The Town: Post Event

So I've gotten a lot of requests for my post Town rankings and while I will include it at the end of this, for me the event meant a lot more than who's better at Mafia. I touched on it at the end of the event on camera but there's more to say about what this event represented for the people that built it. I can only speak for myself, but I have a strong suspicion that my feelings mirror that of my fellow Town members. Creating the event was an incredibly cathartic experience. Much of my year has been stymied by artificial barriers to being able to build positive things for the scene but The Town was a departure from that. I was able to grab a bunch of my friends and create something that was removed from industry politics that was a positive experience for everyone involved. I've never truly been on the project management side of esports so this was the first time I've really been able to see something I started do well and be enjoyed. I can only imagine what it must be like for those that put on grander events.



To answer the many other questions I've gotten after the event here is short rundown:



1. Yes, there will be another event, but it probably won't be for a long time. Sorry I know many of you may be disappointed but most of us have day jobs.

2. Yes, we will be inviting pro players next time.

3. Yes, we will be inviting people from other games next time.

4. How good you are at Mafia is the last thing we consider in invites.

5. We have a lot of improvements planned for the next event

6. Maelk, the more you whine at me the less I want to invite you to the next one.



As for rankings, I've thought a lot about how to do this. I don't think Mafia is as simple of a game as to categorize everyone into tiers and I think the games we played aren't the greatest representation of how good everyone is. As unscientific as I think this is, at the end of the day, it’s just a Mafia ranking so LMFAO wHo cAREAS HAHA Xd.*



*I do not include myself in these rankings. I find it incredibly awkward to write about myself. Dating profile websites are panic inducing.



WARNING: VERY LONG, NO TL/DR



AS TOWN: How I defined rankings as Town were with this question: How much of an impact do they contribute to Town winning the game?



TIER 1 (Listed in order)

1. Choba: C-God, OSkomodo, The Chobra. After the event we were joking that once you've become a meme, you've made it. In this case, it was Chobra’s godlike town play that earned his immortalization as OSkomodo. He is easily identifiable as town, he can easily lead town to make correct decisions and can easily recognize sound logic to make the correct lynches for town. He had one hiccup in the Purge/Hotbid/Greg mafia game where he threw his defense as town but I believe that is a forgivable offense for the following reasons: a) If most of town did not turn off their brains, the defense would have worked, b) it was a play that easily identified him as town c) the weakness of the play was that he was probably more unfamiliar with the rest of the group and thus was a weak play in that environment, not necessarily an objectively weak play.



2. LD: Lord Dank, when town, is like the Mayor. He’s easily identifiable as town and has a lot of influence in persuading other town to make the correct decisions. He is the one member of the group is most likely to move town in a purposeful manner and without him, chaos often ensues.



3. Conrad: A lot of people may disagree with me when putting Conrad in Tier 1, but that’s because you have small dicks. Yes, he is annoying. Yes, he can be disruptive. But out of everyone in the group, I am most afraid of Conrad as town when I am mafia. This annoying fucker is going to find you. He is going to reason out the game in a way that pinpoints you as mafia. He isn’t going to be talked over, he isn’t going to be give up and he isn’t going to be cowed into doing something he doesn’t believe in. Yes people have said that he makes the game harder for weaker town to reason out the game but like Chobra, that is forgivable because it is a problem easily solved by turning on your brain, everyone has one.



TIER 2 (Listed in order)

4. Purge: Kevin is a lot like LD when he’s town. It’s very obvious and he’s very productive. The major reason I put him in Tier 2 is that he also has a slight psychopath vibe that makes people (or at least me) doubt him a little.



5. Hotbid: Honestly I think if it were a different group, Ken would be Tier 1 but we’ve all gotten so used to being trolled by Ken that we’re all naturally suspicious of him. The difficulty for him is getting past that initial stage. Once he does, he’s Tier 1 town. He makes great reads, makes plays for town and does things that push the game along for town.



6. Godz: Again similar to LD and Purge but with more scum and less obvious town vibe.



TIER 3 (No particular order)

7. Maut: I think Maut improved a lot during this event. He was more vocal and more aware of how the game was developing. His vigi shot on Hotbid because he recognized that he was being pocketed was amazing. He saved what little chances town had of winning that game. He is also very easy to identify as town because all you have to do is make him mad, which isn’t hard. That said, he has weaknesses in that beyond being read as town, he doesn’t contribute much outside of that.



8. Blitz: For me, Blitz is like the opposite of Maut. It very hard to identify when Blitz is mafia and when he is town. This MingLee fucker hides behind is long hair and bad posture and rarely takes control of the game to direct town until much later. Unfortunately for Blitz, he’s usually killed early and he never gets to much later. But if he does, he has great instincts, knows the group really well and is able to drive town towards correct decisions and reads.



TIER 4 (No particular order)

9. Nahaz: 5-2 OMGScoots. Best record at the event. Honestly I think Nahaz is really intelligent and is great at figuring out the game but he’s a more extreme version of Conrad. It is very difficult for people to get behind him and listen because he yells and regurgitates stats and percentages which are ResidentSleeper. He also plays the same way every time, very mathematical and very loud. So it’s hard to distinguish him as town and at the same time, it’s easy for mafia to manipulate how he thinks. Nahaz will rarely consider that mafia made the low percentage play and double tapped or something like that and so his game can be thrown off if mafia indeed does that.



10. Pimpmuckl: Similar to Nahaz but I think he’s more likely to go with his gut. He does have a town tell in that he tends to word vomit whenever on the defensive.



11. Kpoptosis: Discount Matt Demers is similar to the previous two players in that he’s very logic and math oriented. Sometimes he says some dumb shit though and when he goes on a rant I would rather listen to Arteezy stream.



12. Greg/Merlini/Sheever/Capitalist: As vanilla town, I think these guys are pretty average. I would have ranked Merlini higher if he hadn’t completely ignored Godz’s body language in the last game and thrown the game for town. However, I think these guys really shine when they have a town power role. It becomes easy to tell that they’re town and they usually make pretty big plays with those roles.





TIER 5 (Listed in order)

16. Shane/Rob/Fwosh: The strongest player I listed first but I put them in the same category because I think they play similar in that they don’t do big things for town because they’re quiet. But when they do talk I think they have certain town tells that can soft identify them as town. Shane the most obvious and Fwosh the least.



19. Kotlguy: The most neutral of this list. I don’t find him positive or negative to town. He also didn’t have enough games for me to judge and nor did he say enough for me to get a good idea of anything. He is incredibly handsome, however.



TIER 6 (No particular order)

20. Slacks: Some may think he has great reads as town but after discussing it with a lot of people, I think he was mostly 50/50 and I don’t think those reads were really based off anything and was mostly luck. At the end of the day you have to give a reasoning behind your reads to convince people or people are just going to think you’re talking out of your ass. That feeling is compounded by the fact that Slacks plays some insane character in these games and no one ever knows what to think and people end up ignoring him. He earned his spot at the bottom of this list because of that giant throw where he was convinced that me and Conrad were mafia after ignoring all logic. He is also another version of Hotbid in that he causes chaos which is really bad for town and does little to push the game in a positive direction.



21. OD: He made no right calls. Like none. I don’t even know how that’s possible. He was however, entertaining as fuck.



22. Zyori: As town he is one of the easiest mis-lynch ever going as far as to offer weak defenses and not even claim his role before dying. He also openly admitted to ignoring logic one game and cost town the game. The argument that Conrad was a contributing factor there is possible but I think ultimately weak in that all Andrew had to do in that situation was reason out the facts of the game himself. He was already not listening to Conrad anyways, as town, the fact pattern for what happened in the game made Chobra, Conrad and I very clearly town and that was something anyone should have been able to figure out independently. However I have never seen a man pull off Dota themed leggings as well as Andrew “Zyori” Campbell.





AS MAFIA



TIER 1 (Listed in order)

1. Hotbid: While everyone is naturally suspicious of him, what makes Hotbid stand out is that he knows exactly what he needs to do to make mafia win. He knows how to tilt you, he knows how to sacrifice himself, he knows when to fake claim, he’s convincing when he fake claims. He knows how to plant enough doubt in your mind so that ultimately you never know anything.



2. Slacks: In a similar way to Hotbid where you never know what role he actually is, Slacks is an enigma. He plays a different character every time and you’re never quite sure if it’s an act or not. One thing that is certain is that he’s not an idiot. And he’s very aware of what he’s doing and his buffoon play makes people ignore him.



3. Blitz: While Blitz’s record is actually awful, I think he’s gotten pretty bad luck in his games. Outside of this event he’s been great as mafia in that he’s great at subtly guiding people to certain decisions and pocketing you. He’s the shadow hand that slips behind your back and grabs your genitals. Both in real life and in the game. While these games haven’t shown it, there is a reason why he’s always so early to die.



TIER 2 (No particular order)

4. Nahaz: The professor’s strength as mafia is that he plays the same. He makes logical arguments that look like he’s helping town. He goes a bit more ham and doesn’t reach the same logical conclusions, but he is good at making it seem like he’s town as mafia.



5. Fwosh: That fake cop claim takes balls. She’s dangerous as mafia because she’s not going to be suspected early and is likely to make it to the end of games.



6. Chobra: In the one game (that I remember) as mafia Chobra played he was impressive and that’s why I’ll put him up here but it’s not enough for me to be certain that he’s any higher. Need more games.

7. Purge: Kevin has actually improved his mafia play a lot. He’s more adamant in his defenses, he’s more sure of himself as mafia and if we had played that game where I went on him Day 1 back when we had first started playing at TI, I think he would have crumbled. While I did get the read correct, he fought against it hard. I think it’s becoming a lot less obvious when he’s mafia and he has a good way of leading town to slaughter themselves.



TIER 3 (No particular order)

8. LD: Decent at leading town towards a dark path but the problem for him is getting people to believe he’s town when he’s mafia. His mafia game is really different from his town game because his town game is so strong. It’s hard to replicate that when he’s not actually town.



9. Conrad: Similar to LD but different in the sense that his town play leads to actual conclusions whereas his mafia play leads you to lynching him because you’re annoyed.



10. Capitalist/Greg/Merlini: They’re not exactly the same at all but they’re Mafia that I don’t think have any obvious tells and are self aware enough to not throw.





TIER 4 (No particular order)

13. Zyori: Easy lynch as town and mafia. Bad defenses.



14. Maut: I love Travis but he crumbles under pressure. If he were grilled hard as mafia I don’t think he would come up with a believable defense.



15. Pimpmuckl: He cannot lie, just can’t.



TIER N/A - no sufficient data



17. Sheever: She has never been mafia. Never. In the entire history of us playing together she has actually never picked up an ace.

18. Kpoptosis/Rob/Kotlguy/Shane/OD: I haven’t seen them play enough to make a judgment I’m comfortable with.



Special Mention



19. Godz: I really don’t know where to put Godz. He had one crazy outlier game with the C O P claim that makes me think he was drunk and should have never worked. The fact that it didn’t doesn’t give him any credit, it only makes me rate the people that believed it lower. Besides that game I would put him around Tier 3.5.



Reply · Report Post