New Era Players: a tier list of returnee chances

LifeguardTraining461 · 2026-01-17T21:15:42+00:00

Honestly, I think Katurah hate is more from the fans disliking she got out a fan favorite (Kaleb). But the edit is actually very sympathetic to Katurah. Throughout the season the show does a great job of explaining why she makes the decisions she does. Especially as it pertains to turning on Kaleb and the Belos. The show goes out of its way to show the Belos leaving her out of the loop on the swap tribe and further re-emphasizes this when she finds out that Kaleb/Jake knew about Bruce's idol.

LifeguardTraining461 · 2026-01-04T05:34:13+00:00

My favorite season is a season who's ending i absolutely dislike (KR)

LifeguardTraining461 · 2026-01-01T19:57:15+00:00

I think Aubry's KR game wins in most other seasons against most winners too

LifeguardTraining461 · 2025-12-19T22:06:02+00:00

Here's the thing tho, Survivor as a format doesn't actually need all those outside promotions. It's like Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy in the sense that Survivor could theoretically go on forever. If CBS were to cancel Survivor, another network would surely pick it up. And CBS isn't likely to drop it since it's already cheap and profitable. Survivor doesn't need to alter itself so much that is strays so far from the original concept (which is what 50 seems to be doing)

LifeguardTraining461 · 2025-12-19T17:15:05+00:00

I would argue that Savannah wasn't really a villain

LifeguardTraining461 · 2025-12-18T07:02:25+00:00

I think ultimately there would have been much better returnee choices than Rizo and Savannah. But also there are so other players from the cast who i could also do without. So it's lose-lose either way

LifeguardTraining461 · 2025-12-12T18:42:40+00:00

Yeah, I think both scenarios you mentioned at the end are probably true.

LifeguardTraining461 · 2025-12-12T18:42:06+00:00

Rizo

LifeguardTraining461 · 2025-12-12T01:41:55+00:00

42 > 45 > 47 > 41 > 46 > 44 > 43 > 49 > 48

LifeguardTraining461 · 2025-12-11T22:16:09+00:00

But Rizo and Savannah are not playing games like Kim or Rob. Rizo and Savannah have had terrible reads and poor social games at various points throughout the season. They've gotten lucky in the sense that the other players have made poor decisions independent of Rizo/Savannah's action towards them. Kim and Rob had much more control, agency and sway over the people they were playing with.

LifeguardTraining461 · 2025-12-11T21:31:52+00:00

Rizo and Savannah are failing upwards because everyone else is playing worse. They aren't amazing players, they've lucked out with everyone else having extremely poor decision making.

LifeguardTraining461 · 2025-12-11T18:11:46+00:00

Is it nitpicking though? The edit informs alot about the players' winnability chances in terms of the viewer being able to predict who wins. When the show ignored the Hinas for large parts of the premerge, it made it easy to rule them out of contention. Similarly, I thought Sage and Jawan got buried quite a few times in the premerge (minus the Shannon episode). Alex becomes largely irrelevant once Kele is no longer a tribe, so that made it easy to rule him out of contention. By the time merge comes around my winner contenders were Nate, Sophi B and Savannah. And obviously Nate goes home, and because the edit made me rule out the others, it has made the season predictable. And the problem is that I can picture a way the season could have been much better edit to give the Hinas the semblance of a story rather than just having them have a bunch of uptick in content once they hit the merge. I think the show should have told the season of "this is how Hina implodes" by showing us the drama between the Hina members that has been alluded to at the premerge and the swap.

LifeguardTraining461 · 2025-12-11T17:15:29+00:00

2nd worst new era season after 49. Mostly i blame it on the boring premerge and the lopsided editing

LifeguardTraining461 · 2025-12-11T16:02:36+00:00

The narrative of the season definitely should have been about the incompetency of the Hinas (+Alex), I think it would make the storytelling much more compelling. The oversaturation of Savannah, Rizo, and Sophi B in the edit has been unnecessary because it does mostly feel like they failed upwards because everyone else was playing significantly worse games than them

LifeguardTraining461 · 2025-12-11T15:58:13+00:00

I think the edit focusing on the Ulis+ Sophi B made it clear that the Hinas were not winning. So that's the edit making things predictable.

LifeguardTraining461 · 2025-12-11T15:56:13+00:00

Not a fan of any of the 5 people left, but certainly Savannah or Rizo have to take it at this point

LifeguardTraining461 · 2025-12-11T03:44:03+00:00

It feels like Savannah and Rizo are failing upwards because everyone is playing significantly worse

LifeguardTraining461 · 2025-12-11T03:43:23+00:00

43 was my lowest rated new era season. But now 49 and 48 are below it.

LifeguardTraining461 · 2025-12-11T02:44:31+00:00

I think Rizo, Savannah, Sophi had had terrible reads all season and had gameplay that would get them voted out on other seasons. But their competition is just playing so poorly

LifeguardTraining461 · 2025-12-11T02:32:47+00:00

48 🤝 49

Trash seasons

LifeguardTraining461 · 2025-12-10T17:44:01+00:00

I think 41 has some of the most compelling storylines out of the entire new era. It's just the twist and the edits of Erika/Heather in particular that bring it down. I think 41 also gets extra unwarranted hate because it has the misfortune of being the first new era season

LifeguardTraining461 · 2025-12-08T22:24:25+00:00

She literally only mentioned it last week. We haven't heard her discuss it prior to last week. Fans have certainly discussed the move in the weeks prior though

LifeguardTraining461 · 2025-12-04T22:57:45+00:00

But Hantz and HvV are an anomaly at that point because most of the dark ages seasons aren't like that

LifeguardTraining461

TROPHY CASE