Welp.
Here we are.
This has been a crazy game. From being forced in on a really busy day to D1 of a team game more than twice the size I had been anticipating, to going from near mechlock to probably making the wrong vote here, it’s been a roller coaster that I’ll probably remember for the rest of my life.
I’d like to start by thanking my team. Most of us, me included, were not super jazzed about the game growing this huge, and it’s been a huge drain on all of us over the past two weeks. As the person who kinda pulled you all into this one, I can’t thank you all enough for joining me through the highs and the lows. It’s been a pleasure playing with you all.
Next, of course, massive shoutout to Aquilla. Not all of you may know this, but this game actually got delayed from last fall, and I’ve kinda been pestering him about it the entire time. I can’t imagine how much larger the workload gets when trying to host a game this large, and I really cannot thank him enough for taking the time to make games like this possible. Team Mafia really is a unique breed, and without him none of these games would have been possible.
To the four stages of Cage and the spec chat heroes - y’all played amazingly either way. It has been incredibly difficult to sort through which lock-villager slot is less locked, and whichever one of you is the scum really had some incredibly well-thought-out plays over the course of a long and grueling game. This has been far and away the hardest MyLo/LyLo situation of my entire life, because at no point has there been an answer that feels correct. There’s always a missing piece, and whichever of you managed to set that up should be proud of that much at least, even if I think Amrock calling himself “so insanely $%#!ing terrible and godawful, selfish and trash tier” as a wolf bussing his entire team would be accurate. 
To the rest of the game - it’s been a toughie. Thanks for sticking it out, especially everyone in the PoE that got burned through in the middle third of the game. I’m sure each of you has a good chunk of the players thinking your death was by far the worst in the entire game, and ultimately the fact that we’re standing here with these two potential scum means that you really shouldn’t feel bad about going out when you did. Thanks for being there and putting your best foot forward, sorry everyone determined it wasn’t enough, and I hope to see y’all when Team Mafia hopefully returns some day.
It’s been a hell of a ride.
With all that out of the way, I think it’s time we get to handing out our verdict.
And, I suppose I should mention, while I do say “our” verdict, ultimately the vote is in my hands, and if I place it wrong here than the scum victory is entirely on my back. My team has had a say in it, obviously, but at the end of the day I’m responsible if we lose, and given Team Somewhat Polish’s record thus far, it’ll be me tarnishing that record if I fail here. I solely take responsibility for the vote I have chosen to lay down.
For Nick Cage - what a game. Sure, your VCA might have been just awful for like the entire game, but things like roro outing to save a villager and redirect people back onto a scum wagon are plays so far out there that it has been incredibly hard to justify a vote on you. You did an extremely commendable job of ensuring that the world where you are scum makes less logical sense than the one where you are not, and from a slot that was in it for the memes, that deserves a lot of respect.
For spec chat heroes - although I maintain that I will be very pissed if you win off the back of hardbussing literally all of your PRs day 1 and most of the rest of your team around the same time, that does not in any way take away from the rest of your gameplay. Your posting has been incredible, the dedication to faking a town mindset has been next-level, and the enthusiasm in the face of near-impossible odds (even if you may have aided in the creation of those odds) has been such that it has been incredibly hard to call you out as scum.
Either of you have had what I find hard to believe isn’t the scum game of your life, and even if we pick correctly here, I’d be remiss not to give you a huge pat on the back for a detailed effort over weeks with less cracks than basically the entire town.
I’m honestly sorry this day has taken so much of your time, especially the one I cause to lose here, and ultimately I can only feel justified about it because I was sacrificing just as much to be here too. You guys may not know this, but I was in and out of short naps literally all last night waiting to see if Amrock would ever put Cage at L-1 so we could get our little show on the road and inject some spice into an otherwise dead day, so I definitely feel just as drained as I’m sure each of you do. Sorry to run you both for a loop, but we wanted to be sure we had as much to pull from as possible before settling on a final vote.
Anyways, now for our - my - final decision.
Ultimately, what it came down to here was trusting my heart over my head.
If you consider spec chat heroes as a wolf, pretty much all of the questions I feel are unanswered this game feel answered. We have an explanation for the N3 kill that isn’t “lolwolves”, his hesitation to let us clear ourselves makes sense (we’re acutely aware he was sitting waiting for me to come back after Jackrito’s vote for a few hours), them having literally every scum at null or below and the three PRs in the bottom three becomes a cut-and-dried bus, and it just seems right in my head. I can clearly see why Smartbomb and eevee are set on this slot being the scum - it just makes sense.
But it doesn’t feel right. This has nothing to do with Amrock trying to basically guilt trip me - if anything, I found that made me want to vote him more - but ultimately, when I look at which vote feels like the right one to make, it’s on Nick Cage. Sure, this leaves the only explanation for why the N3 kill happened as “wolves completely disorganized” and means that the slot’s complete lack of drive to try and survive earlier on doesn’t make any logical sense either - but at least it explains how their votes were almost exclusively on scum, as well as their treatment of said votes as foregone conclusions, so there’s that I guess?
But at the end of the day, iaafr, Amrock, Spartan, Limestone, and Riki did such a good job in almost every facet of their play that it feels wrong to look at the logical answer and conclude that they pulled of almost everything with such consistent perfection that nobody caught on until it was basically too late.
And, if they did, I’ma be honest - they really do deserve this one.
It really has come down to an emotional version of occam’s razor, and if I’m wrong here, I really owe smart one for completely $%#!ing up the 1v1 against Amrock he’s been setting me up for the past several days. My bad my guy.
With all that out of the way - here goes nothing.
gg
/vote Marshal
