Board Thread:Season 37 - Archetypes/@comment-4600940-20161211214959

Vote for Brett!

Holy shit, hi y’all, this is so surreal to me that I'm sitting here! First I want to say thanks to the hosts for putting on an amazing season and putting in a ton of hard work. Second, I want to say thank you to the entire cast, everyone was playing HARD and it was no easy feat to make it to where I am sitting right now.

I want to begin this speech by letting you all know that I completely half assed my rights of passage and inserted some false statements and for that I am sorry. I did this because I wanted to downplay my relationships and decrease my threat level thus making Claire seem like a larger social threat. That being said, if any of you would like me to create a proper statement about you, just let me know in your speech.

I don’t want to ramble in this speech so I will try and keep it as short as I can so that you don't have to read a treacherous essay, but no promises haha. Below I have broken my game down into three phases, pre-merge, merge, and the end game. And I will finish with a "why you should vote for me" segment.

PRE-MERGE:

This was probably the least exciting part of my game so I will gloss over a few things. My entire plan for this phase was to do what I do best, charm people and make them feel comfortable around me both as a friend, and as an ally. Last time I played, I was way too aggressive in the early part of the game and because of that I ended up with a huge target on my back for a majority of the game. This time I was able to correct that mistake. On Makeinu I was apart of the majority alliance and made subtle moves to gain trust. An example of this was at Molly’s vote off, I volunteered my name to give to Molly and by doing so, I hoped to create this perception that I was someone who was a team player and could be trusted.

Things changed at the first swap, I was able to meet up with Jamie and Jared who were on the bottom of Hizoku, I quickly bonded with them and together we formed a tight alliance with Ally. On those days I never once got comfortable, I was always actively trying to better my position. There were talks of an old school alliance and I realized that there were definitely going to be two competing factions at the merge, the Ash/Matt side and the Jamie/Jared side. I made sure I made a tight bond with Berk, because I knew he would end up on the Ash side and I would be able to use him to get me in with the Ash side if they took majority at merge.

Then came the second swap, which is when the game really kicked into high gear. I met one of my closest friends/alliance members Sora. I immediately I knew he was the perfect person for me to work with as he was strategic and someone I bonded with personally. The way the swaps worked out, he had been able to meet players that I hadn't had a chance to meet yet. I knew he had a ton of connections and a lot of information about the dynamics of the game and I wanted in on that. Together we formed a tight partnership. Some of you may knock me for easily being willed into voting out my close alliance member Ally, but that was the best strategic move for me. The moment Jared threw out Ally’s name to Hunter and Ash I knew she needed to go. I knew that Sora/Jamie/Jared and myself needed to be going into that merge tight as fuck and if I resisted the Ally vote it just would have caused cracks to form, giving Hunter and Alexa more wiggle room/power (as well if Ally survived she would have found out her name was thrown out and flipped on us). I wanted a tight group going into the merge and for everyone to see me as a somewhat trustworthy person they could work with, and I believe I accomplished that.

MERGE: 

Come merge time I had a ton of options, for that first vote I was literally included in every single alliance chat but one, a testament to my social game. Sora and myself had an omniscient presence at that vote, and had complete control. This was around the time when I began to see how controlling Sora was becoming, so I just shut up and agreed with whatever he said. I did this so I could continue to gather more information from him while having a huge meat shield in front of me. I agreed to vote Charley that vote because we never had a relationship and as well it would weaken Hunter and Alexa.

Then came the second vote, it was clear that it was shaping up to be Chris vs Sora/Myself. I also began to notice that people seemed to be pairing Sora and myself together, which was not good for my game. This was probably one of the biggest moves I made in the game as I was the one who got the ball rolling on the eventual Sora blindside. I went to Alexa and I revealed what I saw was going on, she had seen this as well and her and I immediately bonded over this new found trust and realization. We talked to fellow people such as Hunter and Ash (both of who I assume were already aware) and us four formed the “brainless goats” alliance to take out the big threats. This alliance was crucial for me because I showed those three that I could be trusted with information and was not just Sora’s lackey. Together we almost blindsided Jamie, but Hunter had sent his vote in early so we stuck with voting Emile to weaken Chris and prove our loyalty to Sora.

The third vote was definitely a hard vote for me because Sora and I were super tight, but it had to be done he was blatantly running the game and everyone was too scared to make a move against him. Chris was obviously in need of allies and he knew what was up, the brainless goats didn’t need to manipulate him into voting Sora and together we pulled off the biggest blindside of the game. This move was a turning point in the game as a lot of people became free to talk game without the fear of it getting back to Sora. Suddenly Jamie/Jared/Claire were talking game to me again because I was no longer viewed as Soras bitch.

Luckily at the F8 I had my tribal council skipper and I took the opportunity to use it because who would really turn down a free safety pass? Yes I was leaving my alliance out to dry, but I definitely sensed that I could be a potential vote off because Jamie now knew I was after her. Sadly Ash suffered from me skipping.

END GAME:

Not going to lie my game almost completely fell apart after I used my tribal skip. I took a day or two off from the game and it completely fucked with my psyche, my head just wasn’t in the game and I wasn’t thinking strategically. I listened to Alexa about pitting Jamie and Chris against each other but had no facts to back it up and it was a mess. After that mistake (probably my only real mistake in the game) I got my head back in the game and began trying to strategize my way out of the bottom. Luckily I had decent bonds still with Jamie and Jared because I had told them the truth about what I had been doing and I believe they spared me over Hunter at this vote because I could still potentially be worked with.

Now it was the final 6 and this was where I made my second huge move. I did not feel comfortable at all, Claire was telling Alexa and myself how she wanted to make a move and take out Jamie. I did not trust Claire as she had already lied to me twice, and Chris was being shifty all day, I wasn’t going to let them decide my fate in this game. I took matters into my own hands and spilled the plan to Jamie and Jared (who both already knew because of Chris) and by doing so I proved my loyalty to them and flipped the game against Chris. This was a crucial point in my game as I was part of the reason for the second time that one of the biggest players in the game was voted out (Chris). During the revote phase Jamie almost flipped on me but I provided her with constant reassurance that we were solid with our F3 with Jared. It worked and I was able to place myself in the swing vote position at F5.

<p style="margin-top:10px;margin-bottom:0px;white-space:pre-wrap;color:rgb(29,33,41);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;font-weight:normal;line-height:17.94px;">It was around this time I saw that Jamie and Jared were probably not really liked by much of the jury, I won’t necessarily call them goats because they were playing the game, but they were definitely people I felt like I could win against in the end because they had a lot of bad blood. I capitalized on my relationship with them and turned on Alexa/Claire. Voting out Alexa was super hard because we had a great strategic partnership going on, but I knew if I were to vote Jamie out I would be a big target at final four and would solely have to rely on immunity to get myself to F3 as Claire and Alexa would not have taken me to the end. As well, by voting Alexa out I removed a huge threat (Alexa had a great story if she made FTC) and placed someone who would go back to ponderosa and further taint the jury’s perception of Jamie/Jared. The final immunity challenge came and I lost like I suspected I would (I was busy with exam finals). Luckily I had planned for this situation and I had already painted this picture that Claire was going to be a huge jury threat because of her social game. As well I had a good enough relationship with Jamie and Jared that they decided to spare me and honor our final 3 deal; so that is how I ended up sitting here.

<p style="margin-top:10px;margin-bottom:0px;white-space:pre-wrap;color:rgb(29,33,41);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;font-weight:normal;line-height:17.94px;">WHY YOU SHOULD VOTE ME:

<p style="margin-top:10px;margin-bottom:0px;white-space:pre-wrap;color:rgb(29,33,41);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;font-weight:normal;line-height:17.94px;">I'm not going to sit here and shit on Jared and Jamie's games, but I will say that I believe I played exponentially better than the both of them. You should vote for me because I played a cutthroat strategic game while creating genuine social bonds with each and every one of you. I rarely lied or played maliciously, everything I did was with strategic purpose. I came into this game with zero clue about what kind of pregame connections everyone had so I really had to gather information and bide my time before making #cierabigmovez. I feel like I was able to socialize with you all and make you feel comfortable around me, and because of that I was able to gather the wealth of information I needed to succeed. At one point or another I worked with all of you in this game, I always had my options open and was able to fluidly move from alliance to alliance without losing too much trust. I also voted correctly for the person who went home at every single tribal council I attended except for one, which is pretty impressive considering how much of a cluster fuck this merge was. I was never blindsided by any vote, I always had my finger on the pulse of this game. I was always thinking two steps ahead and figuring out where I fit within the dynamics of the tribe and positioning myself accordingly. If someone was a threat or didn't have the same interests as me, I smiled and agreed with them and immediately went and found other people who wanted to do the same things as me. I never was manipulated into making moves I didn't want to make; I was always somewhat in control of my own fate. I genuinely enjoyed playing with all of you and I hope you see that I really have played a great game and you honour that by writing my name down on your parchment.

<p style="margin-top:10px;margin-bottom:0px;white-space:pre-wrap;color:rgb(29,33,41);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;font-weight:normal;line-height:17.94px;">Thank you for your time guys

<p style="margin-top:10px;margin-bottom:0px;white-space:pre-wrap;color:rgb(29,33,41);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;font-weight:normal;line-height:17.94px;">Brett out <span class="_5mfr _47e3" style="line-height:0;vertical-align:middle;margin-right:1px;margin-left:1px;"><span class="_7oe" style="display:inline-block;font-size:0px;width:0px;">✌  <ac_metadata title="Vote for Brett!"> </ac_metadata>