Board Thread:Survivor 40: Annihilation/@comment-26137519-20190802170152/@comment-5357455-20190802232658

'''Hi Alex, thank you for your comments and questions, especially the one in regard to only receiving one vote despite never being immune throughout the entirety of this game. This one vote that came at the Final 4 was supposed to be 2 votes against me, but due to my social connection with Mihai, he believed that it was in his best interest to not vote against me alongside Linus. Every other tribal there was always a bigger threat that I had pushed for or sided with to see be eliminated.'''

'''In regard to my opening statement, I could see how in comparison to Linus’ speech, mine was a lot less detail-oriented, but that is because of how I view opening statements. Opening statements are what they state, an opening. When presenting an opening statement, I do not believe it is proper to include every detail, every piece of evidence, and every breath you take because an opening statement should be used as a guiding overview for what will be presented throughout the course of the jury questions. Additionally, when we are making these opening statements, we are doing it from a singular lens of our own game. It would be improper to assert that every move that I made was a direct cause of an elimination because it is being claimed by only my perspective. I did not want to overclaim in my opening statement to allow the jury to ask pinpoint questions on one move that I could have claimed as my own and ignore the totality of my journey. I view the jury questions as the case in chief where I can directly answer the questions that you have with supporting evidence to directly corroborate the moves that I have made. I do understand how the jury was not utterly impressed with this format, but I believe that throughout my answers, including my answer to your question, I will be able to directly allude to moves that I made in this game that show that I was making moves for the betterment of myself. '''

'''Thank you for giving me the opportunity to directly reference the moves that I made throughout the course of the game that allowed to assert my strategic prowess and my ability to get to the Final 4 without a single vote cast against me. For this, the votes that I would like to highlight are the Final 9 through Final 6 that allowed me to have the best positioning in the Final 5.'''

Final 9 (Joan):

'''I will be honest, this round I wanted to target Aromal. I saw him as the biggest threat at this time because of his social connections to many of the players and his ability to play a similar game to what I did. I wanted to work with the Wanani 3 this vote, who still trusted me despite eliminating Drew in the previous round. They understood that I made that move to avoid rocks for all of us, and we still had the ability to move forward. At this time, Aromal had already approached me about teaming up with the Wanani 3 to eliminate Joan. This was under the assumption that the Moya 6 (myself, Aromal, Mihai, Zach, Joan, and Linus) would construct a split vote between 2 Wanani members, which ended up being the “plan.” I knew that in a potential three-way split of the votes, Aromal could have left. However, the Wanani 3 believed that it was of greater necessity to eliminate Joan at that tribal while eliminating Aromal at the next tribal council once he felt safe. I was compromising in this situation because it did not matter too much to me who left because both of them were not going to be long-term allies for me. At this time, Mihai approached me with the same plan that Aromal did, unbeknownst to Mihai. He wanted to team up with the Wanani 3 and eliminate Joan too. I ultimately decided to eliminate Joan because I was able to maintain a good number of relationships and eliminate a large target in this game. Now, I know that this can be seen as other people’s moves and I completely respect that, but I do believe that I played a critical role in this vote. By positioning myself in the middle, it allowed Mihai and Aromal to use me as an asset to eliminate Joan. My connections to these two individually as well as to the Wanani 3 gave them confidence that I would side with them in carrying out this plan. Playing the middle in this vote was crucial for me to be valued as a vote to people who wanted to make a big move this round. My individual connections with Aromal and Mihai and the connection to the Wanani 3 allowed for this flip on the Moya 6 to occur. '''

Final 8 (Aromal):

'''Aromal, to be, was the biggest threat to me in this game. I started to see that people were eager to take him to the end and that he was playing all sides. After Joan was eliminated, Zach felt distraught and that he could not trust anyone in this game. He was swearing up and down that he was going to be the next one eliminated. I was able to strengthen my connection with Zach and Linus by telling them that Aromal was at the center of the Joan elimination and that he needed to be eliminated. Zach was elated with any plan that did not target him, so he was content to see anyone else go. The other votes came from the Wanani 3 who had promised me the previous round that Aromal would be eliminated. '''

'''Also, at this time is when I helped create two three person alliances, once with Grace and Linus and the other with Zach and Linus. I helped create the former to cover all of our bases in regard to the remaining players in the game. I wanted to systematically eliminate one player from our perceived groups, and end up with a Final 5 of myself, Grace, Linus, Mihai, and Augusto- placing me at the center of two other three person alliances. While operating in the alliance with Grace and Linus, I knew that I could console the person that was just excluded from the previous vote and convince them that we were still allies despite the previous elimination. In regard to the Linus and Zach alliance, I had been very upfront with them since Moya 3.0 about how I genuinely liked them, wanted to work with them in this game, and claimed that I would have eliminated Alex over Zach if Zach did not play his idol. The purpose of this alliance was to hopefully gain favor to eliminate Nathan over Augusto or Grace, but when I learned about their connections to Nathan, I knew I had to abandon this alliance. '''

'''So with all of this established, the only person I did not have a working relationship at the time was Aromal, so that is why he was the biggest threat to my game. It was my goal this round to show that he was going to flip constantly throughout this game and his allegiances were not clear. This clearly worked because even Linus and Zach opted to eliminate Aromal, despite him being a close ally of theirs. I was also surprised that no one completely caught on to me this round that I planned on playing a similar game. I wanted to be the one that was positioned in the middle better than most other players. I think that this connects to the fact that I received one vote throughout the course of the game because even though people may have saw that I was playing the middle, they believed that I always had their best interests in mind. '''

Final 7 (Nathan):

'''At this time, it was clear that another Wanani needed to be eliminated. They were perceived as a group of 3 and in the Final 6 that would have been dangerous. This round I wanted to make it clear to pretty much every player remaining, even Augusto and Grace that a Wanani needed to be eliminated. Since Augusto and Grace were my two closest allies, I needed to place the target on Nathan’s back. I had been mentioned to Grace that Nathan was probably more connected to people remaining in the game like Zach and Linus, that he already had friends on the jury like Drew that would vouch for him, and that he had a captivating personality that made him very well liked. I knew that I needed to downplay my connection with Augusto because if that was exposed, then Grace could have flipped and eliminated Augusto instead of Nathan. I used a similar argument with Augusto and Mihai that Nathan was a much larger threat to go instead of Grace because of his existing connections. For Augusto, it was mainly that a Wanani member needed to be eliminated, but I think that he knew that anyway. I knew that Grace was connected to myself and Linus at the time, but I tried to keep this information to myself. Linus wanted to eliminate Augusto at this time because of his perceived threat level, but because of my close relationship with Augusto and the knowledge of his idol, I wanted to keep him in the game. Linus did know that Nathan would be leaving this round, but I am glad that he did not vote to eliminate Nathan. By him voting out Joan in the Final 9, it exposed other connections he had in the game and could have burned a bridge with Zach. This vote he needed to vote with Zach to salvage that relationship for the future and provide information to myself and Grace.'''

'''Grace ultimately sided with me over Linus and helped eliminate Nathan in a 4-3 vote. At this vote, I was able to get by without receiving a vote because of the perception that a Wanani member needed to go. Despite me siding with this group of 3 for the previous two votes, I did not receive votes because this group of three was seen to be closer to one another than I was with them. However, I do believe that my individual connections with Grace and Augusto were stronger than their overall connection to that group. After this vote, I think that I was positioned very well with the only person losing trust and confidence in me definitively was Zach. '''

Final 6 (Zach):

'''After Linus won immunity, I did not think that it was a bad idea to eliminate Grace at this time. I had been approached by Zach about creating a Final 3 between myself, him, and Mihai. I knew that Zach was searching for options, but I did not mind this group because I felt that it still positioned me well in this game. Augusto, Mihai, and Zach all had their sights set on Grace for this round. I knew Linus and Grace’s connection and adamantly told Zach multiple times that if he wants to eliminate Grace, he cannot tell Linus. I did not reveal the alliance that we had, but I said that Linus would see Grace as another target to keep in the game and had a strong possibility of using the idol to eliminate her. Another reason I did not mind Grace leaving this round was under the assumption that Linus only had one idol, that he would be more likely to give it to me at the Final 5 instead of Grace because I wanted to still give him the perception that I was blindsided by the vote too. Even if Grace had left, I would have lost an ally but still maintained people in this game who had similar interests as mine. '''

'''This all went downhill when Zach told me that he began discussing eliminating Grace with Linus. I immediately heard this from both Zach and Grace because Linus immediately told Grace this information. After Grace convinced Linus to give her the idol, I knew that this plan needed to be changed. I still had a strong relationship with Linus at this time, so I hopped on call with him briefly to tell him that the votes were there to eliminate Grace and that whatever plan we had previously concocted needed to be changed as well. I think that plan was a split between Zach and Mihai, but it was not going to be realistic. He told me he wanted Augusto and that he was unwilling to vote Zach. This is when I knew that the connection between Zach and Linus was still very strong and needed to be separated. I even asked Linus if he would vote Mihai, to which he immediately said no. With both Grace and Linus voting Augusto and knowledge that Augusto was playing his idol, I felt that my social connections positioned me incredibly well in this vote because I was the only one that knew about the double idol play. I did not just sit on the information, but actively took control of my own game by casting one vote to eliminate Zach. '''

'''I think that going through these four votes in particular showed my adaptability to change targets to suit the interest of my allies, eliminate players that were going to be immediate threats to my game, and take control of my game by casting the sole vote to eliminate the last player that I did not have a strong social and strategic connection to. Throughout the course of these votes, I was never seen as the target to go home because people believed they needed me to benefit their individual games as well. I hope this provides you with the insight that you were seeking and thank you for your question. '''

'''Also attached is my gif, I hope it was able to send. It is from one of the greatest fictional characters of all time- Barney Stinson'''