Circus Maximus Year In Review 2017

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2017 was another exciting and fun year for mafia. While there were no banners to award for winning officials, there were still a large variety of different mafia games and a couple new and popular non-mafia offerings as well. This article will serve to highlight some of the better and more interesting mafia games, as well as other trending non-mafia games that were popular in the Circus subforum.

Mafia Games

Pathfinder Viva Big

While not considered an "official" mafia game (for which banners would be awarded to the winners), Pathfinder Mafia still matched the size of an official game. The game drew upon past mafia games, particularly Jackal's Viva La Mafia all the way back in 2009. The concept of the game was that there were five major factions (plus two "wolf" factions), which each started with one member. The rest of the playerlist was populated by "free agents" who could be converted to a faction. The roles drew upon what host Agape called the "early Smogon mafia games", which meant brand new roles and mechanics, a huge variety of items, and an emphasis on "reactive instead of passive gameplay." The complexity of the game was quite impressive, forcing players to pay close attention to their roles and the items in the game. Arguably, this may have hurt the game's activity level, as it made it difficult to do well in the game without paying attention. In any case, the game proceeded as most multifactions do – plenty of lying (mostly by Haruno), plenty of recruitment by each of the teams, and a lot of negotiating.

The game was won by the Dragons, which was the wolf duo of Yeti and UncleSam. The duo's position had been bolstered by UncleSam moling Walrein's Warriors. UncleSam lied to the Warriors and convinced them that his win condition would work alongside the Warriors' own win condition, which supposedly would have let both sides win. After a stretch of bad luck, the Warriors reached a point where they pretty much had to rely on UncleSam telling the truth to be victorious. UncleSam managed to connive his way into this alliance and convince the Warriors to hand over all their items to himself and his partner Yeti. Even with UncleSam revealed as the wolf so early, teams decided not to focus their attention on them, and this turned out to be everyone's downfall, as Sam and Yeti grabbed a decisive victory. The failure to lynch the revealed wolf team and the "Nigerian Prince scam" that the Warriors fell for were the game's major talking points, although much credit has to be given to Sam for orchestrating such a masterful plan.

Wayne Bradierest

Wayne Bradierest was a Free-For-All game in the same vein as previous games in the Wayne Brady mafia series. Hosted by UncleSam, the game fulfilled UncleSam's vision as to how to create an FFA-style game that "rewarded good play above all else." Each player in the game had a list of enemies that they needed dead to win, along with various abilities that they could use. In addition, the game worked using a HP and attack system, which was typical for FFAs of the Wayne Brady vein. Players were forced to create alliances in order to combine their abilities to remove their enemies and win.

The game was won by the majority of the members existing within Da Letter El and Steven Snype's alliance. Both played essentially flawlessly, allowing both and the majority of their teammates to come away with a victory. Snype quickly formed an alliance with Aura Guardian, Cancerous, winter-delta, and DLE, which defined the rest of the game. All of them came away victorious, except for Aura Guardian, who was unlucky to die and not be revived. Shade and zorbees also joined the DLE-Snype alliance by the middle of the game. Shade's role prevented him from damage during the first few cycles, which he took advantage of by joining team Snype-DLE, while zorbees tactically placed himself within many different alliances to ensure that he wouldn't be targeted before eventually linking up with DLE and Snype. MoodyCloud was victorious, as Snype revived him so that he could win. The final victor was KnightsofCydonia, who was the only user not a part of the extended DLE-Snype team. He played well in gaining a lot of free information from others but admittedly did get lucky in that the Snype-DLE alliance did not especially need him dead. Special mention also has to be given to acidphoenix; although he was constantly targeted, he was the last to fall, and had he not idled the very first cycle, he most likely would have been victorious.

Popcorn NOC

Popcorn NOC was a game hosted by KnightsofCydonia that twisted the killing mechanics. Unlike most mafia games, where the town chooses someone to vote during the day while the mafia kills at night, Popcorn completely removed this fundamental mechanic of mafia, essentially changing the nature of the entire game. Instead, a villager chosen by the mafia started with the "gun," which allowed that villager to pick who to kill. If the villager killed a mafia member, they would keep the gun and kill again. However, killing a villager would result in the gun transferring to that villager, with the former gun-holder leaving the game. As a result, the power of the game shifted away from a collective focus to an individualized one, where the person holding the gun determined who was to be killed.

The mafia picked Texas Cloverleaf to begin with the gun and he started the game off strongly, picking off shubaka17, a member of the mafia. However, things started to level off from there, with the village proceeding to shoot four villagers in a row. Once Jalmont was shot, the tide began to turn for the town, as with his first shot Jalmont picked off mafia member winter-delta. Following Josh's substitution, a strange event given his seemingly town-oriented play up to that point, Jalmont killed off Josh's substitute, pancake, who turned out to be mafia as well. Jalmont ended off his streak by shooting a third mafia member before shooting wrongly and dying.

At this point in the game, most of the remaining mafia members were under heavy suspicion, with the exception of Yeti, who had managed to keep the heat away from her by bussing her teammates. She continued this strategy, and after two unsuccessful shots, the gun found its way into Flyhn's hands, who began his own streak of successful shots. Flyhn took down mafia goons Aura Guardian and UncleSam before shooting a villager. After that, however, even with a solitary mafia member left, the village failed to capitalize on its five opportunities to find the right shot. Yeti's strategy of bussing her teammates left her in an extremely strong position, and although her own teammates certainly did not play to expectations, her own great gameplay culminated in her picking up the victory for the mafia.

Paper Mario TTYD

Paper Mario TTYD was a multifaction mafia game hosted by zorbees. The game typified what classic multifaction games have been on Smogon—plenty of different factions, tons of complicated roles and actions to ponder, alliances to be made and broken, and constant negotiation. The game began with 30 different players and 9 different teams, with each team needing a certain combination of teams dead (along with some other teams needing to meet additional requirements). The "major" factions consisted of the Rogueport Regulars (the largest team in the game, with seven players) and then the X-Nauts, the Glitz Pit, and Mario's Team, all with four players. These factions held more players but began uninformed regarding their teammates, opening up the possibility of moling. The smaller, yet secret and informed factions were made up by the Shadow Squad, the Dragons, Bowser, Don Pianta, and the Wise Ones, with each team having two players with the exception of the Dragons, which had three. With so many different win conditions, a large number of aliases, and potentially game-changing items out in the wild, everything suggested TTYD would become a chaotic and fun mess.

Out of all the large (or village) factions, the Glitz Pit found themselves in trouble particularly early. They were thoroughly decimated by moling, as acidphoenix of the X-Nauts and MoodyCloud of the Pianta Syndicate managed to gain the confidence of the actual Glitz Pit members and managed to neuter their abilities and powers, essentially preventing the Glitz from ever really leaving their mark on the game. With three out of four members of the Glitz dying before the fourth night, the Glitz really had no chance of winning the game, which they did not.

The X-Nauts did not find themselves in any better of a position, as three out of four members were dead before the fifth night. However, unlike the Glitz Pit, their final member, thetwinmasters, managed to survive until the endgame. However, at that point, Twin had exhausted all potential alliance members and subsequently was endgamed.

The Dragons were the first small faction to be knocked out, with their elimination coming in the sixth night. The team had some activity issues, which saw shubaka17 coming back into the game to replace a teammate after already dying previously. The Shadow Squad, although looking to be a threat in the endgame, saw their chances cut short when Blue_Tornado was killed on night seven and LightWolf lynched on day nine. They did, however, manage to recruit a member of the Rogueport Regulars, Hitmonleet, prior to LightWolf's death, leaving him as their only hope of winning the game.

Hitmonleet represented the Shadow Squad's sole hope of winning the game, but unfortunately, as a member of the large Roguepart Regulars, his role was comparatively weak to many of the other roles in the game. The Regulars, although lacking the strong roles that many of the other teams had, were helped by their sheer numbers. Although they suffered four deaths (plus one recruited member) in ten games, a number that would've wiped out any other faction in the game, their extra numbers alongside their alliance with the Bowsers enabled a well-deserved victory. Former Hope's leadership was instrumental in bringing together the faction with as little moling as possible, while Paperblade was credited in helping to find the Shadow Squad recruit, doing so while being only able to communicate in the thread. Indeed, the freezer role led to a lot of the game's best moments—featuring Ditto's posts via picture and Paperblade's NOC-like performance. In the end, Hitmonleet's inability to affect the game around him meant that Paperblade and Ditto were able to figure out the mole (a person who successfully convinces others they are on their team when they are not) and thus endgame Hitmonleet, grabbing the victory.

The Regulars had been working with Mario's Team, who were greatly helped by acidphoenix's moling expedition alongside Da Letter El's leadership. Unfortunately for them, Team Bowser managed to hit them before they could hit Bowser, which meant that the Regulars went with Bowser in finishing off the Marios (with Agape of the Glitz Pit also managing to exact some sort of revenge). Ultimately, the Marios fell victim to what often happens in multifaction—strong early play turned them into a juicy target that their opposing factions were only too happy to exploit.

The Don Pianta faction went relatively quietly throughout the game, with their actions difficult to ascertain. Whether they were working with limited knowledge or simply did not have built relationships with other factions in the game is hard to say. What can be said is that they were given a tough task in taking down the Rogueport Regulars and ultimately failed to do so.

A side that thrived with the Regulars was Team Bowser. Both Pidge and Blazade worked in tandem to bring about a flawless victory, with neither of them dying. Their ability to stay underneath the radar and maintain a strong connection with the Regulars ensured that they would achieve victory in the end. It was not to be for the last secret faction, however, as a host decision meant that the game could not be extended for them to fulfill their win condition. The Wise Ones only needed the Dragons dead, which was achieved relatively quickly, but they also needed to collect all seven crystal stars. With the stars having properties that made it desirable for other teams to have, the Wise Ones found themselves constantly being stolen from. Even though they had no real enemy trying to kill them for the majority of the game, their inability to collect all stars meant that they too would not be leaving the game as winners. Thus, out of nine teams, only the Rogueport Regulars and Team Bowser came out as well-deserving winners.

GUZMAfia

GUZMAfia was a classic one-mafia-versus-one-village game hosted by Yeti. The game was a flashback to similar games hosted by Yeti in the past, which meant that the game featured a lot of fresh ideas on how to host an exciting game using the one-village-versus-one-mafia format that has typically come to be seen as a stale format.

The game immediately began with countless people claiming to be Guzma. In the end, three people confirmed their claim to be the true Guzma—Twin, the actual Guzma, Haruno, a villager pretending to be Guzma, and vonFiedler, a mafioso who showed up as Guzma on inspection. Unfortunately for Haruno, his antics and general nonsensical posts (including a claim that there were actually two mafias) meant that full attention was paid to him. The verdict was that he was guilty, and he was sent to the lynch – which flipped him as town.

The bad news didn't end there, as the next day, Smogon veteran Acklow made a couple of crucial mistakes that led to his demise. Acklow, having not played in a long time, broke the copy/paste rule. This, plus a result implicating Acklow's guilt from mafia inspection role Pidge, and Acklow’s shadowy antics previously in claiming something he was not made him the second mislynch of the game.

However, things drastically improved for the village as UncleSam took the reigns of the village. The Circus moderator has a reputation for his iron-fisted ruling of villages, and he was able to live up to that reputation in this game, greatly improving on the rather dismal results the village had been having under previous leader Walrein. The mafia went for a risky gambit and had their entire team vote in order to save Asek, who had a crucial role. Asek was able to kill in addition to the mafia's nightly kill. This lynch was the turning point of the game – without Asek, the mafia needed to force mislynches but, having revealed most of their team, was in an extremely weak position. The next two days were spent by the mafia attempting to influence votes in such a way to force a tie. However, it was not to be, and some good persuading ensured that no villager voted the wrong way and the mafia was defeated. The village did a great job of coming back from two early game mislynches – although questions had to have been asked by the mafia making the interesting decision to essentially reveal their entire team so early in the game. Nevertheless, some strong organization following the chaos and disaster from the first two days showcased how quickly the momentum can shift in mafia.

Matrix 12 NOC

Matrix 12 NOC was a NOC mafia game hosted by Thetwinmasters featuring one randomized setup out of twelve predetermined ones. Most notable in Matrix 12 was the sheer volume of posts – over 200 pages worth of discussion resulted from the game, so it should come as no surprise that the game went the distance in terms of reaching a final-three scenario.

The game began decently for the village – although their first lynch ended up being on villager Haruno (for, once again, erratic play), town vigilante Walrein managed to come through with a big kill on mafioso Jalmont. It would be Walrein's last action of the game, as the same night he was killed by the mafia. What could have been a potentially disastrous outcome ended up being acceptable for the village, as they managed to cut down a mafia member early on. From there, King_ was mislynched, having been relentlessly targeted from the start. The next couple of lynches would flip-flop greatly in terms of result: first, mafia goon Hitmonleet was lynched, only to be followed by two mislynches in pancake and rssp1. Arguably, the mass number of substitutions hurt the village greatly. Both pancake and rssp1 were subs who perhaps would have avoided the lynch had the playerlist remained static throughout the game. Nevertheless, the village would finally strike again on the sixth day, lynching Martin (who was a sub for a sub). Village paranoia hurt the game immensely – oftentimes, players had a correct read on the gamestate and identified the mafia team but failed to follow through on their reads. Martin surviving until day six was a major beneficiary, but not the biggest. With three lynches to find mafia, the village somehow managed to selectively lynch everyone who was not mafia. A masterful performance by LightWolf on the last couple days (having subbed in for Blazade) meant that Empoof lynched teammate Hawkie in the final three, giving LightWolf and his teammates a victory. The game undoubtedly was hurt by the large number of subs – ten in total for a game featuring seventeen participants. Without the subs, would the village have remained steadfast in their reads? Perhaps so, but what did occur was a spectacular village collapse in what should have been a straightforward victory. The village managing to psych themselves out of what seemed like a relatively straightforward victory turned a seemingly uninteresting town victory into a bizarre but improbable mafia victory on the backs of a village collapse.

Draft Mafia

Draft Mafia was an experimental two-mafia one-village game hosted by vonFiedler, where teams and roles were not just decided by the host, like a typical mafia game. Instead, each team had a captain who was responsible for drafting players and roles in an auction draft. UncleSam drafted for the village, while Da Letter El and Blazade were responsible for one of the mafias. The drafting portion of the game ended up being quite problematic for the village, in terms of the roles that UncleSam drafted for them. The only alignment-checking roles in the game were given to Haruno and LightWolf, who both happened to be teammates on Da Letter El's team. As a result, the village found themselves struggling to find mafia without completely entrusting village leadership to one or both of Haruno and LightWolf. UncleSam's decision to give up both alignment roles would be decisive in determining the game's outcome.

The village started out slowly and were not helped when Team Blazade decided to use their one-time lynch redirect to kill off Thetwinmasters (which was especially unfortunate for Twin, as he had just been given a BPV). After that, things were relatively smooth-sailing. Both Haruno and Texas Cloverleaf held the reins of the village, with both seemingly doing separate things but remaining relatively on the same page with each other. Under Texas's guidance and some help from Haruno, the village managed to successfully lynch Asek and Jalmont from Team Blazade and pancake from Team DLE. Unfortunately, Texas put too much of his trust into LightWolf and sheeted him. LightWolf was actually a member of Team DLE. This opened up an opportunity for Haruno to take control of the game, who, unbeknownst to the village, was also a Team DLE member. After mislynching villager Cancerous, Haruno proceeded to systematically eliminate the rest of Team Blazade. On the last day of asking, the two final mafia members of Team Blazade, realizing the position they were in (and recognizing that Haruno was not village), made a final plea to the village in an attempt to lynch Haruno and return the game to some semblance of a balanced state. However, the rest of the village ignored Paperblade's repeated explanation of the game state and went along with Haruno's lynch, killing Paperblade, which effectively ended the game in favor for Haruno's team. Thus, the game ended with a deserved victory for Da Letter El's team on the back of Haruno's performance alongside some questionable village play.

C9++ NOC

C9++ was a NOC mafia game hosted by Paperblade that used RNG to generate a setup from a set of pre-determined possibilities. While Smogon NOC is often noted for poor village play, C9++ was an example of exactly the opposite, a game where everyone was mostly active and actively contributing. The game started out a good note for the village, who managed to lynch mafioso Earlio on the first day. With a day-one lynch on a mafia member, a relative rarity for NOC games on Smogon, the village placed themselves in a strong position for the rest of the game. On the flip side, Earlio’s teammates BigBangMeteor and kirsche made the decision to bus Earlio and not press too hard against his lynch, potentially improving their own odds at surviving. However, losing their first member at the first point of asking undoubtedly gave the village somewhat of a numerical advantage, not to mention a psychological one.

Alas, the village did not find the rest of the game to be smooth sailing after their initial success. Some questionable plays from village players set up multiple mislynches in the coming days, giving mafia the opportunity to come back into the game, and avoid a quick defeat. Haruno, on the hotseat, fake-claimed doctor as a town member, putting himself in opposition to the actual town doctor, DurzaOffTopic. Haruno's shadiness led to him being lynched at the cost of revealing the true identity of the doctor, who the mafia promptly killed.

The next day was no better in terms of result, although the lynch was much more closely contested. Pancake, subbing in for Champ1604, put up a valiant defense but was ultimately overwhelmed. However, this mislynch came at a great cost for the mafia, who were forced to vote pancake to push forward his lynch. Pancake correctly identified kirsche and BigBangMeteor as the remaining mafiosi, which opened up the possibility for the two being mafia. The possibility of BBM being mafia was especially important because at the time, BBM was widely read as town. Bad luck for the mafia or not, MoodyCloud ended up having a great read on BBM and hooked him, stopping the mafia's kill and confirming to Moody plus the rest of the town BBM's guilt. At this point in the game, with so many town-looking players, the mafia decided to concede the game to the village. While not mentioned previously, thetwinmasters was a hugely important player in driving discussion and holding others accountable for their words. Regardless, every member of the village played a significant role in being active and contributing to the victory (for the most part). The mafia themselves were no slouches either and were perhaps a tad unlucky. Nevertheless, the town's performance in this game must go down as one of the strongest Smogon NOC villages in recent history. Who says Smogon towns can't win NOCs?

OC NOC

OC NOC was a large "role madness" NOC game hosted by Hitmonleet. Every player in the game had a unique role, most of which were not "typical" roles. The madness element of so many different roles interacting in different ways created a crazy game of NOC mafia for the players, including resurrections, three different neutrals, and super strong town roles such as a Global Motion Detector. Different game mechanics also contributed to the madness, with the "double lynch rule" (tied lynches had both players being lynched) adding to the village's power.

The game was won by the village after they successfully lynched non-village players for seven consecutive days. Even after all these successful lynches, the village found themselves in a LyLo situation where the final mafia player, Former Hope, attempted a stealth lynch in a last attempt at victory. Unfortunately for him, his vote was just minutes late, and the village took home a well-deserved victory. OC NOC will be remembered for its chaotic nature and its willingness to experiment with a large variety of roles all mixed together. Perhaps not the most classic mafia game, its legacy will not be the strength of gameplay or the balanced nature of the setup, but its wild roles and interactions that forced its players to constantly be ready for the next twist.

Dead Mafia 2

The last and most recent game on this list is Ditto's Dead Mafia 2. The game was a follow-up to Ditto’s original Dead Mafia. The main mechanic for both Dead Mafias had to do with how players were not completely removed from the game following their deaths. Unlike most mafia games, where death means that you are removed from the game completely (meaning those who die early do not get to participate as much), Dead Mafia gave each player ways to influence the game upon their death, usually by assigning them a new dead role that could potentially interact with the living. Most players also had alternative win conditions, opening the door for players to potentially betray their own team for their own benefit. The complexity of the game ensured that a lot of planning had to be done by the leaders of both the mafia and village, while individuals also had their own agency in determining if they wanted to win with their team or perhaps pursue an individual win condition.

The village was initially led by Former Hope, who had his hands full figuring out who was "clean" (meaning town). The mafia made a couple of missteps in the beginning, giving Former Hope and the rest of the village some surefire lynches. The town's main organizing power fell to Former Hope and then apricity, following Former Hope's death.

The mafia struggled in the beginning, with multiple members, including the important Aura Guardian, falling to the village's lynch after some easily detectable fake claims (the fake role a mafioso tells the village he is). However, they managed to stay in the game using their powerful dead roles, with one of those dead roles, Earlio's, managing to kill an alive villager and fulfilling Earlio's alternative win condition. They were further hindered by the fact that Aura Guardian knew of a person who had access to the mafia who was not actually on the team. While heavily suspected, UncleSam managed to remain relatively undetected as that mole while helping the mafia decimate the village numbers, having managed to put himself in a position of leadership following apricity's death. From there, UncleSam had maneuvered himself into a position where he could control the village. By the time his third-party nature had been revealed, he managed to convince the mafia that his win condition would not interfere with that of the mafia's. Alas, UncleSam had lied, and as a result, both him and his partner Blazade walked away victorious, alongside Earlio and Hitmonleet, who fulfilled their individual win conditions.

Non-Mafia Games

The Walrus

Walruses were a creative addition to the Circus Maximus subforum, adding to the depth of games offered by the subforum. Introduced by Walrein, Walruses are a song-ranking competition hosted by any person who wants to do so. The host usually comes up with 8-12 categories. Participants submit a song that fits the description of each category, and the host ranks each submission he receives. After each category, the person with the highest score is crowned the winner of that particular Walrus. Less about competition and winning, Walruses showcase to hosts (and anyone else listening) new songs and introduce a wide variety of music that otherwise may have gone unnoticed to them. Walruses have been an incredible way to bring together people and their tastes in music and have flourished as a very popular addition to Circus.

Survivor III: Hoenn

The third Survivor, hosted by a combination of people, including Steven Snype, sam-testings, and rssp1, featured an incredible thirty-two players battling it out for the title of Sole Survivor. Similar to other Survivor games hosted in Circus, the game followed the traditional format of Survivor, albeit with a couple new twists and turns, such as the inclusion of Hidden Immunity idols. In the end, former CAP moderator HeaLnDeal defeated Circus regular Flyhn and CAP mainstay Animus Majulous in a 6-4-1 vote (with Flyhn receiving the four votes and Animus the one vote). Keep your eyes peeled for a postgame revealing more info on the game in the near future!