Board Thread:Survivor 33: Tibet/@comment-32237110-20180711234553

Hey everyone! Before I get into the game, I just wanted to say thank you, everyone, for making this season such fun to play in, as well as the hosts who have really done such a good job with hosting Tibet, it's been so professional and I've loved it! I’ve never made it this far in a game ever, so I don’t have much experience with these kinds of speeches, but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless! I’ll break down my game and talk about why you should vote for me as the Sole Survivor of Survivor: Tibet.

NaN

Before I get too heavily into the game, I just wanted to start off by explaining my mentality and gameplan coming into the season, as I believe it shaped a lot of my game. I wanted to come into this game and play it more subtly, making moves in the dark whilst keeping the target off of my back, and I did this through making myself seem dumber or unaware of the various situations in order to keep this target from surfacing onto myself. This proved to be an underlying theme during my time in the game, and it definitely helped me to do the moves I wanted to as I was constantly being undermined and viewed differently to most other players, as well digesting and using information given to me to educate my moves and thought processes at several intervals in the game.

NaN

At the beginning of the game, I focused on building bonds with several people in my tribe, and I made sure to start constructing the dumbed down perception of myself. Through the discussions, I subtly acted dumber to lessen any concerns of a target being on my back, which ultimately lead to an alliance entitled “HMMMMm” including myself, Tyler, Pory, Lexi and Drew, which was a solid five for the beginning of the game. We were some of the more active players and it just made sense. Due to this alliance, I was luckily in a position where I could focus on the social preparations which would be key later on in the game. The alliance did prove to be the best move for me at the time, as we preemptively prepared for the idol play during Aleks’ elimination especially. Although due to most of us being good at challenges, we only had to deal with two relatively straightforward tribal councils, which allowed me to really focus on the social game I was playing.

Luckily, we also preemptively guessed what sort of result we could expect with the tribe swap. We assumed we’d be getting expanded into three new tribes, and due to me, Tyler, and Drew all ending up on Lhotse, the choices to be made on that new tribe also seemed clear from the get-go. I built on the perceptions during this swap just to reinforce how people saw me going into the merge, and it did work, luckily for us as a tribe, we only had to visit one tribal council.

NaN

Upon the merge, I wanted to continue to lay low but still be listening and knowing what was going on. It was very important for the type of game that I intended on playing that I formed more bonds with the people I haven’t previously met, such as Vincent and Damien, but also catch up with old Yangra like Marty as well as my alliance back on original Yangra.

Drew’s Boot: Drew’s elimination was a big eye-opener for me, and ultimately shaped a lot of my game to come during the rest of the merge. Unbeknown to me at the time, Drew always intended to set up the Rocks scenario through balancing the votes, and it was also later leaked to me that this information was shared with all of my former alliance but myself, which did leave me with more worry than sense. I knew to go into the future, I couldn’t 100% trust all of the people I had played this game with up until this point, and I needed to forge more bonds with the others outside of this alliance and ultimately pick them off. In order to do this, I emphasised the perception I constructed throughout the game and acted dumb, so I perceived that none of the previous members knew I had any insider knowledge on the vote, or the intention of jumping ship when I solidified myself with others.

Tyler’s Boot: My main target for this elimination was going to be one of my previous alliance members, however, I wasn’t ever 100% sure I had numbers behind me to truly jump off of the Yangra-majority ship. I took the time during this cycle to develop a stronger connection to Marty as well as Jp (despite the latter not being as in detail relating to the game). Marty and I did discuss a plan for this tribal council, and due to this trust he had in me, he leaked to me the plan to get rid of Tyler, but due to my bridges not yet being burned with the Yangra alliance, I wasn’t 100% committed to his plan, and voted in the minority regardless for several reasons. I also didn’t want to fully remove myself from the two others from this alliance because I didn’t want it to be obvious that somebody else knew about this plan since Marty told me in confidence. After Tyler’s elimination - combined with people’s perception of him and I having a strong connection - I could milk his elimination into me being on the outs and use it to my advantage to build new allies in the game, which is ultimately what I did.

Pory’s Boot: Pory’s boot really established the lines drawn and where alliances were formed. It was when I made my first big move in the game. Due to playing both sides of the alliances, I quickly learned that I was pretty much going to be the swing vote, but the decision was very simple to me. Pory was performing in challenges, and already betrayed my trust despite him probably not noticing. Tyler’s final words - “Liam start playing the game” - helped me diminish all rumours of us ever being in a tight alliance. It was because of this that Seamus and I started becoming closer in the game. I felt more confident in the alliance of myself, Seamus, Damien, Big Z, and Jp than I did in any of my former alliance.

Marty’s Boot: This was probably one of the most convoluted votes, yet one of the bigger moves I made in this game. I continued my broken record of a routine and acted dumb with Marty to continue to get information from him. Due to him previously revealing the Tyler plan, I thought I could continue to play on his side to reveal more information. I went along with his initial plans to get Damien out, and because of how I had been playing the game up until this point, I don’t think Marty could tell I knew he was lying or trying to manipulate my vote. He then changed the goal post and wanted to blindside Seamus, and due to him being one of my closest allies in the game up until this point, it wasn’t going to happen. Seamus and I then formulated a counter-attack to split the votes between Marty and Vincent, through the previous aforementioned 5-person alliance - just in case Vincent used his supposed idol. However, despite all of these plans, I didn’t want Marty to survive through it all as he could’ve easily exposed our relationship which would’ve backfired on me, creating distrust. I knew I had to eliminate him this tribal council to quash any possibility of it becoming leaked, so I flipped on the original plan by voting out Marty regardless of the fact that I had placed myself as a Vincent vote with the alliance of 5. I did discuss this move with Seamus who suggested this despite me doing it regardless, and he provided a cover up for the plan by confirming me as a Vincent vote within our alliance chat, allowing for my plan to come to fruition. I later admitted to flipping, yet I don’t think it ended up being interpreted as a game move but instead as me attempting damage control, which ultimately worked out better for me.

Vincent’s Boot: Due to the numbers getting lower and lower, I knew going into this tribal council either one of two outcomes needed to happen - either Vincent’s idol finally gets flushed, or the holder himself is eliminated, whichever worked. Damien stirred things up within our alliance by publicly flipping against Big Z. Once again I found myself as the swing vote in the game, although the decision was pretty simple as I knew what I wanted to happen and the opportunity presented itself. I made sure to talk to Vincent more during this tribal council to try and ease his worries about playing the idol, so I told him and Lexi that I would be voting for Big Z that tribal, given the excuse of Touchy Subjects to try and make them feel more comfortable in that decision. Ultimately, Vincent didn’t play his idol and due to voting against him, he was sent home despite not knowing whether he truly did possess the idol or not.

Lexi’s Boot: Lexi’s elimination didn’t require much work from me, due to the majority of the new alliance of 4 wanting to eliminate her over Damien. I used the opportunity to talk more game with Lexi and get a better insight on how she viewed the game, and like plenty of others, I got grilled for the way I played the game. I debated on this decision for a while, because I knew if I wanted to make a move against Seamus who kept winning all of the immunity challenges, it would make sense for me to keep Lexi who herself can be a challenge beast as I saw in her other ORG games like Mauritius. However, due to it being the Final 6 and not having numbers on my side, the decision was already too clear-cut to be diverted; if I voted with Lexi I would’ve put a target on my back, which I couldn’t afford to do as it would’ve destroyed my entire gameplay strategy. It became apparent that Jp and I were the ones who Lexi thought she could flip onto her side, so I spoke to him more throughout this cycle to develop a bond that I would later rely on for the following tribal council. I knew that next tribal council would have to be the one where I make the move to eliminate Seamus, despite him being my closest ally up until this point.

Seamus’ Boot: I immediately took action to make sure that I could successfully get rid of Seamus. I conversed with Jp to solidify this decision after it became apparent we could get rid of him due to Damien winning immunity. This was honestly the best possible outcome of that challenge for me, as it would’ve been easy for Seamus to pull the strings and give Damien 5th due to the other four of us having a strong alliance throughout the late merge. After Damien won immunity, I pitched to Jp that if the three of us vote together for this tribal council, it’d be a simple outcome resulting in none of us going home. Since the three of us were viewed as the least threatening players left in the game at that point, the plan worked. I later confirmed with Damien and this plan seemed to work, meaning the only factor now was if Seamus had the Lhotse idol in his possession, but he luckily didn’t, and Seamus was eliminated.

Damien’s Boot: I once again tried to pull the strings for this vote and eliminate Big Z, who was the last ‘major’ player and threat in the game. I wasn’t 100% sure that Jp would vote against Z, but since I had immunity for this round, I laid out most of my thinking to try and convince him in case he was having second thoughts, but this proved to not matter. In the end, the votes tied and I wasn’t going to budge, so fire making occurred between the two and Damien was eliminated.

NaN

Despite my gameplay and mindset in this game being more undercover and undisclosed, I clearly demonstrated understanding during my time in Survivor: Tibet. My game mainly focused on being undermined by my competition to minimise the likelihood of being pegged as a threat. In-turn, I was never targeted, as evidenced by my zero vote record.

To reiterate, my gameplay focused on learning and listening as well as emphasising the warped perception of myself as ‘incompetent’ and ‘ignorant’ during the entirety of the game, despite executing moves such as the ones I outlined in my previous paragraphs.

I hope you believe that I did demonstrate the traits I discussed and that you consider voting me as the Sole Survivor of Survivor: Tibet! If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask me, thanks for making this season so great everybody <3.

 