Ninety eliminates
Testbug, adding
6 EP to the pot.
43 EP have been added to the pot so far, while the Mole has taken
6 EP. The final deal takes place now.
Ninety and
Elliot have both played rough to get here, but only the luck of the cards will save them at this last juncture. One will win the first exemption, the other's efforts will have been for naught, and everyone, in clicking the spoiler link below, automatically waives their right to complain and be a pussy about the outcome because for real I ain't tampered with the following results.
Round twelve:
The winner of the High-Draw Game is
Elliot, who, in drawing a
jack[/color] takes home the game's first exemption. Since
Ninety drew a
six, we can infer that
Elliot would have eliminated him and thereby added an additional
3 EP to the pot, bringing the team's total earnings up to
46 EP. However, since
Ninety was still holding onto his token, that falls into the Mole's pocket, making a total of
9 EP that the Mole squirrelled away in this challenge.
Congratulations,
Elliot -- you're safe this round. You'll receive the quiz anyway just so you know what was asked, but
you are not required to take the quiz this episode. Unless, of course, you're the Mole... because then you wouldn't have to take the quiz anyway, would you?
Congrats to the team as well, for reeling in a
very healthy chunk of EP this time around. But was the Mole acting counter to your efforts this time? Did the Mole even get a chance to? Let's examine some possibilities.
I did say that the team's profits would have been maximized if everyone had given up their tokens before eliminating anyone, and indeed, that extra
9 EP wouldn't have gone astray if not for the...
enthusiasm with which some of you banished others from the table. I'm looking at
Sem,
Iron Mouse and
Ninety. All three of you had a chance to contribute your tokens to the pot (
Ninety even had two!), but you chose the selfish route instead, bumping off players who'd already graciously given up their own tokens. (Except for when
Ninety wastefully took out
Iron Mouse even while she still held her token: a badly-calculated revenge move for the fallen
Biscuit, or a clever tactic by the Mole?) In return, it was the three of you who ended up sent away from the table before you'd had the chance to toss your tokens in. Now, of course, the value you added to the pot by eliminating these players did exceed
3 EP each. Actually, in each case (when
Sem eliminated
Belle,
Iron Mouse eliminated
Biscuit,
Ninety eliminated
Iron Mouse, and
Ninety eliminated
Testbug), that move added
6 EP to the pot. But surely those winnings could have waited until
after you'd already provided your tokens? Then that last
9 EP would have made it into the pot as well, and the Mole would be left out in the cold.
I've got my eye on you, but you're not the only ones worth paying attention to here. If we review the rounds and watch the EP winnings rise, there are exactly two rounds when the team pot grew by less than
3 EP. Those were rounds two and seven. Let's take another look at who called the shots in those two rounds.
First, round two, wherein
Testbug -- self-styled team player that he is! -- lost no time in sending
Bulbs away in shame after the latter had conceded his token in the first round. Even though, unlike the three I just spotlighted,
Testbug did end up contributing his token later, here in the early game he did a heartless thing indeed. And not only heartless, but against the interests of the team!
Bulbs had only drawn a
five[/color] in that round; he was worth almost as little as he could be at that point, only
2 EP. Surely the reasonable thing to do, if
Testbug really was such a paragon of teamwork, would have been to toss in his own token and make
more EP than Bulbs was even worth at that point! But no: as soon as
Bulbs handed in his token,
Testbug went for the jugular. His action cost the team EP, and can't go ignored.
The other round I have in mind is number seven, in which
Elliot came completely out of the blue (ha! ha! ha!) with an astonishingly cruel move, knocking
Sem out of the running even while he still held his token. Adding insult to injury, take another look at the card
Sem had drawn: a meager
four! Once again, a player got eliminated for
less than
Elliot would have made by contributing his token to the pot -- and he threw away the
3 EP of
Sem's token, too! Just because
Elliot, like
Testbug, later came around and dropped his token into the pot shouldn't let him off the hook. For someone who's lain dormant for most of the game so far, the orchestra down below definitely struck an ominous chord when
Elliot stepped into the foreground. Watch out for him.
Any of these five could be the Mole. Or perhaps the Mole felt like playing nice this time -- or, even, sitting this challenge out altogether. It's up to you to decide that. Be sure you're confident in your judgement, because the second quiz looms.[/spoiler]
Now, last time I said I'd always give plenty of advance notice of the quiz's date, and I couldn't do that this time because I didn't know how long this challenge would take. So let's not begin the quiz right away. Too soon. Instead,
we'll run the quiz on Friday the 26th[/color]. That gives you a day to look over the challenges, review your notes, and ask a few more questions in the Q&A. Hey, why not? It might save your hide.
THE TEAM POT: 94 EP
THE MOLE'S POCKET: 86 EP