'Finally got caught up on older episodes this week.
I think that a lot of Russell’s strategies have been ill-conceived this season but everyone else has been even stupider so his active game is carrying the day. We’ve seen this repeatedly in past seasons – People who play an active game tend to do well, especially when they play the numbers game using passive players against other active players. Russell knocking off Erik was really the turning point of this season.
John seems to be the only other player who is actually playing the game at this point. It will be interesting to see if this plays to his advantage or not. He hasn’t really done anything to put a target on himself yet and he seems to be the only person other than Russell who is actually thinking things through clearly.
Russell, meanwhile, seems to have passed a crisis point where he didn’t even have to think about playing his idol this week. That’s a pretty major shift and while he can still shoot himself in the foot, he’s got the idol which needs to be flushed out before anyone can get him. (Or they need to engineer a blindside but he’s been pretty adept at sensing when he’s in trouble and Shambo at the very least would tip him off to a blindside.)
That’s certainly not true - several winners have been terrible players who won by essentially winning the lottery and just being lucky enough to not be voted out when their similarly faceless peers got selected by the power players.
Colby, for instance, who didn’t win, is certainly one of the top 5 players ever in the show. Rob Cesternino was also a far better player than most of the winners. Ditto Jonny Fairplay in his first season.
Agree that Russell’s “strategy” has always seemed short-sighted – he needlessly drew attention to himself as a shifty, gameplaying character, far before he needed to do so. But he’s definitely played the game brilliantly, overall – that move against Dave to lure him away from the idol was awesome. He’s my favorite player in many, many seasons, and this season has been extremely entertaining throughout, largely because of him.
“Actually playing the game” is a hard thing to show because most players aren’t aggressive unless they need to be. So their best strategy is to stay quiet until they are in trouble. there is no reason to get in the crosshairs unless you need to. Russel being an extreme example that was acting agressivly fromt he first week.
John got into a danger zone and saw an opportunity last week so he acted. So he has definitely shown that he is capable of making very aggressive moves.
Monica, Shambo, Dave and Brett have had multiple opportunities to make big moves and have lost them. Monica and Shambo being so ineffective that they endanger those they are trying to help. Dave and Brett may be able to do something but they haven’t shown any ability to lead so far.
That leave Mick, Natalie and Jaison as unknowns. They have effectively followed the team directives and allowed Russell to be the lightning rod in case the plan fails. But it remains to be seen how effectively/aggressively they act when they need to. I doubt Natalie is much of a schemer. Jaison has also been prone to whining when things get tough.
But I wonder if Mick is playing the best game of all. He is safely insulated and looks to be coasting toward the finals. He seems to riding the line between removing opposition and not making enemies very well.
Think Mick and Jaison are playing pretty terribly, actually - they’ve only survived because of Russell (and Natalie).
Natalie’s played well - Eric was playing well until he got overconfident, Laura was playing well. John’s move is going to horribly backfire on him - he should have gambled on the rock. Monica at least came up with one reasonable plan – I actually think this season has the fewest “deadwood” players of any – anyone other than Monica could probably still win. If Russell can keep his own team from turning on him by the end, I’ll be truly impressed - great that he as the immunity idol still and (at least from what we’ve seen) he hasn’t shown anyone that. I really liked Dave, but he’s been outplayed badly the past few weeks, which makes it seem like Eric/John/Laura were the real strategic strength on that team.
Shambo is just terrible. But her team was retarded for alienating her and losing a vote needlessly.
– Mick may be a Doctor but he’s a bit of a dim bulb.
– Shambo may be a bit strange but holy shit was Laura a dumb bitch. No wonder Shambo wanted her gone so bad. Maybe the sun tanning segment was editted to make Laura look bad (“Oh no, the sun’s gone in!”) but all the editting in the world doesn’t change the fact that she continued soaking in the rays while Shambo talked about her sister dying of cancer. “That’s so sad but they’re better off!”
– Dave is like some hilariously pathetic Kevin Spacey character. He seems to have unintentionally sabotaged his team by bungling the handling of Shambo and turning on their mastermind Eric. “Can I get a hug? No? That’s cool.” Dave is why my girlfriend can’t convince me to do yoga with her.
– Brett is screwed by his aliance’s incompetance. He shouldn’t have waited to start playing a more active game.
In some other competition, take football for example, we could argue that a QB who has never won a Super Bowl was better than one who did(Marino vs Dilfer for instance). That’s because in other competitions there are other important stats you can use to compare performances, besides just ultimate victory.
In Survivor there is ONE stat- victory. The rest is gravy. Yeah, if you’re wily and evil AND win- you are just that much more awesome. But just being wily and evil doesn’t mean much without the win.
Same as being a good guy. Being honest and loyal AND winning means something extra. Being honest and loyal and losing gets a ‘meh’.
I don’t equate being a great player with being an entertaining to watch player though, I consider those to be entirely separate things. Other people may count entertainment value towards good play, but I don’t. Hence, Fairplay doesn’t count very high as a great player imo.
If a player winds up in the final of Survivor and gets the votes to win, I just don’t see how that player gets placed behind someone who came in second or third, or whereever. By the rules of Survivor the winner has succeeded beyond all others in the game, you just can’t take that from them no matter how they pulled off the win.
No, sadly a lot of the Survivor winners were just people who were dragged along on the backs of others, and it was solely through serendipity that they weren’t eliminated earlier in the game.
They weren’t good players - in fact, in several cases they were terrible players - whenever one of those lame winners gets through, there’s always 3-4 other players who were dragged along and did no less than the winner (they were equally hapless cannon fodder), who were equally likely to have been the winner, but didn’t happen to win the lottery.
The best players are the ones who do the most with the resources and luck that they’re given - you could be a strategic mastermind, but if you’re on a loser team that can’t win a challenge, your fate isn’t in your own hands. The best players are the ones who get far further than they would have otherwise gotten if they hadn’t made some smart moves or challenge performances.
Which isn’t to say that you have to be a shifty player to be a “good player” - people like Ethan and Tina won their seasons and probably played the best game they could in the circumstances. Colby played a better game than Tina though, since neither he nor Tina would have lasted in the game if he didn’t make certain strategic moves.
Even ignoring semi-lame winners like Jenna Morasca, Tina and Amber, there are a number of players who won who probably wouldn’t even rank in the top 50% of players who have ever played the game, and could just as likely been eliminated first in their seasons: Vecepia in Season 4, Sandra Season 7, Chris in Vanuatu
I can’t really get behind that ‘players that do the best with what they have to work with’ thing. It’s far too speculative. How do you, or anyone else, know how far any player would have gotten ‘if only’? For instance, Stephanie and Bobby Jon were stuck with a lame tribe, but there is no way anyone can say they would have done any better had they been on a dominant tribe in that season. There are simply too many variables.
I favor sticking to the known evidence. If someone won their season, they won their season, that’s an indisputable fact. Whatever you think of them or their gameplay style, they hit their mark. Someone who finishes second, however brilliant a tactician, however physically dominating, however entertaining to watch as they may be- that’s still falling short. The second place finisher can feel great, compared to the third place finisher and lower. But they don’t have anything on the winner.
This is a long “we probably have to agree to disagree” post, but I’ve got to flip this, because the sports analogy does not hold up -
Gameoverman, Your viewpoint is totally fine and valid, but Desslock’s is as well (and it’s the one I subscribe to). Everything about trying to define the “best” of anything is speculative to a point.
Being a somewhat random entertainment competetion with lot of soft attributes involved rather than hard statistics, I would argue that ranking Survivor players is more similar to trying to rank the best movies of all-time more than ranking sports. One could go your route and rank them according to highest gross revenue, or do a subjective AFI-type of ranking similar to Desslock’s line of thought. Neither one is right or wrong, but one is fun to debate and tallk about, and one has Titanic at the top.
What criteria defines ‘best Survivor player’ and yet is not a criteria that automatically admits a Survivor winner?
In other words how does Player A, who came in third in his season, qualify as an alltime best while Player B wins her season and yet does not meet the criteria?
That’s the part I’m having a hard time with. I’m not saying it’s not possible(although I BELIEVE it’s not possible), but if it is possible then can you clarify how?
The closest I’ve seen so far is something along the lines of a player who does the most with whatever resources he or she has been given. Therefore, if the player was stuck on a lameass tribe, he or she could still be considered ‘great’ by making it to the final four(since he or she did it all on his or her own).
But by that measure, all winners qualify because who has done more with what they had to work with than the winner himself(or herself)?
I don’t know that the movie analogy holds up because I don’t know anyone who equates boxoffice success with quality. Assuming by ‘best’ you mean best quality and not most popular. That’s why I stress that by ‘best Survivor player’ I do not mean ‘entertaining’. I agree that some winners were rather boring players to watch.
Agreed - the movie analogy was not the best, but the point was to say that there are qualities, although sometimes hard to quantify and thus difficult to accept, that some folks use to measure how good a player is.
The whole concept of reality competitions lend themselves to sometimes allowing mediocre players to win by using the “strategy” of just not being the worst player each week. If more than one person was eliminated each week, this probably would not be an issue as people would be forced to play a more active game. I actually don’t mind this setup, as it is exciting as well as infuriating to watch someone skate by each week to make it deep into a competition.
A good player does not need to be entertaining every week, deceitful every week, or make a major power play every week, but they will make these moves at appropriate times. However, there are players that have won without ever really doing any of this, which has netted them a million dollars basically from sheer luck. Kudos to them, but it is in those situations where one could point to other players and subjectively say they played a better game and just didn’t have luck on their side.
The air quotes you’ve put around strategy I think points out the fundamental reason there is this disagreement. The point of the game is to win. There are multiple ways to win, and one of them is to fly under the radar, ride on some coattails, and let everybody else sink themselves. It’s a strategy that has worked as evidenced by people who don’t “deserve” to win.
I personally think this is a perfectly valid strategy, and depending on the the other players, it might very well be the best strategy. You’ve essentially ruled it out as a valid strategy and any player who uses it is therefore a bad player. I don’t agree.
Actually think that’s a great example of the exact opposite situation – those guys were on probably the most physically impressive team in the history of the show, and were just badly outplayed by a team of misfits led by a fantastic leader.
If someone won their season, they won their season, that’s an indisputable fact. Whatever you think of them or their gameplay style, they hit their mark.
You’re given 20 or more hours of evidence - that’s more than sufficient to assess who made the best decisions. The best players make the best decisions - since luck is a big component of the game – it’s frankly a lot like poker. Often very bad players win a tournament, but calling them the “best players” because they won would be utterly ludicrous. The best players are the ones that made the best decisions.
I think team Russell made a huge mistake tonight. It may end up okay but they took a huge risk for no reason. It will be interesting to see how it plays out next week.
Terrible mistake - alienated Shambo for no reason, and Russell ensured that lost a jury vote from John, and kept a player who was almost as physically dangerous and probably a tougher strategist. I have to give Jaison credit for being completely lucid and recognizing that.
There really was no reason to not vote out Dave tonight - Russell could have saved John as a potential ally by just telling him before hand and saying that he was outvoted, but they were going to shake things us soon, and had Shambo as an ally to the end. It was also really dumb to tell John about the immunity idol - Russell just can’t help bragging (same with telling Mick about his actual wealth). The only positive aspect of getting rid of John was now, once again, nobody knows Russell has the idol, so he could still potentially use it to surprise people.
Ego and pride may have tripped up Russell. He needed to keep Shambo happy one more time through this vote, then could have blind-sided anyone he wanted from the other side, including Shambo, with the next vote, leaving his original tribe in command at least 4-3 regardless of how Shambo voted thereafter. He even realized how Shambo votes - entirely by the emotion of the moment - and then acted in a manner sure to make her angry. So now he risks a four-four split unnecessarily. Shambo realizes she isn’t really part of the winning alliance, and once again there is a make or break week that should have just been marking time and thinning out the other side to the point of no return. There’s a time for deviousness - this wasn’t it.
Right…But he didn’t HAVE to do it. If he had gone with Shambo he had a clear majority AND several folks in the minority who would have been sympathetic to him if he wanted to reform an alliance and public knowlege that he had the idol.
As it is…nobody knows he has the idol, but nobody in the game trusts him. It was a huge move down just so he could keep the idol secret.
Yeah, strategic error this week by Russell, and one time I wish we could have seen more of the discussions to change the vote from Dave to John.
Jaison voiced the proper concerns when talking to Mick, but I wish we could know if he took those concerns any further or talked to Russell directly about them. I suppose not, since he and Mick are not trying to rock the boat yet.
Error or not, it certainly should make next week’s epsiode interesting.
If they did go the way that Shambo really wanted to (Dave) then John would have been pissed, as the agreement with Russel with John was if there was a tie, you flip we will vote out out of ours next week… Although I bet the recovery from crossing the line of John would have been easier to smooth out then potentially Shambo NOT being in the “know”
Then again, based on her own explanation on what she did the day of Tribal Council… she didn’t do anything, just rested, while the rest of the tribe moved and shifted positions. It’s like she isn’t even in the game.
(yet her vote is…)
I think Russel is just amused by himself; “Oh… ops, I made a mistake, I need to cut you out now…” And the fact that he’s done this hm… 2 or 3 times prior to people that have challenged him in one way or another.
