Revali

I'm not entirely sure I know the answer to this.

Kohga played an incredible UTR game where I think against any player at the end (except Epona) he stood an extremely good chance to win, to the extent that Urbosa winning FIC actually saved Mipha and yourself from an unwinnable FTC. I'm no expert on UTR, but I believe that to be because he managed his relationships extremely well and used his UTR-ness to make sure he was constantly in good standing with players he wasn't necessarily aligned with.

I was very close to Kohga through the game and had a good deal of insight into what was going on with him. You and I were not close in the slightest, and I had next to no insight on what was going on with you. What I was really hoping for was a big reveal of you being the other side's Kohga! That would've impressed me. But I don't think that was the case at all. I haven't seen much evidence that you had any real agency in the game at any point, and that's the thing that really distinguishes a GOAT UTR game from a goat UTR game in my eyes.

Read my confessional after the game ends about this. Seriously, truly, I thought you were in my top 3. You definitely were in my first draft I submitted, which did actually have the order of Epona, Sidon, You, and then I think it was Kohga, Hunnie, and either Oaki or Oven, I can't remember who would've been F6 and F7.

But then I realized what the challenge actually was, and put you and Oaki at the bottom of my list to increase the chance of immunity as much as possible (which worked for Oaki, as sad as it was that I couldn't talk to him, but we worked around it)

I 100% thought that I woke up, slapped myself in the face for being an idiot, and submitted a third list that put my original 7 back in the right order. Turns out that either it didn't submit correctly, or it was just a dream or something? Honestly, I really don't know. But my reaction is so genuine in shock and rage at not getting matched with you because I thought I had put you back in my top 3. As soon as the mods gave me my list, I felt absolutely awful and I tried to get Epona to tell you about what actually happened. Pretty sure Epona had already written me off at that point, so I doubt they actually conveyed my message about it, but if they did, all of that was completely true. I made that twist so much worse, and I completely accept my death as my own fucking fault.

Hi Revali! It's hilarious you didn't include me in the gif thing and acknowledged it because if you had included me I would have been like uuuuuuhhhhhh wat lol. That being said, BECAUSE I literally don't know you at all I was chomping at the bit, waiting for you to do something that would blow me away. The only thing I saw you do publicly was talk about how you weren't going to be active for some reason or another (way to go Sidon, stealing the thing I pointed out lol). I am a ridiculous optimist at times, so I thought to myself, "Man, I can't wait for FTC because for him to have gotten this far there's gotta be some good, juicy stuff that he pulled off behind the scenes."


Here's what stood out to me about your opening speech:

"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."

"...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."

"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."

"However, due to my relationships with everyone else, I was protected all the way to F3, where I stand now."

So, my first question is this. If you had your memory from this game wiped and then read these descriptions of someone's strategy, what kind of game would you assess that this person played? Remember, your memory is wiped so be as objective as possible.

So. WhiteHorse conveyed to me PATRICIA and DesignateHunnie had suggested a vote on you but WhiteHorse wanted nothing to do with it. However I was told the vote that round was going to be PATRICIA. Since we were attempting to align with the lower players like them DesignateOaki and I tried to signal to PATRICIA our willingness to join them. My bad!

Hmmm, I can agree that Kohga played a good UTR game, but I mean my impression of him was quite different, especially since well, our introduction caused me to manifestly not trust him. Like dude walked up to me and was like "So I think you are running things, mind if I hitch my wagon to you. Also I'm saying this to everyone else as well." Like DUDE, really? That's your first move. I also think that Kohga benefited majorly from having allies who...didn't mess up or die. Like he had you and Sidon and Epona as strong allies, who ngl, were really good at the game and made very few mistakes and he got to meet y'all premerge and reignite those bonds. He also had already met people like Hunnie and Oven, who would make it past the first couple votes, and I had to start from scratch with them (and I'd say I did a decent job at that).

Meanwhile for me, Pelison didn't make merge, Oaki was killed premerge and never recovered when they came back, Royal Horse unfortunately made a fatal mistake and got himself killed in the communication round and Link  was DoA and at war with Royal Horse come merge due to their first tribe. Like do you know how hard it is to play when your allies go and get themselves killed without you? Not to mention with how Mipha and Urbosa seemed to want to go after each other on Heart Container, I could only really work with one and not  the other until Mipha came back. I did have Epona though and I do think we actually did a lot together in those first couple merge rounds. Like I could have been "the other sides Kohga" if people had just stopped dying on me, and I think I recovered pretty well from that. 

Also I think part of the reason there's a lot "missing" might have to deal with the fact that the person who would have been able to fill in a lot, i.e the strong ally who, despite being incredibly untrustworthy to you and Kohga and so many others, was remarkably reliable to me, is kind of sitting next to me here. Like there's a reason they think my game was really good, but obviously they aren't really going to just go through all the things we did together instead preferring to just try and take credit for everything. If you want me to try and find examples of that, I'm more than willing to btw. 

For the record, Kohga still did play well, receiving no votes until F4 is a testament to that, but I do feel like we got dealt very different hands in recovering from the first tribe and while I did receive votes, I did use my connections enough to have people immediately just say no to them, the Patty/Mipha round is evidence of that and I played mine just as well as theirs. Survivor is an assymetric game and a lot of things only make sense in context, which is why I'm not so much a fan of grading the game and more of grading the player. 


ANYWAY, that is a fair question. So obviously my main goal is to get to the end with Mipha and Oven. We're all from the same alliance and get along well, they're both returnees so anyone who just doesn't want a returnee win probably votes for me and Urbosa on the jury means all the things I did with them prior aren't just glossed over and taken credit for.



In this world the "Epona doesn't win challenges" argument isn't as strong and fortunately, Sidon is probably incredibly mad at Urbosa, Oven and Mipha this round. As such going up to them, tapping them on the shoulder and being like "need a hand voting out Urbosa?" and then doing that probably works since I'm actively breaking up the Me/Urbosa/Oven 3 that people were worried about and just pagonging Epona, Sidon and Kohga would most likely end in me trying to oust Urbosa at 4, which I'm not sure actually works. Also,the sooner Urbosa is out and more time they have to cool down before the end of the game, the better. 

Oven and Mipha might be mad about this, but at the end of the day, Sidon and Epona are still scarier than me, and Epona is obviously winning the game. The remaining players want to avoid someone taking 2 returnees to the end, since most people viewed that as them just winning the game, so I'm not getting targeted here by the initial vote, whether it is Mipha or Oven I don't know. This one will almost definitely go to Revote no matter who we choose, I actually think putting votes on Epona is the right move. Kohga has reason to think they need to flip on Epona, and Sidon was considering it as well.  It's very unlikely either flip though, the truth is, if Epona goes, they follow, Kohga might believe they can take my spot at the end, but I don't think they do. Still, I'm more than willing to go to rocks here, if I die, I die and some risks you have to take.

Anyway, there are a few possibilities here, most of which I can deal with. If Epona or Sidon goes, I target Kohga or Sidon next. I don't really care. If Kohga is voted out then Sidon goes because they're a "big badass threat who wins if they get to the end", if Sidon goes then Kohga is voted out because I point out they have a lot of votes that none of the rest of us would get, and as such, I'm the better take.

If Kohga goes, Epona and Sidon follow, Mipha is too fixated on having them leave and I have no problem voting them out. 

If Mipha or Oven goes, well then plan is simple, work with Kohga to flip on his old alliance, say they loom much larger than him and he just can't beat them. This worked at F6 with Sidon and we had already had that conversation, so it probably works for both Sidon and Epona here.

So I get either my first choice F3 or one of my second choice F3s, whether Kohga being at the end is bad for me would depend on a completely different world, but I'd say a 50/50 for a good shot at winning the game are odds good enough for me to go with it.

Honestly, that really relieves me. I mean it does mean I killed you when I shouldn't have, but I am glad to hear that that relationship didn't actually fall apart, it just appeared to be. I really enjoyed listening to all your talks about plans and did wish we could go have gone further with #TeamWinner. Now I have questions for Epona, whenever they show up again. Oh how is the homestuck/other stuff RP going btw?