Board Thread:Survivor 27: Bora Bora/@comment-5173086-20171010183249

Hi everybody! I just wanna preface my speech by saying that I had such a great time playing with all of you and really couldn't have asked for a better cast.

 That being said, I do believe that I played the best game of this final 3 and deserve your votes to win. I'm worried that some of you may view my behind-the-scenes gameplay very underwhelming, but I'm hoping that by the end of the speech you'll see how it was the best choice I could have made.

 One thing I would like to make clear is that I do have a hectic full time job that I work 40 hours a week in and only rarely can I use my phone while I'm at work. This made it very difficult to balance things in this game, since plans changed so frequently and often I would leave work to find a new voting plan in place or even my name on the chopping block. I had to adapt very quickly to these new plans but I think I accomplished that well because I'm sitting here.

 Coming into the game on the Motu tribe, we won both the immunities so I laid low and just tried to chat up my tribe mates as much as possible. I clicked with Rhys the most and made an alliance with him that continued into the swap. On Floreal, I made an alliance with Jared and Torsa who ended up being my main loyalties throughout the whole game. This was a perfect set up for me, as I knew that if we ever didn't have the numbers, my two allies would be targets before I was. We brought in Rhys and voted out Dana for leaving everyone on read.

 The next vote was the Mikey vote. Now, I'm worried a lot of you might think I was just a vote to Jared and Torsa, but that truly wasn't the case. I was fine with taking a backseat and letting them get the blood on their hands because I knew that they weren't going to betray me. They would constantly tell me information about what people were saying and for this vote, they had told me Mikey had mentioned me as a potential target. This, coupled with the fact that me and him didn't have a good relationship AND we all thought he had an idol, made the decision to take him out much easier.

 We left Rhys out of the Mikey vote because I was convinced he had allegiances to Toby and Mikey and started to distrust him. When the double tribal came along, me, Jared and Torsa knew we controlled the vote because Ally, Toby and Rhys were voting Christine and obviously Christine would vote with us to save herself.

 I made the strongest case to get Rhys out because I did not trust him one bit. Toby approached me asking about a 4-person alliance consisting of myself, Rhys, Jared and Torsa, and immediately I knew that my suspicions of Rhys working with Toby were true and that Rhys had to have told Toby about our alliance. Toby also tried to blame Christine for telling him, but I made sure I told Christine of this to ensure she was on my good side. Me, Jared, Torsa and Christine voted out Rhys and we sailed into the merge.

 Very quickly into the merge, Toby asked me why I voted out Rhys when he had plans to include him in the alliance that he formed. This confirmed to me that Rhys was the best option to get out last round as he would not have been on my side. I was asked into an alliance consisting of Toby, Jake, Tate, Torsa, Jon and myself. This was not an alliance I was comfortable with as I didn't trust anyone besides Torsa. Together we flipped and took out Jon after we found out Tate had an idol he was playing. This is another example of how I adapted even with my busy personal life, as the Jon vote surfaced last minute and I had to get on the same page as everyone very quickly. The round after this was the only time I didn't know who was going, but it's the perfect example of how I positioned myself to almost never be taken out. Jared was a very close alliance to me but also a big threat, so when the tables finally turned on my alliance, the move was made against him and not me. This is when I really stepped up my game. Me and Torsa began frantically looking for the idol. Christine told Torsa the idol clue and Torsa told it to me, so I made an idol chart and we started guessing every 8 hours, on the dot. I eventually found it, giving me a huge advantage in the game!

 <span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-weight:400;white-space:pre-wrap;">After being on the outs of the last vote, Ally formed a 3 person alliance of me and Torsa since we were outsiders. I had started working on a plan to take out who I thought was the biggest threat, Toby. I had talked to Tate about it and was about to talk to Christine about it when Ally mentioned her reset idol plan. Immediately I went along with it because I knew it would make Ally a future target and not myself. However, Torsa showed some apprehension in voting out Toby because of their close relationship. I knew she could sway some people with her influence, so I convinced her it was in our best interest to vote out Toby, and that’s exactly what happened. I also was fortunate enough to win a clutch immunity during that round, the riskiest tribal of the whole game.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> <span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-weight:400;white-space:pre-wrap;">After this, me and Torsa wanted Christine and Tate to be loyal to us, so we decided to take out Aromal because Tate's been wanting him gone since the merge hit. This allowed us to scoop up their votes during the Ally vote, who was the biggest threat to win the game. The Jake vote was the vote where I had 100% complete control. Out of everyone left, I had the worst relationship with Jake and I didn't trust him as far as I could throw him. I systematically approached Christine and Tate and convinced them Jake was a huge jury threat, and had each of them on board very quickly. I then convinced Torsa it was the best move to boot Jake and got her to secure Asa’s vote. And just as an added sense of security, I played my idol on myself to ensure Jake would be the one leaving. This is just one example of how I stood by myself and made my own moves, as my main ally Torsa wanted Asa gone but I knew Jake going was the best move for me. This was also the same round I made a final 3 chat with Christine and Torsa, to ensure that me and Torsa couldn't be voted out the next round.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> <span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-weight:400;white-space:pre-wrap;">The following round, Asa won immunity so we had to go for our backup plan which was Tate. I definitely didn't want Tate anywhere near the FTC and when I heard he was trying to vote me out, it made the decision for me. The next round the plan was to take out Asa until she won final immunity. This is another instance of how my "align with strong players so they get taken out before me" strategy pays off. Immediately Asa and Christine targeted Torsa, guaranteeing me my spot in the f3. I voted with my alliance since Day 6 of this game, but she was taken out in the tiebreaker. I then was able to pull out a HUGE win for the advantage and take out a juror I know wasn't voting for my ass.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> <span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-weight:400;white-space:pre-wrap;">All in all, I think I played a great under the radar game and should be crowned Sole Survivor. I was the last person to have a vote cast against them. I always made sure that if the vote wasn't going my way, the person going home wasn't me. I won two of the most important individual challenges this whole season, the reset idol tribal and the remove a juror advantage. I made moves when I needed to, such as taking out Rhys, taking out Jake, and forming the alliance of myself, Torsa and Christine at final 6 to protect myself. Despite not being the best socially, I made allies that were able to pull strings for my benefit and when the time came for people to look for big threats to take out, they were looking at THEM and not me! The people that made the big, flashy moves were taken out right away so I had to play lowkey to get this far. I always thought about myself in this game and all of my decisions have brought my here, to the final tribal council. Thank you guys for reading and I look forward to answering your questions. <span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-weight:400;white-space:pre-wrap;"> <ac_metadata title="Vote for Joey!"> </ac_metadata>