Survivor 30: Draft, Episode 3 & Welcome Blogmaster Doug!

I have found myself suddenly quite busy in my life, and while I will always have time to watch Survivor & participate in the Survivor pool, I sadly do not have time to maintain the scoring & blog to go with it this season. I have managed the Survivor pool since 2008 -- at least from what I can tell. I've manned the helm through 2 different blogs (this one and www.punkypickett.blogspot.com) and 13 previous seasons of glorious Survivor pool action. But fear not! I'm considering this a sabbatical only, and I have an absolutely stellar interim blogmaster & pool manager stepping in this season. Welcome Doug! Doug has long been my go-to guy with rule & point-scoring questions, and is an avid fan of both Survivor & reality show pools.

So I'll kick this season off, and then Doug will be taking it from there. I believe that Doug is also interested in getting some guest bloggers to help this season, so please let him know if you'd like to pitch in this season too!

The Draft & Teams:
(Parentheses indicate order players were picked)

AndBag - 15 points

1. Max (2) - 3 pts
2. Carolyn (7) - 3 pts
3. Lindsey (10) - 4 pts
4. Mike (15) - 5 pts

Michal & Ben: "Jennicide" - 11 points

1. Shirin (4) - 3 pts
2. Jenn (5) - 0 pts
3. Joaquin (11) - 3 pts
4. Dan (14) - 5 pts

Moon & Melissa - 10 points

1. Joe (1) - 0 pts
2. Kelly (8) - 5 pts
3. Will (12) - 0 pts
4. Sierra (13) - 5 pts

Doug & Bri: "Jacked for a Reason, Bro" - 3 points

1. Tyler (3) - 3 pts
2. Hali (6) - 0 pts
3. Rodney (9) - 5 pts
4. [Nina (16) - -5 pts]

Michal's Power Rankings:

1. Jacked for a Reason -They lost their dreg right away which is good & the rest of this team just seems really solid! Tyler was my #1 pick, honestly, and he's looking really favorable as everyone under the sun seems to want to confide in him. He also seems like he'll be really good at keeping his alliances fluid. Hali & Rodney round this team out to make for a physically strong & mentally decent (I'm excluding Rodney from the mental part) team. Plus all three of these players are currently in majority alliances, so it's unlikely they'll lose any more players any time soon.
2. AndBag - Bag & Andrea shocked us all by putting together a really good team as well. I think that Tyler is stronger than Max, and have concerns about Carolyn getting blindsided early since Tyler knows about her idol. But overall, a really good team! Lots of potential from the top 3 picks, and their dreg Mike may not last much longer, but is likely to pull in some good challenge points until he's sent packing.
3. Moon & Melissa - Joe is a strong pick, but he's proving that he's not the greatest leader. And I think he made a mistake in this last episode voting out Nina before Will. They already know that Will is untrustworthy & not good in challenges and they kept him anyway. Nina was annoying, but unproven in challenges & Joe was doing good work building up trust with her. Apart from Joe, though, this team is mediocre at best. Kelly seems as interesting & involved in strategy as a piece of wood. Will is on the chopping block if the No Collar team loses again... which seems likely since as a group they are definitely physically inferior to the other tribes. Sierra do okay, but at best she'll be a coattail rider in this game and I don't see her bringing in a lot of points.
4. Jennicide - So Shirin did turn out to be a bad pick, but Joaquin is definitely looking better than most people thought. However, that is a small consolation for what is otherwise a pretty crappy team. Jenn is our best hope as an actual contender. Dan could be one of those guys who's so annoying that real strategists will bring him along because they know they can beat him at final tribal. But he needs to at least make it to the merge before that sort of value is noted. Ultimately our team is hoping for a few more No Collar losses since all the rest of our players are currently on the chopping block. Hopefully given a little more time they'll be able to pull themselves up out of the muck.

Douche of the Week:

I'm gonna go with Rodney for being a drama queen brat about firewood, although Mike was certainly a close 2nd.