@Vince
- Heading into this game, what did you feel was your biggest weakness in regards to gameplay and what measures did you take in this season to rectify those weaknesses?
Hey! Thanks for watching my plea :)
(I just saw how long this was, sorry lmao)
To answer your question though, coming into this game I obviously didn’t know who was going to be playing, due to the invite going out to all 52 previous winners of this series. That made me pretty nervous because not only did I not know a ton of old-school winners (like yourself), but I had also been kinda MIA with Tengaged and Tengaged people in general right before the season had started. So with all of that in mind, I definitely thought my biggest weakness was going to be my relationships with people/my social game.
I’ve played a ton of group games over the past 5 years, so in addition to not knowing some of these really old vets, I also had accumulated a ton of enemies throughout that time as well. To name a few: aiwfwyattroh, Absol, LaFierceBrittany2. These people I felt like were going to have it out for me before the season had even started. Sometimes I feel like it’s better to know few people coming in than to know too many to the point where some enemies emerge as well (which was the case for me).
So with all of this in mind, how the hell am I here in the Final 4 right now? Well, I’d like to say it’s because I was definitely able to overcome that weakness. In Stage 1 I tried to talk to people as much as I could, but this was also very hard considering I was playing an ORG at the exact same time. Whenever I could though, I was trying to socialize with people I normally wouldn’t have to make sure I wasn’t being voted for to go into the elimination.
Going into Stage 2, this is where I think my game really took off. Because it was in teams, I think it forced everybody to talk to every single person on their team, and that’s exactly what I did. I even took it upon myself to talk to a lot of people on the OTHER team to make them comfortable with me to not vote me into elimination should their team win (which ended up happening 3/3 times so I’m glad I did this).
I even tried to talk to you! But I think that because you knew you would probably end up sending me into elimination if you & Jordon matched up together, you didn’t end up replying to my messages. And that’s 100% fine, I understand not wanting to be fake, but the effort was still there on my part and I really did try.
Coming off of that elimination win, I knew it was put up or shut up. I had to work my ass off to make sure that I didn’t go back in again! And because of my newfound social game and bonds that I created with people, I not only was able to pull off a huge move with Lalisa with us matching up, but I also had majority on the Blue Team again to make sure nothing fishy happened. So that went smoothly. In the last round of Stage 2, I used those same bonds I had created from before to make sure those individuals weren’t voting for me. This was crucial because even with you defecting onto the Red Team, because of my relationships + advantage that I got at the auction, I was able to narrowly escape another elimination by 1 vote.
Going into Stage 3, I knew I needed a partner who was well-protected on the other side. When one of my closest allies in Patrick (who I actually used to always work against in games but BECAUSE of me reaching out to people this time around, I was able to gain his trust) got the right to bump whoever he wanted, he came to me asking who I preferred. I told him splozo, he bumped splozo, and splozo and I became partners! This was amazing because I felt like REGARDLESS of who won the challenges, I was never going in because we basically had who was seen as the two figureheads from each side, together on a team. It turned out that we didn’t have to rely on that though, because we won every challenge in that Stage.
Going into Stage 4, I felt like I had accomplished something big. The side I was on was in the majority 5 vs 3, I felt like all 4 of them trusted me over the people in the minority, and I honestly thought there was a good shot at me going the distance!
And even though I did have to go into an elimination in this phase (that round favored the minority as far as who they got to choose to go against in the elim), I think my social ties with people were still pretty strong.
Overall, I really do feel like I overcame what I was most afraid of coming in, and I’m so incredibly proud of the way I played this season. Thank you for reading :)