Board Thread:Season 50 - Kingdoms Collide/@comment-26919105-20181223030217/@comment-24114312-20181223182628

ty I SHOULD'VE WON ARCH and I'll maintain that until my dying breath. Firslty I'm gonna respond to a few things before I get into the direct questions. Sorry for the length LOL, there was 8 mins of video content and I wanna explain everything you mentioned.

Yeah I definitely think your comments on the difference between my merge and pre-merge game are right. In the pre-merge, I think with smaller tribes and stuff, it's way easier to control where the votes are going because you only need 1-2 people voting with you to get your way. Like you could see it at the final 5 here, when I basically forced my will onto Jess and Chelsea who both wanted Dani gone over Cali, because I just work better in smaller tribes. Having said that, I don't think my merge gameplay was bad at all - I voted correctly for Bryce (and was a major reason why he got votes), I voted Tyler and had a plan ready to get rid of Szymon with 0 blood on my hands, but then also positioned it well enough that I received 0 backlash from the situation. I pretty much solely decided the ultimate outcome of the final 11 vote, and then would've got rid of Cali at the final 10/9 had a self-vote not occurred. At the final 8, I was the main force in getting rid of Jenna and even if Jessica's plan to get votes on me worked, I played the idol. Then at final 7 I was literally 2 minutes away from pulling off a move that would've put me in the best position in the whole game, and even despite that, I was still safe at the final 6 even if I lost immunity due to my strong social game with Chelsea and Sydney (Chelsea has confirmed in other speeches she wouldn't have voted for me). I think the criticisms of my merge game are warranted, but it was by no means a weak game.

Confronting people was both strategy and paranoia, I should've explained it in my speech. Basically my rationale was that, if I thought I was getting votes or was being mentioned then confronting people would either scare them out of doing it and start a strategic conversation so I could divert their targeting elsewhere. At the final 13 for example, after I confronted you, we spoke way more candidly about the game for the next 2 rounds to the point that I felt comfortable with you enough that I didn't even vote you at the final 11. Confronting Jenna was one of the first conversations we had and it grew into a strong personal friendship, not a strategic alliance but it definitely had the potential. Having said that, I was definitely paranoid, but imo it was actually justified. At the final 13 and 11, I was brought up as a target. At the final 10, Jess wanted votes on me. At the final 8, Jess wanted votes on me. I was paranoid and confronted people, yes, but imo it can be justified by the fact that my paranoia wasn't totally misfounded. That also relates to me not trusting my alliance, but it made so much sense for Jared and Szymon to cut me that I was like, 'okay why aren't they doing it…'. And then my alliance with Jess, I didn't trust it but based on what she's said in other speeches, I was right not to. ALSO I touched on this in my speech, but if I got told something and then confronted someone, I would blame my paranoia on something random so I didn't expose my source. I think a lot of my paranoid convos with people were based off of solid evidence I had, but I couldn't tell them because it might've blown up my game.

I said voting Cali was my biggest move, not even because she was eliminated but because it set up a backstop which prevented Szymon and Jared being eliminated. Without the hinky vote I cast, there's a chance you pass the Castle and then in a revote, it'd probably be Szymon being eliminated. I think it was the best move I made because it's proof that I was not only thinking 1 step ahead (people might be voting me or Sydney), 2 steps ahead (you might play an idol), but 3 steps ahead in that I analysed every single situation and knew there was no way it didn't work. If everyone just voted you and I threw a vote on Cali, I could blame it on the fact I was offline all day. If everyone voted you, you played an idol and you voted me, Cali went 1-0-0. Or if everyone was voting me or Sydney, you didn't play an idol, then you left 2-1-0. And I was right to guess all of these because you did in fact have an idol. To give another 'biggest move' for you though, I'd say it was my rebound from the final 11. After Sydney got votes, I was perfectly calm and collected and it actually drew more people to me than pushed them away. This was also the time when I formed bonds with Jess and Chelsea, and my alliance with Chelsea was especially helpful in getting me to the end because she was always planning on being loyal to me once Audrey left.

Yeah the Castle was luck-based. But luck is a major element of the game that benefitted both Chelsea and Jessica too. Jessica mentioned in her response to Audrey how her best social move was her alliance with Cali, but that alliance literally was only able to exist because of a self-vote that occurred at final 10 which she had no knowledge of. Without that alliance with Cali, Jessica's influence in the game is considerably reduced. Whereas for me, my equivalent of Cali (Audrey), was only eliminated because the challenge was changed and her unfortunate tribe makeup, which is extremely unlucky. They also got so lucky that Jared found the idol nullifier because without that causing us to scramble (about how we could get away with saving Sydney without burning everyone), Sydney, Jared and I would've been the final three. Like I think luck helps EVERYONE who reaches the final three because luck is an element you just can't plan around, and I definitely don't think I received the most luck.

How do I think pre-game relationships affected my game positively and negatively?

Positively - the round you mentioned. Szymon saving me was definitely a big moment, but even if that hadn't happened, I think I would've survived. I asked Sydney if she would've played the idol on me that round and she said yes, and I was sooo close to just asking her to play it anyway. Elias was literally ignoring me from the moment the chat was created, and it was too suspicious so I knew something was up. Regardless, saving the idol helped us later and so I was helped by Szymon being on my tribe. I was also positively helped by Jared, who was a rock for me in the game and someone I knew I could always count on.

Also I think in general, I was able to get to know people easier because I know a lot of people in the community so I knew their friends and stuff. But I definitely didn't rely on pre-game relationships though, four of my most important bonds this season were Audrey, Chelsea, Jessica and Sydney, all of whom I didn't know before the season began. I also got on well with Cali and Jenna, who I didn't know, and infact 4/5 of the first merge boots were people I had known before the season.

It negatively impacted my game because it made people wary of me. Jenna made a comment being like, 'you have 3 people who think you're their number 1' and I think some of that was related to pre-game relationships. It also sucks when you have to vote people off that you've known before the game because it's always taken worse than it would be if you met ingame. BUT tbh I don't think this season was too heavily impacted by pre-game relationships, if anything this is the only ORG returnee season I've been in where pre-game friendships haven't dominated gameplay.

Why didn't I vote out Jessica?

I think I underestimated how much support she would have on the jury. I figured everyone would be rooting for the underdogs in Dani and Cali, and so I planned around that. It's sooo hard to know what the jury is thinking when the jury begins at final 13 which was 7 rounds or so after the time I decided to go to the end with Jessica. Also, this may be arrogant but I think it's justified considering the end result, but I did think I could beat her in almost any challenge. Maybe keeping her was a mistake, I'm hoping I can win anyway so it's not LOL, but for all I know I'd be sitting here next to Dani and I might get a question from someone saying 'why did you keep Dani? She was such an underdog and friends with everyone on the jury?', so it's hard to plan around when you have 0 idea what the jury were thinking. Like I was the target at final 5 and final 4 because people thought I had the most jury support, yet here we are and I'm looking at a probable loss. It's hard to know what to do!