Opening Speech:
Hello everyone. First of all, I would like to thank everyone on the jury and Katie as well, since you guys have all played a role in me advancing here. I'll give a summary of my game here: pre-merge I just wanted to lay low, and not make a target out of myself so that I would at least make it to the merge. Steve and I had known each other from past group games, so he, Hunter, Katie, Nasty and I formed an alliance, with Newz being an extra vote, but not necessarily part of the alliance since we planned to take him out when he lost immunity after the merge. Once we got to the merge, I knew I needed to start playing, but I talked to Steve and we had decided to take out Marcus, since both of us had past experiences with Marcus, who is a very manipulative and dangerous player. I wanted him gone before he could do any damage, and also we wanted more time to get Jack to jump ship from his old tribe to our alliance, since I needed an extra vote when I inevitably was going to vote against the alliance. That vote was successful: Marcus went home without much of a fight. The next vote, however, changed everything. Nasty, Katie, and Newz flipped on the alliance, and while we tried to vote out Nasty, he secured the majority in Carlos and Tyler's votes, sending Steve home. My strategy in staying under the radar thus proved effective, since first Steve was voted out, and then Hunter, leaving me as the sole person in my alliance remaining. Hunter being voted out was an important point, however. I thought that Newz was going home that night since he hadn't won immunity, but after Hunter went, I realized how close Nasty, Newz, and Katie were. I thankfully won immunity at the next vote, and I exploited the crack in the majority alliance between Carlos/Tyler and Nasty/Newz/Katie. Jack and I talked, and we realized we had very similar goals in taking down the majority alliance. After talking to Carlos and Tyler, we agreed that Newz needed to go because of his physical prowess, and we were successful in blindsiding Newz. I found myself in the majority again, but I knew that eventually Carlos and Tyler would need to go, so I started talking to Katie far more often. When it was time to vote, Jack and I were the swing votes between Nasty and Carlos. This vote could have gone either way, but I convinced Jack to vote Nasty with me since I had talked to Katie more than Tyler, and believed that I could swing her into voting with us more easily than I could have with Tyler, so therefore Nasty was sent home that night. At the Final 5, I lied to Katie, telling her that Jack had insisted on voting Nasty and that I was forced to vote him out to not cause a tie, and this helped regain her trust since she and Nasty had been close. I was able to secure my group of 3 (myself, Katie, and Jack) and vote out Carlos. This was when the game unfortunately collapsed, and through rather unconventional circumstances (Tyler and Jack quitting) here I find myself in the Final 2. I believe that I deserve to win because my back was truly against the wall; my entire alliance had been voted out except for me, but I was able to forge the correct bonds, exploit the correct cracks, and socially manipulate my way to the end, whereas Katie was a pawn of Nasty, and after Nasty got voted out, became my pawn. Thank you, and good luck Katie
