Board Thread:Season 49 - Newfoundland/@comment-32410633-20181017210615/@comment-35919983-20181018164656

Elsa my girrrrlll <3 so good to hear from you.

1.    I feel like I played a pretty decent role in getting Alex to flip. Was I the sole reason he flipped? Of course not. Alex was concerned around F7 that, despite his strong alliance with Matt and Vilma, that he would be perceived as a goat if he were taken to the end. Alex’s paranoia about being a goat at FTC was one of the main reasons he flipped, but I believed I added fuel to the fire and increased his paranoia about the were situation, which would ultimately get him to flip. I remember after you voted out my plan was to basically throw Matt and Vilma under the bus (sorry guys!). I remember dropping subtle hints that indicated I thought Matt was running the game, such as me saying to Alex that Matt had annoyed me when he pretended that he didn’t know you were going to be voted be on the revote despite him being the one to “beautifully split the votes on us”. As well as this, I was playing up how big a threat Vilma was by saying things such as “honestly everyone is pissing me off except you and Vilma”, which subtly allowed me to emphasise how likable she was and would be tough to win against. I also did other little subtle things such as speculating heavily that Vilma had the idol and using the information that Matt didn’t tell Alex about his extra vote until pretty soon before the F8 to emphasise he was a bad alliance to have.

And yes, I do believe my relationship with Alex was probably the most significant factor in getting Alex to flip. As I previously mentioned, at the beginning of the merge my objective was to reconnect with individuals I had bonded with initially during the Anarchy stage of the game, and Alex was one of them. I believe that the relationship and trust I established with Alex before F7 was probably the most important aspect of getting him to flip because if the relationship between us had been non-existent  before the F7, Alex would have never trusted me (and even liked me) enough to flip.

2.    Okay, so this is a great question – there are number of reasons I wanted to take out Edvin over Vilma. One of the biggest reasons was that I didn’t trust Edvin. As I mentioned in my opening speech, I had heard about multiple little white lies that Edvin had been telling people that were impacting my game. One specifically was that he was throwing Tom under the bus as the person who suggested taking out Matt at the F8, when in fact it was you. At this point, you were out of the game so I didn’t really care if you took the fall for that because you were already voted out, but I didn’t want anyone targetting Tom because of Edvin’s lies. At the stage in the game, it was essential for me and Tom to stick together in order to progress further in the game, so I didn’t want Tom to be taken out because that would have completely screwed my game. As well as this, during the F8 vote Edvin was completely unreceptive to my suggestion of voting out someone from his original tribe when I came to him telling him that his alliance was throwing his name out there. I felt as though Edvin was simply trying to use me to get out Vilma at F7, and then  he would be finished with me after the she was gone. As well as this, if I had voted out Vilma at F7, this means I would’ve been putting all my eggs in Rob’s and Edvin’s baskets. As I just said, I didn’t even trust Edvin and Rob wasn’t a logical player in this game, he was an emotional player, which wasn’t the type of person I wanted to have control of my faith in this game. I knew that by voting out Edvin over Vilma at the F7 I would be able to solidify my trust Alex. I knew that by keeping Vilma she wouldn’t feel obliged to vote with me at F6, but I knew Edvin and Rob wouldn’t either, therefore the main benefit of keeping her was gaining Alex’s trust. I knew that by voting out Edvin I would gain the trust of Alex and that he would stick with me the next round because I knew he wanted Matt gone for certain, which was more than I could say for Edvin and Rob. You suggested to hypothetical of Alex flipping back to Matt and Vilma at F6, but I was 99% sure that wasn’t going to happen because I knew that my interests of taking out Matt, along with Alex, aligned. Even if Matt had one immunity, I believe I would have been safe because Alex needed us.

3.    Alex and I are both going to try and claim credit for this vote because we’re both biased in our perception of how it was carried out. I personally believe I played a pretty big role in pulling off this move, without discrediting Alex. I was the first to bring up an idea of letting them split the votes on me and Tom 2-2-2 and then have Alex flip to get Mattout. I pushed hard for Matt intially, because Alex wanted Rob because it was around this time that Rob and Alex started having some spats with one another. Alex knew Rob was probably going to vote for him, whenever he got the chance. Despite this, Alex eventually came around to voting out Matt. As I mentioned in my opening speech, from the F7 onwards I had formed a good bond with Rob. As well all know, nobody could ever dictate Rob’s vote, but he would hint at who it was between. I approached him and he told me it was between Tom and Alex because they both had “attacked him”. From this, I was able to pretty much figure out that he was voting Tom because it was pretty obvious Rob wasn’t going to vote Alex – although Rob may claim to not play the game, he still does and I knew he would vote against Tom, somebody who was on a completely different starting tribe, instead of Alex, who he had been with from the start of the game. From this information, I was able to tell Alex to tell Matt and Vilma he’d vote Tom along with Rob, whilst they voted me, which would enable him to flip and save me with a 3-2-1 split.

4.    No, I voted Tom at F4 because I knew it was my only chance of survival. I could’ve tried to pull a 2-1-1 with Tom to try and get Rob out but 1) I knew Tom was already voting me so the 2-1-1 was out the window and 2) having to vote out Tom for me wasn’t the end of the world because I believed that he was a bigger jury threat than Rob. Alex and Rob claim they kept me because they felt I was more deserving and they liked me more to Rob, which, if true is a credit to my social game, but I know that’s a load of shit. Rob and Alex only kept me because they thought Tom was a bigger threat than me, which I don’t neccesarily agree with, but you could say that just shows how well my intial under-the-radar strategy worked.