Board Thread:Season 18 - Heroes vs. Villains/@comment-10863763-20140819011104

This game has been the most difficult, exhausting road of any of my 3 times played. I had to literally claw my way to the end of this game, working my ass off every step of the way. I’m not going to sit here and tell you I was a social mastermind, or was the puppet master plotting everyone against them because that’s clearly not true. What I did do was use the skills I had to take my game day by day, and not look too far ahead. I’m going to try to persuade you guys to vote for by explaining my thought process throughout the game, from pre-merge to FTC.

I started out this game doing my best to help my tribe win challenges, yet lay low. I didn’t expect the Villains tribe to lose as much as we did, and that was rough in the early going. From day 1, we had an alliance of 5, Eddie, Uli, Aly, Alejandro, and myself. I wanted to keep the target off of my back, and Eddie really took the role of leader which was good. I began to establish relationships with Miguel, Jerby (whom I’ve known from hosting so we already were good friends), and Bartley. Uli was surprisingly my #1 ally starting this game off, as we both had played before and his target was larger than the size of a obese elephant. I also knew Eddie, and Alejandro’s reputations were just as large if not way bigger than mine, making them the pre-merge target over me. Joshie/Nokomis/Joan all were on the outside, making those votes simple, and I knew Jerby/Miguel were somewhat on the outside of our original alliance so I knew they’d be loyal to me as they weren’t in any majority alliance. As we went forward, we lost so much we had to make the decision to vote out all but 5 of our original tribe. Right now, I know my social game was going to get me safely to the merge with the trust of my original tribe. I was very close with Eddie, as well as the 3 other members of the Villains.

Now, the merge was rough starting off. I had spoken to Luke throughout the season, and he quickly approached me for an alliance. Right now our knowledge of the Heroes tribe was that Luke had flipped, to give Sam/Jess/Nat/Topher the majority over Andrei/Sole/Noah/Wes. So, I was going into the 7-5 deficit with hopes to possibly flip Dan/Andrei, but it was way too early for a big move, and it seemed as if the Villains were going to be pagonged. I remember Eddie messaging me to tell me I had to win or I was going home, so for the first two immunity challenges I worked my ass off, and won a reward in there as well. Jerby and Alejandro go home, leaving the deficit at 7-3. After the tribe-split twist we were amazingly blessed with, we voted out a big member of the Heroes majority, and did our best to make Sole look like he was an ass-Sole, sorry I thought that was funny. We wanted Sole to look like he screwed Jessy, hopefully helping the Heroes get pissed at him and him working with us. The next immunity challenge, my good buddy Andrei won. I did my best to stir up paranoia about a fake idol with Sam and Luke, but Eddie had already told them my idol was fake leaving this alliance to easily take me out with a 5-0 vote. Now, this is where my social ties to Sole/Eddie really came into play. Sole told Eddie the no-split plan, as well as telling me, and told Eddie to play the idol on me. Eddie asked me what I should do as he was leaning toward playing the idol, and I told him that even if he stuck with his Hero-allies such as Sam, he would be playing for 4th again as the Hero alliance would wipe us out. Eddie played the idol on me, and in my eyes the strongest player went home. Next vote, I win immunity and Eddie gets blindsided, something I had a feeling was coming but didn’t want to believe it. It sucked seeing Eddie go, but I had to keep going. I knew being down 5-2 was a blessing in disguise. Luke and I had talked everyday, with everyday me planting doubt in his head about Sole, as he was already weary of him. I lost immunity once again, and this vote was the biggest turning point of the season for me. I skyped with Luke and did my best to convince him and then Natalie that Sole was playing everyone, and eventually they agreed that it would be best to take out Sole. This was by far my biggest move the game, as it was the ONLY post-merge vote I wasn’t safe with either Immunity or an Idol, and I think that’s saying something. Getting the Heroes to flip on Dan was the jolt I needed to get to the end of this game.

Winning at F6 ensured my safety, and my last ally went home in Miguel. There’s something about not having anyone you can 100% trust in this game that really sucks, but I knew I was way too close to fuck this up for myself. I worked my ass off for 3 hours on the final five immunity and got my ass kicked. I somehow, someway found the idol. I wanted Andrei out, so at F4 my immunity chances would skyrocket. So I told Topher I had the idol, and that they were splitting between myself and him, so if he voted Andrei, Luke probably wouldn’t want to go to rocks and Andrei would go. However, he flipped back and went home. F4, it was win or go home. I knew the two endurance competitions would be all I needed for enough points to win, and I went to the extent of buying wi-fi on my plane to Chicago to keep going with the hourly posting. I know, I’m a dork. Now, I also struck a deal with Luke mid-air to have him throw the endurance keeping me 100% safe as I knew he was the only one with a chance to beat me in endurance. I promised I wouldn’t vote for him, however that quickly changed. Natalie asked Luke to vote him out, and I just couldn’t do that. I thought the easy vote would be Andrei as I had made my deal with Luke, and Natalie was less of a threat at FTC. But I think Luke realized that he’d get another jury vote with Natalie, and he swore he knew he was getting third, so Natalie went home last. However, I wanted to make sure Luke didn’t leave this game without a single vote, so I happily threw one his way.

Did I mastermind every vote? No. I couldn’t. I had worked my ass off pre-merge to give my tribe #’s, but instead went into the merge with a big target, and a bigger deficit. I went into the merge with the mindset of, “As long as it’s not me”. Fittingly it was Queen Sandra’s mindset, with my outlook to achieve the same thing she did. And the protecting myself mindset helped me stay safe for 7 of the 8 post-merge votes. I was only eligible to be voted out ONE TIME post merge, and that was when Dan went home. My social game allowed me to survive the F9 vote and have an idol played on me, and my physical game allowed me to win 5 immunity challenges, and I was the only person to use 2 idols to prevent them from going home twice this season. I didn’t have the numbers to keep myself safe, but I made sure to work hard enough to ensure that I didn’t need numbers to make the end. I was a target of the Heroes alliance the minute the merge started, and I overcame the odds to make my way out of a 7-3 deficit. I don’t think Luke, or Andrei can say they were targeted by the majority alliance for every second of the merge and lasted until the end. I was safe for 7 votes out of 8 in a game where the goal is to keep yourself safe. I altered my game 100% from the first two times I played, as this time it was purely who wanted it more, and I hope I proved I did. I truly put my all into this game, and I hope you respect my game enough to vote for me.

Also, I wrote so much because I wanted to show you guys everything. I didn’t want to sit up here and lie saying every move I made worked 100%, because that’d be bullshit. I failed a ton this game, and I moved on from my failures to succeed for the next vote. I look forward to answering your questions. Thanks so much guys and I had a blast this season. 