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The Milenials tribe could be a really entertaining disaster of overplaying since Zeke, Adam, Hannah, and Will are all huge dorky superfans and it's easy to to see how they will gain control of the tribe since Mari and Michaela are also clearly dorks that will fit in better with that group than with people like Jay, Taylor, and Figgy. It'd be like Worlds Apart if Shirin and Max actually had power pre-merge instead of just thinking they did. 
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Sep 14, 2016 15:42
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Mari seemed like great casting, so it's a shame to lose her so her early. It was still a very exciting episode though. I wish we got more insight into why Will was willing to flip and why they targeted Mari over Zeke or Adam. I also wonder why Michelle was trying to flip Hannah at Tribal. The episode sold it as her being unsure if Will and/or Michaela were both flipping, but I wonder if the vote was more secure than it seemed and flipping Hannah at the Tribal was just a play to keep Hannah's trust so that she wasn't completely blindsided. It was kind of risky of Michelle to spend so much political capital on this move, given that she now has to make up some wild lie as the "secret reason to vote Mari that she'll tell [Hannah] latter."
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Sep 29, 2016 05:12
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It's funny to me that Paul's one (misinterpreted?) sentence to the girls is what did him in, and not the two rounds of super hard work Ken put in to slowly turn the tribe against Paul for legitimate reasons.
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Oct 6, 2016 02:00
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blue squares posted:Or it's both. Maybe without Ken's work, the women would have dismissed that sentence. But they had been primed to take it a certain way I'd like to think this is true because it's more narratively satisfying, but Ken's pitch was that Paul was a bad leader who couldn't deliver on his promises. None of that really has to do with the women interpreting the sentence as Paul being eager to team up with the guys. Maybe Ken was pitching Paul as closer to the guys than to the Jessica/Sunday/Lucy, but we never saw that.
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Oct 6, 2016 03:30
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STAC Goat posted:I would not call Hannah a "garbage person" for some bad social skills but drat she triggered something in me. That whole "I guess I'm the worst person in the world" thing was so familiar. I was originally skeptical of the move too, but the "make the move when you can" argument makes a lot of sense. That's been a big theme in these past few seasons, where big obvious targets like Mike in Worlds Apart, and Kelley Wentworth and Joe in Second Chance can make it deep in the game due to swaps, immunity wins, and idols and people regretting not taking the shot against them much earlier when they had the chance.
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Oct 7, 2016 03:04
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The more I think about it, the more I like the move for David. Someone like David is never going to get votes at Final Tribal Council unless he proves himself early, because people will think of him as a joke of a player that should have been the first person out. What exactly was his best case scenario before this move? Flip to Taylor and the Millenials and then hope to get dragged as a goat to the finals? Or stay with the Gen X tribe that mostly hates him and then hope to get dragged as a goat to the finals? If the merge is at 12, the majority alliance at the first merge vote will be at least 7 people, so even if by some miracle he, Ken, and CeCe all make the merge and squirm into the majority, those 3 will almost certainly not have any majority "equity" within that alliance. Any scenario where David maintains that status quo and makes it to the finals is a scenario where he looks like he was "dragged" there. By making a bold move now, he is someone who has earned himself some power and some respect. And even though there's a swap next week, if (again, by some miracle) he, CeCe, Ken, and Jessica do all make the merge, the 4 of them could reasonably be the head of some majority alliance at a merge of 12 (say, by picking up some Millennial scraps like Zeke, Adam, and Hannah, and forming an alliance of 7). Obviously, the post-merge in modern Survivor is going to be more complicated than forming an alliance of 7 and riding that 5 straight votes, but at the very least the optics for David look a lot better if the four Gen X misfits are the core of some majority alliance instead of the periphery. The move probably substantially decreases his chance of actually making the finals, but if he does I think his odds of winning have increased substantially. I also disagree with the consensus that David should have expected a swap soon. There are only two other Survivor seasons which had ____ vs. ___ as its only subtitle with no location (Heroes vs. Villains and Blood vs. Water). The former had no swap, and the second had a relatively late swap. It's not outlandish to think they would ride the theme out longer, especially because the season has such a large number of players.
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Oct 13, 2016 23:51
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Lone Goat posted:It's more outlandish to believe that the timing of a swap is based on the title of a season, but alright?? The logic is that a season like Survivor: Caramoan: Fans vs. Favorites is still a season of Survivor that takes place in Caramoan even if there isn't literally a tribe of Fans competing against a tribe of Favorites, whereas a season title like Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains only makes sense as long as there is a tribe of Heroes competing against a tribe of Villains (not only was there no swap, but there was a very late merge). Really, Heroes vs. Villains is the only precedent for this since Blood vs. Water was never a tribe of blood competing against a tribe of water; it just referred to the general concept of competing with and against loved ones which was something that lasted the whole day.
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Oct 14, 2016 00:42
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I really disagree with David's move here. If he plays the idol on CeCe and they take out, say, Zeke, even if they go to Tribal again the next round and it's a 2-2 split, are Chris and Michelle really going to go to rocks for each other? Of course not, and they would be able to vote out, say, Michelle next round and Chris if they end up going again (or vice versa). After that, there's almost certainly a merge or another swap, and David/Cece go into the next phase rejoining Ken/Jessica with 3 big threats out of the way. These 3-tribe phases tend to snowball for the losing tribe, so if they lose two more challenges David probably has to play his idol in the next round, and then he might be screwed the round after. What's David's best case scenario by letting CeCe go here? Chris might be calling a truce with him briefly, but David's crazy if he thinks that Chris will have any longterm relationship with him after David played so aggressively in the first few episodes. It's a miracle that Chris even wanted to keep him this round, and I'm actually sort of confused about why he did that. Maybe David thinks that playing another idol makes him too big of a threat going forward, but I think he already passed that point of no return when he played the idol last week.
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Oct 22, 2016 18:42
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aidoru posted:But then the idol would be re-hidden and it's a huge risk for Dave to think he can dig up three idols in a row. It seems unclear if and where the idol would be re-hidden, considering he currently has the idol from the purple tribe camp but is now on the orange tribe. I don't think there's much precedent for how idols are rehidden post-swap pre-merge. I guess the nightmare scenario for David would be to play the idol on CeCe to idol out Zeke, then Chris finds a rehidden idol next round and idols out David on the 2-2 vote. But is that scenario really more likely than David being forced to play his idol this round and then immediately getting voted out next round in a 2-1 vote?
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Oct 23, 2016 18:21
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STAC Goat posted:The really terrifying risk for David is that he plays the idol to save CeCe, Chris is loving furious and lets him have it, and as soon as the merge comes there are people saying "David has twice now lied to his allies, blindsided them, pulled out an idol, and used it on someone he wasn't even that close with. He may seem nice but he's basically Russell Hantz and we need to get him out NOW." I just think it's too late for that way of thinking. He's already the guy who played an idol for someone he wasn't even that close with and it's also easy to spin the narrative that he was responsible for the coup against Paul (even though that was more Ken and Jessica's doing), and Chris already doesn't trust him. I also didn't see anything in the episode to suggest that David was above Michelle in the pecking order-- Chris mentioned a bunch of times that he didn't trust David and the only reason he was keeping him over CeCe was that he may want to have access to Ken and Jessica as allies at the merge. But by that logic, Michelle has even more allies from the other tribes that he could use AND Michelle hasn't ever betrayed Chris, so why should Chris keep David over Michelle? And if Chris really wants David's allies so badly, he would have kept both David and CeCe this round anyway, so clearly that's not a top priority for him. ETA: David even said in confessional this episode that if CeCe goes this round because she's a liability in challenges then that almost certainly means he's next, so I don't even think David is under the illusion that he's above Michelle in the pecking order. The one advantage David might have is MAYBE he could bluff the use of his idol to keep votes off of him while also hanging onto the idol another round. But when was the last time that worked?
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Oct 23, 2016 21:10
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Genuine question: if you don't like any seasons in 25-30, why do you like the show? I get the sense that most people in this thread like the show for the strategy, and most of the biggest strategic moments in the show have been in those seasons (plus 16, 19, 20, 31, and 32). You have the chaotic post-merge with like 4 different alliances in 25, the Three Amigos idol Tribal Council in 26, Caleb spontaneously announcing he was changing his vote to Brad Culpepper mid-Tribal in 27, going to rocks in 27, the crazy Cagayan post-merge where Tony bounced back and forth between alliances and made up idol rules in 28, the wacky Reed vote splitting plan that almost worked if not for a last minute idol play in 29, Natalie's idol play at the final 5 in 29, Mike's idol fake out on Shirin in 30 (plus 3 other successful idol plays throughout the season). And these are just the big A-tier hits-- even the B/C-tier "regular" episodes in the 25-30 era tend to have some exciting strategic stuff going on (whether it's blindsiding Garrett on Day 6 with an idol in his pocket in 28, or blindsiding Cliff Robinson pre-merge in 28, or getting Jeremy out on a weird 5-3-2 vote in 29). None of these seasons have any sort of traditional Pagonging, and all of them have pretty satisfying winners. I guess maybe if you don't care about strategy and just like to see likeable people on TV you wouldn't like these seasons? But I think most of the big newbie characters in the 25-30 era (Malcolm, Denise, Ciera, Spencer, Tasha, Tony, Natalie, Jeremy, Keith, Shirin, Mike) are super likeable and are responsible for some really exciting longform underdog stories. In fact, I think the big difference between 21-24 and 25-30 was a big change in the casting of the show. 21-24 have a lot of "generic" good-looking people with little personality or interest in the game, whereas 25-30 largely steer away from that archetype. Probst even said in an interview that 24 was a breaking point in terms of how they cast the show, and specifically he ordered casting to stop casting "stupid" people because it was essentially breaking the game. EDIT: To clarify, I'm not saying I love every season in 25-30. I think the pre-merge of 26 is pretty bad (but the post-merge is solid), and 29 and 30 had some casting problems. I just don't understand how someone could be a Survivor fan that likes season 31 but can't find anything to like in 25-30 which is probably the most consistent run of 6 seasons in the show's history (outside of maybe 15-20). mancalamania fucked around with this message at 22:44 on Nov 22, 2016 |
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Nov 22, 2016 22:39
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Arcanen posted:There are some Big Brother mechanisms that I prefer to Survivor. For one, the HOH allows for minority alliances to have a bit more survivability, which means Pagongings are rarer than in Survivor. The other is that the HOH nomination procedure means that not everyone is at immediate risk of elimination, which I think can result in longer term strategic gameplay instead of everything being so reactive and chaotic. I used to feel this way until I started watching Big Brother more over the past few years, and I actually think the opposite is true especially with respect to that last point. I think the Big Brother format encourages super "safe" and boring gameplay, because no one can safely plan more than a week ahead. And because of the nomination system, you can have people go weeks on end without having to make any strategic move at all. On Big Brother, if Alliance A and Alliance B are fighting each other and you haven't already picked a side, there is no incentive to do so since if A wins there will be two B noms and if B wins there will be two A noms. You never actually have to choose between A and B unless you do something stupid like win a comp. At least on Survivor, you are forced to pick a side at every Tribal Council by either voting for A or B. And with every player feeling vulnerable every single round on Survivor, there is always an incentive to be paying attention to the game and actively strategizing. Maybe a neat twist on the Big Brother format would be to announce all of the competitions far in advance, and maybe even allow them to practice any of the comps in the downtime. This both allows players to plan further ahead (you can actually estimate some probabilities about who might win HoH in a given week instead of just guessing), and letting them practice for longer periods might give the energetic underdogs a more serious chance to comeback then if they have to walk blindly into some stupid trivia comp or pray their body weight is distributed correctly to optimize their chance in some wall-endurance comp.
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Nov 23, 2016 04:51
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Great pair of episodes. I'm so glad that this wasn't heavily spoiled by previews (like the Blood vs. Water rocks Tribal) or by Probst's interviews (like the Cambodia Final 6 all-but-rocks Tribal). Also I don't think there's any need to worry about a Jeremy/Josh situation here, because even if Zeke and David to go out back-to-back in some order there are only 3 weeks left in the season so the finale would still have a bunch of major players left like Hannah, Ken, Jay, and Adam.
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Nov 24, 2016 06:00
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Fast Luck posted:It wasn't a great idol play because if Will flipped, you wasted it. If he didn't flip, you saved Hannah and are still stuck at 4-4. That's still cool though that Adam played it, it gives the "Hey Adam, how's your idol hunt going" scene a little more punch. How'd he know she was the target by the way? If Will didn't flip that round, it's hard to see which of the 5 would ever flip and when that would even happen. In that case, if I'm Adam I'd much rather fight next round 4-4 and risk another rock draw to regain the majority instead of being down 5-3 with little chance to recover.
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Dec 1, 2016 03:56
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Binary Logic posted:F4 Trust Cluster Pendulum Players: Will Hannah David Adam. Like others said, presumably they were scared of another Kaoh Rong when they plotted out the scheduling this season. The schedule is still (just barely) possible though: a double boot next week, and then a Final 6 finale is what we saw last year in Second Chances. It's definitely annoying that we'll be rushing through the most important votes of the games. What's interesting is the schedule is not just rushed episode-wise; it's also going to be rushed in-game. There are only 6 days left, which means there needs to be an Immunity Challenge and Tribal Council every single day for the rest of the game. Also amusing, which they mentioned on RHAP this week: this schedule probably means there are no more reward challenges, which would make the reward steal advantage useless now that Jay has it. The only possibility is if some of those Immunities are combined Reward/Immunity challenges.
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Dec 3, 2016 16:44
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Also, even if David would have a hard time winning jury votes in another season, this season he's surrounded by other anxious, insecure, erratic strategists exactly like him like Adam, Hannah, and even Will to some extent.
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Dec 4, 2016 21:44
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If the legacy advantage had anything to do with the jury then it's probably something that would be opened on Day 38 or 39 rather than 36.
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Dec 6, 2016 02:12
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That last vote was very complicated, much more complicated than the show made it seem. While there were a lot of people this episode acknowledging that they need to vote off David, they don't seem to realize that they are rapidly running out of time to do it, and no one seems to be factoring in the big Ken problem: that (1) Ken will not vote off David, and (2) Ken will be a much less cooperative ally for Hannah/Adam if they vote off David. For example, if Hannah/Adam team up with Bret and Jay next round at Final 6 to vote off David, then it is very easy to imagine a scenario where Ken teams up with Bret and Jay to form a Final 3 to get revenge. They run into similar problems at 5 and 4 (Ken could force a 2-2 tie at the Final 4 vote; they'd also be running the risk that David wins the last Immunity challenge or two). They can sort of dance around this problem by targeting Ken first and then David, but this also has problems (convincing Bret and Jay to target Ken first over David, for instance). Their last completely clear shot was tonight. Bret/Sunday/Hannah/Adam probably should have made a run for the Final 4 starting tonight, guaranteeing they can lock David out of the Finals without Ken having much of a chance to retaliate. But even this comes with a new set of problems-- would Bret and Sunday WANT to go to the Final 4 with Hannah and Adam? Does Hannah have a chance against Adam in the Final 3, if she can even get there with them? On the other hand, does Adam have a chance of getting to the Final 3 in that Final 4? In this scenario, can they be certain Jay's idol is gone? Does Ken start to become an attractive goat for Bret and Sunday at some point? Anyway, it's a shame that the vote ended up so rushed. I wonder if these scenarios were running through Hannah's mind when she seemed to hesitant this episode, or if it was really as simple as just not wanting to target David out of loyalty (like her confessional made it seem).
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Dec 8, 2016 04:43
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I don't think Ken's the greatest Survivor player, but I think it's unfair to say he's an idiot. He was the first person on David's side to pick up on the clues that Zeke might not be with them, and he seemed to be somewhat important in taking down Paul at the beginning of the game and rallying for Adam's vote against Figgy in the three-tribe phase. He also somehow built a stronger relationship with Jessica than David, despite the fact that David played an idol for her the same night that Ken cast a vote against her! Ken can be dopey (like Will's Test), but I think it's a disservice to compare him to someone like Woo.
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Dec 12, 2016 04:37
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I don't blame everyone for being confused and writing fanfiction about why Hannah initiated the Sunday vote out, because it really doesn't make sense. The stated reason on the show (vote out the goat to open up a spot in the Final 3) is not terrible, but doesn't make sense for Hannah who has trouble coordinating a winnable Final 3 without Sunday. The post-game interviews hint that Sunday was actually a big social threat, and it's not clear to me if this has any truth to it, and if so whether Hannah had the social awareness to realize this. It also doesn't help that her boot was super rushed and she didn't even get a confessional because of the episode structure. It'll be great to clear some of this up in Hannah's (and Adam's and David's) interviews tomorrow. As for whether the rest of the player have time to get rid of Jay and David, they obviously do, but only just barely. With only 3 vote-offs left, there are a lot of unknowns in play, including the fact that i's unclear if they can get Ken or Hannah to cooperate in voting them off. Furthermore, things are complicated by the fact that Adam is incentivized to keep one of those two in the game until Final 4 (since if the final 4 is Bret/Hannah/Ken/Adam, Adam is likely out for being the biggest threat left). It's possible (if unlikely) to imagine Jay, David, and Adam forming an Avengers final 3-- a mutually beneficial Final 3 of the biggest threats to assure they're not just the next 3 voted out.
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Dec 14, 2016 15:23
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I thought Hannah gave a fantastic FTC performance, and if I was a juror she would have persuaded me to vote for her (even though I went into FTC 100% convinced Adam deserved it). It's strange that she did such a good job of taking ownership of her moves EXCEPT completely leaving out that she was seemingly responsible for persuading Ken to vote David out. I doubt she would have won, but maybe she could have picked up a few votes if she brought that part up. I actually think Hannah vs. Adam is a really interesting decision, and one that will unfortunately probably get forgotten due to the 100 other crazy things to talk about from this season (as well as next season). It sort of ties into something that came up a lot on RHAP at the beginning of the season with respect to results-oriented thinking. Adam claims Hannah's moves were crazy and almost led to David winning. Hannah claims that's a pointless hypothetical because David DIDN'T win and her plan panned out exactly whereas Adam's did not. Who is right?? I don't really know, but it's a neat debate to have and it's a shame it didn't even get mentioned during the Reunion. Another interesting thing that no one seems to have picked up on so far-- Adam finding that Final 5 idol probably won him the game. Without that idol, Hannah/David/Ken probably vote Adam out at 5 instead of Bret, and then at 4 it's very easy to imagine Bret/Ken/Hannah voting out David. I'd have to imagine in that universe, Hannah is the winner. What a difference that seemingly unimportant idol made! Just so I don't take away too much from Adam's victory, the one thing he did a very good job doing was putting on a spectacle. While Hannah convinced me in her speech that she was a better strategist than Adam, Adam had 39 days of flashy, aggressive, visible gameplay to back him up. That performance was key to his win and his getting credit for things he had only passing control over, and kudos to him for recognizing that this sort of jury would reward such a flashy performance while still keeping a low enough profile that he was never really the most obvious threat at any given moment.
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Dec 15, 2016 06:31
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Murmur Twin posted:JT and Cirie on the same tribe should be interesting after he flipped on her in HvV. And, similarly, Ozzy and Cirie for the same reason. I'm worried about her! 
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Dec 18, 2016 20:04
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Everyone saying that the season 34 cast is weird and kind of bad is completely right, but there's a good reason for it: the theme was originally supposed to be Winners vs. Best To Never Win, but they had trouble getting that particular cast together and by the time that theme fell apart it was too late to come up with a new theme or cast a newbie season. This InsideSurvivor article has some details and rumors, including the painful casting revelation that Sierra was a last-minute replacement for Natalie Anderson.
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Dec 19, 2016 18:26
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ApplesandOranges posted:My big "what if?" would have been if David had never used that idol on Jessica. Would Ken and Lucy have been able to sway Adam in voting out Figgy? If she'd made it to the merge, would she have been able to shift the game any or just be taken to the end as an unlikable goat? Would she have had that black rock? My big "what if" would be what happens if David used that idol on CeCe in the next episode. At the time I couldn't believe David let a loyal number slip through his fingers, especially since whatever majority he could cobble together at the merge would end up being a very slim majority. Sure enough, that's what happened. If CeCe was still in the game, would David's side have avoided going to rocks? If he could get her to the Final 4, is she willing to let David get to the firemaking challenge and potentially win the game? Or is an unbreakable foursome of CeCe/Ken/Jessica/David so threatening that they actually become earlier targets in the merge?? JesusSinfulHands posted:Trying to keep expectations low for Season 34. The safe bet for these returning player seasons is to see the big names tragically taken out early and the people no one wants to see make it all the way to the end. I'm certainly keeping my expectations on the lower side, but this only really happened in the first returnee season. 20 and 31 have plenty of big name players go very deep into the game, with 3 of the 4 returning winners in 20 making the merge!
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Dec 21, 2016 15:00
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Fake idols are fun TV but ultimately not that useful strategically. As a plant to fool someone (like David's this season or the one Bob gave Randy in Gabon), it's mostly just useful in preventing that person from continuing to search until they find a real idol. I guess the overconfidence the mark gets can be useful, but most players are still going to scheme and try to save themselves even if they think they have an idol. As a bartering chip (like the one Joe gave Mike in Worlds Apart), it's kind of completely useless because the person accepting the fake idol has no reason to actually keep their end of the bargain. It's also a really bad bluff because why would someone in the minority give someone in the majority a real idol just for the possibility of the majority's mercy for the week, when it makes just as much sense to use the idol to guarantee safety and then try to find it again after it is re-hidden. I would say "no one in their right mind would do that with a real idol," but then again Marty actually did that in Nicaragua... Marty was a bad player. And as a bluff to pretend a fake idol you created is real to prevent others from voting for you, it's pretty hard to pull off successfully because even if the majority alliance believes the idol is real they can probably just split the vote and get you out anyway. If they don't have a big enough majority to split votes, then the fake idol *might* buy you a week or two of safety but probably not much more than that because why work with the person that is either sitting or an idol or constructed an elaborate fake idol ruse? And in all these scenarios, the small gain you get is probably outweighed by all the ways the plan can go wrong. What if, for instance, Jay had shown his fake idol to Bret, Hannah, and Adam, and they panicked so much that they switched the vote to David to avoid the idol that they think is real (this would have been awesome by the way)? Or what if the fake idol you are using as a bluff to save yourself just makes you a bigger target? Not to mention the fake idols take time and energy to create (David said he was up all night making his), and if you get caught you might become public enemy number one.
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Dec 30, 2016 06:43
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