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Finally... => Forum Games and Roleplaying => Mafia => Topic started by: notquitethere on April 19, 2021, 04:02:02 am

Title: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: notquitethere on April 19, 2021, 04:02:02 am
We've been invited to the big league again. It's a nice opportunity to play at a different level and make friends in other mafia-playing communities. I've copied their invite below:



INVITATION TO THE MAFIA CHAMPIONSHIP (SEASON 8)

Ahoy there! :)

I’m very excited to invite your community to participate in Season 8 of the Mafia Championship.

The Mafia Championship is an annual forum-based tournament series that pits representatives from various online Mafia (aka Werewolf) communities against one another as they compete to determine the Internet’s greatest forum Mafia player. Each participating community democratically elects one person to represent them and be their “Champion”.

The tournament first started back in 2013. Since then, 320+ different communities and 50+ different nationalities have been represented.

It’s a super fun event that has created many new friendships and close bonds between communities. I hope that you would be interested in taking part :)

1. DO YOU ACCEPT THE INVITATION?

If your community wishes to participate, please confirm your participation to Lissa as soon as you can to ensure yourselves a spot. Currently, the plan is to accommodate 150 communities this season. If there is further interest, additional communities may sign up as substitutes; generally there are some replacements needed both before and during games.

If your community agrees to participate, the deadline for selecting your representative is May 7th, but the sooner the better.

The games will take place on Mafia Universe. If it’s okay, I can link directly to the general discussion thread regarding this topic on Mafia Universe.

Important notes
2. SEASON 8 FORMAT

The tournament structure
This year’s setup: Gold Rush 15er
The setup features 15 roles consisting  of the following:

2x Mafia Goons
1x Mafia Roleblocker
1x Town Motion Detector
1x 1-Shot Town Vigilante (n2+)
1x Town Doctor
9x Vanilla Townie


Flips are alignment only.

Relevant mechanics info
- Day start.
- Majority elimination is enabled Day 2+, but majority is not required at any point for the elimination.
- Tied votes will result in a player being eliminated at random from among the tied players.
- No outside communication. I.e. you may not contact the other players outside of the thread (unless you are Mafia and wish to speak with your teammates).
- Phase Lengths and Deadlines will be up to the players themselves (I’ll organize your representative into a game with deadlines that suit their preferences).
- Thread is locked during Night Phases.
- Votes are automatically locked in at LYLO.
- Mafia factional kills are assigned. They can be tracked, watched, roleblocked, etc. (In this setup, that means they display as an action to the Motion Detector action.)
- Mafia share a factional Night Kill, which is a single standard shot for their faction. The mafia faction kill is mandatory.
- Mafia may communicate at any time.
- Each individual player may make a maximum of 150 posts per day phase (this restriction is lifted 2 hours before day end).
- The game will have a host to oversee everything and make sure everyone’s following the code of conduct, but otherwise the game is completely automated (automatic votecounts, thread locks and reveals alignments automatically, the bot receives and processes actions, etc.).

3. SEASON 8 TIMELINE

There will be 10 Qualifier Games, and your representative plays in just one of these. They will have start dates ranging from early May to early July. So in other words, as long as your representative can play sometime during that period, they should be good and I’ll make sure they get scheduled into a game that suits their schedule well. I.e. if your rep is busy until June, that isn’t a problem.

The Semifinal Games will be played in July/August, and the Finale Game sometime in August/September (whenever we can work out something that suits everyone).

If you want to get in contact with me ASAP, you can find me on Discord (Lissa#8083).

Kind regards,
Lissa
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: notquitethere on April 19, 2021, 04:11:07 am
As before: nominate as many players as you like. Usually only one or two people are actually free and willing to go.

I nominate ToonyMan and JimGroovester as neither have gone before.

Prior champs:

Season 1 - 2014: We weren't invited
Season 2 - 2015: NQT
Season 3 - 2016: Teneb - replaced out with NQT
Season 4 - 2017: Shakerag
Season 5 - 2018: Tea
Season 6 - 2019: NQT
Season 7 - 2020: IcyTea
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: IcyTea31 on April 19, 2021, 05:46:08 am
2018 was Tea (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?action=profile;u=111446), not me. We're different people.
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: notquitethere on April 19, 2021, 06:06:18 am
2018 was Tea (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?action=profile;u=111446), not me. We're different people.
Woah
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: ToonyMan on April 19, 2021, 06:47:35 am
I barely remember the Season 2 one in 2015.

Haa the prestige of being King of All Mafia Everywhere~

Do players actually bring their A game to this? I suppose charisma is a genuine factor in mafia skill.
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: 4maskwolf on April 19, 2021, 07:10:15 am
How did you get the invitation message to pass along but I, a player who actively plays on that site, didn't?

Hmph.
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: ToonyMan on April 19, 2021, 07:15:00 am
Season 2 - 2015: NQT
Season 3 - 2016: Teneb - replaced out with NQT
Season 6 - 2019: NQT
Hmmm...

I'll nominate Webadict and 4maskwolf.
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: EuchreJack on April 19, 2021, 07:58:45 am
I'll nominate Vector and FallacyofUrist.

And also NQT in the event that literally nobody else is available.  Gotta have them safeties!
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: webadict on April 19, 2021, 08:06:01 am
Wow, this may be the first time I'd be willing to accept, if only because I regret not getting to decimate the mafia in Ice Cream.

ToonyMan is a good nomination, always and forever. They would do well there.
BluarianKnight is a newbie, but plays very well, and I could see them advancing pretty far, in spite of their newness.
Vector is always a good choice, but they will probably decline for time reasons. But just in case they don't.
Aaaaand, yeah FallacyofUrist or Jim Groovester might do well, too. Jim seems fairly busy, though. FoU might do fairly well, but I wanna see that Daygame improve.
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: BluarianKnight on April 19, 2021, 08:57:28 am
100% Webadict.

Them or Vector probably have the best chance of doing a good job.

My third pick is probably ToonyMan
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: EuchreJack on April 19, 2021, 09:03:30 am
Wow, this may be the first time I'd be willing to accept, if only because I regret not getting to decimate the mafia in Ice Cream.
+1 Webadict
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: Toaster on April 19, 2021, 09:10:39 am
I'd also like to see how WUBA WUBA WUBA does in another environment.  Toony and Vector are also solid choices.
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: notquitethere on April 19, 2021, 09:19:46 am
How did you get the invitation message to pass along but I, a player who actively plays on that site, didn't?

Hmph.
Prior Champ privileges. I got it through Discord. Guess they have me on file, I passed on the invite last year as well.
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: notquitethere on April 19, 2021, 09:26:55 am
Do players actually bring their A game to this? I suppose charisma is a genuine factor in mafia skill.
Yes and no. The quality can be very high. I'm season 2 I was blown away by the town day game I saw. There were something like 5 cop claims to cover the real cop. Huge variety in play style and expected effort can lead to weird results and sometimes "good" players put on their tin foil caps and wifom themselves into oblivion.
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: Jim Groovester on April 19, 2021, 10:02:54 am
I nominate webadict, 4maskwolf, and ToonyMan.

JimGroovester
Jim Groovester

I would if I thought I'd have enough time to dedicate to adequately bring glory to myself and the subforum.
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: Secretdorf on April 19, 2021, 10:11:06 am
Interesssstiiing....Webadict
Vector
Toonyman


Looks like one of these is going.
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: Vector on April 19, 2021, 12:04:45 pm
I nom Webadict and Toonyman.

Yeah, I gotta decline for time reasons. If they ran one of these during the summer or maybe even post-Rona I would be happy to rep us, but as-is I can't read 600 posts and do an internet PhD at the same time.
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: ToonyMan on April 19, 2021, 12:34:49 pm
Some of the games wouldn't start until early July if timing is an issue.

If winrate is a factor between me and Web, well...I'm at a 25% win rate currently if you remove blowout wins.
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: 4maskwolf on April 19, 2021, 01:09:31 pm
webadict toonyman

I'm not going so any votes for me can be discarded.
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: notquitethere on April 19, 2021, 01:21:01 pm
If winrate is a factor between me and Web, well...I'm at a 25% win rate currently if you remove blowout wins.
If that was ever a factor I would never have gone, I lost at least my first 13 games on this site.

We need to pick a second anyway: looks like either Toony or Web will go and the other can be backup.
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: webadict on April 19, 2021, 01:26:29 pm
ToonyMan can be first. I'll be a replacement.
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: notquitethere on April 19, 2021, 01:31:56 pm
Season 2 - 2015: NQTea
Season 3 - 2016: Teaneb - replaced out with NQTea
Season 4 - 2017: Shakerag
Season 5 - 2018: Tea
Season 6 - 2019: NQTea
Season 7 - 2020: IcyTea
Also, so far we've only had one non-Tea representative.
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: ToonyMan on April 19, 2021, 01:34:48 pm
I've never replaced out of a game though so that's effectively a bow out. Web should go if he wants to do it more. I don't care either way as long as I'm not in more than one game at a time.

I think most people can agree that reading somebody you've never played with before is more challenging, but at least this should be the case for most players there. I'm also highly competitive and would expect the same from my peers.
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: webadict on April 19, 2021, 02:00:57 pm
Nah, it's cool. It's fun, but I couldn't handle multiple games in a row like that. You got this, Toony!
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: Vector on April 19, 2021, 02:09:49 pm
Honestly, I think that ToonyMan will have an easier time not being launched on principle than me or Web. His playstyle works better with the vibes of that particular site/community/whatever.

Web and I can tag team next time :D
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: webadict on April 19, 2021, 03:32:55 pm
Also, Toony, your win-loss record isn't a fair statistic because you tend to lose because you are killed early as Town, and your scjmloss was by happenstance.
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: notquitethere on April 20, 2021, 05:05:07 am
Okay so it looks like Toony is the pick with Webadict as named backup. I'll let Lissa know our picks now. Toony, if you haven't already, you should setup a Mafia Universe account and PM or Discord Lissa with the details.
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: ToonyMan on April 20, 2021, 06:09:48 am
Okay I'll do it.

I already have a MU account from 2015, almost certainly because of the Season 2 thread, so I'll use that.

I need a bio if anybody has choice words for me to add.

Quote
NATIONALITY: USA
STARTED PLAYING MAFIA: 2009
HAVE PLAYED MAFIA ON THE FOLLOWING SITES: Bay12
 
BIO:
[Insert whatever information or fun facts that you wish here. Talk about your mafia-related accolades, impressive stats, fun anecdotes, favorite role to play, strengths and weaknesses, your approach to the game, other players' quotes about you, or take out the piss on the whole thing and make some jokes. The ball is entirely in your court, this will be how you present yourself to your fellow competitors and to the many spectating communities.]

Feel free to enlist the help of your community to make this bio.

I guess a fun fact is I had just played through the Ace Attorney games for the first time before playing mafia. Apollo Justice was the newest game at that time...and I'm still playing AA as Case 3 of Dai Gyakuten Saiban 2 (Great Turnabout 2) was translated this month by Scarlet Study. How things haven't changed.
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: 4maskwolf on April 20, 2021, 08:44:15 am
Championship HYPE!
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: ToonyMan on May 09, 2021, 07:16:50 pm
The first scheduled game is being delayed from May 10th to May 17th. Not sure if I'll be in that one, but it's possible.

I still need to create a bio however it's not really important until before the game starts. I will 100% use what anybody else wants to contribute if they write something, otherwise I'll just make the bio myself.
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: EuchreJack on May 09, 2021, 07:33:58 pm
Proposed bio:
"A complete newb with no prior mafia experience has been force to complete with true experts.  Please don't hurt me!"

Gotta get that meta started right.  ;D
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: webadict on May 09, 2021, 08:41:42 pm
Tell them that you're a Smash champion, and you also won at that other game.
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: ToonyMan on May 10, 2021, 11:23:14 am
Tell them that you're a Smash champion, and you also won at that other game.
You mean this one? (https://streamable.com/lb4vms)
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: webadict on May 10, 2021, 11:45:52 am
Tell them that you're a Smash champion, and you also won at that other game.
You mean this one? (https://streamable.com/lb4vms)
Yeah, Windjammers national champion representing.
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: Jim Groovester on May 10, 2021, 09:43:57 pm
The first scheduled game is being delayed from May 10th to May 17th. Not sure if I'll be in that one, but it's possible.

I still need to create a bio however it's not really important until before the game starts. I will 100% use what anybody else wants to contribute if they write something, otherwise I'll just make the bio myself.

ToonyMan has been playing mafia for twelve years but finds the task of writing literally anything positive about himself so daunting that he has to have an even more qualified player (who doesn't have the time to participate, you see), write his bio for him.

ToonyMan's okay, I guess. He'll probably do pretty alright. Those twelve years weren't completely for nothing.
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: ToonyMan on May 14, 2021, 09:59:44 am
I am indeed in Game 1 that starts on May 17th.

I feel Jack and Jim's bios are not good because they don't serve their purpose as a bio (too generic, not about the player themselves). So I wrote a short blurb myself. Thanks for the writeups though.
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: EuchreJack on May 14, 2021, 04:11:54 pm
Ooh, let us see!
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: ToonyMan on May 17, 2021, 10:01:26 am
Game starts in a few hours. After the game is over I can share what it was like if you weren't following.
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: notquitethere on May 17, 2021, 12:15:14 pm
Good luck! I'm sure you'll do well.

Everyone else, feel free to join me in Spectator Chat on their discord. (https://discord.gg/pp4tskFA) (Once your in the discord ask to be added to the champs-spectators channel.)

This is the link to the live game. (https://www.mafiauniverse.com/forums/threads/30719-Season-8-Game-1-Fun-With-Numbers-The-Mafia-Championship)
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: Superdorf on May 19, 2021, 08:12:33 am
Good luck Toony!
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: EuchreJack on May 20, 2021, 09:37:42 am
Can we add Toony's Fair Board to the meme?
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: notquitethere on May 20, 2021, 10:06:30 am
Can we add Toony's Fair Board to the meme?
After the game: no public discussion or commentary while game is ongoing
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: EuchreJack on May 20, 2021, 10:36:14 am
Ah, thanks for clarifying.
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: notquitethere on May 30, 2021, 08:30:34 am
First champs game is over! Toony was the town doctor and his claim helped set town on a course to winning the game. Well done!

(https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/306758456998887429/846139100679766046/unknown.png)
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: EuchreJack on May 30, 2021, 10:01:38 am
Good job ToonyMan!  And Happy Birthday!

It was a fun game, I got a goat to eat pants, fun was had by all.
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: ToonyMan on May 30, 2021, 10:55:02 am
If you want an example of how well PoE can work, there you go.

I feel bad about the jeekaka mislynch (very unlucky night actions caused paranoia about this), however it was pretty clean otherwise since jeekaka flipping town all but confirmed who the two remaining mafia were.
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: notquitethere on May 30, 2021, 12:38:05 pm
Yes, there was a clear POE with that game at the end
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: Jim Groovester on May 30, 2021, 01:11:41 pm
Good game, ToonyMan, I was impressed.
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: Vector on May 31, 2021, 03:17:10 pm
Nice. I hope the judges advance ya, but regardless, thank you for repping B12!!
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: ToonyMan on June 12, 2021, 12:03:20 pm
I was ranked 4th, which seems to be a Bay12 tradition. I think I have a good chance of being in a Semifinals game.

Also, I will be on the Game 1 podcast tomorrow at 3:30pm EDT. We'll probably talk about Game 2 as well which has just wrapped up.
Quote
This Sunday, June 13th at 3:30 PM EDT, myself, my cohost @Pawn Lelouch, and a panel of guests from Game 1 ( @Chiken, @Holyflare, @itslevi, @jeekaka, @ToonyMan, and @ZFR) will be talking about the Championships, doing a postmortem on Game 1, and just generally having a good time. We won't be discussing ongoing games, obviously, but anything else is fair game!

The stream will be here: https://www.twitch.tv/pawnlelouch

Hope to see everyone there! If it's anything like last year, I expect it to be a damn good time.
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: Magma Mater on July 31, 2021, 06:44:48 pm
Congrats on advancing Toony!

Unfortunately I was passed over. The jury didn't like my controversial posting style I guess.  :-\
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: ToonyMan on July 31, 2021, 06:54:14 pm
Congrats on advancing Toony!
Thanks, I wouldn't say I've advanced though. I've been picked as a backup sub from Game 1. I don't think it's likely I play in semis, but it's possible.

I think my playstyle is polarizing so I'm not too surprised players have mixed feelings about it. I'm quite happy with my Day 3 performance so I'll just be proud of that.

Unfortunately I was passed over. The jury didn't like my controversial posting style I guess.  :-\
What really? I had no idea you were playing in qualifiers, who were you?
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: Magma Mater on July 31, 2021, 06:57:41 pm
URISTTHEDEVASTATOR
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: ToonyMan on July 31, 2021, 07:16:04 pm
No way.

What a plot twist. The Urist name makes it so obvious now in hindsight.

Here are some of my personal observations:

1. Most of the games were dominated by mafia performances, with two or three mafia alive for game end. I wasn't impressed by a lot of townplay but there were some players I liked. I would have valued town players that mafia were scared of the most here (besides just being PR). After considering the mafia themselves of course, since they did win most games.

2. Only two games had a town win, Game 1 and Game 2. I'm fine with the Game 2 picks, but I'm disappointed in the lack of town representation from Game 1, which had the strongest town win in qualifiers with a lot of town players showing strong reasoning skills: Marl, Jeekaka, ZFR, and KoD.

EDIT:
I want to illustrate this out a bit more.

3. Game 5 was a mafia sweep, a complete crush that had two well playing - but highly linked together - scum, Pawn and JPIC. The third mafia was Toganim and personally they were the hardest mafia for me to identify. Pawn and Cuthalion (a town player who was killed early) were voted by the in-game players to advance to Semis, which is fine. You could argue Pawn was the best mafia and Cuth was the best town so seems fair enough.

Now for the jury advances they decide on Chris, JPIC, Gorf, and Silver. That's JPIC and three more town players that go straight to Semis. I won't single out any of the town players, but I think advancements here should have been JPIC and one or maybe two more town at most. I do agree with at least two of the town choices here, but I am surprised how many town players were chosen to directly advance here from what I read of the game.

Moving on, for subs four out of nine of the players were more players from Game 5: c4e5g3d5, Hornet, SuperJack, and Toganim. Again, I agree with the Toganim choice as personally I would have rated them the highest of the three mafia in that game, but even more town from Game 5 as subs? I don't understand the processing here, it was a curb stomp game. I understand the jury want to judge players on how likely they think they could win games from skillful play, correct? While it's true you could have strong town players in a mafia curb stomp, I would not have seven town players as advancement names in a game that was entirely controlled by the three mafia.
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: Magma Mater on August 01, 2021, 06:40:58 pm
Yeah, I don't think the system they have is designed very well if the intent is to assess skill. DuckQueen was robbed in g2, for example; she was hard bussed by a partner who wasn't reading scum chat, then got randomly chosen as the d1 lynch thanks to a 3-way tie. It's probably obvious from the way I played that I don't have any respect for the MU championships, and the purely-subjective insular rating system they use is a large part of that.
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: Magma Mater on August 01, 2021, 06:43:07 pm
One of the tier 2 subs from g2 voted wrong on every single day except for final 3. And he only voted right on that last day because the last scum voted him first. You must have played pretty badly to be put on the same level as that guy LOL
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: EuchreJack on August 01, 2021, 10:45:01 pm
My thoughts on Toonyman's analysis and Magma Mater's response regarding the MU system:

Hm, do I smell a popularity contest?  ;D
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: ToonyMan on August 02, 2021, 07:48:01 am
I believe real consideration is made and I don't envy ranking about 130 players, however I don't understand the metrics the players value beyond the public statement:

Quote
Hi everyone. We're the jury.

We'll keep this brief. Over the last few months we have followed live, reviewed, discussed, reviewed again, debated, and reviewed again again the ten qualifier games for Season 8. We believe that we have produced an array of advancements and possible substitutions that is a fair reflection of the performances we observed. Let it be known that these choices were not easy at all, and that a great many candidates warranted our consideration even among those who will not be named today. Ours is a jury of a very diverse array of strategies, philosophies, and preferences for Mafia gameplay, and that means no single element of play dictated our selections. We believe the players we have selected all showed us *something*: that is, they displayed some concrete talent for Mafia play that we believe would promote winning games the most consistently. Those talents are numerous and not always directly related.

Those who are named today to advance or serve as a substitute: congratulations and well done. Those who are not named: please hold your head high and know that these were all difficult choices. Take pride that your community selected you and you alone to be their champion this season. You've already proven much.

Thanks to the organizers, players, and spectators for making this another competitive, enriched, and enjoyable tournament experience. We're looking forward to the semifinals and the finale.

Hype. You can tell we're excited because we said "hype". Hype.

For example, accuracy of reads seems to be valued. Relm, a player that appeared to be well liked and was killed early on in their game, had all three mafia in their top town reads and I think that has to be the main reason they weren't considered. This shows at least that it is not simply a "popularity contest", or at least, not for everyone. It's difficult to infer and unlike the in-game votes there are no numbers to even look at.
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: Magma Mater on August 02, 2021, 08:51:33 am
My thoughts on Toonyman's analysis and Magma Mater's response regarding the MU system:

Hm, do I smell a popularity contest?  ;D

I don't think it's a popularity contest. I do think they choose based more on their feelings for a person's play, rather than data. I think they value intangible qualities over tangible ones. Sportsmanship is certainly treasured dearly; I think that anyone who failed to show a certain level of respect to their fellow players was disqualified on that basis.

For me, the worst part is the lack of transparency. Not because I fear corruption, but because I value continuous improvement. Nobody knows why they were passed over. They can't know what they did wrong, or how they can improve their play in the future. Nobody knows why they were chosen, or what they did correctly to gain the jury's attention. It's a little sad to me, because it would be a great opportunity for people to share ideas about the game, about what makes good town play or good scum play. But the organizers don't value those things, they don't care whether anyone takes the tournament as a learning experience, so the chance is squandered.

Unfortunately, it's pretty clear that the primary objective of the championships is to drive fringe communities to their software, have them use the mafia bot, then go back "home" and say "hey this site is great, let's pay MU to become a subcommunity of theirs so that we can use their software."
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: 4maskwolf on August 02, 2021, 09:10:30 am
I'm not sure communities pay to be partner communities, though I'm not sure much about the process period despite having been around since the beginning, but as far as I'm aware the site is paid for entirely through patreon (there was actually a thing about that recently where the admin essentially went around canvassing for donations because there wasn't enough to cover the site's costs). The championships are a big draw for new players in the community, though, you can trace a lot of players back to having participated in some championship or another (and most of the others come from mafia communities that are now dead/shut down like ToS FM).

I will say that insular mafia communities (like Bay12) are at a fundamental disadvantage during the selection process because we tend to develop our own internal meta and ways of playing that tend to be looked poorly on by more orthodox mafia communities.
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: Magma Mater on August 02, 2021, 09:47:17 am
My apologies, I guess I was mistaken. I'm not sure where I got the idea that partnering was a paid service, so I'll assume you're right about that.

I think the disadvantage of insular communities is exacerbated a little bit each year due to the design of the tournament. The current jury selects the jury for the next year, which selects the next year's jury, and so on. It's bound to become inbred and doesn't seem welcoming to new ideas. The fact that the selection process is private only serves to further isolate that group.
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: ToonyMan on August 02, 2021, 10:47:15 am
Since I've been thinking about it, I can leave some thoughts I had about my play as well as some questions towards Magma/Urist.

@Magma:
I didn't read every post in G2, but you were the N1 kill and from what I heard you spent D1 copy-pasting posts from a previous champs winner right? Did the mafia nightkill you aware of the fact you were memeposting? Also, did your memeposts have actual consideration put into them? On a side note, soaking the mafia kill on N1 as a Vanilla Townie using copy-paste is fucking hilarious. I'm a fan of dumb gimmicks, but I'm not sure I would rate them highly in the long run.

Now, some criticisms I have about my play from future me:

1. Claiming PR unpressured might have been a misplay, especially as Doctor. First, if my town read of Levi was incorrect I would probably have handed them the game there. Second, if the MD (Okosan) wasn't alive still the POE would have been harder and less winnable. I may have been the N3 kill, but I also may have been able to utilize the Doctor PR more if I stayed quiet.

2. My actual scumhunting was below my standards. I didn't find any scum in my game, only players I felt I could trust. Because of this fact I was able to identify who scum most likely were. I would have always voted MWil23 and Chiken after seeing Jeekaka flip town (I made this clear in the spectator chat immediately after dying), but was not alive to do so. The important part is I had no strong reasons for why I suspected MWil23 and especially Chiken and overly relied on Okosan and Levi's own scumhunting to support me.

3. I didn't trust Holy and Jeekaka enough. I had a winning POE on D3, but my dislike of Holy/Jeekaka (even though I reconsidered voting MWil23 instead) made me ultimately not reconsider MWil23/Chiken. The end result didn't actually matter here since we had the days to spare, but I still made a final decision that made the game last an extra day. Having a winning flowchart is less valuable than just hitting the actual mafia in the first place. On review I would rate Jeekaka's play as better than Holy's, it was foolish to distrust Jeekaka more than Holy.
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: Magma Mater on August 02, 2021, 11:32:58 am
I did spend the entire day one copy-pasting the posts of the previous season's winner, from his first game where he was also killed as VT on night one. Nobody in the game was aware of what I was doing. I have no idea how I wasn't caught, considering there was a player from that game in my game. I don't think many people read my posts all too carefully. The highlight for me was when I accused Skunki (mafia) of doing something he didn't do in a post he didn't write, and he was just like "yeah sorry about that". I got my reads from random.org, but they turned out to be pretty good (2/3 scum were correct). I did put some consideration into the posts... I made sure my ISO was somewhat coherent, at least. I'm really glad I was killed N1 though because even with the random reads and copy-paste I was putting more work into the game than I wanted to. Searching peoples' ISOs for things I could respond to with the copypasta was rough.


I feel like trying to scum-read people you don't have meta on is a trap a lot of people fall for. Without knowing how someone behaves as mafia, and as town, it's really tough to say whether or not they're just one of those people who always look scummy no matter what. It's not a bad thing to focus solely on town-hunting - it's probably more accurate on foreign territory anyway. As long as you can get a winning PoE and stick to it, you're golden.
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: 4maskwolf on August 02, 2021, 11:40:00 am
OHHHHHHHHHHHH

That's why I'd heard the name "UristTheDevastator" before.

People in Anni DVC were talking about the post copying gimmick.
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: ToonyMan on August 02, 2021, 11:40:08 am
I got my reads from random.org, but they turned out to be pretty good (2/3 scum were correct).
Hahahaha
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: EuchreJack on August 02, 2021, 11:49:50 am
1. Claiming PR unpressured might have been a misplay, especially as Doctor. First, if my town read of Levi was incorrect I would probably have handed them the game there. Second, if the MD (Okosan) wasn't alive still the POE would have been harder and less winnable. I may have been the N3 kill, but I also may have been able to utilize the Doctor PR more if I stayed quiet.

My opinion: Referring to one power role as Doctor and another one as MD is confusing, since in the United States the acronym MD stands for Medical Doctorate.
Example: Doctor ToonyMan, MD would be a correct and common way to describe a doctor.  You can see the confusion, I think?  ???

It would have been better all around to have referred to Okosan as the Scanner, Detector, or Stalker.

For me, the worst part is the lack of transparency. Not because I fear corruption

I, on the other hand, believe in the phrase "Secrecy breeds corruption", and also agree with your concerns of the inbred nature.  Or, as its called in the business world, Nepotism.  It tends to stagnate growth, as you mentioned.
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: ToonyMan on August 03, 2021, 09:28:55 am
@Jack:
That's a good point. The MD confusion did make Lunatic (correctly) read as town which helped the PoE.

Oh right I might as well share my votes too.

I voted Levi, ZFR, Mwil23, and Okosan as my top four. After talking with Webadict I regret not voting Marl too, but I'm not sure who I would replace out. I thought Levi and Okosan were the best living town, while Vandy and ZFR were also good town but died early. MWil23 was definitely the strongest mafia out of the three, with few people suspecting him and also surviving the longest so I think that's a fair take. The big down fall of MWil23 was their association with Chiken which was only exacerbated by D3.
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: EuchreJack on August 03, 2021, 02:29:34 pm
Hm, even more useless 2 cents incoming!

I voted Levi, ZFR, Mwil23, and Okosan as my top four. After talking with Webadict I regret not voting Marl too, but I'm not sure who I would replace out. I thought Levi and Okosan were the best living town, while Vandy and ZFR were also good town but died early. MWil23 was definitely the strongest mafia out of the three, with few people suspecting him and also surviving the longest so I think that's a fair take. The big down fall of MWil23 was their association with Chiken which was only exacerbated by D3.

1) You don't have to include a mafia player in your Top Four.  If MWil23 was only "Above Average" Mafia, and you saw four "Good" Town players, you could have them all be Town.  I only bring this up because MWil23 has some defeatist mafia play, which may have cost them the game.  Or maybe kept them in the game longer.  I dunno which way that played out.
2) Okosan did a good job, but remember they had a PR.  Would they still have been in the Top Four without the advantage of a PR?

Hope that helps!
Title: Re: Invitation to Mafia Championship - Season 8
Post by: ToonyMan on August 03, 2021, 02:43:46 pm
1) The defeatist attitude worked though. I didn't want to vote MWil23 over Jeekaka when they said they would self hammer. Mango had self voted earlier and I can only think of town ever selfvoting in the games I have played. Beyond that MWil23 was townread by most players up until that point which is incredibly desirable as mafia.

2) Yes even if Okosan wasn't PR I felt really good about them after D1. I made it clear I didn't think they were mafia if Axol was mafia, and Axol was mafia so. On D2 and D3 it only made sense if Okosan was partners with Holy, but that became very unlikely with the claim. Although I was really liking Okosan's D3 posts before the claim anyway. The only thing I didn't like was them trying to unvote Chiken at the end of D4 out of paranoia.