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Survivor Smogon Survivor: The Official (Started! Join server to spectate)
- Thread starter apricity
- Start date
It was generally assumed they might expire at F5, but most people didn't want to take the risk of having you around at F5/F4 with your challenge prowess. That's definitely fair though, and that's an element I wasn't aware of so I appreciate the info
I remember telling Whydon I was in a vc with Joe / that I vc'd with Joe, but we never had a pecking order or discussed one. That first merge vc for Joe and I was 90% catching up on things, and 10% discussing future hypotheticals
Just looked back on the conversation, Whydon asked me if Joe was trying to vote him out, to which I said no and then we discussed who he liked / wanted out at some point, a lot of that conversation being me trying to position Joe well with Whydon to have the 3 of us on the same page if possible
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Maybe that was the case, but our play was still based on burning your idols and making sure you didn't get further into the game. Most people that were alive then would agree with this. We couldn't have known your advantages wouldn't work after F6. So maybe you didn't burn your idols because of our actions, but it's still a collective effort to do our best to make you burn it - no matter if it was necessary or not.
I have mentioned some of my plays in other posts, but I'll give you a quick runup here too. Although I may not have made any flashy moves, I believed I put myself in a comfortable situation at all times. Despite being on the minority, I was never voted during this merge. I attribute this to allying with others that were on the minority such as zoa, ith, and josh so that I have the numbers to be safe (in addition to being allied with SSR and clouds of course). I was also able to keep my strongest allies in the game until it was my choice to let them go, unlike some others which were forced to see their closest allies eliminated. I also believe votes were quite locked since F11, but we needed to play around advantages. Of course in hindsight it didn't matter (zoa was using his idols anyways), but we didn't know this and we had to play around making him play it (in our minds) vs staying in control of the vote which I think we did successfully. Playing up other threat levels were also crucial to my overall strategy.
I know this can be spun to seem like a positive, but I feel like a big part of this was having those strong connections outside of the alliance of you/me/SSR to begin with (like in my case, hills and Joe), and so it was less of being forced to see an ally eliminated and more having to make tough decisions on which friends and allies would be better to proceed in the game with. I don't want to undermine your social game at all though since I know you had an excellent one, I witnessed it firsthand–but that's just how it feels from my perspective.
I understand this point, but obviously keeping Joe around was much more beneficial for you. Since he was only one vote away from being saved, it's not like the whole game decided to turn against Joe and there wasn't anything you can do (compared to ITH's elimination which had a solid majority, for example). I also think you didn't have a firm grip on ITH's vote, who is also your ally, which ultimately led to Joe's elimination.
Nah hills only voted Ayia because Whydon was worried Eli had forgotten to submit a vote & tied it as I mentioned a little further back in the thread, and Whydon basically went all out trying to get him to vote off (which wound up being necessary to prevent a tie)
Here's a fun one. Describe your gameplay in the form of a legal Pokemon moveset. If you want, feel free to get creative and discuss team options, checks, counters, etc. like a Smogon analysis. Mine would be something like
zoa (Nidoking) (M) @ Wide Lens
Ability: Sheer Force
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Substitute
- Sludge Wave
- Earth Power
- Blizzard
The premise behind zoa is to take advantage of his Sheer Force ability, which describes his strategy to win individual immunity as much as possible. He is equipped with a Wide Lens in order to more easily find any available idol or advantage, should he fail to win individual immunity. Substitute represents when he has to hide behind such idol or advantage. Quiet nature is chosen to coincide with his social game.
zoa (Nidoking) (M) @ Wide Lens
Ability: Sheer Force
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Quiet Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Substitute
- Sludge Wave
- Earth Power
- Blizzard
The premise behind zoa is to take advantage of his Sheer Force ability, which describes his strategy to win individual immunity as much as possible. He is equipped with a Wide Lens in order to more easily find any available idol or advantage, should he fail to win individual immunity. Substitute represents when he has to hide behind such idol or advantage. Quiet nature is chosen to coincide with his social game.
So this is a point I've seen a lot of people mention. In an 80 player ORG hosted within a community, pre-game relationships will exist. Yes, they allow trusts to be formed easier. However, it's often not mentioned that these pre-game relationships also become a double edge sword in the right circumstances. Let's take DLE - although I was with him only on our first tribe, I have been repeatedly told by many others that "they know he was a threat that needs to be taken care of". Obviously, a part of that came from his prior experiences in survivor so managing your own reputation become a key part of this game. From my perspective, I didn't rely solely on pre-game relationships. I was close with clouds, someone who I never met before this game, and worked with him till the end. I also made other allies along the way that I've never met before. Of course, I also allied with people I knew before such as SSR and whydon, but i also built relationships with others in the game. In the pairing up challenge, I paired with ITH (someone who I just met) while others paired right away with their old allies. I think the biggest evidence here is my other 2 finalists, Josh and Clouds, who are both my allies and someone I had very limited interaction with prior to this game. Also there are many other players in the game that have a lot of pre-game relations and were eliminated along the way, suggesting that it's not the only reason someone go far in this game.
And you were okay with hills voting that way? As he was your ally, I expected a little more influence from your side.
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This is cool, I'll bite:
Clouds (Torkoal) @ Leftovers
Ability: Shell Armor
EVs: 248 HP / 232 Def / 28 SpD
Bold Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Rapid Spin
- Lava Plume
- Yawn
Shell Armor, an ability that protects from critical hits, tied into an important aspect of my own gameplay – always being 1 step closer to your 'opposition' (in this case, people that threaten your chances to win) than your friends and allies. A 'critical hit' can be equated to you getting voted out yourself, while a standard attack could be just losing a friend. Since there were a lot of games to 'not be the one you idoled out' throughout mid-merge, I felt our own individual allegiance to each other put me in a position to be protected from the crit. The only reason I'd consider you 'opposition' here is that I knew you'd smoke anyone at FTC, as everyone did.
Stealth Rock represented setting the field for future votes by contributing to placing targets (such as my emphasis on the Eli/Whydon/Ayia trio 'leading the game'), but I also recognize that everyone played their own individual role in this and that no one person can take credit. Those were just the rocks I added to the large.. rock pile
Rapid Spin (clearing the rocks) was a mix of attempts to keep my own perceived threat level relatively low, but most importantly just lower than RAD/SSR's for the F5/F4 votes. At the same time, I know the former played a solid game and had pretty stellar jury management while the latter has played a publicly recognized dominant game, so there were extraneous variables that played a bigger role
Lava Plume is my one burst of challenge ability when I game theoried the hell out of the army distribution challenge, one of my favorites
Yawn is just me right now since this FTC and my sleep schedule are not friends ):
I'll quote where I talked about this a little while back to avoid being redundant, but I hear you:
I would like to preface this with saying that I do not intend to ever use this moveset in an actual battle.
TheyCallMeJoshua (Mudsdale) (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Stamina
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 128 HP / 252 Atk / 128 SpD
Brave Nature
IVs: 0 Spe
- Iron Defense
- Substitute
- Facade
- Close Combat
I chose Iron Defense to represent that I made many allies along the way.
The move Substitute represents that I was able to avoid the spotlight all the way until the merge. I never received a vote prior to the merge, and I credit this to my ability to place responsibility elsewhere so I wouldn't be looked at as the head honcho.
I chose Facade to represent that I may have been burned a time or two by unexpected votes, but I was still able to push through and do damage to opposing players.
Close Combat is here to represent my challenge ability toward the later portions of the game.
Congrats to the three of you for making it this far! You’ve all played some very strong games and I believe that any of you could still win this game. My vote could still go to any of you. I respect that FTC is one of if not the most stressful part of the game for a finalist, so I won’t be grilling you or asking for essays.
Clouds threat management from 20 to 13 arguably took care of itself by virtue of who all made it there, and this definitely could’ve continued into the middle of the merge as well. Was threat management something you did, or something you took advantage of?
Drookez it’s impressive that your name never popped up as a vote, but there were also instances where you were out of the loop. Did you have control over the flow of the game, or was it optimal to rest on your laurels/relationships and not have to get blood on your hands?
TheyCallMeJoshua as someone who didn’t know anybody coming into this game, I respect and admire that you were able to make it this far with few connections prior to the game. You stated earlier that for a decent portion of the game, being the one to push a name was rushing into unfamiliar territory and not worth the risk of jeopardizing your game. Did the point come where this is no longer a problem, and if so, did it make sense to try to assert yourself into more of a controlling position?
If my questions cause any redundancy, I’m sorry about that, and feel free to call me out.
Clouds threat management from 20 to 13 arguably took care of itself by virtue of who all made it there, and this definitely could’ve continued into the middle of the merge as well. Was threat management something you did, or something you took advantage of?
Drookez it’s impressive that your name never popped up as a vote, but there were also instances where you were out of the loop. Did you have control over the flow of the game, or was it optimal to rest on your laurels/relationships and not have to get blood on your hands?
TheyCallMeJoshua as someone who didn’t know anybody coming into this game, I respect and admire that you were able to make it this far with few connections prior to the game. You stated earlier that for a decent portion of the game, being the one to push a name was rushing into unfamiliar territory and not worth the risk of jeopardizing your game. Did the point come where this is no longer a problem, and if so, did it make sense to try to assert yourself into more of a controlling position?
If my questions cause any redundancy, I’m sorry about that, and feel free to call me out.
Unfortunately not. One big problem that arose was there were relationships that weren't common knowledge. I had no idea how close Eli/Whydon were until late into the game. I found out about the Clouds/Hills relationship around F14/13 (even though I had been on Finance with them earlier in the game). In fact, I didn't find out until F4 (after I had already won immunity) that Drookez and SSR have known each other for 7 years! There was just no way for me to find out these things on my own, so it was always a risk to throw out a name at any point.
Thanks Blakers, appreciate it! I'd say my focus on threat level management in relation to others in the game didn't become much of a focus until merge, as is the case in most Survivors, and since most of the votes in the 20-13 range occurred on the Legal tribe I can for sure say there's some truth to how you felt there as a witness. It's definitely true that threat management handles itself to some degree, since some players are always going to be perceived as bigger threats by virtue of their name and relevancy in the community/history in social games. As a newer player, I did use this to my advantage a little, emphasizing the importance of not allowing some of the more experienced players to advance too far to people like Josh and hills (who are also relatively new), but this is something pretty much anyone in my spot would do so I don't consider this unique to my own game. Instead, I think the most important component of my own threat management was instead playing up SSR's game when I could to Drookez & others, especially after zoa lost F6 immunity and I knew the route of votes to take me to the end had to be zoa -> RAD -> SSR, with the F4 vote being heavily dependent on how the last immunity challenge went.
As you stated though, I think a lot of threat management took care of itself just due to the familiarity many people in the game had with the community and a public perception of who would be considered 'threats'. In a Survivor without a large number of players who have played together before, determining threats is much more centered around who had the best jury management / played the best game, but in this game there was heavy influence from the start based on names alone.
I'll ask you guys to put your question responses in discord because I'm gonne be on mobile for the rest of FTC probably and probably wouldn't see them if they are ITC. This is also probably the only set of questions I'm asking (though I may/may not discuss things with you guys on discord after your answers.)
I'm also not gonna lie, I've been way too busy (caught up in this election KEK) to read the entirety of the ftc questions (so if anything here is a repeat, sorry! but if you want my vote you should repeat your answer :P ), though i 100% read your speeches.
Drookez: Ily drookey :)
What is one thing aside of threat level management you did far better than clouds? Fmpov Clouds did better socially with me than you did and me/you didn't exactly strategize. Why should you get MY vote?
What is the one part of your game you are the most proud of?
Did you make any mistakes along the way you can pinpoint, or are you content with how things played out?
Clouds: Congrats on making it, was a pleasure playing with you!
What set you apart from Drookez's game, differentiate yourself as hard as that might be?
Was there anything in merge aside from the joe vote that really didn't go according to plan, if so how did you compensate?
What is the one part of your game you are the most proud of?
Josh: Wattup Josh, good to see you here >:)
You played from behind basically since premerge tribe due to the lack of pregame connections and I think thats commendable. But maybe for the same reasons you were likely sitting at a disadvantage in every jury. What did you try to do to make your FTC odds stronger against this web of friends you had to deal with?
What is the one part of your game you are the most proud of?
If you had to change one part of your game what would it be and why?
I'm also not gonna lie, I've been way too busy (caught up in this election KEK) to read the entirety of the ftc questions (so if anything here is a repeat, sorry! but if you want my vote you should repeat your answer :P ), though i 100% read your speeches.
Drookez: Ily drookey :)
What is one thing aside of threat level management you did far better than clouds? Fmpov Clouds did better socially with me than you did and me/you didn't exactly strategize. Why should you get MY vote?
What is the one part of your game you are the most proud of?
Did you make any mistakes along the way you can pinpoint, or are you content with how things played out?
Clouds: Congrats on making it, was a pleasure playing with you!
What set you apart from Drookez's game, differentiate yourself as hard as that might be?
Was there anything in merge aside from the joe vote that really didn't go according to plan, if so how did you compensate?
What is the one part of your game you are the most proud of?
Josh: Wattup Josh, good to see you here >:)
You played from behind basically since premerge tribe due to the lack of pregame connections and I think thats commendable. But maybe for the same reasons you were likely sitting at a disadvantage in every jury. What did you try to do to make your FTC odds stronger against this web of friends you had to deal with?
What is the one part of your game you are the most proud of?
If you had to change one part of your game what would it be and why?
I'm going to answer this both on the forum as well as in the discord server.
Thank you, RAD.
I agree that there weren't many scenarios where I wasn't going to be sitting at a disadvantage with the jury. To make my FTC odds stronger, I spoke with some of the other players about the position I was in so they'd have more time to think about what I was saying and understand how much work I had to put into this. I thought that if I waited until FTC to explain my position, they would have their minds already made up (Unfortunately, what I heard from Clouds is that someone I felt close to ruled me out before FTC regardless). I was very unlucky in the 3rd swapped tribe because almost all the people I felt closest to were on the Legal tribe. So while I was on the winning tribe for most of the time, they were bonding because they consistently had to go to tribal. I don't think there was any way I could do complete damage control in this situation once we hit the merge, so I tried my best to alleviate this.
One part of my game that I'm most proud of us is making it through the Finance tribe. On that first day, I was like "fuck." I thought I was a goner, for sure. I remember telling myself not to freak out and to just reach out to everyone on my tribe and see if I could get a bite. That's when I began speaking to SSR, Clouds, and Drookez amongst others.
If I had to change one part of my game, I probably would have flipped from SSR/Clouds/Drookez at F9. I didn't realize how tight of a trio SSR/Clouds/Drookez were (or how tight of a duo SSR/Drookez were), so I would have attempted to have Me/ITH/Eli/Ayia/Zoa vote SSR out. Whether this would have been possible..... I'm unsure. I believe it would have worked though.
Congrats to all three of you for making it this far!!! You all deserve to be here for sure
I don’t really have any burning questions, just wanted to say congrats :)
I’ll ask an easy one just so this post isn’t empty (sorry if these have been asked already i mostly skimmed through this thread)
Clouds from my perspective your game involved telling just about everyone just about everything that’s going on in the game (except joe_durk ) would you say this is accurate, and if so, are there any regrets with being so open about idols, votes etc.
TheyCallMeJoshua Hello Joshua. How are you. Who would you say your closest ally was this game and how did your relationship with them help or hurt your game?
Drookez you were the only one of the remaining people not to tell me I was being voted out (even though I already knew before either clouds or josh said anything to me) I would say we were pretty close, is there any reason you didn’t extend your condolences/goodbyes to me before the vote?
Idc if you guys answer these or not lol I’m just here to say congratulations and I hope all three of u enjoyed the game regardless of what happens :)
I don’t really have any burning questions, just wanted to say congrats :)
I’ll ask an easy one just so this post isn’t empty (sorry if these have been asked already i mostly skimmed through this thread)
Clouds from my perspective your game involved telling just about everyone just about everything that’s going on in the game (except joe_durk ) would you say this is accurate, and if so, are there any regrets with being so open about idols, votes etc.
TheyCallMeJoshua Hello Joshua. How are you. Who would you say your closest ally was this game and how did your relationship with them help or hurt your game?
Drookez you were the only one of the remaining people not to tell me I was being voted out (even though I already knew before either clouds or josh said anything to me) I would say we were pretty close, is there any reason you didn’t extend your condolences/goodbyes to me before the vote?
Idc if you guys answer these or not lol I’m just here to say congratulations and I hope all three of u enjoyed the game regardless of what happens :)
i was left out of the loop because due to timezones, I could only be online until 4 hours before deadline and a lot of changed were made then. Yet, I was still informed that joe and andy were counter votes in both cases - so it did not come as a complete surprise. Instead of going with the majority, I stuck by voting the people I thought were more threatening to my game (you and Eli). Joe and andy were potential allies for sure, but I only met them at merge and they weren’t part of my core alliances so I was neutral about their elimination. Since F11, I believed the list of people that had to go was pretty much set in stone so the only thing that mattered was when they should all be eliminated. I knew who were the threats I needed to get rid of, and I did my best to have the numbers to do so. I believe I had good control of the game considering that I was never targeted despite being minority on the first 2 votes, while others were all eliminated or repeatedly targeted (Josh).
Hi, In the hills. I’m doing well. How about yourself?
Aside from Outlaw, because we never really got to work together much at all during the course of the game, I would say that I considered Zoa my closest ally with RAD being a close second because I had been talking with him since Day 1.
I knew Zoa couldn’t have had many allies on Legal because he mutinied from there, but he also couldn’t have had too many allies on Business because Business was made up of quite a few Marketing players who eliminated him before. I was more confident that I could trust Zoa after he told me about his advantages.
I think my relationship with Zoa definitely helped my game in terms of morale. He was able to lift me up when I was feeling like I was stuck in a bad position. In terms of strategy, I knew having one of the biggest threats as your closest ally probably isn’t something you should rely on for the endgame. I knew he wouldn’t make it to the end unless he won a bunch of immunities at the end, and I didn’t have super high expectations of that happening due to the challenges being different each time.
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Love you Rad. <3 (small heart) I believed I had a better long-term view of the game than clouds. I knew who I needed as allies and who were threats to my game, while Clouds’ approach seems to be about making false promises he knew he couldnt deliver, especially if he already knew he needed to get rid of them sometimes. While that is a fair play and I respect it, there’s a lot of potential risks when you need to eliminate people from the game - and from what others are saying, it seems that clouds did not deliver on having a good sendoff with most people. I also outperformed him in most challenges and advantages find, which I believe is also an important part of survivor and proves that I’m not gonna get complacent just because my name hasn’t been brought up. I made strategic moves along the way that benefited my game, such as eliminating trace during the pairing up challenge because I knew he would be a big threat going forward (sorry Trace). Socially, i got close with people I wanted to have by my side and most of them did trust me even if we had not met before. For example, I told ITH about the votes during finance and built a relationship with him even if we already had a dominant finance alliance - which shows that I was open and had alternative options. This did matter, because ITH and I did pair up together while others mostly stuck with people their know. I think I should get your vote because of my strategy, my willingness to work with people that will help my game, and having a non-complacent attitude by trying my best in challenges and advantages and making allies even if I felt secure.
I’m proud to be able to work with a very varied group of people. These include people I’ve met in the past and those I haven’t. It was a fun time to discuss game related stuff and coordinate with them, especially during tough times. Meeting new people is always fun and was also central to my strategy. All in all, im glad that we were in this together.
My biggest mistakes would be the fact that I left a lot of people in the dark on their way out, and it is something I regret. You could say I was too weak emotionally to handle the thought that I have to say it, and to face the consequences of what telling my allies that would be. It was only during your elimination that I found the gut to do so, and by then it was too late. If I could change something about my game, it would definitely be to not take the easy way out.