Board Thread:Season 22 - Similan Islands/@comment-1524497-20150103040211

Hello guys! It’s been over two months since we started the game but it’s still crazy that it’s all almost over now. I’ve had so much fun playing this season and getting to know so many people from different parts of the world, I hope you had fun too!

I feel like even though I made some big moves, most of the work I did was behind the scenes, stuff that maybe not all of us might have gotten to see so I would like to explain some of that:

You know how the pre-merge went, I found myself in a comfortable position in a dominant tribe with some inactives in it, which made it easy to get through the first few tribals. I was always making sure that I was on good graces with everyone in the tribe because I wanted to be approachable in case my alliance (Los Cuatro Amigos) would fall apart, so when the switch came and I was separated from some of my allies, I was still in a power position and I made sure that the Payang people would all make it to the merge, not only by fixing tensions between some of them but by also coming up with the splitting of votes and throwing of challenges. One of my early strategies since pretty much the beginning of the game was to use Tom as a shield. Every time I wanted a plan to be executed I would just have to talk Tom about it and he would set it in motion, which ended up working out for me because it would take the heat off me. For example, it was my idea not to throw the challenge after MGM went home to force Nick to play his idol since I knew he wasn’t gonna use him to help my game, but of course I didn't want anyone to know that so I just told Tom to gather the troops to submit for challenges, which left Nick holding a grudge against him for something that was my idea.

Once I made it to the merge I had different alliances going with almost everyone left, I had my alliance with Los Ornitorrincos (Diego, Hugo, Nick and myself), I was in the Fab 5 alliance and I also had a side thing with Katie who was my secret agent, which made me the one deciding how the rest of the game was going to go. I was the swing vote but I played in a way where I wasn’t gonna get caught for it and get Christy’d or Sarah’d. The first vote at the merge had to be Trevor since I didn’t think I was going to be able to work with him, so even after Tom messed up and told people about Katie being tight with us, which obviously made everyone want to take Katie out first at the merge, I managed to keep the target on Trevor with the self-vote potentially messing a future blindside as a reason for him to go. Ultimately I had to pick a side and I decided that I’d had a better shot going with the Fab 5 since I knew the people on Los Ornitorrincos would have been harder to beat in the end. After that I managed to keep control of the game so that even when people wanted to get rid of me, around the F8 through F6 portion of the game, they never had the numbers to do it.

A big move that I feel like I need to explain is voting out Red at F5. The thing is, by keeping Katie in the game for one more vote, I made sure that the target would stay on her and off me, she was the last Miyang standing and I knew I could use that to my advantage, and by making that move I managed to enter the F4 being everyone’s closest ally. Katie didn’t trust  anyone who had tried to vote her out at F5, Rick was never going to be loyal to Tom since he never tried to fix their relationship; you could almost feel the frustration pouring out of Tom after he was asking them time after time to vote for me and they were not budging. Had I not voted out Red at F5, Tom was still winning the challenge (Red’s computer was broken so he couldn’t have competed) and I would have become the next biggest target. Tom and Red would have voted for me and Rick and I would have voted for Red which would have ended up in a tie, and my Survivor mantra is like: “Never let yourself depend on a challenge, you will lose”. I also felt good about my chances going to the end with both Rick and Tom since I felt like people found their personalities at times a little off-putting (for different reasons though) during the game.

Another move that I think was instrumental for my game was voting out Erlend, that was a move that was literally only beneficial to me. I needed to enter the F6 with three people who had a bigger target on their backs so that I could stay off people’s radars, which were Katie the last Miyang, Diego the post-merge underdog and Tom the figurehead leader. Taking out Erlend meant that Red and Rick wouldn’t come after me anytime soon. Rick should have tried to save Erlend so he could have a better shot at winning in the end, Tom should have taken out Rick since he knew he was never going to be really loyal to him. Erlend and I were aligned through the Fab 5 but we never had any one on one conversation so I wasn’t sure if he wanted to go all the way with me and I knew Rick and Red wanted to, voting Erlend out meant that the three of us could work as a unit against the other people.

I also made a lot of subtle moves to help me keep myself in the game, like planting the seed as soon as we merged that Nick needed to be the first one of the people that stayed on Payang post-swap to go, using the excuse that he was good at finding idols, but my real reason being that I knew I’d had a better shot at getting away with Nick going without Diego and Hugo immediately coming after me by telling them I wasn’t sure I would’ve finished 4th with them (which was a real concern nonetheless), so when the touchy subjects happened Rick called Nick out, setting things in motion for his boot.

Once I found out the Payang idol had already been found on the first week I decided to share the info with Diego and Hugo and not Tom because if our Los Cuatro Amigos alliance would have worked out, I wanted to start making Tom the 4th member of the alliance as soon as possible. Purposely keeping Katie as a decoy boot for as long as possible so that I could make blindsides and split votes happen easily (and I must say she did a great job by letting me know what was being said behind my back and at the same time downplaying our relationship so that people would think she was closer with Tom than with me). Making Rick and Tom work together despite their fights but never quite letting them forget that the other was against them so that they would never be more loyal to each other than to me. Not letting everyone know that I had the Miyang idol (which I found like at F8 lol, we merged in the Miyang camp so I just kept looking, and never found the Yum Yum one) until I was at F5 so that people wouldn’t even bother considering if it would be a good move to get rid of me and making me immune without really having to play it on myself. Organizing the split votes in a way where for example, have Erlend and Rick who were the people that I least trusted from the Fab 5 vote for Katie instead of the indented target MGM in case they decided to reneged the alliance MGM would still be getting Red, Tom and my vote; telling Rick to throw a vote at Katie at F6 so that in case Diego had the Yum Yum idol his sole vote wouldn’t have affected my game. Those were all moves that helped me get further while maintaining the control of the game.

The fact that I’m sitting here next to both Rick and Tom shows that I played a good social game with them, they were sworn enemies since Day One and wanted to get each other out at almost every tribal but they were beneficial to my game so I was constantly giving them reasons to postpone their feuds, basically forcing them to work together. I wanted to face off against people who were on the same tribes as me during the whole game and who I knew of every move they ever made and basically, with Rick and Tom, the truth is they needed my help to pull off all of their moves.

                I know one aspect where I didn’t do as well as the other two people here was in my performance at challenges, but even then I knew coming into the season that it would be one of my weaknesses, and something to my credit was that I built my strategy so that I would never depend on a challenge to stay in the game, and I never did. I just suck at flash games and all that, that’s the true, it goes to show that the only immunity I won was about assessing how other people where gonna react to certain topics which I believe played to my strengths. Having Tom being good at challenges was actually good for me because it’s not like I was finishing 2nd behind him in each challenge, I was always one of the worst performers, Tom wasn’t going after me, in fact he was always consulting me when wanting to make a move, so him winning immunity meant that both my indented target and my decoy boot for that tribal would not be winning and the vote would happen without trouble, without the immune person taking a shot at me. And if he happened to annoy people by calling them cheaters every time he would lose to someone, then more power to me.

                I realize I didn’t play a loyal game as some of you expected me to, but I never let my personal connection with someone decide how I was gonna play the game, I was always putting gameplay over friendship because I came here to win and if I wasn’t feeling like the way things were going was gonna lead me to the win, then no doubt I was going to make my best to change things in my favor. I’m sorry if some of you felt hurt by me going back on my word to you but know that none of the outside the game convos we had were insincere on my part, I come from a very different culture than most of you so even the little things like debate teams, having to go to law school after you go to college, prom court, those were all new for me to learn, outside the game stuff that I genuinely cared for. However, I do not apologize for any of the moves I made as I truly believe they were what got me here and I’m owing up to them.







                I feel like I deserve to win the title of Sole Survivor because I had the pulse of the game the whole time, I managed to get here without anyone casting a vote against me, not by being non-threatening but by making sure the numbers to get me out were never there. I think I played a smart game where I never had to win an immunity, I never needed to play the idol on myself and at the end of the day, I am the only one who can say that every time that I voted for someone, that person was gone at that tribal. I’ll be happy to answer all of your questions and I really hope you deem me worthy of being the winner of the season. Thanks!



<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">P.S. Having read your thread just now Tom, I must say that it’s kinda sad that your biggest move against me was the fake idol thing, considering that my thought process for that was: “Oh cool, now I know I won’t have to worry much about that since he’s never gonna be able to use it against me, better for him to have it so I can make him flush it than a bigger threat maybe using it against me”… So I told you to play it because you were getting votes and even though I knew you didn’t really need it, telling you about the votes coming your way made you trust me even more and potentially flush an idol, and as soon I saw you didn’t play it I knew it was all BS since you’re so paranoid you would’ve never been able to keep an idol for more than one tribal like I did. And I’m sorry but that move doesn’t compare to the ones I have against you like forcing your hand at F4 when you wanted to get rid of me so badly but couldn’t. <ac_metadata title="Vote for Miguel"> </ac_metadata>