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Tremendous OP. I think its impossible to predict a winner with any kind of real accuracy since there's just so many twists and turns and idols in the game. But gun to my head the one player who stands out to me as a possible winner is Natalie. I was really impressed the way she won her game by really working herself out of a tough spot and working a number of different angles in a short period and picking up the pieces after Jeremy left. I think she's smart without the huge game threat rep others have. I think she's likable without the just overly social thread target others have. Who knows what happens but she's definitely someone I can see getting past the first wave of "easy" vote outs, the second wave of "threats" vote outs, and then working her way to the end without pissing people off. So I guess that makes her my Pony? What's a Poison? Someone we think is gonna lose or someone think is gonna be terrible or something we want to see crash and burn? I don't think I hate anyone on this cast. Plenty I don't love but none I really feel strongly against. I don't see Tony doing well at all and the rest of the players would be loving idiots to let Sandra stay in the game. The one person I kind of think could really surprisingly crash and burn is Parv. I like Parv. She's entertaining and has some moves. But I've always kind of felt she was a bit overrated and had help along the way. That's not a knock, everyone has some help. But she did a lot of manipulation and flirting and hiding behind people and I just don't see that stuff working now. She also did some really dumb things and had a tendency to be an rear end. So I can see her loving stuff up for herself.
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Feb 4, 2020 06:31
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Count me amongst those very skeptical about Kim. I don't hold it against her that her cast were idiots. You play with the cards you're dealt. It WAS a dominant win. But they were really loving stupid. Worse, they were passive. Even the competent ones were players content to keep the waters calm, get the easy vote, and not worry that someone else might be a threat to your win. She's not only playing with smart people, but theres going to be very few passive people. Maybe she'll be good, maybe she won't but it feels like watching a dominant amateur go pro.
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Feb 4, 2020 07:09
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There will be some. There will also be players who try and play under the radar and don’t move quick enough. But there’s gonna be a lot of aggressive players and we have no idea how Kim deals with a cast that isn’t collectively saying “anyone but me”. Again it’s not a knock on her. She played with who she played with. I just don’t know what she’s capable of. She’s not alone. There’s others like Ethan and most of the old school ones who we don’t know if they can play the modern game. And players we’ve seen play the modern one might do things totally differently or not be able to do what worked the first time. Kim just stands out because of her rep. STAC Goat fucked around with this message at 11:45 on Feb 4, 2020 |
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Feb 4, 2020 11:42
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As the OP said Tony is like all chaos and I think besides the fact that the cast should largely know that its the sort of thing that a cast like this probably won't tolerate for long. If Tony can tone it down or keep it secret maybe he can do well but I get the feeling he'll come in with a lot of people already worried about him and he'll do something kinda dumb (but entertaining) that will make him a target. The thing about this cast is a lot of them are going to come in with reps and targets, so there's no real telling which ones will stick and which ones will kind of fade away. So I'm just kind of looking at it as who has the skills to shake those first impressions and who will probably play into them. Tony seems like the kind that will play into his rep.
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Feb 4, 2020 19:56
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Max posted:As badly as I want Sandra to win a third time, I know in my heart it won't happen. I'm rooting for Denise. Sandra will probably get booted first or something if they have brains but if anyone can find a way to weasel her way out of its Sandra.
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Feb 5, 2020 11:19
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The advantage that someone like Denise has is that there’s just so many threats that she could fly under the radar. But it’s just kind of impossible to know how this will play out. For all we know Sandra and Boston Rob formed an OG Survivor alliance to keep themselves save and vote out all the low profile modern players. Who knows?
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Feb 5, 2020 11:40
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Its weird thinking that right now Danni is probably over the moon that she just got a Superbowl win but Danni on the show will have no idea.
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Feb 5, 2020 18:50
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EofE was flawed but there's two ways to potentially fix it. 1) End it right around Jury time so that all that "bonding" is cut short and the Jury sees the EoE returnee's game in Tribal the same way they see every one else's. 2) Fill the cast with veterans who already know each other and have tons of ego and agendas and whatever so a week or two of bonding is less impactful. Like, even if Parv and Sandra spend 25 days together I don't know that I buy that means Parv goes "well now I just want to give Sandra a win because we've been through so much." I don't think that's necessarily the way this cast/season is wired.
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Feb 6, 2020 15:27
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Yeah, I think t was an unquestionable proof of concept that EoE gave us Reem as a character and Devens with a second chance. Everyone dislikes that Chris came back late and won because the Jury all bonded with him and he didn't have to burn any of them, but we kind of forget that Devens was voted out pre-jury and ended up being the best player of the season. There's a good idea in EoE. And it makes sense to use it this season so when Sandra is eliminated in the first episode that's not the last we see of her. But obviously the way it played out the first time was bad. Again, I think the simplest answer is to end it at Jury.
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Feb 6, 2020 15:53
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I'm not good at reading ratings but as best as I can tell it keeps to the modern tv reality that is "this sort of 'live' show draws better ratings than most of the other stuff and costs way less than the stuff like Modern Family."
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Feb 7, 2020 18:22
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Well I picked Natalie as my dark horse so I clearly don't know a drat thing. Sad to see her go so soon but glad it led to Sandra getting some safety. If she needs it. I did also think Kim might struggle and I thought that really showed out. We saw hoe the legendary manipulators like Sandra, Rob, and Parv can so effortlessly play people, get them to spill poo poo, and move targets off themselves and to others. And then we saw Kim basically melt down at not being in the position of power. I was torn on if it was smarter to take her out or Amber. Amber obviously has the unbreakable relationship with Rob but Kim is theoretically a better player. But the way Kim handled that I imagine a lot of players weren't scared of her. Of course the real answer is they should have taken out Tyson because he's a snake and will slither his way past a lot of other people self destructing. Fun. I don't think anyone really annoyed me besides Ben and Adam (I forgot he whines a lot). Some players I thought might annoy me like Parv and Tyson immediately charmed me again. There's an interesting dynamic with players like Michelle who feel like they have to prove themselves and ones like Kim who feel like And I loving love that Yul looks like he's adapting to "new school" real quick. I thought he would since he was a smart, strategic guy but its hard to know with how long its been and that super idol he had.
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Feb 13, 2020 13:01
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Spook posted:A little irritating how so few people wanted to actually make a move in voting. Is this just a cast of floaters? We saw basically everyone scrambling to some degree or another and forming alliances, so I don't think "floater" is fair for much of anyone (except maybe Ben, but he's just an idiot who got misted). Its just that as much as those individual game threats are we basically saw the two deepest, most obvious pairings in the game broken up in the first votes. Nothing strategically wrong with that. Adam/Denise probably would have been the "floater" "just vote out the first idiot who gives you an excuse" move.
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Feb 13, 2020 13:57
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Sure, but that's why Tyson's the biggest threat of that trio. Because his default is "So who do I have to sell out now?" and he scrambles so effectively. We've never thought Amber was much of a player (but to be fair, there's no talking your way out of her position) and Kim just kind of melted down (and basically admitted it was because she had never played from a position of vulnerability). Its the usual edit thing where we'll never really know if they did as bad a job gaming until they were in the crosshairs. But the narrative and other players definitely told us that they just couldn't keep up with the pace of play. But Kim will have a chance to recover. And her rough showing early might actually help her and buy her some time if they decide she's not as scary as her rep.
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Feb 13, 2020 14:21
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I don't remember any references to last season besides Rob/Sandra and maybe some "Extinction Island" stuff. But like, that could have just been twist hype or confusion/conflation with the other Survivor " get voted out and go to an Island to keep playing" gimmicks.
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Feb 13, 2020 15:40
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Oh right, I do remember someone mentioning the huge statues. But yeah, I guess they could have just seen them. Or Rob and Sandra were probably all "guess what I've been doing the last month?"
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Feb 13, 2020 15:57
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For whatever you think of Rob's win (that remains the only season I never finished), he was already established as "one of the greatest players" before that. I want to be clear, I don't think this necessarily takes anything from Kim's One World victory. It has always been and will always be a decisive and absolute domination over a cast of complete idiots, passive fools, and sycophants. Its been a long time and this season is probably the polar opposite of that experience. So like while I'm not super surprised that Kim was completely unprepared for this and tripped up hard I don't think that retroactively says anything. At least assuming you see Kim's win in the context of her season. But I'm personally very curious to see if she can pick herself up and catch up the way Yul appears to have. STAC Goat fucked around with this message at 17:10 on Feb 13, 2020 |
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Feb 13, 2020 17:08
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I wanna say I really like Ethan too and even though he didn't do anything game wise to stand out I will be very angry/sad when he's inevitably voted out for being way too nice and likable and sympathetic and a huge jury threat.curiousCat posted:You can't judge Kim as a survivor player for this unless you think "playing a poker tournament outside of the context of Survivor" is a bad Survivor move. We're into that nebulous "edit" area. Did this really all come down to a poker game a year ago? Did Kim, Tyson, and Amber behave in a way that made them look like an alliance? Did they do a good job with the rest of the cast or isolate themselves? The show and players gave the impression that the three of them were kind of obviously cliqued up. The three of them insist it was just a dumb poker game and they did nothing wrong. We don't really know the answer to taht and we probably never will since each player will have their own myopic perspective on how it went. But like... I think we can probably mostly agree that some of Kim's behavior and arguments were just not winners. Although in Kim's specific case its at least possible that if she looked bad enough as a player she might have taken the target off her as an individual.
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Feb 13, 2020 18:36
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That sounds like one of their "live" ones? I kind of hate those. "Hate" is probably strong but I actually do listen because I enjoy hearing Rob and Fish talk the game. The live shows are just drunk Survivors being boring or extra who mostly didn't watch the show with bad audio. Which can be fun, sure, but isn't why I watch/listen.
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Feb 13, 2020 19:22
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Silly Burrito posted:Probably because she was a challenge beast PLUS her strong relationship with Jeremy. Rob knows what a target he has on his back due to him and Amber so he’s taking that threat out early. Plus, you know these tribes won’t stay like this long, there will be a swap or two before the merge. These people started with loyalties to other players, not tribal loyalties that they currently have unlike other seasons. Plus, they made for a convincing target for Rob & Parv to deflect attention off themselves. We're probably gonna see a lot of that. People painting big targets to hide their big targets. Hence "Poker Alliance."
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Feb 13, 2020 19:27
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The token thing is really interesting now that we know they can be passed down from the eliminated players. It means not only can a really good social player net up a stash to use on an advantage but it means if you're picking off an alliance or group of outcasts you could be superpowering the last survivor. Of course there's also the flip side that if you're the last person with no friends you gotta give someone you don't want to a gift. I wonder what happens if someone with multiple tokens gets voted out. If you've got 4 tokens does someone get a huge cash in or do they just get reduced to 1?
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Feb 13, 2020 22:07
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The token menu is pretty good since its clearly divided into the 3 categories. 1 token luxury items there to tempt stupid players into spending their token on some booze or food. Multi token camp stuff meant to tempt tribes into pooling their tokens for something that helps the group. And lastly a multi took advantage that probably only helps an individual so they either need to play a good social game and get bequeathed a lot of tokens or convince people that given them the tokens will help them. No idol or anything that might be too easy for an alliance to just pool their tokens to try and maintain their hold on the numbers. Lots of potential for comedy or pay off for good social gaming.
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Feb 14, 2020 19:47
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I have this incredible apprehension that we're praising this season too early and in 3 weeks someone's gonna molest someone or out someone again or something.
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Feb 17, 2020 15:46
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Its honestly probably just her baseline strategy of "anyone but me, don't stick your neck out" with a dash of "don't want to fall victim to dumb dudes getting paranoid about all the women teaming up." What makes Sandra great is that she basically plays the same floater game a hundred other Survivors have played but she's such a force of nature that she does it with agency.
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Feb 17, 2020 22:24
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Its also probably good to create distance between her and Rob. Like you don't want "The Poker Alliance" turning into "The Idol Alliance". And like, if Rob did lie or whatever then if nothing else that's a hint that he isn't planning on working with you so get his rear end out and stoke the flames with the tribe.
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Feb 17, 2020 23:43
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If that was the case I imagine we would have gotten some hint of it. It would have made it more fun to see if they can pull it off. And, you know... Sandra probably wouldn't have pushed to vote out Rob's wife. Practically I can't imagine Rob and Sandra working together except as a matter of early convenience like Rob/Parv. Rob's 100% gonna backstab Parv and Sandra would 100% backstab Rob before he could get her.
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Feb 17, 2020 23:55
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Like you could come up with some theory of her wanting to create distance or hurt Rob long term or not rock the boat. But it don't exactly build trust with the notoriously sketchy player for a notorious sketchy player to vote out his wife/closest ally without even a superficial effort to save her. Especially knowing that she stays in the proximity of the game, and that Rob's got other people she was working with who saw it. It just seems like to work with Rob Sandra would have had to go to bat for that whole Pokers' Alliance extended family of his. And I can't imagine Sandra wanting to play that game with that cast of players. If she ever works with Rob it will be either out of desperation or when she's got some of her own allies to counter his.
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Feb 18, 2020 00:11
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The interesting thing about Rob vs Sandra to me is that they're basically going completely different ways early with allies. Rob's going with the old school equals and friends and Sandra's going with the folks who feel left out. So if they can both make the merge it might come down to who has the bigger, more loyal army.
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Feb 18, 2020 16:43
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They should and I'm not convinced they'll make the merge. But it helps that there's so many threats in this case. In Game Changers Sandra was like 1 of 3 winners or something. So in this one there's more people to get paranoid about or for Sandra/Rob to distract with. In W1 we saw Rob team up with Parv and stoke paranoia about Jeremy/Natalie and Sandra play the paranoia about Rob, Amber, Kim, and Tyson. So more opportunities like that will be present in this season than past.
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Feb 18, 2020 17:05
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Yeah, it just seems like bad gameplay by Rob. He's a smart guy but he's also kind of always been not as smart as he thinks he is. So like he understandable recognized that Sandra was a threat to him and not someone he wanted to work with and that's fine but then he outsmarted himself by lying to her instead of just fluffing her up because he didn't know how things would shape up and dealing with it as it comes. In Rob's defense I don't know how you go into a game where you're a main target, your wife is playing, and a bunch of people are your known close friends. But giving Sandra a reason to be pissed at you is definitely not the answer.
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Feb 18, 2020 19:00
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That was I think David's theory a few seasons ago? That as long as he and Zeke were gunning for each other the tribe was content to let them but once Zeke was gone then David was a target. Something like that? But no, I think they just both know the other is a snake so even if it would make sense for them to watch each other's backs since they're both big targets they just know they can't ever really trust one another because its not in their interests to go deep together. Its the same problem I see with Rob/Parv. It seems like a race to see which one knives the other first.
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Feb 18, 2020 19:37
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Tony is just the kid who would do stupid and dangerous stuff for attention but all grown up and blessed with no shame and not enough brains to know why its a bad idea. I would say its terrifying he's a cop, but really its no surprise.
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Feb 18, 2020 20:51
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Fast Luck posted:Rodney had his own evil empire alliance that was starting to set its sights on Mike, which Mike overheard. Then Mike pulled his auction gambit where everyone bid on letters from home and he got last in line to pay for his letter and then after everyone else had spent, he turned around and walked back, which pissed everyone off. He backed down and bought the letters but that was when he went from being potential target to public enemy #1. Yeah, my memory is he was in a relatively strong position of influence until he pulled that stunt and blew his entire game up. Him working with and siding with Shirin came after when they were both outsiders and like, who knows if he would have stood up for her if he was in the in crowd, but at that stage they both were pretty well out.
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Feb 19, 2020 17:11
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I get no one taking the shot at Rob. I'm not saying they shouldn't take the shot. Of course they should. But I get it. Parv and Ethan feel like they need him. Ben and Danni are a mess. Adam is naturally sketchy. Rob is very good. Taking a shot at him with such shaky numbers could just backfire so hard. And even with like Jeremy's quasi-idol players like Rob and Parv are good enough to do it without giving you any warning. You gotta make your move and you gotta do it before its too late but its really hard this early with no real trust with anyone. Still, the bag thing is kind of embarrassing. I'm kind of enjoying Ben just being a complete doofus. He's a fun contrast to the schemers and the panicked over thinkers. Ben's just out there being Ben. And it seems to scare the poo poo out of Rob. Which could be fun. Tyson and Sophie realizing Tony has the mind of a child and won't come to senses he doesn't have was fun. Watching Yul, Wendell, and Kim desperately plead with Tony not to kill himself was funner. Sarah deciding "no, I can totally trust Tony this time" was funnest. Khanstant posted:Ok good, I can live with this. She totally invented her own target on her back, she would have been 100% safe if not for her Ben conversation. Like, if it had been just Ethan, he coulda told the old folks she's tweakin and they'd have assured her. Shneak posted:I need to rewatch that bag part, I didn't catch what Denise did. Adam has a bad poker face though. She had the idol in like the lip of the front cover of her bag and she just made sure to hold it there as she turned the bag over and stuff. It was pretty smooth. STAC Goat fucked around with this message at 06:21 on Feb 20, 2020 |
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Feb 20, 2020 06:17
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Yeah I just think people don’t give Rob enough credit that he’s just a really good social player. He always has been. In Marquesas he had social control of his tribe until the swap screwed him. In All Stars he had tons of social capital that he burned leading to the Amber win. Rob just does a really good job at spreading himself around so that even people who don’t trust him don’t trust everyone else not to give them away if they try something against Rob. Jeremy, Adam, and I forget the third were like afraid to say “let’s vote out Parv” last night because they were all scared one of them would go repeat it. Early on Rob’s game is just really powerful because there’s so much paranoia and so little trust. But it’s a hard game to keep up. Rob is good but everyone knows he is. Also you gotta consider the fire tokens. Jeremy knows Natalie got voted out and he got an idol. So he’s gotta figure Rob has something from Amber.
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Feb 20, 2020 16:08
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curiousCat posted:Jeremy just got it -- which is the only thing given out since Amber hit the island But he doesn't know it was the only thing given out (and it wasn't actually, was it? I thought Natalie gave someone else something else last week). It would be reasonable (I'd argue logical) for Jeremy to worry that if Natalie was able to give him a power that Amber was able to give Rob one. And Amber was voted out 3 days before Danni so there's no way for Jeremy to know Rob didn't get something in that time.
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Feb 20, 2020 16:55
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Pinterest Mom posted:A thing about Danni is that the other old timers did legitimately seem to not be including her in stuff - the trio of Rob/Parv/Ethan talking strategy this week also happened a bit last week that we saw. It wasn't wrong for her to surmise that she was on the bottom of that four, but going immediately nuclear in the way she did was whew. She might very well have been on the outs of the inner circle, but its like also possible she just was doing that to herself because she isn't a natural schemer and was being self conscious about inviting herself into conversations. Like that whole thing happens different if when she looking across the beach at Rob, Parv, and Ethan talking she just walks over and they're like "Yeah, we're talking Jeremy or Ben. What do you think?" But some players don't have that personality and the paranoia fucks with them.
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Feb 20, 2020 17:29
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It MIGHT have been a tactical error to tell Rob you wanted him out on like Day 2, to form an alliance with him and Parv on like Day 3, and to go to Rob on Day 6 and be like "lets vote out Parv."
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Feb 20, 2020 19:00
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I want to give Denise the benefit of the doubt that she like was like just throwing it out there in a "no bad ideas" way. Like, just some dumb galaxy brained idea she knew was dumb but hey, maybe Adam will tell me its actually smart. No? Ok, yeah. Its dumb. Lets move on.
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Feb 21, 2020 01:16
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Looten Plunder posted:I'm not a fan of this narrative. His game had a ton of flaws in Marquesas. I also don't think it's right to say he got swap screwed. He was in a lovely position at the swap because his tribe lost every single tribal council. He went to the swap tribe with all but one of his alliance. If his social game was that strong, I feel like he could have swept up a bottom feeder or two from the other side (if I recall, they imploded as soon as Rob left so there must have been cracks). That's not to say his social game didn't improve in subsequent seasons, but it really wasn't there in Marquesas. Oh Rob absolutely was flawed. What I'd argue is that Rob has that "scoundrel charm" that he can uses to woo people. In Marquesas he had it and used it to take control of his tribe, but he was also a cocky prick kid so he basically told the people he didn't need to go gently caress themselves and let the tribe go to hell. Then the swap came and he needed some of those people, but they expectedly told him to go gently caress himself right back. But the irony that I remember is that he was trying to convince them all about John Carroll's crew, they didn't believe him, and then as soon as he was voted out that they had that infamous knockout challenge where the alliance exposed itself and then those numbers did flip and work with Rob's old crew. So yeah, I didn't mean to say he played some kind of masterful social game in Marquesas. I just meant Rob's always kind of been good at charming people even when he was kind of a lovely player. He learned and grew up and got better and I think that speaks to how he seems to spread himself around and try not to leave those kinds of holes and neglected corners he had the first time. Of course he's still kind of a cocky douche at heart so he still makes some potentially fatal mistakes. Serious Party Gods posted:I got the most paralyzing douche chill ever from Parvati when she countered Ben's EVERYONE is worried argument with "You think WE'RE worried? *shares a laugh with Rob*" - B, you would have been GONE if they had organized. Watch her face drop like a demolition hammer when there was ONE VOTE against her STAC Goat fucked around with this message at 03:21 on Feb 21, 2020 |
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Feb 21, 2020 03:17
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I personally can't really see giving up the change for money or fun/challenge of playing to preserve a "perfect win". Like Kim's sucking but I respect that she went out there and didn't just try and protect her image. But you know, to each their own. Everyone gets there a different way.
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Feb 24, 2020 17:36
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