Felicity

Alternatively: why Hyunwoo is so busted at this kind of stuff

Starting from the “obvious”: He’s a fast runner, that helps on the physical side. Maybe he’s not the strongest otherwise but he has the general k-variety game “protect object” strategy down. (Which is just hugging the object against the floor, not expending more effort than needed, and enduring the resulting onslaught. Usually the other people don’t cooperate enough to effectively use their combined strength to actually get the object.)

Except the way the game rules are at the bare basics make physicality an afterthought. After all, attacking the wrong person is a waste of both your coins and your stamina. This is a social deduction game disguised as a physical game, where physical strength advantages and rationality are quickly worn away by everyone getting increasingly tired and desperate.

Usually with these kinds of games “minimum risk” is the best strategy even if the game seems designed to be “high risk high reward”. The rule presentation will emphasize how critical it is to Be The Best but because of k-variety’s love of last minute plot twists (and making the later rounds worth enough to make the early rounds matter less just being good for both viewer entertainment and player morale), you need to rely on consistency/“secured payoffs”. Basically, don’t gamble, and doing the obvious thing is almost certainly not how to win.

With 2/9 other players being ROUTE, and attacking the wrong person resulting in coin deductions, just jumping everyone you see is an extremely detrimental approach: most likely, you end up broke and tired like Junmin.

Now, there’s the counterpoint that coins stop mattering when you’re ROUTE. But even if you get lucky and do steal the ROUTE card you’re still tired. (Keep in mind that statistically, you’re probably not getting ROUTE from the first person you jump, you’re probably getting it after at least 3-4 attempts.) This is not good if being ROUTE means you’re public enemy #1 and bound to get jumped by 7-8 people, where your only hope of getting those points is to cling to your card while getting tossed around and hope the round ends before it is pried away from you.

Therefore even if you’re ZERO, being sneaky, conserving energy, and hoping people attack you anyway is probably the better play. Which, someone is bound to just attack you anyway. Hiding makes you look like a ROUTE. The way the rules are presented incentivize players to take unnecessary risks. And some of these guys seem to have wanted to get out some pent-up energy.

(This is assuming you follow the rules, which is clearly demonstrated once again to not be in xikers’ nature. There is also the alternative of being sneaky and robbing people, as demonstrated by Jinsik.)

And now here’s the thing I’m excited about. Hyunwoo in a social deduction situation is xikers variety dark horse. He’s incredible in these trust management/crowd manipulation situations where everyone has to discreetly forward their own agenda.

His lack of screen time in first 3 rounds meant he was probably laying low. Not doing anything unusually interesting, not drawing attention, not becoming a target (since the ROUTEs were known and everyone wants to jump them).

This is reason #1 he’s good at making it through social deduction scenarios: he’s easy to underestimate. He’s comparatively an unassuming quiet normalguy in a group where almost everyone else is a loud and/or hyper and/or quirky bundle of chaos who keeps drawing attention to themself.

And when he does want attention he is terrifying. He’s just chill. He’s calm and quiet when everyone else is tense and shouty. He acts so in control of the situation at all times that it’s scary. He’s confident and that makes him seem stronger/more intimidating, he acts like you just can’t bring him down and that drives the other players crazy.

(Remember the zombie game? Even when losing the whole time due to luck, we still got “what good is it to know now?” He really did not have to gaslight Junmin to a whole room. But he did. And now we have a social deduction game where he isn’t nerfed by bad luck.)

Imagine being in Minjae’s situation at the start of Round 4. So tired (has just been running around for the past 3 rounds, got jumped by 8 people at the end of the previous round), so flighty (those 8 people can show up at any moment and jump you again, because everyone knows you’re ROUTE), hiding in a dark corner behind some boxes praying that you just don’t get found. And then some guy shows up alone, confidently demanding you hand over your ROUTE card. You’re cornered, but offered a nonviolent way out: sell your ROUTE card for coins.

At that point I’m pretty sure all of them knew there were Bandits going around with an insane coin lead. So coins- especially legally obtained coins- don’t matter as much because someone might just snatch your whole wallet away from you at any time. Especially when you’re jumping someone.

Hyunwoo is really good at setting up these deals that can be believably passed off as “win-win situations” but benefit himself slightly more. Minjae is already in the lead, tired, scared, and probably doesn’t want to be an active target anymore. I don’t think Minjae had enough coins at the time that Hyunwoo’s coins would put him in the lead, but it probably gave him enough coins that he could see himself taking the coin lead later on if things went well. It’d be easy to take the deal in the moment, avoid causing a ruckus, avoid getting jumped by your many members again.

Reason #2 he’s good at social deduction: he makes deals and allies, which tend to be win-critical. Social deduction situations are rarely won by loners, but also rarely won by big groups. The social deduction environment makes standing alliances/teams inherently prone to betrayal, but one-off deals give the winning advantage to someone who isn’t a total loner. This affected Team Bandits (Jinsik, Junghoon, Seeun) as only one of them could receive the coin lead point each round so… I don’t know how helpful that alliance actually was. Hyunwoo’s deals with Minjae and Jinsik were basically critical to winning. His other shown interaction was a mutual alliance with Junghoon from early on when they were both ZERO, which didn’t turn out as critical but could’ve helped keep him off the Bandits’ radar.

So now Hyunwoo’s ROUTE. He doesn’t have to worry about protecting his own wallet anymore from the Bandits. All he has to worry about is his ROUTE card… and the only person who knows he’s got it is a guy who’s in no rush to see another player again because he still might be jumped on sight. And possibly also robbed in the process- which he now really does not want to happen.

Anyhow, mentioning this purely for the aurafarming that was going on, but that one shot of Hyunwoo just standing at the end of that path, smiling, before Hunter finds him? Another reason this guy should get casted to be the culprit/villain for a mystery k-drama.

So then he gets jumped but he manages to cling to his ROUTE card until the timer goes. Worth noting that it seems only Junmin, Hunter, and Yechan- the trio that was jumping everyone on sight- went after him. The Bandits did not get involved and at least one of them went after someone else. It seems the Bandits don’t really care about fighting over the ROUTE cards, they would rather not wrestle with the other members. They are taking the stealing route because it is lower effort- and the captions when Junghoon gets pummeled by Minjae specifically mention it as because he was caught actively robbing him. It was a beatdown, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as the Minjae/Sumin vs Basically Everyone incidents in previous rounds.

Final Round. Minjae, Sumin, Hyunwoo, tied at 3 points. Yujun and Jinsik at 2 points, also with the possibility of winning. Junghoon and Seeun at 1 point with the possibility of joining the tie. The Junmin/Hunter/Yechan “Jump Everyone Trio” never got any points, because they’ve never succeeded in actually getting the ROUTE cards and have given up on coins.

Hyunwoo and Yujun hold the ROUTE cards. I’m not sure if they know each other have the other ROUTE card… but either way, if Hyunwoo can score this round, he wins.

And then the announcement goes off that Jinsik has 33 coins. Critical deal #2 is made: Hyunwoo trades his ROUTE card for Jinsik’s coin lead.

Jinsik gets to be ROUTE without suspicion and lose the coin lead he might get jumped over, because everyone has realized by this point that robbery is a valid way to play. (It’s not clear if Jinsik knew the Chance Card to swap coins would be given out, but he seemed to have some idea it’s out there. So either way he loses the target he had.)

Hyunwoo gets rid of the ROUTE card that puts a target on him because everyone probably knows he has it by now. Once again, he only has to protect one of his card or his coins- now, it’s his coin lead. Which no one knows he has. Jinsik is behind on points so as long as Hyunwoo scores this round, Jinsik can’t win. But he conveniently went along with the deal anyway. He probably was done with it all, and the whole Bandits MO was “Do Not Get Jumped By 7+ People” anyway.

Shenanigans ensue. Poor Junmin manages to lose coins by using the Chance Card (considering he was also the target of “what good is it to know now?”, I hope he gets spared the next time xikers go social deduction). And Hyunwoo wins without getting beat up further (to be fair, everyone was probably relatively tired by then, it didn’t seem like there was that much action regarding the second ROUTE card that Yujun had).

This is no criticism of any of the decisions anyone made. It’s easier to pick apart details from an outside perspective. The members were not given the time to think things through and were also being worn down by general paranoia and exhaustion. With the rules emphasizing how the ROUTE card gets you points, it’s easy to make the assumption you have to fight for it at all costs. This is a “just for fun” strategy over-analysis for a silly variety show game.