Board Thread:Survivor 41: Phi Pan Nam/@comment-43601271-20191010172836

Hey everybody! I don’t think I’m the best at speeches but I’ll try my best. Going into this game I never thought I’d get this far, I’m sure I’ve told many people this before but I never go in expecting to do well, just with the goal to do my best and have fun doing it. While this season was no exception to how I like to play games, it landed me in the Final 2 this time. It’s probably also no secret this is the first time I’ve ever made it this far in a Survivor Org, so I’m flying  a little blind in the speech building category. Overall, I think I’ve played a very social game that was able to provide me with the tools to play a very strategic game alongside it. From when the game started out, I wanted to try and meet everybody on Phra Nang, the point of these games is to meet people and have fun so that’s what I set out to do. By the time of our infamous Day 2 quit, it was surprising how it seemed like just being nice and social with everybody put me in a good spot early on. By the time the dust from JL’s quit settled, I have set up an alliance with Chloe and Jason, asked to join another one involving Chloe and Anthony shortly after, and while actively working to bring those two groups into one, Chris had also asked me to join an alliance with him and we unanimously voted off Jack as a tribe. From my perspective, I was in a strong alliance in Phra Nang and set to be one of its final members should we have continued to lose challenges. Then the swap happened and I will admit luck was on my side. Swapped into a 4-2 majority down tribal lines, but my decisions in this swap are a very large reason why I was able to make the endgame. Even though initial thoughts were that Shane and Kyle would be easy boots, I didn’t want to do that necessarily, so I kept an open mind and took the time to get to know Shane and Kyle as soon as possible. And, I liked them. By the time we had lost our first challenge I had talked with them more than some members of my original tribe. Also, Fathan was in the middle of hatching a plan with the goal of him picking up Kyle as an ally and making himself, but nobody else, “look good” to the Karon tribe. I only knew about this plan because I still tried to talk to Fathan, even though I got the feeling he didn’t always wanna talk to me. He felt comfortable enough to share with me crucial information that I was able to use to make a decision and help steer the vote in a way that benefitted me the most. It made my decision easier when I found out Fathan had only told me about his grand plan, as Jason and Chris hadn’t heard anything about it. Jason and I both wanted Shane and Kyle to stay, and we wanted to work with them. So I told them Fathan’s plan. And suddenly, we were all teamed up to vote out Fathan, and start an alliance that would take the four of us to the end of the game. Come merge and I didn’t know what was going to happen. Initially, I wanted to see if the four OG Phra Nangs could work together and see if our bonds with any of the OG Karons were strong enough to form a majority alliance. This never really happened, and while I tried to keep it as an option for as long as possible, it seemed like that was never meant to be. However, I was able to reconnect greatly with Anthony, and I met Derek, who I chatted with so much with in early merge and made me feel more comfortable going into the merge boot. While talking with Shane, I threw out Maynor as a potential vote since I felt the least connected with him after reaching out to everyone left in the game. This idea gained traction, as I was able to talk to Jason and Anthony about voting off Maynor, and Shane worked on talking to Derek and Kyle. Eventually the 6 of us teamed up and Maynor was voted out. This was the start of Shane and I being a very close twosome, but the events of next round is what really pushed us together. With Kyle and Anthony flipping to vote out Derek, and Jason being visibly upset with the game, Shane and I felt like suddenly we may have lost all of our potential allies. So, we teamed up, and shared everything with each other. Idol clues, guesses, if our names were coming up, potential new alliances, strategies to get further, everything. This would be the start of the alliance that got us to the Final 2. Shane and I would then work together throughout the merge with anybody willing to help to go through the votes for Evan and Chloe. It was the next round where things got a bit more difficult. With my name finally coming up, and everybody telling me it was from Anthony, I knew I was in trouble. I was able to win a crucial immunity challenge, sparing me from what could have been a coalition against me. Unfortunately, Alex ended up going home due to paranoia about he and I being a very strong two-person team. And while I did like Alex and in fact wanted to keep him around, it seemed to me that people may not have realized who I was truly working with. In the final 5 vote I did what was easily my dumbest move in the game. I wanted to guarantee myself Final 4 so bad I played an idol everybody had assumed I had on myself instead of on Shane, my only ally left in the game who was vulnerable as Jason had won immunity. Of course Shane got entangled in a tie vote and almost went home as a  result. If he did I would have had a hard time forgiving myself, and I still beat myself up for that move, as I should have known there was no way they’d vote me out if they knew I had the idol and it was the last round to play it. Luckily, since Shane and I were close, he didn’t vote for me and voted for Anthony, which was not part of the plan for everybody else. So while my dumb idol play cost us time, Shane and I sharing information and knowing what I was gonna be doing with the idol allowed us to prevent something worse from happening. Final 4 was the roughest round since it was me, Shane, and Jason against Kyle. If Kyle hadn’t won he certainly would have gotten votes, but he pulled out a very crucial win for himself. So I was stuck choosing between my two closest allies in this game. While it was a hard choice, I stuck with Shane because I truly felt like he and I played closer together since merge had started. While Jason is a good friend and ally, I felt like I had done most of my gaming and based a lot of my decisions with Shane first and foremost, and I didn’t wanna betray that. It was the hardest decision I made in the game. Final immunity challenge was pretty cut and dry, Kyle was in a similar boat as last round. Shane and I were hellbent on getting the two of us to this point and we succeeded. To get to this point of the game I kept up a social game with everybody, even people who I wasn’t working with at the time. Throughout the game it gave me opportunities to make new alliances and keep myself safe. I was able to go until Final 5 without a single vote against me. I played my heart out in every single challenge of the season and managed to win 2 individual immunities. In my mind, I think I played a fairly strong game, and I hope I was able to convince some of you of the same. I am extremely nervous but ready for your questions, thank you for reading all of my ramblings. 