|
|
Post by Masahiro Sakurai on Mar 7, 2022 8:31:59 GMT 10
This is a tough duel to call; two strong players on turf they feel comfortable on. Huge stakes too, with Squirtle guaranteed FTC if he survives.
|
|
|
|
Post by Sandbag on Mar 7, 2022 9:20:02 GMT 10
The rest of this game is too tough to call.
Falco's reads are so atrocious and he believes them so thoroughly that I'm genuinely concerned if he's on the jury he will 'enlighten' people as to whats been going on and cause some fucked up result.
Wario continues to tank his game intentionally. It may not look like it is, but it has to be because that is the only logical reasoning that explains his behaviour.
Yoshi is a cocktail of equal parts Irrelevance and Intrusiveness. And soda.
Captain plays the game on a razors edge but is still balancing for now. If Squirtle returns, He's in big trouble because Squirtle literally doesnt have to worry about numbers. They can just let Cap and Kaz go for a presumably ez win.
I don't even know how to describe Kazuya here. He's built this bond with Cap that is saving them both and giving them both the best chances at success but so much of Kaz's game depends on the result here.
As before, Squirtle winning this duel really narrows the scope of this game. Squirtle's only goal from there on is attempting to get the most favourable ftc opponents. Presumably, Yoshi and Wario. Squirtle sees Kazuya as his biggest threat so he and Wario and Yoshi probably vote Kazuya.
Kaz and Cap would vote for whoever they perceive as the least threatening. Probably Wario, and we get the Wario/Kazuya duel that has been bubbling for years.
From there, if Wario wins then he and Squirtle own Yoshi and can engineer a 2-1-1 to force Yoshi against Captain to try and force him out.
If Yoshi wins, Gg Squirtle barring ftc nonsense. game ends 9-1-0 with everyone bar Plant voting Squirtle. Plant votes Yoshi. Wario loses to someone that literally made no decisions.
If Cap wins, Squirtle has a tough argument to beat since Cap has FTC chops and friends on jury and a much stronger argument to win, especially beating Yoshi. Cap proves by proxy to be the strongest challenge competitor in game, and avoided duel until Very last duel. AND Kazuya on jury unveils his super closeness with Cap which gives him strategic agency over Squirtle, whereas Squirtle had to 'win out'.
Its really a toss up between the two but Cap would have momentum after the win for sure.
Going back to the Wario/Kazuya duel... if Kazuya wins Yoshi is officially tied between Cap and Squirtle and gets to have agency unless the two team up.
Which they would do to force a Yoshi/Kazuya duel. Kazuya would feel SO betrayed and probably loses duel since its best of 3 and theres more than a couple concepts left that work against him hard.
Yoshi wins and same f3 as above with Kazuya's vote much more in the air and Cap having a different but equally potent argument of Never Dueled.
If Kazuya wins we get the fabled Turtle Racer Demon f3 and the hosts party for days. Absolutely up in the air who wins.
Rewinding time all the way to present day.
If Falco wins this duel the game is a LOT more fluid. I can't even begin to think it out.
Nobody immune at f5 is such a treat.
Wario and Captain are figting over Yoshis vote. I don't know where Yoshi's loyalties lie, I thought they were trying to win but they purposefully helped Squirtle with duel pick so maybe he would side with Captain.
That being said, Wario can probably be bamboozled into doing whatever Captain says.
The best move would probably be a Falco/Yoshi duel? The two biggest challenge threats.
Wario and Cap tell Yoshi to vote Falco while they vote Yoshi. Kazuya votes Falco.
BUT if Wario is trying to get to end with Falco/Yoshi (which seems to be the case) then... I have nfi. In that case its possible to sway Falco to save himself from duel and have it be a Wario/Yoshi duel? or maybe Falco/Wario both throw a vote on whiever they see as more threatening between Kaz and Cap?
its already impossible to say. Although Yoshi wins immunity at f4 lol so thats something to consider.
On the one hand, the endgame is super interesting if Squirtle loses due to immunity being gone. On the other hand it allows for a Falco/Wario/Yoshi f3.
on the other hand, Squirtle winning means that we could have Turtle Racer Demon f3. On the other hand, it could just be a wet fart of Squirtle against Wario/Yoshi.
On the other hand... We could conceivably end up in a scenario where Yoshi is a tiebreaking vote for a winner and his vote is decided by eggs.
So it could always be worse.
|
|
|
|
Post by Masahiro Sakurai on Mar 7, 2022 11:53:46 GMT 10
Squirtle is pissed about Captain Falcon at the moment, and I think he probably needs to take a step back and reflect. It's really rich to begrudge Captain Falcon this move. If Squirtle was aiming to be immune to the end, he was setting Captain Falcon up to need to duel twice, and obviously, that doesn't work for Captain Falcon at all. He had even used his cards to further the interests of their alliance, while Squirtle was stingy and never offered his help once, keeping secrets and hoarding for his own benefit. It was an amazingly well-executed game, but I feel like being salty someone wasn't an idiot like you assumed is a bad note to end on. I can see where that comes from too. Squirtle's level of investment is so high that the comedown can be really hard, and it's something I can really relate to. I hope he can sleep on it and be proud of how close he got, how well he hid everything, and how on earth he managed to maintain that shtick for three weeks without going insane, love it or hate it. That Squirtle deal-with-it GIF was incredible, too.  As for the duel itself, ultimately, while it was close, Falco found a bunch more letters. Squirtle used theirs perfectly, while Falco was slightly suboptimal; from a quick glance, he could have managed 35 easily, and a combination for 37 was probably in there somewhere too. Both of them eclipsed our testing efforts, so it was done to a super high standard, as we'd expect from both of them! |
|
|
|
Post by Sandbag on Mar 7, 2022 12:18:15 GMT 10
|
|
|
|
Post by Sandbag on Mar 7, 2022 12:19:09 GMT 10
Also, the ultimate proof of just how little grasp Falco has on any sort of reality: Wario has a kind of impressive game here, and shouldn't be taken lightly as an F3 opponent. |
|
|
|
Post by Tabuu on Mar 7, 2022 12:36:10 GMT 10
Squirtle ranking Captain Falcon last here is a special kind of bitter asshole move. Very unimpressed. If Squirtle survived the vote he was winning the game easily and he knew it, and now he is mad that it didn't work out and taking it out on Falcon for not being a good ally and letting himself die for someone who never considered doing the same in return (or even telling him about the Smash Ball).
|
|
|
|
Post by Sandbag on Mar 7, 2022 12:37:20 GMT 10
Credit where it's due, it's very nice how Wario always says 'please' when telling yoshi how to vote.
|
|
|
|
Post by Sandbag on Mar 7, 2022 12:40:18 GMT 10
Squirtle ranking Captain Falcon last here is a special kind of bitter asshole move. Very unimpressed. If Squirtle survived the vote he was winning the game easily and he knew it, and now he is mad that it didn't work out and taking it out on Falcon for not being a good ally and letting himself die for someone who never considered doing the same in return (or even telling him about the Smash Ball). It definitely is catty af, although I think if I understand his reasoning here it's because he thought Cap had a clear F3 with him (and had said repeatedly that they were ride or die) and purely because Cap wanted to guarantee avoiding the ring he sent Squirtle in instead when it could've been Wario/Falco, but Cap out of fear made it Squirtle/Falco and now has a not clear path to the end.
Granted I don't buy for a second that Squirtle wouldn't have changed his tune come F5/F4 re letting Captain get taken out (although not targeting him specifically) since he repeatedly talked about making sure Cap is targeted before he is... BUT I don't think it's purely pettiness for the move itself but how he is currently viewing that move as short sighted.
|
|
|
|
Post by Masahiro Sakurai on Mar 7, 2022 12:51:20 GMT 10
Also, the ultimate proof of just how little grasp Falco has on any sort of reality: Wario has a kind of impressive game here, and shouldn't be taken lightly as an F3 opponent. It's a bit weird with  . Everything in PMs is loaded with weird meta hypotheticals and odd presumptions. It's almost like he thinks he's telling people what they want to hear, but it reads to them like bizarre moon logic. He probably overestimates Wario from having never shared a team; he's been less overt since the merge, after all. Of course, if he hadn't burned so many bridges at the merge, he'd have compared notes with people he trusted and worked all that out. Couple that with being the only Pink, and this is why he's so far out of the loop. Either way, none of his plans are getting up because whenever he approaches anyone he's just telling people what they need in the big picture from his myopic perspective instead of offering up a concrete plan rooted in any sort of trust. That said, in all honesty, I find it fairly compelling? He has really fallen from grace but remains fully engaged, and I would enjoy seeing how he had to handle an FTC. Like, Yoshi's case is probably a lot more open-and-shut, say, but Falco would have some supporters and a lot of different choices to try to explain or defend. It's not something I've seen play out before. |
|
|
|
Post by Sandbag on Mar 7, 2022 12:52:49 GMT 10
Honestly, I think 99% of all of this is symptomatic of just how expertly hidden CapZuya is. Like, idk if I have ever seen a duo go this deep into a game and people still adamantly feeling that they cannot be working together, let alone practically being ride or dies. Nobody sees how close that duo is protecting each other, and so people see their moves as bad and messy and awkward. It's like...amazing. I mean even if the other three WEREN'T Wrong Club 7 Wario/Falco/Yoshi, each with reads on the game so bizarre you'd think they just came here from an alternate universe and were working with whatever information they had. There's all these things that, like with Squirtle hiding the Smash Ball (btw, Squirtle and the Smash Ball should've absolutely been the Ring Finger at some point Master Hand) are hidden so completely that people have trouble fathoming the possibility, let alone considering it in any serious capacity. If you will permit me some minor PM scraping: But now Cap has revealed his intention and the big surprise is that it's not just him & Squirtle at the end. He's either very loyal to Kazuya (which I doubt, after last rounds vote) or maybe he figures keeping Kazuya alive as a threatening shield is worth doing to keep himself out of the spotlight. Yeah I've got that from CF, and Squirtle has confirmed with me that's still what he wants to do. CF will be getting Falco's vote so it's definitely in his best interest for this to be the plan. I could see Kazuya voting everywhere to be honest. No idea what he'll do. |
|
|
|
Post by Sandbag on Mar 7, 2022 13:11:02 GMT 10
This is such an interesting mess. I'm trying to break this down.
Yoshi is voting Kazuya as instructed by Wario and Captain.
Captain expects Wario to also vote Kazuya to guarantee him in the ring. Meanwhile, Wario and Falco are working to send Cap/Zuya into the ring if possible by getting Zuya to target Cap.
So Wario probably expects this:
Wario/Falco - Cap
Yoshi/Cap - Zuya
Kazuya - Maaaybe Cap?
Wario could put a third on Zuya and leave the CapZuya duel up to Kazuya following through, potentially having it be a 3-1-1 tie.
Captain is probably expecting Wario/Yoshi to vote Kazuya meaning that he and Kazuya can pick who "kazuya's" duel opponent would be.
which they should land on Wario
so Cap is expecting
Wario/Yoshi - Zuya
Cap/Zuya - Wario
Falco - Cap
but...depending on whether Wario votes Cap or Kazuya, the ACTUAL VOTES if both these plans happen could be:
Wario/Falco - Cap
Cap/Zuya - Wario
Yoshi - Kazuya
Which would be super fitting.
I think Kaz/Wario is more likely, but CapWario would be the hotness and has a much better chance at getting CapZuya through to F4 where we can officially avoid a Falco/Wario/Yoshi F3 and cancel the game.
|
|
|
|
Post by Sandbag on Mar 7, 2022 13:30:28 GMT 10
On the topic of Sandbags
Here are the decks:
Captain Falcon: 12, 13, 19, 20
Falco: 5, 6, 7, 14
Kazuya: 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 14, 16
Wario: 10, 11, 12, 15, 17, 18
Yoshi: 5, 6, 19, 22
So their highest single bids are:
Captain Falcon: 39
Falco: 21
Kazuya: 30
Wario: 35
Yoshi: 41
Meaning that Yoshi, barring some insane play for Attack instead, will be immune going into the Final 4 and guaranteed a spot at FTC, assuming they aren't somehow, in an insane turnaround voted out and eliminated in a duel tonight.
Assuming nobody goes for Attack to choose the ban for the final duel, it defaults to Yoshi as well. I can see Kazuya and Falco throwing cards at Attack to see if they win it (with Kazuya winning), and I can see Wario and Falcon both thinking they have enough to get Shield and they'll lose to Yoshi, so that would be an interesting setup.
|
|
|
|
Post by Sandbag on Mar 7, 2022 13:39:56 GMT 10
Oh god no. This is how it happens isn't it? Captain has just said that Falco NEEDS to go into the duel tonight. Captain also doesn't realise the target on his back seemingly? He thinks it'd be Kazuya v Falco (Kazuya loses everything except MAYBE Distorted Avatars or Four Colour Theorem. Both are tossups where you either 'get it' or you don't.) But it might end up Cap v Falco due to the Wario/Falco plan... which would be disastrous. Cap would need to absolutely clutch a challenge against Falco. If Falco wins, then Kaz goes into duel gauntlet at F4 and definitely loses. If Captain wins?... then it's Wario vs one of CapZuya and it really is anyone's game out of the finals seemingly with Kaz being the worst chance, especially in 3 separate challenges. So... If Captain NEEDS Falco in the duel tonight, Falco's chances to win the game go WAY up.  |
|
|
|
Post by Sandbag on Mar 7, 2022 13:51:30 GMT 10
It's dumb how consistently the most interesting thing on a round to round basis is also the thing that still technically allows Falco/Wario/Yoshi F3. And we've gotten our way every round.
And now we're paying for it?
Squirtle come back.
|
|
|
|
Post by Master Hand on Mar 7, 2022 17:01:19 GMT 10
~THE MASTER FINGERS~THE THUMB So Captain Falcon was able to get numbers on Squirtle and avoid going into the Ring at Final 6. This was very well done and a necessary outcome for everyone remaining, but it does not seem to have created an opening for Falcon to avoid the Ring this time as things stand. The statistic just is not one he can completely remove from the equation the way others have done, because of the prominence of his personality and gameplay until now. I go back and forth on if Captain Falcon could avoid the Ring if he survives Final 5. It would require Kazuya to stay loyal to him and to create a 2-1-1 using Yoshi's eggs against him, I think? However so much will depend on the Shield Sandbag and what Kazuya believes his endgame chances to look like. If they're in Final 4 together maybe they feel more comfortable turning on each other and knowing one will be at FTC. THE INDEX FINGER Choosing to give this to Kazuya alone even though Captain Falcon was also clutch and had excellent reads at Final 6, as I feel I haven't had as many opportunities to praise Kazuya in this light. It is strange given the high regard I hold his overall performance in. It would have easy for Kazuya to turn on Captain Falcon and go along with the trio Falco was trying have him join with Wario, but Kazuya chose a different path and it is looking like a very positive one for him. At this stage there is no reason to think Kazuya and Captain Falcon will not vote together, using their two votes to determine a duelist. Add in that Kazuya is now less likely to be targeted between the two for a variety of reasons and he's looking to reach Final 4 unscathed. It is quite a turnaround from where we thought he might be last week. Other than Kazuya's win as Tarzan in Australian Survivor: CDI this is the furthest he has been in an ORG, and to make it this far in such unfamiliar territory after nine years away really is incredible. It is a feel good trajectory for sure. THE MIDDLE FINGER So I've tended to approach this title in a humorous manner and would have been content to do that this time too. My original intent was to steal Sandbag's screenshot above and leave it at that, but developments while I was at work make me feel like this entire situation deserves constructive criticism more than anything else. I think Squirtle's issue (in ORGs in general) is that he loves having more knowledge than others, and loves being in a position to have known better than them with regard to decisions made as well. He for sure was close to having figured this entire game out, shield sandbags in tow, and it would have been an impressive achievement had he managed it. I get that losing it all at the last opportunity is a bitter pill to swallow but like...Squirtle is lying to himself if feels he hadn't been laying a deathtrap for Captain Falcon all game long. He was not a ride or die in good faith. Had Squirtle got his way than Captain Falcon would have been dueling in the Ring in the endgame and conveniently removed without Squirtle voting for him directly. If you're using someone as a shield you can't complain when they turn that situation back on you to save themselves from the inevitable. And all that is before even considering that he concealed the Smash Ball, the sort of secret one should never keep from a ride or die. Idk. I think there is a lesson to be learned here, and I hope it is. THE RING FINGER So Falco is latching onto the idea that he has handled the jurors well because he was friendly with them on the way out, and I suppose that is true because several players have more positive views of him after leaving the game, but like: Final 6 - Voted Captain Falcon - Did not duel, Falco dueled Squirtle and won. Final 7 - Voted Captain Falcon - Did not duel. Final 8 - Voted Squirtle - Won duel. Final 9 - Voted Yoshi - Won duel. Final 10 - Voted Kazuya - Did not duel. Final 11 - Voted Yoshi - Won duel. Final 13 - Voted Robin - Won duel. Easy to got along with the jury when you aren't the reason any of them are there  The last player he voted out who lost in the Ring was Samus. I question the case Falco can make for this trajectory, but if anyone can it probably is Yog tbh. Seen in Mafia countless times over the years. THE PINKY  I feel like these two have had their games scrutinised extensively of late within the game, so I want to take this moment to instead offer some praise because I do think there is a lot to like about their time playing this. It is genuinely possible that either could win that Final 3 with Falco, I wouldn't rule anyone out at all. As the one who hosted both of them in their Australian Survivor debuts, I'm definitely proud of how far they've been able to progress in this. Like Final 5 in an ORG that has a largely veteran cast is hella impressive considering this is Wario's 2nd ORG and Yoshi's 3rd. To get a personal best placement in this context is rare and shows they have much of what they need to consistently succeed already. I like to think they can make the necessary adjustments to their approaches without losing the essence of who they are. Yoshi's strength has been his social likability and sincere honesty, something that hasn't come off as condescending in any way. Wario's been able to achieve multiple goals and his impact on the direction of the game from Day 1 is undeniable. The two have been in the largest voting faction of the merge for some time now, and unlike Falco their targets have mostly been taken out of the game successfully. It remains to be seen what their exact ceiling is in terms of placement, but as characters they have held their own for sure. |
|
