Going into a merge 9-1 was absolutely great; however, the tables turned when my tribe was cursed D: DavidVegimite died, Beast was banned/poisoned himself, and we kept losing..
Eventually, we got a couple of wins, but it still wasn't enough to keep a lot of people...I was one of the 3 that merged :D
So when I joined Survivor, did I expect to merge? No. I joined to get a feel of how it worked, and I ended up getting the hang of it quickly. With a dominant tribe, I was able to make a merge of 9 - 1 :).