sugarvalves [1963573] —
Original article
Secret script steals info from EVERY TEAM'S PRIVATE CHATROOM. Millennials, Punchbags, Mothers, Hillbillies and Cowboys all eliminated. Multiple alliances set to be betrayed imminently.
The last time we checked up on the Elimination situation we had ourselves a face-off between two distinct groups. The first, Online Jacking, was led by Lumberjacks and included Field Mice, Keyboard Warriors, Cowboys and the Punchbags - the latter having just switched from the rival alliance. Up against them was Breakfast in Bed, a team consisting of Dream Team, Breakfast Club, Band of Mothers, Trolls and the Millennials - the latter having played both sides until their ruse was discovered shortly before our article went out.
Since then, I imagine nothing of note has happened, right?
Right?
KEYBOARD WARRIORS IN SCRIPTING SHOCKER
Torn has been rocked by yet another scandal today, as a post by Chit revealed that a secret Keyboard Warriors script has been used to infiltrate the private chats of every single Elimination team. Thankfully, this script could only access a team’s chat if a member of that team had installed it themselves. Wait, what? Someone from every team did exactly that? Well f**k me sideways.
The offending script was written by a player called Mafia, and its description indicates its functions are “Revenge Filtering, Team list filtering, showing online status, life bar, incoming/outgoing attacks on recent attacks and recent attacks feeds from all teams on main page.” The full description originally said “Filtering out available targets in team list and revenge list”, but this was changed on the 13th of September to the following:
Mafia has now removed his script’s ability to view team chats, but we still wouldn’t recommend installing it, as the author seems entirely disingenuous. The change of description on the 13th seems like Mafia covering his tracks if he were caught. I believe he has pretended to make this script seem like a secret to entice others to install it. Thankfully, only 96 people seem to have done so during this competition - 211 over its entire lifetime stretching back to Elimination 2018 - but that was enough for Keyboard Warriors to gain access to every single Elimination team’s chat rooms.
Our Community Manager Bogie posted a response to this issue indicating that while Mafia’s script technically broke no rules, it was against the spirit of the competition, so we are now actively looking at ways to prevent this kind of action in future. However, some players have taken umbrage at the way Bogie initially replied, despite the fact he did no more than state a simple fact - the script itself is not illegal.
IceBlueFire was also asked about the script, and he too said it was legal, but that he wasn't personally comfortable with it. Neither Bogie nor IceBlueFire can be accused of giving permission for anyone to cheat because unfortunately, the rules already did that due to our oversight. All they did was point out what it says in the rules, which will soon be updated. Now, here's a point so sharp it must be placed in bold to protect you from its dangerous edges.
At no point should any of this have been taken to mean we weren't actively investigating this script, because we were, and are continuing to do so.
Just because something is within the rules, it doesn't mean we're ignoring it. The baying mob may not need proof or procedures, but we do. Torn’s full response to this issue will be made when we’ve had the time to consider our options, not when the loudest voices demand we take action. We took a serious look at this incident behind the scenes, and now we’ve had time to consider the ramifications of the script and the community’s response, we are committed to preventing scripts like this from being used in future.
The solution isn't as easy as some people think, though, as there are many similar chat-scraping scripts which have entirely innocent purposes, meaning an outright ban wouldn't be fair or appropriate. Furthermore, as Chedburn himself admitted in the forums, Mafia's script operates outside of Torn’s technological boundaries, meaning we have no way of detecting or controlling what it does and how it is advertised. As much as we'd love to be able to control teh whole internets, we can't.
Essentially, if we had immediately decided the script was unlawful and implemented an immediate rule change, all we could’ve done is implore you all to remove the script. We cannot control what you choose to download, or what other sites host. These scripts could only ever be used against Elimination's teams if one of their members installed it themselves, and Bogie was less than impressed that those who did so are now entirely absolving themselves of blame.
“You don't just install software or equipment made by the enemy and then get surprised when it acquires your plans. I know we're at war with Russia but they promised us these new computers they gave us were completely trustworthy."
Despite it being your own personal responsibility to check the scripts you install, we will do everything in our power to prevent such scripts being used again. A precedent for this kind of safeguarding has already been set through the introduction of the warning message given during unbalanced bazaar purchases, demonstrating that we will always take action to protect players even if they aren’t breaking any rules.
Nevertheless, a stronger approach than a warning is clearly needed in this situation, and given that any changes to script rules will heavily impact the playerbase, Bogie has reached out to ask for suggestions on where we can find an acceptable middle ground. Those who are content to complain, do nothing to help and present themselves as moral guardians will undoubtedly continue to do so. The Relentless exploiters have also used this incident to fire a few barbs and gain upvotes from sycophants as expected.
The players who genuinely care about Torn will realise that we could make a decision regarding this issue on our own, but that we'd rather involve those who will be affected in the decision-making process. Hopefully, a resolution which suits everyone will be found in the next few days.
UPDATE: An announcement has been made on changes to the rules and reporting procedures due to this incident.
Now then, let’s see what happened during the actual Elimination competition, shall we?
WHO KNEW?
I have received conflicting statements from the Keyboard Warrior leadership team as to how much they knew about their secret script. ORAN told me that there was no need to use the information they nabbed from their rivals' chatrooms since they already had a good alliance and there was nothing more they could gain.
"I can confirm it was only there like it only existed and we were respectful about it at least everyone in the leadership. There was no decision influenced by it at least that I know of."
However, his fellow leader Hcom3 contradicted this statement with the following comment:
I asked the leadership team to clarify their comments. ORAN said that all they gained was info on BCM16 trolling his own team. Staff member PrincessJulie said that KW's game plan was never affected by anything they learned, and she insists no decisions were made based on that information. But when I pressed Hcom3 to explain these contradictory statements, this is what he said.
Hcom3 quite rightly points out that his team would've known within five minutes of the attack regardless, due to the ticket drop and names of recent attackers. But five minutes makes a big difference in Elimination. Even if this is the extent of Keyboard Warriors' knowledge of other teams' plans, I feel it is sufficient to have played a part in the way the competition has panned out.
As their leaders suggest, it may not have affected their status given their powerful allies, but perhaps one of the teams who have left the competition wouldn't have crashed out so easily. I suppose we'll never know. What I do know is that some Keyboard Warriors have left the team out of a desire to distance themselves from this incident. Franky is one such player, and he likely won't be the last.
"It was keyboard warriors but that's taking it a bit far."
The regular members of Keyboard Warriors have my sympathy on this matter. They don't deserve to be punished.
REVIVE CHAIN BEGINS
Two days ago I received a message from an Elimination non-participant, Bainz, the leader of the HeLa healing faction. He told me that HeLa has decided to involve themselves in Elimination in a non-typical way, one which may guarantee the fortunes of Lumberjacks and Field Mice over the next two days.
“HeLa will be doing an Anti-Chain on the 19th focusing on the top two Elimination teams. We thought we'd spice things up. Not sure how many of our people will be stacked since they are all working. However, we will be focusing revives on the hosp'd members of the top two Elim teams in the stack."
"Our Anti-Chain will be running from noon on the 19th to noon on the 20th. Thought your team might be interested in this info. While we won't get Respect for it, because Ched hates healers, we thought it would make things a bit more fun.”
This chain is now underway - as if Lumberjacks and Field Mice needed any more help!
UPDATE: Apparently I got this wrong. HeLa are reviving inactives from Lumberjacks and Field Mice to give the bottom teams more targets. Nice job guys!
MILLENNIALS CRASH OUT
As befits their name, many in the Millennials will feel they deserve a participation trophy for coming 9th in the competition. The first tribute I will give them is for the worst tactics ever in the history of Elimination. Whoever made the call to double-cross both alliances without picking one is entirely to blame for Millennials early exit. When news of this reached Online Jacking they annihilated the Millennials - the Trolls also joined in - stripping them of seven straight lives, before a quick life loss from the Band of Mothers interrupted another nine straight losses.
At this point, the Millennials seemed destined for a swift defeat, with few of their supposed friends willing to come to their aid, despite claims that they were still a valued part of the alliance. However, Breakfast in Bed eventually swept the crumbs from their mattress and started to fight back, putting former allies the Punchbags under heavy pressure to take the heat off Millennials.
This worked well, with the Punchbags eliminated at 8pm on the 15th. Once they were out it was a foregone conclusion that Millennials would be next, and so it proved at 10am the next day, when twelve losses in thirteen hours ended their Elimination campaign. But while the Millennials leadership has a lot to answer for, their members deserve some recognition for managing to stay in the competition longer than expected, especially given the lack of help they received. SubStylee reveals how they managed to do this.
“Us big hitters really fought off losing tickets thanks to a strat I want to say was by Platinum Devil. We all picked a target and killed them with 30 seconds left, but didn’t hit leave/mug/hops until xx:59.50. It worked until Punching Bags got knocked out then we just got focused hard."
"When the strat wasn't working I tried saying we should do something different, but again fearless leader just said they had plans which was basically let's do the strat that is failing now. I feel the reason it did fail was because our 'allies' weren't helping at all imo.”
In the end, nobody in the Breakfast in Bed alliance felt that the Millennials could be trusted enough to keep them in the competition. And as Punchbags had shown before them, betraying your friends is rarely a good idea, especially if you’re not strong enough to stand alone. Because even then, your friends may betray you, as the following conversation from Trolls chat suggests.
Dekloren: My prophecies are all coming true
CHR15: I used a Xanax and all my e
XxKaileexX: And we need Millennials to actually start snatching tickets from LJ
CHR15: I killed 8 successfully
Kegabyte: Damn, ya they're struggling
Dekloren: They aren't struggling. I made an alliance with DreamTeam and Cowboys to get Millenials out
PUNCHBAGS RUE MISTAKES
Another team hoisted by their own petard were the Punchbags, who crossed the floor to join Online Jacking, only to see themselves dumped out of the competition after losing twenty lives in twenty-seven hours. It seemed an odd decision at the time, as the Punchbags were by their own description one of the weaker teams in the competition, so they should’ve known they were being brought on board to act as their name suggests.
But if truth be told, clever tactics were Punchbags only realistic chance of making an impact on the competition, and their leadership had good reasons for changing sides. Zomb13 told me that Punchbags knew they needed to rely on strategy from the outset, hence why they helped expand the original Breakfast in Bed alliance.
“We initially allied with DT and either BOM or Breakfast Club(don't really remember at this point) and they seemed fine at the start, then we brought in hillbillies millenials and things seemed to be going okay other than the fact that most of them kept saying we need to take LJ down if we want to win not realising that to win we'd actually have to not get eliminated straight away, a lot of the leaders were new this year and it's pretty clear because they were f**king clueless.”
Zomb13 described the Dream Team leaders in particular as moronic, and it seems it was this discontent which led Punchbags to form a non-aggression pact with Field Mice. That NAP changed to a full-blown alliance soon after, when Dream Team invited Trolls to join their server.
“DT randomly decided to bring trolls into the server which is when zahid [ItsZahid] and lily [TheLuvLillyPink] when full spaz mode and we were pretty much done at this point so after a brief conversation with papa stretch we decide to f**k off to the competent alliance.”
Fellow leader Lilith added that Punchbags knew they couldn’t keep ahead of Online Jacking’s teams while they remained members of Breakfast in Bed, whereas if they joined them, they only really had to stay ahead of Millennials. They achieved this for a short while, but then their lives started to fall.
“When we as leadership first saw the numbers we knew chances were slim of getting very far, so we mostly focused on making it fun for our team and maybe teaching them a thing or two :). Spirits in our active part of the team have been high through the entire thing and they all were determined to give it everything we got, even though we would go out early.”
Zomb13 noted that even though they had the fewest participants of any team, it still took the combined might of every member of Breakfast in Bed to remove them from the competition.
“It still took every team from the other alliance specifically targeting us and spending who knows how much on anonymous bounties for them buffoons to finally knock us out. But we managed to take plenty of their lives from them and made them sweat their tits off to finally get rid of us.”
However, former Council member HamrRokjaw disagrees with this assessment of Punchbags’ time in Elimination. He feels that Zomb13 and Lilith failed the BiB alliance as a whole by pushing them to attack non-threatening teams at random, and when Dream Team formed a viable plan which involved targeting Field Mice - a plan which seems to be working at one point - Punchbags’ leaders decided to bail.
“Instead of sticking with that plan, you and/or Lilith decided to betray us and your own team. You knew that you could not win without the alliance, and yet you backstabbed it anyway. Congratulations for throwing your entire team under the bus, just for some ego points. Did you even think about your team's interests? Or are they so expendable to you?”
MOTHERS RUIN
Band of Mothers were the next team to fall, losing their final life at 6pm on the 17th of September after a 24-hour fight with the Cowboys. Over this period BoM lost 16 lives to the Cowboys’ 9, and one anonymous momma laid the blame squarely at their leader, RonBurgundy, who they felt kept vital information from his own side due to his fear of leaks.
“Main reason Burgundy won't tell us about the alliances is because there are more moles in the so-called 'private' discord server than there are on a Witch's left buttcheek. The only time we got leadership was when one of the lower level leaders just pinged everyone to tell us to attack someone else. There just wasn’t a connection between leader and follower.”
My source went on to say that the council leaders led the team while RonBurgundy and Chit “pulled plans out of their rears and had a dedicated council to turning those plans into actual tactics.” Chit responded with the following:
"Anything less than a win is disappointing so I'm not surprised. But when the cards were dealt the way they were, the only option we had was to fight to the end and I'm proud to say we did."
HILLBILLIES DONE GONE QUIET
The Hillbillies were eliminated at 9pm last night, when this band of Moonshine swilling hicks were targeted heavily by Field Mice, Keyboard Warriors and Lumberjacks, as this screenshot shows. The Hillbillies leadership team which replaced Imalovrman seemingly couldn't prevent their exit when the forces of Online Jacking came for them, and one anonymous player feels their new leaders should share a portion of the blame.
"The ONLY thing that came from the leaders in the discord in the 24 hours that we were dying was a single message in the notifications telling us to be better at hitting in the final seconds... Only idea was to kill the cowboys."
"It's amazing how little we were told, even though every other team knew what each alliances goals was, our leadership refused to tell us what the bigger plans was."
Indeed, communication had been a problem for the Hillbillies from the outset. My source tells me that many of their members didn't know who they were allied until we published the info last week, forcing their leaders to admit their alliances formally. Not that this information did them any good, mind, since my source also feels they were let down heavily by their so-called friends.
"My belief is that the alliance let us die, with Breakfast Club and Trolls refusing to attack on the hour, leaving the cowboys to survive with more than 0 tickets each hour, In a 0 point tie, the hillbillies would have won, and there is no reason that 4 teams cant hold 1 other team on 0 points."
A statement from Hillbillies leadership argued that the alliance details were kept quiet for as long as possible. Furthermore, they said that most of the players who complained about this were young, and they could have figured out their allies and enemies if they had read the directives on who to hit and who to avoid. AlexeaNikkole had the following to say on whether the Hillbillies allies could've done more for them.
"I don't feel we were betrayed by alliance as I personally received messages from other members in the alliance saying keep fighting we are attacking (a certain group for you)."
COWBOYS RUN OUT OF TOWN
The Cowboys were eliminated just before this article was published. I'll try to get comments from the leadership for the next elimination article, but in the meantime, here's what one of their members thought was the main reason for their exit.
"I believe lumberjacks and field mice are teaming up on us secretly. They know they’re the powerhouses and they’re showing it. I think they intentionally farmed us of all our tickets but there’s no telling."
"We were farmed by our own alliance even when there were other targets available. So basically could never get tickets. When we did, all the other teams started hitting us. Allies, enemies all the same. I think the leadership was corrupt, along with a few others who i cant name, because we repeatedly told them about the impending doombut all they said was trust fm and lj. And look where that got us."
If this is true, might LJ and FM be plotting against Keyboard Warriors right now, as they did with Cowboys? Possibly, if they know about their secret discussions with the Trolls.
TROLLS TROLLING?
I can exclusively report to you that the Trolls have offered Keyboard Warriors a secret alliance, only to revoke the offer when those shady script-monkeys started to lose too many tickets. I am as yet unsure as to whether the rest of Breakfast in Bed knew of this operation - KPCSlor hinted that they did - but Keyboard Warriors' ORAN says the offer was rejected after Trolls had already betrayed them. Neither side will admit which happened first, the revokation or the rejection. I'll leave it up to you to decide.
This deal would make sense from a Trolls perspective, as in the aftermath of their switch to Breakfast in Bed they were zeroed from a healthy 2,000 ticket total, and since reaching a five-day high of 568 tickets on the 16th, Trolls have only managed to stay on triple figures on a handful of brief occasions. They are now clearly being targeted as a priority by Online Jacking, being the strongest remaining member of Breakfast in Bed.
In response, ItsZahid told me that the BiB alliance was entirely focused on hitting Cowboys, and now that they're out, they will attempt to eliminate Keyboard Warriors.
"We are taking their weakest first, the tiebreakerer is huge, our previous allies lost countless tie breakers. Now we can all beat cowboys in tie breaker so easy win, but only we (trolls) can beat KW in a tie breaker."
ItsZahid went on to say that he blames Keyboard Warriors if Lumberjacks or Field Mice win. He says KW were offered a chance to switch sides when the Trolls left Online Jacking, and ItsZahid feels if they had done so, the Cowboys would have followed. But Keyboard Warriors are hoping that the Lumberjacks will favour them for second place, given that they are the weaker team out of themselves and Field Mice. And if this were to happen, or if Field Mice and KW pitch up together, ItsZahid thinks his side will get a call.
"They may even turn on each other sooner than later, and use us to support them, that would be their smartest move imo."
THE FINAL BETRAYAL
Now that the Cowboys are gone we have a straight up 3v3 fight between Lumberjacks, Field Mice and Keyboard Warriors versus Dream Team, Breakfast Club and Trolls. But this situation won't last much longer. As Chit of Band of Mothers suggests, someone is going to screw someone over very, very soon.
"I honestly think one of the alliances will crack as it is now in the stage of Elimination where backstabbing should occur. They're both equally as determined to beat the other, so should be a great show for all."
Ishtar from Breakfast Club also believes this will take place, with Lumberjacks potentially the victims of a secret alliance to prevent them steamrolling the rest of the competition.
"If Lumberjacks' allies are smart they’ll start considering taking LJ out with our allies while they still have people around who want LJ gone. Kinda like Keyboard Warriors setting up an alliance to try killing off LJ for them but not doing the work themselves because they're scared."
That last comment was very interesting. Have the Keyboard Warriors been turned? I am still waiting for Ishtar to provide proof that this has happened. In the meantime, we do know that members of the Breakfast in Bed alliance have been desperately trying to persuade the Field Mice to turn on their friends.
That image was provided to me by one of Field Mice's leaders, Legaci, who commented that the "Other alliance are desperate for us to turn on each other!
We are together, we have a job to do. Until that job is done! this side is now solid."
Dream Team's KPCSlor confirmed that overtures have been made to their rivals by every team, but so far they have all been rejected.
"Everyone offered alliances. To best lumberjacks we also offered alliances to KW and CB. I asked CB again yesterday. KW can go eff themselves after the cheating scandal so didn't try again with them. It's all about beating LJ, but KW and CB opted to be near shields for them instead."
So who will break first? Will Field Mice or Keyboard Warriors betray Lumberjacks? Perhaps the Trolls will go in with the Lumberjacks instead and steal second place? Or maybe Dream Team and Breakfast Club have something up their sleeves other than used tissues. I can't wait to find out.
Since then, I imagine nothing of note has happened, right?
Right?
KEYBOARD WARRIORS IN SCRIPTING SHOCKER
Torn has been rocked by yet another scandal today, as a post by Chit revealed that a secret Keyboard Warriors script has been used to infiltrate the private chats of every single Elimination team. Thankfully, this script could only access a team’s chat if a member of that team had installed it themselves. Wait, what? Someone from every team did exactly that? Well f**k me sideways.
The offending script was written by a player called Mafia, and its description indicates its functions are “Revenge Filtering, Team list filtering, showing online status, life bar, incoming/outgoing attacks on recent attacks and recent attacks feeds from all teams on main page.” The full description originally said “Filtering out available targets in team list and revenge list”, but this was changed on the 13th of September to the following:
Mafia has now removed his script’s ability to view team chats, but we still wouldn’t recommend installing it, as the author seems entirely disingenuous. The change of description on the 13th seems like Mafia covering his tracks if he were caught. I believe he has pretended to make this script seem like a secret to entice others to install it. Thankfully, only 96 people seem to have done so during this competition - 211 over its entire lifetime stretching back to Elimination 2018 - but that was enough for Keyboard Warriors to gain access to every single Elimination team’s chat rooms.
Our Community Manager Bogie posted a response to this issue indicating that while Mafia’s script technically broke no rules, it was against the spirit of the competition, so we are now actively looking at ways to prevent this kind of action in future. However, some players have taken umbrage at the way Bogie initially replied, despite the fact he did no more than state a simple fact - the script itself is not illegal.
IceBlueFire was also asked about the script, and he too said it was legal, but that he wasn't personally comfortable with it. Neither Bogie nor IceBlueFire can be accused of giving permission for anyone to cheat because unfortunately, the rules already did that due to our oversight. All they did was point out what it says in the rules, which will soon be updated. Now, here's a point so sharp it must be placed in bold to protect you from its dangerous edges.
At no point should any of this have been taken to mean we weren't actively investigating this script, because we were, and are continuing to do so.
Just because something is within the rules, it doesn't mean we're ignoring it. The baying mob may not need proof or procedures, but we do. Torn’s full response to this issue will be made when we’ve had the time to consider our options, not when the loudest voices demand we take action. We took a serious look at this incident behind the scenes, and now we’ve had time to consider the ramifications of the script and the community’s response, we are committed to preventing scripts like this from being used in future.
The solution isn't as easy as some people think, though, as there are many similar chat-scraping scripts which have entirely innocent purposes, meaning an outright ban wouldn't be fair or appropriate. Furthermore, as Chedburn himself admitted in the forums, Mafia's script operates outside of Torn’s technological boundaries, meaning we have no way of detecting or controlling what it does and how it is advertised. As much as we'd love to be able to control teh whole internets, we can't.
Essentially, if we had immediately decided the script was unlawful and implemented an immediate rule change, all we could’ve done is implore you all to remove the script. We cannot control what you choose to download, or what other sites host. These scripts could only ever be used against Elimination's teams if one of their members installed it themselves, and Bogie was less than impressed that those who did so are now entirely absolving themselves of blame.
“You don't just install software or equipment made by the enemy and then get surprised when it acquires your plans. I know we're at war with Russia but they promised us these new computers they gave us were completely trustworthy."
Despite it being your own personal responsibility to check the scripts you install, we will do everything in our power to prevent such scripts being used again. A precedent for this kind of safeguarding has already been set through the introduction of the warning message given during unbalanced bazaar purchases, demonstrating that we will always take action to protect players even if they aren’t breaking any rules.
Nevertheless, a stronger approach than a warning is clearly needed in this situation, and given that any changes to script rules will heavily impact the playerbase, Bogie has reached out to ask for suggestions on where we can find an acceptable middle ground. Those who are content to complain, do nothing to help and present themselves as moral guardians will undoubtedly continue to do so. The Relentless exploiters have also used this incident to fire a few barbs and gain upvotes from sycophants as expected.
The players who genuinely care about Torn will realise that we could make a decision regarding this issue on our own, but that we'd rather involve those who will be affected in the decision-making process. Hopefully, a resolution which suits everyone will be found in the next few days.
UPDATE: An announcement has been made on changes to the rules and reporting procedures due to this incident.
Now then, let’s see what happened during the actual Elimination competition, shall we?
WHO KNEW?
I have received conflicting statements from the Keyboard Warrior leadership team as to how much they knew about their secret script. ORAN told me that there was no need to use the information they nabbed from their rivals' chatrooms since they already had a good alliance and there was nothing more they could gain.
"I can confirm it was only there like it only existed and we were respectful about it at least everyone in the leadership. There was no decision influenced by it at least that I know of."
However, his fellow leader Hcom3 contradicted this statement with the following comment:
I asked the leadership team to clarify their comments. ORAN said that all they gained was info on BCM16 trolling his own team. Staff member PrincessJulie said that KW's game plan was never affected by anything they learned, and she insists no decisions were made based on that information. But when I pressed Hcom3 to explain these contradictory statements, this is what he said.
Hcom3 quite rightly points out that his team would've known within five minutes of the attack regardless, due to the ticket drop and names of recent attackers. But five minutes makes a big difference in Elimination. Even if this is the extent of Keyboard Warriors' knowledge of other teams' plans, I feel it is sufficient to have played a part in the way the competition has panned out.
As their leaders suggest, it may not have affected their status given their powerful allies, but perhaps one of the teams who have left the competition wouldn't have crashed out so easily. I suppose we'll never know. What I do know is that some Keyboard Warriors have left the team out of a desire to distance themselves from this incident. Franky is one such player, and he likely won't be the last.
"It was keyboard warriors but that's taking it a bit far."
The regular members of Keyboard Warriors have my sympathy on this matter. They don't deserve to be punished.
REVIVE CHAIN BEGINS
Two days ago I received a message from an Elimination non-participant, Bainz, the leader of the HeLa healing faction. He told me that HeLa has decided to involve themselves in Elimination in a non-typical way, one which may guarantee the fortunes of Lumberjacks and Field Mice over the next two days.
“HeLa will be doing an Anti-Chain on the 19th focusing on the top two Elimination teams. We thought we'd spice things up. Not sure how many of our people will be stacked since they are all working. However, we will be focusing revives on the hosp'd members of the top two Elim teams in the stack."
"Our Anti-Chain will be running from noon on the 19th to noon on the 20th. Thought your team might be interested in this info. While we won't get Respect for it, because Ched hates healers, we thought it would make things a bit more fun.”
UPDATE: Apparently I got this wrong. HeLa are reviving inactives from Lumberjacks and Field Mice to give the bottom teams more targets. Nice job guys!
MILLENNIALS CRASH OUT
As befits their name, many in the Millennials will feel they deserve a participation trophy for coming 9th in the competition. The first tribute I will give them is for the worst tactics ever in the history of Elimination. Whoever made the call to double-cross both alliances without picking one is entirely to blame for Millennials early exit. When news of this reached Online Jacking they annihilated the Millennials - the Trolls also joined in - stripping them of seven straight lives, before a quick life loss from the Band of Mothers interrupted another nine straight losses.
At this point, the Millennials seemed destined for a swift defeat, with few of their supposed friends willing to come to their aid, despite claims that they were still a valued part of the alliance. However, Breakfast in Bed eventually swept the crumbs from their mattress and started to fight back, putting former allies the Punchbags under heavy pressure to take the heat off Millennials.
This worked well, with the Punchbags eliminated at 8pm on the 15th. Once they were out it was a foregone conclusion that Millennials would be next, and so it proved at 10am the next day, when twelve losses in thirteen hours ended their Elimination campaign. But while the Millennials leadership has a lot to answer for, their members deserve some recognition for managing to stay in the competition longer than expected, especially given the lack of help they received. SubStylee reveals how they managed to do this.
“Us big hitters really fought off losing tickets thanks to a strat I want to say was by Platinum Devil. We all picked a target and killed them with 30 seconds left, but didn’t hit leave/mug/hops until xx:59.50. It worked until Punching Bags got knocked out then we just got focused hard."
"When the strat wasn't working I tried saying we should do something different, but again fearless leader just said they had plans which was basically let's do the strat that is failing now. I feel the reason it did fail was because our 'allies' weren't helping at all imo.”
In the end, nobody in the Breakfast in Bed alliance felt that the Millennials could be trusted enough to keep them in the competition. And as Punchbags had shown before them, betraying your friends is rarely a good idea, especially if you’re not strong enough to stand alone. Because even then, your friends may betray you, as the following conversation from Trolls chat suggests.
Dekloren: My prophecies are all coming true
CHR15: I used a Xanax and all my e
XxKaileexX: And we need Millennials to actually start snatching tickets from LJ
CHR15: I killed 8 successfully
Kegabyte: Damn, ya they're struggling
Dekloren: They aren't struggling. I made an alliance with DreamTeam and Cowboys to get Millenials out
PUNCHBAGS RUE MISTAKES
Another team hoisted by their own petard were the Punchbags, who crossed the floor to join Online Jacking, only to see themselves dumped out of the competition after losing twenty lives in twenty-seven hours. It seemed an odd decision at the time, as the Punchbags were by their own description one of the weaker teams in the competition, so they should’ve known they were being brought on board to act as their name suggests.
But if truth be told, clever tactics were Punchbags only realistic chance of making an impact on the competition, and their leadership had good reasons for changing sides. Zomb13 told me that Punchbags knew they needed to rely on strategy from the outset, hence why they helped expand the original Breakfast in Bed alliance.
“We initially allied with DT and either BOM or Breakfast Club(don't really remember at this point) and they seemed fine at the start, then we brought in hillbillies millenials and things seemed to be going okay other than the fact that most of them kept saying we need to take LJ down if we want to win not realising that to win we'd actually have to not get eliminated straight away, a lot of the leaders were new this year and it's pretty clear because they were f**king clueless.”
Zomb13 described the Dream Team leaders in particular as moronic, and it seems it was this discontent which led Punchbags to form a non-aggression pact with Field Mice. That NAP changed to a full-blown alliance soon after, when Dream Team invited Trolls to join their server.
“DT randomly decided to bring trolls into the server which is when zahid [ItsZahid] and lily [TheLuvLillyPink] when full spaz mode and we were pretty much done at this point so after a brief conversation with papa stretch we decide to f**k off to the competent alliance.”
Fellow leader Lilith added that Punchbags knew they couldn’t keep ahead of Online Jacking’s teams while they remained members of Breakfast in Bed, whereas if they joined them, they only really had to stay ahead of Millennials. They achieved this for a short while, but then their lives started to fall.
“When we as leadership first saw the numbers we knew chances were slim of getting very far, so we mostly focused on making it fun for our team and maybe teaching them a thing or two :). Spirits in our active part of the team have been high through the entire thing and they all were determined to give it everything we got, even though we would go out early.”
Zomb13 noted that even though they had the fewest participants of any team, it still took the combined might of every member of Breakfast in Bed to remove them from the competition.
“It still took every team from the other alliance specifically targeting us and spending who knows how much on anonymous bounties for them buffoons to finally knock us out. But we managed to take plenty of their lives from them and made them sweat their tits off to finally get rid of us.”
However, former Council member HamrRokjaw disagrees with this assessment of Punchbags’ time in Elimination. He feels that Zomb13 and Lilith failed the BiB alliance as a whole by pushing them to attack non-threatening teams at random, and when Dream Team formed a viable plan which involved targeting Field Mice - a plan which seems to be working at one point - Punchbags’ leaders decided to bail.
“Instead of sticking with that plan, you and/or Lilith decided to betray us and your own team. You knew that you could not win without the alliance, and yet you backstabbed it anyway. Congratulations for throwing your entire team under the bus, just for some ego points. Did you even think about your team's interests? Or are they so expendable to you?”
MOTHERS RUIN
Band of Mothers were the next team to fall, losing their final life at 6pm on the 17th of September after a 24-hour fight with the Cowboys. Over this period BoM lost 16 lives to the Cowboys’ 9, and one anonymous momma laid the blame squarely at their leader, RonBurgundy, who they felt kept vital information from his own side due to his fear of leaks.
“Main reason Burgundy won't tell us about the alliances is because there are more moles in the so-called 'private' discord server than there are on a Witch's left buttcheek. The only time we got leadership was when one of the lower level leaders just pinged everyone to tell us to attack someone else. There just wasn’t a connection between leader and follower.”
My source went on to say that the council leaders led the team while RonBurgundy and Chit “pulled plans out of their rears and had a dedicated council to turning those plans into actual tactics.” Chit responded with the following:
"Anything less than a win is disappointing so I'm not surprised. But when the cards were dealt the way they were, the only option we had was to fight to the end and I'm proud to say we did."
HILLBILLIES DONE GONE QUIET
The Hillbillies were eliminated at 9pm last night, when this band of Moonshine swilling hicks were targeted heavily by Field Mice, Keyboard Warriors and Lumberjacks, as this screenshot shows. The Hillbillies leadership team which replaced Imalovrman seemingly couldn't prevent their exit when the forces of Online Jacking came for them, and one anonymous player feels their new leaders should share a portion of the blame.
"The ONLY thing that came from the leaders in the discord in the 24 hours that we were dying was a single message in the notifications telling us to be better at hitting in the final seconds... Only idea was to kill the cowboys."
"It's amazing how little we were told, even though every other team knew what each alliances goals was, our leadership refused to tell us what the bigger plans was."
Indeed, communication had been a problem for the Hillbillies from the outset. My source tells me that many of their members didn't know who they were allied until we published the info last week, forcing their leaders to admit their alliances formally. Not that this information did them any good, mind, since my source also feels they were let down heavily by their so-called friends.
"My belief is that the alliance let us die, with Breakfast Club and Trolls refusing to attack on the hour, leaving the cowboys to survive with more than 0 tickets each hour, In a 0 point tie, the hillbillies would have won, and there is no reason that 4 teams cant hold 1 other team on 0 points."
A statement from Hillbillies leadership argued that the alliance details were kept quiet for as long as possible. Furthermore, they said that most of the players who complained about this were young, and they could have figured out their allies and enemies if they had read the directives on who to hit and who to avoid. AlexeaNikkole had the following to say on whether the Hillbillies allies could've done more for them.
"I don't feel we were betrayed by alliance as I personally received messages from other members in the alliance saying keep fighting we are attacking (a certain group for you)."
COWBOYS RUN OUT OF TOWN
The Cowboys were eliminated just before this article was published. I'll try to get comments from the leadership for the next elimination article, but in the meantime, here's what one of their members thought was the main reason for their exit.
"I believe lumberjacks and field mice are teaming up on us secretly. They know they’re the powerhouses and they’re showing it. I think they intentionally farmed us of all our tickets but there’s no telling."
"We were farmed by our own alliance even when there were other targets available. So basically could never get tickets. When we did, all the other teams started hitting us. Allies, enemies all the same. I think the leadership was corrupt, along with a few others who i cant name, because we repeatedly told them about the impending doombut all they said was trust fm and lj. And look where that got us."
If this is true, might LJ and FM be plotting against Keyboard Warriors right now, as they did with Cowboys? Possibly, if they know about their secret discussions with the Trolls.
TROLLS TROLLING?
I can exclusively report to you that the Trolls have offered Keyboard Warriors a secret alliance, only to revoke the offer when those shady script-monkeys started to lose too many tickets. I am as yet unsure as to whether the rest of Breakfast in Bed knew of this operation - KPCSlor hinted that they did - but Keyboard Warriors' ORAN says the offer was rejected after Trolls had already betrayed them. Neither side will admit which happened first, the revokation or the rejection. I'll leave it up to you to decide.
This deal would make sense from a Trolls perspective, as in the aftermath of their switch to Breakfast in Bed they were zeroed from a healthy 2,000 ticket total, and since reaching a five-day high of 568 tickets on the 16th, Trolls have only managed to stay on triple figures on a handful of brief occasions. They are now clearly being targeted as a priority by Online Jacking, being the strongest remaining member of Breakfast in Bed.
In response, ItsZahid told me that the BiB alliance was entirely focused on hitting Cowboys, and now that they're out, they will attempt to eliminate Keyboard Warriors.
"We are taking their weakest first, the tiebreakerer is huge, our previous allies lost countless tie breakers. Now we can all beat cowboys in tie breaker so easy win, but only we (trolls) can beat KW in a tie breaker."
ItsZahid went on to say that he blames Keyboard Warriors if Lumberjacks or Field Mice win. He says KW were offered a chance to switch sides when the Trolls left Online Jacking, and ItsZahid feels if they had done so, the Cowboys would have followed. But Keyboard Warriors are hoping that the Lumberjacks will favour them for second place, given that they are the weaker team out of themselves and Field Mice. And if this were to happen, or if Field Mice and KW pitch up together, ItsZahid thinks his side will get a call.
"They may even turn on each other sooner than later, and use us to support them, that would be their smartest move imo."
THE FINAL BETRAYAL
Now that the Cowboys are gone we have a straight up 3v3 fight between Lumberjacks, Field Mice and Keyboard Warriors versus Dream Team, Breakfast Club and Trolls. But this situation won't last much longer. As Chit of Band of Mothers suggests, someone is going to screw someone over very, very soon.
"I honestly think one of the alliances will crack as it is now in the stage of Elimination where backstabbing should occur. They're both equally as determined to beat the other, so should be a great show for all."
Ishtar from Breakfast Club also believes this will take place, with Lumberjacks potentially the victims of a secret alliance to prevent them steamrolling the rest of the competition.
"If Lumberjacks' allies are smart they’ll start considering taking LJ out with our allies while they still have people around who want LJ gone. Kinda like Keyboard Warriors setting up an alliance to try killing off LJ for them but not doing the work themselves because they're scared."
That last comment was very interesting. Have the Keyboard Warriors been turned? I am still waiting for Ishtar to provide proof that this has happened. In the meantime, we do know that members of the Breakfast in Bed alliance have been desperately trying to persuade the Field Mice to turn on their friends.
That image was provided to me by one of Field Mice's leaders, Legaci, who commented that the "Other alliance are desperate for us to turn on each other!
We are together, we have a job to do. Until that job is done! this side is now solid."
Dream Team's KPCSlor confirmed that overtures have been made to their rivals by every team, but so far they have all been rejected.
"Everyone offered alliances. To best lumberjacks we also offered alliances to KW and CB. I asked CB again yesterday. KW can go eff themselves after the cheating scandal so didn't try again with them. It's all about beating LJ, but KW and CB opted to be near shields for them instead."
So who will break first? Will Field Mice or Keyboard Warriors betray Lumberjacks? Perhaps the Trolls will go in with the Lumberjacks instead and steal second place? Or maybe Dream Team and Breakfast Club have something up their sleeves other than used tissues. I can't wait to find out.
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