Well, I guess since everybody else posted, I’ll do the deed as well.
Reasons why I should win:
1. I made the move that shaped the game. I realize (and will be the first to admit) that I didn’t play through the first tribe. I was swamped with work. Psap told me I was on the chopping block, so I took control on the last challenge and led Tribe Under Armour to victory and saved me. I then team up with polabonez to dominate Tribe mid major. Flipping on Psap’s alliance in the tribe. Tyson will be the first one to tell you, without that move from me, his alliance was in trouble.
2. I did extremely well in the final challenges. Between me and Tyson, we won almost every challenge, and I was 2nd on most of the ones I lost. I used these advantages during the tribal votes to get the results I wanted (more on this later).
3. I grew into someone who knew exactly want was happening the in the final tribe. I had a deal with both shoe and mb to get this far, although both were brokered in different ways. I brokered the deal with shoe when the fake account came out and had that info that Tyson wanted to flip on shoe (something that I knew, not sure who else did) once the game was in hand. I used that to get a deal with shoe so that he would still vote with us, but flip on Tyson before Tyson could flip on him. The best part was Tyson was cc’d on all these emails because I told him it was a rouse to get his vote. It wasn’t, I knew I couldn’t be Tyson in the finals and I had to make a move. Mb’s deal was made right when psap came back. I told him that psap was gone and he could join up with me and shoe and run to the final 3. He wanted to still vote with psap, and I said that was fine. I knew who everybody else was voting for, so I gave my immunity to Tyson (without him knowing) just as a counter to psap’s grand gesture of saying he was voting for Tyson. It was done because I knew exactly what was going to happen and just to fuel psap’s fire some more.
4. Even though it appeared like I was Tyson’s pawn, I actually did a lot of his work and we bounced almost everything off of each other. He took the roll of antagonist and bad guy in case he was eliminated I could try to find a new group. We saw just about every sitemail the other saw.
I could go into some more details, but I’ll try to answer some questions that I’m sure will be asked.
First, I actually didn’t talk to Tyson until right after first letters. I had actually written up a letter of resignation, but decided against it, and then just shot a random thing to Tyson. Mainly about trading clues, nothing about a conspiracy. New tribes weren’t decided yet. Apparently Tyson fought to keep me alive (and eliminate redraider instead) but I had no knowledge of that.
Second, as mentioned earlier, I gave Tyson my immunity purely for my enjoyment. He didn’t as for it.
Third, I choose to have sjurat voted out last instead of Tyson because Tyson did teach me a lot. I know he was good at challenges, so I was going to basically say win the challenge or we are eliminating you. Hadn’t figured out if shoe or mb would be the one (they probably would have targeted me, honestly) but I couldn’t give Tyson a chance, not after all he did.
Fourth and finally, this is something that isn’t probably going to be asked, but something I’d still like to answer. I would enjoy playing this game again and would get a lot more enjoyment out of outsmarting Tyson (or whoever the powerful figure turned out to be) much earlier. I feel like I have grown so much (from someone who has never seen an episode of survivor into someone who can scheme and understand the game) that next game I will be a player from the start.
Thanks to ghutton and horvie for running this game. It was fun and I’m excited for the next survivor.
Thanks, Matt