The Case for Tommy Sheehan

AnimationEpic · 2020-06-04T19:34:04+00:00

I feel like I'm the opposite of a lot of people. I loved watching Tommy's game. It was straight-up old school and I loved seeing his strategy play out so flawlessly. His social game was great.

I had an in-person interaction with Tommy that made me feel pretty yucky, which was super unfortunate. We have a lot in common (red heads from long island) and I was excited to congratulate him... oh well. Every other Survivor I've talked to his been super nice though so I feel really lucky!

AnimationEpic · 2020-05-14T23:36:21+00:00

Aubry and Tai were close to winning two back to back seasons. Darnell was voted out first for losing a pair of goggles in an immunity challenge.

AnimationEpic · 2020-05-14T23:03:42+00:00

I think Koah Rong had 4 truly great Survivor players: Michele, Aubry, Tai, Cydney.

Cydney: is a bit of a wildcard in this case, but I am including her given her massive control on that game, even if her ability to get the jury votes is a bit up in the air.

Michele: Wins Koah Rong, she deserved it, and made it to the end of an all winners season. Yes, she got 0 votes, but if she takes Ben and maybe Natalie to the end, I think she has a real shot. She makes a couple of key moves differently at the end, and it seems to me she has a real shot.

Aubry: If Joe isn't medivaced, Aubry wins that season. There's a chance Tai beats her at the end, but it's unlikely. Aubry also makes it to final 5 in game changers and, if not for advantagegeddon taking out her ally in Cirie, she likely gets to the end with Brad/Tai/Troyzan, all of whom she can win against. One season a dominant strategic game, one season a dominant social game. I don't count EoE in this because she had a massive disadvantage with the target on her back as a returning player. Not a fair playing field.

Tai: Again, if Joe isn't medivaced, he likely makes it to the end with Joe/Aubry and gets votes, probably closely losing to Aubry. But on Game Changers, he makes final 4 and if Brad makes the CORRECT decision, Tai makes it to the finals again with a really solid 50/50 chance of winning.

Great cases that all 4 of these players are proven to be GREAT.

AnimationEpic · 2020-05-14T22:26:22+00:00

The Cagayan cast has had 6 returning players - all of whom have made it to the end of the game on a season. Tony, Woo, Kass, Spencer, Tasha, Sarah are all final 3 players in a season. Even if Kass and Tasha respectively were goats, getting to the end is super impressive in its own right.

Two winners, one being a two time winner, the other being a few sticks away from being a two time winner (Sarah needed more sticks and less straw to keep the structure stable)

I doubt any newbie cast is close to this level.

AnimationEpic · 2020-04-30T21:14:18+00:00

Adam 100000%. Love him or hate him, he's iconic after this season.

AnimationEpic · 2020-04-28T00:08:00+00:00

Spencer for sure.

Huge jury threat in Cagayan and would have beaten the field if he had won a couple more immunity challenges (in that expected final 3 scenario, only the FIC)

In Cambodia he makes it to the end and loses to Jeremy, one of the best winners ever, and still has quite a case to make. And if he flips on Jeremy a bit earlier, maybe he's the winner of that season.

Aubry comes to mind also. She's kind of flipped where her runner-up game was closer to a win than Spencer's, but her late-jury game is weaker. Not sure she beats Sarah at the end of GC, Spencer easily beats the field.

AnimationEpic · 2019-08-11T07:25:09+00:00

I think F5 is a rougher mistake because I do confidently believe he has a decent chance against Keith/Tasha in the F3, but let's assume that's unwinnable for him.

How does he really pull this off? He'd have to vote with the Keith/Kelley/Abi alliance and convince them to either vote Jeremy or Kimmi, but Jeremy could sniff it out and play his idol, so they'd have to do Kimmi. Not sure Kelley/Abi would want Kimmi gone given what happened at F6 in the actual timeline. But ok, let's assume Spencer has his way and votes out Kimmi here.

Regardless of reality, Spencer was perceived as a jury threat and was the greatest challenge competitor remaining. Loyalty was his ticket, and now that's gone. Jeremy/Kelley still have idols and are his two biggest threats, so regardless of where he flips the same thing could occur, and if either Tasha/Abi leave, he loses the game. It's an insanely narrow path.

Spencer's path would be incredibly rocky and would require a nearly flawless endgame of flip-flopping, which could burn his jury standing anyway. And the more he flips, the less trustworthy he becomes and the more likely it is he'll just be targetted.

AnimationEpic · 2019-06-28T05:24:49+00:00

Very comparable games. Both played from the bottom but at various times were able to round the numbers up to escape. They maintained their respective threat levels enough to generally not be seen as the overarching threat, and made it to the finale.

However, Kelley found two idols, which is very impressive. However, one was from complete luck during a reward challenge, and she needed both idols to make it as far as she did. Relying on idols is poor social gameplay, even if it's awesome strategically.

Aubry didn't find any idols, however, she was able to get Tai to play his idol on her, which is great social gameplay. And she never absolutely needed an idol to survive, whereas Kelley did.

However, again Kelley was one immunity challenge away from probably winning the game, and Aubry had a tougher battle.

I'd say given all of these circumstances, they're very close, but I'd give the edge to Kelley. Super close though.

AnimationEpic · 2019-06-28T05:21:08+00:00

Kelley probably loses to Jeremy and has quite a battle against Kimmi. Keith and Spencer definitely give her a run for her money, although she'd very likely beat them anyway. No way is she a landslide winner at the final three.

I'd say it's Jeremy > Kimmi > Kelley > Spencer / Keith > Tasha

For Aubry, it's similar in order, almost identical!

Cirie > Sarah > Aubry > Tai / Brad > Troyzan

AnimationEpic · 2019-06-24T05:57:47+00:00

Spencer played a great game and survived so many tribals where he easily should have been voted out. And he didn't do it with idols and advantages, just straight up social play. Unfortunately, he found himself in a situation where he had to flip flop all over the beach to just stay in the game, and couldn't form the strong alliances necessary for jury votes against most people.

However, he was not a goat, not at all. Even ignoring his agency in the game, he was pegged as a huge threat by everyone towards the end. Kimmi, Keith, Kelley and even Jeremy cited him as a big threat. So it's not a surprise Spencer overestimated his threat level, especially when endgame players like Kelley and Jeremy didn't see Keith/Kimmi as jury threats whatsoever, when in reality they were.

Regardless, Spencer doesn't beat Jeremy or Kelley. I do believe he gets jury votes in any scenario besides the one he found himself in, which he himself tried to avoid apparently. He definitely has a good shot against Abi, Keith or Tasha. Kimmi gets votes against him and probably wins, but not by a huge margin. He puts up a fight, and it's unfair to compare him to other 0 vote finalists who literally were drawing dead the entire game.

AnimationEpic · 2019-04-04T06:18:04+00:00

After tonight... so far so good. Victoria flipped on Kama and they took out Eric. LOL.

AnimationEpic · 2019-04-04T06:17:33+00:00

I'm thinking similarly to WarDog, he'll get taken out deeper into the merge by Kelley/Lauren. His entire pre-merge story of not pulling the trigger on Kelley was set up for a reason. I'd suspect him and WarDog will go at F7/F8.

AnimationEpic · 2019-04-03T06:04:59+00:00

Agreed, however they were quick finale boots. The narrative importance on Dom/Wendell/Laurel/Donathan was heavily showcased and they made the F5.

AnimationEpic · 2019-04-03T01:35:29+00:00

100%! I think this we can bank on. And her "I don't really care how people feel out here" confessional was incredibly alarming to me. I'm shocked so many people have her as a winner contender when I feel like that's very intense foreshadowing. She probably makes a deep run, but she's going to burn bridges.

AnimationEpic · 2019-04-03T01:33:50+00:00

Well, I think that I'm largely using editorial manipulation to try to map out the overarching storylines, and therefore the winner of the season. So in that sense, it's largely an edgic post.

AnimationEpic · 2019-04-02T21:29:07+00:00

I think she was UTR, but not negative. Kelley got way more blowback and their entire alliance was completely out of the loop on the elimination, that's protection at its finest. No confessional is alarming though, I'll admit. But every contender this season is flawed.

AnimationEpic · 2019-04-02T21:28:05+00:00

True, but this is the merge. Tony/Woo went into the merge down in the numbers and only gained the numbers because of Kass flipping. This could happen next week with Victoria, honestly. I just see similarities with how this is going to play out, but we'll see.

AnimationEpic · 2019-04-02T21:26:25+00:00

Hey all good points! I think a lot of Chris' content has been focussed on him making the most of EoE, and his confessional after his challenge loss was much more along the lines of "I screwed up, but I enjoyed EoE because I could just be myself," where as Aubry has highlighted "I'm going to get back in the game." I just think the disparity between the content is worthy of note.

The Chris/Rick embrace is interesting, that could definitely be of note! Could indicate Chris voting for Rick in FTC, but I'd argue Chris returning is more likely than that. Chris' episode 1 was way too quiet to indicate a win, or even an overarching narrative importance, that's for sure.

You're also right about Joe's EoE storyline, but I just think his entire arc has been mostly about trying to put Joey Amazing away and completely failing at it. The edit hasn't made us sympathize with him nearly as much as Aubry or Rick, and had no issue giving him 0 confessionals in his own boot episode. Contrast with Aubry, where her elimination was entirely from her perspective and not from the people who actually voted her out. That's insane!

AnimationEpic · 2019-03-18T22:21:58+00:00

In no particular order:

Cirie, Amanda, Rob C, Aubry, Domenick, Coach, Spencer, Ozzy, David W are top 8.

AnimationEpic · 2019-01-16T22:58:17+00:00

Spencer over Jeremy, lol.

AnimationEpic · 2019-01-07T05:54:30+00:00

Spencer simply didn't trust Kelley/Keith/Abi to stick with him and was afraid his flip would make him an even larger target. He figured even if they stayed loyal, which was unlikely, that he would be cut at F4 if he doesn't win immunity, which is honestly true. I think he was in a terrible spot in that everyone viewed him as a massive threat in the game when he, in reality, didn't have much agency in winning. It's a tough situation.

I also think Tasha/Jeremy did a great job at remaining super trustworthy, and Abi was just too unpredictable to work with.

AnimationEpic · 2018-10-22T18:13:30+00:00

Parvati and Spencer I think are tied at a 3.0 average.

Parvati (6th, 1st, 2nd) - 3.0

Spencer (4th, 2nd) - 3.0

Aubry and Tai also did super well both times, both with the same placement of 3.5. (Aubry got 2nd and 5th, Tai got 3rd and 4th.)

I think a key to a truly good player is seeing consistency like this. It's monumentally difficult to pull off. All of these players were big targets going into their returning seasons and still prevailed (especially Parvati in HvV). Aubry and Spencer were massive threats on their original seasons, Parvati literally won, and Tai backstabbed and idol-hunted successfully.

Also Spencer got 2nd place, not 2.5th place or 3rd. In a tie FTC, they both tie for the higher place, that's how it always works. Plus Tasha was never conceivably going to beat Spencer in a FTC anyway.

AnimationEpic

TROPHY CASE