Hi guys, so after reading most of your speeches (as of right now Emily and Aras are yet to post) I wanted to come back with a few (alot) more points as to why my game deserves your vote while there's still quite a bit of time left, and why I think I deserve some more credit. I’ll be getting to your individual responses ASAP aswell. 

 I’m going to pull a highly relevant quote from David’s video that will be the crux of my argument:

“You exhibited more strategy in the pre-merge alone than a lot of people did the entire game”

 

Now typically in a vanilla season, unless someone had some kind of extravagant pre-merge game, it’s not overly relevant to a player’s endgame argument. However, Chaos’s pre-merge featured 10 different tribes and five different swaps, and was arguably the most dynamic and game heavy period this season (let’s be real, post-merge was a systematic pagonging followed by a culling of targets, which I had a lot to do with, but we’ll get to that later). Therefore, performance in Chaos’s premerge simply cannot be disregarded because it required the most adaptation, a trait I exhibited to its full extent.

I was certainly extremely active and strategically involved during this period - I had to play hard and adapt like hell to survive:

·        1. I was thrown out as a target in the very first vote, a situation I mitigated against by establishing a split on Whitney to minimise the risk of getting idol’d out

·      2. I was integral in establishing a 6-person majority alliance which controlled a large portion of the pre-merge, and I had side allies such as Bradley, Alex, Gabe and Christina as well. This ensures that, for the most part in the swaps, I would have a majority and people looking out for me and vica versa 

·      3. I pulled off the first blindside of the season on Matthias alongside Alex. These two guys were on a starting tribe together so by all logic they could’ve just cut my throat when we lost, but I capitalised on their conflict over the challenge and further pushed them away from eachother, removing the target from myself.

·      4. Correctly identified that Aras had played the idol on Kyle, by investigating previous tribes he was on, the colour of the idol used and because he had revealed to me a few days prior that he had the idol. This confirmed in my mind that Aras was playing the middle and adapted my interactions with him accordingly

·      5. Had influence in Matt’s elimination when my allies were tossing up whether or not to vote out Matt or Gabe (David can corroborate this, I remember saying I felt like I had to make a presidential campaign speech as to why keeping him in was a terrible idea)

·      6. HEAVILY swapfucked and subsequently the target of multiple challenge throws, a situation I adapted to by winning immunity twice in a row when it mattered most

·      7. Gained two amazing allies in Emily and Mikey who almost went to rocks for me after having barely spoken before being put on a tribe together (another example of adaptation and social game), Emily would go on to be a long-term ally in the game for me.

·      8. Minimised the label of “challenge beast” repeatedly echoed in the tribe chat (which I never understood and didn’t think I earned, but it was undeniably there) by stepping back in pre-merge challenges. 

Now, in Alex’s speech, he stated

“ I think you're literally the only person who viewed yourself as a [premerge] threat, no one was scared of you, Ewa targeted you because they knew you were close to David and Co., no one has ever called you a threat because it would be l i e s.

and

“ok i'm convinced I blacked out for like a portion of this game where you were being painted as a huge threat to everyone literally,”

During the pre-merge period, I was thrust into the stratosphere of potential targets, not by my own doing, by both Jake Womack and Matthias, and this was exacerbated by two mistakes of mine which I had to recover from and adapt to: the screenshot incident and public arguments with Eve and Kyle. These shouldn’t have happened, but I worked through and adapted to the consequences, which were the label of a cheater, a self-vote (which I managed to avoid having to use until the merge) and an entire alliance pissed off at me. The fact that I made it through DESPITE these circumstances should be taken into consideration.

I will concede that “threat” was perhaps the wrong wording, I’m not trying to rewrite history by saying I was literally the SANDRA DIAZ TWINE OF SURVIVOR CHAOS, people weren’t #SCARED of me but when you are the ONLY person name dropped by Matthias as a member of the “comp beast alliance” and are at the centre of a screenshot scandal which makes an entire alliance want your head on a platter, I think I did have a target on my back which I successfully manoeuvred away from. There is a difference between a threat and a target, and when someone is a potential target / exposed out in the open NOT by their own doing initially, which is then made worse by two mistakes of their doing, then to be able to successfully make my way through the pre and post merge with that on my shoulders is equally as impressive as being seen as a threat. There was always someone ahead of me that I could push forward as an ideal target. 

Post merge; I knew exactly who was going home every single vote, save for the ambiguity of the f4. As David stated in his speech, I was always in the inner circle of the plans and benefitted from most tribal councils – always in the thick of things, strategizing and never one of the last people to find out about a plan. My social game left some things to be desired and I’m about to get into that now.

Another common thread in your speeches is my lacklustre social game, which I’m not going to deny is an issue, to an extent. Kyle, in your speech you said “You never made the effort to speak to certain people, myself included,” which isn’t necessarily true as we talked semi-frequently in the early to mid pre merge, it just went downhill after the screenshot scandal. The one person who I really have no excuse for not making more of an effort with is Wendy, who I was aligned with during most of the pre-merge, but after the Gabe vote off neither of us really approached each other – I would argue it goes both ways, but maybe more my fault.  An example of me working my social game is mending bridges with Nic, as Eve said in her speech:

 “You worked things out with Nic and he said he had respect for you for having a penalty vote just like him so we agreed with him to go for Jake instead”

It successfully removed the target from me at the merge vote when I was vulnerable with the self vote.

Another element of my survivor game, which I employed in my previous season, is to not form overly deep emotional connections with people to ensure that when you have to eventually fuck someone over, they not only don’t get as bitter, but it allows making cut throat strategic decisions easier, as they weigh less on your conscience.  The goal is that people won’t feel as extremely betrayed by you to the extent that they would to a daily confidante, but I realise that didn’t really work this season because I’m not overly adored by you guys.

Also, obviously just because you don’t want to make deep connections doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be un-proactive with general conversations as well, which was a pitfall of mine that I acknowledge. I don’t think it should mean I don’t deserve your vote though: just because my social game could be improved doesn’t mean I wasn’t trying my absolute hardest in the other aspects of the game.

I’ve had to fight the hardest out of the two guys next to me throughout the whole game. I barely made the merge. At the merge, I had a self vote – as I’ll quote from Eve, “you successfully avoided becoming a target post-merge when you still had a penalty vote and could easily end up being a target”. At f7, there were 3-4 people who were larger jury threats than me or I believe had more impressive games than my own, who needed to leave in succession. I made that happen, except for Luca’s immunity run. I was happy to hear David say that “multiple juror's [said] that Eli dominated the game especially from f6 onward” because it’s true. I was in a final 3 alliance with Emily and Jake and a final four alliance with Aras, Luca and Alex.  But honestly, out of all the variables, I feel like if any of the jury threats had to make the end, I would rather it be Luca – I feel like I have a solid case to make as to why my gameplay was more proactive and better than his, and I consider him a friend outside of the game and will be happy for him if he does win. I do however think I am equally, if not more deserving of the title and would love you to reconsider your votes as I continue answering questions.