u/RedditUserAnonymo

For obvious reasons, when we talk about who could/should have won Kaôh Rōng, the first name everyone throws out is Aubry’s. The second one who comes to mind is Cydney. Based on the edit we were shown, it really felt like that firemaking challenge was deciding which of the two was going to win. They both played damn-near winning games, but I think Julia is a little overlooked. Aubry was well aware of the threat that Julia posed, because I think she had a shot at winning if Tai was a little better at the game. Tai’s game in Kaôh Rōng was filled with an obscene amount of flipping. Julia was riding the middle between the powerhouse dickhead alliance of Tai, Scot, and Jason and the girls’ alliance of Joe, Aubry, Cydney, Debbie, and Michele. I think if after the Debbie vote, Tai didn’t flip to the girls’ alliance (which WAS a bad move by Tai), then Aubry would have gone out at 8 with the super idol gone. In the F7, Julia could have flipped, voting out (in my opinion) Tai. With the F6 or Scot, Joe, Michele, Jason, Cydney, and Julia, Julia could convince Michele, Joe, and Cydney to get rid of Scot. In F5, you try to get Michele and Jason to take a shot at Cydney. If you get to that 4, I think it’ll be easy to vote out anyone of her choosing (ideally Michele but I doubt she’d do that), and go to the end with a winnable 3. I know this is a lot of “IF,” but I’m talking about someone who went home at 7 if things went differently at 8. What do yall think?

Victoria was in silent control of a great portion of the strategy of the season, and NOBODY noticed. She controlled nearly every vote while looking like just a member of the crowd. Guys like Rick Devens, Ron, and for some reason Wardog had these targets as massive strategic threats, but Victoria had more control post-merge than any of them. Not to mention the way she single-handedly euthanized Aubry that season. Had Lauren instead voted for Chris in F6 and not played her idol for him, this opens a door for Victoria to make it to F5. I do believe Victoria was probably out at 5 tbh because Lauren and Julie would most likely have voted for her while Gavin and Vic vote for Julie and Devens breaks the tie in Julie’s favor, but I still would have loved to see a season where she won. That season was so fun with a depressing ending.

I’m really confused. I knew going into the season that Todd won China and it’s one of the best tribal council performances of all time — that’s exactly why I watched the season. My understanding was that going into final tribal, Courtney was favored to win, and Todd was expected to get third. Watching the season, though, it really seemed like Todd was the obvious winner of the three. He seemed to have the most control and the largest number of people coming to him throughout the game. What was it about Courtney that made her game seem like the probable winner?
And also… how did Amanda get cast on Micronesia Fans v Favorites over Courtney and Peih Gee? I LOVED Courtney and Peih Gee this season, and I mean yeah Amanda was cool, but from that season she’s probably the fourth person I would’ve wanted to see return.

Dokkaebi’s DMR’s clip and fire rate are both definitely inadequate. I think four extra rounds and an increase to fire rate would make her more balanced. Giving her hard breaches would make her more versatile in certain bomb locations, or giving her an extra payload would just make her have more longevity in a round. As it stands right now, she’s way underpowered and underutilized. I never see her above gold where people who know how to play the game are.

Gabby Pascuzzi from David vs. Goliath was a blunder away from potentially winning the game. Looping Nick and Davie in on the Christian blindside was certainly a wrong move, but orchestrating the blindside wasn’t. She had Kara, Alison, Mike, and Angelina on her side to take out Christian. That would’ve been a 5-3 majority vote right there. Moving forward I 100% think that alliance was willing to work with her. This creates a solid route to victory against any two of Kara, Angelina, and Mike.
Despite the solid overall performance, I think Gabby falls into an unfortunately stacked archetype. The nerdy woman archetype contains such women as Emily, Genevieve, Kamilla, Aubry (all of whom are season 50 alumni), and Rachel, Liz Wilcox, and Hannah (Millennials v GenX). Most if not all of these women have more returning equity than Gabby (unfortunately). If Survivor did like a returnee version of brain vs brawn vs beauty I could see them stacking the brains tribe with multiple of these people, but sadly I just don’t see that happening. I think that Survivor’s tendency to archetype cast really ruins her odds of ever coming back.

Pete isn’t someone I see talked about often, and he never returned after Philippines, but I think that he played a better game than he’s credited for. By no means is he marvelous, and sticking with Abi Maria as long as he did was certainly a sinking ship, but the way he wedged his way between Abi and RC was well-played. Maybe I’m overrating him, seeing as RC and Abi weren’t the brightest bulbs in the room, but I still think his game was decent and worth bringing back for entertainment’s sake.

Naturally, there’s lots of players you feel bad for, but Christina just went through a lot of abuse that season. Colton and Alicia’s alliance were just downright nasty toward her, and she was forced to side with Alicia coming into the merge. Furthermore she was voted by the tribe as least deserving to be there, and constantly got reminded how stupid she was and how she could never win the game. To make things worse, in F4 she came sooo close to winning immunity and when she didn’t she got voted out just because the other girls liked each other better, even though Kim and Chelsea both thought Sabrina was more logical to vote out. To add insult to injury she was a good sport. If she was at least a Kat about it, I’d feel better, but she wasn’t. She’s a good person who didn’t play the best game and people insulted her character for it.