Board Thread:Survivor 29: Hallasan/@comment-5578020-20180109043702

First of all, congratulations to everyone on a very well-run season, as well as making it to the jury stage of the game. I found myself playing the HARDEST FOUGHT GAME this season, and it was all without the same experience that many others hold in the FB ORG community.

After participating in Mauritius (3rd) and Deception Island (6th), I knew I needed more of a “killer instinct” in order to reach it to the end of this particular game.

The strategy was simple: Make social connections with anyone and everyone, and mold them into believing that I’m a gullible player who’s only looking to enjoy the experience at hand. While I enjoyed every moment, I knew what I was in the game to do, and it was to beat anyone in my game by using my social/strategic skills.

From the start, I found myself in a comfortable position, containing VERY solid relationships with Felipe, Jose, Blake, and of course, Ally. Those same connections essentially catapulted me into jury stage of the game.

In Ally’s shoes, I don’t personally believe she held similar connections with others before the merge stage, simply based on the fact that NO ONE I talked to brought her name up in a conversation to me about wanting to work with her (other names were included).

Within the jury stage, the eventual alliance of myself, Cam, Ally, and Felipe essentially came together because of MY connections...I was the one who packaged myself with Ally, I was the one who knew Felipe prior to the game (and had an initial target on my back because of it), and I was also the one who put themselves out there to connect with Cam, even though we weren’t on the same tribe before the merge. Simply based on my mutual connections, I was able to play behind the scenes and allow for Ally/Cam to place themselves as the shields, behind Felipe and I.

In terms of competitions, I know from personal experience on what it’s like to be targeted solely based on “challenge skills”. I didn’t win any comps obviously, but the thing is, I never once felt as though I needed to! I had two votes against me ALL GAME, and the one from Zach towards the end was based solely on him creating a meme with my parchment (legendary btw)!

Every time I made a new connection with someone, it opened up a limitless amount of routes for me to potentially advance myself. When Ally told me about her idol, as well as the one Cam contained, I was literally handed all of the cards.

In that particular situation, it was almost like a poker dealer stopping me before I played a hand, slipping me two aces, and then going about their business.

The game of Survivor isn’t about who wins competitions or finds one idol, it’s about who played the hardest, and somehow managed to get to end. I worked my ass off from day one. Every breathing moment of fresh time I received during the course of this game, I worked on getting to know everyone on the jury.

Because of that time and effort, it gave me knowledge, which is SO MUCH more powerful than immunity, or an idol.

Cam has an idol? Felipe and Cam are a final two? I’m in danger of receiving votes? Sam is sending Cam paragraphs about wanting to stay?

Those were all notes that ALLY messaged ME about. Never once did I need to go out and force people to tell me their strategy, because I always had someone ELSE telling me what you were most likely hiding (Ally wasn’t the only one in my PMs either).

I’m coming off of my THIRD Facebook ORG game, and I’m already sitting in a F2. I’d hate to see my efforts go to waste.

In the bigger picture, please don’t cast your vote based on who’s casted for an immediate next season, who won comps, or even who came across an idol.

I held almost ALL the information in the game, and never found myself in the minority because of it. How can you fault me for playing as hard as I possibly could?

Even if I could go back, I wouldn’t change a single thing about this game. I put myself in the best position heading into each round, and because of it, I believe I’m the sole survivor of Hallasan! 