Board Thread:Survivor 40: Annihilation/@comment-5357455-20190801154802

Hello everyone! First of all, I would like to thank the hosts for casting me on this incredible season and Tyler, specifically, for nudging me to apply. Secondly, I want to thank my fellow tribemates, yes all of you, who have made this a tough strategic game, but an enjoyable experience throughout. In my speech, I will be going over some major highlights of my game on a more thematic basis to help explain how I am still standing on Day 39.

One of the strongest aspects to my game was my social game. I would like you all to know right now, that the connections that we made were true and genuine bonds. My social game was able to help me play in the middle for the majority of the merge, create my own alliances, and rarely be perceived as a threat.

I would like to address one of the notions of playing in the middle. Playing the middle does not mean that you do not have alliances, it means that the alliances that you choose to belong to are not the “sides.” In this game during the tiebreaker round, I was already aware that there was a group of 5 Moyas and a group of 4 Wananis. Either “side” I chose would result in me being on the bottom, so I wanted to show loyalty to specific individuals on both “sides.” The two strongest alliances that I had in this game were the OG Pinks, Augusto and Mihai, and The Nucleus, Grace and Linus. In this, I am defining strength based on sharing of information, eliminating a common desired threat, and trusting one another to take each other further in the game. I do believe both of these alliances were beneficial to my game because I was able to gain information on most players in this game and use this information to vote off who was in a strong position in this game. The success of these two alliances can be seen when we look at who made up the Final 5. This was not done by luck or chance, but I knew which players needed to leave in order to position myself the best I can. This positioning did not stop at Final 5 as I made a calculated decision at Final 4 to eliminate someone who I knew would take me to the end over someone that I was unsure of. I am not going to claim that I was the mastermind behind every vote, because I was not. I was at the center of most plans, and the decision-maker on some critical eliminations. Overall, every single vote off benefited my game. It benefitted in the way of eliminating competitors that were closer to other people remaining in the game or eliminating competitors that were more likely to occupy a Final 2 seat.

Using my social game as the forefront of my strategy was the best way I could have reached the end and potentially win the game. I could not play a physical game due to my strictly average skills in the challenges. I knew this going in, so I did not depend on being a competition beast. I also knew that I could not play an overtly strategic game. That has been a flaw of mine in the past where I have failed to consider personal relations with a majority of this cast, which caused people to be very willing to eliminate me. That is why in this game I played from a social perspective while making sound strategic decisions. When I was left out of both alliances, I knew I needed to solidify my connections so I would not be perceived as a threat. This was successful since throughout the days of tribal council, my name was rarely mentioned as a threat because I had strong personal and strategic relationships with most of you. This is clearly showcased by the fact that I only received one vote throughout this entire season despite never being immune when I went to tribal council. Despite never being immune, I was able to make some big moves at the risk that they could have backfired. When reflecting on every tribal council I attended, I had two goals- keep my torch lit and make sure that the one that was snuffed was not someone who was helping my game. These two were accomplished. This can be seen through the fact that I knew about every elimination beforehand and with the exception of the Alex vote, I successfully voted out the person who left at every tribal council.

I wanted this opening statement to serve as a general overview to my game. I was behind the scenes working diligently to make sure I was always in a favorable position by sending threats to my personal game home and by keeping strong connections to nearly everyone. I know that my game was not as showy, so please ask any questions that you have as you see fit. Thank you again for an enjoyable season and I look forward to your statements and questions. 