Firstly, I would like to say that this was one of the most enjoyable group game I've been in in a while, it was a blast playing with y'all. OK, so I know some of the jury members may see my game as being a follower or a "sheep", but my game ran deeper than that thanks to my ability to build relationships when I needed to most and creating myself meat shields for my benefit.
*LATIN KINGS GANG*
At the start of the game I wasn't really that invested and was lowkey confused on the whole gang forming shit, so somehow I placed as the comp beast tribe, Latin Kings. I immediately formed a F3 with Nels and Ryan as "the real kingz", which was the dominant alliance in my tribe of inactives as we sent Summer packing and pushed Brien in the fire.
Even if we lost in the double tribal, like we were expected to but thanks to mua we didn't, I was in the best position on my tribe and probably had the least chance of being voted out.
*YAKUZA*
When the swap happened I was feeling good as we had half of our tribe consisting of Latin Kings, with my alliance being part of it too. We formed a fake alliance with AJ and JJ known as "latin bloods" to get a better grasp on how they play, and I immediately noticed how cunning AJ is, and how much of a great talker JJ is also. Ultimately, AJ had used his idol and sent Zyler, the only one I wasn't 100 aligned to, home. After that vote, I had my suspicion of Cody and Ethan as his "voting nels because aj told him last minute" seemed fishy to me. At first I had the approach of 'keep ur friends close and ur enemies closer' with being in an alliance with Ryan, Ethan and Cody known as "the environmentalists", which was the alliance I eventually loyal to. It was a good idea also as they were willing to vote AJ as they realize how much of a wildcard he was.
*JASOI'S JUNKIES*
When we merged I knew I had to build connections with some of the other players that I haven't talked to yet. I built a connection with Conrad and formed a truce to always have each other's backs. I already had my alliance with Nels and Ryan, and with Ethan, Ryan and Cody. The original merge vote was suppose to be a consensus Kiara, but then she pulled up with a pink limo and all hell broke loose. The vote changed between Megan and Clark all the way up til the tribal council. Eventually, I had more of a connection to Megan than to Clark and I also saw Clark as too much of a threat to keep around as a potential shield. The plan went perfectly as Clark was nearly unan. voted out and Megan flushed his idol.
F11- After that mess of a tribal, I had to make sure Megan trusted me even after the fact that I nearly wrote her name down. During this she revealed to me that JJ had threw my name out in wanting to vote her out and it was game on. I finally had a concrete motive to take out JJ as I viewed him as a great social player who had too much connections. And so I came up with the plan on taking out JJ, and even though they were also aligned to JJ, the environmentalists were on board as they realize they couldn't trust him that much. With Conrad, Kiara and Nels, who was hesitant, also voting him out. Even if ppl didn't know, I was the one that came up with this vote, but I didn't wanna take ALL of the blame so I let my allies also take the lead.
F10- After a successful tribal I found out that Nels was actually the one who leaked the plan to JJ, which caught me off-guard as I thought he was 100 loyal to me nd Ryan. Not only that, but I heard he was throwing my name out to be a target and at that point I didn't have any reason to keep him, as much as I wanted to trust him. During this period, I found myself in an alliance with Bob and Ryan, which also gave me an insight that I didn't notice before, and its the fact that Ryan trusted Bob. a lot. This revelation plays through the next few votes.
F9- Oh boy what a shitshow. At this point Ryan is my #1, and the environmentalists were smooth sailing through the game as no one really saw our alliance as a problem. The original plan was to do Conrad as at the point he had proved to be a big problem for us to get to the end. However, few hours before tribal hell broke loose AGAIN. Conrad found out about the plan, but to our knowledge only the alliance knew about the plan as we were planning to tell billy last minute. The fingers were pointed at Ryan as being the snake. The vote came down to Ethan and Ryan and I was put in a tough spot as I was aligned to both sides, but after realizing what the majority was gonna do I knew there wasn't to saving Ryan and I had to stick it out with Ethan and Cody. Even so, I voted Conrad 1. I didn't wanna do either him or Ethan and 2. To cause even a lil paranoia.
F8- With my #1 being gone, I still stuck with Ethan and Cody as my actual allies, but I attempted to split myself from them to make me seem like a free-agent. My main target was Bob as I found out that he was the one that leaked the plan from Ryan. That and also him being so under-the-radar proved to be trouble for the future. I didn't want to seem like the one making the plan, so I went megan and billy and said if they're doing bob I would too. I wanted to make the impression that I was just following their lead and didn't care if bob left. Somehow, I found myself in the middle as I could have went with conrad and do billy, or with my allies and do bob, which I obviously did.
F7-Following that, it would seem that we were in the majority with megan and billy on our side, and conrad being viewed as a big threat. However, I started noticing how much of a threat Ethan was at winning the game, which megan and billy had also thought apparentely. When I heard that conrad said my name I was confused bc I'm not the biggest threat, and I wasn't the only one who lied last vote,so what gives? Megan then suggested that in splitting the votes and that's when it hit me...we're getting blindsided. Why split the votes at F7 when we know that Conrad doesn't have a power? I didn't know who they would put their votes on, but I had a gut-feeling it wasn't me and they would do a bigger threat like Ethan. I expressed this in my confessionals, but not to my allies, as Ethan going at f7 wasn't ideal, but it made me realize how hard Megan and Billy is playing.
F6- Leading into the finale, it was mostly clear who was aligned to who. At this point I was set on Conrad as he was viewed as a immunity threat. I went to megan to make sure I was still on his side so I could be on the bottom of his list and not make him target me. Even though Cody wanted megan to go, I wasn't convinced as I had thought conrad was winning f5 immunity, but I soon realized that wasn't the case. After me seeing that I was winning the f5 immunity, I went along with voting megan as having her and billy in the f5 would be troublesome, and it would put me in a position to be in the middle once again.
F5- YES! I win first immunity. I was set on voting conrad as surviving vote after vote and STILL being in the game proved he was a great player that needed to go. I originally had a plan on lying and say that I had a super idol in case I lose f5 immunity, but I didn't need to. I already knew that Conrad/Kiara were doing Billy, but to make sure no shit went down I told conrad I was using my super idol on cody. Ultimately, there wasn't any need as Conrad left 3-2.
F4- Once again I won immunity. There really wasn't a lot I coulda done other than cause a tie, and having not talked to kiara I didn't see the need to keep someone that survived over and over again and could be a underdog.
Final Statement-
Coming into this game, I didn't see myself making it far because I didn't know ANYONE. But once I found myself I was in a power position on latin kings I realize I could run this shit the whole way. I built my game on gaining people's trust and them expecting the same from me. I found myself in alliances that protected me and gave me power on who I wanted out. I survived 13/18 tribals without having my name written down ONCE. I knew who was going home each vote except zyler's. I built bonds with ppl that I didn't expect to make and it got me pretty far. Anytime my name was mentioned, I would know and even then it wouldn't be written thanks to my relationships. I won immunities when I needed to such as the F5, Conrad winning would mean a whole different outcome and as it could've been Cody and me leaving back to back. I made big moves in voting out JJ, a great social player who had ppl in his corner, and also voting out Conrad at F5. My meat shield strategy also paid off as I had Conrad, Ethan and Ryan being viewed as bigger targets and therefore lessening my target. I never once needed a power to save me (even getting robbed by Ikah the scammer) and I had people view me as their allies even if I didn't prove I was. I had a blast playing this game, it was the most enjoyable group game I experienced in a while. It wouldn't of happened if we didn't have crackheads playing.