Tuesday, March 21, 2017

Game Changes: Episode 2

Not a lot of time for commentary on this week's blog. See below for updated scores, power rankings, and opinion. Also the spreadsheet link should now be correct. Cheers!


The Teams:

Doug & Bri "Original Manbun" - 30 points
  1. Malcolm (5 pts)
  2. Zeke (9 pts)
  3. Aubrey (5 pts)
  4. Jeff (5 pts)
  5. Sierra (6 pts)
Baggadocious "Legends of the Fall" - 27 points
  1. JT (11 pts)
  2. [Tony (-4 pts)]
  3. Ozzy (9 pts)
  4. Sandra (5 pts)
  5. Debbie (6 pts)
Michal & Ben "Try Harder" - 26 points
  1. Tai (6 pts)
  2. [Caleb (-3 pts)]
  3. Sarah (9 pts)
  4. Troyzan (8 pts)
  5. Brad (6 pts)
MoonBee "Steel Magnolias" - 17 points
  1. Michaela (5 pts)
  2. Cirie (8 pts)
  3. Andrea (9 pts)
  4. [Ciera (-5 pts)]
  5. Hali (0 pts)

Power Rankings:

1. Original Manbun:  I don't think this episode could have gone better for this team if they'd scripted it themselves. The shift in tribes worked out great for this team, they crushed the challenge, and they earned massive sympathy points for not killing & eating a mom & baby goat. That was a super intense few minutes - Ben & I were about to hate that tribe hard if they'd decided to eat that baby!

2. Try Harder: Hopefully sacrificing Caleb will keep Tai around for longer, but I'm not convinced this was a great decision. Now Tai looks like he'll backstab anyone to get farther in the game, which isn't a huge trust-building situation. Thank goodness Troyzan got that idol! I thought he was going to wuss out & leave it behind in the challenge. And Brad is proving to be much more soft-spoken & easier to work with than anyone could have expected. Our dreg picks are looking stronger than our top tier for the moment.

4. Legends of the Fall: JT & Ozzy are both interested in making moves, though JT's move of abandoning his tribe on a fishing trip was clearly too obvious for this smarty-pants season. Still, I respect their decisions so far & they're much more in control than I expected they would be. Sandra is still a walking target, though... she's crafty & resourceful, but if she goes, it'll be tough to bounce back from being down 2 players this early.

3.Steel Magnolias: As Ben noted in comments from last week, this team will struggle to earn challenge points over the course of the season. Michaela should do well, but the others will be low producers. I'm interested to see how Cirie's new situation plays out, she has to be in a better spot than she was before. We shall see!


Douche of the Week:
Is it just me or is no one particularly douchey this season? Should we shelve the DOW this season? Tony was going to be a contender but now he's gone & Ben's got his Varner DOW lock in place, but overall it's a weak field when it comes to douchiness.

If I have to vote, it'll be JT for DOW for his weird fishing scheme. And then my other vote is to discontinue DOW until next season.

6 comments:

Doug said...

Totally agree about this episode crushing for us. Not sure why it happened, but happy it did. Survivor gods must be rewarding my recent sacrifices... Malcolm is looking good and representing the man bun well.

Totally disagree about this season not being a good season for DOW. Sandra gets my vote for this episode. She was the only one on the "Let's eat the goats" side at the end AND she wasn't even willing to kill them to do it. She wanted someone else to do the dirty work, which is probably a direct window to her normal Survivor game plan. Unfortunately, I don't think people this season will allow her to try that for long. The showdown with her and JT looks to be an interesting one for the next episode. Especially, with Malcolm in the middle (not meant to be a reference to a fairly good comedy from back in the day, but I'll take it.)

I believe Ben and Snaders piled-on to the Michaela prop bet at the end. At least that's what Zack was texting me. I think the bet was a drink, so I would have a 1 drink bet with all three of them based on Michaela's points performance vs. 3 of my team member's. I bring this up because I'm confident in that bet and don't see why Michaela is looked at as so strong. Especially in a season of all-stars. Only time will tell.

Digging this season so far. I think it has lots of potential and really interesting players.

TheGraveWolf said...

Yeah, I'm with Doug. Let's keep DoW. And my vote also goes to Sandra. You want to eat the goats but not do the deed. Douche! Varner can sit this week out. I would have hated everyone on that tribe if they killed Mama or baby. The screaming of the mama and baby was too much.

I looked over my group texts with Doug and Bri and it looks like I was interested in the bet but I don't see if we actually booked it. I'm not interested in it at this point but if I'm already locked in I'm good with that. Maybe check texts with Sanders? In fact, in the texts I said I disliked Michaela as the #1 pick. Way too high.

JT is a goner. No way he survives to the merge unless that tribe wins out or he actually finds the idol.

Definitely bummed about Caleb but really liking Brad's edit so far. Looks like he might be making a deep run this season.

Doug said...

I won't hold Ben to the prob bet since I was only texting with Snaders.

Here are the applicable texts for reference:

Doug: I have a bet for moon too. i bet 3 of my team members score equal to, or more than michaela, - 1 drink

Snaders: Will you go your bet vs tom 3x? Ben And I want action too

Doug: Everyone likes the michaela pick huh?

Snaders: Apparently. Tom will take it if you only want 1x

Doug: Is Tom in regardless? Nm

Snaders: Yeah

Doug: I'll take 3x

Snaders: K

TheGraveWolf said...

OK, based on those texts I'm in.

GnightMoon said...

Sandra DoW.

Brad continues to impress, as does Original Manbun. None of the teams inspire confidence except for them.

Players who have clearly improved:
Brad
Malcolm
Debbie
Troyzan


Players who have probably improved:
Sierra
Jeff
Aubry
Ozzy
Sarah
Michaela
Andrea
Hali

Players who have stayed the same:
Cirie
Ciera
Tai
Caleb


Players who have clearly regressed:
Tony
JT
Sandra
(All are on Baggadocious)

Doug said...

And all the players on Moon's regressed list are the former winners.