PREFACE

Hello! Wow, I don’t even know where to start. After a long, hectic 39 days, it seems symbolic that we end off on a note of uncertainty and a jury vote which will more than likely be hard fought and a close vote until the end. So I begin this speech with a huge thank you to the hosts, final 3 and the jury and cast itself for making this a truly unforgettable experience. I loved playing with each and every one of you and enjoyed all moments of the game, through thick and thin. I appreciate the fact that we had a very active cast and everyone was in it to win it. Everyone had dynamic gameplay which made the season extremely compelling. However, this isn’t a speech about the game itself, it’s a speech about why the jury should vote for me to win. I will try to keep this short, but sadly I’m a very long winded person and I want to go over everything in my game that I did, from good to bad.

STAGE I: PRE-MERGE

So I’ll start from the top and begin my speech at the original tribes. When I was on said tribe, I tried to make sure I never established myself as too much of a threat in any way, but I tried to stay an active member of the tribe. This a hard balance game, but it ended up working by getting into the middle of solid alliances. I also tried to make connections, but never be over bearing. On my original tribe, I grew close to Aren and Daniel, who each ended up being in the final 4, so that was very impactful. Another tactic I tried to use was not play up my physical threat ability early. This was also very helpful, as when it came down to the final 7, 6, 5, etc., I was chosen to remain in the game over the people who were perceived as the bigger threats, such as Patrick and Austin, who had very realistic chances of winning if they made it further. But thankfully, our tribe was great at challenges as a whole, so we never had to worry about going to tribal council and dividing our tribe.

The next phase of the game for me was the swap. This worked out very well for me; our new tribe had a majority of the original Njovu Tribe, so we could have either steamrolled them or we could have worked with our new tribemates, (Austin, Patrick and Asa). In the initial phases of the swap, I developed a strong connection with Austin, so as a pair we got information from all sides of the tribe, from former Njovu to former Mkango. We recognized the fact that Patrick and Aren would be a close pair. For example, I witnessed them working together in Egypt, so I knew that was definitely likely for this game. In fact, Austin was added to an alliance with the two of them, dubbed 'The Lost Boys',  Aren had an idea of voting off the former Mkango Tribe, but I very softly tried to stray him away from this idea in order to save Austin; instead recommending we vote off Avory, who I perceived as a threat and I heard through a couple of people that he perceived me as a pawn to his game. However, the tribal council never came to be because we won a lot of challenges so we got to merge as a unified tribe.

STAGE II: MERGE PHASE

Now, the merge phase was far from traditional. Both tribes sort of blended together, so the gameplay was very difficult to manage. However, I had a few stable people I could trust, and this was when my gameplay was at its peak. But with every high comes a fall; but that’s for later. At the start of the merge, Austin and I had established a very strong connections and Cornelius and Hannah did on the other tribe. Hannah and I connected a lot, so we decided to make an alliance which was very influential to the beginning of the merge stage. This alliance was called ‘The Incredibles’. We had a ton of information passed between our alliance for the early stage of the merge, including the biggest secret of all: Cornelius was my twin brother, Nate. This gave us a great advantage as the rest of the tribe had no idea the connections Nate had which made me less of a threat, which was my overall goal of the initial stage merge. The first vote was somewhat of a unified vote, as Avory’s vote off was 8-4. Avory had played a strong game in terms of physical challenges, but he had said a lot of stuff to a lot of people that was perceived as shady, so sadly he was voted off.

The next couple votes against Andrew and Jake sort of just continued the string of people not definitevely in either of the groups of The Incredibles or The Viva La Resistance. Thankfully Austin had informed us of this alliance and The Lost Boys, so we knew the sides of the game so we could maneuver successfully. We each had our own connections so we made sure to watch each other’s backs, 100%.

However, this was when it all came crumbling down. Obviously by Patrick playing the tempest, although it wasn’t a surprise to us thanks to Austin, it showed the divisions were very clear and the sides were bound to go to battle. But we still got out of it by voting out Jake, who some people perceived as shady. I was friends with Jake through other orgs, but as long as none of The Incredibles were voted off, I was content.

The next 2 vote offs of Cornelius and Hannah were fairly systematic, but a problematic situation for my game. When Cornelius’ identity was revealed, he became the biggest threat, and he was quickly eliminated. Then next Hannah was voted off. Everyone voted her out besides me, and this vote was filled with lies from other people. Nearly everyone lied to me; this was the moment I took the game into my hands and I put myself into game mode, 100%. I did a mental restart and decided that I would start fresh with everyone and play as pragmatic and logical as possible.

STAGE 3: UNDERDOG PHASE

The first thing I did in the new phase of my game was solidifying my relationship with Austin. Everyone remaining was in the Viva alliance, and the only remaining person not in it was Asa, but she was very close to Aren and Patrick, so she was still an insider within the game. However, another person I was wanting to get close with was Daniel. Daniel was, to me, a very loyal player and someone who I believed I had a good shot against in the end and in challenges, so he made a perfect ally.

The vote at final 7 I was hoping would basically be anyone but me, Daniel or Austin, but I was somewhat disappointed Charlie was voted off. However, this was the last time I voted in the minority and the phase where the rest of my game took shape. But regardless, it took a lot of social skill to move myself from the very bottom to a spot where I wasn’t targeted too much that round. But on the other hand, voting off Charlie wasn’t too bad because I could tell he was playing a similar game to me and we were both sorta working the UTR thing, so for that I could have seen him also doing well with the jury and coming out of his shell at the end.

Final 6 was when my game fully was in force. I did very well in the grid immunity challenge and got to the point where Aren had to choose to have Austin or myself win immunity. Sadly, he chose Austin, but it wasn’t a big deal to me regardless; Austin and I had decided we would work as a pair to vote off Patrick so all we needed was one more vote. This vote Aren also wanted to be included and wanted himself, Austin and I as a pair. However, I did not trust Aren at all, knowing that he lied to me about alliances and tried to keep me in the dark. But regardless, we got Asa to vote with us so we were able to tie it. Then on the re-vote, I convinced Daniel to vote with us. Both Aren and Daniel claimed to vote with us on the re-vote, but it was clear Daniel was being serious and Aren was not. Once again, Aren had lied to me for essentially no reason, but I had once again caught him in one. But he was still on board with voting out Patrick over me, but according to him he “ Had to figure out a way to get his (jury) vote somehow.“ So this was a huge move of the game for me. Patrick went all out trying to stay on the re-vote and to be honest… He was right. They should have sent me home on multiple occasions but Aren and Co. gave me too many opportunities, whereas whenever Patrick was in the game he was public enemy #1. Patrick was a strategic force and someone I was very threatened by in the game, so I was delighted that we had finally “slayed the dragon”, so to speak. Not to mention voting off Patrick removed another layer of Aren’s game and made him and Austin more vulnerable.

The vote at final 5 was another vote which was messy, but still worked out fine. The vote started with Daniel and Austin coming to me wanting to make a move on Aren. To me, this was perfect. He was the biggest threat left, and Aren thought all game he had Daniel under wraps, so this showed a crack in their alliance as well. But the challenge itself ended off with a close battle between me and Aren for winning immunity… But, I wasn’t able to beat him because with about 40 minutes left I had to go to the store :x. But nonetheless, I bargained it for loyalty like I trust you with this and not to vote me out and all that good stuff. However, there was 1 big threat remaining who I either had to get out now or next vote, so this seemed like the perfect oppurtunity: Austin. I’ve seen Austin go all out in these final immunities, so I viewed him as the biggest threat to me winning that, so we all voted him out. Now all that was left was me, Asa, Daniel and Aren.

Okay now I see the final 4. And I really want to win this immunity. Like, really. Even if I cannot guarantee the person I want to go home, I will be guaranteed to have my spot in the final 3 where I can plead my case to win. But this was what it was all built up to. Everyone believed I was less of a threat than Hannah, less of a threat than Austin, less of a threat than Patrick, but this is where I’d show what I was made of, and I went at it. Despite having 2 birthday parties and a day of school, I spent nearly all my time playing silly soccer games, playing multitask and staying at my computer for the endurance comp. Basically it was 1v1, me and Asa. Aren tried to appear subtle with him throwing it to Asa, but it’s clear in my confessionals and conversations with Daniel, who I bonded with a lot that round, that I knew what he was doing. And sadly Daniel wasn’t on much so he couldn’t make due. But then I won. Everyone was surprised, even including me a little. I was the underdog but I made it happen.

To me, winning the final immunity challenge was extremely symbolic to my game as a whole. I was underestimated, the underdog, per say, but I did what I had to do and came out on top. It was never flashy with my game, but I was always able to make it by another round due to the social connections that I had established or the heart I gave and put into a challenge to win.

So why should you vote for me to win? I played a very clean game, where I valued loyalty strongly. On top of that, nobody expected me to even make it close to this far, everyone thought I was dead meat after the Hannah vote, but I played scrappy and tried my hardest. That is why I believe I deserve to win. I never hid behind anyone, I never made false promises I couldn’t keep and I never gave up. Thank you!