Board Thread:Season 46 - Kariba/@comment-3418419-20180413194753

Hello jury! I had a rough draft at my computer but I won't get home in time to post it so I have to rewrite the whole thing on my phone. Sorry for any typos and if something is unclear, please ask for clarification!

My game revolved around trying to make others believe that I wasn't a big threat. I believe I had four people (I don't think there's anyone else) who believed that I was a top ally of theirs and wanted to go with me to the end, probably because they all thought they could beat me. In order of when I met them and made the decision to act as a number two to them: Hals, Jack, Drew, Jake. I was also working with Roisin in a similar capacity, but I had never considered it to be a relationship on the same strategic level where I was hoping that she was going to drag me to the end. I did not abandon my plans with Roisin after the f7 vote, they never existed.

Clearly that worked in that I made it here, and I was never a serious target for elimination. I want to clarify that this was intentional, I didn't change my strategy after the Drew vote.

I will go in depth about each of these relationships now.

Hals - Post merge we were never really voting together, but with one exception each (Dan/Drew) we generally told each other what we were planning.

Jack - We voted together at every tribal until I voted him out.

Drew - I could tell that he was a very good player, and that as long as he thought I wanted to work with him, he'd want to keep me around. Drew told me about his idol and his idol radar (Drew, please mention who else you told about these things in your speech. I can't see myself being the only one so I'm not going to talk as if I was, but if I was then it is an added testiment to how I was able to facilitate a relationship with you)

Jake - The purpose of this relationship was to ingratiate myself to the Zambezi. It worked, even though it never really ended up being that important in the long run. I found it obvious that he thought I was a goat for him, but I wanted to keep this perception going so that I would still stick around. Out of these four people, I knew that he was the least likely to win, which is why I voted with him.

I will now go over my gameplay round by round.

Preswap I was active and talking to people, and I found myself in two alliances of four. Neither of them ended up being really consequential to the game, but it showed that I would have stuck around for a while. The only really interesting thing that happened here was that I got a vote. I quickly surmised that it was either Matthias or Drew who had voted me, because they both messaged me right after results were posted saying, "yo wtf some dude voted you!!", which I knew was the person trying to make me paranoid. I don't know if Matthias was expecting me to go on a witch hunt, but I didn't tell anyone except for Hals my true suspicions.

Postswap It's impossible to know what would have happened here had we lost, so there's no point in theorizing. I was mainly trying to foster relationships with Dan and Becky here. Since we had a bunch of clues and Matthias had messaged me about an idol, I guessed that Drew had an idol. This might have been a leap in logic, but I ended up being correct. Drew told me about his idol and that he was going to use it to save Jack. I told Hals in an attempt to undermine him. I have no evidence to suggest this, but if that's what eventually led to Drew's elimination that would be pretty cool and by far my best move. However I don't think that's what happened.

Merge At this point, I had three huge connections, and as far as I know none of them thought I wasn't their number one. I formed an extra connection with Jake to get Zambezi Intel, but as I mentioned before it wasn't that necessary. I was going along with the Dovile vote, but then the alliance of four got leaked. Dan became the target because Dovile wanted to vote him (he was almost certainly her target). Since Dan had denied any alliance earlier and since I didn't want to stir the pot any further, I just went with it. Despite me going against her, Hals still seemed to trust me (or at least need me as an ally), which proves that I had formed a strong connection with her.

At this point, one might think that we were giving control to Dovile. I worked to make sure that didn't happen. I started bandwagon votes on Becky and Dovile at this round to try and see where people were. Everyone was against Dovile which worked fine for me.

At 9, Drew told me about his idol radar he got from the Mack vote. There were two idols in the game, his idol and Jake's. At this point I realized Matthias was undoubtedly that original vote against me. That was unrelated to the reasoning for the original vote on him, being that he was believed by us four to be the most dangerous of everyone else left.

I pretended to campaign against Jack, but I'm pretty sure Matthias saw through it. I'm not sure if this needs clarification, but I was never truly campaigning against Jack. I just wanted to try and make it seem as if I thought I was in trouble.

After Drew went, there was an argument against me in the tribe chat, and I quite obviously lost. I was happy with it because I had proven to myself that my strategy was at least doing a good job at making me seem like a small threat. I was never really upset with anything that was said in the tribe chat because it was all supposedly true and I “conceded” that they were right.

I don't think I needed immunity, I just needed to make sure Becky, Matthias, or Hals didn't win. We went with Becky because we were weary of Matthias having an idol, and because I still wanted to keep Hals in.

Shortly after the Becky vote, Jake and I concluded that every idol guess had been exhausted. Roisin was the only other person who had nearly as many clues, so we determined that she had the idol before she revealed it publicly.

When Jake suggested Hals, I felt it was imperative that Hals didn't go. I also felt that was imperative that we didn't blindside Jake. That's why I suggested Roisin. Jake and I concluded that she had the idol, and it would have been a perfect opportunity to get her out. When Jake said no, then the vote shifted to Louise.

We (me, Jack, Hals) included Roisin because a plurality vote was way too risky. Matthias had already voted me, and Jake was a close ally with Louise. So was Roisin, but she had already demonstrated that she would flip so it was the safer move. I didn't know about her vote steal.

After the vote, Jake was understandably upset with me, and Roisin told me that I didn't know who my true allies were (she reaffirmed this several times up until the final 4). I saw the fact that I was able to re-establish working relationships with them as another example of my strong social ability.

At this point, I was pretty sure that everyone except for Matthias wanted to take me to the end. I made a chart of the six people sorted into whether they were a big threat or not. Big threats: Matthias (organized Drew vote), Hals (social ability, I know you all wanted to vote her), Jack (we had voted together all game, he could potentially argue that he controlled me)

Not big threats: Roisin (flipper, acted as a follower), Jake (played a UTR game, could potentially not be recognized by jury)

Coupled with that earlier fact, it became clear that Matthias was the best vote. I didn't let Hals in on it because I was weary of any hunters lodge items.

Then we went to the final 5, and I wanted to vote either Hals or Jack. At this point I felt that if I made it to the end with two of the four people who I had had working relationships with, then it might speak to the success of my game. I kept Roisin around to avoid an f4 tie, since it would have been a 3-1, and even if she did win Jake and Hals/Jack would be the two major targets. At this point, I felt that I was all but confirmed to be at the end.

The reason we took Jack out is because he could have won final immunity. Hals and I came up with the idea, and I convinced Jake. I tried to turn Roisin against Jake as an added precaution if she were to be in FIC, but then she turned it against me. This ensured that Jake would want to keep me with him.

So Jack is out, and I've determined my final three. I knew Roisin had a lot more to her game than meets the eye, and I already explained why a Hals and Jake F3 would have been ideal. I tried to lose as many rounds as possible so that Jake would win.

This does not excuse my abysmal performance. I still submitted all of my best scores, except I purposely dropped out early in endurance so that Jake would beat me. Well, that was the intention.

I was adamant about voting Hals, but I was willing to listen to Hals and Roisin about voting Jake instead. Hals had the better social game and she had gotten herself out of a serious minority, whereas Jake's social game wasn't perfect and I felt that there was a greater possibility that I could beat him.

I believe my biggest challenge will be convincing the jury that I cultivated a perception that I was a goat, and I was not a goat. I played a major role in several eliminations. -Dan (swing vote, along with Drew) -Louise (I organized the majority group, and was the one who turned the majority against Hals) -Matthias (I was the person who decided we had to get him out) -Jack (I got Jake to vote with him with me)

Any further clarification will be provided if requested.

Finally, I would like to take the time to thank everyone for making this an incredible experience! I had a lot of fun this season :) 