Board Thread:Survivor 39: Poveglia/@comment-31200621-20190603025441

Hey everyone, I want to start and say thank you to the hosts for an incredible game and all the hard work they put into it, but especially Emma for dragging me off my butt to sign up for it. This has been such a fun game and I am so glad to have been apart of it. A huge thank you as well to the other players of this game, whether you were at the merge or went pre-merge, everyone of us had a role in shaping the way this game turned out and it wouldn’t have been the same without any of you.

I came into this game after being retired for over a year and I was quite nervous at first if I would still have what it takes to be a strong gameplayer or did I forget how to play survivor and would be out very early. I’m hopeful to at least think its the former not the later and that I played the best game I knew how to.

Starting on original Este I originally on night 1 formed an alliance with Devin as a close partner which later turned into a three person alliance with the two of us and Jino. This is truly where the important stages of my game started as I realized very early on that I didn’t want to be tied down by this alliance and started working to make sure I had as many options as possible. Jino and Devin had wanted to bring in Fred to the alliance, however by going to him an hour before they did telling him a small white lie that they planned to use him as a scapegoat, from this point on he was loyal to me and would report to me what other people on este were saying. With that my first informant of the game was created.

Information was a huge part of my game as I always tried to make sure that enough people in the game were the ones who would feed me info.I prioritized people like Devin, Scott and Jackson especially who were always for the most part comfortable telling me game info and through my social connections I was able to use all these and other relationships to hear almost everything from all sides of the game and stay informed on what was happeing.

A big trend for my game which I think greatly worked well was my ability to find the outsider of a group and bring them in close to me. Seeing that OG Este was probably winning until a swap I went to the person who was probably gonna be next out Scott and created what I can honestly say was the strongest alliance of my game and met my strategic partner. With my work done on OG Este I was now in a position where I had enough people feeding me info that I was set up to be in control and would be able to use these new connections down the line.

At the swap I realized how fortunate my position had come, and started forming strong bonds with the three Padua, and even would drop hints of a potential alliance with us at merge. While not a lot gamewise happened for me at this time due to the winning, I worked hard to ensure I was in good with the other starting tribe, and using the same strategy of finding the outsider with Scott, I noticed Jackson was the third between John and Natalia and filed that info away for later. All my planning work had paid off as I officially made merge with a positive relationship with every person in the game.

At merge I came to the realization that if the first two votes go a very specific way that I could be set up incredibly well down the line. I looked at the game so far as a battle between two sides Padua and Este, and while that might have been able to blur, It worked much better in my favour the longer those two sides were fighting as I was one of a few people left in the game who was needed by both sides. Jino, who also had connections with both sides was to me too big of a wild card, and the best way for me to keep both sides calm and at war with each other was to target him first. Part of this plan involved me realizing that Este’s would need to go first, because while the Padua’s could work with either groups of Me and Scott, or Abi/Alex/Devin, the survivors of the Abi/Alex/Devin would need me more as they often talked about being afraid of padua’s taking the majority. This is what led to my reasoning for being apart of Alex and Abi being sent out.

At final 6 seeing Natalia as the clear biggest social threat, I was very active in targeting her that round, and using the relationships I had worked with Jackson he was willing to target her too and we took out one of the best players of the game. Final 5 I had just found the idol and came up with a plan with Devin to figure out was doing what and basically controlled who got immunity. While I could have taken immunity for myself, knowing I had the idol I let Devin have it so I could be able to get votes and see if people were truly with me and who was waiting for their chance to get me out. The vote at final 5 was the only time this game I’ll say I dropped the ball on, but the people who were in at the time know, that day was a very big performance for me and I knew I had put in the work with saving this power that I’d be fine. However this came at the cost of losing my dynamic duo of Scott

I had made it to final 4 but at this point I was in hot water as when I had lost that immunity I was told by all 3 people they were voting me out. I didn’t have competitions or idols to hide behind all I had was my voice. I spent over an hour convincing Devin to change his mind and with that I got the last chance I needed. I beat John at fire making and made final 3.

Final immunity was the most worrying as I knew if I did not win it I would be taking the seat of final juror. Realizing the way my time was this weekend I’d never be able to win it on just skill alone, I did what I did best this game and manipulated Devin. Convincing him he had already won the challenge, he gave up before hosts got on to confirm it. If he had waited just two hours more, I would have had to go to work and he would have won final immunity.

I believe I truly played the best game I could this season. I worked socially to always have a positive relationship with whoever remained in the game, I worked strategically voting in the majority every round there was a majority and by surrounding myself near bigger targets like Natalia and Scott, I was able to be the very last person in the game to ever have a vote cast against me and was never even the target of a round until final 4. And while I worked hard to win competitions and gain powers, I never relied on them where it was do or die if I don’t win immunity or have this idol until just this final 3 round.

I know this was a very long winded woohoo Jordan Pines type speech but I hope you guys as a jury see the effort and work I put in each round to ensure that I was safe and the person I was targeting actively went home. I never tried to make anything personal and I hope there is no hard feelings between anyone. You guys all made this game such a great time for me, and I look forward to answering your jury questions. 