Hi jury,
First, I want to thank Newz for hosting this season. I had my doubts returning after just having quit due to a family emergency and participating in maybe one of the worst season's on Tengaged. Regardless, I appreciate the opportunity Newz dragged me into as I didn't have a ton of expectations for myself.
EARLY GAME
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Personally, I feel my game didn’t start to the later portion of the premerge. However, the most important relationships that I made on “Day 1” were with Lexie and Will. From the start, I knew those two were individuals that I felt that I could genuinely trust based on our tribe setup and just the individuals that I wanted to play with despite having limited game encounters with each of them. In result, working with each of them helped form a Yaxha coalition with everyone minus Brittany which would in start form one side for the eventual merge.
Moving forward, the most difficult decision that I faced was whether to mutiny at the swap before merge. In fairness, I wasn’t online the first and at a glance of tribe would highly consider mutinying. Instead, I took a day to reflect and realized that this was the time to form social in-roads with Absol, James, Josh, NJ and it helped having my former duo from Easter Island in Andy. I knew that it was a risk due to…
1) I could be the easy out in the minority
2) I can put myself in a good spot come merge among some pretty solid players.
In my short time, I feel that I did rise among the ranks letting Tico leave in an “anything but me stance” and giving Andy my idol as an impulse decision to get out someone who had figured out what I was doing from the start in Jordan. This proved to beneficial as I always knew Andy would have my back and if future plans and/or chats were made without one of us we’d compile our information moving information.
MERGE
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Ultimately, I came in with the mindset that I needed to even out both sides so I could eventually become a vital swing vote moving forward. Individuals, like Billy and Tris who could’ve found themselves in a similar position were threats to me as I really wanted to be the main focal point of strategy come the later stages of the game. It became clear when I evidently became a key vote in decisions revolving around NJ, Patrick, Josh, and Lexie.
Billy’s boot was likely the one that started the chain of events in terms of who needed to be the next stage of targets for me in the mid-late portion of the merge. It was clear that trust had officially been broken between myself, Pat, and Silver disagreed on the James boot and were not content with me taking Billy out who I believe felt they wanted to use as number for themselves to eventually get me out in the future.
Final Six, I felt that I was in everyone’s ideal final three situation or had a final three with everyone whether it was because I had been too cutthroat with the way I played or had built social and/or working relationships over time which was the case for the final six despite the bumps along the way. I felt confident that I wasn’t going to be leaving from the final seven onward. Also, under-reported social relationships with someone like Josh got me a long way as we did have a genuine partnership, but I got cold feet when I thought he wasn’t going to take out Absol eventually and the threat that I could be #4 among him, Andy, and Absol.
At finale night, I felt that Absol and Lexie were my biggest competition at the end of the day. Lexie’s social game was on point and had not caused rifts with anyone this season and Absol was a big target from the start and just played a good game being the leader of his side while making connections with the right individuals.
WRAP UP
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Now, I understand that my game has numerous flaws to it which range from flipping on alliances on the flip of a coin, giving senses of false hope, excessive lying and vice versa. Did I cross a line? Absolutely, I knew this would be an issue for myself as I strategically positioned myself in the middle of nearly every vote from the start of the merge. I also understand that issuing an apology in this public statement here to the individuals that I hurt wouldn't be authentic. With that being said, if I did hurt anyone’s feelings or did anything listed above then I'm more than happy to listen and explain myself or issue an apology on my behalf during this final tribal or after the season concludes.
I know that I've said countless times throughout the season that:
--> "I don't feel that I have any shot of winning this game by the way that I've played.
--> "I'm happy to losing to so-and-so."
While, I think there's plenty stuff going against me as my hands are full of blood and countless murders. I believe that I should and do stand a shot tonight and would like to prove that I wasn’t the unaware flipper who didn't know the repercussions of their actions. I'm susceptible that I made my mistakes in certain social situations. However, I was a key factor in a lot of the strategy this season and had a decent grasp of who I needed to keep within my inner circle.
Best of luck Andy and Will!