Next I would like to go to Will.

I feel like through your speech and answers, this sense of yes you were playing to win. But at the same time that you were just trying to justify your flaws by saying you wanted to be less bad than Ben. You didn't talk to people because you didn't want to lie. Is that the truth or just an excuse?? Tell me why I am wrong?

I don't think deliberately not talking to people you have no intention of working with is a flaw and actually helps you build trust with people you *do* intend on working with. When I reached out to you after the merge, for example, it was because I perceived that you were a relatively trustworthy person that wouldn't give me a bunch of false promises about where the two of us stood with each other, and because of this I genuinely wanted to make a good faith effort to see where you stood in the game and where I could at least temporarily fit in to that. Now, if you find out that I'm doing the same thing to literally everybody in the game at the same time, how does that make you feel? Chances are, your thought process is "oh shit, this guy is playing too hard and what he's telling me might not be genuine" which obviously erodes any trust that's been built. By picking and choosing the people on your side to talk to based on who I felt the most comfortable with, it helps give credence to the notion that what I'm telling you is credible and that you should trust me moving forward. So yes, you are absolutely right in saying that I purposefully did not talk to some people in the game, as I believe it helped me build and solidify relationships with other people I *did* talk to, who might believe me to be a bit more genuine (or at least less inherently disingenuine).

With regards to comparing myself to Ben, I think it's obviously true that we played similar games, and one of the key things for both of us to do at this FTC is to differentiate those games from each other so we don't end up in a Skupin and Lisa situation. For my part, I do think that my game was cleaner and pissed fewer people off in the short term (as I've mentioned previously), which still set me up with good relationships to get to the end. So to that part of your question, I wouldn't say that I'm trying to portray myself as "less bad", but moreso to simply illustrate how we did things differently (and why I believe you can make the argument that my way is at least a little bit more deserving) throughout the game despite being strategically aligned for the entirety of it.

For Billy's question:

1. Why shouldn't I vote for ben when he was the only person to (in andys case) reach out and (in wills case) have more than one convo that lasted about 3.5 minutes?

So I've touched on this in other answers, but when the merge hit and you threw a vote on Ben I knew that I wanted you out as soon as possible because you were sort of in a similar position to me (somewhat in the middle, talking to people in both groups, etc.) and perceived that that was a threat to my game. Hence I didn't want to come off as fake (something I try to avoid both on a personal level and for game purposes) and start approaching you to talk game when I was planning on voting you out in the immediate future. I understand that we essentially had no strategic bond and never talked at all after the merge, but I'd argue that on my part this was a conscious strategic decision rather than an oversight.

2. Why shouldn't I vote for andy when he ranked me the highest on his Most Deserving scale?

I guess for me personally I've never based a jury voting decision based solely on where someone ranked me in those types of questions, as it doesn't really say anything about the strategy they employed or the connections they built to get to the end. That's not to say that I think you're a *bad* player or inherently undeserving, but my approach to convince you why I deserve your vote is to portray my overall strategy and the moves that I made in as straightforward a manner as possible, and to shed some light as to what was going on inside my head throughout the course of the game, so that you might consider voting for me even if we didn't necessarily have a close relationship with one another.

And as an addendum to Josh's answer (because I just thought of this), I want to make clear that my decision to not talk to *everyone* in the cast was predicated on the (largely correct) notion that I had enough solid relationships to carry me deep into the game as it was, meaning overextending myself would just lead me to being seen as someone who was disingenuine and/or lied for no reason. It was obviously a very difficult tightrope to walk, but I was able to do it well enough to get to the end.

@James

To all:
Why do your opponents deserve to beat you? (a reason for each, please)

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Will deserves to win because he played the cleaner version of my game without having to piss off as many individuals.  If the side of Lexie/Pat/Silver distrusted me then Will would let me know that I was in hot water with them.  By having more connections on the Absol side of things it let us both compile our Intel together.  He was smart how he worded conversations and had good timing with moves.

Andy deserves to win cause he started from the literal bottom due to having committed to a Facebook Org at the time.  After I gave him my idol, he was then smart in reconnecting with your side of things as it showed he didn't take stuff to personal and knew his best odds of getting to the end was being loyal to the group despite having zeroes reasons to be.  His calmness and level-headness ranks better than myself and Will.

----

What was one thing you did neither of your opponents did?

I don't think Andy or Will had the same form of social game as myself.  While, I know for fact Andy wasn't necessarily the most social individual due to other commitments.  There were times that Will could be defined as a bit closed off to others cause he didn't want to start an unnecessary relationship with someone he planned on voting out. 

My deal is I never left a stone unturned by not talking to someone as this game changes on a dime.  If you don't want to get another individual's insight on the game or even maybe start whispers "we can make something work."  Then, I feel you're relying either on someone else to keep you safe or just hoping you're lucky if an idol or advantage pops up it ain't you.  My constant ability to work conversations kept people trusting me but also outlined several different routes in how I could make the end while Will barely had any unless it involved me using social connections that I had built to get him there (especially with Andy & Josh).  Andy, I did feel people were discounting him as a potential winner.  My game was a double-edged sword but I didn't outright ignore someone.

@Patrick

The both of you were nearly identical with your strategical games, and I don’t focus on physical that much. For me, this is coming down to your social games. I want you to pinpoint three of the biggest connections that got you to this day and how you managed that connection.

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Andy - Myself and Andy were a duo in our last M&N season.  While, initially we didn't start on the same tribe.  I knew that I wanted to work with him once again as we had a solid partnership.  I used an idol to save Andy to knock someone out that I felt would be well integrated come merge and secured Andy's trust in the process.  By securing Andy's loyalty, I knew that it would be extremely difficult for the other side not to vote me down the road.  I think the final seven was a decent example as I know Silver was pushing for me and Absol wanted Lexie but Andy dismissed both and wanted to do Silver instead which I wanted to do as well.  Also, knew he would sit with me at the end.

Lexie - Lexie from the beginning was someone that I wanted to play with after she had just played my Survivor.  I know she isn't happy with me right now but  I valued our friendship and it was nothing personal for me when I voted her out. Without, Lexie then I'm probably fed to the wolves during the mid-portion of the merge.  She did constant damage control from me and let me know when I needed to give into with whatever you were saying or with Silver even if I didn't necessarily agree with the logic.  It was also pivotal cause she warned me about the alliance you were starting with Billy, Silver, herself, and potentially Tris which would've been a huge problem for my game.  She sweeped away a lot of my messes and I did a diservice to her in exchange because I felt she'd whoop my ass at the end but wanted to go really far with her.

Absol - I did Absol did dirty on several occasions this season despite wanting to make a deep run into the game with him.  Particularly, at the final nine when I decided to vote Nick.  However, my relationship with him during the premerge helped get me into the other side and being in with the leader definitely gave me a ton of protection.  It led me being in the know of what that side was planning while also having an advocate to protect me to longer extent than Will since I flipped on Tashi very early.  I knew he thought I was on the bottom of Yaxha and that went a long way for me as it got votes to shift off me to Tico and onto Andy as well.  This was also another final three route I had in the event he won out from the final six onwards cause he was loyal to me and knew I was best shot at a win from his perspective.

@Josh

I held our relationship in a really high regard. Other than Absol, I was the most honest with you about my intentions and how I wanted to play. I felt that you were the same way too.

My question is this. After many times telling you I wanted to take you to the end, and telling you that I would have had a hard time cutting Absol. Did you feel like I wasn't going to take you? What was your thought process behind the decision?

----

I felt up until the final six that you were absolutely taking me and I probably was going stick to the plan that we had originally created with the split or would've let Andy tell you guys to just vote Lexie and Will wastes an idol.  However, I feel that I got cold feet after that conversation and made me feel "Hey Josh is considering taking Absol to the end so myself or Andy has a decent shot of getting cut and figured it would be me."  Yes, after that specific conversation it made me feel like you were considering me to just be the fourth wheel and cause your boot order could've easily been Lexie then Will as opposed to just eliminating Absol from the picture.

My thought process was if Absol hadn't been immune at that vote looking back he was going to be my target so I could set myself up between you and Andy & Lexie and Will and probably still vote out Lexie for 5th.  Unfortunately, that didn't happen and I chose Andy over you based on our previous relationship and the need that us two wanted to redeem ourselves from our shortcomings in Easter Island.  I wanted to make sure that I could still be a swing vote and I felt that I would lose some leverage if Lexie just left cause if Absol still wins final five immunity it's Will (100% leaving) and there's a decent chance that I might've been drawing rocks at F4 if Absol won out.  I wanted to guarantee my spot at least of pleading my case and felt that I still had alright shot at votes against Will despite being told at points that I have 0% shot.  I trusted my gut that I would still be able to manage.

Also, I told you this earlier but you played an underrated game that I actually would've respected on the jury.

2. Why shouldn't I vote for andy when he ranked me the highest on his Most Deserving scale?

I always feel it's best to be honest about any form of rankings questions from the individual's perspective.  If someone were to judge me so highly and I know that I didn't deserve then I'd deem it as sugar coating.  Now, if I ranked someone extremely poorly then that's just saying alright you clearly don't care about my vote.

My ranking was my honest assessment on how the game played out from my eyes.  I think you were in a prime position to make a deep run if I didn't vote you out at that certain point in the game and would've moved up definitely.  However, your game was cut short a bit early and I don't think you were able to make the moves you ended up wanting to before your elimination.  Not to say you didn't have good ideas but you needed another round or two to execute them.

3. Why shouldn't I vote for will when he was the only one to have a social game that seemed to be non toxic *Looking at you ben*

I stated this earlier, but I'm not the type of individual who is there to just ignore someone cause they will likely be non-essential to my game.  No, I want to have as my options as I can at the end of the day in the event something doesn't go in my favor as Survivor always has its twists and turns.  Maybe I don't read the room right or my closest ally goes home?  I need to prepare myself for every worst case scenario possible from Plan A to Plan Z.  I don't think Will prepped himself in the same manner as he did select individuals and even so maybe held shorter conversations then myself as I did get to learn people on a personal level as well.

Now, I understand if someone prefers to be left alone in the event they have the gut feeling its them and don't want false hope or excessive lying.  That's a technicality on me cause that obviously hurts my social standing and/or jury management.  I think it really depends would rather be the person to be ignored and be voted or have even the smallest sliver of a fighting chance and having be heard by someone.  I'm a hypocrite cause I'm on the ignore side but style play involves me having those forms of conversation.  But, I mostly gave everyone a fair shot and listened to their game pitches.

I don't think on a personal level that I actually said anything truly offensive other than saying Silver was making "victim noises" due to the fact we had been in constant disagreement for a few rounds and it officially escalated.

I think that's all the Q's.

I'm taking a breather now but will be online later tonight.

Congrats to all three of you, I predicted this f3 and I was right 🥳

Will- After the whole blow up happened you didn’t speak to me but Ben actually came to me and we talked about everything, even before that we really didn’t talk. I respect your game but socially we really didn’t connect like our past game. So why should I vote for you over Ben.

Ben- I respect your game a lot and I think you balanced being a social and strategic threat. During the game you kinda came off as whiny and needy and I love that for you but I just want to know was that a strategy or you just couldn’t really hide your emotions.

Andy- We only talked a little bit but you seemed like a really nice person, if you were more active would you of tried to work and reach out to different people, if so who.

Congrats 🍾 again

Will- After the whole blow up happened you didn’t speak to me but Ben actually came to me and we talked about everything, even before that we really didn’t talk. I respect your game but socially we really didn’t connect like our past game. So why should I vote for you over Ben.

I didn't approach you because you told the entire chat that A) I was the biggest threat to win and B) that you were going to vote me out the round Patrick went home when Ben and I flipped, so my thought process was "ok, that ship has sailed, Silver doesn't want me in the game anymore so I have to get him before he gets me" -- and thankfully I was able to do that, or else there's a good chance you'd be sitting here instead of me (or at least gotten farther along in the game than I had).

I think that I deserve your vote over Ben because you yourself said "And honestly if anyone has Will in there ftc plans get real your losing 😂". I think that despite this perception/very public narrative that I was a threat to win the game, I managed to position myself so that I could still overcome it and make it to the end.

As far as our social connection goes, I'll be the first to admit that we didn't talk 1 on 1 as much as we did in JB's game. I do think this was in part because for many of the early post-merge votes we were on the same page and didn't need to anyways (whereas with Ben this was less so the case) but whether you vote for me or not tonight I'll always consider you someone I can work with in the future.

I also thinks it’s fair to say that one of the reasons I didn’t approach you was because I knew you’d clocked the game I was playing and because of that I considered you a threat to me, realigning my agenda because of the mentality of “Ok, Silver is on to me so he has to be the next to go or I’ll be getting voted off soon” — it’s not that I wouldn’t have still wanted to work with you if you were genuinely down to do so , it’s that I thought you’d be weary of my intentions and could possibly leak any information I gave you to other people to gain their trust and turn them against me.

@Silver

Ben- I respect your game a lot and I think you balanced being a social and strategic threat. During the game you kinda came off as whiny and needy and I love that for you but I just want to know was that a strategy or you just couldn’t really hide your emotions.

---

It was definitely a combination of both.

There were times were I was legitimately pissed during the James vote or even after Billy left.  Where I'm just like "why the hell is Silver pissing me off at this current point in time?"  Surely, he knows I'm in the middle and could use some social capital to get him out of just general disagreements.

Then there were times where there was legitimate strategy saying:
--> I'm going to be a zero finalist
--> I have nothing in this game so I'm fine sitting next to whoever
--> Me flipping so many times is going to get me zero votes at the end
--> I'm #5

In the back of my mind, I knew by the way that I played that I could garner either respect and/or just the fuck out of people to take me to the end.  Did it work?  I think so, but I don't think it's the big reason why I'm sitting here as I feel navigating the middle was the main source of my strategy.

Also, when stating annoyingly that I was #5 which nobody believed in our chat in my eyes.  I was trying to use it as a window and maybe a potential excuse for why I kept flipping but I bothered not to push it any further after a round or two.

@Josh

I appreciate your support! People are overlooking me because I wasn't the most go-getter player in this game; that wouldn't have worked for me. However, especially towards the end of the game, I got to know people such as Lexie a little bit better. And, toward the end of the game, I was very involved in the strategic chats that we had. For example, I pushed the vote onto Silver when it seemed like you and Absol wanted to vote for Lexie, because I had started to build a relationship with her. I knew Silver had mentioned my name, so I wanted to push for him to go, and that's what ended up happening.

I'm being overlooked, but I was as critical a part of our alliance as anyone else, and I was crucial to Ben's game as much as he was to mine. We bounced a ton of ideas off each other and worked as a partnership, and I got a bunch of information from him that we needed to make decisions. I feel that we are here because of each other. Sure, I wasn't the biggest strategic force or anything, but I did participate and I did get votes to go my way, and that's more than a lot of the jury is giving me credit for.

@Billy

I don't think you should vote for Ben because of his tactics. I think his game was pretty reckless with the relationships that he made, which led to a lot of friction. I'm not the kind of person to reach out to someone if I know that I'm going to be voting them out soon, because to me, that would be fake and that's not the game I was trying to play. Reaching out just to have people mad at me would put me in an even worse position to win than I already am, and I think that's where Ben's game went wrong.

I don't think you should vote for Will because I think he made decisions that put him in precarious positions in the game. He was able to maneuver out of them, so I will give credit where it is due, but I think that is due a lot to Ben's willingness to cause drama to get his way. I'm always a fan of smart moves, not big moves, and I think that I made decisions to specifically make sure I was not targeted (i.e. not participating in merge challenges). Of course, this is the part of the game that this kind of strategy bites me in the ass, but I did my best to not be a target even if it would cost me at the end. I was able to overcome the target I had for being less social at the beginning and re-integrate with the very people that voted me out of the game, which I think shows more tenacity than people are giving me credit for.

@Silver

You're one of the people I was referring to in my opening speech when I said that even though I didn't always message everyone, if someone messaged me, I always responded even if a conversation didn't come from it. You reached out to me a few times and we had some small talk conversations, which I really did enjoy. While my statement is true for everyone, you and Lexie were the people I was referring to most.

But anyway, to answer the question, I think had I been more active, the merge would be completely different. Assuming I had relationships at this stage with people like you, Lexie, Billy, Tris, etc, odds are pretty good that I would have worked with you guys. I mean, everyone else except Ben had just voted for me at the previous tribal council, and so I probably would have wanted to flip the game on them, but in the game that was actually played, that wasn't a reality so I stuck to the people I knew. And I also think it does show that I've played a social game when I was able to join back into a group that had just voted for me and not be on the bottom.