Board Thread:Survivor 26: Chaos/@comment-29162419-20170827130746

I'm just gonna roll right into this, whenever I try making a video speech, it doesn't load.

Elias

I'll start with you because I feel like going in alphabetical order, even though I don't think you played this dominant, strategic, Aubry-type game in any meaning of the word(s) I think you played solidly particularly from the remerge onward and I don't have any personal grievances with you, we were friends since the beginning even if we didn't always work together and our calls were lit. Even though you went on to trust me less, you were probably my first functioning alliance in this game and when we both got added to Beavertown it was super convenient. You were the only person I saw thinking proactively at anarchy and that's why the two of us voted Whitney, it wasn't just a case of "let's survive this trbal!!" it's: hey let's not get idoled the fuck out.

Despite your strong showing at anarchy, I think you played a shitty pre-merge game, Luca catches hell for being too invisible pre-merge and yes, you were visible wayy more than Luca but it was for wrong reasons. I'm not going to bitch about the cheating thing because you addressed it already but you compensated for it pretty poorly from a game perspective imo, your sides were limited because of the leaked screenshot. But yeah, you were carried on Kahakai for the sole reason being that you had a penalty vote and kept the target off myself/Alex/Mikey heading into a potential merge tribal. You claim swap fucked in the tribes of 6 phase and in a normal season I'd say that's a solid claim but in a season like this where it's one world, if you get swap fucked it's your own fault, not something you should say is why you deserve to win so by saying that, you're campaigning against yourself imo. You won an immunity at the right time (though it was pretty luck based), and still couldn't get your target out, your pink haired, sheep of a target who was actively alienating Emily. You dodged the bullet at the first merge vote off, but that's because Nic was feeling especially stupid that day and decided to not vote for the sitting duck. If this was a social move? Credit to you, but idt it's the case and I've heard nothing of the sort to think otherwise tbh

This probably sounds pretty harsh but imo your game did not pick up until around F8, that's when you for the first time in the game had options and that was between the Moana 6.0 final four and your final four with David/Emily/Jake. For the first time in a long time you had options and that's why it was your strong point, you worked with Luca and I to vote out David and effectively step out of his shadow and that's when you began making your own moves and played a pretty solid game, as stated before, you had a big hand in David and I leaving and we were probably the only people with louder mouths from a strategic standpoint. After that point it basically became plainsailing for you at final five, you had a majority on Alex, and when it became you vs Emily in a tiebreaker, you again won the challenge when you needed to so hats off for that, and good job proving why you were a member of the "male challenge beast alliance"

F4 is another big moment I can credit you for, Jake/Emily I basically had seen as a duo ever since the remerge and they had all these chats with everyone, and when I saw Luca win immunity and I was like well, that sucks for Elias because you were no.3 in that alliance from my perspective and Luca saw you as the threat, but you caused a 2-2 to work out for you so again, hats off there.

Jake

I'm going to say straight up I respected your jury speech and if you give me a very solid answer to my questions I'll still consider voting you!! Even if my likelihood of voting you is less than the other two. You showed a lot of self-awareness and you knew how the jury perceived your erratic kind of game but I don't really think that's enough to lock in a win or get jury votes, not even from me but regardless I encourage you not to like give up on the questions or something. My main criticism is that, yes you embraced the chaos, I think a lot of us did, but everyone elses moves made a degree of sense whereas being the one person to vote someone at multiple tribals is almost like you're going out of your way to not make strategic moves.

I will say though, you for sure had a good social game and you got David/Emily to basically trust you 100% (lmao because that worked out SO well for them right) and you got them to trust you, not because it made the most logical sense to do it, but because they liked you and that's a solid social point. David's idol play on you made his target insurmountable and I will say to this day is the no.1 factor that caused him to get voted out in my eyes at least, that idol play locked in for me that I needed to vote out David at my first chance AND that you were probabl making FTC. was it entertaining? YES. Did it show that his end game consisted of you three only and one of those three turned on him? yeah, for sure. David gets strategic credit for the Eve vote in that he made the move, but your strong social game with him and relationship with him made it happen and the most erratic player in the game at that moment came off as trustworthy to someone else. I can also say I don't think that your premerge game was bad, a lot of people still trusted you to an extent at that point and it was before you blew up your own game. In fact you probably played the best premerge game out of the three sitting up here LMAO, you branched out and made the most connections and you definitely stirred the pot while being immune for a long stretch too.

Overall though I thought you were the largest enigma in the game, because you perceived everyone's positions pretty well and you're a smart dude with a strong social game and I definitely got to know you pretty well and wanted to work with you, but you didn't act on your skill at all and I just felt like you were completely unreliable. It's like someone who has a natural athletic ability who'd prefer sitting on their arse all day, you had the ability to play a great game and didn't use it.

Luca

Yeah I'm not gonna lie I'm probably voting you (It's 60/30/10 at this point between you, Elias and Jake). I do have criticisms of your game because it clearly wasn't perfect (none of our games were) and I do think those relate to activity and investment in the game. You were added to Beavertown early on at anarchy then basically faded into obscurity for a while, you continually survived the tribe swaps because you were good enough at challenges to survive and had a safety net in the form of Beavertown. I do think you were inactive for a large stretch of the premerge but if you had to physically choose a good time to be inactive I guess it was then? We didn't really have a functioning strategic partnership until the Alex vote off and before that it was mostly smalltalk and sharing things like "i walk around in 10 degree weather with a tank top and shorts on" but at that point I had realized, I'm playing the middle really hard, and Luca is conveniently in the middle because he has no enemies, this will probably work out, we were both in the position where we could get info and sell others out.

It worked out for sure, we became good friends, we come from similar backgrounds and our play styles kinda complimented eachother, and what I respect about your game was definitely how many options you had and how you were basically not vulnerable at all until final five despite being pegged as a jury threat since the final nine. You had Beavertown, Cameltown, Moana 6.0, a side alliance with Emily/Jake, you had a ton of options. The only time you were really in danger was when Jake threw a vote on you and Alex's paranoid ass hopped on board too. Despite not having an inner circle outside of myself and Wendy to an extent, you were the most connected to the most people. Your only real setback came when Alex didn't want to tie the F6 vote and put the two of you in minority and that's when I said to myself, I really hope he wins out in challenges because these idiots decided to take out the goat of Chaos who had piss poor jury management solely because I had a more visible and aggressive approach and could win challenges. You did just that honestly, people had known David/Alex/Luca were jury threats for a while and Elias, had you managed to take Luca out you'd probably be getting my vote now, had you taken Luca out at F6 instead of me, you'd probably also be winning but who knows, the spice hoes hated both of us.

I can be criticized for holding a bias for my closest ally of course, but through our calls and in depth discussions about a lot of aspects and situations of virtually every tribal since the Alex vote off, it showed me that despite coming off as this UTR player, you really were very smart about how you came off and you knew it'd work out. The other reason I feel like you thrived in a season of bitterness is because you were pretty honest about your votes, this is why Nic/Eve/Kyle were basically fuming with Alex and I after the Nic vote off but they weren't with you. Long story short, I think you made a lot of the same plays that I did, except you did it with less visibility/aggressiveness and more jury management, you also avoided conflict a hell of a lot more than me and had Kyle somehow survived, you still had a bridge with him that I no longer had.

Immunity wins in the game are also completely about timing and you (and Elias for that matter) timed yours very well. Elias won when he needed it, so did you, it just so happens when you needed it, it was the difference between making FTC/jury whereas for Elias it was the difference between merging or not. Despite being a jury threat for a while you held off on an immunity run until I felt there was no other option, like had you lost at F5 or F4 it would've been a no-brainer to take you out I think.

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<p style="font-weight:normal;">The case between Elias and Luca I think is a preference for how you like to see someone approach strategy

<p style="font-weight:normal;">It's a more straightforward yet proactive approach with Elias, and with Luca it's an approach that favours playing the middle and having options, but can also be passive at times.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">The reason I'm currently leaning Luca is because with Elias, someone who played an "aggressive" game, you sure as hell hid behind David's threat factor and Jake's insanity a hell ton, and Luca isn't making any claims to being this aggressive player, he's standing by what he did in the game and I think it was substantial.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">Luca basically seems like the only one of you three to have played all three aspects of the game and is the most well rounded and from my perspective but I easily saw the most strategic/social thought from you because you were my closest ally, Elias I think your game was a lot more luck based and overshadowed by other factors but your strategic game did really take off at the remerge and if you weren't up there with Luca, I would probably vote for you. Jake, really cool dude, definitely was an experience playing with you, you for sure represented the insanity this season can drive a person to but you were definitely not as solid strategically as the others.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">___________________

<p style="font-weight:normal;">Questions:

<p style="font-weight:normal;">figured we could have some fun with these

<p style="font-weight:normal;">1) Sort the nine jury members onto an alignment chart and explain why each fits. Also jurors, no crying if you get called evil :)

<p style="font-weight:normal;">2) Explain how you feel your reputation pre-Chaos affected your position in the game, and Elias, I think if you answer this one well I could see myself voting you. Reputation certainly affected me because I was not a particularly trustworthy, or even genuinely nice person on my main org season and Eve insisted on using BBUK S5 as a reason for why people should not trust me and I had to jump through a ton of hurdles to get people to trust me, ESPECIALLY the outsiders.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">3) The potential DVD cover has come up a couple times in Ponderosa, so who do you think should be on the DVD cover and represent the season?

<p style="font-weight:normal;">My only request is:

<p style="font-weight:normal;">Predicted winner - top middle

<p style="font-weight:normal;">Important pivotal player - bottom middle and the other important players on the left or right of the top or bottom!!

<p style="font-weight:normal;">4) What was your favourite twist this season? My personal favourites were the one world format and the captains twist at f15, the most annoying ones for me were probs the unmerge and the message in a bottle. Mainly because they were the sole purpose that myself and one of my close allies got screwed but oh well, bad luck ig. <ac_metadata title="Aras&#039; Jury Speech"> </ac_metadata>