Board Thread:Survivor: Siem Reap (Season 13)/@comment-8249209-20151210211918

Hey guys, just wanted to start this off by saying that this game was a ton of fun. I loved getting to play with all of you, get to know you, and I hope everyone else enjoyed it too, so thanks to the hosts, and everyone for that.

Basically, when I came into this game, I came in with an open mind, and just tried to have a blank slate. I’ve played too many games where I let myself overthink things, not trust people, and just generally screw my own game. I didn’t want to do that this time, make the same mistakes over and over. So with my gameplay, I decided that I was going to try and adapt however I could to fit the situation. Every move I made was to benefit my own game and get me further, and that required protecting alliances, and old bonds.

Pre merge, I got myself into two alliances. The first was with Amber, Kaffe and Hannah, and the second was with Julian and Nathan. That worked fine until the second tribe swap, schoolyard pick I had to choose between Kaffe, and Julian. I went with Julian because I felt like I would be the bottom of my alliance with Kaffe Amber and Hannah, and that Amber and Kaffe would run everything. Also that round, Amber went home. I started to target her because she was targeting Julian. I felt like with him, I’d go far, so I had no problem putting myself on the line to target Amber.

The game really changed once we got to the merge though. There were five original Kandal people, but Kaffe had flipped to the Palins, so the other four of us, Nathan, Hannah, Julian and I, all agreed to stick together. If I had flipped to the Palin’s at this point, I don’t feel like there would be any way I would get to the end. Drawing rocks at the merge vote felt like less of a risk in the long run than going with the Palins. The next round, Julian gave us the idol clue, I lucked into finding it, so as a tribe we decided to play it on Nathan, keeping him safe and sending Andy home. The next round I had people approaching me to flip, Jake and Alex, but I still felt like that would have been too soon, it would just even out the Kandals and Palin’s back to three three, and I didn’t want to go to more rocks. For me, not flipping is a move just like flipping is, I didn’t think it would help me in the game to flip, so I stuck with the Kandals.

When the Julian vote happened, and even though he had been my friend and closest ally for a lot of the game, I knew I could never win in the finals against him. He had to go if anyone wanted a chance because he would have destroyed everyone in ftc. Once he was gone, that opened up the door for me to start winning immunities, immunities that I felt like I needed. I wasn’t sure if I would be seen as a goat for my social play, or a threat for my strategic, but I didn’t want to risk it. So I won challenges, made sure there wasn’t even the option to send me home. Kaffe and Jake had to go because I didn’t think there was any way that I was going to win against either one of them against a predominantly Palin jury. Final three, I won immunity, and the choice was between Hannah and Nathan. The choice was influenced a lot by earlier in the game. Hell, it was said in public that the only way I could win is against Hannah, and vice versa. I still don’t know if I can win against her, but I feel better going against her than I would with Nathan. I still feel if I had gone to the end with Nathan, he would have won, and it wouldn’t have even been close.

That was basically my strategic game in a nutshell, but I did want to say something about my social game, and actually apologize. I don’t believe in that whole “Never apologize at FTC” thing, I think it’s a load of crap, but I’m sorry to those of you that I didn’t get to know as well. My social game was lacking, I didn’t do as well as I know I can do, and I’m not going to make excuses for that. I screwed up, that’s on me. I talked to everyone non game at least once, and I do honestly like all of you, you seem like cool people. At the merge, I let my paranoia get the better of me. I shut down, or just straight up got pissed at some people when I probably shouldn’t have. If you’re one of those people, I’m sorry.

I don’t know what else to say, I’m not a big fan of talking about myself all that much so not sure where to go from here. Guess I’ll just keep it short-ish. I just want to repeat how much fun this game was, and no matter how it ends I’m still going to look back and remember it fondly. To my other finalist Hannah, it’s been a wild ride, weren’t always on the same side with the votes but it was fun anyway. And to the jury, I don’t expect that you all love me, or even like me, but I do hope my speech gave you some insight into my game, and I hope when you post your questions that I’ll be able to answer them and give you what you want to hear. But good game everyone, excited to read your questions.  