Heyy

Okay so I think I wasn't in a great spot entering this game. I went straight to work at making great bonds in this game that would help bring me to the end (Jake, TJ, Isiah etc.). These bonds helped me at the start of this game, such as when I won most of the first few immunities when the one time I didn't win it, three people promised they would save me if they won, the three people I listed. No doubt Jake and TJ won and I was guaranteed safety. After that phase of the game ended, I was placed on a tribe without my closest bonds, but was able to go with Gabe and Isiah more for the timebeing. However I wasn't sure if I was completely safe so my allies on the other tribe threw to save me. They tried to throw the second one but my tribe didn't do so well at the challenge. This led me getting my other allies to help look for a idol to save me, and we got it! By the merge I was able to put myself in a GREAT position and was really never in a spot to get sent to the jury, my close allies who wanted to get each other out multiple times, I was able to keep them united until the end. Some votes I helped orchestrate well, like the Julian vote where I told TJ people were going to vote him out and he idoled himself. this led to Julian going home someone I didn't have bonds with which helped me heavily. I also won a immunity then, and for my first ever Tengaged game I think I did VERY WELL for challenges! I was never in a spot to really go home, and by the final four I was ready to go to firemaking, but however it didn't turn out that way and TJ went 2 - 1 - 1. I was able to prove my loyalty and my strength throughout this game. I wasn't scared to make bold plays and try to help myself go to the end. I put myself to a path of victory with who I aligned with, and was able to avoid ever being on the end of a chopping block when I didn't have immunity or a immunity idol. I was ready to play this game. I hope you reward my survivor skills with the prize because I truly believe I DESERVE this title! Thank you so much for casting me, and I hope we can all be great friends outside of this game! I loved playing with you all and I hope you can give me your votes. - Craig.

Also if you want any more explanation about what I did, please put a question down and I will respond as thoroughly as I can!

Hello to the jury members.
I look and don't see too many friendly faces, and I hope I can change that tonight.

Coming into this game (and really any game) I know I come in with the biggest target. I have played group games for 9 years on this website and people know me as one of the best physically and strategically. I'm a cutthroat player and I will do whatever it takes to win.

When I saw the twist for this season, I had mixed feelings. I'm a strong competitor and I was confident that I could place in the top 3 of each challenge, but if I were to lose, I knew I'd have the biggest target on my back. The first few challenges I won. I believe the four times I won, I protected Jason, Julian, Craig, and Nick. The four of them, and myself, made it to the final 6.

But it was the night that I found the (already found) hidden immunity idol that this game really changed. I threw a fit in the public chat and Robert called me out saying he thought I did have the idol and I was lying. Me and Nick were on call during this and Nick started talking to Robert and Robert spilled the beans about an alliance. He said himself/Gabe/Zac/Ryan/Bubba/Daniel had a 6 person alliance to take me and Craig out. This is when my game started picking up. I made a final 5 alliance of myself, Julian, Craig, Jason, and Nick. This is also about around the time Jason told me he had the idol that I found, and apparently I'm the only one who knew.

This is when the tribe swap happened and unfortunately Craig was screwed over. I knew I needed Craig in this game. I talked to him probably more than I talked to anyone and we bonded even more knowing people were targeting us. That's when I made the plan to throw the challenge. Me/Jason/Nick/Julian were on the same tribe so I knew we could afford to throw the challenge and take out Robert/Daniel who I picked to be on my tribe with the intention of voting them out. We threw the challenge, took out Robert who had yelled at me a few days prior, and I planned to vote Daniel next. Unfortunately, Daniel/Julian won the challenge for us and it looked like Craig was doomed.

I looked for hours to find the hidden immunity idol, and luckily I found it that day. I knew I could give it to Craig on the other tribe to keep him for the merge and we'd go in 5-5. People make the mistake of saving the hidden immunity idol for themselves, I didn't care about that. I gave it to Craig, he survived, and we made it to the merge.

We went in 5-5 and I won immunity. I knew I'd have to win a lot of immunities because my neck was already on the chopping block. Daniel seemed like an easy vote, so we voted him first and luckily Jason's relationship with Gabe got Gabe on our side and we got our vote through 5-4-1 (Nick self-voted). They could've taken over the game if Gabe voted with them.

The next few votes were easy, we took out members of their alliance, Zac and Bubba, I did lose immunity and was worried I would get taken out, but I had to trust my allies and it worked out. Bubba was smart trying to get them to turn on me and I believe they made a mistake in not doing so. Bubba was really playing strong and tried keeping that group together.

The next tribal it started to get tricky. We made a plan to split our votes, Jason was close with Gabe so he wanted to put more votes on Ryan. I have to give Nick credit for this move to be honest, Nick approached me saying he wanted to flip his vote from Ryan to Gabe, to take Gabe out rather than Ryan. I had already typed out the plan in the alliance and I had Nick voting Gabe already. I changed it to Nick voting Ryan (so he could flip his vote) and luckily no one noticed. Ryan had an idol anyway, though, so it didn't matter.

Final 6 was a big play, too. Nick/Ryan wanted Jason out, so I had to spill the beans about Jason's idol. I couldn't take any risks. I told Nick about Jason's idol so we couldn't vote him we needed to split the votes. Craig was hard to push. He's loyal to a fault but I had to BEG A LOT and I needed to put doubt in his mind so I told him about Jason's idol to get him to not trust Jason, letting us split the votes. Jason used his idol, we took out Julian. I actually grew to really like Julian, but I knew I was not on the top of his totem pole.

Final 5, finale night. Ryan was inactive and i didn't know he sent a list. I really wanted Jason out, but I figured Ryan self-voted, so I just voted Ryan because if I voted Jason and he didn't leave, I'd be showing my cards a little early.

Final 4, maybe my best move. I had a final 3 with Jason and Craig, so they naturally were voting Nick, but I wanted to sit next to Nick in the end. I think he mostly did what I wanted and was very inactive. Craig is super loyal and refused to vote Jason so it looked like it was going to rocks. Then I thought maybe I could put in a last ditch effort to get in Jason's head that Craig was a bigger threat than Nick and get him to vote Craig. It worked, I'm not sure how, and Jason got out 2-1-1. Love you Jason! But I thought Jason was my biggest threat. I thought Craig and Nick pretty much needed me to get here.

As you can see, I played hard to get here. I made a lot of friends, but when you're playing a game you need to be able to separate your head and your heart. I did that. I made the moves I thought bettered my game, I did not let my emotions get the best of me.

I hope you respect my game and I'm open to any questions.
Good luck Craig and Nick, I think you're both great.

I know it's long, but I tried breaking it up into different sections for you to read! I'm looking forward to your questions.

Alright, Craig.

I don’t want you to explain anything to me because I know your game inside out.

But what I do want you to tell me is one mistake the other finalists made that you think should cost them the title of Sole Survivor.

Same goes to Jake and Nick.

Hello jury, I am honored I got to share this experience with you and I am glad we all were able to make it here. Going into this game I wanted to play aggressively and smart, and I did that by staying true to myself. I'd like to take this platform to tell you guys how I OUTWITTED, OUTPLAYED, AND OUTLASTED my fellow finalists. Also before I get into that, shoutout to my prejury final 2 mathboy9, love you. <3

OUTWIT: My biggest contribution to the outwitting portion of this game was outsmarting. I was sly, and knew WHEN to make my moves, and HOW to make them. My first major move was starting the creation of my "side" prejury. I had several conversations with Robson, and was able to get to know him on a personal level. I was able to use his trust he gained in me to reveal everything about the Zac/Gabe alliance. Through this, I was able to reckognize that me, Craig, Jake, TJ, and Julian were on the outisde, and then we became the powerful alliance at merge. I also was able to position myself well by not receiving a vote until final 4. Without idols, I got the least votes CASTED AGAINST me, with one vote being from Craig at the final 4.
OUTPLAY: The most important part of outplaying to me is the strategizing of the game. My biggest strategic ploy was flipping on Gabe at the final 7. The majority of me, Craig, Jake, TJ, and Julian wanted to split our votes between Gabe and Ryan at this point. Gabe supposively voted with us at final 10, so that was the reasoning they wanted Ryan to leave. However, I saw past it. In my opinion, Craig and TJ were very close to Gabe, and I didn't know if they would choose him over me. Also, I wanted the power of an "extra ally" rather than TJ or Craig having an extra ally. I originally was supposed to be a vote for Gabe to leave, but I got Jake (the creator of the split plan) to change who I was supposed to be voting to Ryan. This meant I was able to flip my vote, and Gabe was able to have the majority of the votes to leave. If Ryan hadn't played his idol, I would have single handedly changed a post game vote, that shows I came here to play. Another impressive strategic play I made, was helping convice TJ to vote for Craig at the final 4. Now I know Jake was doing this as well, as we both believed at this point that TJ was the strongest jury threat. I don't know if I was the reason TJ flipped and threw away his vote onto Craig, or if it was Jake, but I know I gave it my biggest effort and it ultimately saved me from having to go to fire. I also think it was impressive how I was able to turn the final 3 of Jake, Craig, and TJ against each other at final 4. That was strictly gameplay, and not this "advantagegeddon" that recent day Survivor has somewhat turned into.
OUTLAST: A big part of Survivor is luck. I could have had a worse swap, a wrong person could have won immunity. Anything bad could have happened to me luck wise, and bad things did happen. But good things also did happen, that's part of the reason I got to the final 3, I won't lie. If anybody says they got to the final 3 without luck, they are lying to themselves. We can not judge people based off of intent, rather we have to judge them based off of outcome. I always had my ideal "outcome", or result come into play. I always made sure I was on top of what was going on and made sure I was in a good spot. I played the game to the best of my ability and outlasted a lot of people. I hope you all can respect me, because I respect each and every one of you.
I am willing to answer any questions, so please feel free to ask.

Okay Ryan!

I feel as though Jake, maybe put a lot of trust into me when I wasn't going to just vote whoever he wanted. I pushed for people to leave before he wanted them to go, and I refused to change on my mind on them going home. This was a big helpful boost for my game. I was able to keep people I didn't know if I was able too. He also told me TJ told me had the idol, when he thought about voting TJ out, and I didn't want TJ to go home yet so I told TJ about this.

For Nick, he voted himself at a tribal, he hasn't done really anything and he trusted the wrong people, such as Jake and TJ told me when Nick wanted to vote me out over you Ryan, but neither of them budged and refused to send me out the door. Which was a big mistake.

@Eclipse9

I think that their mistake is that they needed me to get them to the end. Of course, when you're an alliance, everyone needs each other, but I can point out crucial moments where they would have left if it were not for me.

Craig:
Final 11, two tribes. Your tribe loses, Craig is going home. I look for hours to find the hidden immunity idol to give it to him. I think him needed a hidden immunity from me shows that his game did flaws and I think it shows he really wouldn't have been here without me.

Nick:
Firstly, Final 10 at the merge, Nick self-votes and almost fucks over our entire alliance. That's an unforgivable act in my opinion. I would never vote for someone who self-votes because it shows their heart's not in the game.

Secondly, final 4. Me/Jason/Craig had a final 3, Nick was leaving or going to firemaking at best if I saved him. Luckily for him, I convinced Jason to throw his vote on Craig to take Jason out 2-1-1. I think this is an example of Nick making to finale solely because of myself.

Just to be clear Jake, you were extremely poor in the art of deception over messages. I’m not sure what your intentions were talking to me when you were clearly working against me because I saw through all your bullshit.

Good game, but I think how you overcompensated in talking way to much to everyone may come back to bite you.

Alright, Craig.

I don’t want you to explain anything to me because I know your game inside out.

But what I do want you to tell me is one mistake the other finalists made that you think should cost them the title of Sole Survivor.

Same goes to Jake and Nick.

I think Jake made a mistake in being too mean of a person. That may be who he is as a person, but part of this game is adapting yourself, that including your personality. I think this made too many people dislike him, and created an unnessecary target on his back at points. I also think he may have trouble receiving some votes because of this.

I think Craig's biggest mistake was never flipping. He stayed loyal the whole game to who he was loyal to, besides at final 6, which everyone flipped besides the people who were flipped on. Playing a loyal game is a good thing, but it's not always the best move. He had several oppurutunities to jump ship and take the game into his own hands, but he decided not to. He instead, deicded to go more with the flow.

Jake, I found your idol within 20 minutes of it being rehidden. I just didn’t give it anybody. It wasn’t hard in comparison to the rest of the idols I found.

Which idol are you talking about, Ryan?

I'm still v confused about when I was ever in that alliance Rob spilled about 😂😂

@Gabe

LOL, I'm not sure if it was real. But Rob did say it, which kinda caused the demise of many people