The curtain has fallen on the 28th season of
Survivor and we’ve gotten a winner that can rightfully take his place in the hall of fame of
Survivor. That’s why I thought there’s no better casestudy to write about then that of the winner.
In a season with a great cast where nearly nobody was a real waste of castspace and everyone tried to play this game hard, Tony made this season. He was the most dominant player who played hard and was prepared to go far. When he encountered an obstacle, he blindsided that obstacle. But most important, he was able to think outside the box. He introduced the never before seen spy shack, the bag of tricks and found three hidden immunity idols. And to top it off, he had a more or less good social game. He played hard but wasn’t cruel in a way Russel Hantz was. This caused the jury to reward him in the end with the title of sole survivor and the million dollar prize. It’s difficult to call this an undeserved win but let’s take a closer look at the winner of Survivor Cagayan: Tony Vlachos!
Tony clearly has a knack for this game and has an amazing read on people, courtesy of his 13-year long career as a cop. But that doesn’t mean he has played a flawless game. He also defined his game by impulsive moves. Tony already admitted that he acted on instinct for most of the time, which lead him to some questionable moves. Whatever Tony winded up doing, it was always spectacular but it wasn’t always the best option. Let’s take a look at Tony’s moves and see where he shined and where there’s still room for improvement.
His first move and in retrospect maybe his best move, was to team up with Trish. As became very clear in Trish her jury speech, Trish was an intricate part of Tony’s game and the reason that Tony was able to get away with all his shenanigans. Trish was 50% of Tony’s social game as Trish was a very well-liked person in the group, despite being one of the least popular players with the audience. Whenever people were ready to give up on Tony for his latest betrayal, it was Trish who put out the fire and assured them she has Tony under control. Of course it would turn out nobody had Tony under control but if it weren’t for Trish, Tony would never have gotten away with what he did.
But in the very beginning Tony and Trish only had only each other since they were on the outs with their tribe. This makes their story even more impressive. By manipulating Sarah and swearing on his badge he pulled in Sarah and Woo and took control of the Brawn tribe. But it wasn’t until the tribe swap that Tony got involved in a first major blindside. Now I don’t want to overstate Tony’s role in the Cliff blindside since I think this was more Trish her move then Tony’s. It was Trish who connected with LJ and Jefra and it was Trish who ultimately convinced Tony to step in to an alliance with them.
So up to the merge you might conclude that Tony hadn’t really pulled a big move just yet. He teamed up with Trish, played Sarah and took control of the Brawn tribe. But the Cliff vote was largely due to Trish. Tony also made his first mistake by yelling ‘top five’ loudly and burning his bridge with Sarah. This is proof of Tony’s impulsiveness that hurts his game at times.
Just like at the start of the
Brawn tribe, things weren’t looking any better at the start of the merge. Tony’s five were up against the
Aparri five with Sarah as the swingvote with whom he burned his bridges. This also puts a dent in the theory that Spencer deserves it more because Spencer had to fight from behind. Tony had to fight from behind and get back in the game just as much.
Despite being in a bad position, they managed to pull in Kass, vote out Sarah and conquer the majority. But just like the Cliff vote, I would give credits to Trish here. It was Trish who saw the crack between Sarah and Kass and acted on it. This proves again how vital Trish was to Tony. You will also notice that one tribal in to the merge, Tony hasn’t really pulled a big move. You could even say that Trish played the better game up and till then and I would agree with that.
It wasn’t until the LJ vote that Tony really pulled out his bag of tricks. Tony recognized LJ as the strategic threat he is but was looking for an excuse to take him out. When LJ was prepared to vote out Woo, Tony found his excuse and targeted LJ. He pulled in Woo, Spencer, Jeremiah and Tash and blindsided LJ out of the game. He also approached Trish but she was reluctant to the idea, mainly because LJ was a big part of Trish her strategy. Despite that, he continued with his plan anyway, making this 100% his move. One of the first rules of Survivor is get them before they get you and he executed that flawlessly here. He also kind of bound Trish to him as he blew Trish her other final three deal with Jefra and LJ to smithereens.
Tony seemed to have smooth sailing ahead from then on, were it not for the never existing women alliance. Paranoid as Tony is, he sees threats everywhere. That’s why it wasn’t that hard of a sell for Spencer and Tash to convince Tony of a women alliance. In yet another rather impulsive move he blindsided Jefra and kept Trish once again out of the loop. Like the LJ vote this is just as much 100% his move.But unlike the LJ vote, this vote felt kind of unnecessary. The women alliance never was a thing, he made even more enemies and gained almost nothing. If he gained anything, it was the unquestionable crown as kingpin of the game. After being kept in the dark two times now, Trish moved to the background of the game, putting Tony forward as the biggest player in the game and the super favorite to win it.
Trish her move to the background of the game was somewhat of a prelude to her eventual exit. After Woo was already tempted to vote out Trish to secure his spot at the end, Tony finally recognized Trish as the jurythreat she is. Trish was the only other player with a strong game then Tony and she didn’t even play that much of a lesser game then Tony. Tony saw that, forcing her to take a spot on the jurybench. But here as well, Tony made an error. Voting for Trish struck me as somewhat of a panic move because he lost control of the group. But he could have gotten rid of Trish without getting his hands bloody. In that regard, his game could definitely improve.
Tony made enemies along the way but managed to sit next to a goat which made it impossible for the jury to ignore his game. He played an aggressive game which does remind of Russel Hantz but he differs in one core aspect of Russel Hantz: social game. Despite fooling and manipulating, he doesn’t rub it in their faces and isn’t cruel for no apparent reason. So you could see Tony as a Russel Hantz with a social game, which is something that sounds very promising if he inevitably returns to play again.
If Tony does ever want to play again, he needs to become less hyper and mature his game. If he can do that he can truly become one of the best. He should maybe also drop the swearing on the heads of his family. An all-star will never fall for that and it’s also kind of distasteful to me. In all honesty I can’t wait to see Tony play again. I’m really curious how he would fare against all-stars. In the end Tony outwitted, outlasted and mostly outplayed the others, so what more can you ask of a great Survivor winner?
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That pretty much closes the book on this season for me. I want to thank everyone who read, liked and shared throughout the season. Just like Survivor I’m taking a break until Survivor returns and I hope you will return with me. This doesn’t mean I’ll stop writing however. I’m working on another blog that I’ll start up in July. So stay tuned and I’ll see you guy’s next time!
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