7 minutes into this Tony interview and I'm having way too much fun

can someone link this podcast everyone is talking about

http://domandcolin.blogspot.ca/?m=1

Tsk tsk karak

thanks!

since i asked for the link, im pretty sure it's ok :P

I'm Tsk tsking you because you don't know D&C already. They are basically our official forum survivor podcast

Tony now giving an existential monologue on the meaninglessness of time.

Going back to the debate about how many players we'd trust with our lives to win the game as a random first-timer more so than we would Tony, my number went from ~20 to ~8 after that interview.

You can't tease us like this and not give us the 8. Do you still have Spencer above Tony?

Not even close as first-timers, though I think Spencer pretty clearly has more potential to be super elite with experience whereas Tony will always be Tony (which is still very good)

The list of players I'd still definitely take above Tony as first-timers (in no order other than #1):

Kim
Heidik
Stephen
Hayden
Cirie
Earl
Danni

Really close:
Yul
Cesternino

Not listed: Boston Rob, which shouldn't even be a debate imo given the first-timer caveat.

Cirie is an elite pick

Thats a good list. Having not seen any BB I don't rate Hayden nearly as high as some of your reality junkies. Gotta watch JT and Stephens season again because I frankly forget most of the strategy from that season.

Is 30 something Boston Rob who has seen 28 seasons of Survivor before playing really the same guy as 20 something Boston Rob who has seen 3 seasons? This question gets muddy with him.

HOT TAKE: Boston Rob has a nearly impossible deceptively difficult time ever winning his first season as an unknown. The "OMG it's THE Boston Rob" factor in his success goes staggeringly unrecognized.

Edit to include: It's a lot like Evel Dick on Big Brother. He can only win (legitimately) once he's already a known quantity instead of just some random a-hole.

I think Tony should be above most of those players, if not at the top. His strategy at the merge going in down numbers was the most impressive part of the interview. He was responsible for creating diva Sarah

I don't think a lot of those players would do as well down numbers when they're not playing against Timbira.

Tony dominated against much tougher competition.

I disagree with this quite strongly and would be interested to hear why you think he can't win without name recognition. I actually lean towards the opposite being true (where RI was just a ~flawless table draw as one of the fields/tribes he could beat as a known commodity) in the same way that I think someone like Heidik or Vytas sees their stock drop significantly once they've been seen before.

Hard to say if we are assuming all these players have gotten to see 28 seasons and are now playing in the 29th season.

But if we just assume they get to replay their first season over and over and over with new random casts, I'd give Season 4 Boston Rob a 0.0 Win Above Replacement rating.

Kim and Earl have the highest WAR on their first season in my opinion.

someone uploaded S1-S12 to youtube a few weeks ago. nice to be able to find some of the 'lost' seasons.

glad to see colin is coming around on Tony. The guy is just elite

I strongly agree that players like Heidik and Vytas lose a ton of equity after they become known quantities, but the point at hand is how players do on their first attempt.

Thoughts about Boston Rob:

--Most people would agree that RI was a ~flawless cast for him (almost as if by design!). And yes, we've seen every time he's played that he has no problem assembling and controlling an early alliance, but in a random season he's not often going to be gifted a herd of goats from Day 1 like he has been so many times in real life. I don't think there's any doubt that an unknown first-time Boston Rob also curbstomps S22, but again, that's pretty much the best cast he could ever realistically hope to draw.

--A lot of my concern with his first-timer winrate comes down to how I feel about his general approach to the game, which is that his insatiable appetite for eliminating the biggest threat is a pretty big leak for someone who plays as he does, especially when facing even remotely competent opponents.

--IMO, a huge percentage of his first-time win equity involves an endgame immunity run and not causing the jury to be too bitter; something we know he had to learn the hard way in practice.

--I don't think I've ever heard of a player being completely unwilling to talk to another player from their season for the rest of their lives based on things that happened within the game, yet Boston Rob's done it twice. The dude is historically gifted at hurting feelings, which costs him a ton of wins in the hypothetical long run.

I'm not familiar with the other aside from Lex?

who is B Rob not talking to besides I assume Russell? Is that even a bad assumption?

Grant, or at least that was the case last I heard.

Lol. Who gives a **** of Grant talks to anyone?

Is there more to the Weasel Woo moniker that Tony didn't tell us about? I'm reading Spencer's AMA and his response would indicate something more than just stealing food.