The Math of Among Us: Voting, Picking Teammates, and Increasing Your Chances

Are you playing as a Crewmate? Your key to winning is to outnumber the Impostors with known Crewmates.

Increase Your Chances by Working in Teams

A team of three Crewmates will win against two Impostors, as long as none of those Crewmates are killed. At the start of the game, we suggest picking two other players to team up with. You’ll have a higher chance of picking two teammates that are Crewmates than the overall 42.3% chance of victory.

So gather your team of 3, stay together throughout, and win. Working in teams also makes it very difficult to be targeted by Impostors.

Stay Alive if Going Solo

If you decide to work alone, a Crewmate’s best asset is staying alive. You will be given tasks to perform — but you don’t need to do them. A better use of your time is to learn about other players. Almost all Crewmate victories come from voting off the Impostors. So use the systems built into each map (medical scan, cameras, vitals, admin panels) to identify other players’ status and location. You will get more from learning about other players than you get from completing tasks.

If you do complete some tasks, remember: Some Crewmate tasks and locations are much deadlier than others — especially those that are close to vents (don’t go into Electrical!). Most data on safe or unsafe locations is guesswork, but Innersloth made a “heat map” of where deaths occur in Skeld, the game’s original map. Brighter yellow locations are deadlier. The maps also show some places where deaths almost never occur.

https://innersloth.itch.io/among-us/devlog/50755/the-data-among-us

If you feel like you’re in danger as a Crewmate, stick to the truly safe places: They do exist. Players have built similar visualizations for other maps, but this one is based on real data.

One of the deadliest places on the heat map is the table at the top center. This is where votes take place.

Vote Based on Probability and Consider Voting on Seven

Voting out the Impostors is the primary way that Crewmates can win. Voting is a challenging game of strategy in itself. Since Crewmates outnumber Impostors, you will vote for other Crewmates accidentally, many times.

Think of voting like a multiple-choice test, with one or two right answers. For example, with eight players and two Impostors you have a 2/7 chance of correctly picking an Impostor with a random vote. Your level of sus has to be higher than that to justify voting.

Voting is also an important place to seek out Impostors. Look for players who vote at the last second. Look for players who say they are voting one way, then vote another. Look for pairs of players who vote the same way, especially in the very first one or two votes. Impostors almost always vote, because it helps them eliminate Crewmates.

Even if you are uncertain about the Impostors, it still makes sense to vote. With seven players left and two Impostors, there is a traditional call of “don’t vote on seven.” This is not valid. Let’s look at how to use conditional probability to decide on voting versus skipping:

• If players skip this vote, I estimate the probability for a Crewmate win to be about 0.35.
• If there is a vote, and the vote eliminates an Impostor, the probability for a Crewmate win grows to 0.8.
• If the vote eliminates a Crewmate, the probability drops to 0.05.

So, how often do you have to vote out an Impostor for it to be a good plan? It’s a matter of adding probabilities. If you vote, you go to 0.8 with probability x and to 0.05 with the alternate probability 1-x. Then, compare it to the probability of winning from skipping, which is locked at 0.35:

This sort of calculation can be done for many different types of probability events, not just ones in “Among Us.” Use your best guesses at probabilities, and you can then build equations and inequalities like this one.

In this case, we learn that the Crewmates are better off voting on seven even if they are not quite 50% sure that they are voting off an Impostor. It is true, however, that if you don’t have any information, you should skip. But Crewmates lose a lot of games by skipping the vote on seven.

Impostors: When to Call for Sabotage

Playing as an Impostor? The short version of strategy advice is: Do the opposite of everything said for Crewmates! There’s not as much math behind an Impostor’s strategy, but you should use heat maps to figure out the best opportunities for attack, and use interfaces like Admin to know which rooms are empty for a clear alibi.

Impostors also have two big advantages: vents and sabotage. Sabotage can be used for two purposes that don’t seem obvious. First, the Impostor can repair their own sabotage, allowing them to gain credibility with Crewmates. Second, some sabotages prevent Crewmates from calling an emergency meeting, useful when Crewmates are calling for a double vote or for when you’ve been discovered. A particularly useful time to call for sabotage is when there are six players left and two Impostors. If both Impostors attack at once, it is an instant victory.

When voting, coordinate with the other Impostor not to vote identically, or refrain from voting in the early game. Especially avoid any 50/50 accusation situations. “It’s me or them” means that, one way or another, it will be you. Deflect to a third person whenever you can.

If you get found out, claim another player is the other Impostor while you are being eliminated. Just make sure you blame a Crewmate instead of the other actual Impostor. This way, you might get to take down one more Crewmate on your way out…

How do you use math to strategize your Among Us win? Tag us at @artofproblemsolving with #mathofAmongUs.