sugarvalves [1963573] —
Original article
Find out which two teams may have a secret final pact, which team has risen from the dead, and who has been spreading lies within Short Bus in our latest round-up of all the Elimination drama.
The number of Elimination teams has dwindled to five since our last article, with the Cereal Killers and Chicken Nuggets defeated during the week, and the Sea Men and Lettuce Win following over the weekend. Let's find out how all this happened, why it happened, and what my smooth reporting brain thinks will happen next in this, our final Elimination gossip column of the tournament - at least until it's all over.
CEREALS GO SOGGY
Too much milk? Not enough milk? Weird, salty-tasting milk-like substance? Whatever was in their bowl, it wasn't enough, as the Cereal Killers were eliminated at 5:30 am on the 16th of September.
"It went as far as we were able to considering the team strength, or lack of, including leaders. We would have like to gone further and I still believe we could have if not for the teams constantly flipping between the alliances, which in turn led to us constantly switching targets as well instead of just concentrating on one team throughout." - AleksandrWolf, CK Leadership
My records show that the cereals were hit mostly by Illuminati and G.O.A.T. over their final 24 hours, whereas CK elected to spread their own attacks between Illuminati, Sea Men, and to a lesser extent, Lettuce Win. This is one of the interesting dilemmas facing teams down at the bottom: Do you hit those who are hitting you, or do you focus on zeroing another team out of hope they may sink first.
Pictured: Cereal Killers Sink First
Based on CK's attack stats, they did a little bit of both, and it didn't work. A last-ditch effort by their leader Superior- saw Cereals pledge allegiance to the growing anti-Illuminati movement, but it was too little too late. Superior- revealed that their late-game strategy was to hit Illuminati while pushing Sea Men at the ticks after they flipped on them - for the second time.
"We started an agenda against illuminati to farm as much tickets as possible with a few forum threads just to spice the competition up as much as possible as they were the ones hitting us the most throughout the full comp." - Superior-
AleksandrWolf feels this was the wrong strategy, and would personally have tried to ally with Illuminati to get rid of G.O.A.T. - he believes that Nova is playing Illuminati and will betray them eventually. Others I spoke to in the CK camp felt their side's leaders weren't able to cope with the complex alliances going on, and that this was the main reason for their downfall. It also appears communication was an issue.
"I learned more about my team from your story than being in it. Was top hitter whole time till I gave up today. Anyway good reporting." - Anon Cereal
Despite their team saying Cheerio to the Elimination competition, Superior- was full of praise for the way his team's warriors fought until the end, describing their performance as amazing.
"10th weakest team in the tournament but the members gave there all and had a fun time 99% of the team have been great full of our efforts but that being said we could have flipped a few times and potentially got them 4th -5th place but for some hair style tokens that wasn’t worth our teams honour IMO." - Superior-
ANTI-ILLUMINATIS GAIN STRENGTH
The movement to remove Illuminati from this year's competition made serious headway during the middle of last week, with the leaders of Keyboard Warriors and Lettuce Win bowing to pressure and joining the anti-Illuminati alliance. This was a significant move, as we have been told that Illuminati promised top three status to both teams. Thankfully, for the sake of the competition, their ambitions got the better of them.
By Friday it looked as if the Sea Men were the only team allied to Illuminati, as the G.O.A.T.s appear to be neutral, rather than allied. This lack of allies saw illuminati's ticket total slowly drop by the hour, and they responded emphatically by zeroing the Keyboard Warriors. When I checked at 14:00 TCT on Thursday they had made nearly 6,000 attacks against KW within 24 hours.
Lettuce Win saw their salad lightly tossed by comparison, with just over 3,000 attacks made by Illuminati against them. But as impressive as they were, these assaults weren't the sum total of the Illuminati's efforts, as in the same time period they also made 1,500 attacks vs Short Bus, 3,500 attacks vs Nuggets, and 3,000 vs Cereal Killers. Who needs allies when your team is capable of making 17,000 attacks in one single day?
Pictured: Truth
If the anti-Illuminati movement was going to succeed, it would have to step up its game. This group of hopeful chancers began as a semi-serious meme campaign that later resulted in a Discord channel. Said channel has now grown to over 200 members, some of whom are Illuminati members themselves, with leader Lilith present for a brief time too.
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But while the Illuminati-haters were busy disseminating anti-illum propaganda, we heard that members of the Keyboard Warriors and G.O.A.T. teams had set up their own separate Discord with the purpose of disregarding their leaders and taking down Illuminati. This mutinous act may have swayed the Keyboard Warriors into switching their allegiance, but as the weekend approached, G.O.A.T. was still hitting Dongs and Lettuce Win as a priority.
Efforts by parties unknown had been made to sway G.O.A.T. leaders Nova and SpeedSkateR, but these were reportedly thwarted by team leaders' refusal to work with Johnny big hands. Lettuce Win leader Zuni remained confident that he could turn G.O.A.T. In the meantime, the Illuminati was focused on removing as many members of the alliance as possible.
NUGGETS FRIED
The Chicken Nuggets turned rancid and inedible on Friday morning, with a dual assault from Illuminati and G.O.A.T. proving too much for them. The timing of their defeat was interesting, as given that it came at 06:15 TCT, this represented the third straight Elimination that had taken place in the small hours of the morning - Snowflakes were removed at 08:00, with Cereals at 05:30.
But this time, it was Chicken Nuggets for breakfast.
Pictured: Heart disease.
This timing may or may not indicate when teams are most vulnerable against Illuminati and G.O.A.T. But the way things are going, I don't think it matters when your team is awake, because these two are capable of zeroing anyone at any time. The most incredible aspect of Nuggets' defeat is that they weren't even a priority for either of the teams hitting them.
"The initial push by Goat which resulted in us losing a few lives really helped bring our divided team together. Natty(my co), the Sauce Bosses(council), and our Sauce Captains (Push coordinators) were around 24/7 rallying the troops and keeping us going. They never gave up and spent countless hours coordinating pushes even when they knew our chances were slim to none." - Justin
In the 24 hours prior to Nuggets' Elimination, Illuminati made more hits against Lettuce Win and Keyboards, with G.O.A.T. also striking LW and Dongs harder than the nugs. The ability of these two teams to strike on multiple fronts was concerning to those who remained, even though Illuminati had been reduced to double-digit tickets early on Friday.
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By this point in the competition, Chicken Nuggets were the only team left who had never been allied with Illuminati - to our knowledge, anyway. This meant they may have missed out on some tight alliances with those who had forged links early in the competition. Leader Natty_Boh recognized that the nugs were one of the least stacked teams, but maintains that the formation of an anti-Illuminati agenda with other small teams was their only path to an unlikely victory.
"While the various flips by other teams were often unfortunate for the nuggets, I understand that all leaders are just trying to do what's best for their own team. I hold no hard feelings on the matter, but I do think the game could've been a lot more interesting had we gotten all teams on board and Illuminati eliminated early." - Natty_Boh
Natty went on to commend the nugs for their efforts and was particularly impressed that they managed to take two Sea Men lives early on Friday when they themselves had only two remaining, having just endured a run of eleven straight life losses. Co-leader Justin echoed these thoughts and feels that his side pulled together better than anyone could've expected.
"Tonight we feast in nugget Valhalla. I am really proud of them. Natty's attack bot helped us realize who our real allies were. I wanna thank the KFC alliance that didn't bow down to the high and mighties even though we got picked off one by one." - Justin
SEA MEN SUNK
The Sea Men continued the recent trend of teams being knocked out early in the morning, as they shot their final load at 4:45 am on Saturday morning. Their defeat had been inevitable for some time already, however, having spent a great deal of time at the bottom of the ticket pile.
The main reason for their failure seems to be the unwavering support for Illuminati shown by the Sea Men during Elimination's late game. Bones tells me that the Illuminati approached her for an alliance in the tournament's first few days and that the other leaders agreed to this union. However, fellow leader Acock's secret negotiations with the Dongs saw them effectively playing both sides early on, and this may have played a part in their downfall.
"Flipping repeatedly hurts a team's chances. You can maybe flip once but even doing that, the other side will have some level of distrust - if you flipped once, what keeps you from flipping again?" - Bones
Pictured: The Sea Men
But flipping is precisely what the Sea Men did. After Acock left, Sea Men initially returned to what Bones calls the "Little Guy Alliance", which at the time consisted of Pandemic, Snowflakes, Cereal Killers, Chicken Nuggets, and Dongs. Sea Men had no other option at this point, as Illuminati told them that "the ship had sailed" with regards to a reunion. Then Short Bus switched over to the little guys, and everyone knew Lettuce would soon follow. This prompted Illuminati to rethink their comments towards the Sea Men.
"Illuminati messaged me and said them, GOAT, and Keyboard Warriors were interested in working with us again and that was when we flipped back to their side." - Bones
Bones and the other Sea Men leaders realised they'd get grief for this, but they decided to press ahead regardless and made a vow never to betray Illuminati again. Despite rumours of several flip offers, the Sea Men stuck to their word, but was this the right call? Could the Illuminati have done more to help their allies?
On Friday morning my attack logs showed that SM's biggest enemies were the Dongs, who had made 3,500 attacks against them within 24 hours. The likely reason for this assault is that the Dongs had only recently switched allegiance to the anti-Illuminati alliance. It does appear that Illuminati did their best to keep Sea Men in the competition by making over 4,000 attacks against the Dongs on Friday, but it wasn't enough.
"Seaman is going down because our leadership refuses to abandon a dead alliance. We will be sacrificed to the SB gods with our dongs out as KW write about us on their BDSM blogs. Just so Illum and GOAT can live a little longer." - Anon Sea Man
Bones feels that the drama with Acock played a role in her side's defeat, as she believes he had no endgame in mind after he allied himself with the little guys. But did Bones have an endgame either? There was never a realistic prospect of SM being taken to the final four by Illuminati, not after they had already flipped on them once. Meanwhile, the little guy alliance had several flippers among their ranks, and they all appeared willing to work together in recognition that their union was their only chance of a high placement.
One wonders whether the Sea Men could've finished higher if Bones had gone back on her word and they had flipped when Lettuce and Short Bus did - personally, I think it's likely that they would have. Former leader Acock frequently accused Bones of Illuminati loyalty during his comments to the forums and the Torn City Times, and Bones' final comments on the matter will do nothing to convince Acock that he was wrong.
"I’d love to see Illuminati win, only because they have so many teams and players rooting against them and absolutely dog-piling on them. They’re the strongest team with the highest attack output; if the other teams wanted Illuminati out, they really needed to pursue that from day 1 and keep personal grievances aside to focus on that." - Bones
LIMP LETTUCE
On Friday, a leaked chat between members of Lettuce Win revealed a secret plot that was set to take effect if Illuminati was eliminated. Should the competition's strongest team be defeated, Short Bus was set to take on G.O.A.T. before teaming up with Lettuce Win to remove Keyboard Warriors. If this had gone to plan, the Dongs would then be eliminated next, leading to a final showdown between Lettuce Win and Short Bus.
But this ambitious (and wildly optimistic) project never came to pass, with the anti-Illuminati alliance unable to protect Lettuce Win from elimination at 3:45am on Sunday morning. LW had been vulnerable since the 16th when their stack of 2,000 tickets was zeroed, and this came not long after Lettuce's leader, Zuni, had informed his side of big moves being made imminently. He then updated their targets multiple times in the same day, before ending with a push against G.O.A.T. and Illuminati.
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It looks like an agreement was in place on Thursday for Lettuce to take tickets from Dong inactives on behalf of the alliance, thus keeping them out of Illuminati and G.O.A.T. hands. Once that objective was complete, Lettuce went after G.O.A.T. as a priority, making over 3,300 attacks over 24 hours as of Friday lunchtime. Interestingly, Lettuce also made a significant number of hits on Short Bus too - almost as many as they made against Illuminati.
Much was made in the Lettuce Win Discord of their betrayal of Illuminati, which supposedly represented a rejection of third-place in favour of outright glory. But the numbers I saw didn't match the rhetoric. If Lettuce Win were to continue on their quest for Elimination victory, they needed to stay in the competition. To do that, surely they should've farmed Sea Men as a priority before they were eliminated, or they should've hit the Illuminati.
Instead, they continued to hit Short Bus, which I believe was a big mistake. This screenshot shows there was panic in the salad bar at the time, and Lettuce was forced to update their strategy to stem the tide of G.O.A.T.s munching them. Goats are known to eat anything, and they managed to chew through Lettuce Win with ease, while also taking a few Dongs and Sea Men to the mouth too.
Pictured: Sadly, I couldn't find a picture of a goat eating a dong, so this'll have to do.
Illuminati was also hitting Lettuce Win and the Dongs, but their primary focus was the Keyboard Warriors. By keeping each of these allies down, they forced them all to prioritise self-preservation over any attempt to help Lettuce Win remain in the competition. In Zuni's post-defeat forum post, the Lettuce Win leader acknowledged that turning on Illuminati cost them a higher finish, but he appeared to have no regrets and acknowledged the spirit and belief shown by the Lettuce Win members in their fight against the best.
THE BEGINNING OF THE END
Based on what we've heard and our statistical observations, it now looks like it's a straight 3v2 fight between Illuminati and G.O.A.T. vs everyone else. Over the past 24 hours, the Illuminati have been going all-out against Keyboard Warriors, making more than 9,000 attacks in that time to help drop KW to 60 lives as of noon on Sunday.
Illuminati have also dropped a few lives themselves, having lost their first on Saturday afternoon due to a sustained attack by all three of their rivals. Short Bus was their biggest threat, making over 6,000 attacks, but the Keyboards were only a few shy of that total themselves, with the Dongs were close to making 5,000 too.
Speaking of the Dongs, they have been targeted primarily by G.O.A.T., who have made nearly 8,000 attacks against them since noon on Saturday. Both G.O.A.T. and Short Bus have emerged from this rough 24-hours relatively unscathed, as can be seen by their healthy ticket totals. Do these teams have a secret alliance? If so, they're playing it perfectly. And even if there isn't an agreement between the two, Short Bus and G.O.A.T. still look odds-on to face off as the final two.
It appears that some within Illuminati are fearful of such an outcome, and have taken to disseminating disinformation within the Short Bus ranks. Persons unknown have been telling SB members that they are still allied with Illuminati, and SB leader Shady69 was forced into denying this in their Discord chat.
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This plan doesn't appear to have worked, but that doesn't mean that the Short Bus has got its engine going just yet. Short Bus has reportedly pinned their hopes on removing Illuminati next before going after G.O.A.T., but such a plan relies on them keeping both their s**t and their alliance together. I have been told that neither of these outcomes is certain.
"The message from the top brass is attack illmin. But the lower members of shortbus are in the dark. Many low levels have been cut out of discord, and are getting no info. They have been relegated to a room called what-the-hell-guys and $h1t and giggles. Mostly they have been ignored. The low level members are using this to teach themselves how to play elimination." - Anon SB
When I told my regular Short Bus source about this comment, they replied that it has always been SB's policy to blank the low hitters, as members in the team have had previous success by forcing non-participants to leave Elimination. They added that a revive contract exists with UHC whereby low-level Illuminati members are healed one minute before each tick. This contract is currently paused, but could be restarted soon - even though my source says it wasn't a particulary effective way of getting Illuminati tickets.
And yet another anonymous Short Buser also told me that there have been arguments among SB leadership caused by certain leaders' attitudes towards their allies. A leaked chat between Shady69 of SB and Beer_Bear of the Dongs appears to show tension at the top level of the alliance, with Short Bus accused of having a secret agreement with G.O.A.T. just as we speculated earlier.
Pictured: Evidence? Yes.
The screenshot linked above also shows a comment from Dong leader Hemi which reveals SB has threatened the Dongs at some point recently. As of Sunday, the Dongs, Short Bus, and Keyboard Warriors were still working together. But when the next team is eliminated, whoever that may be, I expect we'll see a reconfiguration of the alliance when we are down to the final four.
Sorry, did I say final four? I mean final five... because one team has just returned from the dead.
VICTORIOUS SECRET RISE AGAIN
Despite their elimination on the second day of the competition, I've heard that the members of Victorious Secret have reorganised themselves with the sole purpose of helping the Illuminati. In real life, the Illuminati are often accused of meddling with the dark arts, but who knew their powers extended to reanimating the corpses of former lingerie models?
Pictured: Victorious Secret right now.
A team returning from the grave to change the course of Elimination is not without precedent, but nobody expected Victorious Secret to be of use to anyone after their abysmal exit one week ago. This chat reveals that former leaders Realistassasin and T-H-C were behind this plan, with HerrSchmidt involved too.
My source within VS says that their members have taken to this task enthusiastically, and while I haven't been able to pull exact statistics as of yet, I have been led to believe that a good number of attacks have been made on Illuminati's behalf. So could the intervention of Victorious Secret's deeply ineffectual leadership really be enough to change the result of Elimination?
No. Moving on.
GOAT FINALLY FLIP!
Shortly before this article went out, I received the following message from a member of Keyboard Warriors.
The latest stats confirm this has happened. In the past six hours, Illuminati have received 1,348 attacks from Short Bus, 1,102 from Keyboards, 977 from GOAT, and 834 from Dongs. Illuminati are still targeting Keyboards, with GOAT going after Dongs, Dongs hitting GOAT, and Illuminati trying to take down Short Bus. This was correct as of 4pm TCT.
FISHY GIFTS
Daedalus, a member of the Sea Men, decided that my Herculean reporting efforts during Elimination should not go unrewarded. He kindly arranged a mass donation event within the Sea Men that resulted in me receiving a number of delicious freshwater fish.
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Considering that the Sea Men are ocean-dwellers, a gift of fish was most appropriate. I am now looking forward to receiving similarly themed gifts from Lettuce Win and Chicken Nuggets - Dongs, feel free to sit this one out.
FINAL ARTICLE
The remainder of the Elimination competition will be left to run its course without my interference. If you have any gossip or amusing stories to share, please continue to inbox me or use the Tell Your Story feature, and it will be published in my final Elimination round-up article on the 23rd of September. Good luck to all of the teams who remain!
CEREALS GO SOGGY
Too much milk? Not enough milk? Weird, salty-tasting milk-like substance? Whatever was in their bowl, it wasn't enough, as the Cereal Killers were eliminated at 5:30 am on the 16th of September.
"It went as far as we were able to considering the team strength, or lack of, including leaders. We would have like to gone further and I still believe we could have if not for the teams constantly flipping between the alliances, which in turn led to us constantly switching targets as well instead of just concentrating on one team throughout." - AleksandrWolf, CK Leadership
My records show that the cereals were hit mostly by Illuminati and G.O.A.T. over their final 24 hours, whereas CK elected to spread their own attacks between Illuminati, Sea Men, and to a lesser extent, Lettuce Win. This is one of the interesting dilemmas facing teams down at the bottom: Do you hit those who are hitting you, or do you focus on zeroing another team out of hope they may sink first.
Pictured: Cereal Killers Sink First
Based on CK's attack stats, they did a little bit of both, and it didn't work. A last-ditch effort by their leader Superior- saw Cereals pledge allegiance to the growing anti-Illuminati movement, but it was too little too late. Superior- revealed that their late-game strategy was to hit Illuminati while pushing Sea Men at the ticks after they flipped on them - for the second time.
"We started an agenda against illuminati to farm as much tickets as possible with a few forum threads just to spice the competition up as much as possible as they were the ones hitting us the most throughout the full comp." - Superior-
AleksandrWolf feels this was the wrong strategy, and would personally have tried to ally with Illuminati to get rid of G.O.A.T. - he believes that Nova is playing Illuminati and will betray them eventually. Others I spoke to in the CK camp felt their side's leaders weren't able to cope with the complex alliances going on, and that this was the main reason for their downfall. It also appears communication was an issue.
"I learned more about my team from your story than being in it. Was top hitter whole time till I gave up today. Anyway good reporting." - Anon Cereal
Despite their team saying Cheerio to the Elimination competition, Superior- was full of praise for the way his team's warriors fought until the end, describing their performance as amazing.
"10th weakest team in the tournament but the members gave there all and had a fun time 99% of the team have been great full of our efforts but that being said we could have flipped a few times and potentially got them 4th -5th place but for some hair style tokens that wasn’t worth our teams honour IMO." - Superior-
ANTI-ILLUMINATIS GAIN STRENGTH
The movement to remove Illuminati from this year's competition made serious headway during the middle of last week, with the leaders of Keyboard Warriors and Lettuce Win bowing to pressure and joining the anti-Illuminati alliance. This was a significant move, as we have been told that Illuminati promised top three status to both teams. Thankfully, for the sake of the competition, their ambitions got the better of them.
By Friday it looked as if the Sea Men were the only team allied to Illuminati, as the G.O.A.T.s appear to be neutral, rather than allied. This lack of allies saw illuminati's ticket total slowly drop by the hour, and they responded emphatically by zeroing the Keyboard Warriors. When I checked at 14:00 TCT on Thursday they had made nearly 6,000 attacks against KW within 24 hours.
Lettuce Win saw their salad lightly tossed by comparison, with just over 3,000 attacks made by Illuminati against them. But as impressive as they were, these assaults weren't the sum total of the Illuminati's efforts, as in the same time period they also made 1,500 attacks vs Short Bus, 3,500 attacks vs Nuggets, and 3,000 vs Cereal Killers. Who needs allies when your team is capable of making 17,000 attacks in one single day?
Pictured: Truth
If the anti-Illuminati movement was going to succeed, it would have to step up its game. This group of hopeful chancers began as a semi-serious meme campaign that later resulted in a Discord channel. Said channel has now grown to over 200 members, some of whom are Illuminati members themselves, with leader Lilith present for a brief time too.
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But while the Illuminati-haters were busy disseminating anti-illum propaganda, we heard that members of the Keyboard Warriors and G.O.A.T. teams had set up their own separate Discord with the purpose of disregarding their leaders and taking down Illuminati. This mutinous act may have swayed the Keyboard Warriors into switching their allegiance, but as the weekend approached, G.O.A.T. was still hitting Dongs and Lettuce Win as a priority.
Efforts by parties unknown had been made to sway G.O.A.T. leaders Nova and SpeedSkateR, but these were reportedly thwarted by team leaders' refusal to work with Johnny big hands. Lettuce Win leader Zuni remained confident that he could turn G.O.A.T. In the meantime, the Illuminati was focused on removing as many members of the alliance as possible.
NUGGETS FRIED
The Chicken Nuggets turned rancid and inedible on Friday morning, with a dual assault from Illuminati and G.O.A.T. proving too much for them. The timing of their defeat was interesting, as given that it came at 06:15 TCT, this represented the third straight Elimination that had taken place in the small hours of the morning - Snowflakes were removed at 08:00, with Cereals at 05:30.
But this time, it was Chicken Nuggets for breakfast.
Pictured: Heart disease.
This timing may or may not indicate when teams are most vulnerable against Illuminati and G.O.A.T. But the way things are going, I don't think it matters when your team is awake, because these two are capable of zeroing anyone at any time. The most incredible aspect of Nuggets' defeat is that they weren't even a priority for either of the teams hitting them.
"The initial push by Goat which resulted in us losing a few lives really helped bring our divided team together. Natty(my co), the Sauce Bosses(council), and our Sauce Captains (Push coordinators) were around 24/7 rallying the troops and keeping us going. They never gave up and spent countless hours coordinating pushes even when they knew our chances were slim to none." - Justin
In the 24 hours prior to Nuggets' Elimination, Illuminati made more hits against Lettuce Win and Keyboards, with G.O.A.T. also striking LW and Dongs harder than the nugs. The ability of these two teams to strike on multiple fronts was concerning to those who remained, even though Illuminati had been reduced to double-digit tickets early on Friday.
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By this point in the competition, Chicken Nuggets were the only team left who had never been allied with Illuminati - to our knowledge, anyway. This meant they may have missed out on some tight alliances with those who had forged links early in the competition. Leader Natty_Boh recognized that the nugs were one of the least stacked teams, but maintains that the formation of an anti-Illuminati agenda with other small teams was their only path to an unlikely victory.
"While the various flips by other teams were often unfortunate for the nuggets, I understand that all leaders are just trying to do what's best for their own team. I hold no hard feelings on the matter, but I do think the game could've been a lot more interesting had we gotten all teams on board and Illuminati eliminated early." - Natty_Boh
Natty went on to commend the nugs for their efforts and was particularly impressed that they managed to take two Sea Men lives early on Friday when they themselves had only two remaining, having just endured a run of eleven straight life losses. Co-leader Justin echoed these thoughts and feels that his side pulled together better than anyone could've expected.
"Tonight we feast in nugget Valhalla. I am really proud of them. Natty's attack bot helped us realize who our real allies were. I wanna thank the KFC alliance that didn't bow down to the high and mighties even though we got picked off one by one." - Justin
SEA MEN SUNK
The Sea Men continued the recent trend of teams being knocked out early in the morning, as they shot their final load at 4:45 am on Saturday morning. Their defeat had been inevitable for some time already, however, having spent a great deal of time at the bottom of the ticket pile.
The main reason for their failure seems to be the unwavering support for Illuminati shown by the Sea Men during Elimination's late game. Bones tells me that the Illuminati approached her for an alliance in the tournament's first few days and that the other leaders agreed to this union. However, fellow leader Acock's secret negotiations with the Dongs saw them effectively playing both sides early on, and this may have played a part in their downfall.
"Flipping repeatedly hurts a team's chances. You can maybe flip once but even doing that, the other side will have some level of distrust - if you flipped once, what keeps you from flipping again?" - Bones
Pictured: The Sea Men
But flipping is precisely what the Sea Men did. After Acock left, Sea Men initially returned to what Bones calls the "Little Guy Alliance", which at the time consisted of Pandemic, Snowflakes, Cereal Killers, Chicken Nuggets, and Dongs. Sea Men had no other option at this point, as Illuminati told them that "the ship had sailed" with regards to a reunion. Then Short Bus switched over to the little guys, and everyone knew Lettuce would soon follow. This prompted Illuminati to rethink their comments towards the Sea Men.
"Illuminati messaged me and said them, GOAT, and Keyboard Warriors were interested in working with us again and that was when we flipped back to their side." - Bones
Bones and the other Sea Men leaders realised they'd get grief for this, but they decided to press ahead regardless and made a vow never to betray Illuminati again. Despite rumours of several flip offers, the Sea Men stuck to their word, but was this the right call? Could the Illuminati have done more to help their allies?
On Friday morning my attack logs showed that SM's biggest enemies were the Dongs, who had made 3,500 attacks against them within 24 hours. The likely reason for this assault is that the Dongs had only recently switched allegiance to the anti-Illuminati alliance. It does appear that Illuminati did their best to keep Sea Men in the competition by making over 4,000 attacks against the Dongs on Friday, but it wasn't enough.
"Seaman is going down because our leadership refuses to abandon a dead alliance. We will be sacrificed to the SB gods with our dongs out as KW write about us on their BDSM blogs. Just so Illum and GOAT can live a little longer." - Anon Sea Man
Bones feels that the drama with Acock played a role in her side's defeat, as she believes he had no endgame in mind after he allied himself with the little guys. But did Bones have an endgame either? There was never a realistic prospect of SM being taken to the final four by Illuminati, not after they had already flipped on them once. Meanwhile, the little guy alliance had several flippers among their ranks, and they all appeared willing to work together in recognition that their union was their only chance of a high placement.
One wonders whether the Sea Men could've finished higher if Bones had gone back on her word and they had flipped when Lettuce and Short Bus did - personally, I think it's likely that they would have. Former leader Acock frequently accused Bones of Illuminati loyalty during his comments to the forums and the Torn City Times, and Bones' final comments on the matter will do nothing to convince Acock that he was wrong.
"I’d love to see Illuminati win, only because they have so many teams and players rooting against them and absolutely dog-piling on them. They’re the strongest team with the highest attack output; if the other teams wanted Illuminati out, they really needed to pursue that from day 1 and keep personal grievances aside to focus on that." - Bones
LIMP LETTUCE
On Friday, a leaked chat between members of Lettuce Win revealed a secret plot that was set to take effect if Illuminati was eliminated. Should the competition's strongest team be defeated, Short Bus was set to take on G.O.A.T. before teaming up with Lettuce Win to remove Keyboard Warriors. If this had gone to plan, the Dongs would then be eliminated next, leading to a final showdown between Lettuce Win and Short Bus.
But this ambitious (and wildly optimistic) project never came to pass, with the anti-Illuminati alliance unable to protect Lettuce Win from elimination at 3:45am on Sunday morning. LW had been vulnerable since the 16th when their stack of 2,000 tickets was zeroed, and this came not long after Lettuce's leader, Zuni, had informed his side of big moves being made imminently. He then updated their targets multiple times in the same day, before ending with a push against G.O.A.T. and Illuminati.
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It looks like an agreement was in place on Thursday for Lettuce to take tickets from Dong inactives on behalf of the alliance, thus keeping them out of Illuminati and G.O.A.T. hands. Once that objective was complete, Lettuce went after G.O.A.T. as a priority, making over 3,300 attacks over 24 hours as of Friday lunchtime. Interestingly, Lettuce also made a significant number of hits on Short Bus too - almost as many as they made against Illuminati.
Much was made in the Lettuce Win Discord of their betrayal of Illuminati, which supposedly represented a rejection of third-place in favour of outright glory. But the numbers I saw didn't match the rhetoric. If Lettuce Win were to continue on their quest for Elimination victory, they needed to stay in the competition. To do that, surely they should've farmed Sea Men as a priority before they were eliminated, or they should've hit the Illuminati.
Instead, they continued to hit Short Bus, which I believe was a big mistake. This screenshot shows there was panic in the salad bar at the time, and Lettuce was forced to update their strategy to stem the tide of G.O.A.T.s munching them. Goats are known to eat anything, and they managed to chew through Lettuce Win with ease, while also taking a few Dongs and Sea Men to the mouth too.
Pictured: Sadly, I couldn't find a picture of a goat eating a dong, so this'll have to do.
Illuminati was also hitting Lettuce Win and the Dongs, but their primary focus was the Keyboard Warriors. By keeping each of these allies down, they forced them all to prioritise self-preservation over any attempt to help Lettuce Win remain in the competition. In Zuni's post-defeat forum post, the Lettuce Win leader acknowledged that turning on Illuminati cost them a higher finish, but he appeared to have no regrets and acknowledged the spirit and belief shown by the Lettuce Win members in their fight against the best.
THE BEGINNING OF THE END
Based on what we've heard and our statistical observations, it now looks like it's a straight 3v2 fight between Illuminati and G.O.A.T. vs everyone else. Over the past 24 hours, the Illuminati have been going all-out against Keyboard Warriors, making more than 9,000 attacks in that time to help drop KW to 60 lives as of noon on Sunday.
Illuminati have also dropped a few lives themselves, having lost their first on Saturday afternoon due to a sustained attack by all three of their rivals. Short Bus was their biggest threat, making over 6,000 attacks, but the Keyboards were only a few shy of that total themselves, with the Dongs were close to making 5,000 too.
Speaking of the Dongs, they have been targeted primarily by G.O.A.T., who have made nearly 8,000 attacks against them since noon on Saturday. Both G.O.A.T. and Short Bus have emerged from this rough 24-hours relatively unscathed, as can be seen by their healthy ticket totals. Do these teams have a secret alliance? If so, they're playing it perfectly. And even if there isn't an agreement between the two, Short Bus and G.O.A.T. still look odds-on to face off as the final two.
It appears that some within Illuminati are fearful of such an outcome, and have taken to disseminating disinformation within the Short Bus ranks. Persons unknown have been telling SB members that they are still allied with Illuminati, and SB leader Shady69 was forced into denying this in their Discord chat.
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This plan doesn't appear to have worked, but that doesn't mean that the Short Bus has got its engine going just yet. Short Bus has reportedly pinned their hopes on removing Illuminati next before going after G.O.A.T., but such a plan relies on them keeping both their s**t and their alliance together. I have been told that neither of these outcomes is certain.
"The message from the top brass is attack illmin. But the lower members of shortbus are in the dark. Many low levels have been cut out of discord, and are getting no info. They have been relegated to a room called what-the-hell-guys and $h1t and giggles. Mostly they have been ignored. The low level members are using this to teach themselves how to play elimination." - Anon SB
When I told my regular Short Bus source about this comment, they replied that it has always been SB's policy to blank the low hitters, as members in the team have had previous success by forcing non-participants to leave Elimination. They added that a revive contract exists with UHC whereby low-level Illuminati members are healed one minute before each tick. This contract is currently paused, but could be restarted soon - even though my source says it wasn't a particulary effective way of getting Illuminati tickets.
And yet another anonymous Short Buser also told me that there have been arguments among SB leadership caused by certain leaders' attitudes towards their allies. A leaked chat between Shady69 of SB and Beer_Bear of the Dongs appears to show tension at the top level of the alliance, with Short Bus accused of having a secret agreement with G.O.A.T. just as we speculated earlier.
Pictured: Evidence? Yes.
The screenshot linked above also shows a comment from Dong leader Hemi which reveals SB has threatened the Dongs at some point recently. As of Sunday, the Dongs, Short Bus, and Keyboard Warriors were still working together. But when the next team is eliminated, whoever that may be, I expect we'll see a reconfiguration of the alliance when we are down to the final four.
Sorry, did I say final four? I mean final five... because one team has just returned from the dead.
VICTORIOUS SECRET RISE AGAIN
Despite their elimination on the second day of the competition, I've heard that the members of Victorious Secret have reorganised themselves with the sole purpose of helping the Illuminati. In real life, the Illuminati are often accused of meddling with the dark arts, but who knew their powers extended to reanimating the corpses of former lingerie models?
Pictured: Victorious Secret right now.
A team returning from the grave to change the course of Elimination is not without precedent, but nobody expected Victorious Secret to be of use to anyone after their abysmal exit one week ago. This chat reveals that former leaders Realistassasin and T-H-C were behind this plan, with HerrSchmidt involved too.
My source within VS says that their members have taken to this task enthusiastically, and while I haven't been able to pull exact statistics as of yet, I have been led to believe that a good number of attacks have been made on Illuminati's behalf. So could the intervention of Victorious Secret's deeply ineffectual leadership really be enough to change the result of Elimination?
No. Moving on.
GOAT FINALLY FLIP!
Shortly before this article went out, I received the following message from a member of Keyboard Warriors.
The latest stats confirm this has happened. In the past six hours, Illuminati have received 1,348 attacks from Short Bus, 1,102 from Keyboards, 977 from GOAT, and 834 from Dongs. Illuminati are still targeting Keyboards, with GOAT going after Dongs, Dongs hitting GOAT, and Illuminati trying to take down Short Bus. This was correct as of 4pm TCT.
FISHY GIFTS
Daedalus, a member of the Sea Men, decided that my Herculean reporting efforts during Elimination should not go unrewarded. He kindly arranged a mass donation event within the Sea Men that resulted in me receiving a number of delicious freshwater fish.
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Considering that the Sea Men are ocean-dwellers, a gift of fish was most appropriate. I am now looking forward to receiving similarly themed gifts from Lettuce Win and Chicken Nuggets - Dongs, feel free to sit this one out.
FINAL ARTICLE
The remainder of the Elimination competition will be left to run its course without my interference. If you have any gossip or amusing stories to share, please continue to inbox me or use the Tell Your Story feature, and it will be published in my final Elimination round-up article on the 23rd of September. Good luck to all of the teams who remain!
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