|
Post by Peter Pettigrew on May 29, 2022 12:41:20 GMT 10
Accio Wizengamot Judge Number Eight:
![](https://i.imgur.com/dQe1WfO.png) I now invite Barty Crouch Jr to address the finalists.
|
|
|
Post by Barty Crouch Jr on May 29, 2022 18:58:53 GMT 10
Corban Yaxley ! Regulus Black ! So many people are jealous of your place today, so i hope you all enjoy this experience, as there's at least 18 who would offer you to switch places if you don't enjoy it! RAB! We had kinda strange relationship, didn't we? Despite of being in alliance pre-swap, I never felt "click" between us, with all the conversations leading nowhere. HOWEVER, it was completely reversed in the merge. We never worked together here, despite of couple times me promising to watch your back there - besides of Kingsley vote, i was watching that back only because of feeling like there's bigger players to vote now, and look at us now! You managed to reduce your threat level to that kind of level which got you to F4, and then you started to kick ass. Amazing. You lost your day 1 bestie Carrow and your BvW partner Figg on the 1st round, but still managed to get here without them. Well done. But what I, and i think a lot of others thinks / sees, is that you survived not because of your social or strategic skills, but because of people always having bigger fishes to fry... and in F7 occasions - strickly because of the immunity given to you by.... by no other than the player sitting next to you. Could you tell us what we didn't noticed? How intentional was your low threat level? What did you do to keep it low?Yaxley! From the first, till the last day, you were amazing allie. I couldn't been luckier to be stuck with you all the game. If in the F4 tiebreaker it would had been anyone else that you (or Lily of course) i would had refused to any extra clues as soon as they mentions about having to leave soon. But I simply didn't had balls to do it to you. Your awesome social game got me around your finger, and looking back, it ruined my and Lily's games. I don't know how much you already read in other people speeches, as i write mine on Friday, but... i hope you are sitting down, as it will blow your mind same as it did for me... There is much more Regulus fans in this Jury than it was Lily's fans... So you will need to fight here. Fight as you fought all season for this victory. Could you tell us more about your individual strategic game? as apparently being in all of the controlling alliances is not enough for some. The time i remember the most was when you made solely decision in Pyrites/HK choice during the days of Daily Prophet. Also, you made a decision that we should look for other options than reconecting to Malfoy in the merge. Please tell us more of such occasions. There's plenty of open votes in this Jury, so I hope to see the best fight from each of you. Will be reading everything carefully, and can't wait to meet you on the other side! Enjoy the last adventure of this awesomeness!
Cheers, Barty Crouch Jr.
Note: i wrote this on Friday, so some parts of it repeats your well done speeches, but the question's seems untouched, so leaving the speech unedited.
|
|
|
Post by Corban Yaxley on May 30, 2022 6:59:58 GMT 10
Hullo lad, sorry 'bout how things ended.
I was incredibly grateful to have you the whole game too lad, I view it as one of the most crucial parts o' my game. I felt we did a really good job balancin' each other; I can be a bit slow to act, a bit too cautious at times even when I'm pickin' up on some sketchy stuff. But I know for the two o' us, there were a lot o' points where you were panickin' or schemin' 'bout doin' some wildly aggressive stuff n' I felt like I was able to keep a steadier hand on things, keepin' us on the righ' path. I dunno if I'd say I had you wrapped 'round my finger so much as we were intertwined? I never suspected you'd lie 'bout gettin' the final idol n' I never suspected you'd been so much closer to Lucius than I was early. This felt like it was a team race we had to run, to be sure.
For what it's worth 'bout pickin' RAB vs. Lily, I reckoned it'd be a fight either way. I felt Lily played an aggressively strong social game, n' had never been targeted or even voted for once. RAB survived some real difficult setbacks that I can't claim to. In both cases, I felt they had compellin' arguments. Ultimately, I reckoned that if I took Lily I risked losin' the votes of my mates AND the votes o' the order folks I didn't know well? But takin' RAB meant I had a better shot on the votes o' my mates, even if it meant makin' some o' the order folks I didn't know a bit more o' an uphill battle. There was also the matter o' persuasion; once I'd won the F3 challenge they both sent to me, persuadin' me to keep the other. Lily was so good at persuadin' me, had such solid arguments n' such pitch-perfect logic, that I very nearly changed my mind on it, only to realize that if she can change my mind on who played the stronger game, she can change the mind o' the jury, too.
Okay, so my individual strategic game, eh? I'll be blunt n' say that I don't rate my manor game all that highly. I was horrifically besieged by unexpected problems in life, and did my best to be active n' fun to talk to but beyond that I was content to stick to a group consensus. The only thing I'd say, strategy wise, that's noteworthy from that phase, was my OWL Post to Lily. After several rounds o' workin' real closely with you n' Lucius, I'd identified that while you lot were gettin' lots o' responses n' OWL post, I was gettin' very little, n' I guessed that it mighta been because Digg wasn't hittin' it off with the rest o' our pairs. So I decided even if he wasn't gunna get included, I could still include myself by bein' valuable to that group. So I sent the OWL Post to Lily explainin' exactly how to get to the board and what the password was to get to the Immunity Idol page, thinkin' it would pay off later on down the line.
I'd say my game actually picked up a bit in the Daily Prophet days? Main two focuses were directin' who we voted for n' how those votes came about. Given how fractured the Manor folks were, I reckoned it'd make more sense to focus on makin' reliable friends in the order while seein' how mendable the relationships between Igor n' HK were. Igor was a bit o' a mess, but HK n' I had a real deep conversation 'bout these games, but the mechanics o' this game in particular, and what it meant to work with someone vs. just talkin' with them. I viewed this relationship as key, for me? It was clear HK was not gunna work with Igor OR Lucius if he could avoid it, but I was wary o' him syncin' back up with Black, 'specially if Black/Tonks/Fleur did wind up bein' a thing? I remember I pointed out that set as decently likely in the early days o' the prophet but at the time I didn't realize Fleur n' Diggs were so close, neither. The point was, I reckoned in a merge he'd be a real useful guy to have lookin' out for me. I think if he hadn't had such awful luck needin' to be away from the board over merge weekend I'd have been right, too.
But ultimately, I knew that I'd need Lily n' Wood to both stay real loyal, so I bought HK as much time as I reckoned I could 'fore the merge without pissin' them off too badly.
Durin' the merge rounds, I spent most o' my mental energy tryin' to make sure our over-large alliance didn't tear itself apart accidentally. It's not hard to imagine, righ'? We had a lot o' folks who all wanted different things, but for me I reckoned it'd be better to keep most o' those folks together, keepin' me safe, than it would be to overly aggressively push for one result. I spent a lot o' time shootin' questionable ideas down n' reassurin' paranoid folks, more than I did tryin' to come up with some big impressive play the Jury would love. Like I said in my jury speech, the way the Dept. ended left me thinkin' Lucius was gunna be a polarizin' figure; either the entire game would adore him and he'd be the center of everything, or he'd accidentally piss off the whole game and we needed to be safely outside o' the blast zone. Once it was clear which way the wind was blowin', I know we'd need the folks from the Daily Prophet to be on the same page that Lucius was not a ship we wanted to go down with. I learned Fleur had wanted Lucius out for rounds and had been told no by Tonks n' Diggle, so I was pretty blunt with Wood, tellin' him specifically that if he wanted to work with Fleur, he needed to ditch Lucius first or she'd not buy it. I knew HK was not going to want to work with Lucius long, so I also prepared settin' that up with him by tellin' Tonks n' Fleur my own view o' how the manor went, stressin' how much I wanted quieter votes n' how much I disliked comin' online to a big shift at the last minute. I played the social game well 'nough that when it came time to hit Lucius, it was not that unbelievable I'd push for it. I had to persuade you to do it too, as I recall; pointin' out that the longer we keep Lucius the longer we risk the rest o' the game writin' us off as his minions and killin' us too. That round was pretty good for me in general, I'd say? I know Lucius n' Wood were pushin' a narrative o' the five of us (Pairs-Diggle) to the end, and I had to point out that Wood wasn't going to just give up and hit Fleur, nor was Lily going to consent to going to an end where she's so obviously in danger. Given that Lily didn't feel safe 'nough with just me as someone who'd struggle to take her past F4 and Wood had an idol, I'd say my look-out on that was pretty solid.
I'd say the other thing I'd point is I reckon I'm one o' the view folks who understood n' used the Switch/Flick twist properly in merge rounds; in the round where the five of you, me, Fleur, Tonks, and Wood were together, I identified that Wood might have a hard time picking between us and Fleur as he seemed to love both? So I proposed we switch Fleur with Black, thinking that Wood wouldn't stick his neck out for Black the same way he might for Fleur. Randomly, someone else got their switch instead, but I feel like for us that switch would have been cleaner? And the round I actually used my switch, I used it to make sure at F7 we'd have at least one legal target between Wood, Black, and Moody, rather than risking that the Wood/Moody pair won immunity. If they had, then Wood could grant Black immunity with an idol and thereby force one o' our pairs to vote each other out. Savin' the switch for that point when a lot o' other ones hadn't panned out for the folks that played them felt pretty good.
Cheers lad, thanks for the question. I reckon I played a game where most o' my contributions are gunna look plain; I never idoled anyone out, and I generally played real cautious, only offerin' folks things I guessed they'd want, but I hope folks can see past that or at least understand that just because I wasn't flashy, didn't mean I wasn't playin' at all.
|
|
|
Post by Barty Crouch Jr on May 30, 2022 7:35:04 GMT 10
Thank you for your answer, mate, I was getting scared that this thread will remain silent ![:)](http://images.proboards.com/new/smiley.png)
|
|
|
Post by Barty Crouch Jr on May 30, 2022 18:59:23 GMT 10
Hey Regulus Black, will you be able to answer to my question? Or will you skip it? No pressure, just curious if people should keep checking here ![;)](http://images.proboards.com/new/wink.png)
|
|
|
Post by Regulus Black on May 30, 2022 19:01:04 GMT 10
BCJ- I deliberately left your thread until last because of how impactful you were in seeing me land here.
I am very much a strategist and an independent thinker, both of which I know you are also. As far as pre-swap, I felt like our chats about work, me outlining some of the numerous jobs which I'd had and then us just chatting about jobs, Survivor and life- maybe I took more out of that than you did? Because my impression of those conversations were that they bonded us. They really helped me to feel closer to you and throughout the entire game, I have not spoken with anyone else about life in that much detail- nor have I heard about anyone else's life in as much detail as you shared with me. That meant something to me.
Yes, as you've surmised, it was my plan to lower my perceived threat level. Which I know is something you tried to do also. In my case, I was an outsider - just based on optics alone from round 1. Not being in a partnership made me 'different' than everyone else. Which you know as well as I, that in Survivor, is often significant in someone getting voted out. Because of this, I didn't have the luxury of playing an outwardly flashy, or big game- because that point of difference, multiplied by the flashiness indicators equal a one way ticket to elimination. I had to do my strategising either with myself, or in 1:1s. Because I was in the position whereby an individual game was my best path forward. Rather than being more aggressive and cobbling together a majority group whenever I had a plan- that wouldn't have worked.
As you may have noticed from some of the other threads, I employed different tactics to lower my threat level. I was able to get inside Malfoy's head with the mystery vote and then again when I told him that someone told me that he was gunning for me. I fueled the Malfoy v Diggle rivalry on both sides and prolonged it. Because this allowed me the chance to sneak on through. I also kept losing allies consistently. Part of this was in me putting these people out in front of myself. So that I would have a better chance at skating on by. Sure, there was a degree of luck in my game, which all of us had. In allowing us to make the merge. But given the difficult path I had to navigate, I think it's clear that I also displayed a good level of skill. These were active moves which I made. To increase the chances of me making it here tonight.
I played elements of the same game which you were attempting. But the difference was that I was able to pull it off. And that I didn't have a rock solid pair to help me. I would hope that you can respect what I was able to do. Emerging with the final few votes - playing a very strong endgame. Ensuring myself a spot at the final 2 with my move on you
I hope this makes sense
|
|
|
Post by Barty Crouch Jr on May 30, 2022 19:11:48 GMT 10
Oh was that conversation about our jobs pre-swap? I thought that it's early merge! Yes, that was completely highlight of the week for me, as in open id / closed id with newbie cast seasons - that's the kind of conversations which builds the best bonds. Sadly we weren't able to explore them more due to rules of the game.
Thank you for the answer!
|
|
|
Post by Regulus Black on May 30, 2022 19:12:28 GMT 10
Oh and I suppose I'll mention it here, but if it wasn't already obvious and transparent, my council comments and questions were usually delivered with the aim of lessening my perceived threat level. Stuff like asking Peter random questions - to diffuse his overly serious tone. Again, this was probably quite transparent, but it might have contributed to lowering how threatening I was? After all, I was just asking Peter if he'd whistled, or enjoyed a piece of fruit, or if he had a vivid dream last night - surely the guy asking those questions is here just for laughs!?
|
|
|
Post by Regulus Black on May 30, 2022 19:16:56 GMT 10
Yeah! That was pre-swap! Then not long after, we landed on different sides at the swap I loved that chat and I'll have you know.... that conversation got me thinking about getting back into following one of the passions/former jobs which I mentioned. I'm now doing it again on the side- one night a week. I'm out of practice from where I was, but am enjoying getting back into it.
Without the chat with you all of those weeks ago, I don't know if I would have pursued it.
Thanks again, Barty
|
|
|
Post by Regulus Black on May 30, 2022 19:21:27 GMT 10
Oh and thanks for saying that those chats were a highlight for you too. Because when I was reading your thread late last night, when I saw that you felt nothing between us pre-swap, I genuinely didn't know what to think.
And what the implications of that meant for how you felt about me
|
|