Hey everyone! I just want to start off by saying how great of an experience this whole game has been so far and how thankful I am that the hosts took so much time out of their lives to make the game as awesome as it was. In addition, I want to say that you guys have been the best group of people I have ever played an ORG with and, I should add, the only people I’ve ever played an ORG with because this is actually my first ORG experience. This may mean something to some of you and probably nothing to others, but going into the game, I didn’t want anyone to know that I was a first-timer. This is because I knew that people would automatically see me at a disadvantage simply because I have never played before. I figured that people would either want to keep me for a long time because they thought they could manipulate a “harmless” newbie and I would turn into a goat or they would not want to ally with me at all because they would deem me too naïve to know what was going on and therefore classify me as too unpredictable of an ally probably resulting in me being an early boot. Because neither of those outcomes sounded appealing to me, I decided to not reveal that this was my first ORG and whether the decision impacted my game or not, I am sitting here which makes me believe it was the correct move to make. Coming into the game, that was part of my strategy, but the other part consisted of not sitting back and letting the veterans stomp all over my game. My main goal was to ensure that whatever actions I made, I made because they benefitted my game, not just because someone told me to. Here is a *brief (*not at all) summary of my game in hopes that it answers anticipating questions you might have.

At the beginning of the game, before the tribes were assigned, I thought I did a pretty decent job at branching out and talking with other people so that I would have options when push came to shove. As it turned out, 3 of the main people I chatted with before the tribe assignments were Chelsea, Francesca, and Hali. This couldn’t have set me up better because as it ended up, each one of them was the leader of one of the original 3 tribes. This allowed me to know that no matter what tribe I ended up on, I would have an ally. When the actual tribe selection occurred, I couldn’t have gotten it any better. I was the 2nd person chosen to be on the Oronar tribe. This set me up perfectly because one, it showed me that Chelsea wanted me on her tribe and liked Tyler as well giving us a tight 3 and two, the bottom 3 players chosen did not see me as an immediate target and viewed Chelsea and Tyler as more of a pair which put the target on their backs. Because I was not viewed as directly linked to Chelsea, I was able to create stronger bonds with some of the people who felt like they were left out since they were picked closer to last. Very early in the game, Christine and I formed a tight alliance because we knew we would be the swing votes between the top 2 and the bottom 2 on Oronar. I also wanted to be tight with Christine because she was our tribe’s ruler and I wanted that double vote advantage on my side if she decided to use it. Thankfully, our tribe basically never went to tribal until the swap. The one tribal we did attend consisted of getting rid of the inactive nomad who hadn’t talked to a single person on Oronar once which goes to show how important the social game really is.

Come the swap, I knew it was going to be a rough road ahead. There were 5 original Oronar standing and 6 if you included Matty the nomad. This immediately put a target on the Oronar tribe members because the other two tribes were not going to want to go into the merge and let Oronar just Pagong everyone else. Thankfully, NuOronar was able to win the first challenge after the swap and so I was safe for at least a couple more days. As soon as I saw Christine was voted out on that memory wall, I got scared. I figured the cycle of eliminating Oronar members had just begun and if our tribe lost, I could very well be going home. So I got to work. First of all, Chase sent Misty to exile on his own terms without consulting the rest of the tribe and I knew right then that I was going to use that to my advantage. I also knew that I had created good strong bonds with both Kathy and Tyler and I knew they were good and loyal allies to have and for that, I am thankful because it meant we only needed one more person to make the majority we needed in case we lost a challenge. Out of the 4 other castaways on NuOronar, Tyler, Kathy, and myself figured it would be smart to reel in Matty since he was an original Oronar and we had sent him to exile earlier in the game in hopes that he would find an idol and save himself if he needed to (he didn’t). Unfortunately for us, Matty seemed to be a lot less willing to talk to us and we weren’t sure if that was just because of a busy real life or because he didn’t want to ally with us. I, personally, was not willing to take the chance so I took the initiative to create a bond with Fabio. I started talking to Fabio a lot more so I could gain his trust and hopefully have him vote with us if it came down to it. When we lost the next challenge, Chase automatically wanted to target Kathy because she wasn’t a super strong presence in the challenge and she didn’t talk too much to anyone. Of course, Tyler and I were not going to let our loyal ally get pummeled by a one-man wrecking ball. I was able to use the strong bond I had created with Fabio to pull him over to our side and because Matty was tight with Fabio, it resulted in Matty flipping as well. I made Chase look like a power-hungry gamebot which aided the flip because Fabio and Matty didn’t want to be around someone who was overplaying that much and frankly, neither did I. Plus, I knew that this might be my one and only chance to get out the huge threat that Chase was before the merge. I knew that as soon as the merge came, he would flip on NuOronar in a heartbeat and team up with his Chonos members to take everyone else out one by one. If Chase hadn’t been voted out when he was, I am willing to bet Chelsea and I would not be in the Final 3 and probably not Fran either because Chase wouldn’t have wanted to sit next to a threat as big as her. I believe that getting rid of Chase was my biggest move in this game.

I know this is long, but I really wanted to detail my pre-merge game because a lot of you guys on the jury didn’t even get to play with me pre-merge and therefore don’t understand how much I was busting my butt to make sure I wasn’t the one going home. If I hadn’t flipped Fabio and Matty that vote, I would have gone home because Chase was threatened by me and tried to get me voted out. My social game is probably my greatest asset and I made it my mission to make sure I talked to everyone. Even after Matt voted me during the Chase vote, I told him I wasn’t angry or bitter about it and I was genuinely honest about that. I wanted to work with him, but once he voted me a second time, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to trust him in the long run even though I liked talking to him personally a lot. This shows that I was able to put my personal feelings on the back burner when it came down to making the strategic decision that would benefit my game the most.

I want the jury to know that I didn’t have an easy ride to the finals. In each stage of the game, I had a different #1 who I was loyal to 100%. On Oronar, that person was Christine…obviously this was before she went psycho. On NuOronar, that person was Tyler. After Tyler unfortunately got voted out because no one had the balls to make a move, that person was Fabio. And finally, after my man Fabio was idoled out, that person became Chelsea, who had stuck by my side throughout the entire game. Every single time I created a strong tight alliance with one of these people, they got voted out (even Chelsea started getting targeted before the FTC). I continuously kept losing my #1 alliance, but instead of weakening me, it just encouraged me to become more aggressive and avenge my fallen comrades. There’s the clique saying, “Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.” And I can say that I was able to achieve that. I made sure that my enemies thought they could trust me just so I could get the information I needed. I played the middle almost the entire game and by not committing myself to one side, I didn’t have to worry as much about breaking bonds and losing loyalty. I’m not here to bash Fran and Chelsea because they’re two wonderful people who I think are great on a personal level, but I think I played a better game than Fran because I didn’t need those individual immunities. I won a single challenge after the merge and I don’t even believe I needed to win it to stay safe. Everyone knows that going on an immunity run is not a surefire way to win the game…at all. As soon as Hali was gone, Fran was right. She was the next biggest target. And if Fran hadn’t won those immunities, her social game would’ve plummeted and she would have been out the door because she hadn’t created enough relationships outside of her Chonos circle to keep herself safe. The game is not about winning as many challenges as you can. It’s about having an equal balance between your social, physical, and strategic games. I believe that I achieved that the best because I created bonds that kept me safe the entire game, I did win an immunity and I was never last in the challenges showing that I wasn’t incapable of being a force, and finally, I was not afraid to make the moves that were needed to ensure my game stayed intact.

This is a super long opening statement, but I did so on purpose so that hopefully many of your questions are now answered ahead of time and you can ask other burning questions you may have for me. Thanks for reading all of this and thanks for playing this game jurors. I do not hold any grudges against anyone and no matter what happens, this will probably be my most memorable ORG since I got to experience it with such a great group of people.

P.S. I do recall that in the Daichid aim chat, we all agreed that the placement of all the players in the game would be decided by reverse alphabetical order…and well, my name is Brett which theoretically, puts me at the top. ;)