NOTE: This is NOT a ranking of the CBS Survivor seasons it is a ranking of the 1st Generation Suitman's Survivor seasons, a groupgame which began in August 2011 and ended in November 2012.
#11: Vanuatu- The Rivals (Season 13, February-March 2012)
Winner: Hudspith (3-2)
Wiki page: http://bit.ly/IxpQ5b
Just missing out on the top 10 is one of my most underrated seasons of my Survivor. Vanuatu is a very good season which has been painted many a time as 'dull'. It is not dull, in fact it was quite an exciting season. It has also been dubbed 'Season of the Ties', because there were FIVE ties throughout the season. The pre-merge was standard to be honest. Not terrible, but not the best. The merge is when things got interesting.
Lopevi entered the merge 6-4 down in numbers. Yasur had the numbers advantage, and they planned on carrying that through to the finals. Lopevi needed one flipper to tie the votes. The Lopevi 4 thought they had the game in their hands, when they caused Cowkal to flip to them and were told by him about the plans by the Yasurs to vote out Max. Max played his idol and averted a tie vote, sending Bryce from Yasur home, stunning the majority tribe. However after Tribal, Lopevi was not as happy as before. They thought either Cowkal never flipped, or someone from Lopevi ALSO flipped to Yasur. Both theories were wrong. In fact, Max7313 was on a tribe of his own. Although he was targeted, Max wanted his enemy Leonine gone. So he went on his own in an attempt to vote him out. Next Immunity, Max and Drago won, stopping them voting Max out. The votes tied with two votes each to Yasur Game and Lopevi Cheer, while Max continued on his vendetta by voting Leonine. In the re-vote, forced to vote either Cheer or Max, Leonine and Max voted for Game, while everyone else, including Cowkal, voted out Cheer, suprising the Lopevis. Then Max, who was now hated by his own former tribe and targeted by the remaining Yasurs, finaly felt the full blow of his bad moves and was voted out by everyone except his close partner, Mrlincoln2u. The remaining five Yasurs were stumped at who to vote out, so Drago led a vote to get out Hudspith. However, everyone else on Yasur had other plans. They had enough of Drago running the tribe, so Swimboy sided with Leonine and Cowkal, and voted out Drago's ally Lincoln who became Jury member three, while Hudspith went with a gut feeling by voting Drago unsuccesfully. Most people then thought the next vote was going to be a tie, with the two Lopevis Leonine and Hudspith, plus Cowkal on one side, and the remaining 'pure' Yasurs Dargo, Game and Swim (not knowing he had flipped) on the other. The vote did tie, but not in the way they thought. Leonine worried that Cowkal had floated too much, and voted him, while Swim thought of Drago as too much of a threat and voted him. The votes tied, but both Cowkal and Drago had idols, causing there to be NO VOTES COUNTED. The revote saw a new light of events. Leonine and Swim went back into their previous alliances and the vote tied again between Game and Hudspith. When Game, Hudspith and Swimboy drew Purple Rocks, GameTime pulled the purple rock. Leonine, Hudspith and Cowkal then had the majority. Dragotistic won the next Immunity Challenge, causing Leonine to worry about the target on his back. But he didn't have to worry too much, because the trio stuck together and voted out the one person outside their alliance not Immune, Swim, out of the game. At the Final Four, Cowkal finally won an Immunity Challenge, and decided his best move would be to flip to Drago and finally send Hudspith packing. However, as the votes tied 2-2, Drago and Hudspith were forced to face off in a tiebreaker, which Dragotistic lost and he bacame the sixth member of the Jury, much to Cow's dispair. Leonine won the Final Immunity Challenge, and in a not-so-tough decision, he stuck to his pledge and brought Lopevi tribemate Hudspith to the Final Two with him, causing Cowkal to become the seventh and final member of the Jury. But bringing Hudspith to the end happened to be his downfall, as Hudspith, who had more social links to the Jury, was crowned the Sole Survivor over Leonine in a close 3-2 vote.
It was a topsy-turvey post-merge. Each vote one after another was a blindside, and the ties, and flips, the gameplay made it very unpredictable. No one thought when 5 Yasurs and 2 Lopevi remained that the 2 Lopevi would be the Final Two, but they WERE. Leonine and Hudspith got themseleves all the way to the end dispite what they had to get through. The season is sevearly underrated, and it possibly one of the best and most unpredictable post-merges of the pre-HvV seasons. This season for me stood out, but for some reason didn't stick out for everyone else. A very good season in my books.
Fave Castaway on Season = Dragotistic for being the underdog.
NOTE: This is NOT a ranking of the CBS Survivor seasons it is a ranking of the 1st Generation Suitman's Survivor seasons, a groupgame which began in August 2011 and ended in November 2012.