Board Thread:Survivor 37: Egypt/@comment-31124935-20190128234918

Hey guys! I want to quickly say that after half a dozen seasons of getting my hopes up and ultimately falling short, it feels surreal to finally be here at my first FTC. I had a lot of fun this game and each of you jurors definitely contributed to it in some way- so I’m glad we shared this all together :) Thank you to the cast for being great and to all the hosts, especially Tyler, for giving me a second chance and making the game move so smoothly the entire time ❤️

Learning from the Past

Since I am a returnee here, I wanna tell you guys about why I played the way I did and how my past on 703 shaped me as such.



This is Chaos David- I was aggressive, bold, and eerily loyal. I had a concrete “side” of the game with the people I trusted, and in doing so I made it known who I had no intentions of working with. If I wanted something done I would do it myself, rarely utilizing my allies to do it for me, which effectively put me in the spotlight as the sole leader of my side. Nobody wanted to go the end with me; I overplayed, was too transparent in my strengths, and got justifiably axed far from FTC as a result.



Well!!! Here is the new version of me you all know and love :) - Egypt David!! Heading into this game, I realized I was INCREDIBLY tired of putting all this work into a season only to get cut by my allies and have them reap the benefits. I knew this was going to likely be one of my last games, so if I was ever going to change it needed to be here. If I had to summarize these changes, and just my approach as a whole, it would be this:

I wanted to be connected SOCIALLY with every single person in this game, but NOT necessarily strategically. By having lots of friends and only a few main allies, I would always be covered, with information coming from all sides. And the target would never be on me. My main priority was making as many people as possible view me as an option in the game, even if it just meant I was their back up plan I wanted others to think I was playing for the betterment of my game as well as theirs. This would make them think that I was less threatening and that I lacked a killer instinct. I also wanted to ask LOTS of questions, about anything, especially information I already was well aware of, so that I would seem clueless or less of a threat. I would be sure to always ask people what THEY wanted to do, and then acted accordingly if it was good for my game. I tried to never tell people what to do or make my agenda clear to anyone else, and most importantly I wanted to position myself so that I was benefitting from OTHER people’s moves, not the other way around Lastly, I wanted to get out threats to MY game when possible, not just threats as a whole. Basically this meant aiming to get rid of people as soon as I knew that they did not have long term plans for me. At the Final 10, Luke was the only person that I did not have a solidified agreement with, which posed a threat to me and is why I made sure he was the first Sehkmet to leave (others wanted him too, though, I cannot take full credit ofc) Another example is Sam, who told Rob that I was running the game. I took explicit control the following round to assure myself that it was him leaving.
 * STAY CONNECTED
 * BE UNDERESTIMATED
 * ELIMINATE PERSONAL THREATS

Some people in this game wanted to take me far, others didnt. It was up to me to constantly evaluate my perception of others and ensure that the boot order was being crafted in such a way that the players who didn't would never get the chance to take me out. For example, by the time I had heard from Tara that Rhi called me "Mr. Jury Management", she was already on her way out with the votes locked against her. Then at the final five, Danielle considered me a large threat and Rob admitted to me that he also did, but the numbers were set against them in such a way that I felt I was guaranteed FTC

I want to now go through what I believe to be the main selling points of a Survivor game and explain how I think I performed in the context of each! *Hopefully* by the end you will be able to deem a worthy winner!! If a specific section does not interest you then feel free to skim, as I am willing to restate anything in a question- I understand I am not always the most captivating writer :)

Social and Strategic Game

I am actually going to combine these two portions because my strategy was anchored 100% in my abilities of making social bonds and reading the social atmosphere of the game, so treating them separately wouldn't make much sense! This is where I will do a walkthrough of my game, but I will try to keep it high level!

NaN

Up until this point I was primarily just socializing with anyone that I could and performing well in challenges. But here, I was cautious for the first time ever, because Anthony/Jake never once came to reassure me that the original Amun numbers would stay strong. I instantly gravitated towards Rob, and after talking with him I saw how much of an opportunity he presented. Up until here, Rob had been betrayed a lot, by everyone except me, Rhi, Andre, Rhys, and Tara. This was amazing, because I loved all those people, so Rob could possibly fit in really well with my plans. He also seemed to be fueled by revenge, which was definitely something I could get behind! :P We never went to tribal during this phase but I had faith Id survive, especially with my random Rob connection that nobody would have seen coming. I think it is a huge testament to my game that one of my greatest allies was someone I did not meet until day 17; I saw the opportunity, took it, and risked so much of my potential success in doing so.

NaN

The merge was essentially chaos while I tried to interpret all of the dynamics. I felt great with Rhi, Rob, Tara, and Andre. I also met with Sam/Zach/Danielle and had essentially the same conversation with each: “It sucks that we haven’t been on the same tribes yet but we should definitely work together!!” John and Rhi put together an alliance of us, Rob, Anthony, and Danielle- I knew it would not work because of Danielle’s loyalty to the Sekhmet Four (this is what I call Danielle/Zach and Sam/Luke) and because of my loyalty with Andre/Tara, but I was excited to have the additional coverage regardless.

I personally agreed with Tara that Anthony needed to go. My personal reasons were that he seemed to be vying for the same middle position that I wanted, and he never extended loyalty when I was vulnerable on Amun 3.0. I finalized the trio with Tara and Andre, and we planned the idol play- I decided to vote Andre to hide my loyalties. It was after this vote that I formed my foursome with Tara Andre and Rob. '''I believe that while subtle, this was my move of the season. I pulled together two of my closest affiliations despite the fact they had met literally two days prior.''' Their trust with me bridged to each other completely and together we ran the game. While possible, it is incredibly unlikely this grouping would have formed without me. I knew this alliance would be incredible for me, so I spent multiple days meticulously pulling it together and waiting for us all to get to a similar zone of thought.

NaN

🚨WARNING: Bold claim alert🚨 '''At the Final 10, I believe I was one of the best positioned person in the game, and I don’t think I necessarily lost that title since. ''' I had formalized understandings with every single person except Luke, and even then we got along well. The Sekhmet Four, despite their reassurances in my PMs, never made an effort to include me in the F10 (or F9 vote), repeatedly demonstrating that I was just an outsider to their core plans. This made me feel completely justified in picking them off, almost as if I had permission tbh, which was sad but a reassuring realization :/ Tara started her undercover antics during this stage, which I was fine with since it put her into a messier position than myself, hid our alliance, and increased the amount of information coming to me. As far as I know, everything Tara learned while undercover came directly back to me.

For the Final 9, everyone wanted Zach out for his threatening social game, but was I worried this might be too soon, because when the threat leaves a new one emerges- and this could be me. I trusted my gut/positioning though and went along with the plan, as it was super important for me to appear like I was not calling the shots, and what better way to do so then by not calling the shots!! <3 :P For real though I only wanted to put my foot down in moments where my game was at risk, and this was definitely not one of those times.

NaN

This is the only point in the game where my core alliance diverged a bit. Rob was suddenly wanting to boot John, which was incredibly worrisome since we had always planned on picking off the Sekhmet Four. It made me worried cause if Sam got an inch of leeway in this game he could definitely take it a mile. And if this did happen, he could likely be coming for me, since he pitched my name to Rob at Final 9 and said I was running the show 💀 Meanwhile, John spearheaded his side by saying he strongly wanted Danielle gone. I kept hearing John and Danielle- everyone seemed set in their ways without wanting to truly hear me out. All I could think was “WHY IS NO ONE MENTIONING SAM??” I recognized that it would primarily benefit my own game if he left, so it’d be harder than I thought to execute. I made the difficult choice to undercut Rob a bit- Andre and I made a chat with John and Rhi to express our concern for Rob, saying that I didn’t think he could be trusted this vote. It now made sense now for them to finally switch to Sam in order to cut off Rob’s options and circumvent a potential idol play. This worked perfectly, but it was NOT easy and definitely cost me some trust/friendship with Rob :( I made a mental note to let that be the only time I played slimy for the rest of the game- no regrets though

NaN

From the Final 7 onwards I had enough trust in my allies (and competition ability) to safely assume I was making Final Tribal Council, so my main concern was just staying in everyone’s good graces. In order to do this I made sure to be flexible on the boot order. Rob typically had the most direction on who to boot, but we would all come to a consensus easily. I was happy everyone agreed on booting John and Rhi before Danielle, as I had spent a lot of time trying to fashion her into a personal shield; I’d remind everyone often that she likely had three jury votes locked up already. I will admit I got a little freaked out at the F5 that Andre and Tara wouldnt even begin to discuss the option of keeping Danielle and booting Rob, but I only wanted to explore the idea because I wanted a simple F4 vote and knew Danielle would provide that. (In hindsight, I am so glad Rob stayed and think I would have arrived at that decision since I was so loyalty driven with him and loved seeing his storyline complete itself)

The most fitting narrative for this part of my game is that nobody realized I was a threat until it was too late, because while yes I was targeted a bit or spoken of as a threat, the opportunity to get me out had long since passed once Me/Rob/Tara/Andre made up half the tribe.

Game Awareness

As far as information goes, I felt like a sponge in this game. I was constantly being told stuff, but I was very careful with what I leaked to others. From being so aware at all times, I was able to assess how each person was perceiving the game, which clued me into their targets/allies/plans/etc. This made it very easy to navigate game conversations, as I felt like I typically knew what to say. I also leveraged my game awareness as a means to test peoples trust. For example, Tara told me immediately about the Blood Oath advantage and her double idol, but Sam/Zach/Danielle never did, indicating they probably didnt want to work together as much as they made it seem. Furthermore, Andre was giving me live updates of Sam flipping the vote to Rhi at the merge, so when he lied about it to me later I knew not to trust him

During the merge vote, I noticed that nobody EVER referenced John or asked about where he stood for the entire second half of tribal when all the real shit was going down. I noticed this opportunity and was the only person to clue him in of the many shifts, which hopefully solidified to him that I was trustworthy and beneficial. It was also because of my game awareness that I knew Rhi and John had essentially zero relationship with the Sekhmet Four, which is why I figured that as long as Rhi/John were in the game, they would always be targeted over me, who was hopefully seen as at least an option to the Sekhmets. This rang true, as I kept protecting Rhi/John and they kept getting targeted instead of me.

I was constantly analyzing my dynamics with each person and seeing if anything needed to change. I wanted to be air tight with my core four and very friendly and connected to everyone else. I did not want to get too close to people that I intended to cut like Tara and Andre constantly did. I believe I did this but please let me know if you feel I got too distant or too close and we can discuss the differing views!

Physical Game

I know physical games aren’t weighted too heavily but just want to quickly mention that I probably had the best physical game this season. Including the idol Tara gave me, I wasn’t eligible to go home passed the final 8 as a result of my physical game, but I dont think I ever relied on immunity to get where I am.. ask me about that though if you disagree and I would love to explain my viewpoint on it!!

Wrapping Up

I am very happy with how I played this game, any regrets I have are minor honestly, which is not something Ive ever been able to say before. I was fueled with a DEEP drive to win- I even turned my back on several pregame friends in order to side with new faces that I could trust. I knew where every vote was going at all times and was brought super far by others despite being recognized as a large threat. I only had a dark pearl counted against me, as well as the two voted negated by the idol.



I felt like I played a bit like Earl- I had a ton of control without ever feeling like I sacrificed my integrity in this game. I positioned myself in a manner of greatly benefitting from other people’s moves- I had my allies doing the dirty work (lying, backstabbing, etc) for me, meaning that I was able to appear much more calm and laid back, cementing myself as a bit of a UTR contender and keeping my hands much more free from blood.

I know that it is probably frustrating to read these speeches and see how connected Tara, Andre and myself were. It might be hard to differentiate our games since SO many of our decisions were made together, but ultimately I felt comfortable going to the end with these two because I believe that I was the glue that held our core alliance together, and I was also imo the crucial link to Rhi and John that enabled us to make moves with them. I also had lots of back up plans and bonds in case the dynamics ever erupted between us.

So yeah, thats my game! I was constantly sitting on lots of information and analyzing what to do in order to lock down a spot at FTC. I had Tara, Rob, and Andre as incredibly tight allies who were willing to constantly betray you jurors to benefit me. I personally dont feel like I betrayed anyone to the degree that they did, even though I was just as ruthless and had lots of control. Several of people thought they had Rob, Andre, and Tara as their numbers in this game, but I *knew* I did, and that comfortability and trust is what enabled my gameplay in the merge. I want to quickly end by saying that yes I could have been more visible, but based on my previous games I thoroughly believe this is how I needed to play in order to be where I am today!

I just want to reiterate again that I had so much fun this game and am weirdly excited for your questions, even if they’re mean <3 I had LOTS of flaws that I conveniently did not address, so I am excited to talk about them more in your speeches… this is quite literally the only FTC I will ever be at, so feel free to assign any and all tasks and I will eagerly do them :) Cant believe this season is almost over, love you guys!! 