I didn't plan on lynching sunfan today. It's basically down to Zinger vs Kirino for me. It's just that I don't trust anyone this game and that's a very hard spot to be in with no red flips.
Where I come from, and from where Rag and Rubik come from TBH, when you're the day before Lylo and no red flips and you have no clue who to trust and paranoia is running rampant everywhere, you go with tried and tested policy over gut. Why? because you're in the make it or break it final moments of the game when everything can be won or lost base on a solid or bad read, and so you can't rightly trust your reads.
What does policy say to do here for those of us that don't have cop checks to rely on? It says you DON'T let claimed cops ride to Lylo. The logic behind why you don't isn't just about confirming their targets (because their sanity could be in question), it's because a cop claim is the safest claim for a scum to make that will likely save them from a noose for at least a day or two. And it probably reliably confirms their targets in most setups.
Once it is Lylo, it is too late to be messing around with trusting or not trusting claimed cops. A scum team has every reason to night kill a cop before Lylo, but once you're going into Lylo? They're better off leaving the cop alone because even a living Town Cop who pegs scum in Lylo is likely to hurt town more than help it (because everyone will question their results, and may even deny them).
The only safe play today from the perspective of those of us who aren't claiming cops, given the dangerous situation we were in at Day start, was to go with that tried and tested policy and lynch either Rag or SunFan (but given Rag's targeting of SunFan, and Rag's timing for her claim, Rag was the better choice). Somehow, that perspective has been so twisted by a vigilant SunFun who came out swinging at me
and only me like his life depended on it (or like his scumchat decided, suddenly, maybe their plan to bus one of their own was unnecessary and they could push for a flawless victory in Lylo).
If you don't trust yourself, Minish, if you don't trust me or Kiri or SunFan or anybody, then the smart play is to not rely on your gut and go with the tried and tested policy of lynching cops before Lylo. Because the mafia theory behind why you should be doing it is as solid as a rock. Letting a claimed cop ride to Lylo is foolish. Letting a claimed cop who claimed limited cop under duress and then survived a Night Kill ride to Lylo is even more foolish. If you don't want to trust me on it, fine, but trust the mountains of evidence all over the internet. Just google Cops die before Lylo and you will see tons of mafia theory behind why it is smart to lynch them before Lylo. There's a reason Rag started the day saying her own death was the most logical outcome, because even hypothetical scum Rag knows that overcoming the smart logic of Cops die before Lylo is damn near impossible and it would be better for her team if she acquiesced to it.
There's a reason policies become policies, and it is supposed to be exactly for situations like this where your gut doesn't know who to trust and your head doesn't know what to think. The policy is backed by years of mafia theory and it will do the thinking for you through the murky waters of deceit and discord.
But alas, it doesn't look like any of you are willing to listen to reason. And so I will hang despite there being claimed cops and Lylo is tomorrow.
Scum probably wins this game. Oh well.
