Board Thread:Survivor: Sumbawa (Season 19)/@comment-28511285-20160831215628

What  is good my dudes!! First off let me say I had an amazing time playing this game with you all, as well as thank you to the hosts for putting this game on. The game was all incredibly hosted and I think the cast this season was one of hits high points with not a single person I didn't like.



Now, onto my gameplay. I'll try to keep this as brief and too the point as possible and hopefully not have too much filler. I know I may not have been the flashiest player around with a bunch of #bigmoves, however my game was full of subtle strategic and social moves which was able to keep myself in a good position deep enough into the game where I could simply win out.

During the anarchy phase I definitely tried to run the middle and set myself up in such a way that once push came to shove I could sneak my way into any major alliance that would form. The people I found I connected the best with were Josephine, Dani, AJ, Zak and Will. I also got along with Ash very well, but it was clear she was playing hard and getting in with everyone, so I figured it best to be both weary of her gamewise, but also close since she would likely be in a power position at some point in the game. My first very influential move of the game was choosing to take immunity over an auction item, as right around the time of the auction was when alliances started to form. I was a founding member of the Sumbawacat dolls alliance Which consisted of Will, Lexus, Dani, Ty, Brian and myself. I was had also talked to both Zak and Josephine about the idea of joining their alliance since I got along very well with them and Ash and Andy, and I liked Aro, CJ and PJ all well enough that I was totally open to working with them. I suspected tribes were about to form, so I knew that if I could get by that round without having to take a side one way or the other no matter who I ended up on a tribe with I would be set. Tyler actually offered to give me the extra money to outbid Ash on her items originally, however, I knew I’d be making enemies and putting myself in big danger if I were to do that, so I told him I had already placed my bids so I regretfully wouldn’t be able to help him with his plan. This guaranteed that I would be at least temporarily safe come the tribal phase.

Like I had predicted, right after Ash’s boot there was gonna be some tribes. Not only that, but in a twist, we got to vote for team captains, which was great for me. I was actually the one formulated the plan to ensure that come merge time, the Sumbawacat Dolls would have the majority. I told them we need to all vote for two of our people to be team captains, that way best case scenario we should get at least three of our members on two different tribes because at that point we could basically throw comps (although we didn't want to) and still end up with the numbers. And, should the third captain take one of us, there were still enough swing votes such as Josh and Jess who had a good shot of siding with us. To my shock, I then found out Josephines alliance had the exact same voting plan as I had come up with, like, still making two Sumbawacats the leaders, so I was like “perfect, the plan should work if they are also voting for two of us”.

The swap boot sucked because I really did love AJ, but other than that the tribal went pretty much just as I planned it. Sadly we also lost Will along the way, but with how tribes were organized and the fact that Buru had such little luck challenge wise we still took the numbers back come.

At the merge I was pushed to flip and work with CJ, Josephine and PJ, and honestly I wouldn't have been against going with them had the numbers been there since I really did trust Josephine. At this time though, I had to make the strategic move that was best for my game and stick with the side that had the numbers and the idols, because at best I could have forced a rock draw and that’s even with CJ’s extra vote. If I had flipped I likely would have been idol’d out very quickly afterwards even if we did win the rock draw, and we would have still been outnumbered 5-4. The next couple rounds were pretty straightforward strategically, and it really sucked that I had to vote out PJ and Josephine. In this time however I really started to notice how my alliance was becoming very arrogant and seemed to be bullying people on the outs. They were making fun of Jess for thinking she had a real idol, and they were basically all ganging up on Josephine until I told them to stop. The final 8 round also just so happened to be the start of my immunity streak.

At final 7 I won immunity again, and I had two sides approach me about going deep into the game with them. One had Brian and Ty, with Lex seeming to be their third. The other was Dani, Jess and Josh appearing to be their third. I chose to side with Dani, Jess and Josh for a very obvious reason. Ty and Brian basically told me I'm in their final 3 without asking my opinion on anything and told me to vote out Dani without listening to me when I said I’d rather Dani stay for now. It made very little strategic sense that they would do this since Lex would be much easier than me to beat at the end probably, and they didn’t realize that Josh was playing a really strong utr game, so why would they willingly choose to take the person who they thought had the best chance of winning… I know that to this day they swear they were telling the truth, but I had to play assuming everyone was trying to win, so it just made no sense. Where as I feel like Jess and Josh saw Dani as the biggest threat so it wouldn’t have been me blindsided when it came time to make the final 3 group. My biggest flaw this round though was I had too much trust in Dani when she swore that Josh was going to be with her :( . So I rolled the dice and lost, however with the info at hand I am certain I made the move that was best.

<span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">So the morning after I win immunity at final 6 I figure I should try to get back into the good books of the majority, because you know, I'm not stupid. Ty had already told me he would be down to work with me again, which I wasn’t sure I trusted completely, but hey gotta work with what you’re given. So I start talking to Brian, and that’s when it was made clear to me I couldn’t work with him again in this game. He told me as soon as I lost immunity I would be the next boot no matter what, and that I had no chance of winning this game if I ever tried voting him out because he was going to “work nonstop to turn the entire jury against me”... At this point I already had the idol so he kinda rang Lex’s death knell when he told me that. Later Ty and him tried to do some damage control and offer me another final 3, but I didn’t trust that for a second, and hey, Brian's jury speech has now confirmed that they didn’t intend to bring me anywhere near the end at that point no matter what I did. I was told to not idol Dani because she’s a big threat, but I idol’d her because I'm not stupid and going to get out my one ally who would likely be voted out at either f4-5 anyways. At final five I tried making the argument to Josh that if he saved Dani this round, he was guaranteed a place in the final 3 since Dani has such a big target, but it really was like trying to fit a camel through the eye of a needle since strategically he was right in banking on me losing final immunity and getting to the end with two people who weren’t very likable at a lot of times throughout the game, so I can’t fault him for that. Final 4 the vote really was an easy decision because Josh had played such a great utr game, and I think had a decent shot to win it, and also Ty and Brian have just made asses of themselves throughout this game such as when Ty sent Ash the laughing soundclip, or when Brian opened his mouth ever to someone who wasn’t in the majority.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">Theres the long drawn out explanation of my game, but let me just highlight some of the points in my game that I think truly highlight why I deserve to be the sole survivor.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;font-weight:700;font-style:italic;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">Social Game:

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">I firmly believe my social game was leaps and bounds ahead of my competition today. From an early point in the game I feel I was able to make genuine connections with most of the people in it. During anarchy this was very important to my gameplay as it allowed me to get into a majority group whenever I went to tribal council and keep myself safe. The fact that I won both the touchy subjects comp, and the quotes of jurors one shows that I was able to get a good read on everyone and always knew what was going on on the island. I also had multiple people say they were rooting for me to win after I was voted off, so thank you for the support AJ, Dani and Josephine!!

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;font-weight:700;font-style:italic;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">Physical game <p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">This one should hopefully go without saying. I set a 703 record for consecutive individual immunities with 5 in a row, and even when people have wanted me gone in the game no one has been able to touch me since final 9. In the past 3 challenges the only time I haven’t more than doubled everyone's score was against Josh in the FIC, and even that wasn’t particularly close.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;font-weight:700;font-style:italic;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">Strategic game <p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">I never made any big unnecessary moves that would piss everyone off just for the sake of a #bigmove, but I made the right moves. I for most of the game I had positioned myself in such a way that I always had options and wouldn’t be an easy target. I made the subtle moves nonstop. For instance, the example I mentioned earlier in choosing to take immunity over an item so I would have the power to join either alliance come tribe time and guarentee my safety through that phase of the game. Or probably my biggest one, which was always downplaying how close I was with Josephine since people thought she was going to be a very influencial juror. This lead to Ty and Brian seeing Dani as a larger threat than me since they assumed Posie would vote for Dani at the end.

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<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">Ok whew, that turned out a lot longer than I originally expected :O. Thank you all again for having played with me this game, I had a great time! I hope you will all consider voting for me and I look forward to your jury questions :D.

<span style="font-size:14.666666666666666px;font-family:Arial;color:#000000;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;">-Linus <ac_metadata title="Vote Linus!"> </ac_metadata>