll be back for deadline. You seem to have come to the same conclusion I did two days ago, so if Shadeun dies I won't have to sway you and if you die I hope you'll have shown the light to Shadeun.

[Gazglum]

Well, there we go. Something to look at.

I think Adrien has played a scummy game. Following others with his votes, backing off when challenged, vague attacks on Shadeun and Matt, too defensive. And of course Zak's big scum play was to save him. Attacking your partner all game while not voting them is the kind of tactic Zak would use. But the voting detail in the middle of Day 1 is hard to match to Zak/Adrien.

Shadeun has played a minimalist and very safe game. He has very little interaction with Zak, and managed to avoid pressure from everybody for no good reason. I can't see anything much -against- him being paired with Zak, except that his tone just feels pretty natural to me. Nothing scummy I can point to. Also Zak giving him a town lean instead of pressuring him makes me think that Zak was looking to woo Shadeun's vote, and there would have been more distancing if they were teamed.

Mattimeo has played well, and I think his posts have been well constructed. If he had been participating more I would have a pretty strong town lean on him. But when you look back through the game, I think a lot of the meta-tells point to him. He and Zak basically ignore each other, but both step up to gently derail bandwagons that start to build against the other in a very 'pro-scum team' way. The Novice-kill fits scum Matt. After a full re-read, my gut is now telling me Matt is scum, even though he has objectively played better than Adrien.

In before Matt responds with "there's nothing I can defend against!"

[Gazglum]

Sorry Adrien, didn't mean to make it sound like i thought you were lying. I just found it an amusing continuation of your 'live life close to the edge' game that you won't be around to protect yourself at the last hour.

[AdrienIer]

But the voting detail in the middle of Day 1 is hard to match to Zak/Adrien.

This is very true. Why wait until the last minute and make it look weird ? We would have had a million years to vote for Bob together and save my ass without it looking bad.

[Shadeun]

Thanks Gaz. You made it 1000% easier for me to write this up. There may be some overlap (I forgot parts of your post by the
time I got to the D3 bit).

Combinations // D1 Play by Zak if hes AdrienIer's Buddy
I really think that the ferocity of the Zak attack on Adrien from D1 to be almost beyond belief if he was scum buddies - one more vote and he's dead D1 seems like a massive gambit to make. The below quote (from your post gaz) is the best 'tipping point' from when I previously mentioned Zak+Adrien to be less likey than I thought after reading Zaks stuff.

So you reread the thread and saw that thing about causality stand out as something you really disagreed with? I don't even see the connection between that quote and your case that I'm desperately trying to start wagons. It's pretty linear? What are you even talking about. This seems like a completely arbitrary quote in relation to the case that you are making.

Surely you try and head it off in some other way? Or, if you are in that position, you just let them die on deadline rather than switch as scum.

I dont think you make that bet.

Again, the hard evidence says he switched to save scumbuddy, but everything leading to that point suggests that it was a switch knowing that AdrienIer would be easy later. And, I think, you don't let it get to that point in the first place if he is your scumbuddy.

On matt: we can't make such cases because there was very little until late day 2 to go on. As you thoroughly dug out there are little bits to point to slight defence of Zak....

Operation Indirect Partner Defence
I also like the passive defense arguments and a little condensed deconstruction below:

Passive Defence of Matt:
- Adrien combo's again, matt not found.
-Gives me town points to further justify AdrienIer push (very dangerous if Adrien is scumbuddy).
- Matt doesn't work with Adrien, therefore adrien more scummy and vote him. The line of attack/defence used by matt also to vote adrien.

Since everybody has switched to discussing scum pairs I guess I will do the same. I think AdrienIer + Novice makes a lot of sense holistically speaking, closely followed by AdrienIer + Gazglum. Maybe AdrienIer + Shadeun works too, but I'm not getting scum vibes from Shadeun today.

Gazglum, I suspected Bob yesterday so I lynched him. I'm suspecting AdrienIer today, so I'm voting to lynch him. You can try to construct a contradiction out of that by spamming me with nearly-identical questions, or focus on something more productive.

Rowain, by staying on AdrienIer, I did get to decide whether he or Bob should hang. Why would I switch to 3:3:2 to "ensure that one of them would hang"? That makes no sense.

I did not mean to say earlier that I was equally uneasy with all the AdrienIer voters. I was most uneasy with Lewwyn, and a little uneasy with Rowain and Shadeun. And before anyone asks, my opinions have evolved since then. Shadeun didn't really articulate a proper reason for voting for AdrienIer. But he was more eloquent during the night, pointing out (in a very towny way) why I made a bad call by switching to Bob.

If AdrienIer flips innocent then I would likely turn back to Rowain and Shadeun. Gazglum and Novice could still be scum, but I mainly suspect them as AdrienIer's buddy.

As people have been pointing out, Mattimeo is compatible with just about anyone, except probably not AdrienIer. Lynching him for purely strategic reasons feels risky to me, but maybe you can argue that it's necessary. We should still keep discussing who the scum are in the event that he is innocent, though. Ideally he feels better and makes a convincing comeback.

Passive Defence of Zak
- Again the same point, saying Adrien because PARTNER doesn't work without him. Coordinated plan?

The case on Zak is pretty much entirely dependent on Adrien bring scum. I mean, little hard for the "sit on scum buddy all day then switch last minute" theory to play out if the person he's been sitting on all day (Adrien) turns out to not actually be scum.

If you force a race between Zak and non-Adrien, then (apart from being suspicious of your motives) I'll come down on Zak, but Adrien's the one I've suspicions of regardless of pair, while Zak I'm mostly suspicious of as a partner of Adrien.

- the below D1 post by matt on zak couldn't be more indicative of a plan to use AdrienIer as a patsy
- Notably: Also gives lewwyn town lean (which is true, and hard to hold against)

Zak is engaging nicely, but then he generally does that. And switching votes excessively, but, again, he generally does that. Lewwyn has an interesting point about the Adrien vote, though. No real lean.
Lewwyn's main contribution is that large zak-analysis while not considering it worth switching to him. Slight town for actual analysis happening.

-Again the case of matt defending zak. In the rest of the quote (left out, post#197) he makes a better case for zak but, makes it contingent on adrien - and then votes adrien.

But yeah. AdrienIer and Zak are pretty much my suspects here. Only two scum, and a mountainous game. You have to play aggressive. And it really looks like they're just using a tactic that's been proven to work (while killing off the one who used it, no less).

Ultimately:
-The quotes above (and some more from Gaz's post) make me think, given Zak is a smart player, the only thing that makes sense is Zak/Mattimeo as the assaults from both of them on him (direct and indirect) were just too strong for either of them to be his (AdrienIer's) buddy.
-Although everything about the switch screams of AdrienIer being Zak's buddy. The line of play to Zak took to get there was just way to risky as scum to be justified (I believe).
-The line and style of Mattimeo's attacks on Adrien were very similar to Zaks. Using the same 'doesnt work in the combo' line to defend the Adrien over zak play.
-Last night Matt studiously avoided the switch discussion (I wasn't either to be fair) but was clearly awake given previous posts.

Scum-Gaz?
Not going to go into Gazglum too much. His entire game has been scum hunting and there seems to be very little to link and was the one that ultimately forced me to Zakalwe and (may have) saved the game last night. I don't think you do this to your scum buddy and extend the game another day when you could just win by staying on Zak. Actually, the same thing is a good late game defense of AdrienIer.

[Shadeun]

Best of luck guys

[Shadeun]

Its not deadline?