No questions for anyone CB, despite the fact that you've barely had any interaction with some of them?

@moscow Flum voted you too, why no questions for me?

ghug to Balki: "You were able to control votes because your interests aligned with others'. You're undoubtedly good at making your interests seem desirable to others."

I agree 100%.

Balki to the jury "I am cherrypicking a quote and carefully not responding to the claim it makes because it is inconvenient to me and I lack a suitable response."

I agree 100%.

@Vashta

“Balki: You claim you had control over the game and name times you had control. Can you give example as to why these moves were strategic?
Don't you think there might be an issue of having too many entangling alliances or sharing too much information, such as stuff I told you to keep confidential?”

It was certainly difficult to have many different alliances. It would have been an issue if the people I was confiding in began sharing information and decided to blow up my game. In order to avoid that, I had to do a lot of work to keep each individual alliance strong.

It was a tradeoff for me. More alliances were more difficult to juggle. I had to do a lot of work to make sure my actions (votes) kept everyone happy, and a lot of explaining to solidify that. But the huge benefit to me was the ability to stay safe no matter what happened. In this game, the hidden immunity idols and unknown merges and shuffles created a great deal of influence that I couldn’t control. It wasn’t enough to have a majority at any stage. That’s why I sought to put myself in position to have a majority no matter what happened. It was difficult, but it worked. I was never once in danger of being voted out. I think it was a smart tradeoff, and I’m proud of my efforts to pull it off.

I think that also explains why this was a strategic choice. I’m happy to talk through my strategy behind other specific choices in more depth. If there are any that you have particular curiosity about, please let me know.

Byron I really did try to make nice with you after the first merge. You lied to me when you were planning to vote for me and then lied to me more when it failed, so I was done with you.

I CAST FIREBALL!!!!

68 points of damage!

The whole tribe is a barbeque

You're not allowed to post here brainbomb...

I do have questions. I was just at work and was making quick additions. My first question is for all 3.

Coming out of your first group what worries did you have? Did any of those worries come true? If so elaborate on how you handled those issues.

Byron, out of curiosity
I voted and guessed you as the "juror most likely to already have decided their vote." Are we right or wrong?
When does this final phase end?
Can jurors communicate among ourselves in the QT without the finalists seeing?

@uclabb,

“What I'm saying is that the method you used was the exact opposite of artful. What would have been artful is if we had traded my immunity idol for Ezio's black rock and then voted Ezio out. Or what Fluminator did- he found out what the votes were at the merge and then got Vashta out with just one vote! It's not artful to just to initiate blood pacts that are designed to make you lose if you don't honor them, and then to not honor them.”

I fundamentally disagree. If you had stabbed me and sent me to jury, I would approach the jury like this: “Argh…ya got me uclabb. I can recognize a good play when I see one. I thought you were with me, but you made a nice play and got me out. Damn, I was going to win if you didn’t stab me! Kudos to you for a nice play to get out your biggest competition.”

Perhaps the difference is Survivor fandom? Do you watch the show? Perhaps I am desensitized. It is not an infrequent occurrence on CBS Survivor for a player to go to great lengths to engender trust: “I swear to God.” “I swear on my children.” “I swear on everything that is holy.” “You should not vote for me at jury if I stab you.” “If I am lying, you may keep this diamond ring.” Often, the people who say those things go back on these promises, and most often, the people who did the most stabbing had the most control and are voted the champion by the jurors who they stabbed. This is out of respect for the game.

I laid it on thick in order to win your trust. With you more than anyone else. That’s because I wanted to make sure you weren’t working against me. Honestly, that’s based on some insecurity on my part. I felt like, if anyone could see through me, it would be you. So I did my best to make you feel like it was in your interest to keep me in the game, until I stabbed you and voted you out. That’s the game, and I’m proud of the game I played.

@Balki- I suspect you aren't going to respond to my previous message because we cross posted, so:

"I don't think so. To advance, you must vote people out. There is no course of action that is simply "be loyal and don't lie" unless you want to count on luck and other people to do your dirty work. Keeping your hands clean only really means you weren't involved in crafting your own fate. The simple truth is the way of moving forward is voting people out."

Again, this is not at all what I'm saying. We all lied in the game, some more than others, but that is a personal preference. What I am saying is, if in order to get ahead you had to initiate/force final 3 deals with every single player in the game *with explicit clauses that they shouldn't vote for you if you betray them*, then it turns out that you didn't have real game control at all. Is it not the case that in order to advance you had to literally just sacrifice jury votes? The great irony is that in order to have any chance of winning, your only chance is to sweep the votes of players who you either never got a chance to play with or who only played the first vote with you- essentially the people who didn't actual get a chance to play with you in game.

(crosspost)

@Ezio,

“@flum @balki
Do you guys seriously think we (the birsan tribe members) are going to vote for the people who caused us to die after promising an alliance, rather than Demon?”

Absolutely. And that’s out of respect for you. I believe that the jury should, and ultimately will, vote based on their perception of who controlled the game best. Who made thoughtful, active choices to put the jurors on the jury and advance in the game. After all, that is how you advance in the game – to put jurors on the jury.

I don’t believe the jury should, or ultimately will, vote based on grudges, personal slights, or vote for the person they think has the least blood on their hands. I think that disrespects the game.

I’m also surprised to hear you make this pitch, Ezio. You never planned to honor the Birsan pledge. You planned to vote Fluminator out at 5. You had that preference based on personal priorities to advance yourself in the game. I don’t blame you for that, I embrace it. We all had our own personal preferences as we fought to make it to the end. I’m here because I had a backup plan for every backup plan, I formed alliances, I made timely stabs, and I pushed my agenda to ensure my safety, despite my frontrunner status, as evidenced by the final tribe survey.

Lol, CB is still salty.

"I know you're just framing your argument because that's what you need to do at this point, but you're just wrong. The entirety of the jury aspect was designed such that you would be hesitant to play the sort of game you did, and you failed entirely. Granted, I leaned on that angle way too much and failed to make endgame, but you failed to balance the opinion of the jurors over your own survival and that's why you're not a contender for victory either
You can't completely ignore the final win condition of the game and then turn up expecting the trophy"

If you think this is a game about not getting blood on your hands then you think it is a game about luck and riding coattails. If you don't take an active role in shaping your own destiny, amid all of these events outside your control (merges, idols, etc), then you are playing a game of sitting back and hoping that you're not out next. That's a silly game, and it's a silly thing to reward.

If you are a fan of the game Survivor, you would understand that passive play is not rewarded and not celebrated. I think that's for good reason.

My game wasn't passive at all. Every majority alliance I was part of was forged by my own hand.
I sought to pretend passivity to be underestimated by my competitors who would pull me into the final 3, knowing there was a whole host of solid allies who I never betrayed remaining for me
It did not seem likely to me that you would sabotage your own chances at a win just to kick me off. That was my miscalculation, but that doesn't make your game any better
Anyone want to answer whether we're allowed to talk in QT, or when this vote ends?

"Which player in actual survivor was most like each member of the final 3 and jury, and why?"

I think this is a great question. The answer is most certainly Sarah, who played a role in stabbing and voting out just about everyone on the jury. I just pulled up a recap of the last episode, and this is how Sarah was described:

"Sarah, who was the dominant force from a social/strategic perspective. She repeatedly was the pivotal point person in determining who was voted off, and everyone thought they were her best friend… until she slit their proverbial throat. She was savvy enough to obtain the vote steal when Michaela did not see it and shrewd enough to vote Sierra out and then receive Sierra’s Legacy Advantage after doing so. She built a very impressive résumé."

That's me. Everyone thought they were my best friend until I slit their proverbial throat. I also found both hidden idols, won both tribal immunities (with help), and won 2/3 individual immunities.

For those of you who do not watch the show, Sarah won the jury vote by a landslide.

"Yea. It's not hard to go around promising everyone you're going to do (paraphrasing here) everything you can to ensure the final three contains them. Not just not voting against them but actively fighting against any plot that gets made threatening them."

Respectfully, this is not correct, Ezio, and I'm surprised to hear you say it. I think that a lot of people wanted to make final jury. I lot of people stabbed many times. I was not the lone con artist among angels. I think that everyone lied and stabbed. Certainly everyone arguing before the jury did. To say "it's not hard" is unfair and misguided. It was damn hard. And I believe I did it the hardest and controlled my fate the best.

The only person I stabbed (or tried to) was Vash. I'm never going to apologize for that

“@all three:

If you had to choose between the other two final tribal members, who would you choose, and why? (Feel free to go negative on the person you are not choosing; this isn't meant to be a trick question)”

I would choose Fluminator.

I think that Fluminator did less to control his game than I did, but more than Demon did. He and I worked together very closely once he mutinied over to Birsan. And while I initiated that alliance, I did it because he convinced me that he wanted to keep me around in the game because he thought I played a strong game, and he wanted to ensure that the final jury would be interesting and the winner deserved. I believed him, and that’s a credit to him.

I think Demon played a strong game as well, and I have a lot of respect for her. Truly, I understand that it takes a great deal of effort to make it to the final jury, and nobody can take that away from her. But I think she lost control of the final tribe, and her advancement was more a factor of a perception (probably wrong) on the part of several folks that Demon was less of a threat to win at final jury. I also feel like Demon’s final statement represents more pandering than arguments about why her game was best.

For example:

“I’ll never forget the bond that sauga city gives us.”

“I swear I love the Toronto Maple Leaves.”

“My bestie Glen_Alex”

“Knight-in-shining-armour Byron, I’m sorry that you’re gone fwiw I think you’re quite fun to have around”

“Mysterious uclabb, we didn’t get to engage either but I heard all the fantastic and scary stories about you”

“ I would have had you in that final tribe if it was feasible but there was only so much I could do. Sorry friend”

…[more and more of this pandering]…

“TLDR; I’m really awesome and rly cute plz vote 4 me <3”

I think that this stuff has no place in a jury discussion like this. I think it’s an insult to your intelligence, and an insult to the game. Demon says this is a “popularity contest.” If that were true, why did we play at all? We could have all voted Demon at the start because we all have a crush on her.

I think this should be about more than pandering. I think it should be about who played the best game.

@ghug,

Your parting words to me in this game were that you were going to do everything in your power to make sure that demon wins. That's your choice as a member of the jury. And I know you are a convincing person, and I'm sure you'll pull in plenty of other votes.

I encourage you, for the sake of the game, to ask real questions and make real arguments to make your point. Don't just come onto the thread and piss all over it with "do you actually not realize that everyone thought you were full of shit?"

@CommanderByron

"Coming out of your first group what worries did you have? Did any of those worries come true? If so elaborate on how you handled those issues."

I was worried going into the first merge because I had been moved around to different tribes after Exile Island, and I had no control over who would join me on my next tribe. In order to combat that, I initiated and formed two alliances that were established to survive post-merge. I formed the Mafia VIII alliance in order to coax Ezio to bring Entente Tribal Immunity. The Mafia VIII consisted of Ezio, Snowy, Flum, Demon, Moscow, Vashta, and Oztra/Chaqa. I asked Ezio to bring tribal immunity to Entente, fill them in on this post-merge alliance, and set us all up to have a majority after the merge.

I also formed the Enchiladas alliance when I went to Anschluss, which was composed of people from the two tribes I visited, Entente, and Anschluss.

With those two larger tribes to fall back on, I had a lot of choices after the merge, and it worked very well. I could not control to what tribe I was assigned, but I had systems in place to have a majority no matter who was assigned to my tribe.

This is what I mean by playing strategically to ensure that I would have control no matter what happened that was outside my control.

"I fundamentally disagree. If you had stabbed me and sent me to jury, I would approach the jury like this: “Argh…ya got me uclabb. I can recognize a good play when I see one. I thought you were with me, but you made a nice play and got me out. Damn, I was going to win if you didn’t stab me! Kudos to you for a nice play to get out your biggest competition.”"

I don't agree that pretending to switch the vote is a great game play, and I don't agree that Vash mutinying was good for you- it was a disaster. I was planning to mutiny as well- I just missed the phase because my girlfriend was in town. At that point, you would have been a sitting duck.

"Perhaps the difference is Survivor fandom? Do you watch the show? Perhaps I am desensitized. It is not an infrequent occurrence on CBS Survivor for a player to go to great lengths to engender trust: “I swear to God.” “I swear on my children.” “I swear on everything that is holy.” “You should not vote for me at jury if I stab you.” “If I am lying, you may keep this diamond ring.” Often, the people who say those things go back on these promises, and most often, the people who did the most stabbing had the most control and are voted the champion by the jurors who they stabbed. This is out of respect for the game."

The difference is not in Survivor fandom. I host people every Wednesday to watch. This year at my work I ran a Survivor pool/ futures exchange where every week we traded on the relative places of the players.

It's just not true that this is how Survivor works. If you swear on something, it either matters to the juror, or it doesn't. The diamond ring example is better- that is putting up an item as collateral, so that if you betray the person you can keep the item. For example, this season Sarah/Brad/Troyzan exchanged items as part of their final three alliance, and Sarah has said specifically that the bracelet she gave she actually DGAF about and was willing to lose. You put people's final tribal votes specifically up as collateral. We will see if you could afford to lose them.

At the risk of stepping on Vash's question (but my surivor fan cred has been questioned!), almost every season there are examples of players in Survivor history who had "game control" from overplaying and got no votes to show for it- Spencer Bledsoe, Albert Destrade, Sash Lenahan, Russell Hantz #2 (in his first season I don't think he should have won but I at least can see the argument for it). There just aren't a lot of examples of players who screwed everyone over and won. The closest I think is Brian Heidik in season 5, and he barely won 4-3 over one of the biggests goats in survivor history.

"The answer is most certainly Sarah, who played a role in stabbing and voting out just about everyone on the jury.

...

For those of you who do not watch the show, Sarah won the jury vote by a landslide."

Sarah is an OK choice, but the truth of the matter is that Sarah won because of personal relationships and jury management. In fact, what is notable about Sarah is that she notably didn't stab many of the people on the jury. She didn't stab Zeke, she didn't stab Michaela, she didn't stab Cirie, and so on. The one person she did stab hard, Sierra, didn't vote for her (so there was a cost) and that was for great reason- she got an immunity that it turns out she needed in order to not get voted out. She had game control because she was actually everyone's best friend. You were everyone's "best friend" because you basically paid for it in jury votes. And it's time to pay the piper. (Although, honestly, that's not completely fair- I think it's possible you could have done much that you ultimately did without resorting to tanking your game- we will never know)

@uclabb, I think I've answered your question, but just to touch upon one part of your follow-up. I did not initiate such a deal with everyone I played with. I had alliances with everyone, and final three deals with some, but the deal I made with you was unique in many respects.

The Birsan Final Four deal bore some characteristics to the one that we shared. But I am pretty sure that I laid on my pledges of undying loyalty thicker with you than with anyone else. That's really for two reasons:

(1) After you mentioned that everyone on Anschluss felt that you were their top ally, I was worried that you would defeat me, and I was worried that you would see my game coming a mile away, as it was a lot like your game.

(2) I felt that you, more than most, would recognize a good stab, and tenacious game play. I felt that you would ask good questions about a loyalty pledge, but that ultimately you, more than most, would have enough respect for the game to put your pride aside and vote for the player who played the best. I knew that I would do the same for you if you pulled the wool over my eyes and stabbed me.

lol ok balki.

Oh, and Sarah didn't win in a landslide- it was 7-3 with Brad owning the tiebreaking vote.

@Balki- I can assure you I will vote for the player who played the best.

And I was not playing a similar game to you. Please stop saying that. I had exactly one long term deal, and that was with you.

@uclabb,

I did not trade your jury vote. You have control to use your jury vote to settle a personal vendetta, or you can think carefully about who played the best game, and vote for that person. I respect you enough to believe you will do the latter.

I also think you're mischaracterizing Survivor history, not that it matters much. In the most recent season, much of the final jury discussion centered on Sarah's duplicity and active manipulation of other players. The quote I gave sums up the sentiment from the jury: "everyone thought they were her best friend… until she slit their proverbial throat." I respect that play because I know it's very difficult. Ultimately, while the jury yelled at her for a while, the jury respected it too.

Tony Vlachos is another recent example that comes to mind. Here's a quote from Wikipedia about Tony's final tribal: "At the final tribal council, Vlachos received much criticism from the jury members (especially Hegarty) for his aggressive gameplay and constantly breaking his promises, while Woo was criticized for riding Vlachos' coattails, and choosing to take him to the end over McQuillen. However, after Bledsoe gave a long speech in favor of Vlachos, the jury ultimately chose him as the winner with 8 of the 9 jury votes (while only Fox voted for Woo to win)."

Tony was super obnoxious and lied shamelessly to everyone. But he controlled his destiny and made it to the final jury by the force of his strategic gameplay.

There are also some Survivor finales in which the person who rode coattails all season or who got not blood on their hands won at final tribal. I suppose we will see what this website community values. I'd be really surprised if it's sitting in the shadows and letting other people make the choices and control the game.