There’s a lot stuff since my last post that needs addressing, but I’m going to have to put it to the side for a moment because I had a thought about yesterDay’s patsy claims that I need to get on paper.
First, I think we can take as a given that nobody (town or mafia) had any idea whether the patsy was ever going to lynch unless under pressure.
It makes general sense, in the event of a patsy counterclaim, to kill the first patsy claimant. Counterclaims are usually more reliable than initial claims as a broad rule, and on top of that a town bomb can just kill a false counterclaim.
Biotop posted - more than once - that town had the game completely locked up and that there was pretty much no reasonable way for us to lose. Let’s take that as a given.
So the day unfolds like this: Texcat is on the hook for the lynch and they see that there’s no reasonable way for them to win - even with a patsy mislynch today. They need something. They need to engineer a lynch of the real patsy and then deliver the ultimatum to LUTHA. This is the only reasonable way for them to win without a long series of mislynches on town’s part.
Option 1: What if Texcat claims patsy to try and avoid the lynch? If Texcat claims patsy, she’ll get counterclaimed and still lynched.
Option 1a: What if Texcat claims patsy and hawkeyeop false counters? This is better, but mafia needs to maximize hawkeye’s towniness factor to make sure the real patsy is lynched. How do we do that?
Option 2: What if hawkeye claims apropos of nothing and Texcat counterclaims with a patently anti-town plan for using her power? There’s no chance anybody will believe her. Hawkeye’s claim will be much more believable if it comes from nowhere. This is a good plan. Scathach’s inevitable counterclaim will lose weight.
But there’s one flaw.
What if Scathach counters before Texcat does?
If Scathach counters before Texcat can, it looks bad for hawkeye. Remember, it is a better move for scum Scathach to drop into the unconfirmed pool, so Scathach’s counterclaim would look pretty legitimate.
So it’s important that hawkeye claim and that Texcat counter immediately. When Scathach makes the real counter, the waters will become super muddy and the stage will be set for the patsy gambit.
Look at the timestamps on the two posts. They’re only 18 minutes apart. Texcat’s claim was her first post of the (d)ay. That’s really, really convenient timing, isn’t it? That she would happen to log on just as that claim is going up and then happen to decide to post a ridiculous fake claim in the intervening period?
If we believe Biotop is correct that town had this wrapped up barring extraordinarily circumstances, then we can believe that mafia made an attempt to engineer extraordinary circumstances. That means the patsy plan was formed before the claims happened.
Basically, you have to ask yourself this:
Once it became obvious that Texcat was going to be lynched, how could scum go about creating an opportunity for a patsy mislynch?