Every week until the end of the season I will attempt to give strategic advice to the remaining contestants on Survivor: Micronesia – Fans vs. Favorites. My advice cannot actually help them, of course, since the show has already been filmed, but I will write what I think the best strategic moves are for each Survivor so that those of us watching at home can see who has the best shot at winning from week to week.
Amanda
Amanda didn’t follow my advice last week, but the thing about Survivor is that so many things can change so quickly that a plan is only good for as long as it will work. Amanda showed some truly exceptional game play in making sure she went to Exile Island and finding and then using the hidden immunity idol. Not so exceptional were some of her other choices.
I can understand her needing to trust Parvati in order to find and use the idol. Her target, Alexis, however, was completely wrong. Alexis was a strategic nothing who might have been able to speak well in front of the jury, but would not have had anything to say. Alexis had shown no gameplay to speak of and was injured besides. Amanda clearly should have targeted a greater threat. The greatest threat is actually Cirie, but Amanda couldn’t have left Alexis, Natalie and Erik all in the game so she clearly should have taken out Natalie. She should have insisted to Parvati that they do so.
As it stands now, Parvati and Cirie are Amanda’s closest allies, but they are her strongest enemies. Because of the move she made at Tribal Council she has a shot at winning against them in the final three but her odds aren’t great. She would be much better off against Natalie and Erik who she would most certainly win against. Amanda should move now to form this alliance and take our Cirie first.
Natalie
Natalie lucked out when Amanda and Parvati made the strategic blunder of voting our Alexis instead of her. Her odds of winning the game, however, virtually walked out of the game with Alexis. Natalie gave up almost all of her power and most of her odds. Her only real shot now is to go to the final three with Erik (who’s done nothing) and possibly Parvati (who backstabbed a lot of people). Paravati has already indicated that she won’t backstab Amanda, though, so it might be an uphill climb. She would try to take out Cirie then cut out either Parvati or Amanda and take her chances.
Cirie
Cirie is still one of the biggest threats to everyone in the game. She hasn’t had to piss off anyone really and if she can convince the jury that she was behind a lot of the strategy’s that worked (which she was) she has a solid chance of winning. Cirie can’t like her odds against Amanda and Parvati, though. She should try to team up with Natalie and Erik as they give her the best odds of winning the game.
Parvati
I don’t know how it happened, but Parvati’s odds of winning this thing have somehow increased week by week. It’s at the point now where I can see her possibly pulling out a win. She can certainly argue that she’s been playing strategy all along. She’s made big moves against Ozzy and now helped Amanda oust Alexis and change the game again. If the jury doesn’t hold it against her she can argue that she’s played the best game. Still, she’ll want to get rid of Cirie who can take credit for the Ozzy ouster more than Parvati can and she probably doesn’t want to go up against Amanda who everyone likes much more than she. Stabbing Amanda and Cirie in the back, however, will have its price and just might cost her the needed votes (although, I can’t imagine them voting for Natalie or Erik over her).
Erik
I like Erik a lot as far as watching him in the game and I like to see him do well. Unfortunately, he’s not a strategist and he’s made bad move after bad move lately. He’s done nothing to show that he should win this game. He’s only got one more chance to do so. He will have to actually be the one that somehow arranges for Cirie or Parvati to be the next to go and hope he can make it to the Final Tribal Council with Natalie and Amanda and argue he played strength and strategy by staying alive when he was with the Faves and they started cutting their own instead of him. Slim chance, but better than nothing.
James Removed
What went wrong? Well, he got hurt and had to leave the game. It wouldn’t have mattered (to him) that much, though. The truth is, James was the next to go. Erik probably would have still won the Immunity Challenge had James been there and everyone would have voted for James to leave. That would have seriously effected Amanda’s move, so I’m not sure what she would have done in that situation. Would she have given him the idol to play to save him and try to reverse the vote or would she have waited until the next week to see what happened? There’s no way to know.
Alexis Eliminated
What went wrong for Alexis? She was tricked by a better player. That’s all there is to it. None of them saw Amanda’s move coming so there’s no way we can say she should have been able to predict it. Even if she had anticipated such a move the likely target, in her mind, would have been Natalie. Alexis never had a chance. But then, she didn’t really have a chance of winning even if she made it to the end so maybe it’s better this way.
Conclusion
Cirie and Parvati still have a good shot at winning this thing. Amanda made a great move, but now she has to figure out what to do with it. Her conundrum is that she needs to go to the final three with Erik and Natalie but she doesn’t need to lose the votes she might lose by stabbing Cirie and Parvati in the back (well, Cirie was going to vote for her so she might get by on that one). It’ll be tough for her.
Erik and Natalie are actually in a good position to make it to the final three if the other three girls are smart because those three girls should NOT want to go up against one another. However, neither Erik nor Natalie have a good argument as to why they should win the game. Their odds of winning are pretty slim unless one of them can make it to the final three and two of the three remaining Faves split the jury vote.
Merged – Dabu
Natalie Bolton, Cirie Fields, Amanda Kimmel, Erik Reichenbach, Parvati Shallow
The Jury
Alexis Jones (Ep12), James Clement (Ep12), Jason Siska (Ep11), Ozzy Lusth (Ep10), Eliza Orlins (Ep9)
I’m rooting for Amanda. She should have won the last Surviver and is going well to win this one.