Board Thread:Season 45 - Molise/@comment-24830549-20180221045132

Hey!

First off, I just wanted to say thank you to the hosts for a great season: Nuno, Emma, Ethan, Joe, Alex, and Hunter. I don’t think I was the easiest player to deal with, and I’m sorry I didn’t submit confessionals all that often towards the end, I got super busy with school stuff.

I also wanted to thank the players for a great season, in particular the ones I actually got to meet. You guys made this fun and kept the game lively. I’d like to explain the decisions I made, elaborate on what I think are the highlights of my gameplay, and generally just tell you guys why I think I deserve to win.

Coming out here, my goal was a relatively modest one: I wanted to make it to the jury primarily, and once I got there, I was gonna play my heart out. As long as I didn’t overplay pre-merge like I had in some recent games, I would be fine, especially on small tribes like this season had. OG Pesante went to the first tribal of the season, and I wanted to keep the target off Jordan, because we had a secret alliance. I put the target on Hope who, besides being not that great at challenges, really had no flaws against her, so I essentially convinced Jerry and Trey to vote off someone who was not as big of a threat down the line as Jordan was. After that, I knew Jerry was in a deficit, but I hatched a plan: I would tell Trey that I had seen Jordan find the idol (I had searched the same square as him), and that when I confronted him about it, Jordan said he was gonna play it and vote out Trey. I hoped Trey would put his vote on me or Jerry, forcing either a 2-1-1 or a 3-1 with Jerry going home. The only hitch was my concern that Trey or Jerry might find the idol and I would be caught in a lie -- but then I found the idol, apparently 12 hours before Trey guessed the same square as me. I never had to use my plan, as we won our way to the swap, but I told Jordan about my idol to gain his trust further.

After the swap, I was finally united with Aaron and Jason, who I knew from the Fanon Wiki. That was a connection I used to my advantage throughout the rest of the pre-merge, along with a prior connection I had with Juliet. We eliminated Ant and technically voted off Izzy, though she was saved, and could’ve potentially sank my game, but fortunately people trusted me more than her. At the merge, it came down to two people I really liked: Harrison and Juliet. I had managed to get the target off Jason, who was getting targeted for throwing out a bunch of names. Jason was my primary ally, and though I wasn’t happy with the targets, I ultimately went with the majority to take out Juliet because she seemed like she had many more connections than people realized. At the next round, Jordan and I hatched a plan to get Jerry and Eli on board to vote Nat off. We hoped four votes would be enough, with it being 4-4-2 or 4-3-3. Unfortunately, Eli didn’t think four was enough and told Trey, who leaked the plan to Nat, causing the idol play. I also played my idol correctly, unfortunately sending Aaron home. I believe that voting off Aaron, a non-threat who didn’t talk to anyone at all, was a bad plan, but my allies did it, and I had to accept it. At nine, I spent two days trying to convince Jason to vote with us and get rid of Trey or Harrison, who we considered a bigger threat and less trustworthy, respectively. I tried every plea: logical, emotional, and social, but Jason ultimately stuck with his alliance because he didn’t want to make people mad. This prompted my angry confessional that got leaked. At the final eight IC, I came home an hour before the challenge deadline and put everything on the line: idol guess opportunities, private confessionals and VLs, and votes. It paid off. I consider this to actually be one of the highlights of my game, because I risked it all in order to win Immunity, and it paid off in the best possible way: me calling Declan, Jason, and Harrison sheep of Nat helped show people that they needed to vote her out and kept Eli and Jordan alive for another day. Unfortunately, however, Jason and Trey did not stay on our side for long, and Eli went home at the next Tribal. At F6, I think I confused a lot of people when I voted to keep Jordan in, and I’d like to explain that decision. Jordan, though he was a major jury threat, was ultimately an ally of mine, and a vote that I needed. Jason and Trey had essentially told me that if Jordan went home I was the next to go, so I needed to do something to keep myself in. Fortunately, Harrison and Declan voted against Trey at last, and we blindsided him.

F5 was a low point for me in the game. Obviously I got a strike, and that’s not something I’m proud of. But I thought the deadline for the vote was 8 and I was also dealing with a middle school play that was literally coming apart at the seams, so my vote was the last thing on my mind. To be clear, I was going to vote Jordan off that round. I thought by that point I had a clear path to the final 3, and I actually had my Jordan vote written out, ready to send, but I was apparently too late. At final four, I voted Jason because I knew it was either him or me. I would’ve loved to go to the end with you, Jason, but it just didn’t work out that way.

Now onto the moves I’m most proud of. Going in order of when they occurred, I think one that obviously sticks out is the idol play. I literally played that thing on a whim with Jason recommending I don’t and Jordan recommending I play it on him. I think I played it about 18 minutes before votes were due, actually, and I sent my Nat vote directly after. If I had listened to my fellow players, it would’ve been a 3-3-1 vote, Aaron and I would’ve tied, and I sincerely believe I would’ve gone home. Fortunately that didn’t happen, and I saved myself from elimination with an idol in my pocket. The next decision I’m proud of is the decision to leak two confessionals to the main chat. I hoped primarily that I would win Immunity but also that my insane deranged rant where I called out half the people remaining in the game would pay off, and it did in a sense. We managed to pull off the vote to get rid of Nat, and I’m not gonna say that was entirely because of my confessional or even that it was mostly because of my confessional, but I definitely think it played a greater role than people realize, and that was my intention. The last decision that I’m proud of is the decision to keep Jordan around another round, a player who had proven his challenge prowess and would’ve probably beaten me in a Jury vote. I was putting him within two rounds of FTC. However, it made more sense for my game to keep him in. I’d rather take a risk and be a losing finalist than make the easy vote and play the vote-out-the-biggest-threat game that you guys loved to play this season and end up taking fifth.

Sorry if this is nonsensical and overly long, I’m trying to juggle this and a chem lab report that got thrown at me today. I’m gonna be away starting Thursday and ending Saturday but I’ll certainly try to answer your questions in a timely manner (though it would be awesome if you could get them up sooner rather than later so I can write answers!). I won’t have access to a computer much, if at all, so I’m gonna probably end up doing some video/voice answers, some answers from my phone… It should be interesting.

Thanks again for an amazing season, I really enjoyed my Main debut! Hit me with your best shot! 