5 SurvivorFan37, Oct 23, 2023
In this blog series I will be ranking all "modern" seasons of my Survivor game hosted from 2020-present. Everything before then I, for the most part, either don't remember or care enough about to put in the rankings. PYN if you want to be tagged!
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#2 - Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains (January 2023)
Winner: Absol
Heroes vs Villains is one of the wildest games I've hosted of any format, and I actually wrote episode summaries for this season if you're interested in reading them: https://tengaged.com/group/5741-wills-survivor-confessionals/forum/topic/25351212 .
Right from the jump, the Villains tribe was an absolute trainwreck of a tribe, possibly one of the most dysfunctional groups of people ever assembled. They lost every challenge except for a luck comp (even with Absol trying to throw because he hated the Heroes) and basically played an entire mediocre season's worth of gameplay in the pre-swap phase of the game. BB5lover and nmh95 both got robbed early on, something which I was not expecting.
Once the merge hit, an alliance of 8 voted acline0730 out and then immediately imploded, with Absol and Maxi1234's respective groups targeting each other. The long and short of this is that Absol ended up winning this battle, and Maxi/most of his allies, such as CocoVanderbilt and _Ravenclaw_ ended up getting the boot in some form or another with a couple people like MrBird and DaddyDev playing the middle. Eventually, duo Absol and Bigben1996 made it to the final 4 with the inactive mradamman12 and fence sitter DaddyDev. After Ben and Absol had a miscommunication and split their votes during the finale, Ben went home 2-1-1 and Absol was given the win over Dev 5-4-0.
I loved this season for a couple reasons other than what I've already mentioned. Mainly, it was a great culmination of Absol's storyline of falling just short several times before and finally getting a W. I loved the Absol/Ben alliance dynamic and was glad they made it far, and I loved the Pietro/Maxi alliance on the opposing side and thought they also made a really good duo. It also featured purplebb4 defying the odds for a third consecutive season, making it all the way to mid-merge despite being a two-time winner. So many great moments on a great season.
Other memorable moments:
- MrBird backstabbing the entire cast and getting jumped in every chat 24/7
- nmh95 going home with an extra vote but giving his idol away right before tribal, which was then used to save purplebb4 at a different tribal council #MutinyMutants
- Absol winning final 5 immunity, giving it away, then realizing he was getting voted for and idoling MrBird out at..
