Opening speech
I know I lied a lot this game, in fact, I probably lied to each and every one of you at least once if not more. However, I will not be apologizing for that. The only one I owe an apology is Ben because it became a bit personal but he understands. The reason I won’t say sorry is because every lie I told had a purpose. I came into this season to play and that’s exactly what I did. This is a season titled “All-Winners” so I came into it with a mindset of getting the job done. I do respect your rights as a jury to be bitter because that’s a valid way to vote, but I ask in return that you hear out what I have to say and consider me as a strategic force in this game.
The beginning:
Pre-game didn’t really exist for me. I’ve played enough games on this site to know that doing that shit never truly matters once we hit the ground running. However, pre existing relationships are what really impacted my game. Sydney and I knew without even talking about it that we would be each other’s ride or die so o had that. Dylan and I vibed after Bens all-winners so I knew we’d work well together. There were a few others that the pre existing bonds helped some; such as Raul or the Ethans but Dylan and Sydney were the big two.
20/19:
Jake had actually been someone I pregamed with because of a game we JUST played together but I barely know him and he was inactive so I didn’t care. Brandon was the vote that really kicked things off though. This made me realize that things were gonna be pretty divided because if they already targeted a big name like him then shit is gonna get hot fast. This also lit a fire under me because I really wanted to work with Brandon and losing him made me step up my social game a bit.
18/17:
I REALLY wanted to throw the challenge to fling Kelly0412 here but Ethan H was too good for his own good. Ryan using the two idols was great because it really solved early paranoia for me in terms of my targets saving themselves, however, I did lose Eric who I think would have been a great long-term ally so that sucked. But honestly he voted himself out there and it meant Matt stayed so I wasn’t too broken up over it. More just annoyed. This round is also where I was really able to establish my bonds with Dylan and Ethan H which comes in handy later when I get a bad swap.
16/15:
I hate to talk about this round but I can’t ignore it. I’ve already publicly apologized for the boot order here but since I took down the blog I’ll do it again: I’m sorry, I should have listened to everyone and gotten rid of Ryan first. No excuses. However, I do support Bens motives for pushing Kelly first given the direct impact he faced from Kellys actions. I on the other hand, do not have a valid reason and I’m sorry. Regardless, the order happened. These two votes honestly lacked much of any strategy from me because I was more concerned about taking out the people making the game incredibly gross and unfun. So if you have questions about my strategy this round, just assume it doesn’t exist. One thing that did come out of this round that played into my game was Raul. I solidified my tie to him here and this is where we really picked up on how much we would need one another. This bond continues into the next swap as well. I also bonded with Ethan C and Ben here which helped me when I got a bad swap.
14/13/12:
This is where that swap screwed. Thankfully is was a double tribal which meant we could really only go to tribal once (or so I assumed because I really thought merge was at 12 🤡). Even better though was my lord and savior Dylan O (DBWs) winning individual immunity for me. On that tribe it was clearly myself or Benp that would be leaving so I felt like immunity was necessary. Idk for sure if I needed it because Ben May have left before me anyway (due to my ties with Matt and Raul and even Hufus to an extent) but I’m glad I never had to find out. This is also where I picked up on my rivalry with Romeo which plays into the merge vote so we’ll come back to that. Anyway, Benp and Jake were thrown from the game but we did not merge and I was FLOORED. I knew if we went back to tribal again that I was fucked. Mostly because Hufus and Raul told me that to my face lmao. Thankfully, the other tribe knew I would be a number for them at merge while Marto was wavering between the two. They all agreed to throw the challenge to protect my pathetic ass 🥰. Thankfully merge was at 11 because if we don’t merge there I probably leave so praise the lord for that.
Merge: 11
So the merge really should have been straight forward because two sides but it was anything but that. My side (at the time) was on call for hours and never came to a decision. Meanwhile I have Raul in my PMs begging me non stop to “take out Ben now or he’s gonna win!” All with me trying to form some side thing with Sydney, Raul and Matt (unsuccessfully obviously since Matt is flung for 10th). Eventually (I think like ten minutes before the vote) I just tell everyone to do Romeo since that’s literally the name I had locked since the night before and I was tired of all this idol speculation. Romeo leaving here was imperative for my game because he’s one of the few I knew could spot my game if I let him sneak past a few votes. Not to mention he’s so outspoken that once he did figure me out, he would indeed put me on blast whereas people like Matt or Kelly were much more subtle about exposing people and I can handle that better than public exposure.
Final 10:
Was at work for the majority of this cycle so I’m not surprised I was left out do the vote, but that doesn’t mean it hurt any less. As I said, Matt was in my “master plan” to fling Ben at 9. I knew he understood where I was coming from at a strategic angle so it was very nice working with someone who was calm and rational (unlike Raul who flipped shit if I even mentioned voting someone who wasn’t Ben). The plan was to vote Hufus from the start but Dylan, Ben and the Ethans didn’t like that (mostly cause they were protecting Hufus as their number like Sydney and I were protecting Kelly/Matt/Raul). So honestly this was a good move on their part, however, they handled it poorly. I mean completely leaving me out of the vote seemed a little pointless since Raul more than likely doesn’t use his idol even if I told him AND it allowed me to pander to the other side by crying about being left out. My big takeaway here is that although I was in the minority, I still used this as an opportunity to pull the other side in and turn on Ben and company.
Final 9:
This is the first round that I think I really took control of things. So the original plan to fling Ben here took a backseat tbh because now we had Hufus flipping and Ethan H was a mole. I needed to still weaken Ben but without hurting myself in the process. So that’s where I really came up with the Hufus vote. He and I weren’t super close and since I voted him last tribal I knew he wouldn’t ever fully trust me again. Unfortunately, Kelly and Raul did not realize that Hentzel wasn’t really with us. He had them fooled for the most part. I was being fed info through both Dylan and Ethan about what their side was doing and how they were going about it. At this point, The plan is to just simply vote Ben while the other side was doing Raul. However, Kelly and company learned of Bens idol and talked a lot about splitting to waste both Raul and Ben’s idol. I think the split ended up not going through because of the other side possibly not splitting or something like that. Regardless, This sent me into what eventually came to be. I made a chat with myself, Brittney and Sydney where we agreed to vote Hufus in secret since the idols and splits would make 3 a majority (at that point anyway). So the idea to vote hufus was entirely mine. I made the chat, suggested the plan and put things into motion. Things changed however when Bens side decides to vote Kelly instead of the split on Raul/Kelly. The only problem with this plan was leaving out Raul and Kelly so I had to find a way to include them. First I went to Hufus to inform him about the plan to vote Ben (knowing full well that it was about to change), then I got confirmation from Dylan that Hufus did indeed leak my convo to Ben AND that their side was voting Kelly instead of Raul. This was all I needed to finalize the plan. With Ben knowing he’s getting at least a few votes (thanks to several people leaking to him) he was more than likely playing the idol IF Raul plays his correctly. I then had to convince Kelly and Raul to not only play the idol on Kelly, but to vote hufus along with me. I knew this had to be last minute because these two trusted Hentzel like no other even though he was clearly leaking info back to Ben and company. So like 10 minutes before the deadline I made a chat revealing nearly everything to them and begging them to vote Hufus or Kelly leaves. They did think that us three and maybe Brittney would be the only ones voting Hufus though which is why I was able to tell Raul to play his idol on Kelly even though I knew he wouldn’t need it since Sydney was also in on the plan. Also by leaving Hentzel out of the vote, I made sure Ben felt confident enough to waste his idol while we sent Hufus packing.
Final 8:
I think this vote shows just how adaptable I really was. Also, In hindsight I recognize this was a bad decision but allow me to explain my thought process in the moment.
1. I knew Sydney and Kelly were close which was bad news for me because not only was I worried about having Sydney to myself, but that meant Kelly was Sydney’s number while I had Raul so I wanted to make sure Sydney’s number on the other side went before mine.
2. I was fairly confident that Brittney would flip on Ben the following tribal so to me it was about getting out whoever I was least close to and that was Kelly.
3. Kelly correctly pointed out that I had an alliance with Sydney and Brittney so I was deathly afraid that he figured out my game. Not to mention he openly distrusted me so what would stop him from flipping on me at final 6 after we got Ben out for 7?
4. If Kelly does get Brittney out here, he becomes an amazing player to the jury. Not to mention he already had votes locked. So even though Brittney did become that exact thing, Kelly was clearly going that direction while I knew there was room for Brittney to lose votes.
Anyway, here’s what I did that round: SO I initially just wanted to vote Ben, however, both sides kinda turned down that idea so I had to get off my high horse and figure out a plan. Dylan/Ethan/Brittney/Ben were voting Raul at the start of the round while Kelly and Raul switched our vote from Ben to Brittney. I knew I could not vote Raul because he and I had been working together pretty closely at this point (even if we didn’t agree or even get along for that matter). I also knew I couldn’t lose Brittney because he was a number for me and he had agreed to vote Ben at 7 so really I didn’t NEED Kelly. So I went to Dylan and Brittney with the idea to flip the vote onto Kelly and then I would vote with them. Obviously we need one more so I sucked up my pride and talked to Ben (whom I know was probably convinced by Dylan or something) to let him know that I was indeed voting Kelly and not him. This move all but forced Raul to keep me as his closest ally while also taking out someone I perceived as the biggest jury threat next to Ben. Finally, I did not let Sydney in on this plan until the last minute because I knew if we were to sit in finals (like we are <3) then I would need a move that I did on my own. SO in hindsight was this the best move? No. But looking at my logic in the moment I do think this was the correct decision and it was another move that I could at least partially claim.
Final 7:
I will admit, by keeping Brittney I did make this vote more of his move than mine. Although, I did know he would probably vote with us this round when I made the move to get Kelly so I wasn’t just going into this with blind hope. I knew Bens name was so big that it would be hard to ignore and I also knew of his options, my side was the more logical one for Brittney to choose because despite being on the bottom, he has less challenge competition with us, less jury threat with us and easier cracks to find (imo). So I won’t sit here and claim this was my move because I do think Brittney deserves the credit, but I didn’t go into this vote blind. Also, Dylan gave the idol to Ethan here which allowed me to really solidify my final three with Sydney and Raul. Ben, I know you are personally hurt by me in this game and I’m sorry on a personal level. I never meant it to be like that because I was in full game mode from the merge on. I should have been more empathetic and I’m sorry about that, however, I do think this was the best move for my game so I will not apologize on a game-level.
Final 6:
As soon as Brittney won immunity, the vote should have been pretty clear. However, I did consider Ethan’s arguments because I realized Brittney would be a comp threat and Hentzel would be the most likely to beat him. Ultimately, I knew my only chance to win a jury vote was with Raul and Sydney so I couldn’t vote either of them and I was protecting Dylan for as long as possible so I had no choice but to vote Ethan. This was the round I had my first vote cast against me because I think Ethan did not respect that I didn’t straight up tell him I was voting him. I don’t blame him for the move because I was trying to keep my options open and he saw through that.
Final 5:
This vote probably hurt the most. Before the game started, I genuinely wanted to sit with Dylan and Sydney in finals. But once it got down to the end, I knew I couldn’t just throw away the game I had worked so hard for. Although Dylan did stand a better chance against Ethan in challenges, if this was a final 3, I lose to him 10/10 times. Also, Sydney and I knew that Sydney stood a good chance in the final immunity so we knew it wasn’t game over. Along with that, I think Raul and I had a mutual understanding that we should never cut the other unless it truly is strategically beneficial and the Pros to keeping Dylan just weren’t enough for me to justify that yet. I was really hoping Brittney would have lost immunity because I wanted Dylan to at least get 4th if I could help it but once the reality came I knew I had to pull the plug.
Final 4/3:
As I mentioned, Raul and I had a bit of an understanding and I think we both kinda knew this was the time. Sydney was the one who could beat Brittney at the challenge so for either of us to have a chance we needed to cut the other. I do think this is where my relationship with Sydney helped because we really were never voting each other out so at worst it would have tied 2/2. As for the final 3, that should be obvious. We had been wanting Ethan out for rounds now so when Sydney finally beat him it was a clear decision to make.
Throughout this game I had several final 3s with people Most of which were with Sydney and one other person:
1. Brittney/Me/Sydney
2. Raul/Me/Sydney
3. Dylan/Me/Sydney
4. Kelly/Raul/Me
I knew I had a narrow path to victory so I did everything in my power to set myself up to get to the end in the best way I could.
Finally, Sydney I am so happy to be here with you. There really is no bad winner of this game because we played this game so well. I love you.
