[Jeff Varner]

- Tue Nov 10, 2015 11:55:12 pm #106 I guess I'll make a blog since everyone else is.


Before I do a pre-game fauxnalysis assessment, I should mention that I've only been around for the last three seasons so I have only seen the following players:

Nepal: Artis, Jenna, Kimmi

Marquesas: Kristina, Sean

Faroe Islands: Flicka, Liliana, Mookie, Ozzy, Yau-Man

[Jeff Varner]

- Wed Nov 11, 2015 1:56:06 am #111 I'll write a little summary about each tribe and how I think the dynamics might go, then power-rank them and finally give my top 5 winner candidates at the end like I did in Faroe Islands.

---

Kaikusi
Members: David, Diane, Liliana, Sandra, Sean, Shane

Scouter: Kaikusi should be an interesting tribe. I'm interested to see how David and Diane interact as they've both been advertised as kind of trainwrecky players. I'm also interested to see some of these veterans that I've never seen before, like Sandra and Shane. I hear good things about both of them. Sandra seems like a tried and true vet which I think, like Candice, will do very well in this season. Shane on the other hand apparently hasn't played in a while. I saw Sean in a small capacity in Marquesas and it wasn't a great showing. I saw Liliana in Faroe Islands and she was not among the more relevant players to the season, so I think she will try extra hard to try to be relevant here.

Prediction: I have a feeling that Sandra and Shane will get along pretty well and could potentially form a duo that will run this tribe. I also see Sean getting into this alliance and forming a pretty formidable trio to start the season, with three wily vets who could do really well, and even better if they do it together. Despite looking like a weasel in his avatar, I could see David being reeled into this majority and being safe until the next stage of the game - which would leave Liliana and Diane vulnerable if Kaikusi were to lose once or twice. I feel like Diane would be the easier first boot of the tribe but I could also see Liliana playing too hard out of the gate trying to prove she belongs and being an early boot as well. I also think that Sandra+Shane could do really well in this game together.

Kaikusi Pre-Game Power Ranks
1. Sandra
2. Shane
3. Sean
4. David
5. Liliana
6. Diane

---

Meku
Members: Jenna, Jim, John, Kelly, Marissa, Mookie

Scouter: Meku seems like it will be a pretty fun tribe. It seems like they have a bunch of fun characters who are likely to deliver at least some fun moments and quotes, no matter how long they last. I have high hopes for Jenna, as she went home relatively early in Nepal. I think she has a lot of potential to be a surprise breakout star. Jim and Mookie are a pair I'm interested to watch because they are both funny dudes who would make a hilarious bromance if they were to hook up. The game sense between the two of them may not be as great as a tandem like Jeff+Kimmi or Penner+Candice but it should be fun to watch, though I feel like Mookie is a bit more game-smart than Jim based on the little I've seen. I'm also excited to see Marissa to play because I've heard nothing but good things about her. John was a guy who came out of the gate strong and the tides quickly turned on him and he ended up going home first, as an unusual first boot, so I'm interested to see how he comes back and plays this time with that in mind. Also Kelly is straight from season 1 which will be fun to see.

Prediction: I'm a little conflicted about how I see this tribe going in the early days. I could see John coming out of the gates a bit gunshy and take a back seat so he doesn't repeat his fate of his previous season. I could also see him going back at it and trying to take the lead again. I think in either case, he will be falling in line with or going against Marissa. I am envisioning Marissa pairing up with Kelly and potentially Jenna. I could see John broing out with the knucklehead duo of Jim and Mookie. This tribe could go a lot of ways which makes it interesting, and all of them seem like good quality players so I'd like to see them all do well and make it into the next stage of the game. My prediction however is that John goes low-key and falls in line with the rest and Jenna goes home early, with Jim or John being the next vulnerable player if they are to lose more than once.

Meku Pre-Game Power Ranks
1. Marissa
2. Kelly
3. Mookie
4. John
5. Jim
6. Jenna

---

Pirai
Members: Artis, Carl, Flicka, Kim, Rupert, Sophie

Scouter: Pirai is a weird tribe because I really don't have a good gauge of these players. Reading through, it seems like Flicka and Rupert seem like a natural pairing. The two of them are both nice, usually calm, sweetheart-type players and I think that type of attitude/personality attracts similar types. In Nepal, Artis was known as taking Stranded as a business trip and he was all numbers all of the time. I'm interested to see how he will play this season after getting the boot in Nepal after trying to be too cute with unnecessary strategy. I liked Kim Powers in Africa so I am anxious to see how her Stranded rep will do and I've heard she has a knack for getting herself into the majority alliance, while Dr. Carl has a knack for finding himself on the wrong side of the tide(?). Lastly, from what I have gathered, Sophie seems like an easily annoyed, emotional player who has a great ability to take charge of the tribe.

Prediction: Like I mentioned, I feel like Flicka and Rupert are going to be a lovable duo from the jump. If that doesn't happen, I'll be upset because it is so obvious to me looking at them. I am kind of getting an Elisabeth/Rodger type vibe from what I suspect will happen with these two. I think Sophie is the obvious leader of this tribe, though I have a feeling she will get annoyed with many of its members. It will be a matter of if she can fake it well enough for them to accept her as their dominating leader, in the sort of way where Boston Rob led Rupert and Jenna in All-Stars. I could see those three becoming a thing with Kim sliding in and becoming a foursome where Carl and Artis are on the outs, Artis targeted sooner for his gamebot persona. Conversely I could see the tribe rallying together against Sophie where Artis and/or Carl lead Rupert and Flicka against Sophie for being too domineering too early. No matter which way, I feel as though Flicka and Rupert will be safe through this stage of the game.

Pirai Pre-Game Power Ranks:
1. Flicka
2. Rupert
3. Sophie
4. Kim
5. Carl
6. Artis

---

Waiwai
Members: Gabriel, Kimmi, Kristina, Ozzy, Sugar, Yau-Man

Scouter: Kimmi, along with Debb, was my right hand (wo)man throughout Nepal so I feel like I have a pretty good gauge on Kimmi's gameplay. The thing with Kimmi is wondering how will she change her game after losing in final tribal council. I think Kimmi will play it safe early and then start making the necessary big moves later in the game to get herself in a better position to reverse her fate and win in FTC. Like Kimmi, Gabriel is someone who made it to FTC and lost however unlike Kimmi, I do not have particular high hopes for him. Kristina is someone I saw very briefly in Marquesas who didn't make very much of an impact but from all accounts it seems as though she has a lot of potential. From the three I mentioned, it seems all three are relatively calm players. Yau-Man on the other hand seems like someone who will thrive on chaos, but on this tribe it seems like no one will want to have any of it. Ozzy had to quit Faroe early on in the season and left a lot of potential out there. I think he is another dark horse candidate that not a lot of people are thinking of because he is such an unknown, having practically no game-tape. I'm excited to see Sugar play. The mark on Sugar is that if she's active, she's amazing so I'm hoping to see an active and amazing Sugar.

Prediction: It seems like this tribe has three pretty calm players who would nip chaos in the bud and a chaotic player in Yau-Man, which makes him an obvious first boot. Barring a public idol that he will undoubtedly take, I think Yau-Man's stint in this game will be short-lived which is unfortunate because it is fun to have an agent of chaos in the game. It will be interesting to see how Kimmi, Kristina and Gabriel interact because they seem like such a natural team based on their personalities. I could see all of them teaming up out of convenience but also looking elsewhere for their more serious alliances. I feel like Kimmi and Kristina will be a pair and they will reach out to Sugar, while Gabriel will get along better with Ozzy. Outside of Yau-Man, it is hard to untangle this tribe but I feel like Gabriel will be the one who is most vulnerable to bite the dust but I don't really have a reason as to why I think that.

Waiwai Pre-Game Power Ranks
1. Kimmi
2. Kristina
3. Sugar
4. Ozzy
5. Gabriel
6. Yau-Man

---

That about wraps up my pre-game assessment of the first stage of the game, then I will give my assessment after each tribe shakeup (probably, unless I forget or get bored or don't want to) to assess the new tribe divisions.

And finally, my top 5 winner contenders:

1. Kimmi
2. Shane
3. John
4. Sugar
5. Rupert

[Candice Cody]

- Thu Nov 12, 2015 4:14:46 pm #150 Who is playing Sandra?

[Jeff Probst]

- Thu Nov 12, 2015 7:01:50 pm #156

Who is playing Sandra?

Cat, I'll post a cast list today so you can see who everyone is.

[Candice Cody]

- Thu Nov 12, 2015 7:47:56 pm #158

Who is playing Sandra?

Cat, I'll post a cast list today so you can see who everyone is.

I love Cat!

Thank you so much!

[Mia Galeotalanza]

- Fri Nov 13, 2015 2:52:13 am #197 I wish I didn't know Sandra was Cat :/

[Jeff Varner]

- Mon Nov 16, 2015 4:31:00 am #601 Quick Round 1 Recap

There should be less and less in the round recaps especially when rounds occur one day after another but I'll try to update this as often as I can remember and feel like it.

So far we've had one immunity challenge in which Waiwai and Kaikusi won, and one tribal council in which Meku voted out Jim and Pirai voted out Carl. A relatively quiet opening weekend but a few things to note:

Kaikusi
Won immunity so they were able to take it easy this weekend. Shane didn't show up until Saturday(/Sunday?) which would have given them an easy first boot (and still might) until he showed up. Liliana engaged in some talks with Sandra about forming something and Sandra was basically like [paraphrase] "nah, I don't do Day 1 alliances" so Liliana was hoping that Shane would show up to help her get rid of Sandra. In the meantime, Liliana, Sean and Diane seem to have all gotten close and have talked about laying down some groundwork for an alliance. Shane arrived with a bang and seemed to quickly cause his tribemates to worry about him, so he immediately jumped into some hot water. David is also on this tribe.

Meku
Lost immunity but because Jim never logged into the Meku board, they had an easy round. Kelly came out of the gate hot and formed a "punctual alliance" with the four people who showed up first (herself + Jenna + Mookie + Marissa). John came a little bit later but Jim never showed up. Marissa seems to have quickly found herself at the top of the tribe both by challenge prowess and just talking to people. Marissa complained a little bit that her tribe is boring but she shouldn't be complaining because she is sitting pretty. Even with Kelly's quick-trigger on making an alliance and general playing hard to start, this tribe seems full of players who aren't really looking to make a move and don't want to be booted early again (John 1st boot, Jenna 2nd boot, Mookie 3rd boot(?)), which should allow Marissa to stay on top until a switch.

Pirai
Lost immunity but because Carl's work blocked strandedgaming.com and because he was generally inactive otherwise, they also had an easy decision although somewhat more difficult than Meku's. When Carl did show up, he left a pretty good impression such that the tribe was considering getting rid of resident gamebot Artis for having lackluster conversation skills. Rupert and Flicka were the first two to arrive and quickly got along. Shortly thereafter Kim and Sophie showed up and got along with each other, then the four of them formed a larger alliance. After talking a bit, it seems that Sophie and Rupert have found a surprise mutual liking to each other, making each other their top allies at the moment. Like Marissa, Sophie complained in her confessional about being on a lousy tribe, calling herself the "only cool kid at the lunch table". Also like Marissa, Sophie is in a fine position within her tribe and should continue to be fine until a swap.

Waiwai
Won immunity so they had a pretty easy weekend. Ozzy made use of the relaxed weekend to get to know his other tribemates, particularly Kimmi. After getting to know each other a bit, Ozzy asked Kimmi to work together in the game and suggested Yau Man as a third alliance option. Meanwhile, Ozzy asked Yau Man to work together in the game and suggested Kimmi as a third alliance option. Gabriel is active and is trying to get into some alliances with Ozzy, Kimmi and Sugar separately but it seems he will just be an add-on to the aforementioned alliance at this point. Kristina and Sugar were both pretty inactive relative to the rest of the tribe but it doesn't appear as though either is a front-runner to go home just yet, should they lose.

[Jeff Varner]

- Tue Nov 17, 2015 4:35:48 am #1143 Quick Round 2 Recap

Barely any updates to note here. Kaikusi dominated the challenge then Pirai came in second. Waiwai voted out Yau Man without a whimper. Meku lost for a second time and lost the first semi-active player of the game in John.

Kaikusi
Won immunity again. Shane lives another day. Of note, in almost everyone's (minus Shane's) confessional, they listed Liliana as the person they trust the most - props to Liliana for being in good with every member of her tribe (sans Shane?) going into a tribe swap. Shane is aware he will be next to go so he is chomping for a tribe swap. Lucky for him that is exactly what is about to happen.

Meku
Lost immunity again. Tough blow because John wasn't too inactive, he just missed out on the "punctual alliance". Relative to the rest of his tribe, he was probably the most inactive but he was hanging in there. Unfortunately for him that wasn't enough. Unfortunately for the rest of the tribe, they'll go into a tribe swap with 4 members. Fortunately for them, however, they're finally off that wretched tribe.

Pirai
Won immunity. Artis lives another day. Nothing else of interest to put here, except maybe that Kim, Sophie, Flicka and Rupert are calling their alliance "Rupert's Angels", on the day before they get split up.

Waiwai
Lost immunity. This tribe had some issues with activity this weekend, this challenge and this tribal. Ozzy conceded to Kimmi's wishes and gave up on his hopes to include Yau Man in the alliance, sending him home. The Ozzy and Kimmi alliance has brought in Gabriel to form the cliche alliance "Three Amigos", which like "Rupert's Angels", was formed on the day they got split up. Kristina and Sugar are on this tribe but had better reputations and barely higher activity levels than Yau Man so they both live to see another day.

I'll probably blog up something tomorrow after the tribes are set similar to my pre-game assessment, assessing the tribes and the partner pairs.

[Jeff Varner]

- Tue Nov 17, 2015 11:12:30 pm #1306 Swap/Partner-Choosing Recap

With 20 people in the game, the tribes dissolved and the players were left in the arena to PM the other 19 players in order to choose a new parter to spend the rest of the game with, incentives being things like being able to swap and get immunity for swapping as well as immunity idols for the last pair remaining.

I think the strategy here is two-fold. If you're a gamer/threat with a high-profile, grab someone with a low-profile. If you're someone with a low-profile, grab one of the people with a high-profile. Two high-profile players make themselves bigger threats by association, two low-profile players remain too low-profile for my liking. Aim to have an average profile of somewhere in the middle.

In order of their announcements:

1. Jenna and Sean - Jenna and Sean are a good pair of low-profile Jenna and somehow middle-profile Sean(? I feel like he belongs in high-profile, good for him). Jenna's treading new water here after surpassing her previous season of being the second boot and Sean is a wily, craft vet. Jenna comes from the Meku alliance (formerly known as "the punctual alliance") of herself, Marissa, Kelly, and Mookie. Sean comes from the LSD alliance from Kaikusi of Liliana, himself, and Diane. He spoke about how he also liked Sandra. Jenna is also involved, through Marissa, in an alliance with Sophie and Kim so it will be interesting to see if Sean is able to pull Jenna in and away from that other alliance, or if these two just work together in separate alliances and separate tribes. All in all, I like this pairing for both of them.

2. Gabe and Kelly - Gabe and Kelly both seem like low-profile players here, despite being two of the more (hyper-)active posters and messagers. Gabe comes from the "Three Amigos" alliance from Waiwai of himself, Kimmi, and Ozzy and he also is cool with Sugar. Kelly comes from the Meku alliance of herself, Jenna, Marissa and Mookie. Gabe and Kelly quickly hit it off once their tribes dissolved and I see them continuing to get along really well though I am not sure either one of them has the influential powers to have much sway in bringing people in. I do like this pairing because of how well they were able to get along but I am a little worried about Kelly after she so quickly and hastily formed the punctual alliance in her old tribe.

3. Kimmi and Sophie - Kimmi and Sophie are two high-profile players, Sophie much more so than Kimmi. Kimmi's coming from that "Three Amigos" alliance from Waiwai of herself, Ozzy and Gabe and she was also in good with Sugar and Kristina. Sophie's coming in from "Rupert's Angels" alliance from Pirai of Rupert, herself, Flicka and Kim and Artis thought highly of her too. Sophie also quickly connected to Marissa, as did Kimmi. This seems like it is easily the most well-connected pair. Sophie is very bullheaded so I am curious to see how often Kimmi will be willing to concede on things. I don't really like this pairing based on personality-meshing and I don't really like this pairing for either of them as it makes them both bigger threats than they already were. Mistake by both, I think.

4. Flicka and Sugar - Flicka and Sugar are two kind of middle, kind of low-profile players - both could be categorized as either. Flicka's coming in as a member of "Rupert's Angels" alliance from Pirai of Rupert, herself, Sophie, and Kim. Sugar is coming in as part of "whywhy4life" which I think is her way of saying she liked and was in good everyone on Waiwai, but she wasn't in that tribe's core alliance. Sugar and Flicka are both people who seem to be able to get along with everyone but I am not sure either of these two are of the game-influential variety. They are both individually entertaining so they should be more entertaining together. I don't love the pairing but I don't hate it either.

5. Shane and Kristina - Shane is ???-profile while Kristina has kept a low-profile thus far but I don't anticipate that remaining the case. Shane is coming in from Kaikusi actively hoping for a swap so he could jump ship. Kristina is coming in being on the outside of the core alliance of Waiwai. This swap came at a good time for both of them however I am completely unsure of what to make of it. It could be great, it could be awful, it could be anywhere in between. It all depends on Shane.

6. Artis and Sandra - Artis is a low profile while Sandra is a mid-profile (similar to Sean, her profile is probably lower than I think it should be which is good for her) which I think makes for a good pair. Artis is coming from Pirai where he was the 5th wheel on the back of the car while "Rupert's Angels" ran the show. Sandra is coming in from Kaikusi where apparently she liked Liliana but I didn't get a good gauge of where her head was at beside the fact that she was fringely included or at least considered for the LSD alliance with Liliana, Sean, and Diane. I think this will turn out to be a pretty good pairing as Artis is a very calculating player and Sandra is a "wait and see" type player, so they should get on just fine. Artis was friendly with Rupert in Pirai and Sandra played with Rupert back in their previous season so they have some connections. I like this pair.

7. Liliana and Mookie - Liliana is a mid-low profile that is playing as a high-profile (which is not so good), while Mookie is a mid-low profile player, making them a solid pair. Liliana is coming from Kaikusi as part of the LSD alliance of her, Sean and Diane as well as being well-trusted by Sandra and David. Mookie is coming from the Meku alliance of himself, Marissa, Jenna, and Kelly. I am not loving this match as they both seem a little bit reliant on other players and are mildly influential by themselves. It's an alright pairing, not great, not bad either.

8. Ozzy and Diane - Ozzy, imo, is a mid-high profile while Diane has kept a low-profile so far. Ozzy is coming from Waiwai as part of the "Three Amigos" alliance of himself, Kimmi, and Gabe while being on ok terms with Kristina and Sugar. Diane was part of the LSD alliance on Kaikusi of herself, Sean, and Liliana and she seemed to be on just fine with Sandra. Ozzy quickly got on with Mookie during this no-tribe period but they decided to take their chances that they'd end up together on the same tribe rather than being partners (mistake, imo) while Diane had a few options and decided on Ozzy. I think they individually have a good amount of connections should they choose to connect to each other. I don't love this pairing but I do like it.

9. Marissa and Kim - Marissa is a high-profile player while Kim is a low-profile player, making this a good match from the jump. Marissa and Kim apparently played together and were aligned in some form in Portugal and so they are re-connecting here. Marissa's coming from the Meku alliance of herself, Mookie, Jenna, and Kelly. Kim's coming from "Rupert's Angels" on Pirai of Rupert, herself, Sophie and Flicka. These two are probably the best pairing in the game if people don't target them for being from the same previous season. They have the Meku connections via Marissa who pretty much ran the Meku alliance while bringing in Sophie to make a larger alliance. It will be interesting to see who gets pulled where in this tug of war but I think this pairing made too much sense for both of them to pick anyone else. I like it a lot for both of them.

10. Rupert and David - Rupert and David were the last remaining two on the board and so they will get paired up together. David is a low low-profile, I barely notice he's there. Rupert has kept a high-profile on the Pirai side but I think he is more of a mid, maybe mid-low profile player. David's coming in without much of a resume from Kaikusi, at least that I noticed. Rupert is coming in from "Rupert's Angels" from Pirai of himself, Sophie, Flicka, and Kim and was friendly with Artis. Rupert also is connected to Sandra through playing together back in the day. While David has been pretty quiet socially (to my knowledge), Rupert has been a social butterfly out of the gate. Being that this was the final pair on the board and they didn't choose it, I actually like it. I think Rupert needed someone more mid-profile and he and David together might be too low together but I think it will work out.

To summarize the pairings by former tribe:

Kaikusi:
David and Rupert
Diane and Ozzy
Liliana and Mookie
Sandra and Artis
Sean and Jenna
Shane and Kristina

Meku:
Jenna and Sean
Kelly and Gabe
Marissa and Kim
Mookie and Liliana

Pirai:
Artis and Sandra
Flicka and Sugar
Kim and Marissa
Rupert and David
Sophie and Kimmi

Waiwai:
Gabe and Kelly
Kimmi and Sophie
Kristina and Shane
Ozzy and Diane
Sugar and Flicka

[Trashley Markwood]

- Wed Nov 18, 2015 2:04:17 am #1338 Nobody paired with their own tribe. Interesting :o

[Jeff Varner]

- Wed Nov 18, 2015 8:31:28 am #1848 Swap Recap - Round 2.5

So I'm not going to bother with making predictions because of the partners swapping in and out each round, that'd just be a waste of time for something nearly impossible to predict.

After someone's booted tomorrow I'll recap what actually happened within these tribes and why the people who got voted out got voted out and the dynamics of the tribe and that shit but here I'll just basically lay out the tribes and maybe draw out some of the connections to see what's what going into this stage of the game to cut the clutter out from the swap and leave me less to need to write tomorrow.

So, the players are all on one big tribe and they have to do an immunity challenge with their partner. Mookie and Liliana win. They have to select one of them to divide the tribes and the other picks which tribe they want to join, leaving the other for the other tribe. Mookie divided the tribes as follows:

Kaikusi:
David
Jenna
Kelly
Kimmi
Kristina
Liliana
Marissa
Ozzy
Sandra
Sugar

So from this tribe, we have the 3 of the 4 Meku, 4 of the 5 Waiwai and 3 of the 6 Kaikusi. Jenna, Kelly and Marissa were formally aligned back in Meku as part of the "punctual alliance", though Marissa has now openly voiced to other people outside of this alliance that she is not a fan of these three. Kelly meanwhile still believes Marissa is her #1. Kimmi and Ozzy come over as part of the "Three Amigos" of Waiwai, along with Kristina and Sugar who were not in that core alliance but were all still friendly with each other. Sandra, Lil and David come as a little bit of a mishmashed pairing as they weren't really aligned in Kaikusi, per se, but both David and Sandra wrote in their confessionals that they liked Liliana. Untangling it a bit more, Kelly, Kimmi and Sugar each individually seemed to make a bunch of connections with several of these people during the One Tribe period, some of which ended up on the tribe here. Common sense dictates that the former Meku will be in the driver's seat for how this tribe goes, as Waiwai has the majority in this tribe but Kaikusi has the majority in this game.

It's pretty clear that Mookie wanted to be on this tribe. Before the tribe division, Mookie sent Liliana a PM telling her he wanted to stay with Marissa, Ozzy and Sophie and Liliana responded saying she wanted to stay with Flicka, Diane and Shane. Mookie split these up (but put Kimmi on his tribe instead of Sophie) and gave Liliana her three, expecting her to go with the players she said she wanted - nope, Liliana screwed Mookie and took his tribe and left him as the only Meku as the tribe below:

Waiwai:
Artis
Diane
Flicka
Gabe
Kim
Mookie
Rupert
Sean
Sophie
Shane

Mookie and Gabe stand out like sore thumbs, being 1 of 4 Meku and 1 of 5 Waiwai respectively. The entire Pirai tribe (5 of 5) is together here, along with 3 of 6 Kaikusi.

The glaringly obvious thing here is that the former Pirai form half of the tribe so should they stick together, they can at worst only force a tie, which means it is not only unlikely for one of them to go home, it is also unlikely for one of them to agree to swap to the other tribe and make themselves needlessly vulnerable. Shane was previously wanting to flip on his friends from the green tribe, which would give Shane+Pirai alliance a cushy 6 person majority in a tribe of 10. Mookie and Gabe are free agents here, it seems, unless cracks form. Diane and Sean, who were formerly aligned back at Kaikusi, are likely in a bit of trouble as Kaikusi has the most amount of players left in the game at 6, followed by Pirai and Waiwai at 5 a piece. While Mookie is a moron for setting this tribe up this way, he seems pretty harmless in a tribe by himself with a bunch of strangers and a majority alliance making up half of the tribe, with only 3 former tribemates on the other side. The big questions here should be: do the non-Pirai form an alliance to counter the Pirai juggernaut? and does Artis become aware that he is not included in the core-Pirai alliance and jump ship? The answer to both will probably be no.

All of this will of course be for naught as soon as a pair switches, will will happen at every tribal council from here until the merger.

[Jeff Varner]

- Thu Nov 19, 2015 5:30:33 am #1984 Quick Round 3 Recap

So Mookie bungled the tribes and left some obvious tribal lines which dictated how both tribal councils went here. Both tribes had some interesting storylines, however.

Kaikusi:
David,Jenna,Kelly,Kimmi,Kristina,Liliana,Marissa,Ozzy,Sandra,Sugar

Right off the bat, this became interesting to me because it was Kaikusi vs. Waiwai with Meku in the middle. Since Kaikusi had 6 of 6 players still in the game and Waiwai had 4 members on this Kaikusi tribe, it wasn't an easy decision for the Mekus. Ozzy was a bit late as he was attending some sort of dinner so Sandra began rallying her troops and attempting to corral the Mekus to vote out Ozzy. On the other side, Kimmi formed an alliance with Marissa and Ozzy also was talking to Marissa and they decided to form a little alliance that Ozzy named after the 3 hyenas from the Lion King. Together, they were deciding between David and Sandra - David had a connection to Kristina in a previous game while Sandra was good at challenges. They ultimately decided to spare David in order to not put Kristina in a tough position to decide what to do which caused the end of Sandra. Marissa told the Mekus while Kimmi and Ozzy informed Sugar and Kristina and the decision was made. Kristina was apprehensive but ultimately voted out Sandra. Kelly ended up voting for Ozzy with the voting message "payback", so that is a story to keep an eye on in the future to see if it amounts to anything, or if she owns up to voting him. Sandra ended up going home in a 6-4 vote (Kimmi, Ozzy, Kristina, Sugar, Marissa, Jenna versus Sandra, Liliana, David, Kelly).

Waiwai:
Artis,Diane,Flicka,Gabe,Kim,Mookie,Rupert,Sean,Sophie,Shane

Because Mookie messed up the tribe divisions, there are 5 Pirai here which amounts to half of this Waiwai tribe. They became nervous that they would be targeted by the non-Pirais for having such a large number on the tribe and considered voting out Artis. Diane, upon coming to the Waiwai tribe, talked to Sophie about her previous game where Kim was untrustworthy which threw up red flags for Sophie as Sophie and Kim are tight allies so far in this game. Meanwhile, Shane wasted no time telling Sophie that he was ready to jump ship on the former Kaikusis because he was very much aware that he was the next to go had the former Kaikusi lost an immunity challenge. Resident goofus Mookie, former Waiwai Gabe and former Kaikusi Sean all seemed to be making good relationships but were left out of the plan to vote out Diane and all voted for Artis alongside Diane. Diane was voted out in a 6-4 vote (Artis, Flicka, Kim, Rupert, Sophie, Shane versus Diane, Sean, Mookie, Gabe)

---

Looking forward, I would assume that the low hanging fruit on both tribes are David and Liliana on Kaikusi, and Artis and Sean on Waiwai. It will be interesting to see who jumps first at the chance to swap tribes.

Meanwhile, Artis and Ozzy both lost their partners when Sandra and Diane, respectively, got voted out in this round.

In an ironic twist of fate, Artis nearly went home and is in trouble to go home in these next few votes because of the Artis-strategy he employed in Nepal and got voted out because of. In Nepal, Artis was worried that his tribe would have too many members going into the merge so he tried to turn on one of his tribemates. His plan didn't work, there was some miscommunication and the numbers got jumbled and he ended up getting voted out. Here, the Pirai tribe would be successfully employing the Artis strategy with Artis as the planned victim this time instead of the accidental victim. He does not have a partner remaining in the game so he can not swap out of this situation.

[Jeff Varner]

- Fri Nov 20, 2015 4:53:11 am #2386 Quick Round 4 Recap

Marissa and Kim were randomly swapped before the challenge since no pair volunteered. Kim's now on Kaikusi, Marissa is now on Waiwai. Since they were swapped like an hour before the tribal council, they were on their previous tribe for most of this.

Waiwai:
Artis,Flicka,Gabe,Kim,Mookie,Rupert,Sean,Sophie,Shane with Marissa as the new member

Not a lot of movement on this tribe, it seems. After Diane went home, the target seemed to shift from Diane or Artis to Sean, Mookie or Gabe. With Shane effectively a member of Pirai now, Sean, Mookie and Gabe are all free agents as the only member of their former tribe on this new Waiwai tribe, so they are all individually trying the "anyone but me" strategy. The Pirai and Shane alliance seemed to have settled on Mookie, which spooked Sean who was curious why the plan changed from Artis to Mookie, realizing that the Pirai alliance has no intention of breaking up at this time. In other news, Gabe and Artis were forming an unlikely bond talking about pizza toppings.

Kaikusi:
David,Jenna,Kelly,Kimmi,Kristina,Liliana,Marissa,Ozzy,Sugar with Kim as a new member.

So Kelly's hinky vote DID play a big part in Kaikusi. The tribe had a wild goose chase finding out who was the rogue vote. Kelly and Jenna both pushed that, because Kristina was friends with David in their previous season, Kristina probably voted out Ozzy with the former Kaikusis. This caused the former Waiwais to pretty much abandon Kristina, though Kimmi and Ozzy were rightfully suspicious that a Meku is setting something up but they both agreed that they don't believe anyone is crafty enough to do that -- unfortunately for them, Kelly is and she did. The Meku girls did a lot of work on the relationships with Liliana and David, and Sugar kind of peeled off of the Waiwais and became a free agent to whoever she liked (which seems like she likes everyone?). The Meku + Waiwai (as they called, the 7 dwarves alliance) were individually deciding who to get rid of between Kristina, David or Liliana. After losing Marissa and gaining Kim, and losing the immunity challenge, the tribe decided on Kristina and she was voted out 9-1 (Everyone versus Kristina).

---

Looking forward, David and Liliana are both still low hanging fruit on Kaikusi. One of Mookie, Sean or Gabe seem like the likely next boot from Pirai (in that order, at this time). If either Liliana or Mookie were smart, they would swap tribes and gather immunity while getting out of trouble.

Kim and Marissa are both part of Sophie/Marissa's originally planned pre-swap alliance along with Jenna and Sophie is also partners with Kimmi, so Kim and Marissa should be safe on their new tribes should they choose to remain. Kaikusi shouldn't keep a Pirai in the game, though. Take out an easy number on the alliance dominating the other tribe all day every day.

Also of interest, Kimmi and Ozzy both found their parts of the immunity challenge in this round. Ozzy however does not have a partner still in the game so he can not form a full idol. Kimmi however has been working with Sophie to complete the idol. The rest of the partners are also in pursuit so it will be interesting to see if anyone can catch up to the lead Kimmi and Sophie have to get that idol.

[Jeff Varner]

- Mon Nov 23, 2015 5:16:19 am #2813 Quick Round 5 Recap

Marissa and Kim were all ready to swap back and regain those immunities until Mookie and Lil jumped as soon as the window opened. Mookie was the clearcut next boot for Waiwai and Lil was in some doodoo on Kaikusi. As is the case with these, the swap happens an hour before challenges so most of what happens in this recap happened before the swap.

Kaikusi:
David,Jenna,Kelly,Kimmi,Kim,Liliana,Ozzy,Sugar with Mookie as a new member.

Kelly's hinky vote is still a concern in this tribe. Ozzy wrote a confessional where he pretty astutely pointed out the inconsistencies and why it would make sense for Kelly to pin the vote on Kristina to break up the Waiwais and spoke about it with Kimmi, where they agreed to remain cautious and careful with Kelly in the future. This was pretty much the only thing of interest that happened over the weekend.

There wasn't a whole lot more going on on this tribe. After Kristina left, it seemed like David had emerged as the next boot since he wasn't nearly as active as anyone else. Other boot plans included Liliana, Kim or Ozzy. Ozzy started telling people he may not be around for the challenge because of a birthday party and Liliana decided to test the waters about making a move on him since he wouldn't be around. That is, until Liliana jumped at the chance to swap tribes with Mookie. David previously in confessional said that he would not consider swapping out because he would not leave Liliana alone in Kaikusi but Liliana jumped at the next chance to get out of that tribe, leaving David as the lone former-Kaikusi on the current Kaikusi tribe.

Mookie comes into this tribe reconnecting with former Meku allies Jenna and Kelly along with allies he hoped to be on a swapped tribe with while they were in the "One Tribe" period in Kimmi and Ozzy.

Waiwai:
Artis,Flicka,Gabe,Marissa,Mookie,Rupert,Sean,Sophie,Shane with Liliana as the new member

In the previous challenge, Sophie posted her team's final answer in her tribe's thread first and then posted past the deadline in the main thread which caused some confusion but since the rules didn't specify, her team was awarded the win for her original post. As soon as Sophie posted in the main thread (19 seconds after the deadline), Mookie sent out a group PM to Marissa (who had just been swapped to Waiwai), Shane, Sean, Gabe and Sophie about making a last ditch effort to vote Rupert out, fearing he would be going home. Sophie, Rupert's #1 ally, immediately relayed this news back to Rupert which caused Rupert to get pretty upset in his confessional. Mookie's attempt to push the vote on Rupert ultimately put himself alone in the cross-hairs of pretty much the entire tribe. He later tried a more traditional approach to getting rid of Rupert but it seems to have fallen on deaf ears as Rupert is in a solid position in his tribe.

Additionally, Sophie is convinced that the idol has been found because she has been unable to find it. She, Flicka and Mookie were online when the third clue was released and Flicka told Sophie she didn't have it (she did actually find her half of the idol, but she does not have the full idol) so Sophie assumed Mookie has the idol and this rumor has spread around the tribe, making Mookie an even bigger target. Mookie does not, in fact, have the idol.

Upon joining Waiwai, Marissa immediately clung to Sophie and seemed to have found herself safe if she had chosen to stay on her tribe, but they ultimately decided it was better to control who is becoming immune by having Marissa/Kim swap with each other each round since they both appear to be in the majority on both tribes, Marissa more so on Kaikusi and Kim more so on Waiwai. That is, until Mookie and Lil decided they wanted to switch as well and beat Kim/Marissa to the punch. Lil joins Sean and Shane as former-Kaikusi on this current Waiwai tribe. Mookie leaving makes Marissa the lone former-Meku on this tribe.

Sean took the leadership position, (probably) not knowing that his head was on the chopping block after easy-boot Mookie left the tribe. His tribe ultimately lost the challenge and the Pirai+Shane alliance continued to vote out all the non-Pirai+Shane by voting him out. Sean was voted out by a vote of 5-3 (Artis, Flicka, Rupert, Shane, Sophie versus Gabe, Liliana, Sean)

---

Looking forward, David and Kim seem like the odd (wo)men out on Kaikusi while Gabe and Liliana seem like they are on the outs on Waiwai after this most recent vote. It will be interesting to see if Mookie is willing to swap tribes again since he is now in the tribe that he set up for himself before Liliana took it from him, or if he'll jump back into a tribe he was for sure going to be voted out of for immunity with hopes that Liliana helps him out, or if Marissa and Kim continue on with their plans to swap back to their original tribes.

Idol update: Liliana and Flicka found half of the idol, so they joins Ozzy and Kimmi as the only four people in the game to have found a piece of the idol. Ozzy and Kimmi both have the left-half. Liliana and Flicka have the right-half.

[Jeff Varner]

- Tue Nov 24, 2015 6:14:36 am #3230 Quick Round 6 Recap

Mookie and Liliana switched tribes again. After an eventful night and immunity challenge, Waiwai won. The immunity challenge included several people begging their partner on the other tribe (particularly Sophie begging Kimmi and Sophie telling Marissa and Gabe to beg their partners) for the answers in the challenge to save them, pleaing that they are in trouble. It also included Kelly making a deliberate "accidental" post in the challenge board implicating Sophie and writing that she had secret cross-tribal alliances because Kelly doesn't like Sophie and thinks she is playing her partner, Gabe. She had previously alerted her Kaikusi tribemates that it was coming and it caused some confusion for a few minutes so it will be interesting to see if it causes any reactions by Sophie or the rest of Waiwai.

Waiwai:
Artis,Flicka,Gabe,Marissa,Liliana,Rupert,Sophie,Shane with Mookie as the new member

Sean went home which caused Gabe and the others to re-evaluate their position on this tribe and consider why things haven't been going their way. Gabe, Liliana and Marissa decided to form a coalition between the three of them to work towards ensuring all three of them make it out of this tribe alive. Their first order of business was convincing Sophie that she should work with them. She said she was open and willing, and told them she was on board - but Sophie had created a reputation of leading people on and not following through, so the trio was understandably cautious of Sophie.

Then the trio tried to talk to Flicka and Artis. Liliana and Flicka had a little bitchfit at each other which ultimately turned into Flicka being open to voting with the trio, somehow. The trio then made Artis aware that he is expendable to the Pirai alliance and convinced him that the numbers would be there to make a move by quoting messages that Flicka sent to Artis, and also sent them to Shane. Barring losing the numbers after the partner swap, Artis was on board and ready to flip. Flicka then messaged Artis and the two of them prepared to make a move.

Liliana planned to have herself, Marissa, Gabe and Flicka vote Sophie while lying to Artis and Sophie and telling him to vote Flicka, while intending for Sophie/Artis to lie to rest of the Pirai+Shane alliance intending them to think nothing is up and vote for Marissa. A 4-3-2 vote, with layers of lies between an alliance that has been working together this entire game so far - an incredibly ambitious idea.

A little later, Marissa logged on and caught up with the plans and immediately notified Sophie of the plans to blindside her, tossing Flicka under the bus. Meanwhile, Shane alerted the Pirai+Shane group message of Liliana posting messages, quoting her message to the group. Flicka noticed and immediately responded saying that Liliana took a quote and edited it, and re-affirmed to the group that she wanted Liliana out. Flicka and Artis continued their conversation but debated delaying their blindside for another vote and just getting rid of Liliana because she's playing too hard. Sophie, meanwhile, messaged her partner Kimmi to be able to switch if needed because Liliana is coming after her. And just like that, the two plans collided and the house of cards came crashing down.

Artis told Liliana and Gabe about the hate train going on in the Pirai+Shane alliance and opted out of his deal to vote out Flicka and instead moved to vote Sophie, while tipping Liliana off about how she was going home. As if she weren't going to flip before, Liliana and Mookie switched tribes 13 seconds after the window opened, leaving the fallout of today's events on Mookie.

Then they won the immunity challenge so the drama has time to fester over night and into tomorrow before anything significant happens.

Kaikusi:
David,Jenna,Kelly,Kimmi,Kim,Mookie,Ozzy,Sugar with Liliana as a new member.

Mookie joined this tribe and reunited with Kelly and Jenna from his original Meku tribe and Ozzy and Kimmi, who he wanted to work with when the four tribes swapped into two. Mookie immediately spread that the Pirai+Shane alliance has the Waiwai tribe by a stranglehold and so they agreed to vote out Kim, the sole Pirai member on the Kaikusi tribe, to weaken that alliance. The one problem that they have is that Mookie (with Liliana) and Kim (with Marissa) were both intending to swap tribes with their partner. The backup plan was set for David in case Kim was able to switch out.

Liliana switched tribes with Mookie and came back into this tribe and immediately found the second half to her idol. She then alerted everyone that the Pirai+Shane alliance is running the show over on Waiwai, echoing what Mookie had told them earlier. The tribe unanimously agreed that they needed to weaken Pirai so Kim was the obvious target. In tribal council, Kim knew she was going out the door so she went out guns blazing. She started with some lies saying Ozzy wanted to boot Jenna or Sugar and then decided to post truths about the cross-tribal alliance that included Sophie, Marissa, Kimmi, Jenna and Kim. It appeared as though everyone knew the first was made up which took away some of the impact of the latter but it will be interesting to see if there are any repercussions as a result of that. Sophie also seems to have a lot of enemies on this Kaikusi. Kim was voted out 6 to 2 (Jenna, Kelly, Kimmi, Liliana, Ozzy, Sugar versus Kim, David)

---

Looking forward, the Pirai alliance is taking a lot of heat. Kimmi also took some second-hand heat for being Sophie's partner. It will be interesting to see if anything happens on Waiwai with all the built up drama and plans. If today was any indication, it could be anyone. On Kaikusi, David is probably still at the bottom.

Idol update: Liliana found it.

[Jeff Varner]

- Wed Nov 25, 2015 4:58:53 am #3575 Quick Round 7 Recap

Round 7 turned out to be a pretty tense round with a lot of people feeling unsafe. No one wanted to swap tribes so Flicka and Sugar were randomly selected as the pair to swap. Kaikusi won immunity. Rupert suddenly had to quit so he was removed from the game.

Waiwai:
Artis,Flicka,Gabe,Marissa,Mookie,Rupert,Sophie,Shane with Sugar as the new member

Last round, there was a plan set in motion to blindside the head of the Pirai alliance, Sophie. After Liliana swapped with Mookie, Mookie picked up where Liliana left off in regard to those plans. Mookie, Marissa and Gabe continued their pursuit of saving themselves. Artis and Flicka seemed convinced and ready to flip on Sophie before Flicka and Sugar swapped tribes. Sugar was open about her hatred of Sophie and was not shy about it at all, publicly mocking her in challenge threads in tree mail. Sophie likely would have been the one voted off tonight.

However it was Rupert who abruptly messaged his alliance and later the rest of his tribe alerting them of a personal issue that needed to be taken care of, resulting in Rupert being removed from the game. It would have been interesting to have seen what might have happened here and if the trio were able to pull off their planned heist.

Kaikusi:
David,Jenna,Kelly,Kimmi,Liliana,Ozzy,Sugar with Flicka as a new member.

As Kim was being voted out, she called out Kimmi, Marissa, Jenna and Sophie for having a cross-tribal alliance. Some members of the tribe were unfazed (Sugar and Ozzy). Others were planning to use this to potentially make a move against Kimmi/Ozzy (Kelly and Liliana). Kimmi went on a message tour ensuring to everyone that this alliance was a lie that Kim was using to throw people under the bus on her way out, but to some Kimmi came on too strong with her desperation which made the situation more suspicious. Liliana took an out of context (I believe?) quote from Ozzy and started spreading it around trying to blindside Kimmi, but they ended up winning so nothing happened.

Liliana opted not to switch out of Kaikusi because some members were visibly annoyed that she was flipping (Sugar) and Liliana did not want to go into a merge situation after burning more relationships on the Kaikusi side.

Kimmi and Kelly both seemed to potentially be in danger in this tribe, as well as maybe Liliana as well. It would have been interesting to see what might have happened had they lost.

---

Looking forward, the Pirai alliance took another hit, losing Kim and Rupert in back to back rounds. It seems Sophie has a bounty on her head as the tides are quickly turning against her on the Waiwai tribe, especially with Sugar in the mix. Kaikusi is wide open waiting for someone to make a move, though

Also, there are only 4 partner pairs remaining in the game in Kimmi/Sophie, Kelly/Gabe, Liliana/Mookie and Flicka/Sugar.

Idol update: Liliana has it.

[Jeff Varner]

- Thu Nov 26, 2015 6:28:36 am #4009 Quick Round 8 Recap

Weird round. An immunity challenge filled with on- and off-site cheating resulted in a victory for Waiwai. Liliana misplayed her idol and Ozzy went home.

Waiwai:
Artis,Sugar,Gabe,Marissa,Mookie,Sophie,Shane with Flicka as the new member

After Rupert's quit, the anti-Pirai alliance was feeling frustrated as they weren't able to follow through with the blindside they have been planning for many days now, though they were happy that a Pirai member was voted out. A lot of people talking out of both sides of their mouth, telling one side one thing and the other side another thing, and they all lucked out that they didn't have to show their hand because they won immunity twice. I am pretty certain that Sophie would have been voted out by everyone minus herself and Shane, +/- Artis.

On the other side, the dominant Pirai+Shane alliance took a hit when Kim was voted out a few rounds ago, Rupert was removed and Flicka was swapped to the other side. While Flicka and Artis planned to flip on Sophie, the Pirai+Shane was left with only 3 members (Sophie, Shane, Artis) on this tribe in this round until Flicka returned. Waiwai won immunity so Sophie lives to see another day and the mighty Pirai+Shane alliance is hitting the merge with only 3 members, tied for the least in the game with the original Kaikusi and Waiwai. Meku, the tribe that went into the swap with only 4 members has come out of the swap with all 4 members.

Kaikusi:
David,Jenna,Kelly,Kimmi,Liliana,Ozzy,Flicka with Sugar as a new member.

Kim's parting shot at the cross-tribal alliance caused some distrust with Kelly for Kimmi. Kimmi was in neck deep and almost drowned but she was able to make good relationships with Liliana and some of the other members of the tribe. Liliana had previously tried to lead a coup against Kimmi and tried getting Ozzy on board. She also tried to get Kimmi on board with Ozzy, but the two told each other and planned to both string Liliana along and let her feel like she is some mastermind in the game, and then blindside her. Kelly was particularly discontented with the former Waiwais in Kaikusi after the cross-tribal alliance accusations. She had formed an alliance with Liliana and David earlier in the week along with her now long-time ally Jenna. When it was time to vote, it was between Ozzy, Kimmi and Liliana. Kelly decided she wasn't ready to vote out Liliana and preferred to send out one of the Waiwai duo and let Jenna know. Jenna agreed and decided to vote out Ozzy as Kim had told her that Ozzy was throwing her (Jenna) under the bus and wanted to vote her out, so she was quick to return that favor. Jenna told David of her decision and they agreed to boot Ozzy. David had already decided that he wasn't going to vote out Liliana, as he told her that it wasn't looking good and that she was going home. Meanwhile, Liliana was in her confessional bragging that her tribemates are dumb because they are making it obvious that she is going home by not talking to her and prematurely patting herself on the back. Ozzy ended up going home by a vote of 3-2-1-1 (Liliana, David, Jenna voting Ozzy; Kimmi, Ozzy voting Liliana; Kelly voting Kimmi; Sugar voting Jenna). Liliana wasted her idol, so the official vote ended up as 3-0-1-1.

props to Kim P. for having such an impact after her boot.

---

Looking forward, they have merged. I'll write a blog sometime this weekend assessing the game

Also, there are only 4 partner pairs remaining in the game in Kimmi/Sophie, Kelly/Gabe, Liliana/Mookie and Flicka/Sugar, while Ozzy/Diane were the first pair to both be eliminated from the game.

Idol update: used. no pre-merge idols in play.

[Jeff Varner]

- Sat Nov 28, 2015 6:40:00 am #4128 Merge Preview

I'll use this spot here to blog a little about each player left in the game. I was going to sort it by most likely to win but nobody really stood out to me which probably will lead to a pretty entertaining and unpredictable post-merge game. Instead, I guess I will sort them by game-influence and connections.

I'll generally talk about each pre-swap tribe and some of the storylines they faced in the past few rounds so I don't have to repeat it for each player. Feel free to skip this as it is basically a recap of the game so far for the tribes and move onto the player rankings.

Kaikusi: David,Liliana,Shane
Kaikusi was the only tribe to go into the swap with all 6 of their members, winning both challenges. Tribes got swapped and they were the only tribe that was really split up at the tribe division, having 3 members on each tribe which were easy minorities in both tribes when combined they had the most numbers - easy targets. Sandra, Diane and Sean all got knocked out during the swap. As for the others: Shane found a cozy home with the Pirai alliance on the new Waiwai alliance and formed the Pirai+Shane alliance which was strong until the last two rounds of the swap, but they won immunity both times so Shane was never in trouble there. David, on the other hand, was in a bit of trouble as he was at times the lone former-Kaikusi on a tribe of Mekus and Waiwais who needed an easy boot, though he managed to be too easy of a boot to where both alliances decided on other people every time. Liliana found herself in a similar spot as David in that she was the next boot a few rounds but swapped tribes with Mookie and was immune from the vote that way. She also found an idol and was able to form some bonds on the new-Kaikusi tribe after they were openly annoyed that she kept flipping tribes for immunity.

Meku: Jenna,Kelly,Marissa,Mookie
Meku went into the swap with th fewest members at the swap, being the only tribe to lose both pre-swap challenges. They lost inactive Jim and relatively inactive John in the first two rounds of the game. They managed to stay in tact through the swap and still have all 4 of their members and have gone into the merge as the pre-swap tribe with the most amount of members. Mookie was tasked with forming tribe divisions and put all of the Meku on the same tribe (Kaikusi). Liliana decided to join that tribe which prevented the Meku-4 from remaining together. Mookie, like Liliana, often found himself at the bottom of the new-Waiwai and swapped tribes with Liliana to get immunity that way. Jenna, Kelly and Marissa were on Kaikusi and were relatively comfortable there, forming alliances with members of the old-Waiwai and old-Kaikusi - Kelly probably moreso of the three. Marissa and Kim were randomly swapped in the first pair-swap so Marissa spent most of the post-swap in Waiwai where she re-upped an alliance she formed with Sophie when the tribes were dissolved. It wasn't as easy for Marissa, though, as the Pirai+Shane alliance were rolling through people who weren't in their alliance which caused Marissa to form an alliance with Gabe and Liliana/Mookie to fight for their lives together, though she was able to make it out alive.

Pirai: Artis,Flicka,Sophie
The Pirai tribe had all 5 of their remaining post-swap players on the same tribe post-swap (new-Waiwai), which would count for half of the tribe immediately. They were quickly able to reel in Shane who was aware of his position on the bottom of old-Kaikusi and suddenly they had a dominating 6 person alliance in a tribe of 10. They had their way with new-Waiwai until their image got seriously tarnished by players like Liliana and Mookie who trashed them at every turn when they swapped tribes. The formerly juggernaut of an alliance quickly grew a negative rep which led to Kim's ouster. When Rupert suddenly had to be removed from the game and Flicka swapped to the Kaikusi tribe, the formerly dominating alliance was down to three members with opposing players openly and hungrily foaming at the mouth to get a chance to eliminate Sophie, with even Flicka and Artis willing to flip and vote her out. Rupert's removal and some clutch immunity wins were able to save Sophie and allowed the Pirai alliance to stop the bleeding.

Waiwai: Gabe,Kimmi,Sugar
The Waiwai players were split up on their new tribes 4:1, with Kimmi, Ozzy, Kristina and Sugar on new-Kaikusi and Gabe on new-Waiwai alone. Gabe had a pretty turbulent stay on new-Waiwai. He was in the minority in back-to-back votes and was feeling incredibly vulnerable as the Pirai+Shane machine were ousting people out of their alliance left and right. It wasn't until Sean was booted out that Gabe saw the writing on the wall and formed an alliance with the bottom of the tribe to try and overthrow Sophie and take over the tribe. In new-Kaikusi, The Waiwais hooked up with the Mekus early in the swap to take out Sandra, though Kelly voted for Ozzy and pinned it on Kristina which successfully caused a quick crack in the alliance. That perceived betrayal as reason to boot Kristina next. Kimmi, Ozzy and Sugar were pretty comfortable on new-Kaikusi until Kim was voted out, where she blew up a cross-tribal alliance that Sophie and Marissa had formed that included Jenna and Kimmi. Kimmi took all of the heat for this alliance for her partnership with Sophie and suddenly Waiwai was seeing some heat. In the last tribal before the swap, the non-Waiwai in the new-Kaikusi tribe voted out Ozzy, leaving the former-Waiwai with only 3 members going into the merge.

---

Ok, now onto the good stuff - the players. Again, these are sorted by "probably in the best spot going into the merge" to "not loving their game here". Tribes separated as (pre-swap | post-swap).

1. Kelly: Meku | Kaikusi
   Kelly had a pretty strong tenure on the new Kaikusi tribe. She was able to form quick bonds with both members of the former Kaikusi and Waiwai tribes while solidifying bonds with her former Meku allies. She was able to pin a vote on Kristina which caused cracks in the Waiwai on Kaikusi alliance. She had good relations with Ozzy and Kimmi but was particularly tight with Sugar, and also had a good relationship with Liliana. As well, she was in good with her partner Gabe, having nightly chats about the game and about life. She also made a questionable but entertaining decision to "accidentally" call out Sophie in one of the immunity challenges, making her much more visible than they had been. She seems like she is able to make quick friends out of people and has shown that she has the strategic chops to think up plans and the guts to follow through which makes her a pretty dangerous player in this merge.
   
2. Gabe: Waiwai | Waiwai
   Gabe is in a pretty good spot going into this merge, I think. He is coming into this merge re-uniting with his former Waiwai buddies in Kimmi and Sugar, his partner Kelly and allies from new-Waiwai in Marissa, Liliana and Mookie. He also has decent relationships with players like Flicka, Artis and Sophie. He's basically in good with or fine with every player left in the game, it doesn't appear that anyone would be wanting to target him any time soon and as he proved in the final few rounds of new-Waiwai, he certainly has some chops to get some shit done. He had Sophie as good as gone if they had lost immunity. That could be his biggest worry is how hard he went after Sophie, if he faces any repercussions. He seems to have a great social game going on.
   
3. Flicka: Pirai | Waiwai (5 rounds) Kaikusi (1 round)
   Flicka comes into the merge as a member of the Pirai alliance but she showed a willingness to turn on Sophie which seemed to have gained her favor with the other players or at least took away some of the Pirai stink from her that was plaguing that alliance. She has options in this game with her former allies in Artis, Sophie and Shane, or other players who she seemed to form working relationships with in Kelly, Gabe, Mookie, Marissa and, begrudgingly, Liliana. She also has her partner Sugar still in the game and willing to work with her. Flicka's social game seems to be going pretty well and her strategic game has kept her out of trouble so far in the game but Flicka's biggest worry should be at what point does she become a threat based on her previous reputation (finding idols, etc.)
   
4. Marissa: Meku | Kaikusi (1 round) Waiwai (5 rounds)
   Marissa is a little bit hard to gauge here and I'm not totally sure why. I feel like she is a bit less active than the other players, or at least most of the other players that have as much influence-power as Marissa does. She has her former Meku allies. She has her cross-tribal alliance with Kimmi, Sophie and Jenna. She has a very tight alliance with Gabe and Liliana from when they were on the bottom of new-Waiwai and swore to each other that they would get out together and go far in the game together. Marissa has a lot of options, I just think that the only thing holding her back right now is that she isn't super active for a little bit of time then has to play catch up rather than being able to be proactive like she is able to be. If she had the activity level of the people above her on this list, she'd be #1 for sure.
   
5. Mookie: Meku | Waiwai (5 rounds) Kaikusi (1 round)
   Surprise of all surprises, Mookie is actually in a good position here. After making some boneheaded tribe divisions (and while they worked for him, are still boneheaded), he has found himself in a good spot with quite a few allies. He has his former Meku allies who are willing to work with him, some less so than others. He has his partner in Liliana who he worked with to swap tribes and attempt to overthrow Sophie. He has an ally in Gabe who was right there with he and Liliana trying to make a move on Sophie. He has Sugar, Kimmi and Shane all of whom he seems to be getting along great with. He has Flicka and Artis who at least have some kind of relationship to where they were ready to work with him to take out Sophie. Maybe it is because people are underestimating him but Mookie has found himself in a solid place here at the merge.
   
6. Kimmi: Waiwai| Kaikusi
   If I made something like this before the swap, Kimmi would have been in the #1 position. She made a questionable decision of partnering up with Sophie which has caught up to her and is now causing her some issues and probably cost her an ally in Ozzy as a result of the cross-tribal alliance rumors. Kimmi seems to have workable relationships with players like Kelly and Liliana now that her Waiwai-duo with Ozzy is broken up. She has her former Waiwai buddies in Gabe and Sugar who like her, as does Mookie. She is involved in that cross-tribal alliance with Marissa, Sophie and Jenna, all of whom seem to have good things to say about her. After just getting blindsided and, at the time of this writing, does not know who voted who, she should be a little humbled and work from the bottom up, which she certainly has the ability to do.
   
7. Sugar: Waiwai | Kaikusi (5 rounds) Waiwai (1 round)
   Sugar is in a really interesting spot here. I kind of feel like she has been holding back strategically so I think she will prove to be underrated here in this spot. I think that a lot of people don't know Sugar's reputation and she has played super low-key so far in this game, but unsurprisingly has a great social game going on. She has her former Waiwai buddies in Gabe and Kimmi that she is closely aligned with. She is also closely aligned with Kelly and has a good thing going on with Mookie. I'm also pretty sure she is in good with Liliana and Marissa. She also has her partner, Flicka, still in the game. She openly and publicly went after Sophie but it doesn't seem like she has faced any repercussions for it. She seems like she is in good with everyone (that she wants to be). I just am not sure how great of influence she has to be a shot caller. I feel like she could be, she just hasn't shown it yet so I think #7 is fair.
   
8. Liliana: Kaikusi | Kaikusi (5 rounds) Waiwai (1 round)
   I don't love Liliana's position in this game but she more so than the others below her on this list has the ability to change shit up like she was able to do on new-Waiwai. She went in like a wrecking ball, tore shit up then left the mess for Mookie. She did a lot of damage in her 1 round in new-Waiwai that it feels like she spent more time there. She has a few allies in this game, particularly her partner Mookie, David, Gabe, Marissa, Kelly and Jenna. She also has a workable relationship, it seems, with Kimmi, Sugar, Flicka and Artis. She has relationships there, it is just a matter of if she can slow down. She is playing hard and fast and the other players are aware of it. I think she is playing too fast that I don't think she will last much longer if she keeps it up.
   
9. Sophie: Pirai | Waiwai
   Sophie really should be much higher on this list however she for some reason became public enemy #1 and every jumped on board except for Shane and maybe Marissa. Her Pirai+Shane alliance lost 2 members in 24 hours and she was taking a lot of heat from players like Liliana, Mookie and Gabe, as well as players from the other tribe such as Kelly and Sugar. Her own allies in Flicka and Artis were ready to vote her out pre-merge. As good as Sophie is at influencing people, I just don't see her lasting more than a couple rounds here in the merge. She has a lot of work to do but more than the people below her on this list, she definitely has the ability to do it -- it's possible but I think unlikely.
   
10. Jenna: Meku | Kaikusi
    Jenna is an interesting one as well because she has a bunch of connections but she hasn't done a whole lot to prove she isn't just a follower. She wrote in her confessional recently that she has a wide open playing field with loads of options and she is ready to make a move, however until she proves she is able to do it I can't believe it until I see it. She has a bunch of relationships with her former Meku allies, Kimmi, Sugar, Liliana and David. She probably is in a good position because I don't think anyone is going to go after Jenna in the next few rounds, I just fear that she will either be dragged along and kicked near the end or end up in the end with no votes, or she will try to play hard and get snuffed. I like her spot, I just don't love what I think she'll do with it. I hope she does well, but I'm not seeing a winner at this point in the game.
    
11. Shane: Kaikusi | Waiwai
    Shane was at the bottom of former-Kaikusi and was able to jump to the top of new-Waiwai with the Pirai alliance. He attached himself to their boat and rode them through the swap. He wrote in his confessional that he is willing to boot Sophie after the merge and that he is just using her to get to the merge. It doesn't look like he has a whole lot of allies at this point but his willingness to jump ship on the Pirai alliance is encouraging for his options later in the game. I just feel as though at this point he will become a swing vote when the anti-Pirai alliance turns on itself which will likely happen sooner rather than later, or as an extra number for someone. I'm not sure I've seen much from Shane to say that he will be able to control the game but I hope that changes because it would be entertaining to see. I think he definitely has the potential to surprise but until he does, I don't think I can rank him much higher.
    
12. Artis: Pirai | Waiwai
    Artis is all about the numbers. He has a few relationships with players like Sophie, Shane, Flicka, Mookie and Gabe but I'm not sure he has as many as he should at this point in the game. He has been getting better at forming bonds with people and he is significantly better than he was in Nepal (so I hear), which is good to see and hopefully he continues to improve. He has shown a willingness to adapt and follow the numbers but I just don't see the initiative in him to put him much higher in the list, nor do I see him controlling a vote or making a move. He seems like he'll be an extra vote and maybe even a swing vote but I don't see him doing much more than that. I'd like to, but I don't think it'll happen.
    
13. David: Kaikusi | Kaikusi
    Sorry David but someone had to be last. I really did not like David's position in new-Kaikusi at all. He was always the next boot waiting to happen, it just never happened. I think that David has found a comfortable new spot alongside Liliana because he can use Liliana as a shield but I don't really love his position outside of that. He has been making progress with people and making relationships but I just feel like he does a worse job than Artis in that regard, which is saying something. He seems like a player who when the tides begin to turn against him, he just goes "oh well" instead of doing anything about it, like almost losing Liliana in the last vote before the merge. He also didn't even bother trying to make relationships through Rupert while Rupert was his partner.

I prefer the "they are in trouble but I know they have the ability to get themselves out of it" to the "barely there but not in trouble right now", hence why possible merge boots Sophie and Liliana are above some people who are not going home Sunday.

[Jeff Varner]

- Mon Nov 30, 2015 5:38:01 am #4630 Quick Round 9 Recap

Thanksgiving break gave the players an extra day to get to know their new tribemates of the merged tribes. Sophie grabbed the public idol at the beginning of the immunity challenge that Kelly won.

Saramaka:
Artis, David, Flicka, Gabe, Jenna, Kelly, Kimmi, Liliana, Marissa, Mookie, Shane, Sophie, Sugar
The extra time to mingle allowed for some voting lines to develop, though some are much clearer than others. It appears that the tribe has broken into a anti-Sophie, pro-Lil faction (aka Team Liliana) that includes Liliana, David, Sugar, Flicka, Artis, Mookie and Kelly with the pro-Sophie (aka Team Sophie) group consisting of Marissa, Gabe, Kimmi, Kelly, Jenna, Flicka, Shane and Artis. From this breakdown (straight from Kelly's confessional) Kelly, Flicka and Artis are in both groups, as well as Jenna, Kimmi and Shane not being solidly on either side. The lines are really fuzzy with everyone trying to play both sides to sap intel and share it with everyone else. The vote is planned to be between Sophie, pushed by Liliana and her crew, and David, pushed by Sophie and her crew.

Immunity challenge comes and a public idol is announced. Sophie claims the idol. Kelly is the first one to complete the maze so she wins the immunity challenge, and plans suddenly need to change. The group that was planning to boot Sophie then wanted to split the votes between Sophie and Kimmi to ensure Sophie plays the idol on herself and loses one of her numbers. They intended to have there be 4 votes on Kimmi and 4 votes on Sophie, which accounts for 8 of 13 votes in the game, with 5 unaccounted for votes presumably going on David which was probably overlooked in the plan. Sophie was then not a target because of her idol but then people started to claim to be voting for her again, calling her bluff with a split vote.

A hectic final 30 minutes before tribal council were filled with plan changes, lies and begging pleas to be let in on the plan. The tribal council was pretty tense and ended up with a tie vote between Kimmi and David, with votes going to Sophie and Shane as well in a 5-5-2-1 vote (Artis, Gabe, Kimmi, Marissa, Sophie voting David; Kelly, Liliana, Mookie, Shane, Sugar voting Kimmi; David, Flicka voting Sophie; Jenna voting Shane). Sophie made the right call in not using her idol, only taking 2 votes.

Between the re-voting period, Jenna got upset that people lied to her and announced that sweet Jenna is gone and "insane trainwreck" Jenna is here. Shane also got annoyed and threatened that season 2 Shane was here to play. Hopefully they stick to their word and cause a ruckus. Also, Liliana called out Flicka and Artis when Flicka was actually one of the people voting with her, putting an even bigger target on her back.

After a re-vote, Flicka changed her vote from Sophie to Kimmi, Jenna changed her vote from Shane to David and Shane and Mookie both changed their votes from David to Kimmi, as David was voted out in a 7-4 vote (Artis, Gabe, Marissa, Sophie, Mookie, Shane, Jenna voting David; Liliana, Kelly, Sugar, Flicka voting Kimmi).

Important note: David changed his vote from Kimmi to Sophie 19 seconds before the deadline, causing the vote to change from Kimmi leaving 6-5-1-1 to a tie 5-5-2-1 vote, causing a re-vote that sent David home.

Sorry David, but the merge starting off with someone effectively Tysoning themselves in a crazy first tribal council is a great first step into what I think and hope and pray will be a complete trainwreck of a rest of the season.

---

Looking forward, I have no idea. I really don't. I hope it is absolute bedlam.

Idol update: Sophie still has the public idol.

Go read the tribal council, it's worth it: http://strandedgaming.com/suriname/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=177

[Jeff Varner]

- Tue Dec 01, 2015 5:58:28 am #5080 Quick Round 10 Recap

The round started off with a bang with Shane's call out thread but teetered off pretty quickly. Sophie and Kimmi won immunity. Liliana went home.

Saramaka:
Artis, Flicka, Gabe, Jenna, Kelly, Kimmi, Liliana, Marissa, Mookie, Shane, Sophie, Sugar
During last night's tribal council, Liliana called out Flicka for flipping when Flicka did not actually flip. This made an already shakey relationship between the two extra tense. Seemingly everyone claimed to vote out David to appear to have voted with the majority, and it was really unclear to most people who voted how.

Shane decided to take to the Camp forum where he did a public callout, calling out Liliana and Sophie. His plan was to take out the big threats, starting with Liliana. With allies starting to switch sides due to her outburst at tribal council and because she lost the numbers, it seemed most people from the previous Team Liliana flocked to Shane and were ready to vote out Liliana. Jenna, in particular, cozied up to Shane and the two of them seem to have formed a surprisingly quick bond in this game.

Liliana made plans to try to get rid of Artis because he admitted to voting out David, betraying the team. She ultimately decided to try and get people to vote Shane for his volatility and call out thread. Meanwhile, the Meku alliance (minus Marissa) decided to vote out Artis to make sure Sophie didn't play her idol on Liliana and cause some funny business.

Tribal council wasn't nearly as eventful as yesterday's, with the probably most exciting thing being Sugar calling out inactives in a thread where they aren't there to read it, and then voted for Marissa. The tribal council also had a few last minute pleas from Liliana that went unheard as she was voted out by a vote of 7-3-1-1 (Artis, Flicka, Gabe, Kimmi, Marissa, Shane, Sophie voting Liliana; Jenna, Kelly, Mookie voting Artis; Liliana voted Shane; Sugar voted Marissa)

---

Looking forward, one of "the big two" were voted out which means Sophie should be the next target but her public immunity idol will probably keep her in the game. Flicka and Artis seem to have gotten their names thrown around in the previous round. Mookie was Lil's partner, so it will be interesting to see him play without always being assumed to be "with Liliana".

Interesting note: Shane, the intended first boot of the pre-merge tribe Kaikusi, is the last member of Kaikusi remaining.

Idol update: Sophie still has the public idol.