Board Thread:Season 18 - Heroes vs. Villains/@comment-4723941-20140819015143/@comment-5051226-20140819033452

SoleSurvivor wrote:

Lastly … Andrei <3

Andrei we were so tight all the way through this game. I completely understand your struggles because I was in the exact same boat. Your social game really kept you alive and your abilities as a challenge player really shone through this season. You did what I couldn’t do and for that I give you mad props :) However… The players around you throughout this game actively tried to further their games by making moves and influencing players and votes but I didn’t see that as much with you. Sure, you were right there with me hatching plans and supporting other people making waves but why does that prove to be an asset more than a weakness? Also, if you could summarise your game into one sentence for me that’d be great :)

Dan <3 Thank you for bringing up these concerns! As you pointed out, everyone did try and further themselves by pulling #BigMoves, and as you can see, most of these people are not sitting here right now, and as you said, some of these big moves were mistakes. One of the most valuable lessons that I have learnt from 3 seasons here, 3 years of watching Survivor and a bunch of other ORGs is this: you have to know when to make moves, and you have to know when to refrain from making moves. That is absolutely a strength I've acquired with experience.

Moreover, it's not like I don't have big moves on my résumé; after your elimination, I was able to convince Luke to play his idol on me, and then I convinced him to vote for Topher. Those are the only times I was really in danger of going home, thus the only times I needed to do convince someone else to avoid being voted out.

However, the very reason why these moves succeeded is that I spent so much time insisting on the value I added to Luke's game (and it was true: I had a realistic shot at beating Adam in Immunity challenges) that Luke started to rely on that, which was mostly useful to me. That's also how I survived the pre-merge: I insisted that I was doing great in challenges and had every intention to remain loyal to Yang (and in most scenarios, it did make the most sense for me), invested my time just having fun with people instead of talking too much strategy, which would've been a waste since they wouldn't listen to me anyways.

On top of being generally ineffective, trying to make waves just would've given people a reason to distrust me, and would've been inconsistent with my "I'm doing this for Yang" thinking. That's why I strategically distanced myself from scrambling, from cross-tribal alliances, and therefore, from Adam, once it became clear that he tried to use the information he got from me to turn Luke against me. And that proved to be very efficient: Luke and Natalie always warned me when Adam was bringing up my name, allowing me to stay ahead of the chaos he had in store for me.

With that in mind, this is how I would sum up my game in one sentence: "If it helps us, I will help you, provided it helps me more." It encompasses the 3 main components of my game: the search for a mutual need, insistance on my added value, and self-preservation.

I'm glad you can take some great things from your time here and it was amazing to have a chance to get to know you in this game <3 You left with a bang and I had a lot of fun scheming with you.