And we're back. The very first season will always hold a special place because it was the first. There were no shortage of big players in it, it was a lot more active than I expected, and it has some very memorable moments!
The game started out well, any inactive players were voted out in the first couple of votes. Then came one of the first big moments in Link's Survivor, the chance to mutiny was offered up to the players and swimboy818 jumped at the chance to take it! He did it not for any strategical reason but more because it would cause chaos and annoy a lot of players, which he considered advantageous to his game. When the tribes merged the original Drake tribe had 4 members and the original Morgan tribe has 6 members but everyone joined together to blindside Hudspith who they considered the biggest threat in the game and he went home in a 7-1 vote with a hidden immunity idol in his pocket. The immunity challenges were all very competitive with loganwormepstar59 and swimboy818 all fighting very hard in each and every one. The Drake tribe was all picked off, although it was not as simple as that because epstar59 had been targeted and should have gone home but sfeviston heard this and to everyone's surprise played a hidden immunity idol on epstar. The season also featured the most difficult challenge in Link's Survivor and epic puzzle that took over 4 hours to solve. epstar59 solved it first but decided to give the answer to swimboy818 so that he would trust him and seem like more of a threat.
When the Morgan tribe did have to turn on each other LoganWorm was the obvious target because of how hard he played but he had a hidden immunity idol up his sleeve and using it sent home sfeviston instead. Ultimately loganworm was taken out at the next vote anyway. Then it looked like swimboy818 had the game won when he won the final immunity challenge, but in a big error in judgement he chose to take epstar59 who had played well and was popular instead of KBeastW who was seen as more of a goat. This ultimately cost him the game and epstar59 was crowned the first ever sole survivor!
I will always love this season because it was the first. It amazed me that so many players came to compete despite this just being some n00b's first season. There were so many big characters and popular players from this season like cowkal2 or antega34 as well as all the people already mentioned. And I do hope that one day sfeviston will return to tengaged long enough to compete in another season!
The 3rd season of Link's Survivor provided many firsts: it was the first season to start with more than 16 players, the first season to have returning players; the first season with a final 3, the first season with a tie-breaker duel. It also had the leader twist, which was used during the pre-merge part of the game.
The season started with 16 people being announced as players but not put into tribes, then 2 returning players arrived ( LoganWorm and Survivorfan1111) to be the leaders of each tribe and have a school yard pick to determine the tribes. This also featured the cruel twist were the last 2 people were not picked and cut from the game.
I really liked the pre-merge of this season, there were some intense battles between the tribes at the immunity challenge and the leaders twist brought an interesting dynamic to the game. Both the leaders took very different approaches to the role, with survivorfan1111 acting strong and determined to keep his tribe together whilst LoganWorm took more of a behind the scenes role plotting with people. Every time a leader lost the leaders challenge the players on their tribe were given the chance to mutiny to the other tribe if they wished, only one player did this the outspoken ThaMeowMeow chose to mutiny the only time that survivorfan1111 lost the leaders challenge.
As a result of ThaMeowMeow 's mutiny the tribes merge evenly. So in order to gain control of the game we saw some masterful plotting from LoganWorm, he allowed the a former Timbira member to be the first one voted out making the Jalapao tribe trust him. This lead to one of the most memorable tribal councils we've ever had. Since survivorfan1111 now trusted loganworm and his allies he told them who they were voting for, but loganworm got l0_0l to play his idol on their target and they voted for Survivorfan to blindside him. However, this didn't go entirely as planned because Survivorfan also had an idol, and on a hunch played it. This meant when the votes were read, there were no votes that counted for anyone and on the re-vote l0_0l was voted out.
Despite Survivorfan staying in the game LoganWorm was able to divide the old Timbira and use this to vote out Survivorfan at the next tribal council. LoganWorm remained a huge target for the rest of the game, which lead to some intense immunity challenge battles between him and Rumtin. Though Logan was able to use hidden immunity idols, or at least bluff people into thinking he had them to stay in the game. Then at the all important final immunity challenge Logan emerged successful giving him a spot in the final tribal council. However, his last threat victory was Rumtin and he didn't want to have to sit next to him at the end but he was only able to force a tie at tribal which meant that Rumtin and fern111 competed in a tie-breaker duel to determine who would go to the final tribal council. Rumtin won this, but it was still ultimately Loganworm who would be crowned to Sole Survivor.
This was a really entertaining season, with the whole game (pre and post merge) having big moments. The more I remember about the season the more I remember just how good this season was and what a worthy winner LoganWorm proved to be.
This was the first season to start with 3 tribes and the 3 tribes were all divided by age.
This was really a season of 2 halves. The pre-merge wasn't great and there were a lot of inactives in it. Though there was one important thing to note, that is that the Koto tribe never went to tribal council before the merge.
That meant that when the merge finally came there were 5 original Koto members, 3 original Tambaqui members and 2 original Jaburu members. It seemed like Koto should be able to dominate post merge as well if they just stuck together. However, they were unable to do that. That is because there were some big personalities in that Koto tribe who were destined to clash, including one of Link's Survivors most memorable characters losangelesgirl who clashed with ryan5676 and missalice3 .
Of course the disfuction in the Koto tribe was not the only reason that they failed post-merge because included in those Jaburu members was bingo21, one of the best players on Tengaged. Many people though he would be able to win his way to the end. This proved not to be the case and that is largely thanks to the efforts of the Tambaqui 3, lead by CK11. The Tambaqui 3 were able to tempt ryan5676 away from Koto and use him to get to the end.
The season also saw the first appearance of one of the most popular underdogs in Link's Survivor ninihead25 who just fell short of making it to the final tribal council.
As I said before this is a season of 2 halves and that is why it doesn't get ranked any higher because as exciting as the post merge was the pre merge was just as dull.
This season was over a year ago now so it isn't the freshest in my mind but I can still remember plenty of it. Pre-merge it was all about Rarotonga, they won most of the challenges and even after a tribe swap it was still Rarotonga that would win. Most of the inactives were taken out early but the first tribal council is memorable for being the first time a purple rock was drawn in Link's Survivor @Wadester20001 being the unlucky person that time. Though there is a considerably more memorable purple rock in a later season, but we will get to that soon lifer107.
At the merge the original Rarotonga tribe stuck together, thanks in part to Skillzdatkillz who saw it as the easiest path to the end. And he was right largely because aside from a brief immunity streak from Itsamejack the Raro alliance held together strongly.
It meant that the season wasn't the most interesting to watch, but there were certainly some interesting dynamics in play with people listening to almost anything porschefan101 told them. But in the end porschefan101 was able to win the crucial last 2 immunity challenges that meant he could chose to take hinata0014 to the final tribal council and play off against the bitterness that people had.
The season was also the first appearance of Survivorfan1111 who was the first member of the jury and who would return just a season later.
This is another season that was solid but not spectacular, partly because I was still learning the ropes as a host.
In my opinion there is quite a jump in quality between Palau and Thailand. Thailand is actually a good season that, looking back on it, had quite a few memorable moments in it. The biggest thing it suffered from was that it was right after Galapagos and right before All Stars, and everyone (including me) was just looking forward to that. It meant that I kind of rushed this season a little, so that is why it ends up lower.
The cast looked very strong and they didn't disappoint, the inactives were taken out early and both tribes were trying their best to win. Then when both tribes were even a tribe swap brought about a double tribal council that kept the original tribes at the same numbers if there was a potential merge. So then we saw one of the boldest moves in series the members of the original Chuay Gahn decided to through the next immunity challenge so that they would be able to get control of the numbers for the merge. This move didn't go entirely as planned but they still ultimately get what they wanted.
The season had plenty of big characters who were not afraid to speak their mind, OntarioIceIceBabyjman96 all spring to mind. And then there was Bluejays96 who would constantly get on peoples nerves with his cocky attitude but built up strong one on one relationships with everyone. It was a risky strategy, there was certainly plenty of fire at the final tribal council, but in the end he was able to pull it off.
This is definitely a solid season and it's reputation is always growing as I look back on it, so it could easily move up a couple of places when I next reassess my rankings.
This was the first season back after my summer break and as a result I was eager to get it started so I cast the first 16 people that applied. I think this is a mistake because the season ended up being filled with a lot of inactive players.
The original Koror tribe looked like it was going to follow its IRL namesake and dominate the game but then a tribe swap mixed things up and it was needed because there only seemed to be one Ulong player switched on, Sunslicer. This season is also the only season which has featured Redemption Island. It didn't go as well as I had hoped but it did allow the controversial coach13 to re-enter the game. Though he was unable to enact his planned revenged on matt99 he did have some memorable attacks at tribal councils.
Redemption Island finished when the jury phase of the game started, but the game didn't really improve to much. There were only a couple of people really playing the game, as can be seen by all the immunities being split between only 2 players, Sunslicer2 and SimvivorWay. Both of whom have played really good games.
I really liked Sunslicer as a winner because he dominated on so many levels, even though he really came into the merge "down in the numbers". He was great in the challenges but he also recognised the threats of matt99 and Simvivorway and was able to take them out. He knew who to take to end to ensure he would win. He is the only unanimous winner and he deserves a lot of credit for it because even though it wasn't the most difficult season he still made it look very easy.
