Survivor Survivor Season 6: Fans vs Favorites vs Fumblers (And the winner is...ajhockeystar!)

[InfernoDragon]

Finalists, I’m going to give all of you at least one question over this FTC, but for now I’ll just start with this for Energy . Don’t worry, I won’t make this easy for any of you

Laurel, as much as it pains me to say it, you outwitted me. I pride myself in my strategic play and I really tried to cause some chaos for my first season, but in the end you were able to trick me into trusting you again despite everything that was telling me not to. It doesn’t really matter to me whether that was your intention or if Whydon wanted me out, you outwitted me either way.

I must say I am impressed that you made it to the end, and you had a chance to win for a while. However, you made it much harder for yourself at the last tribal council. You kept AJ around when you likely would have won if you had eliminated him

There are many people here that are still very mad at you for your abrasive manner of play and for the many times you betrayed some of us. I myself am trying hard to put that aside and view the moves you made from an impartial point of view. Many people here, ESPECIALLY Mk, are going to require a lot of convincing if you want them to vote for you.

One more thing to remind you of before I ask you my questions: to paraphrase a former Survivor (real survivor) contestant “There is plenty of time for lies in this game. Tonight is not that time.”

So without further ado, here are my questions for you:
What would you say was your biggest move this game was?
Since many people here are still quite angry at you for moves you made, why should we still vote for you despite that?
In your opening statement, you talked a lot about how many of the moves you made (such as voting me out the second time and voting for vooper ) were not your original plan and were what the people you were aligned with wanted to do. You also talked about how you took a backseat in many alliances and went with what the group wanted. If this was the case, what moves would you say you actually piloted yourself? Would you repeat those moves or do you regret some of them looking back on them?
I’ve been told by fellow members of the the jury that you informed everyone you worked with of my jury note and OM’s idol. When did you do this (if you did), and if you genuinely were considering working with me when I came back from Fumbler Island, why did you do so? Knowledge is power in this game, so why did you choose to share such powerful knowledge with your allies?

I hope you understand how steep the uphill climb is that you need to complete for you to win here. Instead of simply dismissing you as an option based on how the game turned out for us, I’m giving you a chance. I hope some others do as well. Answer carefully. What you say over the course of this FTC could very well determine if you walk off this island victorious or not.

Good luck to all the finalists. I will return with more questions later.

 

[Whydon]

To all of the finalists, what was your biggest move in this game, and how did it help you get to the position that you're in now? ajhockeystar Energy Drookez nvm Inferno sniped me gg

ajhockeystar What was the most important elimination in this game for you, and why?

Energy Besides Blue and myself, who was your closest ally in this game?

Drookez Why shouldn't you be labeled as anything more than AJ's sheep?

 

[Cleo]

I'll be honest. I wrote a lot because I am dramatic. I live for this type of stuff. It is a finale/reunion/tribal council/whatever you wanna call it. It's fun. I won't be shady. I won't be mean. I write this all in truth, and I have no reason to watch my words really because I'm already on the jury :seal:

For Drookez

I think of all the finalists. I'm most interested in how you answer these questions. I prepared two (or three) questions for you. I think it's safe to say, and I speak for a lot of the other jury members, that you were a sheep in this game. You pretty much made a brand of it. Not really what you wanna do to win, but hey you do you ig? You were a sheep to a few people, but most definitely (and not favorable) to AJ. So now is your chance since you pretty much avoided talking about your own game in your speech. What did you do without AJ? What were your plays?

Now that was just my first question. For the second, I want your honest opinion and point-of-view about your relationship with Laurel. In your speech, you said he was braggy/lying. And while some of that I've seen myself, I want you to go into detail. There's also the time after you played AJ's idol on OM that you came to me and said Laurel being particularly rude and criticizing you. After this, it didn't seem like you liked Laurel at all. So go into details about all these claims and moments. What is your honest opinion and take on him?

For AJ

AJ, cats or dogs? I didn't know the full extent of how you were playing this game. I did know without a shadow of doubt (before reading your statement) that you DID play the game. For that, I respect. You played a tremendous game, and made big plays while still managing how the jury would think of you. That's extremely important. You always kept it genuine. Especially after our talk about idk, but just life in general. You're an honest down to earth guy. I hope we stay in touch beyond the game.

My question for you is: What do you say in response to Drookez's claims about rude/bragging? And also after Drookez answers my question, can you confirm or deny then explain his answers since they pertain to you as well?

For Laurel

I told y'all I would make a spicy final tribal, so here we go. I'm surprised you didn't go into detail about your infamous moments with some of the jury here. Those have not gone unnoticed. I'm very curious what happened between you and Drookez. Your tribal councils with MK were also a spectacle to view. You and inferno had a falling out too. Oh and I couldn't end this without mentioning your blow up in my DMs. For those who don't know, I do want to go into detail here.
When the Fans tribe got wind of Trace playing both sides and wanting to vote one of us out, what do you do here? Well I did the opposite of what Laurel did, and I defended myself and put myself in a better position. With the help of AJ (yet another play by him/me), we formed a voting block to remove Trace. Now keep in mind, me and laurel were good friends up until then. So it was only right that I explain to him in DMs what went down, and my apology. I fully didn't have to, but I did. He was a friend at the time. Well Laurel really showed his true colors here. Not only did he say my apology was me "pretending", but he went out of his way to just belittle me
"Inferno's bitch", "retard", and "snake" But if we're being honest here. This one (snake) isn't really new for you. If you look at the tribals with MK, you really needed a thesaurus.
Now I'm sure you're a perfectly reasonable person outside the game, but this is a clear lack of one of the key aspects of playing survivor. And really what it means to be the sole survivor. You were not playing the social game properly, and made enemies with some of the jury. You took the social game for granted, and treated those people without heart
I thought your final statement was good. It was clear you left some things out to keep face, and I can see that/respect to an extent. That end is a bit skewered though. "I kept a very open mind" -> "I couldn't give up the opportunity to vote Cleo out for his plays", and also this is nothing of what you said to me in DM. If you had just said, you were voting as a Survivor fan so you could "avenge your allies", that would've been TEA. I would've lived, and respected how bold you were to say that. Instead, you just spewed lies to me. Because your reasoning here is distinctly different.

Now my question for you is: Who would you have taken to the final three? Include yourself, so choose two others. Explain

 

[ajhockeystar]

Hey guys!! What was your favorite challenge this season? I liked the scavenger hunt the first time around, and the battles, but I wanna hear what you guys liked!

Ooh this is a hard one. I think I have to pick a few here. As crazy as it sounds, I'm actually gonna say the hexagons. I spent many hours theorizing the most efficient formation and drawing (and lots of erasing too when I realized there were better ways of doing it :(). Either way, it was super rewarding when I finished, and also when I found out my tribe would have lost if not for that performance. I'm also gonna have to go with the puzzle hunt. True story: I was so excited to start that I highlighted DLE saying I was ready to start right after he posted it. Turns out in his message he said that there was a 2 hour period where we were able to form teams for that challenge, and we could only start after, I just glanced over it because I was too excited, oops. And as for a last one, honestly the last challenge was really fun for me (except the counting at some points, haha). I really enjoy trying to find optimal ways to do things, so the battling part was fun since I had like 3+ battles open at any given moment, and I forfeited the battles I thought were too hard so I could drop lower in ELO and face easier people (only wins mattered!). The puzzle, as Laurel said, was also super rewarding. I actually ended up splitting up the white pieces of the puzzle by shape (as in 4 concave sides, 3 concave 1 convex, etc) to help me towards the end.

Sorry for the long answer to a seemingly simple question, it was just too hard to choose lol

 

[ajhockeystar]

ajhockeystar What was the most important elimination in this game for you, and why?

I'm gonna have to go with OM. It was definitely the hardest vote for me - a backstab, and against someone I really like too. Unfortunately though, he was the person I felt like I'd have the hardest time against come FTC. Imagine: "This survivor winner voted himself out and came back to win the game. How amazing!" It was almost too perfect, and for that reason it was an important elimination for me. Sorry OM ily :( <3

 

[ajhockeystar]

For AJ

AJ, cats or dogs? I didn't know the full extent of how you were playing this game. I did know without a shadow of doubt (before reading your statement) that you DID play the game. For that, I respect. You played a tremendous game, and made big plays while still managing how the jury would think of you. That's extremely important. You always kept it genuine. Especially after our talk about idk, but just life in general. You're an honest down to earth guy. I hope we stay in touch beyond the game.

My question for you is: What do you say in response to Drookez's claims about rude/bragging? And also after Drookez answers my question, can you confirm or deny then explain his answers since they pertain to you as well?

I really hope we stay in touch too, it's almost unfortunate that we didn't really get to talk until late game, but fortunately we did eventually!

Cats or dogs? Well, it's been a really sad life for me, really. My mom is deathly afraid of any and all furry animals. A pet in my house has always been out of the question, so I've never really had that kind of connection :( Fortunately though I have an idea since I do have some friends with pets! If I got one myself, I think I'd probably go with a dog. (Don't hate me pls! I just don't want to lose any future number typing challenges)

In all honesty, I don't 100% understand what Drookez meant with his statement. In terms of how I interpreted it though... I really don't think I was "bragging" in my opening statement - just like most Survivor finalists in all seasons, I simply stated what I did in order to get here, and why I think I should win. I feel like bragging would comprise of more belittling of others, which I really hope I didn't do, or come off as doing. If I did, or if anyone felt I was rude at all, I'm sorry! If Drookez could clarify what he meant so I could respond to it better, that would be A+.

 

[ajhockeystar]

Oh hey I was reading through Laurel's speech and noticed this:

"With my back still against the wall, I knew after the vote I needed to continue to strengthen my relationship with AJ. The riddle had been removed from the fans tribal chat and fumbler tribal chat but was still there for the favorites. I told AJ the answer to the riddle, and a 300 jigsaw puzzle later he had the idol. He wouldn’t admit it to me, but giving him the answer was the crutch to our relationship in the game and it built the trust needed to help get me here today."

I actually got the idol when I was still on the favourites tribe. It definitely did help build trust though!

 

[MK007]

Ive read all of Ajs, Drooks, and half of Laurels.

Laurel,
While its easy to tell youre trying really hard for my vote in particular, I do understand the necessity of labeling me as dishonest considering you chose whydon since he basically sheeped you most of the game and gave you his idol. The fireworks were fun, the game had been a bit of a snooze emotionally until then.
You played well. You played really well. But you destroyed my game and many other players game in the process. AJ also played really well, and has a lot of connections with a lot of people in the game. Ill keep reading, but your gameplay and AJs are both on the same level, and one of you labeled me as a untrustworthy player when id built my entire game on honesty, and one of you is an old friend ive known since the PO days.

Aj,
You played the middle the entire time, perfectly. Everyone liked you, and while I wish you had worked with me more often, I get that you had to keep picking off players from both sides to keep you and drookez in. Thats more credit to you as a player tbh.

Drookez
You never reached out to me, tried to plan anything with me, and I knew your vote would be the same as AJs every vote in the game. I never saw tou as a threat because you were with AJ, and AJ was someone I trusted.


Some clarity on some things I saw mentioned:
The viper vote... viper said it wasnt a blindside because I told him about it, not because of any idol. Viper wanted me on fumbler island and a lot of people followed him, I selfvoted to try and save him actually even though I didnt want to go to the island. That was a... weird vote for everyone. Fumbler Island in general was... weird.

 

[Laurel]

Finalists, I’m going to give all of you at least one question over this FTC, but for now I’ll just start with this for Laurel. Don’t worry, I won’t make this easy for any of you

Laurel, as much as it pains me to say it, you outwitted me. I pride myself in my strategic play and I really tried to cause some chaos for my first season, but in the end you were able to trick me into trusting you again despite everything that was telling me not to. It doesn’t really matter to me whether that was your intention or if Whydon wanted me out, you outwitted me either way.

I must say I am impressed that you made it to the end, and you had a chance to win for a while. However, you made it much harder for yourself at the last tribal council. You kept AJ around when you likely would have won if you had eliminated him

There are many people here that are still very mad at you for your abrasive manner of play and for the many times you betrayed some of us. I myself am trying hard to put that aside and view the moves you made from an impartial point of view. Many people here, ESPECIALLY Mk, are going to require a lot of convincing if you want them to vote for you.

One more thing to remind you of before I ask you my questions: to paraphrase a former Survivor (real survivor) contestant “There is plenty of time for lies in this game. Tonight is not that time.”

So without further ado, here are my questions for you:
What would you say was your biggest move this game was?
Since many people here are still quite angry at you for moves you made, why should we still vote for you despite that?
In your opening statement, you talked a lot about how many of the moves you made (such as voting me out the second time and voting for vooper ) were not your original plan and were what the people you were aligned with wanted to do. You also talked about how you took a backseat in many alliances and went with what the group wanted. If this was the case, what moves would you say you actually piloted yourself? Would you repeat those moves or do you regret some of them looking back on them?
I’ve been told by fellow members of the the jury that you informed everyone you worked with of my jury note and OM’s idol. When did you do this (if you did), and if you genuinely were considering working with me when I came back from Fumbler Island, why did you do so? Knowledge is power in this game, so why did you choose to share such powerful knowledge with your allies?

I hope you understand how steep the uphill climb is that you need to complete for you to win here. Instead of simply dismissing you as an option based on how the game turned out for us, I’m giving you a chance. I hope some others do as well. Answer carefully. What you say over the course of this FTC could very well determine if you walk off this island victorious or not.

Good luck to all the finalists. I will return with more questions later.

Hi Inferno, thank you kindly for your note.

You're right, AJ is a more difficult person to beat in the final 3. When I picked him, I made a bet on myself. I made a bet on myself that I could beat him when it mattered the most. When I weighed my options both players, whether it be AJ or Cleo, had people who I thought were guaranteed to vote for them. What I believed, was that I could convince the people who I thought were guaranteed to vote Cleo, to vote me over AJ for sole survivor. Despite voting some of these people out, the relationships and conversations I made with them were from my heart, and I mean every word I said in my opening statement.

Additionally, even if I had voted to keep Cleo, that would have lead to fire making which I anticipated was a jigsaw puzzle. AJ has proven to be dominant at jigsaw puzzles, and if he earned himself here via a jigsaw win, he would be an even bigger threat to take down. Wanting to avenge my allies who Cleo voted out and at best having a 50/50 chance to eliminate AJ, I decided to take him to the finals. In all honesty, the decision wasn't really in my control as the best I could do was have a 50% chance for an easier opponent -- and this last final 9 hasn't been easy, so why should the finals be any different!

As you said, like me you're a person with an incredible amount of pride, and I know that you of all people can forgive and forget, and when I picked AJ over Cleo, I knew I would need your vote if I'm going to win.

My biggest move in the game was playing Whydon's idol for myself. I don't believe if I went to Fumbler Island I was ever going to make it deep into the game, even if I got some advantages, I was going to be a huge target coming back. The other reason why this was such a big move is we go back to knowledge is power. As I played the idol instead of Whydon, for a long time nobody knew the origins of the idol I played and whether it was the favorites idol or the fumblers idol. Therefore, me and Whydon had an upper hand over the other players in figuring out who had the third idol.

In my opening statement, I did say that a lot of moves made were not my own and were a group decision. I didn't want to be seen as a figure head, and therefore the ringleader. Survivor is very machiavellian where the top player always seems to fall. If I took too much of a front seat, nothing would have stopped Whydon from blindsiding me. The safest way to lead is by committee, and thats the approach I had taken. The next important thing to do is to make nobody on the alliance feel like they're on the bottom. By valuing everyone's input and ultimately letting them decide some of the voting targets, I kept my allies very close (eg: AJ/Whydon). Therefore, while I can't take credit for all the moves my alliance made, I can take credit for forming it and nurturing it to put me in a position to be successful.

What moves did I make myself? There were a lot of moves I made myself.

General Summary of some plays
Blindsiding Aaronboyer, bringing Blue on as a trusted ally, keeping Whydon's idol secret, creating the alliance of 7 (I believe it was with you), pretending like Trace had an idol (big mistake) to earn favor within the Fans tribe, gathering the alliance of 6 for the you vs. me vote, telling AJ about the favorites idol to bolster our alliance, not trying in individual immunity challenges early on so I wasn't seen as a challenge threat, I told Whydon and Blue about OM's idol to make OM look like a bigger threat than AJ so I could leverage my friendship with AJ if we managed to eliminate OM, actively distancing myself from Blue and Whydon to help hold my alliance with AJ, continuing to tell AJ that I would never win because of my attitude (you probably noticed, but abrasive is a common word in my language), that is the exact word AJ used to describe me in his opening statement because that is how I would describe myself to him -- I managed to plant this idea so deep in his head that I could never win that Whydon was eliminated over me. To add on to this point, I realized that this was a good strategy to keep me in the game and look like less of a threat, its why I criticized heal publicly a few times over using my confessionals. The "Oh Laurel is a dick, I can keep him around because he won't win" mentality. At the beginning this wasn't meant to be strategical and to be honest was a big learning experience for me, but early into the game I realized I could use it to my advantage. AJ said he learned from his mistakes in previous games, well this was my first game, and I had to learn from my mistakes in this game and use them as opportunities.

More plays
I tried working with Mari to take out OM, I pitched to AJ and Cleo to vote out OM (when I lost immunity), in general, outside of your final vote and this was because I was scared you had an idol, I told people I was trying to make relationships with they were getting voted out (eg: Whydon, Mari, MK) as that is what I would've wanted for myself. While I may have put on the persona of being a jerk, and it did help me get here as AJ didn't see me as a threat because of it, I wanted the people I spoke with to know I'm genuine and that I care for them. Survivor gave me the opportunity to really get to know some people and I'm really thankful for that.

As I mentioned in my opening statement, my biggest regret this game was my public beef with MK. I trusted Whydon's word and didn't give MK the benefit of the doubt that he deserved. By the time we had started to put water under the bridge and open up with each other, it was less than a day before he was going to go to Fumbler Island. As I said, MK is someone who plays with a lot of heart, and if the circumstances were a little different, I think we could have been great allies.

My second biggest regret would be voting you out over Cleo at 10th place. Our alliance saw you as more of a strategical threat and were scared of items you may have gathered on Fumbler Island (though I told them you only had a jury note -- I'll discuss this later). We believed that Blue's relationship with Cleo would bring him into our alliance but we were wrong. While I let your vote happen, I certainly had the power to stop it and I should have. I think we would have made a great team down the stretch and it would have been a cool story about how heated enemies worked together to make it to the end of survivor. When I think about it in hindsight and we did work together through the end, as we discussed, I thought I could beat you, and you thought you could beat me. All these events would've played out the similarly only you would have made fires vs AJ. Maybe Whydon and Blue don't get voted out and its all different, but not voting out Cleo and bringing you into my alliance was a big mistake and made me rely on winning immunities to make it to the end.

I did have the intention to work with you. I wouldn't have approached you otherwise. I think that if you had been more ready to vote out Cleo with 10 people left, I would have stepped up and gotten Cleo voted out. However, there were some hesitancies, and I was scared you wouldn't be fully on board with me after taking out your closest ally, which was ultimately why I followed the alliance's decision.

About your advantage, yes, I told Whydon and Blue about your jury note. They saw that I had asked to spare you over Cleo, and I could tell that Whydon was getting suspicious. I wanted to solidify our relationship, which is why I told them about your advantage. Additionally, if you only had a jury note, it make you less of a threat and it would be more likely they would vote out Cleo instead of you (which is what I wanted at the time, but didn't push hard enough for the reasons above). Your jury note was something I remembered about the entire game. It was so important to me in fact that I asked Cleo if he had it when there were 4 of us left. I wanted to write you something in private, but I didn't have the chance.

So here is what I would have said:
Inferno, you're an incredible competitor, and if I had the guts to keep you over Cleo I would have, but in the moment, the decision didn't seem right. I only had a few closes allies and I didn't want to hurt my position with them to save someone who I couldn't seem to work with twice in the past.

 

[Laurel]

Ive read all of Ajs, Drooks, and half of Laurels.

Laurel,
While its easy to tell youre trying really hard for my vote in particular, I do understand the necessity of labeling me as dishonest considering you chose whydon since he basically sheeped you most of the game and gave you his idol. The fireworks were fun, the game had been a bit of a snooze emotionally until then.
You played well. You played really well. But you destroyed my game and many other players game in the process. AJ also played really well, and has a lot of connections with a lot of people in the game. Ill keep reading, but your gameplay and AJs are both on the same level, and one of you labeled me as a untrustworthy player when id built my entire game on honesty, and one of you is an old friend ive known since the PO days.

Aj,
You played the middle the entire time, perfectly. Everyone liked you, and while I wish you had worked with me more often, I get that you had to keep picking off players from both sides to keep you and drookez in. Thats more credit to you as a player tbh.

Drookez
You never reached out to me, tried to plan anything with me, and I knew your vote would be the same as AJs every vote in the game. I never saw tou as a threat because you were with AJ, and AJ was someone I trusted.


Some clarity on some things I saw mentioned:
The viper vote... viper said it wasnt a blindside because I told him about it, not because of any idol. Viper wanted me on fumbler island and a lot of people followed him, I selfvoted to try and save him actually even though I didnt want to go to the island. That was a... weird vote for everyone. Fumbler Island in general was... weird.

How would you like me to respond to this man? If you're leaning AJ because of things outside of the game, why did we even play it? Shouldn't we be judging the finalists based on what happened in the game? Do you want me to argue why I deserve to win more than he does?

AJ made one "big" play the entire game, and it didn't really come as a huge surprise to me. Was the play even that big? I still don't know what exactly it accomplished. He could have told me he didn't want to vote out OM, voted out Shubaka and kept his idol for himself. What if OM and Cleo decided to turn on AJ instead of the other way around.. now he has no idol at the final 5.

I knew about the play and still voted him into the final 3 instead of Cleo, so its not like he gained any favor to me if that was his goal.

 

[ajhockeystar]

oh uh oops, looks like a paragraph that I typed out was missing from my opening statement, I guess I missed it when I was c/ping it to Heal. Repost with it in bold:

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Hey everyone!

Before I start, I just want to reiterate - it’s been an absolute blast playing this game for the past 1 and a half months. It’s been everything I wanted and more, so I want to thank all of you (and the hosts!) for helping to make this experience possible. I also want to congratulate the other finalists on making it here. Drookez and Laurel, it’s been great working with you guys all game.

Oh yeah, also - in case OM didn’t tell you guys already, Drookez’s idol was mine. And I was the one who told him to play it on OM. This is important info for what I explain later!

When coming into this game, I had to examine my last game to see what my downfall was. This is what I concluded my strategy needed to be for this game:
a) Last game, I essentially talked only to my alliance, and only talked to them about game-related things. This game, I needed to up my social game a lot, and make sure I maintained relationships in case I needed people later.
b) Last game, I won too many challenges too early, and got a reputation as a challenge threat. I needed to make sure that didn’t stick with me going forward in this game.
c) Last game, people knew I had numbers. I was basically inseparable with Drookez and Hannah last game, so I had to separate myself enough from Drookez this game that people knew I would never betray him. Also, I had to make sure I had control without being the “leader” of any alliance I was in (or similarly, not the biggest threat left come late game). That would make me the primary target.

I think I played to my strategy almost perfectly:
a) I made sure to PM everyone come merge to at least get some basic conversation. As for maintaining relationships… Do you Fox members remember the ragmatho “blindside”? Well since I wanted to maintain relationships with MK and Shub, I told them two about the vote.
b) I didn’t try on a couple challenges not because I thought I didn’t have a chance, but because I didn’t want to win too many too early on into the merge. During the geoguessr challenge I was doing it for fun, and got a score of 24905 (only 9 below the winning score iirc). When I won the puzzle hunt challenge, I made sure to repeat that I won because it was because it was something I did before (which is definitely partially true, but I didn’t want anyone getting any ideas). I’m kind of happy Laurel beat me in that tiebreaker, because it’s one less challenge I won, haha.
c) Barring the vooper vote, and sort of the blue vote (I’ll get to this later), I was in control of the game. I’m proud that Drookez and I made it as far as we did considering after the first merge vote and RODAN’s quit, the fans-fumblers-favourites ratio was 5-5-2. But yeah, I managed to put myself into a favourable position this whole game regarding votes, and barring vooper (and OM’s vote to fumbler island lol), whoever I wanted to go home actually went home.

I say “sort of” to the blue vote because I honestly thought he was going after Drookez. I had to protect Drookez, so I flipped it on blue, and that kind of set up the rest of the game.

As for playing to my strategy, keeping to one side of the Laurel vs Inferno war worked out pretty well. Now, when OM came back we were working together, but only once Laurel made comments about OM being a big threat did I realize how important it was to keep him in the game. I figured once OM was gone I would likely have been one of the bigger targets, if not the biggest target. When people approached me and brought up OM, I countered with our target. And come F7, when Mari wanted to go for OM instead of Shub, I went along with it so that I knew no other plans would come up. I gave my idol to Drookez to play on OM, and voila. Playing to my strategy made it so I only accumulated 2 votes this game - a throwaway vote from Shub on the ragmatho vote, and Cleo’s vote in F4.

And as for separating myself from Drookez, I made sure to push the point that he was close with Cleo as far as I could. I don’t know if you guys noticed, but we actually voted together every vote except the Shub vote, where I was on OM like I said I’d be.

So yeah, that was my strategy this game. I think I have:
-the best strategic game of the F3, as explained before
-I probably take a close second in challenge side of the game (2500 hexagons, winning the puzzle challenge and puzzle hunt, along with a tiebreaker loss in one challenge and losing by 8 mins in F4)
-the best social game (Drookez, I’m sorry but you didn’t really talk to people much, and Laurel, I’ve really grown to like you this game, but you were definitely abrasive and provocative at times in tribal council).

Once again, gg to the other finalists and everyone else too. I’m really excited to answer your guys’ questions, so hit me with ‘em!

 

[Laurel]

Oh hey I was reading through Laurel's speech and noticed this:

"With my back still against the wall, I knew after the vote I needed to continue to strengthen my relationship with AJ. The riddle had been removed from the fans tribal chat and fumbler tribal chat but was still there for the favorites. I told AJ the answer to the riddle, and a 300 jigsaw puzzle later he had the idol. He wouldn’t admit it to me, but giving him the answer was the crutch to our relationship in the game and it built the trust needed to help get me here today."

I actually got the idol when I was still on the favourites tribe. It definitely did help build trust though!

While I don't know if I believe you, it doesn't honestly effect the game.

At the end of the day, the play didn't come as a huge surprise, and if anything, put you in greater danger at the final 5. Had Cleo and OM presented voting you over voting myself, I would have went for it and your play would have been the mistake that got you eliminated.

 

[Laurel]

To all of the finalists, what was your biggest move in this game, and how did it help you get to the position that you're in now? ajhockeystar Energy Drookez nvm Inferno sniped me gg

ajhockeystar What was the most important elimination in this game for you, and why?

Energy Besides Blue and myself, who was your closest ally in this game?

Drookez Why shouldn't you be labeled as anything more than AJ's sheep?

Outside of you and Blue, my biggest allies in the game were Shubaka and AJ.

AJ: AJ and I were able to build a friendship that I was able to leverage to get far into this game. While most if it was built on him asking me "whats the plan" for all the early merge votes, we remained close which was part of the reason why Blue and Whydon were voted out over me. I do want to address something though, for him to claim he was the most "strategical" of the three of us left is slander. When the favorites were low on numbers, AJ would ask me every day what the plan was, and he and Drookez would sheep whatever me and Blue told him to do. To think that he was making plays all game just isn't true. Remember, part of his 'logic' for keeping me around was actually from me convincing him I didn't have a chance to win. I was the one who kept telling him I was abrasive, and he used the exact word in his opening statement! Another thing I wanted to point out, AJ had the opportunity to learn from his mistakes in previous survivor games, I had to learn on the fly and adjust immediately, transitioning my mistakes into opportunities. I know AJ has been part of the community longer, but who deserves to win this game of Survivor more?

Shubaka: Shubaka is the person I feel most comfortable with opening up personally. They are a ball of sunshine, and I'm glad I got to meet them.

 

[ajhockeystar]

How would you like me to respond to this man? If you're leaning AJ because of things outside of the game, why did we even play it? Shouldn't we be judging the finalists based on what happened in the game? Do you want me to argue why I deserve to win more than he does?

AJ made one "big" play the entire game, and it didn't really come as a huge surprise to me. Was the play even that big? I still don't know what exactly it accomplished. He could have told me he didn't want to vote out OM, voted out Shubaka and kept his idol for himself. What if OM and Cleo decided to turn on AJ instead of the other way around.. now he has no idol at the final 5.

I knew about the play and still voted him into the final 3 instead of Cleo, so its not like he gained any favor to me if that was his goal.

I mean, if you're saying my "big" play wasn't that big... You claimed your biggest play was using someone else's idol. My play was using my own idol to further my position by keeping the other big threat alive in this game while also maintaining my social relationships with you and Mari, and also OM. I was confident that I didn't need the idol in F6 and F5 since OM planned to work with Drookez and I later. He was going to use the +1 vote in F6 so we had definite majority, and then us 3 would have majority from then on. I personally don't believe your biggest play had nearly as much to it - you simply played the idol since Inferno played his... there wasn't much else to it.

 

[ajhockeystar]

Outside of you and Blue, my biggest allies in the game were Shubaka and AJ.

AJ: AJ and I were able to build a friendship that I was able to leverage to get far into this game. While most if it was built on him asking me "whats the plan" for all the early merge votes, we remained close which was part of the reason why Blue and Whydon were voted out over me. I do want to address something though, for him to claim he was the most "strategical" of the three of us left is slander. When the favorites were low on numbers, AJ would ask me every day what the plan was, and he and Drookez would sheep whatever me and Blue told him to do. To think that he was making plays all game just isn't true. Remember, part of his 'logic' for keeping me around was actually from me convincing him I didn't have a chance to win. I was the one who kept telling him I was abrasive, and he used the exact word in his opening statement! Another thing I wanted to point out, AJ had the opportunity to learn from his mistakes in previous survivor games, I had to learn on the fly and adjust immediately, transitioning my mistakes into opportunities. I know AJ has been part of the community longer, but who deserves to win this game of Survivor more?

Shubaka: Shubaka is the person I feel most comfortable with opening up personally. They are a ball of sunshine, and I'm glad I got to meet them.

I mean, I'm pretty sure a lot of people in this game can confirm that I said "so what's the plan for this vote?"/"any plans for this vote?" to them. It's literally just my way of phrasing it lol. I definitely was not just sheeping you, the fact that you think I was proves my strategy worked. I did not want to be the one calling the shots, as I didn't want to be labelled as the "leader". I was able to flip the vote onto blue when I needed to. I was far from being a sheep.

I mean, I said you were abrasive because that is probably one of the best words to describe how you were at times. I don't see how me using an adjective to describe how you were proves that I was outwitted by you and brought you to f3 just because of that. It's merely the truth, as proven by your arguments with others in tribal council, and some of the rude things you said about others to me in PMs.

 

[bluedoom]

ajhockeystar how was your thought process from f9 to f5? sorry for the attempted blindside at f9 but i thought it had to happen otherwise well, you are clearly the favorite coming to this ftc :p

did you think that was unnecessary? what are the gameplay aspect that you appreciate in laurel? who were some of the allies that you were working with that you had a fun time with and what were the cool stuff that you talked about?


Energy nice work making it to the ftc, however I'm having a tough time believing that you thought you could win against aj where it mattered knowing that he had lots of friends in the jury. Heck we even had a challenge that told us that aj was the most likely to win this game. With this in mind your story is hard to buy if you were playing to win. Couple of questions: why did you insist on voting inferno instead of shubaka at f10 when you knew that he was likely to vote with us and take out a threat and that would build trust with the fans? And 2, I'm confused as to why you tried to keep me away from aj at f9 when he was in a much better position than you were in, that kinda screams playing for survival instead of playing to win.

and finally since its widely acknowledged that aj had a superior social game to yours, what are your selling points over aj's ganee in general?

Drookez since you sheeped the entire game why should i vote you over the other two?

 

[Laurel]

I mean, if you're saying my "big" play wasn't that big... You claimed your biggest play was using someone else's idol. My play was using my own idol to further my position by keeping the other big threat alive in this game while also maintaining my social relationships with you and Mari, and also OM. I was confident that I didn't need the idol in F6 and F5 since OM planned to work with Drookez and I later. He was going to use the +1 vote in F6 so we had definite majority, and then us 3 would have majority from then on. I personally don't believe your biggest play had nearly as much to it - you simply played the idol since Inferno played his... there wasn't much else to it.

If we're going to compare #1 to #1. If I don't convince Whydon to give me his idol, I'm in place #12 or #13 not competing to win the game.

I had to constantly try and make plays to shift me up from the bottom or away from the top. I was labeled as a target early on and had to do everything in my power to stay alive.

Meanwhile, you're admitting now to blindsiding PokeMariTatoe , I don't see how that earns social relationship points.

 

[Whydon]

ajhockeystar, you say you were in control for the entire game. Can you elaborate how you were in control during our time on the Fox tribe? From my point of view, it seemed like RODAN could have been voted out at any point during that tribal council, and the only reason he wasn't was because Laurel was proactive in pulling me over and I was no longer willing to work with MK at that point since he had tarnished our relationship. I don't see how that was you being in power more so than you being in a position of trying to survive due to being outnumbered by the Fumblers. Not trying to throw shade or anything, just genuinely curious to hear what things were like on the Fox tribe from your point of view.

 

[bluedoom]

*aj's game, phone posting sucks

 

[Laurel]

Energy nice work making it to the ftc, however I'm having a tough time believing that you thought you could win against aj where it mattered knowing that he had lots of friends in the jury. Heck we even had a challenge that told us that aj was the most likely to win this game. With this in mind your story is hard to buy if you were playing to win. Couple of questions: why did you insist on voting inferno instead of shubaka at f10 when you knew that he was likely to vote with us and take out a threat and that would build trust with the fans? And 2, I'm confused as to why you tried to keep me away from aj at f9 when he was in a much better position than you were in, that kinda screams playing for survival instead of playing to win.

I can beat AJ because I made more plays than he did. If we're judging based on the performance of the game and who deserves to win more, its me. I had to win immunity 4x to even have a chance to be here (I would've won 5 immunities but chose not to submit my best GeoGuesser so Whydon looked like a bigger challenge threat). I constantly was in a bad situation after my two closest allies (you and Whydon) were eliminated. The rest of the castaways constantly tried to vote me out but I put fate in my own hands. I put every ounce of my effort into this game and have the story of a person who never quit despite my situation. While AJs story is someone who has friends..?

I didn't insist on voting Inferno instead of Shubaka at f10. I had asked to vote out Cleo but Whydon and AJ pushed to vote out Inferno.

I didn't want AJ to be the vote at F9 because up until that point he hadn't done much to merit him winning the game. As mentioned, his strategy until that point was asking me "whats the plan". I had built a relationship with him which I didn't have with some of the other players (Cleo, OM) which is why I didn't want him on the chopping block. As we discussed, I was also skeptical that AJ had an idol, chances are the vote would have been leaked, he would've saved himself, and it would have put us in an even worse position.

 

[bluedoom]

oh i guess if. have another question for aj, why did you see voting om off as necessary? did you think his comeback story would be too strong to beat?

 

[Laurel]

bluedoom I also didn't want to vote out Shubaka at F10 because Whydon kept telling me he was close to Shub. I didn't want to lose some of his trust that I had worked so hard to get.

Also, if Inferno told me at F10 that he wanted to take Cleo out, that would have been the vote. At this point in the game, Whydon was way too distrusting of Inferno/Cleo, that if I tried harder to defend Inferno he would have been really suspicious and potentially flipped.

In summary, I had to chose between Inferno and Whydon. Ultimately, I decided to go with you and Whydon over Cleo and Inferno because I knew I could trust you both. Whydon would have been mad at me if Shubaka was eliminated, and I couldn't risk him voting with Inferno at the next vote and flipping on me.

 

[bluedoom]

yes it sucks that someone has a better chance of winning because they have pregame connections and whatnot, but there's a reason why favorites were favorites this game. consider the fact that you pissed off a chunk of the jury and this will always be a serious strategic question for you.

 

[bluedoom]

ah, unfortunate that whydon did what he did but he got stabbed by shub anyway so lol

 

[Whydon]

Honestly, I think the F10 was a fine vote. It was the idol play at F9 that fucked us over. IMO, voting either Inferno or Cleo was always the way to go for F10, and we would have been forced in the same situation at F9 since Cleo ended up snaking us in the end.

But let's say that discussion for the post-game.