Hello everyone,
I honestly feel that out of the three of us standing here, I played the best overall game. I played a physical game, I played a social game, and I played a strategic game. I came into this knowing I would have to make adjustements to my usual game... to evolve. I never play the fully cutthroat game, so I decided to give it a try.
I started out wanting to make Final 2 alliances with everyone, knowing I would betray them all later. I never quite got there, but I'm proud to say that all of the F2 alliances I DID make, made it to the F5.
From there, I worked hard to keep the sides balanced, and most importantly to ALWAYS keep a target in the game that was bigger than myself. I strategically leaked information from allies to give them a leg up, even if it meant betraying other allies.
At Merge, Nick and I both played both sides and began the chain of events to evict Sameed. We leaked the information that Alex was being targeted, and Alex got us caught. Nick managed to still keep under cover from the target alliance gathering valuable intelligence, in part because of my plan of taking all the heat. I could easily have lost my cool and blown up a valuable resource. Instead, I confessed.
From the point of Jury, I was on the right side of the numbers, but I wasn't entirely comfortable voting out Paul. I lied to Nick, (the person pretty much running the show at this point,) in an effort to get the votes to switch from Paul to anyone else. It was too little too late though, and Paul went out by one vote.
At that point, I saw no benefit to targeting Marie. I'm aware she was targeting me, but I also knew that she had been a loyal ally early in the game. I would prefer to heal that relationship than retaliate. We did heal our relationship, but I was still unable to save her via votes.
When Jayden left, I admit it was a surprise to me. I voted him out to keep with "the majority" but it turns out I was a swing vote. But this was GOLD to me, because it meant that there was someone in the house who was a huge threat - James K. Him surviving the tie vote and playing so well overall meant that I needed to keep him in the game as long as possible.
When Jessie left, I had couldn't have been more happy. Sorry Jessie, but I did try, weakly, to talk to you. I had been suggesting your name for a long time now, and once you and Johnny left, I began to take control of the entire game.
Having the idol at the last possible week to use it is an opportunity to make a huge move. I felt that I could secure an ally in Nick by giving it to him. I also knew that this would make him a HUGE target that I would need to take with me to the very end of the game. He was the only person I believed people would absolutely vote out over me. And also remove Johnny? Johnny was the biggest threat to my overall agenda, because I believed everyone would take him to Finals over me, and we had only the barest thread of communication. The week of F6 was a humungous win for me, all around.
I set everything up. Everything fell into place. Among the F5, James K and Ross obviously needed to be broken up, and Nick and Alex took no convincing at all to vote out the bigger target. After that, among the F4, Nick was the obviously clear winner, and needed to go.
After that, (sorry Nick. :( ) I decided that I needed to make one last move. I wanted to control the votes at the end, so that my opponents would not be able to say that they made it through with no votes. They each made it with 1 vote, as did I. But I did it by being completely out front and visible to everyone. I made the right connections. I won challenges, not because I needed to keep myself safe, but because it allowed me to keep control. I always had a plan B. I made huge moves to further myself in the game and most importantly, I really enjoyed myself, and playing with all of you. I hope you all get to screw me over in a game in the new future. :/
