Board Thread:Season 25 - Rome/@comment-4379763-20150406231013

Tom Westman said at the HvV reunion, in order to win you need to be a third strategic, a third social and a third of it needs to be luck. I feel like I followed that formula to a T and that's why I'm sitting here tonight.

I began on Caracalla & quickly formed an alliance with Brittany. She was my host in my first ever ORG, so we had already built a friendship with each other. I also formed an alliance of three with Ethan & Grace (a pair of which I was a third wheel too). From there, the alliance branched out with the 3 of us (Ethan, Grace & myself) aligned with Josh, Brittany, Cameron and Minke, with the 3 of us being the core of it all.

The first target was Ricky and I didn't want to vote him out because I knew he was a strong competitor. Ethan, Grace and I had been talking and we wanted to take out Tyler B. instead but we didn't have the numbers supposedly to save him. I made it a point to form a relationship with Ricky anyway because I didn't want him to come after me if he actually survived that first tribal. Ricky was voted out and that tribal, I voted with him from Cameron. Then it was revealed that Redemption Colosseum was in play and I knew at that point, I made the right choice voting with him.

While on RC, Ricky won all of the duels and sent clues to Brittany. She gave the clues to me and I made a list that matched the clues. Eventually, I found the Caracalla idol, just in time, because we had a tribe swap. The new Titus consisted of: myself, Brittany, Ricky (who had just returned from RC), Jamie, Ivan, Koror, Hanne, Cameron & Josh. Pretty much from the start I wanted Jamie gone.

Before we had officially talked, I was looking in the comments on the Rome season page and the DanielABC guy?(idk for sure) was arguing with Jamie because she had called Ethan a challenge whore. Jamie then said Ethan was known on YouTube ORGs for being good at challenges. Also in our alliance chat, Josh wanted to add a Favorite (Jamie) to our alliance. I was confused as to why we would do that because we had a 5-3 majority over the Favorites and Josh said because we may need to get information with them. Because of that & the info that Hanne gave me about Jamie organizing Tyler F.'s blindside, I knew Jamie needed to go.

While this was happening, I began to talk to all 3 Favorites (Hanne, Jamie & Ivan) to form some type of relationship with each of them. Then, the alliance of myself, Brittany and Ricky was formed as well, meaning during the tribe swap, I was protected by the all Fans alliance and the alliance of 3 that I was in with Ricky and Brittany. Ricky also told me and Brittany he had an idol as well which meant I was in an alliance with 2 idols and two players who were super loyal to me

Hanne was the first to go when we eliminated a Favorite. I thought the Fans would stick together and just fight it out but I was surprised when Minke went the next tribal. I knew at that point it was no longer Fans strong and I needed to do whatever I had to do to survive to the next point. During this time, another alliance of three was formed between myself, Ivan and Brittany, to further make sure I was safe just in case we went to tribal. Cameron & Koror were pegged as the weakest links the next tribals we went to and were voted out, plus Josh didn't trust Koror and had majority on his side and then we merged & Topaz returned from RC.

Topaz was bitter against the alliance of Grace, Ethan, Sora and Nuno who had gotten him out during premerge and was all for coming over to our side, which consisted of myself, Ricky, Brittany, Ivan & Topaz. In the swapped Titus chat, we agreed to stay Titus strong and take out the biggest Caracalla threat, Ethan, but apparently Jamie had other plans. We talked the day before tribal and Jamie said the vote was between Brittany & Ethan.

Of course, I told my alliance that. After being extremely paranoid the entire time voted started, I finally voiced my concerns to Ricky and Brittany and convinced them that we should play our idols, not to just to keep ourselves safe, but at this point, it was blatantly obvious, we were a trio.

Jamie played her idol on Ethan, I played my idol on myself and Ricky played his idol on Brittany. Jamie was voted out, we evened up the numbers between the alliances and all of the idols were out of play(except for the one Topaz potentially had, but he was in my alliance so it was on my side), so no one would get surprised by an idol, for now, which also solidified a F3 deal with Brittany & Ricky.

I won the next immunity challenge after going to a tiebreaker with Grace and both of our alliances went to rocks and Sora was eliminated, leaving my side with 5-4 in terms of numbers. Nuno followed in the next vote and then we were dropped down to 8 people left. I used this opportunity to solidify another finals deal with Ivan. I knew that if the alliance of 3 was broken, I would need to go somewhere else in order to avoid going home, especially when I didn't win immunity and had no idol if I was to be a potential target.

We had an auction where my alliance had gotten very good items. I won the ability to give a disadvantage & the orb of negation(it cancels out 2 votes against you), Topaz won a double vote, Ricky won the mask of restrict & Brittany won clues to a re-hidden idol, which she shared with myself and Ricky.

Once again, I made a list, divided it up for us all to guess and I ended up finding the idol again. Ethan showed Ricky a screenshot of Topaz giving Ethan sort of hope he was going to flip on us next round. We discussed it as a trio and decided to vote with the other trio (Grace, Ethan and Josh) and take Topaz out.

We knew making this move would isolate Ivan and have him flip and so we had a plan that I would play my idol/orb at F7 and get Ivan out, at F6, Ricky was to play his mask on Ethan which would make the vote 3-2 and Ethan would go home.

At the point, my finals deal with Ivan has broken because he couldn't trust me anymore at this point and as expected, he flipped on us to the other trio at the next tribal. I knew Grace was in Ricky's ear and I thought to myself, I may need Ivan later on, so I had Ricky and Brittany vote Ethan instead of Ivan, I played the re-hidden idol and Ethan was voted out, leaving us with 6.

I tried to save Ivan at F6 because he was seen as the strongest competitor and bigger threat to win over Grace/Josh and he had the mask played on him and was voted out.

At F5, Grace won immunity and we took Josh out, leaving Grace to be the last of her alliance. In a really close battle of sorts, I won FIC and since Grace was the last of that alliance and would most likely win a landside, being the underdog of the 4 of us and we voted out her, which brings us to the F3.

I said at the beginning of my speech the three elements Tom said it took to win and I believe I encompassed those. I feel like I was strategic, not making super flashy moves all the time, but making moves to propel myself forward and keep me in the game for a while. I was social because I had created relationships with almost all of you and I tried to get to know you each personally and I was lucky with timing the moves I made right, surviving almost getting voted out 3 times and being in an alliance with loyal allies who had my back through whatever was thrown at us.

Whatever questions you have, I will answer them all which as much detail as possible. 