Revali

Early Game

When I got to my first tribe, my goal was to secure tribal unity. I didn't want to have a tribe that would be divided in case of an early swap, it was a bastard game and one was bound to happen round 2 or 3. I also really liked my tribe. Magda was quick to befriend and had some great taste in shows, Kohga was chill and seemed to understand how to survive in the game, Roscoe was fun to talk to about video games, Teebo and I were a bit short to begin but we eventually got around to talking about Civ and turned a corner and Kass, well I proposed to Kass within 36 hours of the game starting. The only person who I hadn't really connected with was Patricia and even then, that was mostly due to time zones. The first twist came around and what I cared about most was tribal unity, but you can never be too careful, so I went for immunity HARD and well, got it. Everything seemed to be going swell and then, the first vote came up 4-3 Magda...and then we swapped.

Within the first 72 hours of the game I was blindsided, swapped into a three person tribe and had no idea who to trust (I thought Kass was the one who voted with me initially and oh boy was I wrong). My plans of having a nice undivided original tribe were dashed and save for being the one voted out, I was probably in the worst position of anyone in the game. I had to adapt quickly or be voted out premerge. So, I had two goals, one, stay alive, two, find some allies that wouldn't betray me at the first opportunity they got. I was down but not out, and if I played my cards right, I could turn my weak position in the game into a strength.

My main strategy of this was twofold, first share information like no tomorrow, make it clear that I was someone looking for new friends, make it clear I could be picked up easily and was "on the outs" of the game. Second, I went hard in challenges, this served two purposes: 1. If my tribes won immunity, we wouldn't have to be voted out and 2. With enough co-operation on a challenge I could present myself as someone who  could be worked with beyond the challenge.

Korok Forest

On Korok Forest Oaki and I analyzed the flash game and guided Pelison to a good score, earning us all immunity. After sharing my tribes dynamics, I gained important info on Courage's dynamics, like how Link seemed to be on the outs and that Robbie was a close ally of Oaki. Pelison shared less information on Wisdom (which seemed to have a straightforward first tribal so that wasn't surprising) but was plenty approachable and fun to talk to. I walked out of that tribe with two good potential allies. 

Heart Container

On Heart Container I used both the Stamina Tribes words and Riju's words from Spirit Orb (Oaki leaked both sets to me), and some logic to help my tribe get first in the password challenge. Then tribal was weird, I original intended to use my connections with Oaki to work with Robbie and Link, but after Robbie straight up told Urbosa and me that he (Robbie) would probably vote us out post merge, we voted him out late into the day. This also caused Mipha to play their idol since they were unaware of the situation. I also used the fact that Oaki leaked to me and the Robbie vote to solidify my relationship with Urbosa, which worked out well for both of us. Urbo also told Link about the switch so with Mipha's intended target going home and Link being in the know, those relationships were not damaged too much by the vote. 

Medoh

Medoh was a potentially disastrous tribe for me. I was swapped to a tribe with none of my previous allies and with two people who had already worked together before, Epona and Royal Horse. If we went to tribal I  could easily find myself turned on. As such, I worked fast to make it clear I'd vote with them, worked hard on the maze and thanks to two good times from Horse and Epona and me beating Kass by two minutes, we didn't have to go to tribal, and so I made a move that took a precarious position into a good one, I proposed a final 3. 

Now mind you I did not just say "hey want to final 3" in a PM to them. I made an entire thread laying out all the reasons we had to work together and asked for feedback and Epona and Royal Horse responded amazingly. Horse laid out all the things we needed to do to have a good framework for a potential F6 (we decided upon Us 3, Urbosa, Kohga and Sidon), potential drama and other relationships we could hide behind to ensure we wouldn't be targeted out of the gate and our individual thoughts on each person. After Epona and I reciprocated, we even discussed the implications different returnees would have on the game. Epona made it clear that we'd have to be adaptable and made a special tool that we could use to communicate our intended votes using likes in the case of an unmerge. 

So, I headed into merge with a Final 3 deal, a strong ally in Urbosa and several other relationships I could make good on.  I hadn't gotten opportunities to deal with Power tribe drama yet, so I still had that hanging over my head, but it was a vast improvement over where I had been a couple rounds prior. 

Final 13

So come merge I had an F3 deal with #TeamHorses, a strong ally in Urbosa and Oaki returned from being voted out. Still I had a lot I needed to overcome. Kass and Patricia were still around and painting me out as a big scary threat who would need to be voted out, Kohga and I were cool but hadn't worked together yet and I had barely talked to Oven, Sidon and Hunnie.  I also couldn't be sure how long any of my previous alliances would last. So, I got to work.

I talked to Sidon and we got along well, pointed out how I was a "bro of a bro" as Kohga and I had similar positions. I also rekindled my relationship with Kohga. Meanwhile I immediately ran up to Kass and Patricia and we talked about not targeting each other as if one of us went, the rest likely followed (which is pretty much what ended up happening to Courage).  To hide my alliances I continued my previous lines about "being a straggler" and just trying to survive when I had deeper relationships to rely on, something that would keep me alive in many subsequent rounds.

The first round was mostly about survival, and unfortunately Link was put in the hot seat and his counter wagon was horse, my F3 partner, so I voted for Link. 

Final 12

The next round  Oaki earned a second round of immunity and was looking for more friends, so he tried to ally with Hunnie... by trying to get me to target them and leaking it. However, this was almost immediately leaked back to me by like 3 different people, so I made it clear to Hunnie that was not the case, and we ended up working together that round. I also did something similar with Oven, trying to keep them alive as they were potentially a good ally and well, Oven is a funny dude to talk to. This round I also talked to Sidon about splitting the vote between Patricia and Mipha, as Patricia and I hadn't yet gotten to working together and everyone knew Mipha and them were close, this would also weaken Kass who wanted me gone at some point, and well, that's what happened.

So by the end of the round I had greatly improved my relations with all 3 of the people I barely met at the start of the merge and avoided being voted out early merge thanks to the relations I cultivated before then, all while dealing a blow to the people who had the most reason to want me gone. 

Final 11

The next round was the communication twist, and I was not super surprised by the results. While I had made it so I wasn't high on the target list of Sidon and Kohga, between some drinks and questionable choices I was not put in their top 6. The real issue this round came from the fact that while I could talk to Urbosa and Epona, I could not talk to Royal Horse, who also lied about not putting me in their F3 to Epona. Epona believed me, and from there the rest of the round fell into place. Epona ran around mending relationships between me, Sidon and Kohga, setting up the Horse vote and overall being a spectacular player, meanwhile I doubled down on my relationship with Urbosa and had them make it clear to Oven that yes, I very much wanted to work together. In the last two rounds I had been betrayed by 2 close allies, but I managed to still be in a good position thanks to my work cultivating new ones.

Final 10

The next round was the unmerge. Here, Sidon chose to protect me with his Amibo Reader,  we challenged hard and managed to work together to vote out Patricia, weakening Kass and making sure that if Mipha came back (which was likely) they wouldn't have an easy ally in Patricia, this also was the second time Oven and I had worked together. Meanwhile I signaled to Epona to vote out Kass, but they elected not to, this made it clear to me that eliminating Kass would be difficult and require precision and that I probably couldn't trust Epona in such an endeavor. 

Final 9

The round after Mipha returned for the game and everyone decided a returnee going would probably be the best move, I fought hard to keep Oven around and Oven managed to stay that round, unfortunately Oaki paid the price. I also learned here that Oven held an idol nullifier and Mipha came back saying that Sidon, Kass and Epona were the biggest threats according to the jury. Sidon had always seemed well connected in the game despite talking about being in a bad spot, Kass was incredibly social (and wanted me dead) and Epona had been put in everyone's F6, a remarkable show of their social ability. I made this clear to Kohga so that we would get closer since we weren't allowed to talk to each other for two rounds and so that when the time came, they'd work with me to vote each of them out. 

Final 8

The round after was remarkable. With Mipha and Urbosa immune it meant the logical target of Kass/Epona/Kohga/Sidon would be either me or Oven, so we all worked together to vote out Kass. This round I mostly played up how nervous I would to see if anyone would tell me I was the real target and to make it seem like I would vote for Oven when I was locked in on Kass. Between that and Mipha's navigation the vote tied at 4-4 with no items being played whatsoever, a remarkable feat considering how many seemed to be in the game. Fun fact, Mipha almost tried to change the target to Kohga or Epona, but Urbo and I held firm on Kass, and with that the biggest threat to my game was voted out in the revote. 

Final 7 On

Final 7 my main goal was to get as many items played as possible. If a name was mentioned this round, I leaked it to someone, and between that and all the other chaos, both Sidon and Mipha played their idols while Epona was forced to use their vote steal to get Oven out of the game at the last minute. Also, note that while I received literally half the votes the round prior, I handled my situation with grace and managed to avoid receiving a single vote this round. 

From Final 6 on things just slid into place, I was in the F3 plans of a majority of the players, enough items were out of the game that the main threat to my survival, getting Cirie'd out, was off the board. The only real misplay in this area was made by Kohga and Mipha, who told Sidon they were getting voted out which resulted in his Extra Vote going to Epona before he left. However, due to my relationships with everyone else, I was protected all the way to F3, where I stand now.

This game is hard. Like really fucking hard. Round after round, twist after twist, the worst possible thing for me happened. It was like the game was trying to kill me, and in some cases, it was.  Revali wants to go with the flow of his first tribe and work with them? How about instead he gets blindsided and has his closest ally voted out. Revali wants to work with his new friends? How about instead they either get voted out or try to kill him (or both). Revali wants to get an idol or any item whatsoever? How about instead someone gifts him an item with NEGATIVE UTILITY. The following is an accurate representation of how I felt most of this game:


However, when you get knocked down, you get right back up. So, I turned every disadvantage into an advantage for me. Blindsided and put on the outs? Use that as a pitch to get new allies. No items? Play up the nervousness so people perceive you as less of a threat. Oaki trying to get you voted out? Flip it on him and use it to further your relationships with the people he tried to get you to kill. And so on and so on.

The amount of stuff I had to overcome was a lot, but I did it. And how did I do it? Did I just follow one group until the end? No, that would have killed me. Did I string together immunities and items? No, I wasn't afforded that luxury. Instead I just evaluated my situation, looked at what I needed to survive that round, looked at what would secure my position if plan A didn't work and I went for it. I never stopped playing and as a result, I was able to survive bad twist after bad twist. 

A lot of this was possible due to my social positioning. I was able to simultaneously appear as an "easy vote" to so many people despite having a number of people who either had me in their endgame plans, saw me as useful short term or just liked to talk to me. The moment people thought that I could be voted out easily, it backfired on them. I was every bit as threatening as Kass thought I was back on Power Tribe and whether people ignored that or tried to take me out for that, it all ended the same, them voted out.

On his way out Sidon said I was doing nothing, and that couldn't have been further from the truth, I just kept what I was doing in many different places so it wasn't easy to see until it was all laid out. At some point I've worked with or tried to work with pretty much everyone in the game, I never closed doors and was always ready to deal with the next obstacle.

Most people who were dealt my situation early in the game would not have made it more than a couple rounds into merge, yet I managed to make a run all the way to the end. It was not a perfect game, and I'm sure I have many errors that people will seek to uncover, but I did a lot with very little, often times doing one of the only things that would help my game and if I had messed up just a little, I would have been voted out several rounds ago.

I think that between my ability to evaluate situations to identify what I need, my ability to turn bad situations into good ones, my general opportunism and just managing to be a cockroach that no one could put down, ALL WITH NO ITEMS OR IDOLS OF MY OWN, that I am a clear choice for sole survivor. I hope you agree. I also hope you have plenty of questions for me, I welcome them with open arms. This was a rough game and we're all nearing the end, so let's make this finale a good one.