Isn't this exactly how Sandra won her first season?

In theory she could if she got to the exact right final, but how you won Survivor on season 7 probably isn't a great blueprint for winning in season 45.

Ironically, Katurah's best shot is more like Sandra's second win, where she continually tried to get out someone everyone hated, failed miserably every time, then ended up sitting to a super unlikeable FTC person and another person people held a lot of bitterness towards.

If she can somehow get someone to be seen as the one with all the blood on their hands (let's say Emily - can't imagine Kaleb or Kellie is dying to give Emily a milly right now) and another one everyone hates (Bruce), I suppose she could pull it out and win just by the reasoning of "I'm not those two".

Sad to see Kellie go, I thought she was cool and was playing a good game. Smart move by the tribe though. Jake has zero shot and no reason to boot him now.

I will say that Jake is making me uncomfortable. He's already had 2 incidents where he passed out and went into convulsions. Looked kinda scary tbh. Then he had the brain freeze at the last tribal, was almost waiting for him to pass out again. I know they have medical staff so I guess he's cleared to play, but it feels like the editing at tribal is setting up another upcoming health incident for him.

yeah i was worried for jake's health/safety when he was pushing himself in that challenge

If Dee wins it's definitely a pretty interesting 'double bluff' type edit. The overly strategic women almost never win Survivor in the modern era, people have even started talking about how dangerous she is on the show and that no one will beat her at the end.

I'd love to see it but I think it's more likely to be Emily or maybe Drew. Austin has quite possibly one of the worst edits ever for someone crushing the game, so he has to be blindsided at some point I think. Not sure anyone else can win though I think Julie has actually played an ok game.

Dee and her horde of women will take at least one scalp. Austin with his idols. Or Drew with this week’s big move on his resume’.

lmao at dee being "overly strategic"

This^. I'm baffled at the Dee love. Good sum up on her a few posts back as well, filthy.

Also, I'm just going to put it out there that "unsatisfying" winners is what the game should produce if it's being played mostly correctly. The "good" players should be targeted and voted out if the majority of players are making self interested decisions and moves. You're likeable? Sorry, you gotta go. You're good at things? Sorry, you gotta go as well. What's left? Unsatisfying winners. If they manage to cast enough people who are legit trying to win instead of "have an adventure" or who think trying to win is amoral, this is what you get. This is the game.

It was really smart of Dee to take out Kellie. Kellie was the woman mastermind on the other side, might as well take her out and leave yourself as the only female mastermind.

So you think all of the misfits will get together and vote out of all of the likeable and strong people? How will the misfits like Bruce realize they aren’t one of the likeable and strong people?

Also, much of the audience’s opinion of who is likeable and good and who is not is based on the edit, isolated conversations shown in the edit, private confessionals, etc.

Most of what you find to be relative strategic info hasn’t been portrayed to all players remaining. A lot of strategic info they are using hasn’t been portrayed to the audience. We see like 15-20 hours worth of footage out of 26 days.

But yeah, vote out the good and likeable players.

caleb was clearly good, and likable, edit or no edit. and he was voted out for it

Caleb was clearly not good.

Finally watched the ep and some thoughts:

The thing where Jeff knifed the rice bag to get people to jump was savage and awesome.

The auction was well done and I liked the format, hope they bring it back although they do need to add in a random advantage. Maybe have two rocks drawn, one for the end and one for the advantage being substituted in for whatever food instead AFTER they bid. That way it's fair to everyone.

Jake is clearly drawing dead and if anyone is smart they will drag him to the end, especially because he will clearly vote with whoever just to save his skin now. Bruce is also drawing dead but he's too stupid to realize it. Can't see Austin not getting blindsided at some point because he's not smart enough to realize it.

Emily is in a great spot subtly playing both sides quite well. Did anyone see that coming after her train wreck first episode?

Can see a definite scenario F4 where Dee, Emily, Jake and probably Julie make it and whoever comes out between Dee and Emily wins because one of them should axe the other then.

This. Caleb is a sales guy. Probably really good at his job, because he follows the ABC rule - Always Be Closing.

On Survivor, always closing means (in poker parlance) turning your hand face up. He wasn't at all subtle.

You can go around making alliances with everyone like Caleb did if you are secretive about it. When you do that strategy and broadcast it the entire time, it's dumb.

you realize his tribe was woat, and at the merge his only ally was emily, who was a complete ouctast at the time... and he was seen as a threat from day one

Emily a clear better player than Caleb imo

Caleb would be great in an all returnee season with some big threats with targets on them to begin with. Would allow him to fly under the radar more.

What makes you think Kaleb won't give Emily a milly? They were super close until the end, she basically told him to play his shot in the dark. She just voted for him because she didn't have the power to save him, and he knew that.

I think Emily has one of the best shots at winning which is pretty insane. Then again, she was SO abrasive at first it's clear she wasn't self-aware at all, and she has grown a lot. Gotta respect that.

Actually, I don't think all of the misfits will get together and vote out the likeable people and the people who are competent at challenges. But they definitely SHOULD--if they are trying to win. And sometimes they do. Or at least attempt to. Indeed, there are obstacles to playing the game optimally. People's delusions being one.

In this thread it has been illustrated not only is likeability subjective, but so is good game play. We seem to mostly agree Kaleb was at least perceived as likeable on the island, but we can't seem to agree on whether he was good at the game or not. What does that mean? Is Kaleb not good at Survivor...or maybe we aren't? There is no spoon? It's so confusing. This is probably why people vote for the 'wrong' people to win so often.

Even though I still think that Dee is slightly more likely to win have to feel quite smug pegging Emily as my dark horse winner after the premier when every single person had seemingly completely written her off


In terms of whether Kaleb is a 'good Survivor player' or not. I think it comes down to the fact that lots of fans have always fallen into the trap of thinking either;
Very physical = good player
Very social = good player
Very strategic = good player

Wheras it has (in my opinion) always been the case that the best players are 'competant/good' at the above combined with the most important quality of threat management making sure you stay below the threat line.

At the moment I put Kaleb in a long line of players like Joe Anglim,, Cirea Eastin, Rupert, Andrea, Ozzy & Luke Toki (au), who have constantly strugled to manage their threat line. Whether Kaleb can course correct it on a returnee player season for now remains to be seen. We saw Jeremy in Cambodia do it very effectively.

I liked Kaleb, I hope he returns but there's a difference between being likable and social. We never really saw much evidence of Kaleb pitching or getting his way, I guess his position was difficult given his tribe but the other side of that is you can't give him much credit for influencing his tribe given how abysmal they were at the game.

To me the best social players are not people who are considered likable in an abstract sense, but the ones who can identify the tribal dynamics and manoever within the game. I'd say Drew, Austin and Dee have been the best.

But yeah, overall hard to see how anyone can make the case that Kaleb is good at the game given he got voted out unanimously then got himself booted the next round also.