Board Thread:Season 18 - Heroes vs. Villains/@comment-5051226-20140818233515

Well hello everybody! It’s a pleasure to be on this side for once! This wouldn’t have been such a fun season without such a solid cast, so thanks to every single player for contributing to it in their own way, it’s been a pleasure to play with you, whether I got along with you or not! I also wanna take a second to thank the hosts for not giving up on this season despite all the criticism, because I did have a lot of fun despite all my complaining, and I’m sure everyone except Uli felt the same way.

As far as my game goes, my line of thinking has been pretty obvious: I always wanted the most deserving Yang member to win, and I did everything I could to be that player. I gave my all in team challenges, always aligned my benefit to that of my allies, and when my insight was not heard, I did not let it defeat me and took a step back to look at the bigger picture.

In order to illustrate that mentality, let me take you through a couple events that took place throughout the game. When the majority of Yang refused to vote out Topher—some because they valued his alleged loyalty, some because they were afraid to upset members of the majority—, I was frustrated at first because it hindered our challenge performance, but I always tried to understand where the majority was coming from. When I did not understand their motives, my reaction was to bust my ass in challenges to make sure I made the merge, and I knew in that situation, the decision to keep Topher would not bite me back in the ass; it would affect the leaders of the majority by putting a big target on their back.

I came up with a plan to split the votes the rounds Sam and Dan left, and both were rejected for different reasons; Sam did not feel comfortable splitting the votes knowing she was the target, and then Luke, Natalie and Topher got tricked by Adam showing them old receipts of Dan lying through his teeth to him, so they decided that Dan was more of a threat than Adam… who has not been vulnerable ever since. Losing Sam and Dan made the game harder for me, but in the end, it was only game-breaking for Natalie and Topher, possibly even for Luke, who was responsible for this decision, and failed to back up his move by taking Adam out later. It’s now up to you guys to assess if he deserves to beat Adam after this.

In order to win this game, I have to prove that I can beat Adam without Luke, while Luke could not beat Adam without me. That task is going to be complex, because it turns out that Adam and I achieved similar things throughout this game.

• We have both been underdogs and members of the majority and some point. • We both won 12 challenges this season; • 10 votes were cast against each of us; • We were both saved by Idols owned by other people; • Our presence is significantly due to twists that favoured us (the Final 6 Reward benefitted me, the random free Idol Clue at F5 benefitted him, the twist surrounding Jessy’s elimination benefitted us both for different reasons; it prevented me from having to vote Jessy out or risking her to get me out later on, but it had the detriment of making my alliance lose a very loyal number; it had no detriment for Adam whatsoever) • We never really had to blindside an ally or a friend to move forward. • Adam and I both have a way of telling people the truth, but not the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and when we do tell straight-up lies, there’s almost always an element of truth behind them. What’s going to distinguish us is exactly how much of the truth we told or distorted to get ahead, and I am absolutely ready to be quizzed about it.

If you look at this Final 3, Luke is the last member of Yang’s pre-merge majority, Adam is the last member of Yin’s pre-merge majority, and I’m the last member of Yang’s pre-merge minority. After Sam left, Adam was the most rootable underdog, Luke was the apparent leader of the majority, but I was the last obstacle that threatened Adam’s game. That means I was in a precarious position the entire game and overcame that, which neither of Luke and Adam can claim. And the beauty of this game is: they can argue that they were able to secure a safe position in the first place, and it’s totally respectable. My rebuttal is I played a harder game with fewer resources than the people sitting next to me, and I hope that will come into play.

Throughout this speech, I’ve made a conscious effort to refer to the Yang and Yin tribes, and that’s because I don’t see myself as a Hero or a Villain; I have too much of a cutthroat instinct and a loud mouth to be a Hero, and I ultimately care too much about being true to who I am and being successful with the people I’m closest with to be a Villain. The theme of this season was the harmony between the Yin and the Yang, and I definitely embody that.

TL;DR: My job as a finalist is to give every single one of you a reason to vote for me; I have challenge wins, specific strategic moves, long-term strategic positioning, a genuine social game, heroic and villainous attributes to match the Heroes/Villains theme, no game-breaking move, and, since this is an All-Star edition, a solid multi-season résumé. I can proudly and legitimately claim that my game makes me worthy of joining Adam and Luke in the Winners’ Circle.

Thanks a lot for reading my long-ass speech! I am excited to answer your questions and fight this ultimate battle with Luke and Adam, and I will give it my all to win it. 