Victory snatched once more from the jaws of defeat! After the dog race's disappointing outcome, you guys badly needed another big prize for the pot, and that's certainly on the table for today. Both pairs have satisfied the
250 EP requirement, and Pair One especially soared with
433 EP, roughly 172% of the watermark. As such, the team wins
72 EP plus the flat
50 EP prize, making a total of
122 EP, more than enough to account for both challenges and putting the team once again well ahead of the Mole. But mostly what it demonstrates is the ridiculous disparity among the challenges' EP payouts. Utterly mind-boggling. No doubt in the final episode we'll be tossing around thousands of EP just for the hell of it. Hey: What it is, is
quantified bragging rights. The point is mostly for the team to finish with a higher score than the Mole, and so far, you're back on track for a happy ending in that regard.
Since both pairs finished with at least 250 EP,
Sem, as the highest-scoring player, takes home the "joker". And let's take a moment to analyze how this came to pass.
I'll be very frank: I paired
Testbug with
Sem and
Ninety with
Belle specifically to introduce what I thought would be a precarious imbalance between the pairs. No offense to Pair One, but I figured Pair Two would show noticeably more popular appeal, and find it easier to amass pledges. Setting aside all considerations as to who the Mole is, I was expecting Pair Two to call in an easy
250 EP while the more demure Pair One might lag behind for not taking enough initiative -- not because of who these four people are as players, but because of who they are as members of the community. As it turns out, this was a Karl Rove-level poor call. I was surprised by
Belle's relative quietude, but even more by
Ninety's total indifference past his initial summons to
Biscuit. Pair One did indeed trail for a while, but Pair Two seemed to have no motivation to push toward the
250 EP watermark. What was going on?
Well, I think
Sem figured it out around the same time I did.
Ninety can repudiate this if he chooses, but I feel pretty confident that our Golden Boy elected to take such a passive role in this challenge because he was aiming for the "joker". I did say that if only one pair passed the watermark, the "joker" would go to the
lowest-scoring player instead of the highest. After
Tangrow split his
50 EP pledge between
Sem and
Testbug, thus putting some EP to
Testbug's name (he too was suspiciously half-hearted about this challenge), I think
Ninety saw that he could cruise to the "joker" without doing anything at all. As long as Pair One held up their end of the bargain but Pair Two didn't,
Ninety would take the "joker" with a score of
0 EP.
To be honest, I don't really want to believe this was
Ninety's plan, especially because it entails a certain conflict of interest with
Belle (who really was, after all, trying to carry Pair Two, and whose efforts would have to fail in order for
Ninety's idea to succeed). But it's the best I can imagine as to why
Ninety would sit on his hands instead of making use of his
Madd Board Cred to earn the most EP and win the "joker"
that way. And the truth is, we can't even condemn him that much, because what if
Ninety really did rack up the most EP, but then Pair One failed to deliver? The "joker" would slip from
Ninety's hands and his efforts would be wasted.
Maybe I was wrong to add that rule that the "joker" would go to the lowest-scoring player if only one pair succeeded. But it's certainly given me a shitload to write about just now and that is what qualifies as a happy ending for Pohatu so I'm not going to complain.
At any rate,
Sem approached me with the same interpretation of
Ninety's behavior, as well as a rather crafty plan. He'd asked
Blood to pledge, and
Blood had set forth a few conditions, allowing that any one of them would be enough to convince him to pledge. One of these was to recruit someone to
Blood's long-nascent PRP tourney, Race Against the Elements.
Sem's idea was to turn the tables on
Ninety by getting
Blood to pledge not in his name, but in
Ninety's, pushing Pair Two beyond the watermark.
Sem wanted to spin the numbers so that he himself would end up with the least EP, winning himself the "joker".
I loved this so much that I volunteered to join the tournament as
Sem's recruit, hence
this post. But
Blood proved surprisingly generous. At first he quoted some relatively restricted EP pledges, most likely on the assumption that other players would also approach him; but as the challenge waned, he eventually offered enough
EP to push both pairs past the watermark, not only pledging in
Ninety's name but also giving a healthy chunk to
Sem after all, with the result that both pairs succeeded in the challenge and
Sem ended up winning the "joker" as the highest-earning player instead of the lowest.
A fantastic turnaround to a challenge that had been shaping up a lot more lackluster than I'd hoped for! Many thanks to
Blood for truly making it rain (as well as for having the presence of mind to set a condition for his pledge, a fun idea which only
Tangrow shared). Thanks as well to our other contributors,
Biscuit,
Elliot,
Lee, and
Tangrow. And congratulations to
Sem on a well-earned "joker". That said... it's only going do so much for you on the next quiz if you know who the Mole is by now.
On that note, I leave it to all four of you players to review the episode's events. Don't forget to have another look back on page one, at the "I am the Mole" challenge from so many years ago. Remember, the Mole gave a full (at the time) confession
right there. It falls to you to sift through the evidence and decide whose story you believe. I'll give you guys the weekend to review, and then
the penultimate quiz will be sent out on Monday.[/color]
THE TEAM POT: 527 EP
THE MOLE'S POCKET: 437 EP