Board Thread:Season 56 - Mongolia/@comment-33330384-20191229203252/@comment-43356541-20191229212626

Hi Tal 💙

Like I told Kyle, I can definitely see how finding idols can be seen as an easy way out by some people, but I don’t agree with you when you say that ALL my strategy was based on that, because it definitely wasn’t!

Idols were for sure a huge part of the game because 4 were distributed right at the beginning, so I had to work around them. That meant splitting votes AND making sure no one else got the merge idol before myself or Logan did.

But they were NOT the only thing that kept me alive in this game: I know it’s frustrating to see someone get all the idols and steamroll, but I think my game was much more than that, which brings me to the second part of your question: me ‘hiding’ behind Logan.
 * Even after playing my idol at F9, had I not sent a stray vote for Jacob, all the votes would have been negated and on a revote perhaps Logan would have been voted out.
 * At F8 and F6, I didn’t use an idol and neither did Logan, we were able to create solid alliances that made the vote go our way, building trust and relationships with other people that wanted to work with us.
 * Like I told Kyle, even if you have an idol, you need to have awareness and know what’s going on around you in order to play it correctly: this was definitely a huge part of my game because Logan and I never won immunity, so it was important to understand how the votes would fall because neither of us was safe, so the other couldn’t just blindly play the idol and call it a day.

At F9, Logan and I were pretty even in our threat level, that only started to change at F8, because Ruth went off in her exit speech saying I was ‘Logan’s servant’.

I’m guessing that was because I would always talk to people and make them feel like I could swing and play both sides so they wouldn’t find an alliance somewhere else, so maybe they thought I was following a plan when Logan and I would always discuss the plans on a pretty equal level.

I knew this wasn’t good for me on a jury level, but with a lot more game to played (it was F8/F7) I had to be smart: you can’t just always vote the biggest threat, because otherwise you may be seen as such and targeted.

I used my position and reputation in the game the best way I could.

I understand finding idols and using a shield strategy may not be everyone’s favorite gameplay, but it worked insanely well for me. And I’m very proud of the way I’ve played. ❤️