I joined this game because Pat asked me to and I played it in order to give him the best season I possibly could. I am the last member from my original tribe standing. Unfortunately, for a large part of this I was forced to play a defensive game, and was not really able to put a lot on my resume (as James would put it) or give Pat what I promised him. When I started this 5 other hosts had asked me to do the same thing, and I obliged them as well so I did my best to split my time between all of them, unfortunately this was the only one I was able to do much in because I really don't like the game I played here. I believe a lot of you forget just how short the pre-merge game was. We had 2 med-evacs and 1 quit, meaning that there were only 5 votes before the merge when there should have been 8, essentially cutting pre-merge in half. There was hardly anyway for anyone to stand out.
However, I actually did. I only went to 1 of the 5 tribal councils pre-merge and that was only because of an unplanned double tribal council, but my influence was felt there. You see, I intentionally wanted the rock draw to happen and I made my votes accordingly. My intended target in doing this was Matt, who I knew I didn't have the votes to take out normally. Matt likes to vote me out early in games, and somebody did try to vote me out at that tribal council, so I knew there was no chance in us working together and letting him stay would be a risk to my own game. So, I voted Alex and forced a re-vote, and I saw Alex had managed to flip 1 person to his side on the re-vote so I kept my vote as Alex to force a rock-draw in the hopes that Matt would draw the wrong rock. Luckily for me this gamble paid off exactly as planned.
After pulling that off, we tribe swapped and Kelly won both challenges for our new tribe. I was there both times, but Kelly did not need any help securing safety for us. This was when it was made clear that original Tipperary planned on sticking together as both votes all 4 of them voted together to take out 2 players from my original tribe. It was this decision that dictated the entire course of the merge.
Right out of the gate at the merge, I was prepared to do whatever I felt was necessary to ensure only the best players made it to the merge. Then, Erik messages me. He confirms what I already suspected about Tipperary, and informed me that I was their target...for some reason. I had no choice but to do as he said to ensure I was not voted out. So, yes, he gave me the idol to play on myself and I agreed to vote Keemstar out with him, despite the fact that I thought there were bigger threats in the Tipperary alliance that we should have voted out instead, he insisted and he was saving me so I agreed. Had he not come to me with this it is very likely that I would have locked in my vote for Honey, especially after Wade won immunity I did think he had to go sooner rather than later but Honey was a large part of my pre-merge game and I thought she was a good player so she would have been my target. As Erik said, Tipperary forced me to align with the people I felt had the best chance at winning this game in order for me to stay in it.
Like Wade, I apologize if anyone felt I disrespected them or made this game too personal. Moving forward it felt like Erik would tell me my name was going to come up again and again at every tribal council, and Tipperary never gave me a reason to trust them and it was clear they were going to continue to come after me. Meaning I had to continue voting with the people that I felt had the best chance at winning this game because I needed people out who were going to vote for me and Tipperary always had enough people to put me in a dangerous position up until Final 5, where my only option was to vote out Wade, but then that would have put 2 Tipperary in the Final 4, and that would have done me no good.
Erik does a rather good job of explaining what happened with us at the merge. I realized that Tipperary seemed unbreakable and, therefore, it was too dangerous for the 5 of us to fight among ourselves, no matter how much we may have wanted to or thought it was the best idea.
Honey and Paul, or at least, Honey felt differently. I didn't mind seeing Paul go, but it made the game 4-4 again. Meaning the Final 8 was supposed to go to rocks, and that was something we were ready to do. But, then Wade did not lock in his vote for some reason and it cost us.
Cam and Drew DID need to separate themselves from Kelly and James and vise versa, but clearly it was a mistake to do it when they did. I'm not sure why, after they wanted me out for the entire merge for some reason, they would not take the best chance they had.
The one thing Erik did that I didn't do was have the opportunity to work with Tipperary. Since they never gave me that chance, I voted them out. I never knew where I stood with them and whether they would keep me for another vote so I consistently voted them out. I didn't betray them the way Erik did. At F06, it was supposed to be 3-3 again, but James not voting with his alliance anymore cost them. I respect Erik a lot, but I did not keep him around due to our bond, I kept him around because Tipperary wanted me to go against them, and towards the end of the game Erik winning immunity afforded me no opportunity to make a move against him despite how big of a threat he was becoming.
To end this opening statement, our alliance wasn't loyal, our lack of loyalty put us in more precarious positions than it should have. Some have looked at my game and referred to me as Erik's puppet, in the instance where we idol'ed out Keemstar, yes, that was the case. But beyond that and before that, I did what I did to keep me safe. It just so happened that that also kept Erik and Wade safe because there was always somebody else that I personally needed out before them or they had immunity. At the Final 4, James approached Wade and myself about giving him an opportunity in a fire-making challenge. Erik had no input in my decision to reject this offer. I would have done this if not for 2 things, (1) I personally felt that by this point James had played a better game than Wade and (2) by this point Tipperary made up a majority of the jury. I told James and Pat, I didn't trust the Tipperary alliance to vote in an unbiased fashion. I thought, given their majority, and out of loyalty to James they would have given him the win solely because a representative of their alliance made it to the end. I also told James, if he could guarantee me that wouldn't happen I'd give him the firemaking challenge, he couldn't so here we are.
None of this was personal. But, Tipperary, you all made no effort to play this game with me. From day 1 of the merge you made the decision for me that I needed you all out. So I did everything in my power to make that happen. I can't say I played the game I chose to play, but I did play the hand I was dealt. I made the decisions for myself that I could make while ensuring my own safety at the same time. Wade risked his own game by letting the final 5 vote go to rocks, and Erik's biggest move, in my opinion, was wasting an idol on Keemstar and then wasting another idol he should have played on Honey. I wanted both of them here, I obviously owe them everything for taking me with them, but I don't think my part in this was so little that I should just be cast aside.