So the long and short of it is that there are 3 people in my POE (frankly, I just do not buy Casey being so quick to hop on their scum partner, nor do I buy them claiming to use their role on WyIted only to come up with no result - there’s just too much here that doesn’t add up), but everyone on that list has at least one substantial reason for me to doubt their being scum.
WyIted has claimed Vanilla, so he has the least intrusive claim. I don’t really buy that he’d claim Vanilla as a fake claim if he was scum (sincerely can’t remember a game where he did and there weren’t many claims left after him, so he didn’t have to play it that safe), and it requires a pretty early bus on GP, but not so early that it’s unbelievable. The Motion Detector result also makes this harder to believe unless we just assume he’s the Ninja. Still, it’s hard not to notice that he hammered Austin when I’d said I would be back on to discuss it that evening and claims to have done it to prevent a no lynch… with 24 hours left in the DP. I get the impression it had more to do with his continually expressed frustration that we weren’t just pulling the trigger, but I still don’t like it.
Vader is a tricky one because that very early Gravedigger claim still stands as pretty townie, even moreso now that we’ve seen GP’s flip and know that there are two players with some form of tracking investigative roles. If I dispense with the theory that there’s a Ninja in the game, though, it’s not altogether ridiculous that he’d fake this claim, it’s just surprising to me that there would be two tracking players and nothing in the game to fool their results. I didn’t love how Vader responded to Luna and Austin last DP either, but it’s also hard to say if that’s just tunnel vision or actively scummy.
Then there’s Luna. I’d still say he’s the least likely to be scum out of these three, but I can’t dismiss him entirely. The 1X Bookie claim is a bit weird (seriously, you get only one chance to pick the lynch and if you fail you’re just Vanilla for the rest of the game? Also a bit weird that most everyone else has a 2X role or a JOAT), but I also just don’t buy that his extended defense of Austin comes from someone who is playing scum. Maybe he is just playing against expectations exceptionally well, but it’s a weird move to actively push back on lynching a claimed JK as scum - hell, last game we pounced on Savant at the first opportunity. Of these three, this is the behavior that sticks out to me as most actively opposed to scum, since it could have resulted in the prevention of the NK, town/scum confirmation, and would have put Austin and Luna in the crosshairs for future DPs if they didn’t follow through.
So, yes, I think this largely comes down to WyIted and Vader. I haven’t decided which I favor, but I wanted to write out my thoughts completely.
