Board Thread:Season 38 - The Ganges/@comment-28870548-20170207101242/@comment-30203302-20170207164211

Hey Ryan,

1. Yes it was really slimey and I admit to playing a very deceptive game. However, I don't think I was ever the person to initiate the conversation about taking someone to final 2. It was always a mutual agreement or the other person asked me. Nevertheless, I had the opportunity to decline these final 2 offers but I decided against it. I decided to accept all final 2 offers this game because the game had panned out to be really 2-sided. In a 2-sided game, if anyone flips from your side, it usually means that your entire side/alliance is getting wiped out. I had to do what I thought would be best for my game which was to accept the final 2 offers that I got so that nobody felt like they were at the bottom of my alliance and therefore, would not flip.

2.  I guess I should clarify about why I took Miguel over you. I knew that I had made some big moves in this game and I also knew that I was going to be facing a perhaps bitter jury for it. Given the information that I had, despite the fact that you had voted in minority, you were able to form genuine social bonds with people in the jury and you were definitely not a goat in any way which meant that you were going to be very difficult to beat in jury considering that I would be facing a bitter jury (and please, I use the term bitter jury not in a negative way. I think that there's often a negative connotation associated with being bitter but I just want to clarify that I don't mean it in a negative light).

You were the only person that told Ronel they were going home and you were also the only person to not vote for him. When Jo was voted out, he had said in the main chat something along the lines of "slay them all Ryan." In addition to that, you worked with Cat and Felicia since Day 1 and I believed that Dean would vote for you as well because of how close you were at merge. What I meant by you having a stronger social game was perhaps misworded properly - I meant that you were more "rootable" in the sense that the jury would probably have had a higher chance of voting for you than Miguel. Strategically, I think your's was probably worse than Miguel's but at that point, I didn't think the jury was going to be looking at that as closely as your social game.

On the other hand, I knew that Miguel had played a strong game. He had 0 votes on him and we had voted together the entire game until F4. However, Miguel also had to lie just like me and piss off jurors. For example, he lied to you at Final 7 as well and he unnecessarily lied to you at Final 5; I felt that I could differentiate my gameplay from Miguel's and prove that many of his moves were influenced by me however and that he had lied unnecessarily in some cases.

I do want to say that I think there's a double standard being applied here. Everyone is focusing on how I lied to people, but Miguel did the exact same. I think that I'm being punished for forming closer social connections with people which ultimately makes my backstabbing more raw even though technically both Miguel and I backstabbed the same people. I was a more social player and I formed more personal connections with the jurors; at least in my case, I talked a lot with Miguel and I love him to death but I really do not know much about him as a person whereas I feel like a large portion of the jury would be able to tell you who I am. I don't know what I would have done differently because I enjoyed meeting everyone in this game and I think that these connections helped me stay safe, but at the same time, I didn't mean to hurt anyone.

 3. Any regrets? Yes, if I had to redo it, I would either have not formed such a close personal connection with Blake in the first place or I would have told him that he was getting voted out. I regret hurting him and it was not my intention. I still feel really bad about voting him which I'm trying to make evident.