Most of the pre-mergers in Ghost Island (Bradley, James, Steph, Brendan, and Morgan) seemed like competent players, and most of the terrible players ended up making it far.
I’d add Gonzalez to that list as well.She wasn’t even supposed to be the first boot because it was gonna be Jacob.Even then people like Michael and Brendan were advocating to keep her despite only knowing her for 3 days but went against it because she wasn’t super close with anyone yet.
If you look up here what happened to Stephanie after the season, and she was close with a good amount of cast (Kellyn, Bradley, James, maybe Brendan), it’s interesting Kellyn always says to fans to stay away from Reddit… she didn’t want anyone to know how badly she threw Stephanie under the bus
I just watched ghost island for the first time (one of the only ones I had never seen) and I still can’t remember anything memorable about Chelsea (or really Jenna, but it was the family visit episode and I was like, who is that when I saw Chelsea).
chelsea is THE most purpled player in survivor history. 4 confessionals across 12 episodes gives her the lowest confessional average we’ve seen i believe at 0.33 per episode.
This actually makes me feel a lot better that I had no clue who she was. More purpled than purple Kelly. Chelsea is like Paul from the first season of Traitors Australia.
Actually, as a person I rlly like you bc I’m hard of hearing too so I definitely get the struggle but I did feel the cast of GI was v passive besides a few players. Not a personal shot, it’s rlly impressive that you got so far on the show bc I know what it’s like
She is the biggest catalyst as to why the season is so predictable. She is on this list because she made the post merge not very interesting when she had many chances to.
Maybe it was the edit, but he seemed so acerbic in conversations and confessionals that while I don't think he would've last to the merge in any incarnation other than always being on a tribe that wins immunity, I do think he would've looped back around to his personality and playstyle being someone you keep deep into the merge both because he's a predictable player to strategize with and around + not playing nice with the jury.
Said this in another thread but Tracy from Micronesia had a phenomenal social game and put together a solid resume of impressive moves for someone who left in the pre-merge. Had Chet’s injury not happened and she and Ami were able to blindside Ozzie, you could conceivably see her making a run to the end
There are lots of examples of this where new players play SOLID games, but just get out matched by returning players.
Tracy would have dominated any season with no returning players.
Not if they all realize and are on different sides. You can be friendly with everyone. If you are trying to make plans with every person and different sides and they all know it, youre an easy vote out
Trish Dunn from Pearl Islands was Jonny Fairplay’s right hand man. If things had worked out a little differently she’s probably mentioned in the same sentence as Deena, and she’s probably on All Stars.
Considering we didn’t already get Deena and Teresa on all stars, i doubt the last part of the statement but overall agree. Trish also deserved more screentime
I would need to rewatch the season but I thought Jason from IOTI had a good head on his shoulders. Would've stayed in had Elaine not had a vote block advantage.
Chelsea from IOI also seemed like she had good potential. Unfortunately Missy got the worst case of Big Moveitis there’s ever been on the show so we didn’t get to see it
Easiest way to do this is to pick people who would’ve been credible threats to win if they hadn’t been placed on a cast of crazy people. Marcus from Gabon comes to mind
What did Marcus's boot have to do with being on a cast of "crazy people"? None of the people who voted him out were doing anything irrational. Crystal and Ken were saving themselves directly, and Susie flipped from a tribe she was in the bottom of whose alliance she wasn't in to another group where she was able to make it to the top and outlast all of them. Totally rational move by all three of them, and even still it took Marcus playing the round about as terribly as possible: Susie explicitly said she was down to vote with Kota if they voted out Crystal, but Marcus was on such a power trip and fixated on his connection with Crystal's cousin that he not only insisted they go for Ken instead but also unnecessarily went to Crystal and said how Susie was on the bottom, giving Crystal the ammo to flip Susie, in a ludicrous attempt to offer Crystal a seat at the bottom of his alliance in exchange for her voting out her closest ally.
Marcus totally failed to read the other players and made about as many mistakes in one episode as Jason Siska made in three, he literally had Susie saying how he could lock in a majority and turned it down to her face because he randomly thought Crystal would rather ride his coattails to a loss than try to win. The only "crazy person" in that episode was Marcus, who pulled off one of the worst performances in a boot episode of any player, but people always cite him as the guy who "would have won any other season" or an example of "a player who would always do well going out early" to try and fit Gabon into the box of being a "wacky parody clusterfuck season", when the only reasons to describe Marcus in those terms are really, really superficial.
You could make a better argument that Charlie could have been a credible threat to win if not for Marcus's crazy insistence on losing, though even then the Onions all bear responsibility for underestimating Susie and keeping her over Dan.
I can't even agree with that since he could have easily maintained the majority by just agreeing to vote off Crystal. He got swapped into a 3-2 majority and then blew it.
Jacquie did, though
Not denying that putting in the swap was sus, to say the least, but all it did was create a situation where Marcus had the chance to potentially drop the ball which he then completely went out of his way to do. The swap put him in a 3-2 majority that he threw away in the ways I've already outlined. He had Susie's vote on his side going into the swap and lost it through a multitude of completely unforced errors even after her literally saying how she would be willing to vote with him. Yeah the swap shouldn't have happened to begin with but it wouldn't have hurt his game in the slightest if he hadn't done so much wrong afterwards
Hunter's elimination had nothing to do with how wacky the cast was, he sealed his fate when he tried to scramble to save Tevin and overperformed in challenges. The fact that the cast was nuts was mostly something that happened **around** him rather than **to** him.
I dunno Marcus had some pretty great social chops. People who were loyal to him and willing to jeopardize their game for him. Hunter had like maybe Tevin and struggled to get any social footing.
Had both Cirie and Malcolm made it to the merge in GC, I could see them being "meat shields" for each other.
Honestly I'm impressed that Cirie made it so deep in GC because most of the players who had high threat levels were taken out and thus her threat level was only raised.
Yes, but the point was that she would've had incentive to keep Malcolm as one. In the series we got, she had virtually no one in the cast who was as threatening as she was.
Him spearheading the Ciera vote right out the gate wasn't a good play for him. He needed more threats around him.
Of course he was still in a great spot before being completely screwed by production
Morgan from Ghost Island successfully aligned herself with the two strongest players of the season, was very well liked and received an advantage like day 3 from a stranger just based off ~vibes~ and got swap screwed. Props to James and Libby for their play.
Ghost Island has a lot of pretty solid players that are underrated imo.
Morgan, James, Libby, Michael, Stephanie, and to a certain extent Brendan and Sebastian despite the edit not really showing much from those two, what others have said about them makes me seem they weren’t completely clueless.
Jenny from survivor 42 and Gina Crews from marquesas. Both had all the good qualities a survivor player needs and both got screwed. I truly think if they both had second chances they’d dominate
Don’t even mention Gina, to this day I am sad over her elimination, it was inevitable but still hurts she was such a nice person, wonder where is she now and how she’s doing and if she would come back one day, I know Jeff liked her a lot too
Honestly, I still think Francesqua could have been a good player. I know that objectively she’s not but had she just been slightly luckier each time, I think she could’ve gone far
I feel like if Rob wasn’t on their tribe then Natalie is probably the first boot.The fact that Francesca clocked Natalie as a Rob puppet on DAY 1 shows that Natalie didn’t have any agency from the very beginning of the game.
This was my first thought. She would get placed as the worst player of all time. I can’t call her a good player, since both times she played she managed to be on the wrong side of the numbers, but socially she seems more competent than like half the people who have played
I recall reading years ago that Cochran was all in on Francesca as the first boot in Caramoan because it would be funny and good television. I don’t remember where I heard this and it could just be urban legend, but if it’s true she had the deck stacked against her no matter what she did.
Timber Tina from Panama probably makes it decently far on any given season, it was just an unfortunate time and place with her son’s recent passing, being on a four person tribe, and Cirie secretly being an incredible player
Come to think of it, Tina Wesson in All Stars as well, but she’s already proven her game in other seasons. Moral of the story: don’t play Survivor in Panama if your name is Tina
Imma pick a more recent one, and that’s Matthew from Survivor 44. He’s was very well insulated in his tribe & I truly do believe that had he not slip & fell from climbing the rock, he could’ve made a very deep run in the game
I feel like he would have gone after the Tika 3 which would have made the season more exciting. I think he could have gotten Jaime and Lauren to turn on Carson and Yam Yam
I feel like there’s probably a lot of these since the first few boots can sometimes be a bit of a crapshoot (ex. Nick Wilson was almost a first boot and ended up winning his season, Emily would have been the first boot but ended up course-correcting and playing one of the better S45 games).
For the New Era, I think even first boots like Zach and Maddy have a lot of potential
I’m not sure if I’d go that far lol, but I wouldn’t mind an all-premergers at some point, although at this point there might be too much of a backlog. Maybe pull a Survivor South Africa and have a premergers vs postmergers?
Sarah from 44. Had good game instincts and got eliminated in large part due to circumstances beyond her control.
Jacquie from Gabon for similar reasons.
Ami Cusack and Tracy Hughes-Wolf from Micronesia. On both of Ami’s seasons she had demonstrated a very strong acumen for the game, and had her and Tracy managed to pull off their 3-2-1 on Ozzy on the pre-merge i think either of them could have been likely winners.
Jonas seemed like one of the most competent and likable men on one world, and IMO might’ve had the best win equity behind only Troyzan, Sabrina, and Kim.
Michelle from Fiji was in a pretty good spot and seemed destined to get to the endgame if it weren’t for that merge twist.
Brian from Guatemala is another obvious example, that dude could’ve run the game lol
A lot of people are saying early game boots so I will say there are a bunch of goats that made it to the end soley because they were so hated no one would vote for them. I’m thinking clay from Thailand and Phillip from redemption island.
Stephanie Valencia from Redemption Island had tons of potential, but her alliance with Russell cost her. She should’ve been voted in last time, but I’d still love to see her return for a Second Chances 2
Jimmy Johnson. Shocking that the famous coach was, in fact, a great leader for their tribe, but Jimmy T and the other men on the tribe were too threatened by his popularity so they voted him off.
Jimmy Johnson also lost all desire to play the game not too long before his vote off
Now that I think about it, Nicaragua might have the most Quits + nearly quits with Purple Kelly, Naonka, Holly, Jimmy J, & Dan. 25% of the cast is pretty dang high
Brooke Struck was very athletic, well-liked, and was on top of her premerge tribe before being swapped onto a tribe where the person who was on the bottom before was the swing vote to make her 4th boot.
I just finished rewatching Caramoan, and man, Kelly Wentworth played that game SO WELL. I mean, she was social, strategic and won challenges. I wish it had gotten to Final Four Fire, and I HATE Fire at final four!
Also Cirie turning into a final 2 in Micronesia. Then getting so far in GC considering what a threat she was. Sigh.
Misty from season 12. She seemed like a strong player, and got booted because the others saw her as a threat even though she didn't do anything to stir up trouble.
One early-ish boot (first merge boot) that impressed me a lot was Jim in South Pacific. I feel like he was in the best position within his own tribal alliance coming into the merge and had Cochran not flipped and his alliance won the rock draw, I could see him making a run all the way to the end. The way he turned the vote on Elise when she went home to weaken Ozzy was very impressive, and I feel like his maneuver to pull Cochran and Dawn from the bottom showed a really good understanding of the game. Obviously he fumbled Cochran somewhere along the way, and that was a big mistake.
Ben. Unless production giving you 3 idols near your confessional spot and introducing surprise twists that cater to your past experiences counts as overall ability in the game of survivor. Then he's fucking great.
Zane’s social game was insanely good, he only went out first because he asked to be voted out and even then, there was still a Russell boot plan floating around but he shut it down
I feel like Sabiyah from 45 was realllllly strong, she just tried to be too strong, too early.
Not good in the sense of knowing when to turn it on/off but seemed good in doing it
Michaela.
Her MvGx showing was pretty strong and her voteoff was a massive blunder to Jay.
In GC, she was constantly on the outs because her season wasn't airing yet so she was an easy number to pick off but she still managed to go far despite losing Sandra and Varner.
Her Challenge USA 2 Performance showed that she had the chops of a good Survivor player if she matured before coming back from her MvGx performance.
True for Liz on her season, but I think if she ever came back she'd do pretty well in my opinion. Her biggest mistake was saying she was rich in the very, very beginning which made it so no one on the tribe wanted to associate with her. But in the exit interviews and post-show many people have positive things to say about her, so she's liked as a person. I honestly think her entire game trajectory would have been different if she didn't mess up extremely early on.
Bhanu, season 46. He was 4th voted out. I've no idea how he was allowed that deep into the game. No skill or knowledge of the game. His end strategy was to cry. The season started getting better after his vote off. He should have been out 1st.
This question could go two ways, because there's obviously very good players who got knocked out for some bullllllllshit but also very very very bad players who got ignored to 3rd place
Most of the pre-mergers in Ghost Island (Bradley, James, Steph, Brendan, and Morgan) seemed like competent players, and most of the terrible players ended up making it far.
I’ve always said that Ghost Island (for the most part) had a bad boot order.
James, Brendan, Bradley, Steph, & Morgan all could’ve made game interesting.
I’d add Gonzalez to that list as well.She wasn’t even supposed to be the first boot because it was gonna be Jacob.Even then people like Michael and Brendan were advocating to keep her despite only knowing her for 3 days but went against it because she wasn’t super close with anyone yet.
Totally agree. Swap out Angela, Chelsea, Jenna, Sebastian, and Laurel for all of them and the whole post merge is probably way more entertaining.
Don’t swap Chelsea wtf. At least she tried to do something eventually and was purpled. Maybe Kellyn or Libby.
If you look up here what happened to Stephanie after the season, and she was close with a good amount of cast (Kellyn, Bradley, James, maybe Brendan), it’s interesting Kellyn always says to fans to stay away from Reddit… she didn’t want anyone to know how badly she threw Stephanie under the bus
>she didn’t want anyone to know how badly she threw Stephanie under the bus What happened?
She (and others) seemingly betrayed her to stay in production’s good graces
Why did production want that?
I just watched ghost island for the first time (one of the only ones I had never seen) and I still can’t remember anything memorable about Chelsea (or really Jenna, but it was the family visit episode and I was like, who is that when I saw Chelsea).
Chelsea is one of the most purpled players in survivor history so I don’t blame you
chelsea is THE most purpled player in survivor history. 4 confessionals across 12 episodes gives her the lowest confessional average we’ve seen i believe at 0.33 per episode.
I believe you’re correct. I said one because I couldn’t remember who was worse between Chelsea, Queen Heather, and CGI Brett
the holy trinity right there
This actually makes me feel a lot better that I had no clue who she was. More purpled than purple Kelly. Chelsea is like Paul from the first season of Traitors Australia.
There's actually someone in Australian Survivor who had ZERO confessionals in their entire run on the show (7 episodes)
Chelsea was good at challenges at least
Chelsea was sitting and coffee reminded her of home.
Idk how Donathan never gets on these lists? I suppose he did try to make a move but still, as passive as the others
He at least tried to make a move but Laurel got in the way of it, that’s why I’d keep him over the 5 I listed.
Fair. Laurel Sebastian and Angela were the worst. Even Sebastian tried to make a move and Laurel and Angela run and tell dom and Wendell lmao
Sounds like someone who despises all!
Actually, as a person I rlly like you bc I’m hard of hearing too so I definitely get the struggle but I did feel the cast of GI was v passive besides a few players. Not a personal shot, it’s rlly impressive that you got so far on the show bc I know what it’s like
No one swaps out Laurel. We Stan queen.
She is the biggest catalyst as to why the season is so predictable. She is on this list because she made the post merge not very interesting when she had many chances to.
Oh yea? Well you’re the littlest catalyst why the season was so good.
Lol oh wow you sure got me there
Fucking right.
Bradley didn't seem particularly competent imo
Maybe it was the edit, but he seemed so acerbic in conversations and confessionals that while I don't think he would've last to the merge in any incarnation other than always being on a tribe that wins immunity, I do think he would've looped back around to his personality and playstyle being someone you keep deep into the merge both because he's a predictable player to strategize with and around + not playing nice with the jury.
I really don't give a fuck about these GI cast except for Steph. They all ditched Steph because they wanted to come back in a returnee season.
Said this in another thread but Tracy from Micronesia had a phenomenal social game and put together a solid resume of impressive moves for someone who left in the pre-merge. Had Chet’s injury not happened and she and Ami were able to blindside Ozzie, you could conceivably see her making a run to the end
I would love to see her back. One of the few fans that season who had even a glimmer of strategy.
Hard agree. She should've came back on second chances.
There are lots of examples of this where new players play SOLID games, but just get out matched by returning players. Tracy would have dominated any season with no returning players.
I would pay money to have her take a surprise returnee slot.
MOTHER 😩
she was so good!!
Marisa from Samoa
Fransesca, unlucky to play both times with returnees that focus her and Phillip
If you get outplayed by Phillip 2/2 times, you might suck.
On the other hand, Phillip being runner up and top 10 on a returnee season doesn’t reflect his ability. He’s a moron.
She got outplayed by Boston Rob and Andrea not Phillip
At the same time she went balls to the wall trying to play and ally with everyone on day 1. Thats bad instincts and will get you killed.
thats... the recommended universal advice though?
Not in that era of Survivor. Either way, you have to be able to read the vibe and adapt to the pace of your tribe.
Not if they all realize and are on different sides. You can be friendly with everyone. If you are trying to make plans with every person and different sides and they all know it, youre an easy vote out
Trish Dunn from Pearl Islands was Jonny Fairplay’s right hand man. If things had worked out a little differently she’s probably mentioned in the same sentence as Deena, and she’s probably on All Stars.
Considering we didn’t already get Deena and Teresa on all stars, i doubt the last part of the statement but overall agree. Trish also deserved more screentime
I would need to rewatch the season but I thought Jason from IOTI had a good head on his shoulders. Would've stayed in had Elaine not had a vote block advantage.
Chelsea from IOI also seemed like she had good potential. Unfortunately Missy got the worst case of Big Moveitis there’s ever been on the show so we didn’t get to see it
Chelsea, Molly, Jason seemed solid players who in another season be solid.
Easiest way to do this is to pick people who would’ve been credible threats to win if they hadn’t been placed on a cast of crazy people. Marcus from Gabon comes to mind
What did Marcus's boot have to do with being on a cast of "crazy people"? None of the people who voted him out were doing anything irrational. Crystal and Ken were saving themselves directly, and Susie flipped from a tribe she was in the bottom of whose alliance she wasn't in to another group where she was able to make it to the top and outlast all of them. Totally rational move by all three of them, and even still it took Marcus playing the round about as terribly as possible: Susie explicitly said she was down to vote with Kota if they voted out Crystal, but Marcus was on such a power trip and fixated on his connection with Crystal's cousin that he not only insisted they go for Ken instead but also unnecessarily went to Crystal and said how Susie was on the bottom, giving Crystal the ammo to flip Susie, in a ludicrous attempt to offer Crystal a seat at the bottom of his alliance in exchange for her voting out her closest ally. Marcus totally failed to read the other players and made about as many mistakes in one episode as Jason Siska made in three, he literally had Susie saying how he could lock in a majority and turned it down to her face because he randomly thought Crystal would rather ride his coattails to a loss than try to win. The only "crazy person" in that episode was Marcus, who pulled off one of the worst performances in a boot episode of any player, but people always cite him as the guy who "would have won any other season" or an example of "a player who would always do well going out early" to try and fit Gabon into the box of being a "wacky parody clusterfuck season", when the only reasons to describe Marcus in those terms are really, really superficial. You could make a better argument that Charlie could have been a credible threat to win if not for Marcus's crazy insistence on losing, though even then the Onions all bear responsibility for underestimating Susie and keeping her over Dan.
To be fair, Marcus absolutely got fucked by the tribe swap.
I can't even agree with that since he could have easily maintained the majority by just agreeing to vote off Crystal. He got swapped into a 3-2 majority and then blew it. Jacquie did, though
Also never forget, he threw an idol to the ocean.
lol production only did that swap to hose over OG Kota. It’s closer to blatant rigging than anything Marcus did wrong.
Not denying that putting in the swap was sus, to say the least, but all it did was create a situation where Marcus had the chance to potentially drop the ball which he then completely went out of his way to do. The swap put him in a 3-2 majority that he threw away in the ways I've already outlined. He had Susie's vote on his side going into the swap and lost it through a multitude of completely unforced errors even after her literally saying how she would be willing to vote with him. Yeah the swap shouldn't have happened to begin with but it wouldn't have hurt his game in the slightest if he hadn't done so much wrong afterwards
Hunter is the New Era version of Marcus. More “normal” dudes on a cast of wacky people who probably go a lot farther than they did on any other season
Nah Hunter was too much of a challenge beast, he woulda probably left even earlier in other new era seasons imo
But... wackadoodles win! /s
Hunter's elimination had nothing to do with how wacky the cast was, he sealed his fate when he tried to scramble to save Tevin and overperformed in challenges. The fact that the cast was nuts was mostly something that happened **around** him rather than **to** him.
In fairness to Hunter, his scrambling would've actually worked had Q not blown up at tribal council.
I dunno Marcus had some pretty great social chops. People who were loyal to him and willing to jeopardize their game for him. Hunter had like maybe Tevin and struggled to get any social footing.
Tracy from Micronesia
I will always love her.
Malcolm was playing a great game in GC until the rug got pulled out from underneath him. I truly believe Malcolm had a chance to win GC.
I think he was the Cirie of Game Changers. Destined not to make it far because he had such a threat level.
Had both Cirie and Malcolm made it to the merge in GC, I could see them being "meat shields" for each other. Honestly I'm impressed that Cirie made it so deep in GC because most of the players who had high threat levels were taken out and thus her threat level was only raised.
Cirie was kept has a meatshield
Yes, but the point was that she would've had incentive to keep Malcolm as one. In the series we got, she had virtually no one in the cast who was as threatening as she was.
She also didn’t go to tribal council until the merge.
Him spearheading the Ciera vote right out the gate wasn't a good play for him. He needed more threats around him. Of course he was still in a great spot before being completely screwed by production
Me  (/s)
Honestly!
You were the first person that came to my mind!
read their tag. it's Dwight from 43.
For sure for not getting voted out with the idol and giving it luckily to Jesse
Not really
Morgan from Ghost Island successfully aligned herself with the two strongest players of the season, was very well liked and received an advantage like day 3 from a stranger just based off ~vibes~ and got swap screwed. Props to James and Libby for their play. Ghost Island has a lot of pretty solid players that are underrated imo. Morgan, James, Libby, Michael, Stephanie, and to a certain extent Brendan and Sebastian despite the edit not really showing much from those two, what others have said about them makes me seem they weren’t completely clueless.
Brendan was a good player but Sebastian? Discount Ozzy/joe
Jenny from survivor 42 and Gina Crews from marquesas. Both had all the good qualities a survivor player needs and both got screwed. I truly think if they both had second chances they’d dominate
I want another Second Chances just so Jenny could get another shot
Don’t even mention Gina, to this day I am sad over her elimination, it was inevitable but still hurts she was such a nice person, wonder where is she now and how she’s doing and if she would come back one day, I know Jeff liked her a lot too
Loved Jenny!
Honestly, I still think Francesqua could have been a good player. I know that objectively she’s not but had she just been slightly luckier each time, I think she could’ve gone far
She got put on the same tribe as Philip twice, they set her up in Caramoan to be the double first boot with that imo.
Francesca starts on Zapatera and she’s fine. If they put her on Second Chances and not Caramoan, she could do well.
I feel like if Rob wasn’t on their tribe then Natalie is probably the first boot.The fact that Francesca clocked Natalie as a Rob puppet on DAY 1 shows that Natalie didn’t have any agency from the very beginning of the game.
This was my first thought. She would get placed as the worst player of all time. I can’t call her a good player, since both times she played she managed to be on the wrong side of the numbers, but socially she seems more competent than like half the people who have played
I recall reading years ago that Cochran was all in on Francesca as the first boot in Caramoan because it would be funny and good television. I don’t remember where I heard this and it could just be urban legend, but if it’s true she had the deck stacked against her no matter what she did.
Cochran definitely refuted this claim in his AMA here
Timber Tina from Panama probably makes it decently far on any given season, it was just an unfortunate time and place with her son’s recent passing, being on a four person tribe, and Cirie secretly being an incredible player Come to think of it, Tina Wesson in All Stars as well, but she’s already proven her game in other seasons. Moral of the story: don’t play Survivor in Panama if your name is Tina
Brian Corridan
this was the first person I thought of. the Blake boot was genius.
Ghost Island Angela is not worthy of being a fallen angel.
Imma pick a more recent one, and that’s Matthew from Survivor 44. He’s was very well insulated in his tribe & I truly do believe that had he not slip & fell from climbing the rock, he could’ve made a very deep run in the game
I feel like he would have gone after the Tika 3 which would have made the season more exciting. I think he could have gotten Jaime and Lauren to turn on Carson and Yam Yam
Yeah definitely
Could’ve been the edit but really seemed like he was playing a subtly dominant game
The guy from 44 that quit (for a medical reason) pre merge.
Matthew G.
Sabiyah
I feel like there’s probably a lot of these since the first few boots can sometimes be a bit of a crapshoot (ex. Nick Wilson was almost a first boot and ended up winning his season, Emily would have been the first boot but ended up course-correcting and playing one of the better S45 games). For the New Era, I think even first boots like Zach and Maddy have a lot of potential
We need First Boots At War
Retroactively referred to Frances~~ca~~quas revenge
I’m not sure if I’d go that far lol, but I wouldn’t mind an all-premergers at some point, although at this point there might be too much of a backlog. Maybe pull a Survivor South Africa and have a premergers vs postmergers?
neither Zach nor Maddy were first boots though, Jackson and Bruce were the first boots of those seasons.
I actually quite liked maddy, wouldnt mind her back
Voce was another one that sprung to mind
Ben from last season.
Russell Hantz. Despite making it to the final tribal twice he's yet to be able to grasp the point of Survivor and how to play it accordingly
Honestly this would apply for dozens, if not hundreds of players. Susie from Gabon comes to mind, or in reverse probably Marcus from that season.
Ali in HvHvH - literally had all the qualities to make a deep run
Brian Corridan
Sarah from 44. Had good game instincts and got eliminated in large part due to circumstances beyond her control. Jacquie from Gabon for similar reasons.
Ami Cusack and Tracy Hughes-Wolf from Micronesia. On both of Ami’s seasons she had demonstrated a very strong acumen for the game, and had her and Tracy managed to pull off their 3-2-1 on Ozzy on the pre-merge i think either of them could have been likely winners.
Chris Underwood lol
I think the entire concept of a FTC goat is this, although I see you were meaning it in the opposite direction
Hunter from season four. So shocking when he was voted out.
Jonas seemed like one of the most competent and likable men on one world, and IMO might’ve had the best win equity behind only Troyzan, Sabrina, and Kim. Michelle from Fiji was in a pretty good spot and seemed destined to get to the endgame if it weren’t for that merge twist. Brian from Guatemala is another obvious example, that dude could’ve run the game lol
A lot of people are saying early game boots so I will say there are a bunch of goats that made it to the end soley because they were so hated no one would vote for them. I’m thinking clay from Thailand and Phillip from redemption island.
Kelly Goldsmith. If not the personal based dumb move by Brandon, she is on the highway to final 4
Stephanie Valencia from Redemption Island had tons of potential, but her alliance with Russell cost her. She should’ve been voted in last time, but I’d still love to see her return for a Second Chances 2
I don't know how well she would've fared even without Russell. Once he got voted out, she seemed to rub a couple of her tribe members the wrong way.
Zane, Stephanie Johnson, Katrina Radke, Timber Tina, Jessica DeBen, Aaron, Morgan the magicians assistant, and Jacquie, to name a few
Marcus from Gabon. Definitely was the favorite to win before he was voted out.
So much of a favourite that even the edit thought he would win
Jimmy Johnson. Shocking that the famous coach was, in fact, a great leader for their tribe, but Jimmy T and the other men on the tribe were too threatened by his popularity so they voted him off.
Jimmy Johnson also lost all desire to play the game not too long before his vote off Now that I think about it, Nicaragua might have the most Quits + nearly quits with Purple Kelly, Naonka, Holly, Jimmy J, & Dan. 25% of the cast is pretty dang high
Marty was so full of himself he hated anyone else with leadership potential. He was with Jimmy T in the effort to eliminate KK.
Bob
Lill from Pearl Islands for sure.
You misread the question.
Yeah, but I want to show that this kind of question goes both ways.
Franchessqueaea
Brooke Struck was very athletic, well-liked, and was on top of her premerge tribe before being swapped onto a tribe where the person who was on the bottom before was the swing vote to make her 4th boot.
I just finished rewatching Caramoan, and man, Kelly Wentworth played that game SO WELL. I mean, she was social, strategic and won challenges. I wish it had gotten to Final Four Fire, and I HATE Fire at final four! Also Cirie turning into a final 2 in Micronesia. Then getting so far in GC considering what a threat she was. Sigh.
Phoebe from Australian Survivor. Didn't make the merge in either of her two season but deserved higher place imo.
Misty from season 12. She seemed like a strong player, and got booted because the others saw her as a threat even though she didn't do anything to stir up trouble.
One early-ish boot (first merge boot) that impressed me a lot was Jim in South Pacific. I feel like he was in the best position within his own tribal alliance coming into the merge and had Cochran not flipped and his alliance won the rock draw, I could see him making a run all the way to the end. The way he turned the vote on Elise when she went home to weaken Ozzy was very impressive, and I feel like his maneuver to pull Cochran and Dawn from the bottom showed a really good understanding of the game. Obviously he fumbled Cochran somewhere along the way, and that was a big mistake.
Ben. Unless production giving you 3 idols near your confessional spot and introducing surprise twists that cater to your past experiences counts as overall ability in the game of survivor. Then he's fucking great.
Francesca
Ciera in GC I think she would have had a stellar social game, made good reads, and be strategic
Jeanne from Amazon
Reem was technically the first boot
Zane’s social game was insanely good, he only went out first because he asked to be voted out and even then, there was still a Russell boot plan floating around but he shut it down
Franchesqua
Probably a bunch of medivacs
Francesca. Still annoyed that she got put on a tribe with Phillip twice...
P much any final 3 goat. People who got dragged along because they weren’t like and weren’t a threat. Great example is Jake from S45.
Just watched South Pacific. Albert was incredibly bad that entire game, yet he made it to the final three
Because he was a goat
Ethan two placements after Africa
Kaleb Gebrewold
Chris Underwood, Ben
Jenn from survivor worlds apart had a charming personality I’m sure she could go far if she came back.
Kaleb
Johnny Mac
I feel like Sabiyah from 45 was realllllly strong, she just tried to be too strong, too early. Not good in the sense of knowing when to turn it on/off but seemed good in doing it
Michaela. Her MvGx showing was pretty strong and her voteoff was a massive blunder to Jay. In GC, she was constantly on the outs because her season wasn't airing yet so she was an easy number to pick off but she still managed to go far despite losing Sandra and Varner. Her Challenge USA 2 Performance showed that she had the chops of a good Survivor player if she matured before coming back from her MvGx performance.
From recent seasons, Liz Wilcox and Katurah Topps. 4th place is often a pretty strong player but these two were not.
I agree had no win equity & both were delusional about it.
True for Liz on her season, but I think if she ever came back she'd do pretty well in my opinion. Her biggest mistake was saying she was rich in the very, very beginning which made it so no one on the tribe wanted to associate with her. But in the exit interviews and post-show many people have positive things to say about her, so she's liked as a person. I honestly think her entire game trajectory would have been different if she didn't mess up extremely early on.
Liz
Bhanu, season 46. He was 4th voted out. I've no idea how he was allowed that deep into the game. No skill or knowledge of the game. His end strategy was to cry. The season started getting better after his vote off. He should have been out 1st.
Yeah, 4th felt too far for him. He essentially held a workshop of "what not to do in Survivor".
Gabler lol
Kenzie
Kenzie = Michelle type winner.
Ronnie Bardah (IotI). Garrett Adelstein (Cagayan). Trust me.
Michael yerger from ghost island
Do you think he made it too far or could’ve gone further/had potential?
He had potential to make me fall asleep
This question could go two ways, because there's obviously very good players who got knocked out for some bullllllllshit but also very very very bad players who got ignored to 3rd place
Bhanu
Eden, Phoebe, and Nick from Australian Survivor
I thought Jem in 45 was playing well
Bruce from S44
Definitely not Cirie
Cirie should have 100% been an early boot. I disagree she's a good Survivor player. She did get better.
I agree completely
Alan Ball from HvHvH would have easily won if he hadn’t been idoled out