Board Thread:Season 39 - Morocco/@comment-30945643-20170402204203

 Hello everyone, it’s such a nice feeling to have everyone together again. I know that this season has been pretty...I’ll say “intense”? But I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Only the nine of us know how hard we all fought to surpass each other. It was the most frustrating, competitive, fulfilling thing, and I’m so happy that we all got the chance to see Morocco through all the way to the end, whether it’s as a juror or from me and Tate’s position. Thank you to the jurors and the pre-jury for being a part of this barnburner of a season with me.

 At some point this is just kissing ass for votes, so I’m cutting the sentiment short. I’m a talker but I’ll keep this as brief as I can.

 In a nutshell, my game was about positioning myself behind the bigger threats (Aras and Whitney) and getting in tight with the people in the middle (Anna, Brett, Romain) so that I always had information and I could arrange votes against those threats when it was time. I was aggressive, connected, and influential. It’s not like I played some crazy genius game, I just was really solid socially and aggressive but smart strategically...kept up relationships with pretty much everyone, fed people the right information and used those relationships to set up just about every significant move that happened.

 I’ll just run through the different phases of the game real quick. No bullshiting or flowery language, I’m going to use specifics and talk about the mistakes I made and the things I’m proud of.

 Old Zibaq

 Not that the premerge really matters, but I was in control on the original Zibaq tribe. I just hustled and got really close to everyone but Zak (I tried with him though!). Early on I was invited into the Harry Truman Alliance of Romain, Roodman, Tate, and I, which is where my loyalties would lie for the premerge. I balanced that alliance with an informal trio of Anna, Zak and I. The highlight of my game at Old Zibaq was the Gevonte boot. Gevonte thought of me as his #1 and he wanted to lock down a majority, but I was just not interested in juggling three voting blocs so I decided to sell him out to get closer with Anna, Romain, and Tate. I pushed for Gevonte to make an alliance with myself, Roodman, and Zak, and then I immediately told everyone who wasn’t included that they were getting targeted. It helped me get much tighter with both Anna and Tate. After that I knew that I'd be able to work with any Zibaq member that I swapped with, which was the goal.

 New Zibaq In the swap, I was focused on keeping Zibaq together and in a majority, because I was well connected there and those were the people that I knew I could influence. Romain and Zak were mostly opposing forces on that second tribe, so I was able to really get close with Anna because we were in the middle of that tribe together keeping everyone happy. Malik definitely tried to get close to me and I was the swing vote between him and Aras, but I decided against keeping him because it wasn't worth alienating Zak over. Instead I buddied up to Aras (who obviously knew I wanted him gone) and we were able to have a pretty solid game relationship where the two of us did a lot of the strategizing for the Zibaq Alliance. Also the vote steal I got was a result of me throwing the final swap challenge. I threw every swap challenge to save Rood and Tate. Didn’t save Rood that time but I was able to make the 7-6 Najma majority into 5-5, so I’m satisfied with how the swap went.

 My premerge was very social but mostly passive, and in the merge I wanted to start amping up the aggression and use the social capital that I'd built to make the right moves. A few examples of that aggression would be sabotaging Kristen/Whitney vote split, pulling in Brett to take Zak out, leaking information about Aras to pull in Anna, Brett and Romain, setting up the Final 5/4 to put myself in a really good position at Final 3, and of course the Final 5 idol play.

 Zahra

 Final 10: Scott’s Boot My first step was pushing for anyone that wasn't me (I think it was Romain?) to officially make the Zibaq + Aras Alliance because that was a group of people I knew I could work with. Then I made sure that I was the person Whitney would come to when she wanted to make a move, so that I could sell her out and solidify the Zibaq majority. Voting out Scott was just the obvious option, I didn't particularly lobby for it so I shouldn’t get credit for that.

 Final 9: Kristen’s Boot After this, I wanted to keep my jury threat status low, so I would confront Kristen and Whitney in front of the tribe really blatantly. I also told everyone about my vote steal so that I could take control of the vote split and manipulate the vote to boot Kristen instead of Whitney. I needed the Aras-Whitney rivalry to go on a bit longer because I felt like he couldn't target me as long as she was in the game. I know I sketched out Zak at this point, so I wanted to target him over Brett next if Whitney won immunity. Also I found the idol at this point, yay me!

 Final 8: Zak’s Boot I was spreading half lies about Zak and his connection to Aras for the two rounds before Zak's tribal, so it was really easy getting Romain (and by extension Tate) on board. Zak was always a big target for me because he was a solid number for Aras and he was the other person that was trying to keep Anna close. When I organized Zak's blindside (I’d say it was me and Aras together, actually) I was able to use the situation to get closer to Brett by saving him, flush Brett's potential idol, and to make Anna more dependent on me.

 Final 7: Whitney’s Boot The Whitney vote was a no brainer, it was just about putting in work on that challenge. I had Whitney vote Brett, and went to Brett and told him Aras was the one who had her vote for him. This was part of the plan to make Aras as powerless as possible before he eventually targeted me.

 Final 6: Aras’ Boot Aras made his move with Tate, and I knew what was happening waaaay ahead thanks to my girl Anna and my boi Brett. I let Brett know that Aras told me to vote for him, and then I told Romain that Aras told me to vote for him. I was solid with Anna, Brett and Romain at this point and I had been getting ready for Aras to make a move, so I was able to flip those 3 against him. From what I can tell, Tate changed his vote when he realized Anna and Brett were voting Aras. In hindsight I might have tried to vote out Tate 3-2-1, but I feel pretty good about being tight enough with the rest of the tribe to counter Aras and him.

 Final 5: Romain’s Boot With Aras gone, I had to bring in Anna and Brett as the two other jury threats, and hope that they'd put off blindsiding me until Final 3 or 4. I knew I was safe, I just needed to set myself up for Final 4. This is when I told those two about my idol. I’d like to know how Brett would have voted if he didn't know about my idol tbh, maybe he can bring that up in his speech. My reason for idoling Romain out was because Tate was probably the best person to take to the end at this point, and Tate felt like he had to go to the end with Romain to win. With no more Romain, he’d have to pick someone else to go against in FTC and my plan was to vote Brett out with Anna at Final 4, which would make me the next best option for Tate. I didn’t plan on Brett flipping, and trying to stick it out with Tate, but I can see why he wanted that Final 2.

 Final 4: Brett’s Boot Once that idol came out there was really no way to avoid a tie. I decided to force the tie with

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> Brett, because I felt like without him Tate had no choice but to vote out Anna if he won FIC, and FTC against Tate had been my ideal situation since Final 6. I was fortunate enough to win the tie-breaker, but I want to be honest that it was very close and winning that was a big break for me. I’m not too insecure to admit that I definitely depended on Anna to stay loyal and it could easily be Brett in my place here if he’d gotten a bit luckier.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> Final 3: Anna’s Boot

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> I really tried to win that fucking challenge, but Tate did a great job. Good on him. You never know how people are going to vote, but the way that I set up the F5 and F4 vote’s kind of pigeon holed him into making the vote that he did, so that’s something that I at least felt good about.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> Aaand that brings us up to date! I hope that I’ve communicated what I was trying to say with this speech. I think I played a really well rounded game, and I was successful every round with the people that I targeted and the moves I made. I have a lot of respect for Tate as a player, and I played a much better game than he did because I made those successful moves. I haven’t been reading his confessionals so maybe he did some super impressive subtle thing, but from my perspective I never saw him do any of the things he wanted to do in the merge. He made it known that he thought that I was the biggest jury threat and he tried to make moves against me at Final 6, 5, and 4, so that he wouldn’t have to make the choice that he did last night.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> I don’t want to be negative though, there’s a million reasons to vote for Tate or me and they’re all valid. But at the end of the day, if I were a juror choosing between the two of us, there would be no question. I would cast my vote for the person that made the biggest impact, that showed more skill, and that played harder than anyone. I don’t think my game was seamless but I know that I was strong and that I had a ton of influence on how the merge played out.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> I’ve put an absurd amount of my time, thought, and energy into this season for months because I wanted it ridiculously badly, and I’m just exhausted. I’m so over-involved it’s not even funny, so I really don’t know what my chances are, but whatever happens with this, it’s been an honor and I’m so proud and humbled at the chance to make my pitch to this jury.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> Thank you for reading through my narcissistic drivel, I’m looking forward to all (okay, most) of your speeches.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> Talk to you soon,

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> Will

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> Disclaimer: I’m not unaware of the fact that most of you are probably disappointed that it’s me here over Anna, and I’m sure that at least some of you feel like I’m undeserving because I was arrogant at times and I alienated people. I obviously did, no doubt I used fights to lower my status as a threat. I wanted to be more appealing to go to the end with; it was something that got me past the this last tribal instead of Anna but it’s also ethically questionable to start shit with people for your own benefit in a game. I really did have issues with some of the things Whitney did, and I was genuinely frustrated with Kristen, but it was a game move and I obviously straddled the line and probably even crossed it in terms of how I spoke to those two at Final 9 through Final 7. I deserve to get trashed by Whitney and Kristen, and if this is something that affects other juror’s votes as well then that makes sense to me. Doesn’t make you a bitter juror. <ac_metadata title="Vote for Will!"> </ac_metadata>