Board Thread:Season 50 - Kingdoms Collide/@comment-24114312-20181221222424

Introduction
Helloooooo. It's only right that I open this with an obligatory thanks to the hosts! Especially Chris who, as he made sure we knew, is putting his own money on the line for this season!!!!!! It was a really well hosted season and I'm appreciative and grateful that I got to play in it.

Pre-merge
Entering the game, I genuinely thought I would be fucked for so many reasons. I felt that of anyone in the game, I had the biggest target on my back from the beginning and people would be gunning for me from day 1, being the first 5 timer and the person with the second most days. However, my social connections to every single person on my original tribe managed to set me up as the swing for every single vote we went to. I was also able to use my strategic abilities to make a tribe that was set up 3-3 (Sharky, Grace, Trace vs. Tyler, Sydney, myself) and guarantee that even if my tribe lost every single challenge and only 2 of us remained, I'd be the last one standing with 3 different choices of who I wanted with me in the potential fire-making (Trace, Tyler or Sydney).

This positioning started on the very first round of the game. Sydney was the desired boot, a simple 5-1 vote, however I had a very strong bond with her from the beginning, while others had almost no bond with her, and knew that if I helped save her, it would be beneficial for three reasons. The first was that she would owe me in some sense, not that I ever held that over her but I strongly believe that loyalty is created a lot of the time in orgs out of a sense of owing someone. The second was that it would form an immediate bond with Tyler, who was the other swing vote. Us working together to flip the tribe on the very first vote formed an immediate alliance between us which was extremely beneficial for this portion of the game. The third was that it set me up as the swing vote for the next round (Trace + Grace vs. Tyler + Sydney with me as the swing). This happened exactly as I predicted and I sided with Tyler and Sydney due to the first and second reasons I've just mentioned.

I was also the swing for the Grace vote. A lot of the moves I made were very subtle, almost unnoticeable - although I will be pointing most of them out in this speech - and a really good example was from this tribal. I wanted to make sure I was the strongest link Sydney had and the strongest Tyler had, so that if we lost again then I would be the swing between Sydney and Tyler. I set this up by firstly pushing for a plan that Sydney created, which was having a vote thrown onto Sydney to make us seem disunited. By pushing for this, I felt like I got myself closer into Sydney's good graces. However, the subtle move I pulled this round, was I made sure I was the one who voted Grace with Sydney and Tyler was the one who voted Sydney. I did this because it reinforced the idea to Sydney that she could trust me more than Tyler - I even mentioned to her that, even though I trusted Tyler to follow through with the plan and not flip and vote Sydney out, that I should nonetheless be the other Grace vote so we could be 100% guaranteed that Grace would go. She agreed, which also confirmed to me that I was at the top of the tribe, as did her telling me about the idol she found (I also shared my guesses with both Tyler and Sydney so that I would not only have three sources of idol guesses being theirs and my own, but also so that I proved my trust to them and reinforced the fact that we were closely aligned – I did this again at the merge with Jared, Sydney and Jenna).

I think all of this is really important because it was evident I was playing hard and positioning myself right from the beginning. My social game would've saved me under any circumstance, like if my tribe lost every time I don't believe there was any way I would've been voted off, regardless of if Sharky stayed or Trace stayed or Grace stayed, because I was extremely well integrated with every single member of the tribe. But I was able to maneuver the tribe in such a way that I left the tribe with two extremely strong final 2 bonds.

During the swapped stage of the game, I formed an immediate, very tight bond with Audrey. This was deliberate - I immediately sensed that she would be in a powerful position on the tribe, which was confirmed by the fact that she was sent to the Castle (with help from my vote). I also helped grow her target. Although she was my ally, I was very much aware that I can be seen as a leader and I wanted to hide behind someone for at least the pre-merge. I did this by pointing out to all of Bryce, Wendy, Chelsea and Jared about how Audrey was in control of the tribe. Nonetheless, it useful to have her as an ally because she told me she was a major reason why I didn't get votes the round Jakey left. Although I think my surviving the final 11 vote without needing the idol was in part due to the bonds I had been forming with Chelsea and Dani, the bond with Audrey was an extremely important tool in my arsenal which was unfortunately taken away from me way earlier than I'd forseen it happening, due to a twist I had no knowledge of and was unable to prevent/circumvent, especially because it happened immediately after the round Sydney got all her votes and she was looking for revenge. I'm sure I'm going to be criticised for some of my late-game actions and reliance on immunities, but I do think it's worth noting that if Audrey had survived the final 10 twist then I would've been set up extremely well. Like, the final 10 twist fucked over my game so much and it was completely outside of my control - the fact one of my closest allies self-voted out of the game and the other was eliminated due to the tribe makeup she was given, and I was STILL able to get to the end is a huge achievement and a testament to my ability to adapt.

The other crucial bonds were with Jared and Chelsea. I could write a whole speech about my friendship and alliance with Jared, but it was a very well-known and obvious one, like we won Best Duo so it wasn't surprising that we would work together. My ideal final three on day 1 was Jared and Sydney, and I'll talk more later on about how CLOSE that was to happening - if Jared and I decided what was happening at the final 7 1-2 minutes earlier than we did, the final three would've been the dream final three I had envisioned from day one, with two allies that everyone KNEW I was extremely close to. I realise this didn't happen, but the fact that people even allowed me to have 2 extremely close allies in the final 7 is an example of my ability to make others become targets before myself and my allies, and my ability to make people feel close to me, like I valued them very highly. Jenna commented this to me at about final 10 and clocked me lmao, I acted surprised but it was my strategy the entire time - I think maybe 4 people thought they were my number 1s and they didn't have to worry about my other, obvious close allies (Sydney or Jared). Again, I'll touch on this later because a strategy I employed for almost the whole merge was distancing myself from Sydney to the point that Jessica and Chelsea were perfectly fine with thinking Jared and I would vote Sydney, but I did this so that it seemed like I had less allies than I actually did.

I also met Chelsea for the first time. This was obviously a very useful bond because we were loyal to each other (people didn't know this but the entire time I had immunities, she wasn't going to vote me, so although I did win immunities, it wasn't as if I was entirely reliant on them and had 0 social and strategic game). It also became extremely important in forming the dominant merge alliances. I think it's very noteworthy that the merge group that formed to vote off Bryce was almost the exact membership of the two alliances I helped form in the pre-merge (Chelsea, Audrey, Jared + Sydney, Szymon). The only two people I was officially aligned with who weren't in that group were Jenna and Tyler, both of which can be explained by their other allegiances and relationships formed when I wasn't on their tribe. It'd be foolish for me to say that I formed the merge group - I didn't, Szymon did, and I think he did it to save Chelsea so he should of course get the credit - but the fact that it was almost entirely composed of my allies is not a coincidence.

At the second swap, I was reconnected with Szymon after 2 years of not speaking and met Jenna for the first time. These were two really important bonds I formed. With Jenna, our relationship was always rocky, but we spoke quite often and kept each other at least somewhat informed (until the round when I voted her, after Szymon had told me about the idol). With Szymon, we had a strong bond and he was one of my most important allies in terms of information, because he was quite well connected with the 'other side' until he betrayed them at the first merge vote. This, however, did give me a lot of information such as Jenna's idol.

For the two post-swap boots, I also played a major role. For Wendy, I wanted to appease Audrey and make sure both Chelsea and Jared knew that she was the one in control so she would be a target before me. Therefore, even though I wanted Bryce gone and had wanted him gone from the start of the cast reveal, I sided with Audrey and acted as though I wanted Wendy gone. I do think this agreement between us on the first vote was a major reason why we were bonded so quickly. With Elias, I could've literally picked any target I wanted. However, I chose to target Elias for multiple reasons. The first was that I had given him my word and he had gone back on it - I believe that once that happens, your word means nothing (related to this, I tried my hardest to stay loyal to EVERYONE I'd given my word to, the exception being Tyler, so that my word was upheld - this came in very useful in the final rounds of the game when I was positioning myself for the endgame). But another important reason was that Szymon and Jakey had a feud which I believed would mean they would target each other before they targeted me. Granted, Jakey targeted me at the first merge vote and looking back, it probably would've been better if I'd have listened to Szymon and voted Jakey that round (especially since Cali told me Jakey did have the idol). Having said that, I think the Jakey and Szymon feud was a big factor in why Szymon was a target at every merge vote he was a part of, and potentially it saved me from becoming a larger target.

Merge
I entered the merge with the Castle idol and knowledge of the Culzean idol. Outside of that, I genuinely had no clue where the remainder of the idols were. However, I did know that Bryce's likelihood of having an idol was extremely minimal due to his activity levels (outside of his control though) so I set my sights on either him or Cali at the first merge vote. Although it ended up being Jakey and Chelsea as the main targets, I was a major proponent for flipping it and I was the first to bring up Bryce's name. My reasoning was that, Jakey's game blew up at the final 13 and he was a huge target - that was something I needed moving forward because I knew I would be a big target, and I wanted to keep even bigger targets around. Another huge reason was that Bryce is a very dangerous player in my opinion. Due to his activity levels, I believed that if he was going to win the game, he would've needed to have pulled crazy moves against people who were bigger targets than him - such as myself. All of this made him my perfect target, and so while others were fine getting the target off of Jakey, I was making sure that Bryce was the one who got the votes. I even told Audrey, who was hugely influential in the alliance of 7, that Bryce had flipped on her (information I had received from Sydney), making her also push for Bryce to go.

The first merge vote also featured some drama around manga hair - I stole Dani's manga hair, completely accidentally. I did feel bad for Dani, especially because like, for example, Justin snatched my coding for the ROP which he easily could've made on his own, but it kinda pissed me off a LITTLE bit bc I was like… bitch I worked a solid 15 mins coding that and ur just gna snatch it? So I do get where she was coming from, but I made sure everyone knew I was going to give her immunity if I won. I was being sincere and if I had won, I would've gifted it to her out of respect for her manga copyright, but I believe that me telling people that was another thing I did that subtly made people think I was someone who was noble, trustworthy, etc. This combined with me literally telling WAY less lies than usual and being a solid ally to almost everyone I gave my word to, if I felt they were being a solid ally to me. In this round, I also craftily avoided lying to people. I really didn't wanna be seen as a liar or untrustworthy, I think that is what ruined loads of people's games bc their word ended up meaning nothing, so for example, I deliberately diverted conversations that would have to lead to me lying. Instead of telling Dani she was a target at the final 13, I instead randomly shifted the conversation away from the topic of tribal, but made it inconspicuous. That way, I never had to lie, but also could avoid telling the truth. This especially helped in the final 8, when my own maneuvering in my relationship with Jessica the round before managed to set me up with a final four deal with Jared, Jessica and Chelsea.

Another thing I did was make sure the blame was squarely on other players for actions I did. This was something I repeatedly did in the game and it worked really well, often making me completely blameless for events that I, in some cases, solely caused. For example, Jakey was left out of the plan to vote Bryce after I had told him I'd inform him what was happening. I then blamed this on Szymon, Chelsea and Audrey. Related, whenever I snitched on any plan, instead of being called a rat, I often got away with it completely fine because I made sure the blame was placed on the other person, not me. This was shown with Jakey and Szymon, when I fuelled their rivalry. I also did this loads with eliminated players. For example, when confronting Jenna about her targeting me the round Sydney went home, instead of saying it was Chelsea and Jess who gave me that information, I said it was Audrey (who I do actually believe ALSO gave me that information <3, but it didn't matter to me whether she did or didn't because I would have said she had anyway), because Audrey was eliminated and therefore I couldn't be exposed for throwing others under the bus. I also did this with Cali, I blamed the fact I'd targeted her on Audrey (love u Audrey, sorry) and even got Cali to give away game information (such as who was involved in the plan at the final 13 to get rid of me) with this lie. Therefore, since I wanted to seem like I was being trustworthy, I mostly lied about stuff that was undetectable. I also think this is useful because I'm so used to having juries hate me, and I don't think I've given anyone a reason to actually hate me this season. Even Tyler in our last messages was a really great sport and totally understood everything, so in my not lying to people, I was also positioning myself to not be hated by the jury. Granted, I did break this in certain instances, most notably the Jenna vote, but this was because I had been told she had an idol and I needed Chelsea in the game.

The final 12 vote didn't go how I intended it, but it didn't go AGAINST my plans either since I always made sure that no matter what happened, there was a backup plan in place (notably at final 5, which I'll touch on later). Basically, Sydney and I knew about the vote steal and we intended to have someone throw a vote onto Jakey (on the pretence of wasting his light pearl) so that, with the vote steal, Szymon would go out 6-5-1. My own personal reasoning was that Szymon was very strong in his views of how the game should go and he had a lot of ability to unite people due to his strong social bonds on both sides of the game. I thought we had different ideas about the direction of the game, and this was before the vote where Jared, Sydney, Szymon and I were left out. However, I was also content to agree to voting Tyler because I had been told through Sydney that Tyler had formed chats without me. Whether or not he was loyal to me, I hadn't been informed about these chats but Sydney had, which definitely made me wary towards Tyler and question his trust. I also knew I had an idol if things went wrong, and had many people looking out for me such as Audrey and Chelsea, so that I would've been safe no matter what happened. As a result, I agreed to vote Tyler and due to Szymon being the one who threw the vote, not me, Tyler left.

The final 11 I think is the greatest example of my intuition and ability to infer. Literally everyone except Audrey and Jakey acted differently this round and it threw me off - I believed people knew an idol was being played, since Jakey legit confronted me and said 'if you're looking out for me, why am I getting votes?' Therefore I did, in my opinion, the biggest move of the whole game and played the idol on myself and Sydney AND cast the hinky vote for Cali. My rationale was that, I had seen Rome and I knew how important rogue votes were. I believed if an idol was played for Jakey and I negated votes against me too, it could've been 1-0-0 against Cali, who I had a strong personal bond with but no strategic bond, so she wasn't hurt or offended by my vote against her (a huge part in why I chose to vote her over, say, Dani).

After the Sydney vote, I recovered remarkably well. Although I was slightly hurt and confused at the move, I acted completely rational and was completely fine with it, which played a major role in bringing Jessica and Chelsea to my side. Notably, this round immediately after (the final 10) was the round where Jess and I bonded the most, which helped set into motion the alliances and events of the endgame because I realised that with Audrey probably leaving, I needed to pick up an ally that would fulfil the same role - looking out for me on the other side. All of this was an element on my social game, in which I made people feel comfortable around me. I didn't see the merit in acting angry or alienating people further - instead, I was conciliatory and this helped so much in forming bonds with people in the late game. This was definitely deliberate because no one would’ve wanted to work with me had I acted aggressively in response, and it definitely helped in forming the bonds I had set up at the final 7 where I was aligned with everyone except Dani and Cali.

I’ve already touched upon the final 10 round, and the final 8 was extremely simple – Jenna was someone who I viewed as a major threat and I knew she had an idol, so this was one of the few times I felt lying was necessary to advance my game. Jenna and I were close personally but not strategically, and although she wanted to work with me, I knew she had targeted me in the past. I felt I had to take the opportunity to cut her then. But, I also played an idol. This might be called paranoia, and rightfully so, however I was so confused why I wasn’t targeted that round. I was the obvious person to take out and I had just lost my two close alliance members in Szymon and Audrey. I felt like I was at my most vulnerable, voting against someone I knew had an idol, when everyone had already voted that I'd go on an immunity run to the end and we were getting very close to the end. So I do think the idol play makes sense, even if it was a misplay. Regardless, it made sure that I was immune, as this was the last time I would go to tribal without individual immunity.

I know the criticism I’m probably going to get levied against me the most this tribal is that I relied on immunities or advantages in general. I want to dispel that immediately. It is true that I relied on immunities at the final 5 and final 4, it’d be foolish for me to say I didn’t. HOWEVER, until the final 5, I didn’t need immunity. At the final 6, I was safe as both Jess/Chelsea wouldn’t have voted me. At the final 7, final 10 and final 11/8 (when my idols were played), I was also safe. Consequently, the argument that I relied on immunities is limited to just the final 5 and final 4.Luck is of course an element of the game and I did get unlucky at certain points (final 10, which I couldn't have controlled), but immunities are also part of the game and through those immunities I was able to get myself here. It wasn't random either, I was voted 'most likely to go on an immunity run' and everyone KNEW that if I was let near the endgame, I could've gone on a run, but people let me get there anyway. I get criticising a randomer for doing it, but it was known that I would do this. I also understand not voting someone because they only played a physical game, however my game was mainly focused around my social standings and strategic gameplay. I was immune from final 11 onwards, but imo that’s a huge positive to my game – at the basic level, not being voted is the goal of Survivor. A way of achieving this is by just not giving anyone the option to even vote against you, which I did by literally being immune for the entire second half of the game, and this also gave me 0 votes against me. The argument that people relied on immunities could be extended to others with the pre-merge challenges, but people are willing to excuse pre-merge immunities because it’s less clear what may have happened that round. Regardless of whether I relied on immunities for the final 5 and final 4, that doesn’t detract from the 20 rounds before in which I never once needed immunity.

Anyway, the final 7 was a crazy round. My rationale this round was that, if Jared and I voted with Sydney against Dani, then Dani would go 3-0 and my final four deal with Jared, Jess and Chelsea would still be intact, as would my final three with Sydney and Jared. Unfortunately, a lot went wrong, most of which was down to chance. Firstly, Jared found the idol nullifier. If it weren’t for this, the entire plan would’ve been executed perfectly as we would’ve allowed Sydney to have played her idol, and then just voted Dani. On top of this, Dani and Cali had the intuition to vote Jared. Normally, this wouldn’t have mattered, but last minute indecisiveness led to Sydney voting Cali and Jared going home. This was a perfect storm which led to a fuckup, but had even one tiny thing gone differently, it would’ve worked out perfectly and almost guaranteed me a spot in the final three with any choice of the final six that I wanted, as I would’ve been in the best position in the whole game. The move was definitely the right one, voting out Dani would have guaranteed me a spot in the finals, not just because I would’ve won the last 3 immunities anyway, but it would’ve put me in a prime spot to have my choosing of the final three due to my bonds with everyone left.

Part of the reason that people were fine with thinking I’d vote Sydney was my own ability to distance myself and my allies. I did this mainly with Sydney, as she was the person who was the major target. Realistically, there was no situation in which I would’ve ever voted Sydney, but I knew that I could get information that could save her if we split our efforts. So Sydney focused on bonds with Dani and Cali, while I focused on bonds with Chelsea and Jessica. This division was deliberately in my favour, as I felt Jess and Chelsea had less of a chance to get jury votes, so me siding with them gave me a final three in which I could win if Sydney was eliminated. Since I knew people wouldn’t speak to Sydney about it, I said anything to distance us, all the while relaying info to her and she did the same to me. It worked really well, and would have been great had things gone slightly differently at the final seven.

Regardless, the final 7 didn’t go to plan, but I was still able to bounce back. I had my final three set up with Jessica and Chelsea, and I was closer to them than Sydney was which would’ve saved me at the final 6. Had I known this, I would have thrown immunity to Sydney (especially since I know she didn’t put in her best effort out bc she was an amazing ally and friend to me), because it would’ve put us both in the final 5 with Chelsea who also wouldn’t have voted me, so I would’ve been guaranteed a spot at the end. However, that didn’t happen, and despite campaigning, Sydney left.

Then at the final five, I was the deciding force to get rid of Cali. I was literally the only one who wanted it, as Jess and Chelsea both preferred getting rid of Dani. However, Cali was someone who I had viewed as a mega threat from the moment she survived the Kisimul tribe. Her storyline was amazing, and I couldn’t risk going against her in a jury vote. But I made sure that no matter what happened, 2 votes were on either Chelsea or Jess so that it was impossible for them to flip. I did this in two ways. Firstly, I made it so that Jess strung along Cali and Dani, so they would lean towards voting Chelsea and not against each other. Although Jess would have done this without my advice, I repeatedly brought up how it made sure Jess was going to get 0 votes this round, since this was her most paranoid round. Then I relayed this to Dani and ensured Dani got Cali to vote against either Jess or Chelsea, so that Dani was safe no matter what. This was a foolproof insurance plan to make sure that no matter what, I got my way at the final 5.

I also scouted for final threes at this point. I exploited Jess’ paranoia to ask Chelsea about if she would vote Jess (with Jess’ permission), and Chelsea told me she would never vote against Jess. Therefore, I realized I had to decide at the final 5 who I wanted my final three to be, and I chose Jess and Chelsea. All that was left was to vote Dani, which we did.

Conclusion
I’m sorry if this is long, I realise it is but I had so much to write about my game, especially because I’m worried I may be viewed as a Mike Holloway type character when I couldn’t be further from that. If y'all want a TL;DR then just comment that and I'll condense it LOL. 5 immunities is a huge part of my game, in fact it’s record breaking on the ORG, but that shouldn’t be the only definition of my game. To say I relied on immunities is to condense my entire social and strategic game into 2 rounds at the final 5 and final 4, when many many winners before have also relied on winning late-game immunities. If anyone has ANY questions about any aspect of my game, please ask! Jess and Chelsea are amazing people and players too, love them. Love u all, sorry that my spelling randomly became American too LOL, I wrote the first half of this on TextEdit and the second half of this on Word and it autocorrected to ‘realized’. I look forward to your speeches!!! 