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29. Jaime Dugan

I'm not a big Jaime fan. I think she's way overrated in terms of sexual appeal, for example. And I don't like her as a character, either. But she was a decent gamer, and people seem to forget that, instead focusing on her little HII mishap. Fact is, she knew she probably was not playing a real idol. Furthermore, even if she was 100% convinced she held in her hands the true Hidden Immunity Idol, how much flak can you give her for that? It was literally exactly the same as...the real HII. Jason wanted to play a fucking stick. A stick with a face on it. That's stupid. Jaime wanted to play a piece of production's props that ws identical to the real idol. Seems pretty reasonable to me.

But on top of that, Jaime had a great pre-merge game going. Her tribe was pretty defunct, but she pulled together a strong alliance regardless, and she became the central hub of that alliance. Through it, she was able to control her tribe and call the strategic shots, something that's very impressive for a young woman to do in this game. She was so positive and so likable that Fei Long identified kidnapping her as the best way to destroy Zhan Hu's morale, and despite his limited knowledge of their tribe, Todd was able to recognize that idoling her out was the best way to cripple the ZH alliance going into the merge. Jaime forged strong relationships and gradually pulled in the extra numbers she needed as the rounds progressed, going from a threesome of her strongest allies to having outlying members that she could manipulate and cut as necessary. Thanks to James and Aaron, ZH fell in numbers, but Jaime and Peih-Gee used the twist to their advantage, and with it, would have been in a fantastic post-merge position had Frosti and Sherea just not been such idiots (since five strong ZH members would have easily overcome a group of FL members that included both Courtney and Jean-Robert, plus no formal leadership or challenge threats). The "throw the challenges and toss Aaron and James" plan had to be abandoned due to other players' idiocy and shift in game plans after just a couple short days, but it was still a solid idea. And voting out Aaron before James was not at all obvious, but was certainly the right call, since Aaron had the best ties to Fei Long and James promised post-merge loyalty.

Jaime wasn't a genius. She had her faults as a player. But she played a really solid game, one that deserves some recognition. She was savvy enough for Survivor, and in slightly different circumstances, she definitely could have coasted to a win. She did well for herself on a shitty tribe and was made of the right stuff to take charge of this game. It's too bad people forget that.

28. Lex van den Berghe

Here's where I become like Louie and lose all credibility. Look, Lex is a ridiculous player. His game play in Africa was awful, and it should have cost him had other players not made even biggest mistakes. He gets too paranoid and he is not good at making effective game plans.

But Lex is often considered one of the worst Survivor players ever. And that's not fair. Hate him for being bitter, for enabling Romber, for being a bit of an all-around douchebag. But he's not that bad at this game. Did he make a mistake in trusting Rob? Absolutely. He expected the guy to stick with his friends, and Rob had no intentions of doing so. But you know what? Lex thought that because Lex was going into Survivor with conceptions that were based on out-of-game loyalties. He put more value on honoring friendship than fighting for the million bucks. And as someone that's played in open-identity games before, I can attest to the difficulties of deciding how you want to play it, and determining how others are going to play it. It's tough. And Lex made the mistake of assuming Rob would honor a relationship in-game. It was a bad call, but it was an understandable call. And hell, it wasn't just Rob that had to fuck Lex over. He was fucked over by Amber, Tom, and Alicia as well. That's a lot of betrayal to try and suspect, especially when your judgment is naturally going to be clouded by friendships that had been established before the game had even begun. Oh, and remember, it was Kathy that ultimately made the call to keep Amber. I'm not one of the people that places all the blame on Kat, but it certainly was not Lex's blunder alone. He had help in convincing himself to make it.

Furthermore, prior to that fateful merge twist, Lex was not playing a bad game at all. What he was doing was ensuring that no string of late-game challenge wins would sink him once again. He was playing with some of the strongest challenge competitors Survivor had ever seen, and he was quite justified in trying to weed them out. He was being a major power player, and it really should have worked for him. Sure, he was counting on either Rob or Tom to help him later on, but like I said, that was reasonable, and even if that was a mistake, it's the only mistake he made, because he had established himself in a very, very powerful spot with his harem of loyal women, none of whom would ever be able to beat him in a challenge. You really can't blame Lex for eliminating Mogo Mogo's alpha males. People like to say, "he weakened his tribe!" But look at the facts. Richard was leaving no matter what. Hell, that was Colby's call anyway. And any tribe was going to knock out the first winner no matter how much Hatch helped them in ICs. Then you've got Colby's boot. Which occured at Final 12. Which means Colby could have only been expected to help them in one more Immunity Challenge, max. And really, even that's a stretch. Because Colby was not good in the water. Colby's good at a lot of things, but not swimming. And guess what? That's what most of ASS's challenges had been. The focus had been on the ocean, which was where Colby was weakest. So booting him was really very, very reasonable. He wasn't helping the tribe pre-merge, and he would be an incredible threat to work around post-merge. Now, as for Ethan? People seem to forget that Ethan was booted at F11. That's the round before the customary merge. There were no more IC's to expect and plan for. Ethan was no longer useful. No, Ethan was only a threat. And Lex cutting him helped Lex immeasurably. Because not only was Ethan a physical threat, but Ethan was a threat to Lex's position, because the Africa trio being together would have gathered a lot of attention, that's for damn sure. Lex booting Ethan ensured Lex wouldn't be targeted for his relationships as well as eliminated a challenge threat.

I won't defend Lex's game in Africa. He wanted to go to the end with two people who would have beat him in a jury vote. He fucked up his post-merge numbers because of a stray vote that he overreacted to, and while he tried to cover his bases by pulling in Brandon, if it wasn't for a string of lucky events, he would have almost singlehandedly given Samburu the game. But in ASS, Lex is way, way underrated. He made one mistake, and it was a mistake I can only blame him so much for making. Besides that, he was playing an incredible game, taking control of the tribe and setting himself up with all of these loyal allies who he'd be able to crush in the end game. The only person on Mogo Mogo who might have been playing better than him was Kathy, and even that's debatable. Lex isn't a brilliant player, but he's a strong one, and he gets a lot of unwarranted flak for the way he plays the game. I can understand hating him. I can even understand bashing his play. But he's not quite as bad as people like to make him sound.