As the immediacy of a $2 million vote hastens, the post-merge world is beginning to fracture. Long-held alliances and metastrategies have run their course, having delivered their disciples to the final ten. Each player can now visualize a path to Final Tribal and the votes needed to win it. The horses of this race are eyeing the tracks they'd like to gallop to the finish line.
Standings
MoonBee - 83 points
Sophie - 21
Ben - 15
Ben & Michal - 69 points
Sarah - 17
Nick - 12
Tony - 10
Baggins - 66 points
Sophie - 21
Tyson - 9
Tony - 10
Doug - 61 points
Jeremy - 14
Nick - 12
Denise - 20
Phil - 60 points
Jeremy - 14
Sarah - 17
Michele - 19
Eric - 42 points
Tyson - 9
Ben - 15
Power Rankings
6. Eric
Tyson has wormed his way back into the game. He's taken advantage of the post-merge chaos - and generated much of it - to carve out a niche of safety. His safe standing is only temporary, but Tyson does have a clearer path to victory than many of his opponents. With everyone making the jury, an old-school survivor could garner many delegates at Final Tribal. By then, Tyson may have expanded his coalition to the New School. He's one of the GOATs, he's got a new lease on life and he's building steam.
5. MoonBee
Ouch. The big decision to square Adam finally came back to bite me. The worst part is that I insisted on taking him over Tyson and had already counted my chickens on that one. Now Tyson is amongst the favorites with ten remaining and Adam is hopelessly serving out his days on the Edge.
The fact is we never had much of a team. Variance and timing dangled fruits of glory in front of our noses. But it was just the hope of a lousy poker player with an early big stack. Wendell nor Adam ever established any traction. Both came in too hot. Neither ever tasted a slice of humble pie. They spent their whole seasons teetering like those in this week's Immunity Challenge before inevitably splashing into the ocean.
4. Doug
Nick's desperation is obvious. You know someone is desperate when they plead at Tribal for everyone else to play the game. All that means is nobody is playing with you. This one came off particularly pathetic because we'd just seen a wild ten-minute edit of everyone playing the game. Playing hard. Nick is a survivor in every sense of the word. It wouldn't be surprising to see him navigate his way to the end like a Frogger player. But it would be to see many people vote him worthy of a second title.
3. Ben & Michal
The edges are fraying for Sarah. Everyone was suspicious of her game coming in. While it appeared to be a completely benevolent gesture, gifting her Chinese to Nick sounded an Amber Alert for Sarah's competitors. She instantly drew heat, and the Next Time On shows it's only gonna get hotter. A few days ago, Sarah seemed like someone who could lead a three-player "inner alliance" to Final Tribal; now it's hard to imagine many players willing to take her that far.
2. Phil
I'm not actually beating myself up for taking a second Adam over Tyson. That made sense strategically. But I am wondering what the hell we were thinking in taking Wendell over Jeremy. Dammit, I didn't even like Wendell originally. And Jeremy is one of my all-time favorite players, a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer, and a contender for true GOAT. He's playing his usual flawless, passionate, determined game. He's winning friends and influencing people. He's outwitting, outplaying and outlasting. Beast.
1. Baggins
I just texted Bag asking if he's caught up on Survivor. He didn't even know how many episodes behind he was. He couldn't remember if he'd seen the Merge yet. I imagine he gave up on his team a month ago. Imagine his shock if he loaded up this blog and saw his name atop the Power Rankings.
Bag's team continues to bolster. I talked about Tyson's renaissance. With Sarah slipping, Sophie is now the chip leader. But this was an especially encouraging episode for Tony. He hasn't called many shots or even made many "Tony" moves other than one pointless trip to the Spy Shack. Mostly he just talks about keeping Big Threats together and then votes for whoever Kim and/or Jeremy tell him to. But he's starting to shift gears. Tony hasn't exhibited a winner's persona this season, but he could easily make Final Tribal.
2 comments:
Jeremy and Sophie are looking particularly strong. Not too strong. Just enough strong for this season. Too much puts you in danger.
I think Nick, Tony, and Sarah are all slippin and are in danger of getting votes this next tribal. I don't see a scenario where both Tony and Sarah make it to the end, Cops-R-Us alliance or not.
We are all kicking ourselves for not drafting Kim! She's doing great. I can't specifically remember my own reasons for not wanting her beyond her not really being aligned with anyone early. Now that is paying off in spades for her.
Shock is right. I didn't fall behind because I soured on my team, though I did think I was out of it. I enjoyed all the episodes I just caught up on. It's shaping up to be a wild finish!
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