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- Ecophagy
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Member for 15 years, 7 months, and 7 days
Last active Sat, Jun, 25 2022 06:28:13
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Oct 13, 2014
Ecophagy posted a message on Mafia StatsWTF happened to the formatting?Posted in: Ecophagy Blog -
Feb 22, 2013
Ecophagy posted a message on Need help building deckI don't know if you're still interested in comments, but I thought I'd chip something in:i n short, the deck is very slow and vulnerable. It's a 3 card como that is vulnerable to artifact and creature hate. Looking at your "ideal sequence of plays" I notice that it is at best a turn 5 goldfish, with basically no interaction with opponents except for 3 remand and 2 path. Almost every deck can race you if your best start is a T5 goldfish. You also need +1 card to kill with, which is a gifts or one of your 4 X spells.Posted in: Void Blog
Compare it to other similar decks, namely control/combo decks: Splinter Twin and Scapeshift. The former races you with a 2 card combo, which they have 8 pieces of each, and the latter goldfishes T5 while playing disruption and cryptic command into a protected Scapeshift. Another similar deck is the Ritual Gifts deck, which is similar in that it wants to play gifts->win. The problem is that it's easier for that deck to win off gifts (Past in Flames is awesome), and again it runs more disruption and Merchant scroll for tutoring Gifts/silver bullets.
On top of that, Deathrite Shaman has made Gifts Ungiven strategies very vulnerable of late.
In terms of improving the deck itself, cut the Borderpost+Wayfarer. They don't do anything exciting at all. Secondly, you don't need so many big X spells. You're not running enough ramp for them to be playable outside of the combo, so they're dead draws (especially Diabolic Revelation). Devil's Play is probably good enough since it has flashback, or just use BSZ sunce Drift of Phantasms can find it. I'd consider cutting Gifts, since relying on it makes your already slow combo even slower.
Sorry to be such a downer, but the deck just doesn't look like it does anything as well as other similar decks
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Feb 23, 2010
Ecophagy posted a message on ced395's Mafia StatsI swear you got NK'd in Refrigerator because you were confirmed town, since I got a town result upon investigating you.Posted in: ced395 Blog
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No ***** sherlock. You said this five days ago and you have gone absolutely nowhere with it.
I just don't really see how it requires pre-planning. He's got a scumread on Crossbell, couches it with "if it's Osie the case is weaker" because others bring up Osie, then when it turns out it is Osie he unvotes as the wagon falls apart and changes target. I don't think he would plan it in advance, he just has to make sure if Crossbell turns out to be Osie he reacts appropriately (and others in thread gave him a lead to follow). Maybe scum GF would be more keen to stick with his vote after the reveal, but the wagon fell apart anyway and he didn't want to be holding the bag.
I see your PBPA on me is basically "Cantrip lurked, Eco hasn't left scum range". These may both be true, but it's not exactly a slam dunk. I was trying to coax KJ into doing something town so I could see if his unified opinions made consistent sense - but he never even tried so giving him rope turned out to just be a waste of time. You're also totally correct that I didn't engage with LW because I just didn't think it would produce anything because of very obvious playstyle clash - I can't just ask him "LW is all this weird ***** you're doing town??" because he'd just say yes and call me a boomer. It was also a bit of a test for you, Proph, to see if my expressing doubt might cause you to tactically waver in your read.
It does sooth any remaining paranoia that your post is essentially a conf-biasy PoE read - if you'd produced loads of scum tells that would have looked way over-eager to bury me.
+++++
It is very telling that not only has KJ completely failed to do the one he promised to do toDay, but he has also stalled long enough that he has seen what everyone else thinks of Proph in detail first. It looks like he's just deliberately subsiding into Grape's planned bus.
Since I can't be here at the deadline I am ok with a plan like this. This specific order looks fine?
Grapefruit on KJ: Null/can't recall until a light town read in #768, lists KJ as wolf in #775, scumish reading in #996, votes KJ in #1062, and D3 has been on Proph/KJ team pretty consistently.
KJ on Grapefruit: null untill townish in #941, town in #990, then listed as possible scum/PoE in #1086 and #1117
There have been a minimal direct questions between the two (#947 is the main example), so I can't see any real attempt to figure the other out by either; just listed as null and falling down into the PoE. This makes Grape voting KJ and listing him as top scum D3 really the only notable interaction between the two. It's a bit of a weird thing to do to your buddy, but I can easily see them both reluctant to make a hard read either way then Grape deciding KJ is dead wood at this stage and going for the bus. There's certainly no cohesive pattern that rules out a KJ/Grape team in my mind.
Honestly? I don't think so. Maybe I wouldn't bother to go as in depth on Last's meta as scum, but I can't know for sure. But as arrogant as it sounds, I feel like my scum range is (or at least was) virtually infinite. You know the right way to read me is to try and look behind my posts and work out if I'm truly trying to work things out or not.
I don't think KJ was realistically going to happen at that point, so I guess it was just a little distancing to make F5 easier. But you're right it was a bit weird, I'll try and go through all their interactions and see if there's anything else.
You are pretty much right that it basically just comes down to who KJ and Proph think the team are though.
I meant because Proph town read Osie and was right. Since Grape was wolf-reading Proph and ended up agreeing with him that GJ was town-looking, I think town-Grape would have been more interested in reevaluating Proph than he was.
Because other players did as well for the same reason, and Grape didn't want to be left holding the bag on the wagon. Note that in #474 when Grape unvoted he said "Definitely going to need to reevaluate and see how much of my case still makes sense with that meta." but never actually did.
Oh you're right, Grape scum-read Crossbell then bailed on that read when Osie revealed himself. Then it became a town read when GJ replaced in for ??. It would matter because if you vote someone who you think is scum and they flip town, you should at least try and reevaluate the person who read them as town rather than just plough on. But since the vote on GJ was self-pres then I guess that doesn't count against Grape so much.
On (1) I don't really agree. Obviously I can only read #499 with hindsight, but it seems like the read was Proph saying things Osie did weren't as scummy as they appeared - and that's pretty fine for D1. Especially since Proph got a headstart by correctly guessing Crossbell was Osie, and actually trying to out Crossbell's identity to support the town read with meta is a good look for Proph. If Proph had been mafia defending town-Osie, I would have expected Proph to come in D2 and start hunting via the wagon, but he didn't: suggesting it wasn't a tactical play.
I also don't think I fully agree with (2) - I: think Proph has mostly been pretty good at putting his reads out there and voting them as opposed to looking for wagons. I certainly find it hard to think of a scum agenda behind the Osie reveal and DV read. Where I do agree with Grape (and this bleeds into (3)) is the focus on DoTA specifically and the reaction to DoTA's flip - and the comparison between KJ and DoTA is actually very interesting (but could be explainable by Proph just choosing to sheep Axel over his own judgement on KJ).
So the case on Proph is not without merit, but I'm coming away with "is that it?". Yeah, Proph got sloppy over DoTA and I came to similar misgivings above. But Proph also has a very large body of work that Grape is overlooking malciously. All the D1 has been handwaved as "agenday" (and Grape never responded when I asked for clarification on D2) with focus put on individual events that look bad instead of within the wider context of Proph's ISO and the game. It doesn't help that if Proph is town, then GF has to be scum who has just been pushing this fringe case all game instead of having to engage with active wagons. Let's not forget that after Grape voted Osie and he flipped town, Grape's world view basically didn't change: he kept pushing Proph.
That being said, I have managed to review Proph.
On D1, I have real trouble seeing the Mafia agenda behind his play - he scum read LW, but then totally flipped to a town read. As mafia he could have easily left it as a "still scummy" read and moved elsewhere, but he's stuck to town LW relgiously even though it hasn't really encouraged LW to town read him back. He even helped me get to town LW where as scum he could have used my reservations as an excuse to doubt his own town read.
He voted DV but changed his mind, and could safely have voted DV while arguing with him over Osie. #660 maintains a negative (but not scum) read of DV, but has the self-awareness to recognise it's more because of emotional reasons rather than genuine scum tells. This is another case where scum-Proph could easily have parked a vote and a hard scum read, but it looks like Proph has been more interested in solving than in taking easy avenues. That DV got NK'd also ruled out Proph being able to push DV on D2, which would have been a very viable scum plan.
The defence of Osie is another big plus - while defending a town read is not a new scum play, Proph really went above and beyond despite catching flak. Not so much in the "town case" in #499, but the argument with DV had genuine passion, and I just can't see scum bothering to compile #623. Proph also genuninely pushed alternative wagons and wasn't a million miles away from saving GJ at the death (the replacement was also an option for Proph to lose strength in his Osie town read had he wanted). Speaking of those alternative wagons, Proph called the team KJ and Grape in #501 and voted both of them before EoD, which is looking impressively prescient and a strong mark against him being buddies with either.
D2, and scum-Proph again could have pushed the KJ/FD team that he settled on in his #616 "legacy" reads, but instead tried to push DoTArchon then Cantrip (briefly) for content. This is another case where Proph could have simply rested on the work already done, put down a safe vote, and coast. I'm not wild about Proph's deferral to Axelrod over KJ and his settling on DoTA/EcoTrip team as that was definitely the lowest hanging fruit (#883), especially since despite a fair amount of interaction Proph didn't really try to read me, just relied on Cantrip's very few posts and PoE. However, I find it quite difficult to scumread Proph for this because I thought DoTA was scum as well (oops), and Proph is at least showing flexibility in his reads rather than rigidly sticking to his D1 convictions.
D3 - Not a fan of Proph's lamenting over DoTA at the start of the Day. DoTA had a lot of scum points against him, and never really made an effort to appear town or save himself, so it's a bit over the top for Proph to "blame himself" for it - certaintly the doubts listed in #1110 should really have been brought up before the fact. That being said, Proph has still been fairly spiky and engaged toDay - I'll believe the behind-the-scenes work on ISOs when I see it but the LW summary is a good start (and another opportunity to express doubt passed up). I do like that he came into the Day having to reevaluate his world after the DoTA flip - it would have been easy for scum-Proph to either keep pusing EcoTrip by PoE or just pick whichever of KJ/GF isn't his buddy and bury them. A lot does come down to his final set of reads, how good the analysis is, and how well they line with his progressions.
Overall, D1 looks really good for Proph. I just can't see why he would make so many big calls or not seek safe/conservatives plays as scum when both are really against his natural desire when playing as Mafia. However, when I started this I basically wrote Proph off as obv town and was prepared to just go through the motions, but actually late D2 and the start of D3 has given me pause. D2 in particular was a lot lower energy, barning Axel, and voting for the softest team. I think I can see this from a town perspective of someone with a confident PoE (which #660 was) relaxing because no-one listened to them over Osie/GJ, and at least the start of D2 was good, but the main thing I'd be looking for in scum Proph is the energy levels dropoing off after the D1 he had. I don't think they have dropped as far as they could have, even in to D3 assuming these ISOs do come out and he has been engaged even if there hasn't been reams of content.
So yeah, I ultimately think Proph probably is town because I really struggle to see D1 coming from scum, and the bits I don't like are not impossible to have come from town with a confident PoE and irritation at having been ignored D1. Not as confident as I want to be after the D1, but enough that I think if scum-Proph really was pulling out all the stops and going against his natural scum game for the last MTGS game then he wouldn't be slowing down and trying to reevalute: he'd be trying to control the game and just hard push his PoE for the win.
GF/Proph is unlikely because I don't think scum-GF's strategy would be to spend the whole game trying to bus his senior (or at least more active) partner. Grape/Wisp because I think Wisp is town. Wisp/Proph because their interactions would be an unbelieveable and unnecesary level of scum theatre, espcially compared to how the interacted as buddies in the Throne of Lies game.
But that you don't know all this makes you look pretty desperate - or do you have some counter argument or behavioural evidence for one of these teams?
In fact, since Proph/Grape is a very unlikely team, KJ pretty much has to be Mafia here regardless of how strong the case is on him.
So, sorry I posted "just" facts at the start of the Day, but we are fundamentally on the same side here. Just trying to work out if Proph or Grape is the last bad guy.
The flip is the main thing making me nervous about you - you spent the whole Day talking about a DoTA/Eco team, and I know (now) that that's two townies. To your credit you haven't gunned straight for me toDay, but scum-Proph probably knows that's high risk anyway.
I think KJ/GF interaction could make sense as buddies - GF is expecting to be ignored, but if KJ does go down then that gives GF a great opening to push for Proph as the game-winning execute. The big question is if they are really playing coherently enough as a team to do that sort of thing.
Right now? I don't think you're Mafia. But I also don't strongly think both the others are either, and someone has to be. At least your ISO has enough content that the reread should result in a more confident conclusion.
Reading Tarot did downgrade the read from "slam dunk", and yeah I'd like to hear from You/Grape about what you guys think of Tarot, but LW has been doing more of the town meta things than not. Like I said in my initial meta-dive if LW is scum emulating his town game, he's doing so in the most difficult way possible by posting more, throwing his vote around, and being less filtered.
But it's not like I've actually lost my town read on you - I really do struggle to see the scum motivation behind most of your key actions. It's just a) LW is a read I've put effort into recently so it's easier for me to treat is my #1 prior and b) if I rule you both out then the team has to exactly be KJ/GF. I'm not wild about just shrug-executing the PoE without due diligence and with the levels of content you're the easiest person to read.