Board Thread:Survivor: Sumbawa (Season 19)/@comment-6702096-20160901040904/@comment-28511285-20160902145712

Hey CJ, thanks for the question!



1. So at the start of this game my strategy why all about giving people a reason to want me around instead of wanting to get rid of me. So I'd do pretty good in challenges, but not good enough to warrent being seen as a threat. I would talk to everyone, but try not to get known as being affiliated with any real alliances, rather my loyalties were to individual people at this point. Although I did join the Sumbawacat dolls during this time, I did everything I could to keep being in that alliance public, and although Zak kinda offered me a spot in your alliance, I kept that very much on the downlow as well. As the game moved forward I decided to start sticking tighter to a group. I still left my options open for the merge, but I definitely decided at this point to stay more loyal to the group I was with. This ran me through until about final 7 when my strategy became about trying to keep others who were percieved as threats in the game such as Dani, but also be ready to to take out the biggest threats when possible while still keeping me in power. At this point I was playing from behind, but I managed to keep Dani in partially as a shield until f5, and did manage to get to the end with two people I believe I have a shot at beating.

2. My first big strategic move I'll mention again is coming up with the plan that allowed my alliance to take control of two tribes, yet also have a couples players we could cut from each too should we go on a losing streak. This move set in motion both the tribal phase and merge phase where the sumbawacat alliance dominated getting 5 of it's original six members to final 6, and everybody in the final 7 were at least aligned with the alliance.

The second strategic move I'll mention runs all the way back to the very first tribal council. After the challenge, Yasmin had tried to blame me for the mistake saying I missed a period. So, to keep the target off my back, I kind of started a bit of a slander campaign about her. I told a few people I knew were talkative that she was the one who really screwed us because the hosts wouldn't have even noticed had she not said anything, and that thought spread like wildfire to everybobdy. Now, I know before the vote it was made clear the mistake was eighty-eighty, but doing this made people not even think of writting my name down, that way in the upcoming weeks people couldn't just say "Well we almost voted for Linus last time, let's just do it now". Obviously this helped me long run because it kept me under the radar for a long while.

Thirdly I'll mention my idol playing speech to Brian. Was what I said true? Yes absolutely. However, I usually can keep myself very calm and collected without blowing up on other players. However I knew that now was a good time to disasociate with him as much as possible and show the jury that despite us having been aligned earlier in the game, I did not stand for things he had said or done at all over the course of the game. This helped me longrun because if it even made one juror more likely to want to vote for me, than hey, thats a long term benefit!

3. I think what makes me a better choice for sole survivor was I actually understood the value of social game, not just with those in power, but those who were likely going home soon as well.I tried to always be humble in victory and gracious in defeat, unlike the other two who would make it clear they didn't care about those on the outs, and would try to basically socially outcast them (Such as when Ty tried to convince everyone to not respond to Posie's jury question no matter what she asked). I also played a much better physical game, and although I don't think immunities alone is a reason to vote someone, five in a row definitely is nothing to overlook when a jury makes it's decision. I've never been a huge Mike Holloway fan, mainly because all his talk of how he won because of hard work, but honestly, I feel I didn't win those immunities by being naturally better at flash games or anything. I spent a good 5-6 hours if not more on the scavenger hunt to ensure I would be safe that round. I would often be on skype calls with people at like 2am playing the flash games over and over trying to get my score even just a little bit higher, all the while Ty couldn't even bother to submit for the puzzle on the FINAL immunity challenge. Thats part of the reason I find it funny that Ty and Brian say I'm only here because of immunities, when I feel like if they put the effort in, one of them may have been able to stop me, but they just didn't try.

Have a good one man, and as always, if something in my answer is unclear just lmk and I'll try to explain it better :D.