Post by Squirtle on Mar 4, 2022 21:51:27 GMT 10
Quick squirtlecatchup! Asbe makemiss muchmuch confessionaldetail finaleight finalseven whenwasbusy getboot playduel notsleep.
Final 8 Round - Onwayto unsquirtain doom!
My decisionmaking here was somewhat straightforward. Wario was set on voting for Robin, strongly/reasonably presumed that he'd be the one going into the ringduel and was already miffed at having been overruled the previous round. While initially I resisted it due to quite liking Robin and feeling like we could potentially work well together even from across different sides, reassessing my position with everyone else led me to realise that if either Robin or Dedede left next I'd be set up close to perfectly for an endgame run. And to see Robin as more of a potential threat, for likely socialising wiht everyone else as well as with me. Talk of splitting the vote came and went but wasn't going to go anywhere with Kazuya off the table due to immunity and Dedede cosying up nicely I guess to Wario and more, or just continuing to slide by under the radar - not that we had the numbers for a split anyway. But the rub here is that almost everyone on the yellow (less Kazuya) side was making it super clear to Robin they'd be the vote unless anything changed, even myself.
And Robin was absolutely a better player than we were crediting, because given a whole day to think through her options she smashed through the presumption that her side should be aiming for Wario, something which I think couldn't have happened even one round earlier, when Wario was still afire but also immune. And it took a Robin to see not only the benefit of splitting up myself/captain if she had to win a ringduel, but eventually also the reasons for targeting specifically Squirtle. Hearing her lay it out while we were in the ring honestly had me impressed and would have made here a strong favourite for my jury vote even. Even though she said we'd bonded better and had more potential for working together down the line (which by the way I'm not super sure about, and I do know Captain confirmed to her the yellows were voting her before I did), she saw me as the biggest threat overall due to lying under the radar, whereas Captain would be an easier target to gather votes around once she returned from the ring.
Fortunately for me, her other hunch was that I'd be worse in the challenges which.... was less correct. It does seem though that this wasn't a significantly weighted factor though as supposedly Falco's best push against it (you know, as opposed to saying he wasn't in if it were a Squirtle vote which would have been super nice and not cost him an ally) was that Captain had seemed far more afraid of duelling when on blue as opposed to my never really hinting one way or the other, hoping for an air of mystery. I have no reason not to believe Robin's account of how it came together or the timeline of it, either. The only unsquirtainty is whether Kazuya possibly knew about it through Dedede, without Robin knowing. And it's a risk I'm playing up to make Kazuya feel less trustworthy to the other yellows, and to explain my later actions toward kazuya himself.
Final 7 Round - Onway backin!
So most of this was quite a blur to me while I was getting back into the swing of things (and waking up), so there was a lot of indecision and nodding along from Squirtle, which isn't necessarily a bad thing coming out of a crushing boot and ringduel win. And some of it is recounted above already. Yoshi (of all people) designed a vote split to potentially send Dedede/Kayuya both into the duel if one of Dedede/Kazuya/Falco didn't vote with the others. At the time I thought Falco the most likely, and when he stayed offline until seconds before the deadline I was fairly sure this wasn't going to work, and that the captian would be going into the duel. Then Kazuya voted for dedede out of left field and sent himself into the duel, in a move that I don't necessarily understand at all. If he thought the Captain and I were on board for the Wario/Yoshi split he'd have voted for one of them, and also coordinated with dedede who clearly knew it wasn't happening. Maybe the Captain banked in some trust capital without looping me in? Maybe the stray comment Yoshi is celebrating in hindsight actually made a difference and he thought voting Dedede would leave him with 2 votes to 3 vote each on the Captain and Dedede? Either way some wires were crossed, and the captain spared.
On the one hand, it's hard not to revel in that victory. There's no way that the clear block of yoshi-captain-squirtle should be avoiding a ringduel at final seven, especially when it comes down to poor play on the part of the others rather than any decent coordination on our part. Captain on the attack sandbag meant we could give Kazzuya and edge, which turned out to be slighter than I anticipated. And now there's a real chance we can make it to the finals without either of us seeing the ring (again), in part thanks to my model for getting around even the final four barrier. And now the presumed order of things is Kazuya/Falco duel F6, then the survivor battles Wario at F5.
On the other hand, Captain making it to the end without ever duelling makes him more of a threat to me at FTC than I'd hoped. And it would have been awfully convenient for Squirtle ahd he gone through the ring(er) at F7 and either made it out albeit less impressively than Squritle for having held the attacksandbag himself rather than endured it in his opponent's hand, or even been knocked out altogether, opening the path for Squirtle to quite honestly land in the dream final three with Yoshi and Wario. Even if Captain were still in play, and had duelled, I'd back my case to win over anyone else aside from perhaps Kazuya, and I'd be not only happy to sit beside the captain but confident I could swing more votes. Now... not quite so much.
Squirtlesenses THE FUTURE!
And I am thinking ahead here, because if I play my cards right (heh) then I'm only one obstacle away from locking in a spot at the end. If I don't get any votes on Sunday - and at this stage I don't expect to - I'll be making a new thread and using it for the entire endgame, because I can play my smashball to earn safety at F5, then my 21/22 to earn safety at F4 where any tie (Yoshi and the Captain both potentially have their 21/22 cards too) will make the safety sandbag default back to me. I'd prefer to leave my smashball for one last surprise going into F4 but it wouldn't guarantee me the bag this round, where it makes sense for Yoshi to play his highest cards knowing that it'll then stay with him, unless a smashball is played. (An aside - if I'd run the numbers before the last vote I probably would have bid on and won the attack bag last night, as I have the remaining cards to do so, which now will go toward the F4 duel attackbag instead even though it's fairly useless when I know I won't be playing the duel.)
Initially my plan would have been to hog the attack sandbag. But if I do truly back myself in any FTC combination, then the duels... kind of don't matter? And I might as well keep myself out of them by grabbing safety. I don't think anyone would hold it against me that, given the ability to breeze through the last two votes, I bought my own safety rather than trying to guarantee inherently unpredictable duels even when that could theoretically help my allies as well as myself, basically whoever ended up in the duel. It would be kind of a shame that I wouldn't get to prove my broader challenge chops, but if I don't need to risk another duel where just one bad moment could end my game, I'm inclined not to. And I think the squirtleshocker outcome over Robin is a pretty bold statement on its own.
The only other reason to not want the safety is if I felt the need to duel myself in order to knock out a specific threat, under the presumption that nobody else could. And I don't. Even though I still am wary of sitting beside Kazuya especially, and Captain to a lesser extent, the only duel left which is 100% a Squirtle gimme is the boggle variant. And I'd only try that kind of Hail Mary plan at F4, when there'd be three challenges to play and where two could easily break against me. It's only even a possibility to me because I know it worked for the eventual winner in the only other arena season I've followed closely. But I'm also not brazen enough to believe I'd necessarily be the best person to knock out a threat in a series of challenges, either, when Falco is supposedly pretty strong in most challenges as well and Yoshi would have an edge specifically in the two I don't know how I'd fare in (barrel blast, four colour).
So basically my path here is to lock myself in for the FTC, then do my best not to screw up my own narrative or allow others to build up beyond mine. I'd be more comfortable with that were the Captain's duelfree status not a thing, and won't complain if he gets sent in at 5 or 4 in a way that I unfortunately cannot prevent, but on balance the plan is to fly with the safety anyway. Knowing that I won't be a target in the endgame also means I can be significantly more honest with the potential jurors in building up the things I'd highlight at FTC, both positive and negative, so I'm unveiling some things even already with Falco and Kazuya, and I'll be thinking through how to deal with Wario in that manner as well once I know I'm through F6.
Because of course all of this is conditional upon this current round not blowing up spectacularly, and as simple as things appear on the surface (Wario/Yoshi/Captain/Squirtle split 2-2 on the others, then control all 3 votes in the tiebreaker) things are wont to turn messymess in the smashgame after all. Wario should consider flipping, Captain might if his perception of me as a strategic threat blows up too large, too soon, and while Falco says he intends to just vote Captain every round now until one of them loses a duel, he has lied to me before. And Kazuya is certainly capable of something sneakier. I'm just kind of hoping that if something shifts it really does need to land on the Captain before me, and if they wait even a single round to target me it will be too late. Squirtlesnicker.
So hopefully I can afford to have a relaxing weekend? Or at least attempt to not fixate on this constantly. Who am I kidding?
Final 8 Round - Onwayto unsquirtain doom!
My decisionmaking here was somewhat straightforward. Wario was set on voting for Robin, strongly/reasonably presumed that he'd be the one going into the ringduel and was already miffed at having been overruled the previous round. While initially I resisted it due to quite liking Robin and feeling like we could potentially work well together even from across different sides, reassessing my position with everyone else led me to realise that if either Robin or Dedede left next I'd be set up close to perfectly for an endgame run. And to see Robin as more of a potential threat, for likely socialising wiht everyone else as well as with me. Talk of splitting the vote came and went but wasn't going to go anywhere with Kazuya off the table due to immunity and Dedede cosying up nicely I guess to Wario and more, or just continuing to slide by under the radar - not that we had the numbers for a split anyway. But the rub here is that almost everyone on the yellow (less Kazuya) side was making it super clear to Robin they'd be the vote unless anything changed, even myself.
And Robin was absolutely a better player than we were crediting, because given a whole day to think through her options she smashed through the presumption that her side should be aiming for Wario, something which I think couldn't have happened even one round earlier, when Wario was still afire but also immune. And it took a Robin to see not only the benefit of splitting up myself/captain if she had to win a ringduel, but eventually also the reasons for targeting specifically Squirtle. Hearing her lay it out while we were in the ring honestly had me impressed and would have made here a strong favourite for my jury vote even. Even though she said we'd bonded better and had more potential for working together down the line (which by the way I'm not super sure about, and I do know Captain confirmed to her the yellows were voting her before I did), she saw me as the biggest threat overall due to lying under the radar, whereas Captain would be an easier target to gather votes around once she returned from the ring.
Fortunately for me, her other hunch was that I'd be worse in the challenges which.... was less correct. It does seem though that this wasn't a significantly weighted factor though as supposedly Falco's best push against it (you know, as opposed to saying he wasn't in if it were a Squirtle vote which would have been super nice and not cost him an ally) was that Captain had seemed far more afraid of duelling when on blue as opposed to my never really hinting one way or the other, hoping for an air of mystery. I have no reason not to believe Robin's account of how it came together or the timeline of it, either. The only unsquirtainty is whether Kazuya possibly knew about it through Dedede, without Robin knowing. And it's a risk I'm playing up to make Kazuya feel less trustworthy to the other yellows, and to explain my later actions toward kazuya himself.
Final 7 Round - Onway backin!
So most of this was quite a blur to me while I was getting back into the swing of things (and waking up), so there was a lot of indecision and nodding along from Squirtle, which isn't necessarily a bad thing coming out of a crushing boot and ringduel win. And some of it is recounted above already. Yoshi (of all people) designed a vote split to potentially send Dedede/Kayuya both into the duel if one of Dedede/Kazuya/Falco didn't vote with the others. At the time I thought Falco the most likely, and when he stayed offline until seconds before the deadline I was fairly sure this wasn't going to work, and that the captian would be going into the duel. Then Kazuya voted for dedede out of left field and sent himself into the duel, in a move that I don't necessarily understand at all. If he thought the Captain and I were on board for the Wario/Yoshi split he'd have voted for one of them, and also coordinated with dedede who clearly knew it wasn't happening. Maybe the Captain banked in some trust capital without looping me in? Maybe the stray comment Yoshi is celebrating in hindsight actually made a difference and he thought voting Dedede would leave him with 2 votes to 3 vote each on the Captain and Dedede? Either way some wires were crossed, and the captain spared.
On the one hand, it's hard not to revel in that victory. There's no way that the clear block of yoshi-captain-squirtle should be avoiding a ringduel at final seven, especially when it comes down to poor play on the part of the others rather than any decent coordination on our part. Captain on the attack sandbag meant we could give Kazzuya and edge, which turned out to be slighter than I anticipated. And now there's a real chance we can make it to the finals without either of us seeing the ring (again), in part thanks to my model for getting around even the final four barrier. And now the presumed order of things is Kazuya/Falco duel F6, then the survivor battles Wario at F5.
On the other hand, Captain making it to the end without ever duelling makes him more of a threat to me at FTC than I'd hoped. And it would have been awfully convenient for Squirtle ahd he gone through the ring(er) at F7 and either made it out albeit less impressively than Squritle for having held the attacksandbag himself rather than endured it in his opponent's hand, or even been knocked out altogether, opening the path for Squirtle to quite honestly land in the dream final three with Yoshi and Wario. Even if Captain were still in play, and had duelled, I'd back my case to win over anyone else aside from perhaps Kazuya, and I'd be not only happy to sit beside the captain but confident I could swing more votes. Now... not quite so much.
Squirtlesenses THE FUTURE!
And I am thinking ahead here, because if I play my cards right (heh) then I'm only one obstacle away from locking in a spot at the end. If I don't get any votes on Sunday - and at this stage I don't expect to - I'll be making a new thread and using it for the entire endgame, because I can play my smashball to earn safety at F5, then my 21/22 to earn safety at F4 where any tie (Yoshi and the Captain both potentially have their 21/22 cards too) will make the safety sandbag default back to me. I'd prefer to leave my smashball for one last surprise going into F4 but it wouldn't guarantee me the bag this round, where it makes sense for Yoshi to play his highest cards knowing that it'll then stay with him, unless a smashball is played. (An aside - if I'd run the numbers before the last vote I probably would have bid on and won the attack bag last night, as I have the remaining cards to do so, which now will go toward the F4 duel attackbag instead even though it's fairly useless when I know I won't be playing the duel.)
Initially my plan would have been to hog the attack sandbag. But if I do truly back myself in any FTC combination, then the duels... kind of don't matter? And I might as well keep myself out of them by grabbing safety. I don't think anyone would hold it against me that, given the ability to breeze through the last two votes, I bought my own safety rather than trying to guarantee inherently unpredictable duels even when that could theoretically help my allies as well as myself, basically whoever ended up in the duel. It would be kind of a shame that I wouldn't get to prove my broader challenge chops, but if I don't need to risk another duel where just one bad moment could end my game, I'm inclined not to. And I think the squirtleshocker outcome over Robin is a pretty bold statement on its own.
The only other reason to not want the safety is if I felt the need to duel myself in order to knock out a specific threat, under the presumption that nobody else could. And I don't. Even though I still am wary of sitting beside Kazuya especially, and Captain to a lesser extent, the only duel left which is 100% a Squirtle gimme is the boggle variant. And I'd only try that kind of Hail Mary plan at F4, when there'd be three challenges to play and where two could easily break against me. It's only even a possibility to me because I know it worked for the eventual winner in the only other arena season I've followed closely. But I'm also not brazen enough to believe I'd necessarily be the best person to knock out a threat in a series of challenges, either, when Falco is supposedly pretty strong in most challenges as well and Yoshi would have an edge specifically in the two I don't know how I'd fare in (barrel blast, four colour).
So basically my path here is to lock myself in for the FTC, then do my best not to screw up my own narrative or allow others to build up beyond mine. I'd be more comfortable with that were the Captain's duelfree status not a thing, and won't complain if he gets sent in at 5 or 4 in a way that I unfortunately cannot prevent, but on balance the plan is to fly with the safety anyway. Knowing that I won't be a target in the endgame also means I can be significantly more honest with the potential jurors in building up the things I'd highlight at FTC, both positive and negative, so I'm unveiling some things even already with Falco and Kazuya, and I'll be thinking through how to deal with Wario in that manner as well once I know I'm through F6.
Because of course all of this is conditional upon this current round not blowing up spectacularly, and as simple as things appear on the surface (Wario/Yoshi/Captain/Squirtle split 2-2 on the others, then control all 3 votes in the tiebreaker) things are wont to turn messymess in the smashgame after all. Wario should consider flipping, Captain might if his perception of me as a strategic threat blows up too large, too soon, and while Falco says he intends to just vote Captain every round now until one of them loses a duel, he has lied to me before. And Kazuya is certainly capable of something sneakier. I'm just kind of hoping that if something shifts it really does need to land on the Captain before me, and if they wait even a single round to target me it will be too late. Squirtlesnicker.
So hopefully I can afford to have a relaxing weekend? Or at least attempt to not fixate on this constantly. Who am I kidding?
