tournament Survivor: ATRL Edition (Season 12) | WINNER REVEALED!

[Rotunda]

17 minutes ago, Element said:

FINAL CHALLENGE RANKINGS

(MERGE CONTESTANTS)

1. Rotunda - 9.01
2. Opulent - 8.91
3. Anvarie - 8.81
4. Golden Hour - 8.06
5. Acetone - 8.00
6. khalyan - 7.87
7. Samsom - 7.80
8. Kayseri Mantisi - 7.60
9. Red Light - 7.56
10. fais_2311 - 7.48
11. Ampersand13 - 7.47
12. beatinglikeadrum - 7.45
13. VenusFlyTrap - 6.38

Whew I was holding on to the 9s for dear life

[rl231]

Interview Questions

@Marvin @Golden Hour @Samsom @VenusFlyTrap @Ampersand13 @Kayseri Mantisi @beatinglikeadrum @fais_2311 @khalyan @Opulent @Anvarie

 

@Acetone @Red Light @Rotunda have poured their hearts into these questions, and the answers are below! Jury, please ask your questions to the Final 3 by Friday, March 25th at 3 PM EDT. DO NOT SEND VOTES UNTIL WE SAY THAT VOTING IS OPEN (WHICH IS ON 3/26 at 8 PM EDT)!!!!!!!!!

 

Did you have a strategy coming in here or no?

Spoiler

ACETONE

I had a loose strategy coming in. My motto was “as long as it ain’t me,” as Queen Sandra says. I also wanted to stay flexible as I didn’t know what cards I would be dealt and knew I would need to adapt accordingly. I also knew that I needed to get into an alliance ASAP to avoid being the odd one out first boot, and I did so by forming a majority alliance on my starting tribe of me, Venus, Opulent, Golden Hour, and Eros. I also was open to playing multiple sides. My strong suits were my social game and my strategic game. I wanted to make sure that I was well insulated and that if votes were to come for my side, others in my alliance would be targeted and get votes before me. I knew khalyan and Rotunda were the power players from OG Baltoro who had control of the game so I cozied up to both of them as they were calling the shots on their side. When it came time to vote, on multiple occasions it was Opulent and Red Light getting votes from the OG Baltoro alliance and not me. I ended up being super loyal to Opulent and Venus and Red Light though which surprised me as I had planned to have an anyone but me approach.

 

RED LIGHT

I had more than one strategy I tended to lean on throughout the course of the game, and I’m sure I’ll hopefully get through all of them during the interview, but the starting point for me that I founded all my other strategy on was in playing dumb. 

 

This was a strategy that was actually premeditated as far back as last year, believe it or not. When ATRL Survivor 11 was casting, I actually filled out an application, but never submitted it, because at the time I was committed to a daily Survivor binge-watching project with two friends on Discord, and I thought it better to apply for season 12 with complete knowledge of the whole series. There would be threads—for instance the Parvati divorce thread or the 41 discussion thread—that I wanted to participate in, but I didn't because I knew I would want to play dumb about the show when ATRL Survivor 12 came around. 

 

I initially planned to act totally ignorant as to how to the show or the game worked at all. I wanted to basically be picked up as a pawn by the more threatening players, and then turn on them when the time was right. That gave me no room to behave in any other manner, though, so I changed the story to, “I just started watching Survivor but I’m still in the early seasons.” (There’s evidence of this in the first few pages of the thread.) That way there was also plausibility if I suddenly needed to spring into action and direct a specific vote, or be proactive about forming an alliance, or something along those lines. 

 

And it’s a good thing that I did, because immediately on Puanu I found myself, strategically, in a leadership position (players may be surprised to hear this for a number of reasons, which I’ll address later on). I orchestrated the Bethenny and Walley votes, and then idoled Armani out.

 

After that, the swap happened, and I was focused on lowering my threat level back down and flying under the radar. On Baltoro 2.0, I was more of a worker bee. I had started to get the hang of, “Oh, THIS is how you find the right songs,” and would search hours and hours, posting songs in the channel and giving feedback on other songs that were posted. (As did everyone else, to their credit.) I always wanted to make sure that enough good contenders were posted in the channel, so that if we were caught in a bind, anybody who hadn’t submitted a song, and needed to hurry in a submission, could just pick from one of the choices I’d compiled. (I remember, for instance, posting Bjork’s Aurora as a contender for the winter songs challenge, but we decided the lyrics weren’t sad enough and nobody used it. That was a big miss.)

 

Then, at the merge, things got really dire. I was so outnumbered that I could never get enough leverage to pull myself out of the bottom. Every vote felt like a toss-up, not only because we could have been discarded at any time, but because of the landmine of advantages. I started playing vote-by-vote because the game was too unpredictable and I didn’t have enough control to plan for anything long-term, so it very much became a Sandra Diaz-Twine game of accommodating a majority alliance’s wishes and being down for any elimination that wasn’t myself. 

 

Like I said, there were multiple layers to my strategy, but I’ll hopefully get to the rest later.

 

ROTUNDA

Coming into this season, I knew that I would need to play an active game in order to take home the crown. I knew that I wanted to have a big impact and didn’t want to let any opportunity pass me by.

 I decided that it would be wise to start my game working to get on everyone’s good side, and then later make some big moves when the time was right. In essence, I tried to play like a hero during the pre-merge, and like a villain during the post-merge.

 

 From the second I got into the server, I tried to have conversations with as many people as possible, and even tried giving advice to any of the players who were new to Survivor or Discord. Red Light even thanked me for giving them advice about how to play the game during the premiere. During the pre-merge of the game, me and @dweebz emerged as tribe leaders on Baltoro, taking it upon ourselves to double check every song submission and make sure that everyone sent in good entries. I even devoted hours to coming up with backup plans for other competitors. This work not only helped Baltoro win all of our pre-swap immunities, but also helped me position myself as a challenge threat, as I spent most of the season on top of the leaderboard for challenges. While I was less successful on my swap tribe, I still worked on being a team player and often gave away good songs, including a perfect 10 entry that I gave to @fais_2311, and developed a close bond with Samsom. This set me up as someone that others believed they could depend on in the jury phase.

 

By the time the merge hit, I had already established myself as a loyal and strong competitor. Beyond that, unbeknownst to most of the cast, I had also gotten good at finding items. I found an idol through the Saweetie Cryptogram challenge, an idol decoder that helped me tell the difference between fake idols and real idols, and also received a half idol through the gift challenge and found out that my close ally @Samsom had the other half.  Even though most people didn’t know about all my advantages, they definitely knew I was playing a good game as evidenced by the fact that the tribe voted me Person Who You Most Trust With Your Life, Funniest, and Most Likely To Win The Game during the Majority Rules immunity challenge. I also had a good social game as evidenced by the fact that people pegged me and @AnvarieAND me and Fais as being the tightest pairs.

 

After that challenge, I realized that I had developed all the goodwill I needed to and began plotting. I knew that players like @khalyanand Fais were sharp strategic minds, and they would eventually want to turn on me, so I decided to work with members of Glazov and Puanu to turn on them first. I knew that Opulent needed me around as a shield so that they weren’t the only big threat in the game. I also knew that Acetone and Red Light were more passive players who didn’t really try to instigate big moves (which is proven by the fact that they never made a strong push against me even though I was labeled the biggest threat at F9). While in an ideal world it would have been nice to just ride to the end with all the Baltoro players, I had to be smart, and go with people who I knew weren’t going to put up as much of a fight (Red Light and Acetone). In order to make this plan work, I had to take an immense risk and go to rocks at Final 8, which ended up being successful, and allowed me to eventually take out Fais, Khalyan (after a clutch challenge win), and Anvarie (after another dominant challenge win).

 

I didn’t want to be the captain that ends up being thrown overboard, so I decided to lead my own mutiny. I understand that some of you may feel burned by me or feel as though I should have taken you all to the end, but it is precisely because I understood just how hard y’all were fighting in this game that I had to ( @Kayseri Mantisi @Opulent Khalyan and Anvarie) 

 

 

What were your initial thoughts coming into this game?

Spoiler

ACETONE

I was intimidated that there was such a large cast, and prepped myself that it wasn’t likely that I would make it very far with so many in the cast. I cringed at being placed on the Affluent tribe and thought that would hurt my game. I thought that it would be hard to win if people judged me based off of my “affluent” division, but luckily that theme kind of faded away into the background by the first couple of rounds and wasn’t really a factor in people being targeted.

 

RED LIGHT

I remember being surprised at the slow pace in the first few days, and also how few of the players were actually fans of Survivor. Before the tribes were ever formed I was DMing with random people trying to plant seeds of connection for if I needed them in the future, which actually ended up being super beneficial to me, because two of those players were Fais and Rotunda. I also was disappointed that there was pretty much no tribe bonding/chit-chat in the Puanu channel (even less in Baltoro 2.0, which talked exclusively about challenges), because that made it much harder to gain peoples trust and get them to like me in an organic way. I asked one question to the tribe the first night (what job they put on their application to end up on the Artists’ tribe) and received kind of a tepid response, but it helped me build the alliance that carried me to the swap. If there had been more socializing in general, I feel like I could have done even better. But I couldn't be the one always initiating conversation, especially trying to manage my threat level.

 

Also, if there was anything that really threw a wrench in my game besides sucking ass at challenges, it was the fact that players could publicly rant after they got voted out and put a big fat target on whoever lied to them. When I realized it worked like that, it was like the giant castle of my potential/imagined game totally collapsed, and I had to rebuild with rocks and twigs. It made any elimination infinitely more complicated. For instance, in the round that I played my idol, the original plan was a 3-2-1 vote (technically it was), but the player we were eliminating thought I was close to them, so I was supposed to intentionally be part of the 2 instead of the 3—that way, if they called me out, I could say I didn’t vote for them. I was always looking for little loopholes to come out of the votes unscathed.

 

ROTUNDA

I thought that I’d have a real uphill battle to climb as a returning player, especially considering the fact that Bethenny Frankel was the first boot. Because of this, I knew that it was paramount that I make a good impression on people during the early phases of the game to prove that I’m someone they should keep around. My ability to be one of the few returnees to thrive in this game shows how I was successful.

 

 

How did you think you'd place at the start of the season? Did you expect to make it to the Final Tribal Council?

Spoiler

ACETONE

I did not think that I would do very well since I am fairly new to ATRL and there are some more veteran members on the cast with pre-existing bonds. I honestly thought I would be a pre-merge boot since I didn’t really have any connections (I attempted to start an alliance with people that also played in the game Represent hosted by TruGemini though) and others most likely did. I am pleasantly surprised that I made it to the Final Tribal Council. I realized it was actually attainable mid jury but I had to put in a lot of work and I am incredibly lucky to have actually made it to the FTC.

 

 

RED LIGHT

So, I want to get a little personal here, because this ended up being a running gag in my confessionals and, if this was real Survivor, would probably be my character arc (if they gave me one). 

 

I’m not really good at anything. (Who would have guessed that, based on my challenge average, right?) I was good at everything when I was a kid (yes, one of those tired stories), but now, to put things in Courtney Yates terminology, I pretty much suck at life. There’s been games that I’ve wanted to play with online friends that I couldn’t, because I just wasn’t getting it, and I was making the experience worse for everybody else. When I used to play Pokemon tournaments with friends I was literally known as a free turn, because everyone automatically knew they could beat me. Mario Party? Always last place. I know Mario Party has a lot of luck involved, but when you play Mario Party and you’re last place every single time? That’s the board saying, “It’s not me, it’s you.”
 
This is all extremely “Kim, there’s people that are dying,” right? Just take it in stride and enjoy the game. That’s exactly what I do. But eventually, you do also get a voice in the back of your head wondering what the hell is wrong with you. I still have no idea. 
 
But I know that Survivor is different because you come in with only one objective, and that is to win. Nothing else matters. It’s not even really supposed to be fun. Just get to the end and win. As absolutely silly as it sounds, signing up for ATRL Survivor was a lot more to me than just a bootleg ORG on a pop music forum. I was using it as a personal challenge. I wanted to do the best that I possibly could under any circumstances, even if I was absolutely terrified of what place my best would turn out to be. 
 
Long story short, I didn’t think I was going to do well. Nobody really thought I was going to do well. (My friend said I was going to be like Zane from Survivor Philippines and my mom said she thought I was going to be like Heather from Survivor 41… the second one wasn't inaccurate, actually.) I put a crippling amount of pressure on myself to do well, and was 100% positive that every round was going to be my last. Ever since the merge, my anxiety level has been so high that I literally started having nightmares. So I never even let myself imagine that I would get to the final 3, even if it was in a rather underwhelming way.

 

 

ROTUNDA

I’m honestly surprised that I made the merge at all. I was in my confessionals a nervous wreck because I was sure that people would target me, and I even told the viewers not to select me for the draft because I felt like I would be blindsided early on.  After spending almost this entire season on the top of the challenge standings, I assumed people would make moves to take me out – but I feel like because I always had my finger on the pulse of the game, people (including @Anvarie and @Red Light) weren’t able to make the moves to get me out. I’m actually the only player this season to be part of the majority group/alliance for every tribal. The person I voted for went home every round except the Kayseri boot, and that was only because the members of the majority agreed we should split our votes in case Kayseri had something. I was always on the right side of the numbers, and that’s something nobody else can say this season. 

 

Who did you expect to see in the Final Tribal Council in your honest opinion? Why?

Spoiler

ACETONE

I thought beatinglikeadrum would be in the Final Tribal Council, and he could very possibly have made it if he didn’t go out in the rock draw. No disrespect to BLAD, but after his play fight with Samsom, I don’t think others really took him seriously, and he was left out of a lot of alliances and votes, so others might have viewed him as easy to beat. I also really thought Opulent was going to make it to the FTC, but he unfortunately was idoled out. When we merged I also thought Marvin was going to make it very far, but he got unlucky and lost out on that immunity ever so slightly and the rest was history.

 

RED LIGHT

I thought it would be 3 Baltoro players, quite honestly. Maybe the under the radar players making an alliance and taking out the bigger threats. So Fais, BLAD, and maybe Khalyan slipping in there too (not as under the radar, but very good socially).

 

ROTUNDA

I expected the Final 3 to probably be made up of Khalyan, Fais, and possibly Red Light or @Beatinglikeadrum. If you look in my confessional, you’ll actually see me praising @Khalyan’s game non-stop, because I thought they did a great job being strategic while still laying under the radar, and I felt like they were clearly positioned to make the end. All they had to do was take out me and Opulent out, and then they would have waltzed into the Final 3 easily. I really had to take my shot and get Khalyan out before they got me, because I knew they had the potential to go all the way. 

 

Did you have any special memories from this season or learn anything about yourself?

Spoiler

ACETONE

I got to have a very complete Survivor experience. It was a roller coaster going from power to being in the minority to regaining the majority again. I got to compete in cool live rounds, I made alliances, I was victim to twists, got involved in public drama, and so much more. I found and played an idol, unfortunately it was fake but I did not need it and I made it through the rest of the game without having to rely on an idol. I made some really good friends in Red Light, Rotunda, Opulent, Venus, khalyan, and more. I learned that I am more social than I thought, persuading people and discussing strategy also came surprisingly natural to me. I thought I would come off as awkward and struggle connecting to people, but it was easy to do so and part of what insulated me so well. My challenge scores started out mediocre, but there was a learning curve and I quickly adapted. I was also really proud of my submissions, especially Baltic Ice Breaker (aka Bjork if she did a Broadway production of Cats) and Send Me No Roses. It is also really cool that one person from each starting tribe made the final 3.

 

RED LIGHT

The absolute highest point of the entire game for me was winning the Q&A challenge, for so many reasons. I love that challenge so much, and I really miss it on Survivor. Just for me personally, looking at the things that I value in Survivor gameplay and what I think makes the game compelling—winning that challenge is a big sign of a truly great Survivor player, in my opinion. It’s the only challenge Cirie ever won, for instance (reward but still). It’s also the only challenge my Survivor hero Rob Cesternino ever won. The players who win that challenge usually have excellent social instincts and a pulse on the game at all times, so to win that even after I threw a few of the questions out of politeness (such as the biggest goat) meant the world to me. 
 
As far as what I learned about myself... ugh, too much. I learned that just because I’m good at pretending to be calm doesn’t actually mean I’m a calm person, for instance. I learned that I’m probably an introvert, because after like the first week of playing I was ready to crawl in a dark cave and hiss at anyone who approached me. I also never realized before just how brutal I was on myself. I knew I held myself to very high standards and restrictions that I didn’t put on any other human being, but it had been so long since I actually tried meeting those standards, I had forgotten how intense the self-loathing could be. It’s been a pretty dark but informative two months for me.

 

ROTUNDA

Winning the Saweetie Cryptogram Challenge and finding the idol was a really important moment for me, to the point where I almost cried. I remember the last time I played I gave up on the idol challenge, and that had a really bad impact on my game. This time I feel like I took every single opportunity to show that I WANT this. I pulled off blindsides, I worked with almost everyone, I won immunities, I found advantages and idols, and I even did the flip that caused the second rock draw in ATRL Survivor History. This has been an amazing journey and having the fans cheer me on along the way and say they’re proud of me has made all the stress worth it. I just really hope the jury sees things the same way. 

 

Based on your actions alone, why should you win this game? Why shouldn't your opponents win this game?

Spoiler

ACETONE

Because other than when I missed part of the game due to unavoidable circumstances, I was playing the game every step of the way and forging my own destiny. I was very self aware and knew the dynamics of the alliances and knew what I needed to do to better my position in the game and minimize my threat level. After doing very well individually in the challenges (7 comp wins/immunities by early merge) early in the game, I eased off the challenges and allowed others to make a target of themselves with their Challenge wins. (Sorry Opulent) Like how did going from Baltic Ice Breaker / Send Me No Roses to two Kacey Musgraves songs in one playlist not raise any suspicion! My persuasion skills were great and I framed things in a way that made it seem beneficial to who I was pitching to. I also was not afraid to flip a vote after it was already decided and throw out names in strategy sessions.

 

Rotunda shouldn’t win. While his game was flashy post merge, he really did not have to face much adversity since there were so many OG Baltoros that made the merge. He really betrayed his original alliance because Opulent, Red Light, and I all put in work and got close with him and he thought he had us each individually in the palm of his hand. He really could have stuck with his original alliance and still made the finals, proving all the betrayal he did to be unnecessary. I, on the other hand, have had to claw and scratch my way through the game as a necessity to survive and after all of that, I made it through. I was Rotunda’s biggest threat to win the game in the final 4 yet I convinced him it was in his best interest to vote out Anvarie, and I got to Anvarie before him and saved myself from receiving votes.

 

Red Light shouldn’t win because my game while I love him, I was the flashier one in the duo and have a better shot at winning. Red Light also tended to go overboard with strategy and I was there to reel it in and get us back on track. If you are considering voting for Red Light, please vote for me instead. A vote for me is a vote for Red Light.

 

RED LIGHT

Okay here's a chronological list of everything I remember doing in the game rn:

1: DM’d with several random people before the tribes were revealed, so that we would have at least some vague familiarity with each other if we were on the same tribe or if we made the merge.

2: Put together a tight alliance of 3 (me, Gemini, and DAP) and then an outer alliance of 4 (adding Ampersand). Orchestrated the Bethenny vote. Heard that one of my alliance members (DAP) was also talking to Bethenny, but instead of turning on the alliance member, I just told them a lie about Bethenny so that they’d vote the way I wanted. Also recruited the lowest scorer of that challenge (Armani) and told him he’d have a permanent spot in my alliance (false) if he voted with me, because I needed a backup vote if DAP flipped.

3: Orchestrated the Walley vote as well. Found Walley’s post and knew it would be controversial, but didn’t want to take any more heat after Bethenny had called me a liar. Gemini took the brunt of the scrutiny after round 1, and I could tell that they generally liked big, flashy plays, so I linked them the post. Gemini jumped on it exactly like I knew they would, and even put the post on their parchment, so nobody ever knew I had anything to do with it. During the results, I found the idol.

4: Alliance wasn’t talking to me like they usually were the day of Puanu's third elimination, especially right before the vote, and the plan I set for that vote was risky anyway, so I played the idol and saved myself.

5: Swapped at a very opportune time and found myself in both of the tribe’s alliances simultaneously. I never had to make a choice between them until the final 14 tribal, however, because the tribe had immunity all the way. Had we lost immunity during the swap, I still think I would have made out fine, at least for one tribal, since I didn’t receive any votes at the top 14 tribal.

6: At the glacier I protected my vote because I always prioritized seeming low-maintenance and easy to work with over any kind of advantages. I was constantly maintaining my threat level and making sure I didn’t come off as savvy as I really was.

7: When Gemini and DAP got voted out that actually gave me tons of freedom, because I got to blame everything that I did at Puanu on Gemini. Plus, Gemini didn’t leave on good terms with people, which was great for me, because then I got to pretend that I also wasn’t on good terms with Gemini, and that I had something in common with these people I would need to connect with if I wanted to reach the end of the game. More on that later.

8: I saw Acetone as a big threat after the Gemini blowup because I thought he handled it very well and he seemed to always do very well in challenges at that point, so my original plan was to get close to him and make him trust me, so I could stab him in the back when the time was right. Then the more we talked, the more I realized that he was actually going to be my trusted ally and that he wasn’t the threat I thought he was. Then he fell off a cliff.

9: Final 14 challenge, I contact Rotunda, my duel partner, and say something really sweet, knowing I would probably need him down the line.

10: Baltoro decimates us starting with the merge due to a flip. Residency challenge was one of my lowest moments because I didn’t really know how to help, and I was looking for the idol the entire time. I really, really wore myself out during this stage to the point that I started feeling physically ill, constantly going over all my options and brainstorming anything I could do to keep myself safe. I even made a fake idol (which I’m glad I never tried using strategically because I found out later on that Rotunda had seen what every idol looked like). All this just to find an envelope instead of an idol, which took me to another challenge that I never had any hope of winning. 

11: Initiated step 1 to flipping the game around when I DM'd Rotunda, telling him that it’s getting to that point in the game where Baltoro is going to start targeting each other. Planted a seed of distrust by telling him Kayseri had an advantage from the glacier.

12: Before we can get anybody else to flip to a brand new alliance, there’s a few Baltoro who want to eliminate one more Glazuanu. At that point we had to do whatever they wanted, so we agreed.

13: Vote out Ampersand, forming the alliance that eventually blindsides Kayseri. 

14: Once again back and forth between one real alliance and one fake alliance for final 7; parsing out truths and lies to try and make a good decision. 

15: Connecting with Rotunda on an even deeper level and getting him to tell me about his idol and his “Idol guide.” Never got him to trust me quite enough to tell me about Anvarie’s idol, though, so points off for that one I guess.

16: Telling Rotunda that I was just done with the game, and I probably wouldn’t put up much of a fight in the final 3, because I was just so over it.

 

These were the bigger, more game-defining moves that I can think of, but generally I’m not the kind of player that makes big moves anyway. I make smaller, subtle moves that are more based on building the right bonds with the right people, implying certain things to certain players, being vigilant of everyone else in the game to strategize around surprises (the only vote where I was truly 100% surprised/confused was the merge flip), and very carefully managing how the other players perceived me.

 

As far as why my opponents shouldn’t win the game… Rotunda’s social game was excellent (he had a very laid-back, “Do whatever you want to do, I want you to feel comfortable” approach that actually frustrated me at times, because making too many decisions myself conflicted with my persona), but he also made a few mistakes, like bickering with Kayseri after they’d been voted out. From my understanding of the post-merge Baltoro alliance, there were more arguments that I missed. He brought the drama though, which was great, and on a forum like ATRL might actually boost him instead of hurt him.

 

As far as Acetone goes, he generally seemed a little more naive about what people told him than I was. Also, he was technically medevac’d and then brought back, which I guess could hurt his game in the eyes of some.

 

ROTUNDA

• I am the only player this season to be in the majority group every round  
• I posted the highest challenge average of anyone who made the merge. 
• I tied Opulent for the most individual immunity wins with 4 wins. 
• I found the idol decoder advantage that told me which idols were real and which were fake. 
• I won the Saweetie Idol Hunt challenge which awarded me an idol – and I didn’t even have to use it despite being labeled a threat for most of the post merge 
• My decision to flip on Khalyan directly produced the second Rock Draw in ATRL Survivor History 
• I created good tv and drama for the audience through my feud with Khalyan 
• I was already voted by this cast as Most Loyal, Most Likely To Win, Funniest, and part of the 2 closest pairs, meaning everyone already saw I was a social and strategic threat and STILL didn’t get me out

I feel like 9 times out of 10, a player that does as much as I have done wouldn’t make the end. They’d be considered too big of a jury threat and they’d be taken out at F7-F4, but I’m here, and that has to mean something right? 

I feel as though Acetone and Red Light played much quieter and more passive games than me, and while I consider all forms of gameplay to be extremely valid, I feel like when you have someone who dominated challenges, found advantages, and spearheaded big moves and blindsides, it makes more sense to vote for the person who played the strongest overall game in terms of social bonds, strategic moves, and challenges. I think by Final 5, Red Light and Acetone were surrounded by three bigger players in me, @Opulent, and @Anvarie, and I feel like such a strong, dominant season deserves a winner who played a clear role in every part of the season. 

More importantly, I think the biggest reason why I deserve to win over Acetone and Red Light is that they themselves have said they see me as the winner. Just earlier today I was joking with Red Light and Acetone that I wanted them to quit and let me win, and Red Light’s reply was “we pretty much did that already”. Similarly, yesterday after I won the challenge @Acetone told me, “I think you have just won the game. My plea is if you’re going to win regardless, please pick me to go to the end with you”.

While I understand they may try to spin this as them joking or buttering me up, I think that in this case they were being completely earnest. They know I was labeled the biggest threat by Majority Rules, Red Light knew about how many advantages I found, they saw the tv moments I created, and they saw the challenges I won.  I think the winner of ATRL Survivor Season 12 should know in their hearts that they left everything on the table, and I know deep in my soul that I did that. 

 

Which other contestants deserved to be in the finale with you?

Spoiler

ACETONE

I wish I could have made it with Opulent and Venus. That was my most legit final 3 and they both went out in such unfortunate ways. They were my first ride or dies and we had such a great bond. I really trusted both of them. I also think on a gameplay level, khalyan was really running things for a while and really positioned himself well. Khalyan played a great game and I wish things went differently so we could be in the finale together.

 

RED LIGHT

I think everyone has some kind of interesting story that would warrant them sitting in the finale, just so they could be asked questions exactly like this. I’m going to go with two different scenarios, though, as my top picks:
 
One scenario is that there’s no idol for Anvarie, Opulent wins the final immunity challenge, and the underdog story of the Glazuanu 3 wraps up in a sweet little bow, ala the Aitu 4 in Survivor Cook Islands.
 
The other is that I don’t play my idol, I’m not around to **** things up for Marvin, and he makes the merge and very likely the final 3, as everyone loved him. I’m not sure who he goes with, I just know he makes it to the end, judging by the reaction when he was voted out.

 

ROTUNDA

I feel as though @Opulent and @Khalyan played the two other best games this season. Opulent was a dominant challenge force who I loved working with this season, and @Khalyan was a master strategist who always seemed to be thinking a few steps ahead. 

 

Take us through your alliances this season.

Spoiler

ACETONE

Me/Opulent/Venus/Golden/Eros - Me/Venus/Opulent - Me/Harmonizer - Me/Khalyan/Venus/BLAD - Me/Venus/TruGemini - Me/Opulent/Venus/Golden/Red Light/Ampersand/Samsom - Me/Rotunda/Khalyan/Opulent/Red Light/Fais - Me/Red Light/Rotunda/Opulent - Me/Anvarie

 

RED LIGHT

On Puanu, I immediately made an “Onion”-esque alliance, with the innermost layer being me, DAP, and TruGemini. We called this the Hollywood Alliance because it was two aspiring screenwriters and an aspiring actor. This still didn’t give us a majority though after the first vote, so we created an outer (unnamed) alliance with Ampersand that he may or may not have known was an outer alliance (I never told him, but things like that tend to leak so I wouldn’t be surprised). Armani also got picked up for the first vote because he had the lowest score and I knew he would vote however I told him to vote, but we didn’t make an outer-outer-alliance for him, because we knew it would make Ampersand suspicious. After the first vote, somehow or another, me and TruGemini ended up in another foursome with Armani and Samsom, although I hadn’t talked much with Samsom at that point. 
 
Then at the swap I ended up in the exact same situation, but not as complicated and not as much my fault that time. Both the two Glazov and the two Baltoro wanted me in an alliance with them and I said yes to both, because saying no to an alliance is simply a big no-no in Survivor; one of the very first rules, if there were a rulebook. One of the luckiest breaks I got in the whole game was that I never had to go to tribal while I was on that swapped tribe, so I never actually had to show my hand until the top 14 tribal. 
 
The beginning of the merge was the Glazuanu slaughter, until I thought I saw a clear path with an alliance of 6 that finally solidified with the Kayseri vote. It also pretty much dissolved as soon as the Kayseri vote was over. I was targeted at 8, Rotunda flipped, the rock draw happened, and that 4 who worked together for that vote (me, Acetone, Opulent, and Rotunda) vowed to go to the final 4 together. 

 

ROTUNDA

On Baltoro I essentially worked with everyone, and we never went to tribal so nothing really came to fruition. 

On the swap tribe I continued working with the OG Baltoros, but also became close allies with Samsom – which allowed us to take out Harmonizer and DAP. 

At the merge, I started out working with OG Baltoro, and Samsom also joined our side. This allowed us to take out @VenusFlyTrap @GoldenHour and @Ampersand13, who I unfortunately didn’t get to interact with much. 

Samsom was sadly voted out during the double-elimination tribal. 

Later on, Khalyan, Fais, and I began working with Opulent, Acetone, and Red Light. This alliance controlled the elimination of Kayseri. 

After that, I wanted to turn on Anvarie because Anvarie was making a lot of jokes about me scheming and I felt like they were catching on to me, but Khalyan and Fais wanted to go back to working with Baltoro. This resulted in the rock draw that took out BLAD (which was not my original intention, but a result I was fine with). 

After that, my alliance with Opulent-Acetone-Red Light was able to take out Fais and Khalyan 

I then went back to working with Anvarie to take out Opulent 

And then I worked with Acetone-Red Light to take out Anvarie. 

 

Did you betray any allies you had during the season? If so, who & why?

Spoiler

ACETONE

Yes: Eros, TruGemini, Venus in a way, Ampersand, BLAD maybe, fais, Khalyan, and Anvarie.

 

Eros slipped up and accidentally posted that he was going to flip on our alliance at the merge in the alliance group chat. Harmonizer was the set in stone target that round, but I saw a path forward with Harmonizer and knew Eros would turn on me anyways, so I flipped the vote at the last minute and got Eros out. I gained a solid ally in Harmonizer who shared that they got a power from the glacier (extra vote), but unfortunately they were voted out on their swapped tribe right before merge.

 

I had a good connection with TruGemini, and I was excited to work with them when I was swapped with them onto the Puanu tribe. The way the swapped tribe was set up was TruGemini and dweebz as a pair, Khalyan and beatinglikeadrum as a pair, and Venus and I as a pair who were the swing votes between the other two duos. Venus and I formed alliances with both of the other duos and we were deciding on which pair to move forward with when we found out that TruGemini was throwing us under the bus to khalyan/BLAD. That basically sealed it, but dweebz was also MIA so we didn’t know how he was voting, so it was safer to go with khalyan/BLAD.

 

I was 100% loyal to you Venus, but I’m really sorry that I was not there for you when you were eliminated. I would have tried to shift it off of you if I got a whiff of what was happening. I wish you used your mystery box power to save yourself from tribal! You were amazing to work with and I hope we can catch up after the season.

 

Ampersand was part of the OG Glazov/Puanu alliance that was formed at the start of the merge to combat the huge majority OG Baltoro had. We could not even make it through one round though, because Samsom flipped on the alliance seemingly for shits and giggles, sending Golden Hour home instead of fais. Afterwards, it was looking hopeless for the remaining OG Glazovs/Puanus since we had lost our chance of a majority. I struck a deal with khalyan, rotunda, fais, opulent, and red light to save myself in which ampersand was collateral damage. Opulent, Red Light, and I were going to to vote out ampersand to show the other three that we were serious about the alliance and in turn the next round they would vote out Kayseri with us.

 

I could maybe consider beatinglikeadrum a betrayal, because while on the swapped Puanu tribe he volunteered to go to the Glacier and I pretended not to see that and went myself instead. I did it to prevent him from getting an advantage since it was 2-2 at that point on the tribe and I knew Harmonizer got an extra vote from the Glacier. I was hoping to get something similar and also block him from getting an advantage. I took a risk doing that so Venus and I would have the upper hand if my tribe had to go to tribal again. After the merge though BLAD and I were on opposite ends of the game with him returning to the OG Baltoro alliance and none of the merge alliances I was in included him. I wish we could have worked together more in the merge phase but I had a really good conversation with him during the rock draw.

 

I feel very sorry about how things went down with khalyan. We were solid allies while together on the swapped Puanu tribe, and khalyan was also really funny and great to talk to. Unfortunately our games were pulling us in different directions at the merge and khalyan was targeting all of my other allies. Khalyan wanted Red Light, Opulent, and Rotunda out, and that could not happen for my game. That would leave me with fais/Anvarie/BLAD, who I felt I would be screwed with as they were all closer to each other than me. Khalyan approached me about how Rotunda was such a threat and was going to run away with the game after the chopping live challenge and we need to get him out. A few days later I messaged khalyan with a plan I came up with where we could have gotten Rotunda out with just four votes (me, khalyan, Red Light, and Opulent) but I could tell khalyan was not happy with it and wanted Red Light out instead so I backed off. I was confused since khalyan just came to me right before that about wanting to get Rotunda out. I knew khalyan felt uneasy about Opulent and Red Light because they had barely spoken to each other yet were in a supposed alliance together, so I kept encouraging Red Light and Opulent to reach out to khalyan to solidify that bond and make khalyan feel comfortable moving forward with us. Unfortunately that didn’t work, and I found out khalyan, fais, Anvarie, and BLAD were all voting Red Light. To combat that, Opulent, Red Light, Rotunda, and I got together and formed the “We In Danger Gurls” alliance. It was already turning towards khalyan, but I told Rotunda about khalyan coming to me wanting to get him out to really solidify trust and fully bring Rotunda over to our side. Our plan was to force a tie. We felt that if one of us went, the rest would be taken out in a row right after, so we planned to force a tie and go to rocks and hope that we all make it through the rock draw as a last ditch effort. We avoided voting for Anvarie and BLAD that round in case they played advantages, so it was between fais and khalyan as they would not expect it. We knew we were not budging on the revote and the other side likely wouldn’t either, but in the off chance they did, Khalyan was a bigger threat than fais. I also felt that it was obvious that khalyan and fais were planning on going back and forth between my alliance with them and the OG Baltoro alliance, and I felt strung along. It also came out that Khalyan wanted me out because I was supposedly playing too similar of a game to him, and was planting seeds about how social I am. After the rock draw went in my favor, Red Light and I formed a fake alliance with Khalyan and fais and made them think that we were voting for Rotunda so they would not play advantages on themselves. I did not think khalyan would trust me after what went down with the rock draw. I wish I could have explained myself to khalyan better after the tie round but I didn’t want to risk saying too much and getting the information flipped around on me as a result. I am truly sorry, I did you dirty in this game, but I think you would have come for me eventually if I did not act first.

 

Fais had already flipped on our alliance along with khalyan, and we were on opposite sides in the tie. Red Light and I made a fake alliance with fais and khalyan and made a fake plan to vote out Rotunda while Red Light and I really voted for fais with Opulent and Rotunda. I didn’t think there was much of a path forward with fais after we flipped on each other the previous round, but I enjoyed talking to them throughout the season personally and I’m sorry about how it went down.

 

I also feel really bad about Anvarie. Anvarie was great to talk to, but betraying Anvarie is why I am sitting in the final three right now. I pushed hard for Anvarie to get voted out at final four, because I knew from conversations with Rotunda and Anvarie that Rotunda didn’t consider Red Light a threat and wouldn’t vote him out because he wanted him in the final three as someone easy to beat. So it was between me and Anvarie, and I got the feeling that Rotunda saw me as a threat and was seriously considering voting me out. I went for the angle that Rotunda should vote Anvarie out because the jury could very well be very bitter and vote for Anvarie to win because Anvarie was the only one that didn’t betray the jury. Rotunda said I was right, but needed to weigh out if he could get away with betraying Anvarie again. I went to Anvarie as well and convinced Anvarie to vote for Red Light instead of me. According to Anvarie, Rotunda tried to convince them to vote me out at F4, but I already got to Anvarie first and they refused to vote for me because they already promised me they were voting for Red Light. So I effectively prevented a tie with my ass on the chopping block.

 

RED LIGHT

Chronologically:
 
Bethenny. Bethenny thought they were in an alliance with me and TruGemini, but they were the first voted out.)
Armani. Attempted to oust Armani in a 3-2-1 vote because DAP and Ampersand didn’t want to eliminate Samsom. Ended up idoling him out instead.)
Marvin. At the top 14 tribal, we were strategizing around either of the two Baltoro having an idol. (I didn’t know extra votes/vote steals were present at that point.) The initial plan was BLAD, which I told Marvin, hoping he had more loyalty to Baltoro 2.0 than 1.0. Then things went nuts about two hours before the voting closed because Ampersand was acting sketchy and we got paranoid that he was tattling to Marvin about our plans. So I decided the safest thing to do was to A.) switch the vote to Marvin at the last minute, B.) leave Ampersand out of the vote for that round because I couldn’t trust him to be impartial with Marvin. It ended up being a vote steal instead of an idol, and it was kind of confusingly played on Ampersand, who was probably Marvin's closest non-Baltoro ally in that 7.
Gemini: This is the big one. Gemini was my closest ally on old Puanu, although some may be surprised to hear that. DAP and Gemini (the Hollywood Alliance) both got booted on the same night. Gemini, of course, had that episode where they called out the members of Puanu 2.0 for how they treated Dweebz. Well, I was going to have to work with these people, come the merge. So once Gemini was gone, I saw that as the perfect, natural conversational piece to bond with people over—oh you hate Gemini? *****, me TOO! The first thing I did under this strategy was DMing Khalyan, literally thanking them for voting Gemini out. I then proceeded to blame literally everything I was responsible for at Puanu 1.0 on Gemini. I made them out to be a dictatorial alliance leader that I couldn’t wait to get away from, and even worked my idol play into the narrative, saying I dared to speak out about voting Armani and I knew I was in trouble. Acetone—as much as I love him—our whole friendship was built on this lie. Our friendship started in mutually bitching about how awful Gemini was. That’s how I formed my closest alliance in the game. By throwing my second-closest ally under the bus as soon as they were gone.
Venus: Venus was the first player to ever DM me and we got along very well in DM’s, I loved his energy. However, once I started trying to infiltrate the Baltoro alliance, Rotunda (who I was in contact with at this point) told me that Venus had an idol that he wasn’t telling anyone about, and I helped vote Venus out. Did I ever actually believe Rotunda’s story that Fais got an advantage from their Mystery Box which let them see what advantages another player had, for some insane reason Fais picked Venus, and they found out Venus had an idol? No, not really. I think it’s absolutely possible, but not really something that seems terribly likely. My participation in that was more about wanting Rotunda to believe that I was naive and that I would buy in to anything he told me.
Ampersand: And then finally there was Ampersand, who I had gotten pretty close to and really come to like (how could you not?), but at that point it was dire straits and I was willing to try anything. The Baltoro players wanted one more of us out before they started targeting each other. I’m like as long as it isn’t me, do what you have to do, and I’ll vote with you. That’s why the Ampersand vote was a complete shut-out. He was basically a sacrifice. There was an additional reason for me to vote out Ampersand specifically, though, and that was because he was the last of the old Puanu. With him gone, all of my dirty laundry went out along with him, and I had a completely fresh start. I feel bad about every vote, but this one felt especially cruel just due it being completely unanimous, and also because Ampersand is such a sweet guy and trusted me so much. 

 

ROTUNDA

As you’ll see above, I basically betrayed everyone I was aligned with at some point this season except Samsom. I knew that I had a super big target for most of the season, and that I wouldn’t be able to just ride one static alliance to the end (otherwise people would target me first once the alliance were the only people remaining, because I had the biggest target). Playing a fluid, scrappy game allowed me to always have people going to bat for me, and it meant that I could convince some people that I have enough people on the jury who are mad at me that I may not win if I get brought to the end. This plan worked because while Acetone and Red Light had opportunities to get me out, they didn’t take them. 

 

Do you have any regrets in the competition that you feel could hurt you in the vote?

Spoiler

ACETONE

Yes, The way khalyan/fais/Anvarie/Ampersand all went out. Their votes could have definitely left them bitter which is understandable, but I hope they can be objective and vote for the best game player. I am really sorry for my part in that. I also wish I had a better connection to Kayseri/fais/anvarie/beating, but it seemed like they were set for the most part with their OG Baltoro alliance. I also wish I could have gotten closer to ampersand and samsom.

 

RED LIGHT

Rotunda. I never got Rotunda out. I was desperate, and totally willing, to get him out after the rock draw. Unfortunately the alternatives for allies were the ones who had just tried to vote me out. Khalyan in particular seemed like an especially savvy and unpredictable player to me. And just like Gemini was back at Puanu, Rotunda became a terrific shield for me. When we voted out Fais the day after we had just made a new alliance with them, Rotunda was still the only one that took any heat, because he was the betrayer. Nobody was paying attention to me even though I was exploiting the dysfunction among Baltoro, which was a plan I’d started working on as far back as the residency challenge. 

 

This all sounds like great stuff if it can result in the optimal final 3 for me, and unfortunately I never got that opportunity. I was hoping to vote Rotunda out at 6 (I assumed he was playing an idol at 5, even before he told me, cuz he was just good at everything), so I was actually secretly hoping Khalyan would get the extra point in that challenge. Unfortunately it never panned out, he won immunity, played the idols, took out probably the last member of my alliance that had any hope of beating him in the final immunity challenge, and I ended up in the final 3 with the biggest threat of the season. If I had it to do all over again, sure, I would maybe go along with Fais and Khalyan’s plan to vote out Rotunda at 7 and see how the chips fall from there, but I’m not sure it ends any better for me. I did the absolute best that I think I could have done, given the tricky situation.

 

ROTUNDA

I think that I was probably too dramatic at the Khalyan and Kayseri boots. I hope that neither of them take anything I said to heart, because I was just in the zone and really wanted people to get where I was coming from and understand that I was making the most logical choice I could in the moment. I think that I felt kinda invalidated when Khalyan said that if I don’t vote for Opulent I won’t get their vote, because I put in so much work this season and I was hoping that a smart player like Khalyan would be willing to respect just how hard that I fought to get here. In that same vein, I hope Anvarie understands that I had to take them out because they had a great case if they made the end. 

 

 

Which part of your gameplay do you think was the strongest: social, strategic, or strength (i.e. challenge scores)?

Spoiler

ACETONE

Both social and strategy. I was consistently reaching out to everyone to touch base and get a feel for how the game was going. I was well connected to multiple players (Opulent, Venus, Golden, Harmonizer, Gemini, Khalyan, beating, Red Light, Rotunda, etc.) and had at least three people (Venus, Opulent, Red Light) thinking I was their number one. I do wish that I could have built more of a bond with the OG Baltoro/Puanu players like fais, Anvarie, Kayseri, samsom, and Ampersand, but I had at least one good conversation with everyone. I was very strategic as well, I had a lot of alliances to cover my bases and was very active in the strategy aspect of the game. I didn’t just sit there and wait for orders, I was the one planning things out and talking out scenarios most of the time. I knew when to take a backseat to not become too visible or step on toes.

 

RED LIGHT

My gameplay was almost 100% social. I am strategic, and can be pretty creative in my strategy, but I never got a chance to exercise much strategy after the merge, because I was on the bottom, and I was playing as conservatively and unthreateningly as possible. I’m very strategic in how I socialize, if that makes any sense, but at the end of the day, it all pretty much comes back to social game. In my application I called myself a chameleonic person, and I think I lived up to that description in how I connected with people on an individual level in such a short time. My instincts about people were also generally good. When Khalyan was thinking about targeting Rotunda just after we had all made an alliance, I told Acetone it was a better idea to go to Rotunda with the information and get Khalyan out instead, because they were too unpredictable to keep around. Next thing I know, Khalyan decides it’s better to vote me instead, and the rock draw vote happens. And, say what you will about shooting myself in the foot with Rotunda, but I knew how to choose the right allies to get all the way to the end, and how to earn their trust no matter what I was doing.

 

ROTUNDA

While I think that I performed solidly on all fronts, I think that I was most known for my challenge performance.  I led the scoreboard for most of the season, and in the post-merge I won four immunities. I even got a perfect score on the final puzzle challenge which @element noted was rare. 

 

Do you think you were more of a threat or an underdog this season?

Spoiler

ACETONE

I was a threat AND an underdog. Pre-merge, I had the numbers on both the starting and swapped tribes, yet when the merge came, I quickly found myself on the bottom. I was recognized as a threat by multiple people, but by aligning myself with other power players of the season (opulent, khalyan, and rotunda), I was able to keep the target steered away from me. I was socially connected and aligned with a lot of players, so while I was a target, others were aimed at before me. The entire merge portion of the game was spent as an underdog, a group eventually whittled down to just me, Opulent, and Red Light left and it was 3 vs 6. We somehow defied the odds and made it to final 5 and would have made it even further as a trio if not for Anvarie’s brilliant idol play. I said after the Golden Hour blindside that it would be a miracle if even one non-Baltoro made it to the final three, yet here I am (plus Red Light). It wasn’t easy, I had to do a lot of backstabbing to get the upper hand, but the alternative was just waiting for my turn to be eliminated.

 

RED LIGHT

The only time I didn’t feel like an underdog was on Baltoro 2.0. when the tribe average was just barely good enough each round to give me immunity until top 14. Of course, a lot of the reason I felt like an underdog was my own fault, for being so **** at challenges. I haven’t delved into just how tirelessly I worked to find the idols yet, but when I found out the second idol had to be won in a challenge, I wanted to die. (Especially because my Mystery Box prize guaranteed my idol to be real, and I never got to do anything with it.) 
 
On one level, I very much appreciated my challenge incompetence, because I knew it was minimizing my threat level. And, let’s say I hypothetically slayed at everything like Rotunda or Anvarie—chances are my average wouldn’t be much higher, because I would have probably intentionally underperformed in a lot of the challenges anyway. Being as unthreatening as possible was part of my main strategy. But when it came to situations like needing to keep somebody else from immunity, that’s when it became a frustration for me.
 
Overall, I felt like an underdog, because the road to the final 3 was very rocky. Me, Acetone, and Opulent were hanging on by a thread with every vote. In reality though, I probably should have been seen as more of a threat than I apparently was seen as. Even at the very end, I was still minimizing my threat level to Rotunda by telling him that I was done with the game and wouldn’t put up much of a fight in the final 3.

 

ROTUNDA

I think I was definitely more of a threat than an underdog. I was labeled the winner back at Final 9, I was the most consistent challenge competitor this season, and I was always on the right side of the numbers. I don’t think there was a single moment this season where I was just in the background, because from Day 1 I was making sure to leave a mark. 

 

Do you have any final words before we leave this vote up to the Jury?

Spoiler

ACETONE

I’m going to take you all through my game. I think my resume is impressive and I've been pretty active in all of the votes every time I had to go to tribal. I’ve won a good amount of challenges, and had a strong social and strategic game as well. My starting alliance was me, Opulent, Venus, Golden, and Eros. I pushed for jeffreyy and Douglas Booth as early votes as they were not in my starting alliance, flipped the vote on my alliance member Eros when he accidentally exposed himself and saved Harmonizer who in turn was grateful and loyal to me. I had strong bonds with Opulent, Venus, Golden, and Harmonizer on my starting tribe. When I got swapped I positioned myself and Venus up as swing votes and had options to go with either Gemini or khalyan/beating. I established good personal connections with khalyan and Gemini, and chose to go with khalyan/beating as they seemed more reliable and level headed than Gemini. At the merge, I helped to get all of the remaining Baltoros and Puanus together to combat the giant OG Baltoro alliance, which only failed because samsom flipped for the hell of it. I linked up with Red Light at the merge and quickly gained another #1 ally. When it started to look hopeless, my social game and challenge performance and previous connections kept me safe as I presented myself as friendly and easy going. I was able to get through the merge vote even though I lost my vote at the glacier since I won immunity. When my side was targeted, I was never the main target as I was either immune or was shielded by others in front of me lower on the totem pole. After returning to the game and unfortunately losing Venus while I was gone, I rallied Opulent and Red Light. I was successful in forging a path forward while it was looking hopeless for us and formed an alliance of me, khalyan, Opulent, Rotunda, fais, and Red Light. With collateral damage of ampersand, we gained khalyan/fais/Rotunda's trust and got them to flip on the OG Baltoro alliance, and as a result I successfully got out my biggest target Kayseri and flushed out the advantages he had not used in the process. At that point in the game, I had already won immunity 5 times, and was the top scorer on my tribe an additional two times and would have had immunity if we went to tribal, for a total of 7 already. I decided at that point to ease off of doing so well in the challenges as I was worried that I would start to be targeted because of it. I think it worked, because Opulent won a bunch of immunities in the jury phase and was targeted for it. I went from submitting songs like Baltic Ice Breaker and Send Me No Roses to sending in multiple Kacey Musgraves and Dua Lipa songs in one round. I thought I could convince people that I was just picking based on my personal narrow taste, and as a result they would go after others who are more likely to win the challenges. People were coming to me with information and alliances. I was both Opulent and Red Light’s number one ally, while also being very close to Rotunda and khalyan. My alliances were imploding on each other, with khalyan wanting out Opulent/Red Light/Rotunda, and Red Light and Rotunda wanting out khalyan. I went with Opulent/Red Light/Rotunda as my options were way more limited going with khalyan. I knew that something was going on because khalyan, fais, and Rotunda were really quiet and not giving much information out in the alliance chat while everyone else was talking, and then the day the vote was due they all came in within minutes of each other and told us a fake plan of voting out Anvarie with some votes split on beating. I knew they were going back and forth trying to be swing votes and were going to vote one of us out with the other OG Baltoros. Opulent, Red Light, Rotunda and I formed an alliance called “We In Danger Gurls” and found out that khalyan and fais were voting with Anvarie and beating were voting for Red Light. We decided to blindside them and force a tie. I kept reiterating to everyone in the We In Danger Gurls alliance that we had to go to rocks as if any of us were voted out, the rest of us would be screwed. We got lucky with the rock draw and BLAD was eliminated. At that point, Opulent and Red Light and I finally had the majority in our alliance with Rotunda. We voted out fais and khalyan next because at that point the line was drawn in the sand and the trust was broken. Red Light and I formed an alliance with fais and khalyan and convinced them they were voting for Rotunda, but Red Light and I really voted out fais along with Rotunda and Opulent. I feel bad for not letting fais and khalyan know, but they already turned their backs on us trying to vote out Red Light and I couldn’t tell them during the game because that would just be shooting myself in the foot. The information would have been used against me as I knew that khalyan and Rotunda were talking and comparing notes on me already. Opulent, Red Light, and I had a goal to all get to the final three together, but unfortunately we lost Opulent when Anvarie played an idol. After that, I came close to winning final 4 immunity, but had to rely on my persuasion skills to make it to the final three. After talking to Rotunda, I knew he was not going to vote out Red Light since he did not see Red Light as a threat. It was between me and Anvarie, and I got the sense that it could very well lean my way. I convinced Rotunda that I was giving up hope and thought that he had the win in the bag no matter what, but his biggest hurdle in the way of the win was Anvarie. There are a lot of OG Baltoros on the jury, and I planted the seed that they would vote for Anvarie because they were likely to be bitter. I went to Anvarie as well and convinced Anvarie to vote for Red Light to cover myself in case something went wrong. I found out that Rotunda tried to get Anvarie to vote me out but Anvarie already told me they were voting for Red Light and wouldn’t budge from that. So I saved myself from going into another tie and going out by getting to Anvarie before Rotunda. I made it to the final three and I had to fight the entire way to get here. I am sorry for my part in the backstabbing, but the way the numbers were set up, I kind of had to. I did not have the luxury of having pretty much everyone from my starting tribe at the merge. I could either lie down and accept defeat or put in work to change the dynamics of the game. I’ve met some amazing people and I want them to know that I just viewed it as a game and I hope they can forgive me with time. I was able to manage my threat level and positioned myself in a way that others needed me too much to turn on me. I believe that I played the most impressive game as I had to face way more adversity than Rotunda yet I still made it to the final three as a big threat.

 

RED LIGHT

I want to reflect on this season’s theme, because I think, at least in my case, the thing that landed me on the infamous Puanu tribe is ironically the same thing that landed me in the final 3. I’m a writer (or I wish I could be). I think of everything, every day, in terms of storytelling. Characters, motivations, conflicts, dialogue styles, plot devices, twists. 
 
Before I ever came into the game, I had crafted a character for myself to play, and operated under that character outline—the nice, nervous, oblivious jokester who voted the way other people wanted. I knew I might have to pivot away from that character—and I did at Puanu when I was more aggressive—but even when I was being aggressive, I worded myself very carefully, so that I could still sprinkle in bits of that gentler, more trustworthy character. The work I put into this character was layered. From pretending my reason for signing up was because I had just started binge-watching Survivor, to using a Discord sock account for the past two months so that I could pretend to not know how it worked, to subtle opportunities that I would seize in my conversations all the time with people, like asking Rotunda what season of Survivor David vs. Goliath was. 
 
If I decided to lie, I created an entire storyline. With the Bethenny vote for instance, when I was worried that DAP was playing both sides and wouldn’t vote Bethenny out, I didn’t just tell him a lie about Bethenny selling him out--I created a motivation for why Bethenny would do such a thing, why I was worried about it, and why DAP needed to be worried about it too. The thought process I went through when it came to looking out for blindsides was very similar to what it's like when you're writing, and you suddenly come up with a twist to surprise the audience. 
 
Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to make a big flashy move to really prove to the jury that I knew what I was doing, unless the Q&A challenge counts in some way. I probably could have if I had gotten the stupid ****ing envelope idol (I played the first one correctly, after all). I played a very old-school Survivor game. I got by on playing up just how unthreatening I was, making new alliances when I needed them, letting other people kill each other instead of me, and a lot of more subtle social manipulations that aren’t as appreciated/visible in modern-day Survivor games. Not to mention, because of the hangups I mentioned in question 3, I put my heart and soul into this game completely, above and beyond what I should have for an ATRL game. I would spend at least 4+ hours at a time looking at those damn tundra pictures for the hidden immunity idol until I gave myself blinding headaches. I already mentioned the nightmares. And I wouldn’t change any of the experience that I've had, because I usually don’t challenge/push myself enough. This is going to be something that I remember, probably, for the rest of my life (which is absolutely PATHETIC, trust me I know).
 
I’m not saying that I’m the most deserving winner of these 3. I just couldn’t make myself be good at the challenges. That part of it really sucked. In the era of BIG MOVEZ, an under the radar game—especially past the merge—is generally underwhelming. I already know that. I also especially don’t want to win if this season is going to be looked at any worse just because I won. I love the game too much. But I’m the only one from the laughingstock Puanu tribe that’s still standing. I had to be doing something right. 

 

ROTUNDA

I understand that some of you may not be happy that I backstabbed you, but I hope that you all can respect the amount of time and effort that I put into playing this game, and are willing to see the full body of work that I tried to create here. I’m not usually an emotional person but I feel like I really fought for this win, and I would be crushed if I lost this season. I had the strongest challenge record of anyone this season, I demonstrated a sharp strategic mind through finding advantages and flipping to different alliances, and I was constantly creating entertaining moments that were praised by the viewers. When you think about which player left the biggest footprint on the season between Acetone, Red Light and me, I honestly think that my performance was the strongest, and that this season deserves a winner who reflects just how chaotic and amazing this experience was. Thank you for your consideration.    

 

Edited March 24, 2022 by rl231

[Ampersand13]

Inch resting

[Golden Hour]

Well-spoken top 3.   See you all tomorrow for the round table, my deers. 

[Rotunda]

 

17 minutes ago, rl231 said:

Rotunda shouldn’t win. While his game was flashy post merge, he really did not have to face much adversity since there were so many OG Baltoros that made the merge. He really betrayed his original alliance because Opulent, Red Light, and I all put in work and got close with him and he thought he had us each individually in the palm of his hand. He really could have stuck with his original alliance and still made the finals, proving all the betrayal he did to be unnecessary. I, on the other hand, have had to claw and scratch my way through the game as a necessity to survive and after all of that, I made it through. I was Rotunda’s biggest threat to win the game in the final 4 yet I convinced him it was in his best interest to vote out Anvarie, and I got to Anvarie before him and saved myself from receiving votes.

I'm sorry, but this is a giant lie and @Acetone knows it, and I find it almost demeaning that Acetone would assert that I was a sheep for him even though he fails to outline specific scenarios where that is true. Anvarie, in my own judgement, was a bigger threat than Acetone not only because Anvarie slayed challenges, but also because Anvarie backstabbed and blindsided minimal people. Acetone and Red Light did not dictate any votes to me, nor did they ever tell me what to do. I decided that if I went to the end with all Baltoros, I would be left as the biggest threat and be cut around F7/F6, so I made the choice to jump ship and get goodwill with the Non-Baltoro players, which worked because I'm sitting here at the end.

[VenusFlyTrap]

Hey!! Reading through everything I am super happy to get an insight into all of your games!!! All 3 of you said you played a good social game so I'd like to put that to the test. Can you name 1 thing you learned about each juror?

Edit: in case it wasnt specific i just mean something that could be vague or more specific. even anything like i learned that venus has a dog or something works i just wanna see how well you know the jurors!

Edited March 24, 2022 by VenusFlyTrap

[Anvarie]

“I was Rotunda’s biggest threat to win the game in the final 4 yet I convinced him it was in his best interest to vote out Anvarie, and I got to Anvarie before him and saved myself from receiving votes.“

 

@Acetone how can you say this with a straight face? Or is it just for show. Statistically speaking I was a bigger threat than you. Rotunda voted me out for a reason, if he thought for even a second you posed a threat your ass would’ve been gone. But I digress. My question for you is… knowing that Rotunda played a better game than you both in the challenges and socially. Why did you decide to vote out his biggest competition (me) and hand the season over to him (instead of voting out Red Light who as you both mentioned numerous times posed no threat)?

 

Rotunda you said you lied and betrayed every person in the game except Samsom, which is probably true. Why should anyone in the jury reward you with their votes? Additionally, it seems clear that you voted out the biggest threats in the competition, Opulent and myself, you also surrounded yourself with a Baltoro voting advantage almost the entire game. Why should anyone vote for a player who wanted to compete with weaker players in Final 3 and had a silver spoon in their mouth the entire season?

 

Red Light is there a reason you made 0 effort to communicate or respond to me during the game?

[Rotunda]

Also, because I know some people struggle with reading long walls of text, I've developed a couple graphics to highlight why I think I deserve to win the game. The first features a resume-style summary of my game, while the second features comments that were made by members of the Final 4 over the last few days. Because Red Light already mentioned in their interview that they regret not getting me out, I think that further reinforces just how much of a threat I was this season. 

 

 

[CBC]

8 minutes ago, Rotunda said:

Also, because I know some people struggle with reading long walls of text, I've developed a couple graphics to highlight why I think I deserve to win the game. The first features a resume-style summary of my game, while the second features comments that were made by members of the Final 4 over the last few days. Because Red Light already mentioned in their interview that they regret not getting me out, I think that further reinforces just how much of a threat I was this season. 

 

 

Not the CV 

[Anvarie]

Rotunda when you were asking me to explain why I wouldn’t be able to beat you if I made Final 3 in our messages was this a legitimate concern? Did you have any intention of allowing me to make it to Final 3? If not, why did you promise before the top 4 challenge that you wouldn’t vote for me and I quote “oh nah I won’t go back on my word. I ain’t write your name down yet and I ain’t gonna now”. Do you prefer to beat the best players (Khalyan, Opulent, myself) or do you prefer competing against weaker players? You referred to Red Light as “the weakest of the 4 of us” and clearly thought Acetone wasn’t a threat because you kept him for F3.

[Douglas Booth]

12 minutes ago, Rotunda said:

Also, because I know some people struggle with reading long walls of text, I've developed a couple graphics to highlight why I think I deserve to win the game. The first features a resume-style summary of my game, while the second features comments that were made by members of the Final 4 over the last few days. Because Red Light already mentioned in their interview that they regret not getting me out, I think that further reinforces just how much of a threat I was this season. 

 

 

[Rotunda]

44 minutes ago, Anvarie said:

Rotunda you said you lied and betrayed every person in the game except Samsom, which is probably true. Why should anyone in the jury reward you with their votes? Additionally, it seems clear that you voted out the biggest threats in the competition, Opulent and myself, you also surrounded yourself with a Baltoro voting advantage almost the entire game. Why should anyone vote for a player who wanted to compete with weaker players in Final 3 and had a silver spoon in their mouth the entire season?

Hi Anvarie, these are valid questions, and I'm happy to provide some insights about where I'm coming from as a juror. 

 

First, as a longtime Survivor fan, I know that blindsides and betrayals are part of the game, and don't think they are things to be taken personally. As a result, I played the game with little fear of people taking things personally, because I know that everyone has to act in their own self-interest and I wasn't going to take things personally. Even you, in fact, at one point voted out a member of the Baltoro Alliance, so I know you understand where I'm coming from. I think the jury should reward me with the vote simply because I played the best game out of the Final 3 (which you agree with). Acetone lied just as much as me, but didn't have as strong of a challenge game, find as many advantages, or find their way in the majority as often as I did. Red Light, per your own comments, was lacking socially as well as in challenges and strategy. At the end of the day, most of the people that play Survivor are shady in some way, but I managed to dominate strategically, socially, with advantages, and in challenges, which is something that I think strong players like yourself, Khalyan, and Opulent can appreciate. 

 

Secondly, the point of Survivor has rarely if ever been to take the three strongest players to the end. The point of Survivor is to produce a Final 3 where you stand the best shot at winning. That is what I did by positioning myself next to Acetone and Red Light. Khalyan did not intend to go to the Final 3 with me because they knew I was a threat. Red Light wished they didn't go to the Final 3 with me because they knew I was a threat. And I can assume Opulent wouldn't have wanted me at the end either. I think you are one of the rare players who truly wanted to go against the best and beat the best, which I definitely admire, but it isn't my approach to Survivor. 

 

Finally, I just don't agree with you that I had a silver spoon in my mouth this season. Part of the reason Baltoro had a majority going into the merge was because I worked hard making sure we survived those pre-merge challenges, and devoted extra hours to finding songs for other people. That isn't luck, that's something I worked for. The four post-merge immunities I won? I worked for. Winning the Cryptogram Challenge that got me the Saweetie Idol? Work. Finding the Idol Decoder? Work. Even voting out people like you, Opulent, and Khalyan wasn't something that was handed to me. Those were decisions I made and risks I took on my own. I literally went to rocks and risked everything to get into a majority position at Final 8, and that's all because I knew that I wanted to make the moves necessary to get me the crown. Beyond that, everyone had ample opportunity to get me out. I shouldn't be penalized for the fact that nobody but Khalyan took an actual shot at getting me out, despite the fact that I was declared the potential winner during Majority Rules. Instead, I think it's a testament to my game that I was able to dominate challenges and be considered the eventual winner by all of you, yet people still didn't want to gete the biggest threat out. 

34 minutes ago, Anvarie said:

Rotunda when you were asking me to explain why I wouldn’t be able to beat you if I made Final 3 in our messages was this a legitimate concern? Did you have any intention of allowing me to make it to Final 3? If not, why did you promise before the top 4 challenge that you wouldn’t vote for me and I quote “oh nah I won’t go back on my word. I ain’t write your name down yet and I ain’t gonna now”. Do you prefer to beat the best players (Khalyan, Opulent, myself) or do you prefer competing against weaker players? You referred to Red Light as “the weakest of the 4 of us” and clearly thought Acetone wasn’t a threat because you kept him for F3.

In my heart, I wanted you at the Final 3. I mean, I follow you on twitter for God's sake. We had a very fun dynamic this season even through all our mess, and it would have been nice to sit next to you. At the same time, I realized that your successful idol play which resulted in Opulent leaving, combined with your challenge performance, and general loyalty to Baltoro could make for a compelling story and could cost me the game. I wanted you to explain to me why you weren't as big of a threat as I thought you were because I wanted to take you. I just wanted to you convince me that I wasn't going to be throwing away my game by doing so. That's why I was going back and forth for so long, because I wanted you to reassure me that I could fulfill my promise and not have it backfire. Unfortunately, I knew deep down that your game was too strong. 

 

Personally, I think most people that play with Survivor try to get out the threats before Final Tribal Council. That's just how the game works. Survivor isn't a competition where people let the best three duke it out at the end (at least not 95% of the time). If I had my way, I'd certainly go against weaker people at FTC 100% of the time because my goal is to win rather than to be a good runner up. The nature of Survivor is that sometimes the best players don't make FTC. Sometimes they're robbed goddesses or legends or icons even if they don't sit at the top three. And I think you should be proud of the game you played, because my decision to take you out was wholly based on how much respect I have for your game. 

Edited March 24, 2022 by Rotunda

[Rotunda]

38 minutes ago, VenusFlyTrap said:

Hey!! Reading through everything I am super happy to get an insight into all of your games!!! All 3 of you said you played a good social game so I'd like to put that to the test. Can you name 1 thing you learned about each juror?

Edit: in case it wasnt specific i just mean something that could be vague or more specific. even anything like i learned that venus has a dog or something works i just wanna see how well you know the jurors!

Hi Venus, because this question covers a lot of players, I'll take some time to formulate a response and get back to you before the deadline, but don't worry I haven't forgotten! 

I will let you know ahead of time that there are two players I never got to talk to 1-on-1 (Ampersand13 and Golden Hour), and that we may be conceptualizing social game in different ways, but I'll be sure to explain myself better in my thorough response later. 

[Rotunda]

31 minutes ago, CBC said:

Not the CV 

 

[Rotunda]

Oh also I know most of you never got to see the idol decoder so here it is: Top 4 = Real Bottom 4 = Fake 

 

[Acetone]

9 minutes ago, Rotunda said:

 

I'm sorry, but this is a giant lie and @Acetone knows it, and I find it almost demeaning that Acetone would assert that I was a sheep for him even though he fails to outline specific scenarios where that is true. Anvarie, in my own judgement, was a bigger threat than Acetone not only because Anvarie slayed challenges, but also because Anvarie backstabbed and blindsided minimal people. Acetone and Red Light did not dictate any votes to me, nor did they ever tell me what to do. I decided that if I went to the end with all Baltoros, I would be left as the biggest threat and be cut around F7/F6, so I made the choice to jump ship and get goodwill with the Non-Baltoro players, which worked because I'm sitting here at the end.

Nowhere did I say you were a sheep, or that I told you what to do. You did not dictate any votes to me or tell me what to do either. We had an alliance and both actively contributed to it in the alliance group chat. After I tried to convince you that Anvarie was your biggest threat to win, you came back and said "you're right tbh. I think I just have to weigh the possibility of breaking a promise to Anvarie." You pointed out how I was a social threat yourself as well.

 

6 minutes ago, Anvarie said:

“I was Rotunda’s biggest threat to win the game in the final 4 yet I convinced him it was in his best interest to vote out Anvarie, and I got to Anvarie before him and saved myself from receiving votes.“

 

@Acetone how can you say this with a straight face? Or is it just for show. Statistically speaking I was a bigger threat than you. Rotunda voted me out for a reason, if he thought for even a second you posed a threat your ass would’ve been gone. But I digress. My question for you is… knowing that Rotunda played a better game than you both in the challenges and socially. Why did you decide to vote out his biggest competition (me) and hand the season over to him (instead of voting out Red Light who as you both mentioned numerous times posed no threat)?

 

Rotunda you said you lied and betrayed every person in the game except Samsom, which is probably true. Why should anyone in the jury reward you with their votes? Additionally, it seems clear that you voted out the biggest threats in the competition, Opulent and myself, you also surrounded yourself with a Baltoro voting advantage almost the entire game. Why should anyone vote for a player who wanted to compete with weaker players in Final 3 and had a silver spoon in their mouth the entire season?

 

Red Light is there a reason you made 0 effort to communicate or respond to me during the game?

I say it because it is true. Out of everyone left, I was the most likely to win that wasn't an OG Baltoro. I have the strategy, the social game, the challenge wins, you name it. I was reaching out and having conversations with people to make them feel close to me even if I was targeting them. I was named Hero of the season in the live challenge. You performed well in the challenges, but strategically you didn't seem to branch out at all really from your OG Baltoro alliance and I don't think a jury would reward that style of gameplay compared to the other players. I don't really think the challenge statistics should hold as much weight as the social and strategic aspects, but my average is pretty good and I did very well in the challenges. I received perfect 10's multiple times, and it was part of my strategy to lay low in the challenges after being on a streak with them. In the Dueling Duos round, I received a perfect score and won immunity. Marvin would have likely won immunity against anyone else, but he went to tribal and was eliminated. Thanks to me someone who was shaping up to be a power player of the season was taken out early. Also, Rotunda did see me as a threat, as he said so himself, and he went to you and tried to get you to vote for me in the final 4, even if he says it was a backup plan. At the final 4 voting round, Rotunda asked me to pitch him my game, and said khalyan used to praise me for being super social. I knew I had to downplay my game to him and play up your chance of winning in that moment, or else it could shift to me. Of course I told Rotunda that I thought I had no shot at winning and I just wanted to go to the final three together because we made such good friends along the way... It would be incredibly idiotic to say that I want to go to the final three because I was a big competitor and I have a real shot at winning.

 

I don't think you were Rotunda's biggest competition, I think that is me. But I voted you out because it was either you or me. Rotunda wasn't going to vote for Red Light, because he thought Red Light was the easiest to beat, and Red Light was not going to vote for me. I wasn't about to go through another tie when I was so close. I was not just going to lay down and accept 4th place. I did very well socially and strategically too, and also I did not base my decision around if you could beat Rotunda. As you said Red Light posed no threat so that is someone I want to face up against in the finals compared to someone like you who did better in the challenges. I did consider voting out Red Light at the final 4 so that I would have another ally on the jury, but if I voted him out I don't think he would vote for me. If you were such a threat to win like you say, it would not make sense for me to want you in the final three with me. I did what needed to be done to get myself to the final three without another tie.

[Rotunda]

 

28 minutes ago, Acetone said:

Nowhere did I say you were a sheep, or that I told you what to do. You did not dictate any votes to me or tell me what to do either. We had an alliance and both actively contributed to it in the alliance group chat.

I mean you happily went into the Final 5 standing next to three of the biggest strategic and challenge threats in Me, Opulent, and Anvarie - and of the three of us, you only tried to take one of us out. In my opinion, that’s indicative of passive gameplay, because you were always guaranteed to sit next to a more aggressive player at the end. 

28 minutes ago, Acetone said:

At the final 4 voting round, Rotunda asked me to pitch him my game, and said khalyan used to praise me for being super social. I knew I had to downplay my game to him and play up your chance of winning in that moment, or else it could shift to me. Of course I told Rotunda that I thought I had no shot at winning and I just wanted to go to the final three together because we made such good friends along the way... It would be incredibly idiotic to say that I want to go to the final three because I was a big competitor and I have a real shot at winning.

Anvarie was getting cut anyway based on my own conversations with Anvarie, the notion that you helped move the needle is a misconception on your part. I was simply picking your brain to get a preview of what you might say during FTC. 
 

28 minutes ago, Acetone said:

In the Dueling Duos round, I received a perfect score and won immunity. Marvin would have likely won immunity against anyone else, but he went to tribal and was eliminated.

I think it’s really presumptive to say you’re one of the only people who could have beaten Marvin when there’s literally a scoreboard on this page that lists people who outperformed you in song challenges 

 

Beyond that, I think it’s a bit ridiculous to claim that you needed to throw challenges to manage your threat level when 3 of the strongest challenge competitors made Final 5, and the strongest Post-Merge challenge competitor is sitting next to you. 

Edited March 24, 2022 by Rotunda

[Acetone]

37 minutes ago, Rotunda said:

Acetone lied just as much as me, but didn't have as strong of a challenge game, find as many advantages, or find their way in the majority as often as I did.

Which I think I am more impressive for, while not in the majority I was still able to make it this far by exploiting cracks in the majority and being flexible about who I work with. 

 

I've mentioned it already so sorry to beat a dead horse, but I slayed in challenges when I had to. I saved myself from the Dueling Duos round with a perfect 10, and I helped to break the Punani curse in the Chill In The Air round with another perfect 10. The beginning of the game was a learning curve for me with the challenges, but I adapted quickly. After doing well consecutively, I decided to actively submit songs that were not so great (sending in alternates from previous rounds when it didn't really fit the theme for the current round, reusing the same artists multiple times in one round, etc.) I literally submitted a cover when the instructions literally said no covers. I did this to bring my average down and cause other people above me to be shields.

 

I found an idol, went to the glacier twice, and knew about a lot of other's advantages because I was well connected with them. On my second glacier trip, I risked my vote, and Kayseri and I both lost our votes. I navigated through that and won immunity at a clutch time and was immune the round that I didn't have a vote for. Unfortunately for me all I got from the mystery box was a Foxes album, but I knew about Harmonizer's extra vote, Venus's advantage to leave tribal council for a round and be safe, Red Light's advantage that would make any of the fake idols real, as well as Rotunda's idol and guide to see what idols were real/fake (Red Light told me).

 

1 hour ago, Rotunda said:

Also, because I know some people struggle with reading long walls of text, I've developed a couple graphics to highlight why I think I deserve to win the game. The first features a resume-style summary of my game, while the second features comments that were made by members of the Final 4 over the last few days. Because Red Light already mentioned in their interview that they regret not getting me out, I think that further reinforces just how much of a threat I was this season. 

 

 

What was I supposed to say, "congrats on the immunity but I'm still winning the game! Good luck! See you at final 3!" Of course I said that to blow smoke up your ass in an effort for you to not vote for me

 

[Rotunda]

40 minutes ago, Acetone said:

Which I think I am more impressive for, while not in the majority I was still able to make it this far by exploiting cracks in the majority and being flexible about who I work with. 

 

I've mentioned it already so sorry to beat a dead horse, but I slayed in challenges when I had to. I saved myself from the Dueling Duos round with a perfect 10, and I helped to break the Punani curse in the Chill In The Air round with another perfect 10. The beginning of the game was a learning curve for me with the challenges, but I adapted quickly. After doing well consecutively, I decided to actively submit songs that were not so great (sending in alternates from previous rounds when it didn't really fit the theme for the current round, reusing the same artists multiple times in one round, etc.) I literally submitted a cover when the instructions literally said no covers. I did this to bring my average down and cause other people above me to be shields.

 

I found an idol, went to the glacier twice, and knew about a lot of other's advantages because I was well connected with them. On my second glacier trip, I risked my vote, and Kayseri and I both lost our votes. I navigated through that and won immunity at a clutch time and was immune the round that I didn't have a vote for. Unfortunately for me all I got from the mystery box was a Foxes album, but I knew about Harmonizer's extra vote, Venus's advantage to leave tribal council for a round and be safe, Red Light's advantage that would make any of the fake idols real, as well as Rotunda's idol and guide to see what idols were real/fake (Red Light told me).

Acetone, I don’t know how to explain this to you but the main players in the OG Baltoro Alliance never intended to simply go to the end together. @khalyan can verify, but from early on our intention was to flip and work with y’all. There were no cracks to exploit, we were the cracks, and we made an explicit decision to work with y’all. This was not some intense effort on your part because a lot of this transpired while you were missing. 
 

Beyond that, you mentioning this one challenge ad nauseum doesn’t necessarily carry much weight when I have the highest challenge average and most wins out of any of us. There was no reason for you to need to throw challenges. Anvarie, Opulent, and I posted massive challenge averages and all made F5. It’s not a credit to your game that your score is lower than ours. 
 

40 minutes ago, Acetone said:

What was I supposed to say, "congrats on the immunity but I'm still winning the game! Good luck! See you at final 3!" Of course I said that to blow smoke up your ass in an effort for you to not vote for me

Red Light has already confirmed I was the biggest threat in their own interview statement. Both you and Red Light failed to make a push to get any of the two biggest threats out (Opulent or Me), which is a knock against your game in my opinion. It’s not blowing smoke, it’s the truth. 
 

You can say that you didn’t mean what you said, but it’s a fact that none of the power players in the merge who left, did so because of an effort you took the driver’s seat on. The same can’t be said for me.

 

You’ve admitted that I played the more exciting game, but your only critique of me was that I faced less “adversity,” which doesn’t make sense because I literally flipped the game on its head, went to rocks, and saved y’all’s asses to prove that I wasn’t going to take the easy way out. There’s no more adversity than that. 
 

In contrast, you claim that you fought from the bottom and broke up the majority, but I already explained to you that I never intended to solely work with the Baltoros, and you weren’t even a consideration to be voted out prior to the OG Baltoro Alliance imploding. You may have been in the minority, but you were not seriously playing from the bottom. 
 

I’d argue, in fact, that my decision to constantly work with different groups was much scrappier than what you did. 

Edited March 24, 2022 by Rotunda

[Rotunda]

There’s a difference between having shields and being a floater. The point of having shields is that you eventually take them out so that you’re the strongest player sitting at FTC. That’s what I did with Anvarie and Opulent. Acetone never tried to get me or Opulent out. We weren’t shields for Acetone, Acetone was just floating. 
 
 

16 minutes ago, Acetone said:

I found an idol, went to the glacier twice, and knew about a lot of other's advantages because I was well connected with them. On my second glacier trip, I risked my vote, and Kayseri and I both lost our votes. I navigated through that and won immunity at a clutch time and was immune the round that I didn't have a vote for. Unfortunately for me all I got from the mystery box was a Foxes album, but I knew about Harmonizer's extra vote, Venus's advantage to leave tribal council for a round and be safe, Red Light's advantage that would make any of the fake idols real, as well as Rotunda's idol and guide to see what idols were real/fake (Red Light told me).

- The idol was fake so this isn’t a notch on your belt, nothing stopped you from finding the idol decoder that was hidden in the episode guide channel and using that to your advantage like I did 

 

- Everyone has to go to the Glacier

 

- Choosing the wrong thing at the Glacier isn’t a move

 

- Red Light didn’t even know about the idol decoder until a couple days ago, after all the idols were already settled, so this wasn’t useful information for you 

Edited March 24, 2022 by Rotunda

[Acetone]

11 minutes ago, Rotunda said:

 

I mean you happily went into the Final 5 standing next to three of the biggest strategic and challenge threats in Me, Opulent, and Anvarie - and of the three of us, you only tried to take one of us out. In my opinion, that’s indicative of passive gameplay, because you were always guaranteed to sit next to a more aggressive player at the end. 

Anvarie was getting cut anyway based on my own conversations with Anvarie, the notion that you helped move the needle is a misconception on your part. I was simply picking your brain to get a preview of what you might say during FTC. 
 

I think it’s really presumptive to say you’re one of the only people who could have beaten Marvin when there’s literally a scoreboard on this page that lists people who outperformed you in song challenges 

 

Beyond that, I think it’s a bit ridiculous to claim that you needed to throw challenges to manage your threat level when 3 of the strongest challenge competitors made Final 5, and the strongest Post-Merge challenge competitor is sitting next to you. 

I think I'm right up there with the biggest threats of the season. I did not have as much freedom as you in maneuvering though, and I worked with what I had to work with. I did what I had to to ensure I made it through round after round while also steering the target away from my closest allies, Opulent and Red Light. At one point it was 3 vs. 6, yet the three of me, Opulent, and Red light still made it to the final 5, and would have made it even farther if Anvarie didn't play an idol. I did not see a path forward with any of Anvarie, BLAD, Kayseri, and to an extent fais - they were all more loyal to OG Baltoro and it would be a death sentence for me to take you out and be left in the game still in the minority with them in the majority. I did not actively target Opulent because it did not make sense for me to target Opulent. Opulent was my ride or die, and with his back to back challenge wins in the late game, I knew he would be a shield for me. But I think I'm at least at the same level of a threat as Opulent. i would say I am just as strategic, and more social than Opulent. I don't think Anvarie was much of a threat besides doing well in challenges but there is way more to the game than that. It seemed like Anvarie was just comfortable sticking with the OG Baltoros and not really trying to make other alliances and I wouldn't be impressed by that if I was on the jury. I went with Opulent and Red Light because we needed each other so much that it was very unlikely for either of them to flip on me. I went with you since you were in the process of burning bridges with pretty much all of the Baltoros on the jury. I don't think I was passive as I was always actively strategizing and contributing to the discussion in alliances. Rather than passive, I would say  I was opportunistic, as I read the room and exploited cracks where I could to advance in the game, positioning myself to be insulated so that others were targeted before me.

 

I actually did try to take you out btw, but it fell through when other players didn't bite - after khalyan came to me and said we should get you out, I came up with a plan and shared it with khalyan and Red Light. The plan was for me, khalyan, Red Light, and Opulent to vote for you, while everyone else would think another plan is going on and be splitting votes on other people, and we would have been able to get away with it with only four votes. Khalyan didn't seem too thrilled about my plan and was plotting to vote out Red Light that same round. I backed off the plan when it didn't seem to me like khalyan wanted to do it, and then right around the same time we found out khalyan/Anvarie/BLAD/fais were voting for Red Light, so I just flipped with Opulent/you/Red Light instead. My flexibility worked and helped me to make it to the final three.

 

If that's the case, it is also a miscalculation on your part to overlook me. I knew you were picking my brain to see if I was a threat to you at FTC and I answered you accordingly to make you feel like you could go with me.

 

Yes, it is presumptive, but I scored a perfect 10, while Marvin scored just shy of a perfect 10. There is a good chance that he would have won over someone else. Just because the scoreboard has a high rank, doesn't mean they would do well in that given instance. 

 

It is not ridiculous that I threw challenges, by the end of round 9 I had already won 7 challenges. I heard talks of other players mentioning challenge prowess as a reason to target people throughout the entire game, and people were making comments to me like "congratulations again." My challenge wins were definitely getting noticed. I knew if I kept up that momentum, I would soon be targeted for it too. I knew people were at least being noticed for being challenge threats, so I let others make targets of themselves which would help to insulate me further. It worked, as Opulent went on an immunity streak and was the one targeted out of the non-Baltoros because of it. It was known that Baltoro players wanted Opulent out "as soon as he didn't win immunity."

 

 

[fais_2311]

Hello Final 3!

 

Congratulations to you guys. I think you guys did amazing and no hard feelings from me. You guys did what you had to do in order to be here.

 

First, Rotunda…

 

Great job. I’m so happy for you. I was having so much fun working with you. You helped Baltoro dominated early challenges and played such a huge role in our tribe. But yeah, you were not in my final 3 plan cause you were such a big threat. And majority even think that you were most likely to win. So that’s why I was not bitter at all when you betrayed us but the other five Baltoros, when I met them again, they were quite hurt with your actions in this game. I guess, you were really in their final 3 plan so they felt like your move and betrayal were unnecessary. So my questions for you are

 

1. For each Baltoro jurors (except for me and Marvin), give your reason why it was necessary for you to betray them?

2. During final 8, what made you decide to turn on me and Khalyan and did you expose us (our plan to vote Red Light) to non Baltoros?

3. If Khalyan and I decide to stick with that alliance of 6 with non Baltoros in that final 8 round, were you and non Baltoros were still splitting the vote between Anvarie and BLAD or were you guys already planned to vote Khalyan out prior to our decision to reform Baltoro alliance?

 

Red Light and Acetone,

 

Great job to you guys too. I think you guys did amazing. From 6-3 disadvantages, you guys made it to the final 3. During our group chat with Khalyan, I was being open to you guys, that if Rotunda is in final 3, I will vote for him. And I do believe that, it was our best shot to blindside him at final 7. So right now, I’m leaning towards Rotunda but you guys still can sway my vote. Therefore, my questions to both of you are

 

1. Did you expose our plan (to blindside Rotunda) and group chat to Rotunda?

2. Why did you feel that Rotunda was a better option for you guys to move forward in the game than me and Khalyan?

3. What is exactly your plan for Rotunda? Final 6? 5? 4? or you actually wanted him in the final 3 with you? 

4. As for the final 6 alliance between 3 Baltoros and 3 non Baltoros, was it real to you? Do you actually wanted to go to the final 6 with us 3 (Rotunda, Khalyan and I) or is there any secret plan that we didn’t know?

 

That’s all from me. Good luck to you guys. Amazing job. Love ? 

Edited March 24, 2022 by fais_2311

[Acetone]

44 minutes ago, Rotunda said:

Acetone, I don’t know how to explain this to you but the main players in the OG Baltoro Alliance never intended to simply go to the end together. @khalyan can verify, but from early on our intention was to flip and work with y’all. There were no cracks to exploit, we were the cracks, and we made an explicit decision to work with y’all. This was not some intense effort on your part because a lot of this transpired while you were missing. 
 

Beyond that, you mentioning this one challenge ad nauseum doesn’t necessarily carry much weight when I have the highest challenge average and most wins out of any of us. There was no reason for you to need to throw challenges. Anvarie, Opulent, and I posted massive challenge averages and all made F5. It’s not a credit to your game that your score is lower than ours. 
 

Red Light has already confirmed I was the biggest threat in their own interview statement. Both you and Red Light failed to make a push to get any of the two biggest threats out (Opulent or Me), which is a knock against your game in my opinion. It’s not blowing smoke, it’s the truth. 
 

You can say that you didn’t mean what you said, but it’s a fact that none of the power players in the merge who left, did so because of an effort you took the driver’s seat on. The same can’t be said for me.

 

You’ve admitted that I played the more exciting game, but your only critique of me was that I faced less “adversity,” which doesn’t make sense because I literally flipped the game on its head, went to rocks, and saved y’all’s asses to prove that I wasn’t going to take the easy way out. There’s no more adversity than that. 
 

In contrast, you claim that you fought from the bottom and broke up the majority, but I already explained to you that I never intended to solely work with the Baltoros, and you weren’t even a consideration to be voted out prior to the OG Baltoro Alliance imploding. You may have been in the minority, but you were not seriously playing from the bottom. 
 

I’d argue, in fact, that my decision to constantly work with different groups was much scrappier than what you did. 

Yes exactly, you were the cracks. I was able to get farther working with members of the OG Baltoro tribe who flipped on other members of the OG Baltoro tribe. That is what exploiting the cracks is. Just because you were the cracks doesn't negate that it was in fact exploiting the cracks. And it was further exploiting cracks when you and khalyan were flipping on each other, and when you flipped on the rest of the Baltoros. Your intent to flip does not negate that I exploited the cracks. Also, I discussed with you and khalyan both before I went missing about working together and getting an alliance formed with "level headed" players, so don't act like everything happened while I was gone and I just magically showed up to cash in. I was active and strategizing before and after the fact.

 

That is just one of the prime examples. In total, I won immunity in rounds 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, and 10. You are fluffing up Opulent and Anvarie's games in an attempt to nullify my credibility. No offense to them, but I was a big threat too. I already replied in my other comment, but throwing challenges was perfectly valid and made my threat level smaller. Just because you say so doesn't make that absolute truth. I'm not saying that it is some big accomplishment to have a lower score, once again my words are being twisted. I'm just saying I was on a roll from rounds 4 through 10, only missing out on immunity in round 6 but other than that consecutively. I realized that was probably not sustainable, so I pumped the brakes a bit. There was active discussion from the beginning of the game about challenge threats. Throwing competitions is absolutely a valid strategy as you know from watching the actual show.

 

That is Red Light's word, not mine. Saying he confirmed it does not make it fact, but I do acknowledge that you were seen as a threat in this game, as was I. Again, I believe that I was on at least an equal level to Opulent, and it would not make sense for me to target Opulent, as it would not make sense for Opulent to target me. We needed each other in the game. I think the power players in the merge phase were mainly khalyan, Opulent, me, and you. And I did make a push to get you out as detailed in my previous comment. I played just as much of a role as you in flipping on khalyan, so I don't think your statement about that is valid.

 

I said you faced less adversity because you had way more options. You could go back to the OG Baltoro alliance at any time (at least prior to the rock draw, and you did go back with Anvarie after that and then betrayed them again) and you could also use the outsiders. You could pretty much take your pick of who to work with with the entire merge cast, while I was limited to basically Red Light/Opulent/you/khalyan. I tried reaching out numerous times to the OG Baltoro members that I was not close to, but they did not give me much material to work with as they seemed set on just sticking with their current alliance. While you played a big part of flipping the game, you cannot take all the credit. Yes, you flipped away from your starting tribe, but we all participated. Its not like we sat around twiddling our thumbs until you valiantly came along and ordered us what to do. I was just as much a part of the rock draw as you. For me, options were way more limited and I scraped by each round with opulent and Red Light, without shots being taken at me (besides that one stray vote from Anvarie who was left out of the plan). I think that is an accomplishment. I had to have good instincts and know which opportunities to take and which ones would not play out well for me.

 

Good for you for supposedly never intending to work solely with the Baltoros. I still consider what I did exploiting the cracks in the majority, regardless of your supposed intentions. I know I wasn't a consideration to be voted out because I had a great relationship with khalyan at that point who was also at the top of the food chain on OG Baltoro and khalyan has said himself that he steered the target away from me. I was also building a good relationship with you and I had my social game cast wide. I constantly reached out to others I wasn't close with in attempt to build more bunds and make everyone feel comfortable with me. As I said before, I positioned myself in a way that I was covered. While I was in the minority, I sure as hell did rally the rest of the players in the minority and played from the bottom. 

[Acetone]

1 hour ago, Rotunda said:

There’s a difference between having shields and being a floater. The point of having shields is that you eventually take them out so that you’re the strongest player sitting at FTC. That’s what I did with Anvarie and Opulent. Acetone never tried to get me or Opulent out. We weren’t shields for Acetone, Acetone was just floating. 
 
 

- The idol was fake so this isn’t a notch on your belt, nothing stopped you from finding the idol decoder that was hidden in the episode guide channel and using that to your advantage like I did 

 

- Everyone has to go to the Glacier

 

- Choosing the wrong thing at the Glacier isn’t a move

 

- Red Light didn’t even know about the idol decoder until a couple days ago, after all the idols were already settled, so this wasn’t useful information for you 

Again, yes I did try to get you out, and again, taking out Opulent does not make sense for me. I wouldn't consider myself a floater in the negative connotation that you say it in, but floating is actually a valid and respectable strategy. I know it is from a different show, but two words: Jun Song. I love Rachel Reilly but she changed the definition of floater to someone she just doesn't like regardless of their gameplay, and others followed suit. I think you are using it similarly. Not to say that you dislike me, but you are just using it to smear my game to look better at FTC.

 

Yes, everyone had to go to the glacier, but what people did at the glacier had an impact on the game. For instance, I knew that an advantage was up for grabs at the glacier that gave the holder an extra vote. Kayseri was at the glacier the same time as me both times I went, and both times he was 100% dead set on risking his vote. I risked my vote the second time in the off chance that he was bluffing, to potentially gain an advantage for myself and also keep him from getting an advantage. There was absolutely strategy involved with the glacier and its weird that you seem to think otherwise.

 

It was still information that you had an idol and knew it was real, so we couldn't vote for you that round. That information was useful because we knew that you had an idol, and that you were going to play it since it was the last round you could use it. That is why we voted Anvarie that round and did not attempt to vote you.

[Acetone]

1 hour ago, fais_2311 said:

Hello Final 3!

 

Congratulations to you guys. I think you guys did amazing and no hard feelings from me. You guys did what you had to do in order to be here.

 

First, Rotunda…

 

Great job. I’m so happy for you. I was having so much fun working with you. You helped Baltoro dominated early challenges and played such a huge role in our tribe. But yeah, you were not in my final 3 plan cause you were such a big threat. And majority even think that you were most likely to win. So that’s why I was not bitter at all when you betrayed us but the other five Baltoros, when I met them again, they were quite hurt with your actions in this game. I guess, you were really in their final 3 plan so they felt like your move and betrayal were unnecessary. So my questions for you are

 

1. For each Baltoro jurors (except for me and Marvin), give your reason why it was necessary for you to betray them?

2. During final 8, what made you decide to turn on me and Khalyan and did you expose us (our plan to vote Red Light) to non Baltoros?

3. If Khalyan and I decide to stick with that alliance of 6 with non Baltoros in that final 8 round, were you and non Baltoros were still splitting the vote between Anvarie and BLAD or were you guys already planned to vote Khalyan out prior to our decision to reform Baltoro alliance?

 

Red Light and Acetone,

 

Great job to you guys too. I think you guys did amazing. From 6-3 disadvantages, you guys made it to the final 3. During our group chat with Khalyan, I was being open to you guys, that if Rotunda is in final 3, I will vote for him. And I do believe that, it was our best shot to blindside him at final 7. So right now, I’m leaning towards Rotunda but you guys still can sway my vote. Therefore, my questions to both of you are

 

1. Did you expose our plan (to blindside Rotunda) and group chat to Rotunda?

2. Why did you feel that Rotunda was a better option for you guys to move forward in the game than me and Khalyan?

3. What is exactly your plan for Rotunda? Final 6? 5? 4? or you actually wanted him in the final 3 with you? 

4. As for the final 6 alliance between 3 Baltoros and 3 non Baltoros, was it real to you? Do you actually wanted to go to the final 6 with us 3 (Rotunda, Khalyan and I) or is there any secret plan that we didn’t know?

 

That’s all from me. Good luck to you guys. Amazing job. Love ? 

Hey fais! First of all, I'm sorry how things went down. It was great to meet you and I hope you can forgive me for how I betrayed you.

 

Regarding the group chat we had with you, me, khalyan, and Red Light, I know you were being open, but it was hard to trust after you voted for Red Light and did not tell me. Looking back, it would have been a good time to vote for Rotunda at 7, but I was also nervous that if we did so, you and khalyan could link up with Anvarie at the final 6 and force another tie.

 

1. Yes, we had an alliance group chat with Rotunda and Opulent and they were in on the plan from the start. They knew that we formed a group and that we were going to pretend to go along with it so you would feel comfortable and wouldn't play an advantage if you had one.

 

2. I felt that I wasn't able to trust you or khalyan after the rock draw round, and I felt like you both did not really trust me. I found out that you two were flipping on the 6 and voting out Red Light. I also felt that you were going to be more loyal to the OG Baltoros, especially after you flipped on the alliance after just a couple rounds to go back and vote with BLAD and Anvarie. We were planning on getting Rotunda out right after you, but he had an idol and won immunity so that didn't work out how we planned.

 

3. No, the plan was always to get Rotunda out. Final 5 would have been ideal but he had an idol. Khalyan was the target at final 6 because we already voted you out, and khalyan was rightfully pissed. I wanted khalyan out ASAP at that point before he could expose me since I shared a lot of information with him throughout the course of the game. Ideally I would be in the final three with Opulent and Red Light. We felt we needed to make it together, because there were so many Baltoros on the jury that if one Baltoro got to the final 3, they most likely win the game.

 

4. Yes, for me it was real. You, Rotunda, and khalyan were the ones outside of Red Light and Opulent that I was closest to, and I did not see a path forward with Anvarie/Kayseri/BLAD. My alliance with Red Light and Opulent took precedence, but I was still serious about our 6. I wanted to go further with the six, but things got complicated before that could happen. Things first started getting rocky because it seemed like you and khalyan and to an extent Rotunda were wavering between us and the OG Baltoros. When I found out you were flipping on Red Light, I worked to change that and force a tie as Red Light was loyal to me and not a threat to me. I couldn't lose him yet. I was willing to go to a rock draw because I felt like I didn't have much to lose at that point. After that, we were all still in the game, but I lost trust because if you flipped on the alliance once, you might do it again.

 

(also, I know this was a question for Rotunda, but the plan wasn't to vote for khalyan until after we had already found out that you and khalyan were flipping and voting Red Light. Anvarie was the target our alliance supposedly agreed on, so we didn't actually vote Anvarie in case you filled them in and they played an advantage. We went for someone who wouldn't be as expected, and it was between khalyan and you as who would least expect it.)