Hi jury,
I know I have an uphill battle coming into this final but I hope that this will explain my point of view throughout the game and why I made the decisions I did.
Initially, coming into this game, my expectations were very low. I had bad (group game) history with several people on the cast and overall was just overwhelmed by the sheer number of people that I didn’t know. Being here now, I can say that I made the absolute most of my second chance and did the best with the cards I was dealt.
Premerge:
I spent the entirety of the pre-merge desperately looking for a solid group that I could rely on because this was something I failed to do on my first season. I hit it off really well with Tyler, Josh, Logan and Mickle on my starting tribe. Zach was somebody that I knew I would never be able to trust due to past history and him having many more connections that he would prioritize over myself. Tyler and Mickle became some of my closest allies but were also some of Zach’s closest allies and I knew that as long as I stayed close to them, Zach would never be able to make a move on me if he considered it.
Tribe swap 1: This tribe swap was extremely eye opening in allowing me to decide the direction I wanted to head in. Although some people were pushing the ‘Tongsa strong’ narrative, I knew that this would never work if two people (Zach and myself) could never trust each other. Prior to winning the individual immunity in the double tribal, I had thrown Zach’s name out to a lot of people. The idea of voting him out was entertained to me but I wanted to see if people would commit when push came to shove. Since I was safe, I wanted to use the round to find out exactly where I stood. My closest allies leaking my messages, 5 people shooting the idea of voting Zach down and the final vote of 7-2-1 with me voting in minority let me know exactly where I stood. It was a wake up call that the people I considered my closest allies were never going to prioritize me.
Tribe swap 2: I stand by this tribe swap being the best thing that happened to me in this game. It was perfect because all five people that had been against voting Zach were suddenly not on my tribe and it felt like I had a fresh start with new people whilst still having existing relationships with Logan and Josh. The very first thing I did was to completely disassociate myself from my old tribe to every single person. I let people know exactly how I felt, expressed my concerns about how certain people were going to run the game and threw old tribe members under the bus to prove that I really was committed to finding new people to work with. In my mind, Tongsa strong was not a thing anymore and I wanted to form a counter group. It was a relief to find out that people like Andrew, Deshon and Cubs shared my concerns. I was able to work my way into the new tribe and it was around this point that I finally felt I had a solid group of 3 that I could rely on with Andrew and Deshon.
Merge:
Going into the merge, the lines were extremely blurred for me. I could see pairs, trios and small groups of people but I couldn’t pinpoint what the sides were. Because of this, all I could do was continue to work on my individual relationships and hope that these relationships would be strong enough to carry me through when my name inevitably came up.
13th: I unfortunately was offline when my name started circulating around with Josh’s. By the time I got online, both of our names had gained too much momentum and I felt that it was too late to change the vote, so I went into self preservation and made sure that people would not vote for me. I want to believe that, had I been online, Josh and I could’ve figured something out as he was somebody that I wanted to work with and him leaving at the first merge tribal was not ideal for my game. I knew that since there were still no solid groups, my individual connections with people would be enough to save me as well as the fact that I was a shield for many. I also found out about Scott’s steal a vote this round which I knew would be useful down the line.
12th: After winning immunity, I was able to find the idol with the second clue. As the day went on, it slowly became more apparent as to what the sides would be. Although I tried to repair my relationship with Logan after he had voted me, I felt that he wasn’t particularly receptive to working with me anymore and I decided that it was a good move to get out somebody that had for sure voted me the tribal council prior. When the vote came out 7-5 with 5 votes for Dino appearing out of virtually nowhere, it was clear that there was already some sort of alliance out there and that a counter to it needed to be formed. Most people denied voting for Dino, but I believed that it mainly involved people pertaining to the Zach / Kellen / Tyler / Mickle / Matt group.
11th: The idea Andrew, Deshon and myself had this day was to take out a big threat with the idol. This day let me know who had my back based off of who was warning me that my name was going around. Even though I tried to salvage my relationships with Mickle and Tyler, I had suspicions that they were involved in the Dino vote the day prior and when both of them lied and said they had not heard my name, it became apparent that they no longer trusted me enough to warn me. Deshon and Andrew let me know that people such as Dino, Scott and Cubs said they were locking me in because the majority was on me. However, I realized that this was the exact group of people that needed to come together today before it was too late. If I couldn’t get votes on bigger threats like Zach and Kellen, then maybe I could target their allies with less connections. Along with Dino, Deshon and Andrew, we realized that if we didn’t make a move today it would be very hard to get numbers down the line. We successfully got majority on Mickle within the last hour, but the plan did leak and Zach played his idol successfully. Just before the vote, I transferred my idol to Andrew. That way, if it needed to be played, he would be the one playing it and people wouldn’t lose trust in me for not having told them about the idol. Unfortunately, I did lose one of my closest allies in Andrew, but this only brought myself and Deshon much closer for the rest of the game. It was also at this point that I realized that the only person I thought I could fully trust coming into the game, Matt, was lying to me and gravitating closer to Zach than myself.
10th: Many props to Zach and Dino, but there was no way I was staying up 15+ hours. I decided to stay long enough for the advantage and after receiving the safety without power, I realized that the only thing that made sense was to use it that round. Although people definitely had cross-alliance relationships, in my mind, the game was split Kellen / Zach / Tyler / Mickle / Matt vs the rest of us. Even though he wasn’t being straightforward with me, I still knew that Matt would keep me safe from their side and I would keep Matt safe on the other side. This 5v5 scenario meant that somebody would be required to flip whether or not I used the safety without power. I also thought that my vote would be much more important down the line than at final 10. I was hoping Scott would use his advantage here since it would have given us the numbers advantage the following day but he decided against it. Dino leaving here was not great as I feel that our games had finally started to align due to our mutual targets.
9th: I was able to somehow convince Scott to tell me the idol clue and this allowed me to find it. He didn’t share the clue with me initially, which confirmed to me that Kellen was his #1. Final 9 was the last time it made sense to use the steal a vote for Scott, and although I would’ve preferred to target Zach or Kellen, I was now aware that Scott was working with them more than I originally thought. Since I couldn’t get the vote onto either of them and I wanted to protect Matt, Tyler being the vote made the most sense. There were several attempts at trying to get me to flush the idol this round which did not work.
8th: It was obvious that today would go to a 4-4 tie. I do wish that I would’ve pushed harder for a rock draw since essentially all outcomes except Deshon and Matt leaving were good for my game, but I understood Deshon’s decision to not go to rocks. Cubs leaving was, once again, not ideal as he is somebody that I felt I had gotten closer to since the start of the second swap. This made things very complicated for the following day.
7th: At this point, I was convinced that Scott / Zach / Kellen had some sort of deal going on and I wanted it broken up. Since I couldn’t get Zach out as he was immune and Scott was kind of on my side, I was fixated on getting out Kellen. I really believed that the only way to make it happen was to idol him out as there simply was no way to get majority on him. I had spent days trying to talk to Matt about flipping since the final 11 vote but had not been successful in convincing him. I explained to Matt that a lot of people were refusing to vote Kellen and it felt like finally, something clicked, and Matt managed to see that he was expendable to certain people on his side. After getting Matt on board for the plan to idol out Kellen, Matt told Scott thinking he was in on the plan who leaked to Kellen. I suppose this caused Kellen to freak out as he now wanted to 3-2-2 the vote on Matt with the help of Deshon and Scott whilst attempting to flush my idol. Deshon let me know this and I realized that this was the perfect time to capitalize on Kellen’s blunder and that we could get him out without the idol and without needing to get 4 majority votes on him since votes were so split. Deshon and I agreed that there simply was no endgame with all of Scott / Zach / Kellen still in the game, and we voted out Kellen along with Matt in what I think was my biggest move of the game. Almost every single person wanted my idol flushed this round, but holding onto it proved to be the right move.
6th: Zach was by far the biggest threat in the game and my rival even if it was probably more one sided on my end. It felt like I had spent the entire game figuring out how to get him out. Winning immunity was important as I was aware of Deshon’s legacy advantage and it was probably the only way that Zach was ever going to leave as there was no way he would ever receive the majority of votes. Scott’s thrown vote here confirmed that he had been working with Zach but I didn’t understand the attempt at allowing Zach to get any deeper in the game as he would’ve for sure won the game. Either way, the final 7 and 6 votes ended up working out perfectly as I had finally managed to get out two of the biggest threats without the need of my idol.
Finale: Although I did win the final immunities, I do believe I would’ve still managed to get by without them. At final 5, I played the idol for Deshon and threw my vote on Scott in case he didn’t idol himself for whatever reason. At final 4, I voted for Scott but lost the person I had ended up working most closely with this game in Deshon.
Overall, I really think I deserve to be here and that I played the best game possible. I had nowhere to hide all game and was very vocal about where I stood with everybody constantly. Since the early pre-merge, I made everybody aware that I would be against Kellen and Zach, two of the most connected players in the game, and I still managed to come out on top. Being so open about my targets is something I wasn’t used to but a play style that I ended up appreciating as it felt like I could be much more truthful with people. I didn’t lie unnecessarily or make any promises that I couldn’t keep and I expressed my feelings directly to people when I thought they weren’t being honest with me. Unlike my two fellow finalists, I came into this game much more under connected and never had the luxury of playing the middle or laying low. I won a lot of immunities, yes, but I was still vulnerable at multiple tribals where my name circulated and I never cracked to the pressure of playing any idols. I bounced back from being one of the merge targets and ended up having a major hand in taking out some of the biggest threats when everybody else was too afraid to.
I hope my game is respectable enough and I will answer any questions you guys have the best that I can.
Good luck Scott and Matt!