Young's Survivor Season Opinions
Survivor S14: Bhutan
After a rather long hiatus, Survivor returned with a classic season.
Unfortunately, classic doesn't really age well, as the season ultimately felt sloppy and unprofessional.
Turns out, in the time I was gone, the standard of quality went up about 50 notches so everything from my island and challenges to my hosting were shit in comparison. Though this usually wouldn't have too much of an impact on the cast, it really did, sadly.
Many people just didn't treat the season like it was official and floated to the merge, or straight up skipped sessions for short terms.
Due to this, it was really easy for Timewarpagain to gain control pre-merge as those who did care about the season were his usual allies. This led to an interesting dynamic where it became Time's alliance against the outsiders, who quickly despised the majority and plotted to overthrow them. After ThundrrStorm threw his game away and got himself voted out, two tribe dissolves caused Time's alliance to lose most of their power, leaving Coolpokemonfan2001 and Bloosonic123 defenseless, and ultimately voted out.
Going into the merge, there were very few advantages in play, and with several players still in that didn't care too much about the season, it seemed like the merge votes would be easy, right? Surprisingly, no. ThundrrStorm rejoined, and Pokexj found two idols and threw them away, due to him wanting to leave the game as soon as possible.
From here the season drew many parallels to Survivor: Cagayan. MaliciousDream (Sarah) got out in a shocking blindside due to Kyle5470 (Kass) flipping the vote. BostonRobMariano (Tony) flaunted his Tiebreaker (Tony's Super Idol) which scared people from making a move against him, and his strong ally Pokexj (LJ) got out early in another blindside thanks to Kyle. Rob then went on to target MaddieThePrincess4 (Morgan) for personal reasons and got her out. Rob's next closest ally, KettleTheStick (Trish) then got out in a blindside led by ThundrrStorm (Tasha). Followed by TJ (Jeremiah) in yet another confusing blindside to keep Rob. Throughout all of this, there were no successful idol plays. In still another blindside, TurtIy (Jefra) got out simply for being too tempting to take to the finale with. Despite not being an obvious jury threat, Thundrr was voted in favour of keeping Moonxans (Spencer), appeasing Rob. After his constants flips to stay in the majority vote, Kyle was now the clear jury goat, and Timewarpagain (Woo) was left with his close ally Rob, the goat Kyle, and the jury threat Moon. Despite knowing he had little chance against Rob, he worked with him until the end, leaving Rob (Tony), Kyle (Kass), and Time (Woo) the final three.
Despite a lack of any moves to his name aside from Maddie, it was Time and Kyle's horrible jury management and FTC performances that gave Rob the win. Even though the endgame was really disappointing, I loved that the active players came together to vote out the inactives and floaters, as it made the game more interesting at merge, even if a lot of people made bad or confusing moves. I do wish that idols and other advantages were more impactful, but I was glad they didn't, in a way. While previous seasons suffered from too many advantages dictating how the season played out, this season felt natural and let the contestants decide how the season went. In addition, there were constant power shifts, as for once, there was not a large pre-made alliance dominating the season, leading to blindside after blindside. Overall, season suffered from too large a cast with too many floaters, but those who did try made the season fun and interesting. Season ranking: 6/13
Unfortunately, classic doesn't really age well, as the season ultimately felt sloppy and unprofessional.
Turns out, in the time I was gone, the standard of quality went up about 50 notches so everything from my island and challenges to my hosting were shit in comparison. Though this usually wouldn't have too much of an impact on the cast, it really did, sadly.
Many people just didn't treat the season like it was official and floated to the merge, or straight up skipped sessions for short terms.
Due to this, it was really easy for Timewarpagain to gain control pre-merge as those who did care about the season were his usual allies. This led to an interesting dynamic where it became Time's alliance against the outsiders, who quickly despised the majority and plotted to overthrow them. After ThundrrStorm threw his game away and got himself voted out, two tribe dissolves caused Time's alliance to lose most of their power, leaving Coolpokemonfan2001 and Bloosonic123 defenseless, and ultimately voted out.
Going into the merge, there were very few advantages in play, and with several players still in that didn't care too much about the season, it seemed like the merge votes would be easy, right? Surprisingly, no. ThundrrStorm rejoined, and Pokexj found two idols and threw them away, due to him wanting to leave the game as soon as possible.
From here the season drew many parallels to Survivor: Cagayan. MaliciousDream (Sarah) got out in a shocking blindside due to Kyle5470 (Kass) flipping the vote. BostonRobMariano (Tony) flaunted his Tiebreaker (Tony's Super Idol) which scared people from making a move against him, and his strong ally Pokexj (LJ) got out early in another blindside thanks to Kyle. Rob then went on to target MaddieThePrincess4 (Morgan) for personal reasons and got her out. Rob's next closest ally, KettleTheStick (Trish) then got out in a blindside led by ThundrrStorm (Tasha). Followed by TJ (Jeremiah) in yet another confusing blindside to keep Rob. Throughout all of this, there were no successful idol plays. In still another blindside, TurtIy (Jefra) got out simply for being too tempting to take to the finale with. Despite not being an obvious jury threat, Thundrr was voted in favour of keeping Moonxans (Spencer), appeasing Rob. After his constants flips to stay in the majority vote, Kyle was now the clear jury goat, and Timewarpagain (Woo) was left with his close ally Rob, the goat Kyle, and the jury threat Moon. Despite knowing he had little chance against Rob, he worked with him until the end, leaving Rob (Tony), Kyle (Kass), and Time (Woo) the final three.
Despite a lack of any moves to his name aside from Maddie, it was Time and Kyle's horrible jury management and FTC performances that gave Rob the win. Even though the endgame was really disappointing, I loved that the active players came together to vote out the inactives and floaters, as it made the game more interesting at merge, even if a lot of people made bad or confusing moves. I do wish that idols and other advantages were more impactful, but I was glad they didn't, in a way. While previous seasons suffered from too many advantages dictating how the season played out, this season felt natural and let the contestants decide how the season went. In addition, there were constant power shifts, as for once, there was not a large pre-made alliance dominating the season, leading to blindside after blindside. Overall, season suffered from too large a cast with too many floaters, but those who did try made the season fun and interesting. Season ranking: 6/13
Winner: BostonRobMariano, 6-3-0
BostonRobMariano pretty much played a very opposite game this time around compared to Kyushu. While in Kyushu he played like his idol at the time, "Boston Rob" Mariano... This time he played like his new idol. Tony Vlachos. Going in as one of two winners, he was set to be an early target, but due to a lack of gameplay pre-merge, he was able to coast by simply by showing up and not causing drama. Overall pre-merge he did little to nothing, except find a Tiebreaker advantage. Post-merge is where his game kicked off. Similar to Tony and his Super Idol, Rob has his Tiebreaker, which ended up being useless, but the threat of it gave him all his power. Despite wanting to work with Pokexj and KettleTheStick, he was unable to rally votes due to Kyle5470 flipping the vote constantly, costing him both his allies. However, he still had a strong relationship with Timewarpagain, and was able to work his way back into majority thanks to him and Kyle refusing to vote out Rob. Rob did manage to control two key votes, however, sending home MaddieThePrincess4 due to personal reasons (leading to a bitter juror), and ThundrrStorm (who was leading the resistance to get out Rob). With very little challenge threats left, Rob was able to win his way to the end, all thanks to Time and Kyle. In addition, a pre-season deal with Moonxans helped him win the final and crucial immunity, ironically sending Moon out at 4th. Even though he only made two clear moves, his smart strategy to flaunt his Tiebreaker scared people away from voting him, while also bringing in allies who wanted to use him and his power to his advantage. In addition, while Time and Kyle attempted to claim control of the game and take credit for many moves (most of which they weren't responsible for), Rob kept quiet and simply stated how he played the game. His patience, silence, and physical game earned him an easy win 6-3-0.
However, I feel he won by doing the bare minimum expected of a winner.
However, I feel he won by doing the bare minimum expected of a winner.
Runner-Up: Timewarpagain, 3-6-0
Timewarpagain went in on a seven-season lose streak, having failed to make final tribal council once. However, he came back in a huge power position, thanks to a lack of competition pre-merge. He was able to control all the pre-swap votes thanks to him having many allies on his tribe, which seemingly outnumbered the others. However, he lost two key allies to a bad swap, due to the outsiders' frustration with Time and his alliance, balancing the game once the merge hit. From here he played, in my opinion, similar to Woo Hwang. Many people wanted to work with him and he had a lot of control over the merge votes, but after losing so many seasons prior, he wanted to lay low and make it to final three the safest way possible. His cowardice let louder players take credit for his own moves, but his determination to reach the end inspired him to take out jury goats, such as Cactj, TurtIy, and ThundrrStorm. While this would otherwise be seen as a smart move, Time inadvertently became a jury goat himself, as his game was not as strong or loud as Rob or Moonxans. In the end, he chose to stick with Rob long enough that Rob was able to become the new challenge beast, and win his way to the end. He got his way in the final three, but misjudged how big a jury threat Rob was, and was unable to convince the jury to vote for him. In addition, he insulted the jury for wanting to vote Rob, and when trying to list his moves, attempted to take credit for moves other people made, making the jury dislike him more. He still got three votes, though two of those were more of a "Not Rob" vote, than a "Time" vote. Had a very promising game, but chickened out at merge and played too quietly near the end, making the mistake of letting jury threats get too far and voting out jury goats when he was not in the position where he should do so. Focused too hard on making it to the end, instead of trying to win, and had a bad FTC performance.
2nd Runner-Up: Kyle5470, 0-6-3
Kyle5470 was a clear underdog this season, being one of the few returnees to never make merge. Going in to the season, he was left out of many of the votes, and got several stray votes early on. However, being on Timewarpagain, Bloosonic123, and Pokexj's good sides helped him survive to the late swap. After almost getting out, he managed to become very involved in the season's votes, always knowing where the majority vote was going. However, he wasn't able to use this information to his advantage, and became Chaos Kass (Chaos Kyle?). He flipped on allies due to wanting to join the majority vote, after being kept out of so many votes early on. Despite Poke playing an idol on him the first merge vote, Kyle literally voted him out the next vote, sending him home, when he had an opportunity to tie it 4-4, which would have forced BostonRobMariano to play his tiebreaker advantage, stripping him of his only claim to fame at the time. Instead, he voted out his ally (who admittedly didn't want to play anymore), and let Rob keep his advantage long enough that it became too difficult to vote him out. Kyle continued to vote with the majority long enough that he coveted the idea of voting in the majority every vote, thinking it would be neat and be a good story to sway jury votes. Yea. No.
He maintained an image of being in the majority and was able to pick-and-choose who went home, hoping it would benefit his game. Instead he became a constant flipper and the jury viewed him as disloyal and power-crazy. He survived late enough that despite having a lot of power in the game, and a strong challenge threat, he was unable to beat Rob in the later challenges and was too bad a player that he became a jury goat. Upon getting to the end, the jury completely trashed his gameplay, and viewed him as undeserving to sit in the finale. In addition, he tried to claim credit for almost every merge-boot, and the jury didn't let him get away with that. However, he further sabotaged Time by making it seem like Time did nothing and Kyle did everything, which only helped Rob gain jury votes by staying quiet. Was the center of information but became power-hungry and flipped too many times.
He maintained an image of being in the majority and was able to pick-and-choose who went home, hoping it would benefit his game. Instead he became a constant flipper and the jury viewed him as disloyal and power-crazy. He survived late enough that despite having a lot of power in the game, and a strong challenge threat, he was unable to beat Rob in the later challenges and was too bad a player that he became a jury goat. Upon getting to the end, the jury completely trashed his gameplay, and viewed him as undeserving to sit in the finale. In addition, he tried to claim credit for almost every merge-boot, and the jury didn't let him get away with that. However, he further sabotaged Time by making it seem like Time did nothing and Kyle did everything, which only helped Rob gain jury votes by staying quiet. Was the center of information but became power-hungry and flipped too many times.