Board Thread:Season 12 - All-Stars/@comment-4723941-20140216131319

39 days ago there were 24 All Stars poised to do whatever they could to win perhaps the most prestigious of titles and amongst them you three stood. Whilst I could easily think of a more impressive Final Three it’s no mean feat to be able to make the Final Tribal Council of this season, as 21 of us found out the hard way, so I would like to extend some level of congratulations.

One of you can consider that “congratulations” pretty much revoked. Lloyd. I refuse to give you any credit for the progress you’ve made in this game, at this point in time, simply because you made almost zero input into this game. You absolutely sucked at challenges, you made no attempt in any way, shape or form socially and your strategic game was, as you can probably tell, awful. Social: You didn’t add me as a friend on Facebook (and therefore acknowledge me as your competitor) until Day 10ish and even then you never once spoke to me of your own accord and, in fact, the only times we did speak were post-merge and only when I had initiated conversation. That told me loud and clear that you had no intention of playing a socially sturdy game and therefore had no intention of forming positive relationships with the players essential in allowing you to win. Physical: you were a complete non-entity in the challenges and in fact your terrible performances cost more than one player their life in this game - entirely because of you. Strategic: You made zero impact on this game and you are the sheep of this scenario, without question. When given opportunities to prove yourself worthy as an individual you squandered them entirely and proved that you are nothing more than a follower who had no intention of winning this game for themselves. The fact that you SELF-VOTED is an outright disgrace in a game like All Stars and it was painful to watch from the Jury. Lloyd, please don’t share your opinion on this thread or you will entirely lose any chance of me voting for you, no matter how poorly Ben and Gerda explain themselves.

That effectively leaves my vote a decision between Gerda and Ben, unless you both seriously screw up. Not an easy decision to make which is why your responses to what I have to say are very important.

Gerda, you’ve proven yourself to be a successful player of the game so I’d like to commend you for some pretty impressive statistics. You have made it clear that you intended this time around to re-invent your game and to play a game different to the one you played in Hawaii but I fail to see that. After playing alongside you for 67 days I’ve been able to observe your game more thoroughly than most and, like I said, it really wasn’t very different at all. In Hawaii you chose your goat, your mastermind and then made your way to the Final Tribal by making logical decisions that were really no skin off your nose and once faced by the Jury, you won because you were more active than the goat and more social than the mastermind. In this game you chose your goat - Lloyd - and you chose your mastermind - Adam - and literally the exact same scenario was playing out before my eyes. Until Adam was idoled out. As soon as your leader was gone you seemingly fell into a state of utter disarray. You became a punching bag for people’s intentions and you tried your hardest to follow some form of leadership but there were too many conflicting views for you to have any idea of where to go. By the Final Five you couldn’t even remain in the majority and banked entirely on begging and immunity to stay in the game. You seemed also to be unable to choose whether or not to be nice or manipulative and in the end you just seemed to me to be desperate to please people

Gerda from where I stand it seems like you rode coattails until your leader was gone and then you just ran around like a chicken with its head cut off. Comment on what I’ve just said however you like but at least answer these questions:

1) What did you actually change from your game in Hawaii?

2) Why did Ben and Lloyd make it to the Final Tribal Council?

3) Did ever take a serious risk in this game before you had actually lost control at the F5?

4) (Out of curiosity) How come I went home when I did?

5) Why do you deserve to be the first ever two-time winner?

Ben. To be honest I’m mildly impressed by the way you’ve played and the fact that you’re sitting where you are. At the outset of this game there weren’t many people who would have thought you’d make it all the way here but you did and I guess you deserve some props for that. Socially, however, you were lacking. Surely you would have realised after 11 seasons of the ORG and 27 seasons of the actual show that you need to actively engage with the other contestants (no matter how far removed from your game plan they are) especially those players who will be on the jury, in order to win this game. Personally I didn’t get much from you and it was interesting to see that you mentioned me in your jury speech as one of the people you had a bond with. We both know that we didn’t speak very often and when we did I had to start a conversation and it was only really ever about the game. Strategically, I think you were on-point throughout the game. You seemed very slippery throughout the pre-merge as you dodged all of the votes that went on back then and then once you hit the merge you laid low until the F8 when you idoled out Adam. By the F5 I was impressed to see you take a degree of control. While I’m here I’d like to congratulate you for being who I think is the only member of this Final Tribal Council to have made it here entirely on your own - without being carried or dragged through any single vote - which is more than I can say for the other two. Unfortunately I do feel as though you placed too much importance on the outcome of the vote and perhaps not enough on the relationships that would help you win. Here are some questions for you:

1) Summarise your strategy throughout the game in one sentence.

2) Why are you more deserving of the title than both Lloyd and Gerda?

A brief request, now, of all three of you: At the start of this game I ranked all of my 23 competitors on a list of who I thought was most threatening. Where do each of you think yourself and your two co-finalists placed with 1 being the highest and 23 being the lowest? I’d like to see who’s honest enough with themselves and the impressions made about them. Lloyd you can answer this question if you'd like.

Thank you very much for putting up with that monster of a speech but best of luck to you all.  