I think he's landed in a great spot aswell - because of their minority, Helios aren't holding not going through with the plan against him at all. But he says he 'realises he can't win'. idgi

WTF? Since when am I an amputee?

Cheerleader Brenda > Amputee Paddleboard Brenda

>

Not only that, he SHOULD use his idol here, but doing it publicly trainwrecks his game. Just shove it to Penny this round, then vote alongside Asteria at the next TC. He needs to keep the two sides battling.

Catching up on the PMs here..

Erin is being extremely clumsy all around. Penny the same to a lesser extent.

Helen & Brian are less than pleased.

Penny/Erin want to rope in Daniel & Joanna, who are playing along.

Asteria intend to fake target Erin, get her to play her idol, and then actually boot Penny.

Rob has told f*kin everyone though, meaning Ted can easily intercept should he choose to do so.



You're right there.
If the aim of the play is for him to let Helios know he is on their side, he can easily prove it in secret.

Maybe he wants to do it this way because he is afraid that Helen/Brian will blow his cover to Rob beforehand? Or he just knows Penny is a cocky bitch and would be such a sucker that she'll refuse to play it on herself yet.

icon_shrug

I wonder whether Rob will take this srsly or no?

Pre Merge Rankdown

A word of warning, this is not a pure gameplay/chance to win rankdown - I'm mostly ranking on entertainment value here, aswell as a bit of game, character, likeability, cajones, potential and all the other aspects that make a Survivor player appeal to me, so consequently these are a little upside down depending how you read it.

Also, this is purely based on things that happened pre-merge. For instance, Helen's meltdown over Penny/Erin's schemes has already bumped her up the entertainment charts, but more on that in a later post. It's really hard to separate the pre- and post-merge action though



#10


Ugh, Daniel sucks so bad. His earliest clumsy "Hi I'm Daniel, wanna alliance?" PMs were painful to read and completely transparent, and he's really not gotten any better since. He wouldn't know subtlety if it cracked his skull with a two by four. He believes he is allied with the three girls in a kind of Pimp & Ho's set-up but they're just playing him of course (and at this point Rob aswell). It frustrates me to think he made the merge ahead of some players already in the LL purely because he's a predictable number. I'd love to say he's ranked this low due to being cleverly outwitted, but there was nothing clever about it, he is just a natural sucker

The best thing I can say about Dan is that he is employing the cockroach strategy better than anyone I've ever seen. In the final pre-merge round he successfully graduated from being Shawna's bitch to Joanna's. And you just can't win playing that strategy. If he makes F3 (not inconceivable at this point) he will receive zero votes.

My only real remaining hope for Daniel, is that he becomes so bad he's fun to watch. That thanks to his poor play, he brings some hilarity to the game in a round or two's time.






#9


Now don't get me wrong, I fucking love Shawna. In fact only last round she was at #2 in the rankings. But the simple fact of the matter is that she pushed too hard in the last few rounds, and while she's gotten away with it for now, it may still cost her dearly. She was the best of the first day inactives by far, and had worked herself into what I call the 'majority shareholder' position between the intertwining alliances of the Bitches of Eastwick (SJC), the Pimp & Ho's (DSJC), and Jeanne's STDs (JSTD). This is a great position if you can handle it - it could have left her with a lot of options later - but she couldn't, and now she's been overtaken in the pecking order by Daniel of all people.

I can certainly see what she was trying to do - I make the same mistake myself nearly every game :D In Episode 5, with Joanna treading a little on the indecisive side and Christy falling asleep at the wheel, the smoothness of Ryan's boot was all Shawna's work, and a little power made her over-confident. She had a solid pocket ally in Jeanne, and she rightfully wanted Ted out (for reasons that are now proving to be true). She just wanted to put herself in the best position she could at the merge. But her 'test' of Daniel backfired drastically, her truest allies don't want to give her too much power, and her lack of a connection to Rob left her in a far less powerful position than she believed once he came back.

Now her rogue Ted vote might cost her the game.

Her biggest problem is one of impatience & impulsiveness - if she can just reign that in a little she can still do very well for herself. I can't fault her for trying so hard, but right now what he needs to do is lay low and rebuild her bonds with the Bitches.






#8


Again, #8 seems like far too low a ranking. But her lack of entertainment factor is counting severly against her solid strategical game for me.

Without a doubt Helen is *the* most involved player in the game - when I saw her comment how she had "jotted down the average times the players were on" and consequently analysed Rob's likely posting pattern I realised I'm not actually the most obsessive ORGer out there She has the knack of being all things to all people as you can see by the support for her in LL from each booted Helios member (&Ted), but I feel like this mask is kinda slipping as the game goes on. She is revealing her intelligence and control-freak nature (I'm the exact same :D ) too much too soon as the game goes on. There was literally no small talk with Rob before she jumped into the page-length messages. Luckily for her Rob was there to maybe try find a friend - if she reveals her hand that obviously, she'll be quickly booted for being such a threat. However, she may get a boost of reinvigoration when the merge kicks in with new people to talk to and see her slip back into social chameleon mode.

I get the feeling her game is being slightly tarnished by being surrounded by lesser players iykwim? Like if Erin was thinking things through, she'd want to know why exactly Helen isn't scrambling like fuck for not being an Argonaut - this would lead to Helen having to play harder than she is - but Erin is happy to be blissfully ignorant, which leaves Helen on cruise control. My gut says Helen is like one of those football teams that only truly shines against the best opposition (Case-in-point: Rob's Mutiny & Helen being the driving force behind the many layered contingency plans). We've not seen the best of Helen yet, which is a scary thought, and I'm really looking forward to watching her work the merge rounds to try set herself up for endgame.)






#7


Brian gets placed above Helen not necessarily because he's playing a better game (he might be? They're pretty intertwined right now) but simply because I have a personal preference for players with a streak of deviousness. Helen will absolutely stick by Brian, go all the way to the end and have at it for FTC but Brian will only stick by Helen until she is no longer useful, or becomes too threatening to keep in. Brian turns on Helen during the F5 round anyone?

He's playing a fairly flawless game so far, the only things that come to mind are;
1) he allowed Penny to force him into the majority shareholder position when original alliances were being set up - now he saw what she did and noted it, but he still allowed it - had there been an early Helios divide he *might* have borne the brunt of it (more likely he'd just have handled it).
2) That tiny slip-up in turning the one-on-one 'are you for Ted' PM into a group one, leading to Ted's flip.. But that is gonna bring more dramz to the game yet so he's totally forgiven.

I would also like to see him pipe up a bit on the boards, but this is just down to his playing style of attempting to not stick out too much. Mind you, once he gets wind of exactly how much of a bad guy Ted has painted him as to Asteria, he might revel in it a bit more.

I reckon Brian will be the player to watch come the F7 round once the merge dust has settled some. If he lives up to his promises to be ruthless he will be number one in this ranking by then. Right this minute, I think Brian is the most likely winner of the overall game.






#6


This is my second time having the pleasure of hosting Christy, and only her third game ever (I think?) - I wanted to say how much she has improved because in fairness she is killing it here, but she was killing it there too. She is to Asteria what Brian & Helen combined are to Helios. Perfect positional awareness & control, the trust of all the players who should go far, and of course an idol in her back pocket.

She is Rob's number 1 but she is willing to let him take the risks and brunt of any decisions. She is the powerbroker of the Bitches of Eastwick. Joanna is bringing out her catty side which is adding to entertainment factor for me.

However she does need to get more exciting somehow. She's just too comfortable in the Asteria set-up. I want to see her become insecure/a target just so we can see how good she becomes under pressure.






#5


The last two rounds have seen Rob shoot up in my estimation. Gone are the awkward spoiled teenager dick jokes, instead he put his best foot forward to land in just right with Helios and hit the nail on the head. Secondly, where last week he was frustrated and a bit disengaged from the game, now he's committed and involved and working the hell out of it.

For a little while earlier I was afraid he was actually going to stay on Helios - where he was a sure boot should they lose despite the pretty little lies Helen is weaving for him - but he saw sense and covered his bases by jumping back with the intention of throwing the challenge if possible to keep his new allies safe (from Erin's Idol ). Christy flexed her muscle though and stonewalled the throw. Luckily enough they lost anyway, which means he can continue to milk the contacts he made on Helios. Or is it him that's being milked? Hard to even tell

I take back calling him a moron yesterday too, sure he jumped across on a wild goose chase because his no1 ally was keeping him in the dark, and yes most of the cross-tribal stuff was just a smokescreen to figure out what he's up to and whether he had an idol - but he's still working it. If those connections do pay off for him later well he's somehow made a silk purse out of this sow's ear.

Now if he'd just take Dan under his wing as his 'Matteo' I'd be sold..






#4


Yes Erin has been pretty deluded to her true position for a few rounds now, yes she believes she has waaay more power than she does in reality, yes she would have left had Helios lost again, & yes her public battering of Rob with blunt trauma questions made me lol every time I opened that thread, but I'm a sucker for an MOR sweetheart. The unique 'speaking to camera' way she does her confessionals is adorbs.

She's pretty much the Helios equivalent of Shawna only she's not overplayed her hand yet. (ETA: Post-Merge she has :D )

And now she is rumoured to have an idol.. I can't help but wonder whether that will be the end of her..

Go Erin go! <3

And yes, the prospect of a her/Daniel 'mastermind' alliance tickles me no end.






#3


Penny is a mixed bag for me, fantastic in some elements of the game, but a bit sloppy in others. Early early game she was my favourite Helios player by far - she was setting herself up nicely in the Helios web of alliances, positioned centrally but off to the side out of the target if Jake/Ted/Erin etc had realised what was happening but her decision to hide her strategical mind has now resulted in her dropping to third wheel in 'the Fates' alliance - with Helen & Brian growing closer to each other and her more distant by the PM. And she can absolutely write the same kind of PMs that you see between say Rob & Christy - but she's just sitting on it.

So while on the one hand she is bringing it strategically, entertainment wise and on the challenge front - at the same time she has been making basic blunders on all three fronts aswell. Things like her being blunt instead of subtle with Rob might have cost the whole tribe - and again she can be subtle, she's just choosing not to behind the Penny character she has built. Being the main instigator in the cross tribal bickering from Helios' side is put a massive target on her back (and yes I complained about Brian doing the exact opposite, for me they're both too far from the delicate balance that could be achieved if they played it right - think Joanna's friendly banter for the correct amount). And the less said about her challenge performances the better.

What she does have going for her stems from this aswell though, she's been so successful in pretending to be dim she is viewed by Asteria (via Ted & Rob's descriptions) as an easy predictable mark. The type you can keep around while you take out the bigger threats.

Ugh, it's just so hard to differentiate between what is 'Penny', and what is 'fake Penny'. Either version is hella fun to watch though.

The best thing for me about Penny is that she plays for kicks. Sure she wants to win aswell, but she's here to bring it first & foremost. The most *entertaining* Helios by far, and has the game in her to pull out some big moves further down the road whenever she chooses to shed the dumb blonde facade. If she never drops it, well the Jury just won't believe she was responsible for the genuinely good plays she's made.






#2


I feel like I have to apologise for this in advance but I love how selfishly Ted is playing the game - and I really do love a good villain. In his mind this truly is 'The Ted Show'. The only alliance he needs is an alliance of Ted

I can see why there are Ted haters. He's a god-awful PMer. Ken has since stated in LL that he was trying to be boring in PM just so Ted might stop PMing him, and Ken was only PMing two people He knows fair well how to keep his cards close to his chest, but he doesn't seem to realise if you don't give a little at least, you will never build a bond. He knows how the game works and what he should be doing, but he seems to have trouble putting it into effect. It's like he has no overall plan and this ends up with his strategy being a little all over the place. This could work out for him in a rocky merge, especially since Helios still believe he's working the long-con. Plus he's one of the stronger performers in the challenges, and of course he still has that idol..

But you've got to love his storyline so far. Selfishly grabbing the clues while scolding others publicly for it. Letting Ken take the fall for that. Mutinying for his own personal reasons, yet managing to do it under the guise of 'for the tribe'. Getting to Asteria and instantly climbing above at least three people. Beating Helios over and over and them wondering if this is part of their plan.

He should pick up a lot of flack once Asteria gets to know about the idol and targets him for it, but then again Helios should hate him for the mutiny but he got away with that. He could actually get as high as 5th/6th thanks to his multiple connections & with wise use of the idol.. and if he gets that far you can't rule out him getting dragged to the end by a more dominant player who sees him as a potential goat. And if he somehow defies the odds and gets to the FTC he has one ace left up his sleeve - in that he is not poor communicator that the two-line PMs indicate, but in fact is rather eloquent in the privacy of his confessional. If he could explain how the mutiny was his own move first before Helios pushed him, and let's face it - no-one yet realises what the hell he actually is up to - well he could win outright.

I for one, am hooked on watching the Ted Show unfold.






#1


What can I add to what you've already said about Joanna? Her confessionals are brilliant despite her not wanting to use them She is solidly connected to everyone on Asteria except for Ted, and I don't mean in an alliance/faux-alliance way like Shawna, but actually socially bonded with everyone. No-body is gonna write her name down.. maybe ever? Come the merge her likability/spunk will easily connect her to Erin & Penny too - though she might not be a strategical enough talker for Brian/Helens taste's.

Socially, she's a natural. She seems to be this way without effortlessly, and you just can't learn/fake that.

Joanna's biggest conscious play is to not be the decision-maker, and while that's a perfectly acceptable tactic for now, this could hurt her later when Christy/Rob(/Shawna?) start making moves that are good for their games and Joanna doesn't put her foot down and push an agenda that's good for Joanna. At this point she easily has the connections to become the decision-maker while remaining being viewed as not it - if she can manage that, methinks if we are to have an Asteria winner, you're looking at her.

Shawna's probably gone tonight, and it's entirely because she didn't take out Christy/Joanna and keep Ryan/Jeanne. She had a solid alliance of 5 people loyal to her, but she voted two of them out and now Dan/Ted are free agents who don't trust the Rob/Christy/Joanna group.

I am trying to keep up with the PMs and it's fookin crazytown in there.

Daniel seems like he's legitimately going to flip, but he's keeping one foot in the Asteria camp by feeding everything back to Joanna. Latest plan seems to be a Ted vote courtesy of Asteria, which Helios seem to be happy enough to allow happen.

There is so much scheming and telling fake stories to flush fake idols that I just can't keep up anymore.

Joanna is the only name I've not heard as a potential vote-getter tonight.

What?! I'm away for a day and the entire game goes crazy? I love it. :p

Penny trying to take the reins and Helen not having any of it is hilarious.

And Ted has finally revealed exactly why he mutinied to Brian