Post by thiago on Aug 1, 2013 21:21:44 GMT -5
Hello friends, acquaintances, and enemies!
I have to admit that I am hella nervous right now. This game easily became one of the most intense games I’ve ever had the pleasure of competing in, so I would be a fool to expect this Final Judgment to be a cakewalk by any means.
Never in a million years did I expect to have made it this far when this game started. Given I had just won GVSE5 two weeks prior, I knew that I would be entering a game full of new faces with a big target on my back to boot. Considering almost every active PW from last season was playing in this season, it was scary knowing how well everyone knew who I was but how little I knew everyone else, with the exception of Ellen. On top of all that, the only people I really knew were those from my season: Ben, Knox, and Gloria, who all voted against me in the end; and Mark, who I versed in a heated Final Judgment. To say the least, my confidence was dangerously low right from the start.
Although I may have won last season, I refuse to rest on my laurels. Unlike last season, I cannot present to you a flashy game by any means. Believe me when I say that it is not lost on me that luck plays a massive factor in my sitting here, given the season quickly turned into a game of idol roulette once we were all conscripted to join one of two armies. However, I do think that I can argue that I played an intelligent game, making moves that were correct at the right times and always keeping myself one or two steps ahead of my competition. Those who know I am an INFJ personality may have forgotten that I am also psychic!
I had three strategies coming into the game: dampen my reputation, always stay in the middle, and be viewed as a follower.
I always made an active effort, right until the very end, to put myself down to other people. Whether people bought it or not at first didn’t matter, but I do believe that when you tell people something enough times, it becomes believable to some extent. By continually putting down my chances of winning or being a threat, I think that people lost focus on me and set their sights on other people with impressive reputations. As seen for most of the game, players like Ellen, Dominic, and Luca had a tough time shaking their reputations and had to fight hard to stay in this game, and thankfully for me I never had to do that, because I don’t hold a candle to any of them in competition skills. That is also not to say that I would have been safe if the original Legatu had gone to Judgment before the swap, but by about Round 4 or 5, people began to worry less about whether they could trust the Thiago from Season 5 or not and began confiding in me. As the end game approached, I wanted to eliminate the possibility of my reputation becoming a problem again, and began randomly attacking to-be jury members (i.e. Ben and Dominic) as they were voted out, in order to argue that I would have no shot at the Final Judgment. This was a risky play that may come to haunt me now, but I will accept full responsibility for however that decision affects me at this stage of the game.
The game began to divide fairly early on, for a multitude of reasons that I’m still not completely aware of (likely as a result of me not knowing the history of many of your relationships with one another), so I always made an effort to stay ambiguous for as long as possible. I knew that I was at the bottom of the totem pole regardless of which “6” I chose to side with, which is essentially where I wanted to be: I would never be the top target from the opposing side, and could fly under the radar without having to rely on immunity or finding idols to survive.
Although I appeared to be following my group sitting at the bottom of my alliance’s social totem pole, which to some extent was true early on, decisions I made were key to our success. I found the idol and correctly played it on myself. At the merge, my alliance entrusted in me to decide both who we should vote for (Selena) and who we should play our idol on (Knox). One could argue that this was the turning point for our alliance, and albeit my opponents may argue that “we all played our part,” those crucial decisions were left to me.
Once the alliance I was in began to take control of the game, I started to prepare for how I wanted the end game to shape up. After playing a very passive, defensive game, I switched gears from a follower to a leader and became more of an offensive player. Knox had confided in me that he wanted AJ out at 5 around the time Ellen left, but I saw Henry as my biggest threat. It was too risky to allow him to make the Final 4, so I approached both Cassie and AJ with this information and implemented a plan to take Henry out, and played my idol on AJ to ensure that Henry and Knox didn’t jump the gun before I did. At the Final 4, I made my biggest play yet and was able to solidify a promise from Knox before he won immunity and also convinced AJ that Cassie was our biggest threat in the end. Had I not been confrontational with to-be jurors, wrote a lackluster “Remembering the Fallen,” and consistently downplayed my ability to win this game, I doubt I would have made it to this point as my competition would have eaten me alive. As much as I’ve grown to love the people in my alliance, strategic decisions were always at the forefront for me, so I mixed pleasure with business.
Thank you everyone for making this game what it was. It has been a crazy ride and given it has been nearly 4 months of me playing this series now, I will use my last drops of energy to answer your questions honestly, thoroughly, and passionately. Albeit I am nervous as hell right now, I welcome whatever you throw my way, with or without mercy, because this is a big decision for a series that we have all grown to love and have dedicated so much of our time to. If you hate my guts, it’s totally cool, I respect your honesty either way.
Here we go!
I have to admit that I am hella nervous right now. This game easily became one of the most intense games I’ve ever had the pleasure of competing in, so I would be a fool to expect this Final Judgment to be a cakewalk by any means.
Never in a million years did I expect to have made it this far when this game started. Given I had just won GVSE5 two weeks prior, I knew that I would be entering a game full of new faces with a big target on my back to boot. Considering almost every active PW from last season was playing in this season, it was scary knowing how well everyone knew who I was but how little I knew everyone else, with the exception of Ellen. On top of all that, the only people I really knew were those from my season: Ben, Knox, and Gloria, who all voted against me in the end; and Mark, who I versed in a heated Final Judgment. To say the least, my confidence was dangerously low right from the start.
Although I may have won last season, I refuse to rest on my laurels. Unlike last season, I cannot present to you a flashy game by any means. Believe me when I say that it is not lost on me that luck plays a massive factor in my sitting here, given the season quickly turned into a game of idol roulette once we were all conscripted to join one of two armies. However, I do think that I can argue that I played an intelligent game, making moves that were correct at the right times and always keeping myself one or two steps ahead of my competition. Those who know I am an INFJ personality may have forgotten that I am also psychic!
I had three strategies coming into the game: dampen my reputation, always stay in the middle, and be viewed as a follower.
I always made an active effort, right until the very end, to put myself down to other people. Whether people bought it or not at first didn’t matter, but I do believe that when you tell people something enough times, it becomes believable to some extent. By continually putting down my chances of winning or being a threat, I think that people lost focus on me and set their sights on other people with impressive reputations. As seen for most of the game, players like Ellen, Dominic, and Luca had a tough time shaking their reputations and had to fight hard to stay in this game, and thankfully for me I never had to do that, because I don’t hold a candle to any of them in competition skills. That is also not to say that I would have been safe if the original Legatu had gone to Judgment before the swap, but by about Round 4 or 5, people began to worry less about whether they could trust the Thiago from Season 5 or not and began confiding in me. As the end game approached, I wanted to eliminate the possibility of my reputation becoming a problem again, and began randomly attacking to-be jury members (i.e. Ben and Dominic) as they were voted out, in order to argue that I would have no shot at the Final Judgment. This was a risky play that may come to haunt me now, but I will accept full responsibility for however that decision affects me at this stage of the game.
The game began to divide fairly early on, for a multitude of reasons that I’m still not completely aware of (likely as a result of me not knowing the history of many of your relationships with one another), so I always made an effort to stay ambiguous for as long as possible. I knew that I was at the bottom of the totem pole regardless of which “6” I chose to side with, which is essentially where I wanted to be: I would never be the top target from the opposing side, and could fly under the radar without having to rely on immunity or finding idols to survive.
Although I appeared to be following my group sitting at the bottom of my alliance’s social totem pole, which to some extent was true early on, decisions I made were key to our success. I found the idol and correctly played it on myself. At the merge, my alliance entrusted in me to decide both who we should vote for (Selena) and who we should play our idol on (Knox). One could argue that this was the turning point for our alliance, and albeit my opponents may argue that “we all played our part,” those crucial decisions were left to me.
Once the alliance I was in began to take control of the game, I started to prepare for how I wanted the end game to shape up. After playing a very passive, defensive game, I switched gears from a follower to a leader and became more of an offensive player. Knox had confided in me that he wanted AJ out at 5 around the time Ellen left, but I saw Henry as my biggest threat. It was too risky to allow him to make the Final 4, so I approached both Cassie and AJ with this information and implemented a plan to take Henry out, and played my idol on AJ to ensure that Henry and Knox didn’t jump the gun before I did. At the Final 4, I made my biggest play yet and was able to solidify a promise from Knox before he won immunity and also convinced AJ that Cassie was our biggest threat in the end. Had I not been confrontational with to-be jurors, wrote a lackluster “Remembering the Fallen,” and consistently downplayed my ability to win this game, I doubt I would have made it to this point as my competition would have eaten me alive. As much as I’ve grown to love the people in my alliance, strategic decisions were always at the forefront for me, so I mixed pleasure with business.
Thank you everyone for making this game what it was. It has been a crazy ride and given it has been nearly 4 months of me playing this series now, I will use my last drops of energy to answer your questions honestly, thoroughly, and passionately. Albeit I am nervous as hell right now, I welcome whatever you throw my way, with or without mercy, because this is a big decision for a series that we have all grown to love and have dedicated so much of our time to. If you hate my guts, it’s totally cool, I respect your honesty either way.
Here we go!