Yuku free message boards

WTFscissoring8 wrote:

---

they had very strong games that could've worked out quite well but then something went wrong last minute... players like alex b., heidi, tammy, jerri, etc. basically, i think if a player showed much strategic initiative, i rewarded them for it.

So because Alex was a leader, that makes him a good player? He failed miserably at taking charge of his game. He was bested pre-merge, and then destroyed his high school clique of an alliance post-merge by informing the gamer he would be leaving in 4th place. I don't see why being an alpha male makes him a strong Survivor player.

Ditto for Lex in both seasons--almost gave him a 9 in Africa if he weren't so "shoot first, ask questions later."

I'm one of the few Sucksters that actually doesn't mind Lex, but come on, almost a 9? He was the person most responsible for almost destroying the Boran alliance and he was aiming for an end game where he really had no shot at winning.

Might as well throw Marcus in there as well--not a phenomenal player but along the lines of Silas--had it in the bag until a twist came along and his cockiness caught up with him.

I still fail to see how Silas "had it in the bag." Without the twist, he ends up going down in flames in the same exact manner two episodes later.

But if someone only got far due to luck of events not normally in the game, like injuries/quitters, I docked them points, like how Tina lucked out that Mike fell in the fire and how Parvati lucked out with so many quitters/evacuations that changed the gameplan and allowed her victory.

So neither of those women were ever going to be able to get a high score from you because they were in a season with players removed due to injuries? Fact is, Tina played a superb game in Australia, and yes, she capitalized on the benefits of Mike being evacuated, but without that incident, she's still got a chance at winning, and she did amazingly well with the cards she was dealt.

Their game situation had a lower "degree of difficulty" to start, so them controlling things is less impressive than what Yul or Parvati pulled off.

Didn't Parvati end up on the stronger tribe in the switch, and thus was handed a pretty easy path to the merge?

I immediately was going for the 2-3 range and then got to thinking- that woman went on the show with an agenda, and pretty much got what she wanted behind the scenes especially in a game she knew she'd never win.

Sure, but that isn't what this poll is for. It's an attempt to rank the players on their ability to play for the win. Coming onto the show with a different agenda means you sucked at playing to win, no matter how much you may have succeeded in accomplishing your other goals.

That's what a good player is ... knowing the consequences of your actions and planning the route to the end.

But if you know you're playing for second, and you pull it off, how in the world does that make you a good player? Everyone else is trying to win; pulling off some other arbitrary placement that you were set on is no particularly impressive feat. We have to rate these players on how well they played to win, and nothing else. Setting yourself up to be a goat is not good play.

If Sean K. isn't one of the first 5 eliminated I will just freak out.

The Alphabet voting strategy was good in theory. Really. Kinda like Kelly's strategy. They were just executed terribly.

It'll be interesting to see how Colby, Rafe and Ian will rank. They all had a really good control of their seasons, but pissed it away at the last second.

I'd put all three of them on very different levels. Rafe was the mastermind of Guatemala, and by far the best player of that season (if not one of the best players of all time). He made a small mistake at the very end of the game, but his game play was incredible. Colby was a strong player, but was manipulated by a much stronger one. And Ian was a mess throughout Palau. I don't see him pulling out a victory no matter how many times he plays. He's just not good at keeping his emotions in check and being deceitful with any degree of savviness.

#291 - Patricia Jackson

Patricia was not that bad of a player, dammit. She just landed on a mess of a tribe with huge power struggles and unruly men who had no room for a mother figure.

#288 (TIE) - Wanda Shirk

Wanda was also not that bad. She just never got a chance to prove how good she might have been. It sounds like she was playing a decent social game to help her last through a few rounds of Survivor. She just wasn't playing the social game she would have needed to in order to survive a make-or-break pick-'em, and honestly, she should not have been expected to.

She had a social game because a lot of the cast liked her, but physically she was outgunned.

Hell, we can't even say she was that physically weak, either, since we never got to see her in action. She probably would have been a bit of a challenge liability, but that's not what did her in. The fact that she looked like a challenge liability is, and there's just so little she could have ever done about that.

But then again, its not like Tom was some master strategist either. He had an alliance of 5, a tribe that decimated the other, he set himself up as a huge target, but won immunity almost every time, especially the last three that he needed.

Tom was one of the best alpha male alliance leaders ever. Yes, he needed Immunity a couple times, but he was also the odds-on favorite to win that necklace. It's not like Jenna, who needed her wins but was a longshot at ever pulling them out. Fact is, Tom kept control of his alliance for quite some time, quelling coup attempts and snapping up the loyal soldiers he needed to maintain stability. And on top of that, when opportunities arose for him to take advantage of and secure his win, he jumped on them and used them incredibly well, something many leaders fail to do (resulting in their demises).

Cirie lost because she couldn't get to the finals. She would have lost in an F2. She could only win with an F3. And if there had been an F4 Natalie would have won. "So and so would have won if the finals had been like X"....that's not a compelling argument imo.

Except the Final 3 is what the cast expected. She was planning on it because it was the end game it made the most sense to plan for. Hell, there's speculation that Micronesia wasn't even supposed to have a Final 2 prior to James' late departure. She got screwed by a particularly tough Day 38 twist. It's silly to expect her to plan for every possible number of finale contestants.

Yeah, and Cirie said in post show interviews that if they knew it was a final two, she would have still stuck with Parvati and Amanda and not tried to save Natalie. To me, that knocked her strategic savyness down quite a bit.

I don't see how forcing the tie with Natalie would have helped her, honestly.

Amanda wins 3-2-2 or ties Cirie 3-3-1 if it is a final three.

Once again...
Eliza - Cirie (locked)
Ozzy - Amanda (locked)
Jason - Cirie (speculative, influenced by Eliza)
James - Amanda (locked)
Alexis - Cirie (locked)
Erik - Cirie (speculative, influenced by Eliza)
Natalie - Parvati

Cirie wins, sorry.

Ozzy was shafted way worse, imo, and I love Cirie and hate Ozzy.

There's still a good chance Ozzy would have taken Yul to the Final 2 with him.

Adam's vote for Yul was only because Yul got rid of Jonathan and Parvati before him.

I'm pretty sure that jury vote offer extended to Becky, actually. But yeah, I just don't see Adam following through if Becky is up there and Yul isn't. There would have been a tie in a Becky/Ozzy F2.

I liked Tom, but he just wasn't that great of a strategist. Ian and Katie did everything, and he won challenges.

Tom's manipulation of Caryn was a brilliant and entirely independent move to ensure his own individual survival. Plus, he had an amazing social game. I mean, the guy convinced 8 people to jump off a perch and give him Immunity because he wanted to make his kids proud. The dude knew what he was doing, and he knew how to work people over.

Wasn't Tom going to be voted out if he didn't win immunity by his two trusted allies -Ian and Katie?

Probably. But then again, Ian says he wasn't actually going to do it, and knowing Ian and the way his emotions made him such a wishy-washy player, there's a chance the guy might have found himself unable to actually write Tom's name down.

Again: not any different than what Ozzy, Cassandra, Becky, Dreamz and a host of other people experienced with twists long before the finals.

It sure isn't (although at least the Final 3 could be predicted to some degree by the larger jury - the Final 2 was completely unexpected due exactly to the size of the jury). The difference is that Cirie played a stronger game than them to get to that point (plus that half of them wouldn't have even won in the F2 situation anyway).

Cirie lost because she couldn't win the challenge or get the person that did (Amanda) to take her there.

But she played for 38 days under the assumption that she wouldn't have to.

I mean, James, for instance, said that he believed Amanda had the game locked based on his impression of the jury and I don't take that as fact either (well...obviously, lol).

James was saying that before the votes were actually cast, though.

I've always said that, when you need to win one immunity, it means you've put yourself in a position where you'll probably need to win more, BUT... In Tom's position, after dominating the challenges in the tribal portion, counting on winning some immunities after the merge IS part of a good strategy.

Exactly. If you rely on a challenge win that you have an extremely good shot at pulling out, that's not bad strategy at all. That's playing to your strengths. A physically weak player can't do that, and if they try, it means they're not good players. But Tom could reasonably assume that if something bad happened at Final 4, he was the odds-on favorite to win the IC anyway.

What's funny is that people will try to defend Cirie's gameplay (which I'll admit was great) by saying she was "screwed over," but someone like Cassandra, who was similarly "screwed over" by a surprise change in the Final Tribal Council, doesn't get any kudos.

Because Cirie played an amazing game to get into that F3 position, whereas Cassandra lucked into it.

I still think she had more to do with putting together the post merge majority alliance than Earl or Yau did.

The only way she contributed was by bringing in Dreamz. And even then, Earl probably could have done that on his own (thanks to the African American alliance).

#287 - Morgan McDevitt

Ugh, Morgan's boot was so dumb, though. Why Gary decided to off his own ally I'll never understand.

#283 (TIE) - Peter Harkey

Peter was no good player by any stretch of the imagination, but he still might have been able to do much better on a less self-destructive, power-jockying tribe.

the Horsemen even decide to switch their vote from Earl to Cassandra, because they view her as the most threatening (this is also their biggest error, because Dreamz was likely playing along with them until the vote switched to Cassie).

They switched to Cassandra because of her relationship with Dreamz. Also, Dreamz was not going with them, even if they had never changed the vote to Cassandra.

I'd like to see a rational argument supporting this given that Nicole was perfectly safe in Ep 1, then opened her big mouth and got herself booted.

Eh, Lill should have never ratted her out, honestly.

Earl and Yau Man both said that they were voting together until the F3 twist was revealed. At best, Cassandra would have needed to win a fire challenge over Yau Man to make the F3 if it hadn't been for that twist.

Very true. Without the F3 twist, Dreamz leaves in 4th place and Cassandra loses her goat. Even if Dreamz still gets greedy, Cassandra loses to Yau in the tiebreaker and goes home in 4th place.