Hey guys! First of all, I wanna thank TJ and Martynas for hosting this killer season, I loved playing in it so much <3
Ok, so let’s get right to it, I’ll try to keep it short and sweet!
Strategically, I think I made the right moves at the right times, allowing me to survive this long. When the season started, I made it a goal for me to form bonds and connect with people who were both in my alliance and outside of it. I was initially in an alliance with Tom, Julez, Cali and Sam, and besides that I worked on getting Fonda and Ian to trust me because I knew there was a big chance that I would need them to survive in the future whether it’d be a swap or a merge, which turned out to be right because once the merge hit Ian at first wanted to vote for Cali but because of our relationship, I was able to let him know that people had thrown his name out there and that he needed to stick with Ramla in order to survive, which caused Tommy to go over Cali in that first merge vote, giving my alliance the numbers for the rest of the game.
One big move that I was behind was the ousting of Tom. Now, some people might not know this but Tom and I played together in SI where we worked together but by the endgame I wanted to have the chance to vote him out yet never got to because of him being a challenge beast. For this season, although I trusted Tom and he was a good ally, I wanted to be able to take my fate into my own hands and not rely on him wanting to keep me around in order to survive. I knew I wouldn’t stand a chance in some of these last challenges had he been around which is why I decided I needed to make a move at F7-F6. With me forming a F3 deal with Cali and Sam at F7 I figured it was the right time to do it, so by telling them about how Tom was getting a bit too close to Mihai (something I knew a long time ago since Tom had told me from the pre-merge that Mihai wanted to work with him after being hosted by Tom in his org), and although he wasn’t really gonna flip, it was all it took to put the target on him, with me getting Ian to work with us as well.
I think my social game was also strong this season, as I made an effort to reach out to people and I feel like I got to know most of you. I think one example of my social game helping me in the season was during F7, where I was left vulnerable with a dark pearl, the perfect opportunity for anyone in my alliance who would want to take a shot at me. Everyone from Ramla knew I would be having a vote against me at tribal, but instead of trying to get me out, I had people protecting me. Cali used her mask restrictor to make sure my dark pearl wouldn’t screw me over, Tom told people he had the dark pearl to avoid me getting votes, Ian shared with me his idol clue which allowed me to find the idol in that round. In the end, I ended up receiving only the dark pearl vote and I think that shows that people wanted to work with me moving forward, which is what you always want in Survivor.
I know I lied in some instances but in Survivor and with idols in play you sorta have to do that in order to survive and I’m hoping that doesn’t bite me in the butt tonight. I also always made sure to keep my options open because although I had an ideal endgame in mind for myself, I wanted to be flexible since you never know when people might start plotting against you and you need to separate yourself from them and find a new path. For me this didn’t really happen this season so I was able to choose the endgame that worked best for my chances of winning.
As for my physical game, I think it was also very good as I won 4 immunities and I helped my tribe a LOT during that endurance challenge where both tribes were going head to head, not only finding and improving the list we used but keeping people’s spirits up when we thought we had already lost. My favorite immunity win though was the one from Touchy Subjects, because to win this challenge you need to show some game awareness, you don’t need to be the most well liked or the most UTR, you need to be aware of what people think of others, it’s all about assessing how other people were gonna react to certain topics which I believe played to my strengths.
I feel like I deserve to win this season because I was proactive all the way through, and I always had the pulse of the game. I wasn’t afraid to get blood on my hands, I never hid behind anyone. I was front and center for all the action, there were people calling me a big threat during the early merge, some people even doing so pre-merge, and I still managed to keep my allies from turning on me and to make the moves that I wanted to make at every point. No one ever voted for me, the only vote I got was from the dark pearl I got at the auction, rip. During the pre-merge I always made sure I had all my bases covered, I was in a good position pre-swap and with my steal a vote had we lost a challenge post-swap I could’ve turned the 3-3 situation into a 4-2 and caused a split vote, which was my plan to keep myself safe from any idols. During the post-merge I was a key player in getting Ramla back the numbers by reconnecting with both Sam and Ian and securing their votes in that round, which led to our alliance succeeding for the rest of the game.
If you guys have any questions I’ll be happy to answer them, and I hope you deem me worthy of being the winner as I enjoyed playing in this season so much! :D