Survivor Season 40: Winners at War

[VaBeach_Eagle]

On 12/18/2019 at 10:55 PM, VaBeach_Eagle said:

All past winners, fighting for $2 Million.

[FranklinFldEBUpper]

Glad to see this thread up and running.

[VaBeach_Eagle]

Tony's really seems to be getting a "winners edit".

Could be be the first 'real' player to win twice?

[20Safety_Hazards]

Tony’s playing way too hard. My guess is He’s going to get cut in the next few episodes. He’s only getting a lot of footage because he’s good tv, much like Boston Rob. 

[FranklinFldEBUpper]

It's really weird for me this season. Well, at this point, anyway. When they got to Tribal Council, there was no one I wanted to see go. Was disappointed at who was axed, but even if was any of the others that were teased as candidates, I wouldn't have been happy.

I have a hunch that Michelle's fake story about an advantage is going to cost her somewhere down the line.

[Passepartout]

Yeah as it seems it is new school vs old school on here.

[VaBeach_Eagle]

Tony's definitely in a precarious position, but if he can walk that tight wire, he's gotta be a favorite to win. 

[20Safety_Hazards]

If Tony is sitting at the Final 3 he should be the unanimous winner.  But I Still don’t think he gets there. 

[FranklinFldEBUpper]

I told a friend five minute into the episode that it was going to be Kim who gets voted out tonight. I've seen that method of storytelling before.

[VaBeach_Eagle]

4 hours ago, 20Safety_Hazards said:

If Tony is sitting at the Final 3 he should be the unanimous winner.  But I Still don’t think he gets there. 

I've seen many players who 'shouldn't' get to the end, get to the end. Tony is actually an example of that, in his first season. lol 

If I have to pull for someone, I'm really pulling for him. If Yul made it back in, I'd be happy with him winning, too. 

 

4 hours ago, FranklinFldEBUpper said:

I told a friend five minute into the episode that it was going to be Kim who gets voted out tonight. I've seen that method of storytelling before.

Yeah, I saw that coming too. But I was kind of teetering between her and Nick for a little while. 

I really wanted to see Jeremy play that 50/50 lol. 

[20Safety_Hazards]

What frustrates me is how free people gave up information at tribal counsel last night. Tony, Ben, and Jeremy all revealed they had an idol (or something idol like). Quitting for peanut butter, giving up the challenge to your target. A lot of really stupid mistakes last night for a cast of winners.

[VaBeach_Eagle]

6 hours ago, 20Safety_Hazards said:

What frustrates me is how free people gave up information at tribal counsel last night. Tony, Ben, and Jeremy all revealed they had an idol (or something idol like). Quitting for peanut butter, giving up the challenge to your target. A lot of really stupid mistakes last night for a cast of winners.

Peanut butter has brought down people in Survivor before. Think back to season 2 and the first challenge right after the merge. Jeff Varner jumped off the log for peanut butter and wound up being voted out later that night. Had he stayed, and had their alliance won that challenge, Colby would have been voted out and the entire second half of the season would have played out differently. 

All because of peanut butter, lol. 

[Gern Blanston]

6 hours ago, 20Safety_Hazards said:

What frustrates me is how free people gave up information at tribal counsel last night. Tony, Ben, and Jeremy all revealed they had an idol (or something idol like). Quitting for peanut butter, giving up the challenge to your target. A lot of really stupid mistakes last night for a cast of winners.

I wasn't sure if I blinked and missed something, but how/why everyone bailed out for peanut butter and cookies when they were down to the last 2 for immunity was really weird.  I mean I get it if Probst comes out with it relatively early and you have a 20-30% chance of winning, but its down to 50/50 and you quit?!?!?  Dumb.

[JBENT87]

Yeah the Extinction Island group has to be furious watching this unfold. Not that they saw the competition where a handful of people opted for peanut butter, but pretty sure Probst mentioned that during Tribal. At least it wasn't a younger person who went home for it and was instead Kim. This season has been essentially Millenials v Gen X 2.0 at times, and a younger person getting voted off for the PB would've just made that dynamic much worse. 

[VaBeach_Eagle]

2 hour episode tonight. 

[20Safety_Hazards]

1 hour ago, VaBeach_Eagle said:

2 hour episode tonight. 

You better be ready.... 

[VaBeach_Eagle]

For the most part, things went about how I expected tonight. 

[FranklinFldEBUpper]

One wager that I would confidently make is that Adam,  Dani, or Sophie won't be winning the challenge next week. They've been almost invisible in the editing. On the other hand, Natalie is certainly getting the hero edit over there.

Regarding the tribal councils tonight...ehhh, yeah, pretty much as expected. Was hoping for Ben or Denise on the last one though.

[20Safety_Hazards]

Who would have thought winners at war would get so predictable at the end. That a bunch of winners could become so blind by how dominant Tony’s resume is, that’s just disappointing.  Plus I said it last time and I’ll say it again. Edge of Extinction was a stupid twist but what makes it worse is they are coming back way too late to have any chance of making it to the end unless they win out. Come back at 7 or 8 and you have options. But this crew is so locked in, the returning player has little chance to make a move. 

[Gern Blanston]

14 hours ago, FranklinFldEBUpper said:

One wager that I would confidently make is that Adam,  Dani, or Sophie won't be winning the challenge next week. They've been almost invisible in the editing. On the other hand, Natalie is certainly getting the hero edit over there.

Regarding the tribal councils tonight...ehhh, yeah, pretty much as expected. Was hoping for Ben or Denise on the last one though.

Yeah, Natalie, Yul, or Tyson have gotten a lot of face time over there but especially Nat.  Potentially Rob or Parv, but I'm think that its been more of a Producer's Pets bias there...

5 hours ago, 20Safety_Hazards said:

Who would have thought winners at war would get so predictable at the end. That a bunch of winners could become so blind by how dominant Tony’s resume is, that’s just disappointing.  Plus I said it last time and I’ll say it again. Edge of Extinction was a stupid twist but what makes it worse is they are coming back way too late to have any chance of making it to the end unless they win out. Come back at 7 or 8 and you have options. But this crew is so locked in, the returning player has little chance to make a move. 

Michelle summed things up nicely when she ripped Nick a new one.  He boned it and sealed his fate there by taking Jeremy out.  Wasn't Jeremy sort of in on the initial "We're taking Nick out" plan?  Maybe it was just the editing, but how did he not see it coming?

EoE - yeah, this late in the game, with maybe the exception of Michelle, NOBODY is going to keep someone who has literally been chilling and making nice with the entire jury for the past month in the game.

Nothing mentioned about the reunion show last night - wonder if they'll still have it...

[VaBeach_Eagle]

I think Natalie is definitely getting a 'returnee' edit, plus she has so many advantages in the returnee challenge that it almost seems unfair to the others (depending on what the advantages are). I definitely don't like that aspect. 

1 hour ago, Gern Blanston said:

Nothing mentioned about the reunion show last night - wonder if they'll still have it...

I mentioned Australian Survivor's live reunion on the old EMB, and I think our Survivor will do something similar.

There was no audience and not all of the Survivors were present. Even the host was 'stuck' in Los Angeles and was only on a TV monitor for the reading of the votes. They had some other guy actually host the reunion. 

The winner was present in the studio, along with an handful of other Survivors but the runner-up (out of the final two), was only on a TV monitor and wasn't present in person.

Of the 24 Survivors, they had about 15  of them present. Photo of the reunion below, which would be a spoiler for anyone who intends on watching that season:

Spoiler

 

[JBENT87]

On 5/7/2020 at 9:34 AM, 20Safety_Hazards said:

Who would have thought winners at war would get so predictable at the end. That a bunch of winners could become so blind by how dominant Tony’s resume is, that’s just disappointing.  Plus I said it last time and I’ll say it again. Edge of Extinction was a stupid twist but what makes it worse is they are coming back way too late to have any chance of making it to the end unless they win out. Come back at 7 or 8 and you have options. But this crew is so locked in, the returning player has little chance to make a move. 

Yeah the fact that they just ran back this Extinction Island angle without fixing up the things that  made it bad from before.. including the elephant in the room which is even in the best case scenario for someone returning from EI and then making a move in the game, even if that person plays all of their cards right, and realizes that they don't have the clout to make it to the end without self sacrificing themselves to make fire - even if they do that and then win and get to the end, and lay out the best case scenario for themselves and how they did everything they could that was within their power to deserve to win, it still underwhelms and disappoints! we just saw this a couple season ago with Michael (?) I don't even remember the guys name.  Where he came back from EI and then won the game, and the takeaway from that season was "damn the EI thing didnt really work. This guy sat on an island for x amount of days came back made fire and won the game," and now they're risking that all over again... except this time with fire tokens?

They should've allowed two players back into the game from EI and done it an episode after home town visits. Everyone else then goes to the jury or goes home, from the island while the returning players can then build back up rapport or reignite alliances that were already there. For the 40th freaking season featuring All Stars from prior years, which is saying a lot and is uncharted territory for reality TV, what a disappointing gimmick. 

[paco]

This might sound silly, but I have a daily fantasy free play that is for survivor.  I don't watch the show, so maybe one of you guys want to set up my lineup?

You get 1 MVP (1.5 x points) and 3 other castaways.  The salary cap is $100.  

Castaways (with salary):

Spoiler

First Name    Last Name    Salary
Tony    Vlachos     $39.00 
Sarah    Lacina     $30.00 
Michele    Fitzgerald     $24.00 
Ben    Driebergen     $22.00 
Denise    Stapley     $21.00 
Natalie    Anderson     $18.00 
Tyson    Apostol     $16.00 
Rob    Mariano     $15.00 
Jeremy    Collins     $15.00 
Kim    Spradlin-Wolfe     $12.00 
Yul    Kwon     $11.00 
Sophie    Clarke     $10.00 
Parvati    Shallow     $9.00 
Wendell    Holland     $9.00 
Nick    Wilson     $9.00 
Ethan    Zohn     $7.00 
Danni    Boatwright     $6.00 
Amber    Mariano     $5.00 
Adam    Klein     $4.00 
 

Scoring rules:

Spoiler

Contestant Is Chosen To Be Brought To The Final 3 (3Chos)    -1.5
Contestant Is Bequeathed A Fire Token (BqFT)    3
Any Cast Member Says Blindside During The Episode (Bside)    0.7
Contestant Has A Confessional (Interview) (Cnfs)    0.6
Contestant Cries On Camera With Tears (Cries)    0.8
Contestant Curses During An Episode (Curse)    0.8
Contestant Is Eliminated From The Game (Elim)    -3
Contestant Is Chosen To Partake In The Fire Making Challenge (FMC)    1.5
Contestant Wins Fire Making Challenge To Earn A Spot In The Final 3 (FMCW)    5
Contestant Finds Or Buys An Advantage In The Game (Fadv)    2
Contestant Finds Or Buys A Hidden Immunity Idol (Fimm)    3
Contestant Catches Seafood For His Or Her Tribe (Fish)    0.4
Contestant Gets Chosen To Go On A Reward (Grew)    1
Jury Member Laughs During Final Tribal (Laugh)    0.7
Jury Member Says Outlast During Final Tribal (Olast)    0.7
Jury Member Says Outplay During Final Tribal (Oplay)    0.7
Jury Member Says Outwit During Final Tribal (Owit)    0.7
Contestant Plays Advantage At Tribal Council (Padv)    2
Contestant Plays Hidden Immunity Idol At Tribal Council (Pimm)    3
Contestant Receives A Vote To Be Voted Off (RVoff)    -0.8
Contestant Reenters The Game From Extinction Island (ReG)    6.5
Contestant Survives The Week (Surv)    3
Contestant Wins Team Or Individual Immunity (Wimm)    7
Contestant Wins Survivor (Win)    8
Contestant Wins Team Or Individual Reward (Wrew)    2

 

[20Safety_Hazards]

If they want to fix the edge, the first thing they can do is kick off whoever loses the first comeback challenge. After the first edge challenge, losers go home and a new edge is started, with everyone going to the second edge comprising the jury. That way, at least all of the people who could come back at final 6 at least had at least half a game of actual gameplay to establish a resume, and everyone on the jury will have spent at least some time with each of the finalists. There are people on the jury right now who never spent a single day of camp with some of the players like Tony or Denise.  Why should they get to judge their gameplay?

You can keep the fire tokens element but they should only give you advantages If the player comes back into the game. Otherwise it puts People like Yul or Nick who were voted out right before the comeback challenge at a huge disadvantage. People should not be punished for making it further into the game. 

Natalie is proof that the current system, tokens and no elimination, is broken. The fact that Natalie could spend 30 days on edge, buddying up with everyone on the jury then getting 3 advantages in the comeback challenge, and two idols, including one she gave to another potential juror is proof just how broken the system is. If Natalie comes back and makes it to final 3 I think she wins, even over Tony. She bonded with everyone on extinction, including buying peanut butter and idols for jury members and she has not wronged anyone on extinction.  I kinda want Natalie to win just to show how stupid this twist is and to get it barred forever. 

[20Safety_Hazards]

What I’d also like to see is fire tokens for advantages in individual or team immunity challenges. Everyone is told what the advantage is and the cost, but you decide anonymously if you want the advantage, so you won’t know until you get to the challenge if someone took the advantage. Every time a team buys the advantage the cost goes up for a new advantage in the future, to prevent teams from just taking it every time.  Every time an individual buys a challenge advantage the cost goes up.  

The problem with the tokens this season is it was largely dependent on If you got an offer from the edge.  There should be other strategic options that encourage tokens being spent. 

I wouldn’t get rid of selling advantages, but it’d do this though without the edge. Hide the same reward at each camp to sell to someone on the other tribe.  Is there someone you want to work with, sell for cheap. Just want to make a profit, charge as much as possible. More importantly, the people influencing the game are still in the game.  Later in the season, introduce the negative advantages. Extortion, for example, was a great power. But give it to someone in the game and it’s an even better strategic weapon.