Balki the issue is that the only kind of person who is both active in the thread, is experienced at mafia and somehow goes 6 days without having any candidates for ghost despite a litanny of information, is the ghost themself. That is my qualm. Sure it would be more suspicious if you were still not forthcoming on any particular stances, but considering the ghost is two mislynches from a win or something like that, it's far from the tipping point.

So sorry, but I've got a big exam tomorrow and I really doubt anyone will accuse me of low participation.

I never actually thought Oztra was the ghost. I just wanted to know how he would react to being voted. Turns out, he doesn't react at all.

##vote Balki

I'll be around for end of day, but it's not like I'll have much to say, so looking forward to that and all.

P.S. is anyone here well versed in financial mathematics?

"Balki the issue is that the only kind of person who is both active in the thread, is experienced at mafia and somehow goes 6 days without having any candidates for ghost despite a litanny of information, is the ghost themself."

I did not go 6 days without having any candidates for ghost. That is a silly thing to say.

You need to read my comment in context. It was a response, I believe, to Snowy saying something to the effect of: "Tell me who the ghost is." Or, "if not ___, then who?" I was commenting that I couldn't rule anyone out.

But I've certainly had ghost suspicions. I voted to lynch Kakarroto because I thought he was ghost. Last night my leading ghost candidate was rdrivera, as I said repeatedly, and for reasons I explained in thread. Today, after my reaction test, my leading candidate is Oztra, for reasons I explained in thread. And I think Zorclex is a reasonable candidate too.

If you truly believe what you say, that I have "gone 6 days without having any candidates for ghost," then you have not read the thread, or you are so marooned on Conf Bias Island that you can see nothing but "Balki is Ghost" in any text you read.

For whichever one of you is ghost, you have my respect. For the rest of you, you suck at this. Truly.

@Vashta, I want a framed 8x10. None of this wallet BS.

I'll probably send you either way as a reminder of our relationship. Do you want me doing my "this guy" pose, my "thinker" pose, or my valentines day special pose.

@Vash - I really envy your assurance.

@Balki - On your reaction test on Vashta you don't think he is ghost. Could him to be the last scum?

I believe the "thinker" pose will be most appropriate.

And just to be clear for posterity's sake, after all of the answers I've provided today, are you still dead set sure I am the scum? Like, more sure about me than about any of your prior lynch votes in any other game?

I have changed my mind so many times today that I am starting to have a headache.

@rdrivera, he could be scum. But this is my general thought on Vashta: he is playing very much like a confirmation biased townie. He has been out to lynch me for a long time. He was "sure" I was ghost days ago. Everything that happens, he wraps into his narrative that it must mean that I am ghost.

On the fact of it, that's scummy. But, in my experience, this is much more often a confirmation biased townie. Scum are usually much more afraid to own a mislynch like this. And of course, only they know it is a mislynch. They usually hedge more. And they usually keep their options open more.

Of course, like anything, this could be a carefully acted ruse in order to play the role of a confirmation biased townie. That's possible. But, frankly, I don't think Vashta is that good. If he is, and he is just pretending to be a confirmation biased townie, my hat's off to him. Well played.

Pretty damn sure Balki, more sure than i was sure HR was scum last game, if I eat my words, I eat them. But I feel I've justified my view enough.

Like, who is their right mind, as scum, would come up with a plan to just interpret everything as meaning "Balki is ghost," and drive a mislynch on him for days and days? I just don't buy that as a strategy that anyone would adopt. But it's quite common for a townie to do that.

I'll add -- it really sucks that Oztra and Zorclex are ostensibly players in this game, but do not actually participate at all. Makes me feel happier to be done with it.

No worries Vashta. Conf Bias is an alluring mistress, and it's hard to break away once she sinks her teeth into you. I've been there. It's too bad we don't have enough active teammates to help you see more clearly.

When I flip, save the victim blaming. Go read my reaction test conclusions. I think I've done a lot more thread reading than anyone else here.

I'll try to spend some time thinking about who the final mafia member is before I'm lynched.

I'm rather preoccupied. But very briefly. I think the case against Balki is still pretty good. But I also think Oztra has a decent chance of being the ghost. I do think Balki is is actually reaction testing. But ultimately what it comes down to for me is Vash has had horrible judgement all game. I feel far more comfortable voting with Snowy than I do with Vash.

Plus Oztra was my top ghost read to start with.
Why, it's plausible he missed a phase which explains the missing kill
He tried to engage early, took a lot of heat and went dormant.
Has proceeded to just vote along major lines without offering any ghost reads of his own.

This is all ghostly behaviour, and while the case against Balki is fine, I don't think it's really as good as the one against Oztra

Notice that snowy flipped back

And you changed your vote before snowy did

I am going to post my thoughts on the final Goon in a series. I'm not sure I'll be able to get to everyone in the next hour. Note that my thoughts on the final ghost are above.

BALDURAN/ZORC FOR GOON?

I originally thought that Balduran’s Day 1 was pretty scummy because he didn’t really take strong positions and he seemed to avoid controversy. But his Day 1 looks much better on re-read. He was on DemonOverlord for most of the day, but switched to Maniac with 11 minutes to go after telling us about his car crash. He stayed there for the lynch.

To me, that is pretty compelling evidence suggesting that Balduran/Zorclex is not the final goon.

I have played in one other game with Zorclex. He basically did nothing, and was subbed out for inactivity. Here, it seems like he was asked to play, but never really wanted to play, so it’s hard to draw any conclusions from his complete failure to participate.

I’m not firm on this, but on the strength of Balduran’s Maniac vote on Day 1, I think this is an unlikely slot for final Goon. The Maniac vote does not, however, disqualify this slot from being ghost.

OFFICIAL VOTE COUNT 7.6
Balki Bartokomous (4) VashtaNeurotic, Oztra, zorclex, rdrivera2005
Oztra (3) Balki Bartokomous, damian, snowy801

End votes: 1/4. VashtaNeurotic
Balki is set to be lynched

44 min remain

OZTRA FOR GOON?

Wow, Oztra’s re-read is awfully thin. 38 total posts. If this guy beats us, shame on us.

One thing I had forgotten is that Oztra voted for Snowy all day on Day 1 and did not change his vote. That looks pretty terrible (and pretty ghostly). He just did not seem to care who was lynched.

He made his push on Snowy on page 2. Here is his stated reasoning: “i think snowy is deliberately trying to mislead people so that he and the mafia can gain a foothold and start killing people just my thought, and warranting how my vote is gud.”

He said a couple of other things for reasoning, but nothing that I can really decipher. Oztra also said he scumread stupidfighter, after that wagon got going. And he said he scumread Darg after Darg said that Oztra was scummy.

After the flip, Oztra said: “well that was a waste of a day. Sorry. probs shoulda been active and voted rip.”

Since then, he really has hardly posted. He hops on to cast a vote, and leaves a sentence or less to justify it. Here are some examples:

“yeah ok. might do more stuff. and will dedicate time. sorry rdriv. then $$vote Moscow”
“im thinking that scum protects scum, and peterlund is trying to create confusion between everyone and pointing fingers. so therefore **vote peterlund”
“&&vote maniac why bye, im still here :(“
“Hey everyone. Crappy hotel wifi here. Sorry for the storm I've evidently created here :(
&&vote Damien”
“Oh wait better not tie %%vote ogion”
“well, ive been on a plane and sleeping for the past day and a bit, so ill try to keep what i have thought about this short. Glen seems like a likely candidate as he has not really posted or done anything, and is probs scum, but am not sure about anyone else. &&vote glen”
“ok then. reading the evidence **vote balki”

It is, of course, possible that Oztra is just the worst player in the history of mafia, except for maybe Zorclex. But it’s also possible that Oztra does not look like he is trying to solve a puzzle because he has no puzzle to solve.

I think Oztra is ghost. But if he isn’t, he is probably the final goon.

Did snowy flip back? And yes I changed my vote first. That wasn't why I made the decision. It's more why I'm sticking with it.

OFFICIAL VOTE COUNT 7.7
Balki Bartokomous (5) VashtaNeurotic, Oztra, zorclex, rdrivera2005, snowy801
Oztra (2) Balki Bartokomous, damian

End votes: 1/4. VashtaNeurotic
Balki is set to be lynched

44 min remain

VASHTA FOR GOON?

I don’t think so. I mentioned that I don’t think “pretend to be confirmation bias/obsessed townie is a strategy that anyone would adopt. It is just so conspicuous.

Vashta’s voting history, however, looks bad.

On Day 1, he was on DemonOverlord all day, except for a brief hiatus on Ikaneko.

On Day 5, he was on Damian all day.

On Day 6, he was on Balki, and then Glen.

And he is about to drive a mislynch on me.

That is an ugly voting history. He was, of course, on HR, Maniac, and Peterlund, but only after each of those votes was obvious (and unanimous).

Can’t rule out Vashta. But I still suspect he is just bad town.

@bb: http://mafia.peterlund.se/e/web/game_status

RDRIVERA FOR GOON?

Certainly possible.

Rdrivera’s vote history:

Day 1: Started on stupidfighter, moved to Ikaneko and stayed there through the lynch
Day 5: First person to vote Ogion. Then left the thread, stayed there all day.
Day 6: Fourth Glen voter. Stayed there all day.
Day 7: One of the later Balki voters. Keeps saying he is unsure, but has not moved his vote.

To me, the most townie I have seen rdrivera was in his response to my reaction test. Though, a goon would have no reason to react much differently to my test than town. Rdrivera looked to have a fairly town process when he was responding, but not in a way that couldn’t be faked by someone who had no information about the QT.

I think there is a decent chance that rdrivera is final scum.

Best evidence in his favor is his early Ogion vote on Day 5. On the other hand, he did not drive that lynch. He was gone all day.

This is a tough one for me. I guess I lean town, on balance, but I’m not sure.

##GM NOTE Not all players check the bot. When end hammers are active I like to keep people up to date woth the votes. Additionally my previous vote tally was not updated on bot when I refreshed the page.

As in : I get all my votes from the bot. And cross reference for discrepencies.

Balki, you are trying to draw suspicion to anyone but yourself. you're trying to dig yourself out of your hole without any avail, and therefore making yourself seem more guilty. gj

SNOWY FOR GOON?

Whoa, Snowy’d Day 1 vote history looks quite bad for him. He was on Bo Sox for a long time (and asked me to shoot Bo Sox), then he went to Dargoyle, then he switched to Maniac with 4 minutes to go. Then he switched to DemonOverlord at the wire.

On a very quick re-read, Snowy seemed to say very little to suggest that he was scumreading DemonOverlord before swapping from Maniac to DemonOverlord in the final minute. He said this:

“I also think this case on DO built on the, as you and others have said, mountain out of molehill on her pitchfork comment is garbage and said as much earlier. But I think there's reason to scum read her without that.”

That’s not much.

I’m not sure that Snowy has received enough questioning about this late vote switch. His vote came right after Hellenic Riot said this:

“Roll up on DO tbh. Balduran's wagon is awful.”

Ick.

This needs more questioning. And more looking in the Day 1 thread for evidence that Snowy had some justification for saving Maniac with that vote swap.

Snowy has not had much attention because he can’t be the ghost. And that makes sense. Ghost is priority right now. But when y’all turn back to hunting goons. This EOD1 is critical, and Snowy looks very bad.

Day 5 Snowy was on Ogion almost all day. That looks pretty townie.

Funny that Snowy wrote this on Night 1: “I think if Balki is scum he is a godly actor, which is not out of the question, but I doubt it.” But now he seems sure I am scum.

I’m running out of time. Roughly, I think Snowy is slightly more likely to be goon than rdrivera. I’d say in order of potential scumminess, it looks like this:

Ogion > Snowy > rdrivera > Vashta > Balduran/Zorc

Checking Moscow/Damian next.

I mixed up Oztra with Ogion above. I meant Oztra.

@Oztra, I see that I am going to be lynched. I'm just trying to leave my thoughts for town after I flip town.