Phew, it's a weird feeling to be playing without an idol for the first time in the game.

That was a really really important round at F9, I have no regrets playing it, even though it didn't end up being the difference.

I wish I was more able to be confessing long walls of text during rounds but it feels like I'm always scrambling and need to be focused on slack whenever I'm not at work. Let's back up a bit



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I had to pull the trigger on one of three options as soon as I lost immunity that round

1) Reveal that I had the idol and bring together pomfrey, ron, me and fred to put 4 votes on angelina. I was quite certain that the 4 of us shared a desire to vote out angelina and I could trust this group, but we would still be only 4 of 9. In this scenario, I don't want Draco included to be a fifth vote, and the only way to persuade people not to try to bring him on board is to reveal that I have the idol. with four votes and an idol play, all I had to have happen was enough of a vote split or enough votes on me that 4 becomes enough to send Angelina home.

2) Don't reveal the idol. Recruit Draco to vote against angelina but run the risk that he tells angelina and either votes with them to blindside me (he thought I had an idol so quite likely) or he leaks and Angelina uses an item like a vote nullifier to make things really complicated.

3) Don't reaveal the idol. Recruit Draco to vote against angelina and convince fred to use his heir of slytherin prize to petrify someone on the other side. The petrification (which everyone knew was fred's item) would ruin the element of surprise but it would probably force a tie at least, which Draco would possibly break so as not to go to rocks.

If either of the first two plans worked, we would get to f8 with Fred still holding his petrification prize and be able to use it to hopefully win a 4-3 vote barring other items. If the third plan worked, we would have lost the heir prize and would be staring down another possible tie or worse with items against us. This is assuming our group of four is solid through f7, and that's an assumption I'm comfortable with making (see next section).

I felt pretty strongly that any vote against Angelina should be a blindside, with items in play and her having so many connections and scrambling so hard all the time, so option three looked very worrisome. It also didn't guarantee a path beyond f8 since the heir prize was gone.

Option 2 seemed really risky with me not being able to trust Draco - I probably would not have felt comfortable enough to not play the idol in that scenario because there would be a pretty strong chance of me going home via blindside. Option 2 risked Angelina finding out about the vote, but didn't give me enough comfort to think I could still keep the idol hidden, especially with Draco and Angelina assuming I had found the idol and telling people that.

That left option 1, and I pulled the trigger telling Fred, Ron and Pomfrey about the idol in that order.

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AN ASSUMPTION I AM COMFORTABLE WITH MAKING

All of this pre-supposes that I trust my group of 4 to stick together for two more votes. By making this move at F9, I want to be able to assume putting this group in the driver's seat clears a path to the F6 for all four of us.

I've said this before, and I'll say this again - if Fred and Pomfrey want me out, I don't really have a chance of making it far without an immunity streak. Having an idol could save me one round but it wouldn't save me the round after - I just don't have the connections with amos/lily/cormac to make any move against fred or pomfrey even if I wanted to.

That factors heavily into my next decision.

Having used the reveal of the idol to get the trust of the group of four, we were able to keep our plans secret and set up a vote split so that four votes would be enough to send home Angelina unless items came out. We were guessing a 4-3*-2 vote and it ended up being 4-3-1-1* which showed we were right to anticipate Angelina being paranoid about something happening this round. But even so, I could have held onto the idol and been safe, and the chances of me going home if I didn't play it were probably low by the time the deadline hit.

But I played it anyway. Holding the idol after the rest of my alliance knows about it makes me a big target, as the gryffindor idol did before. And acting like I was gonna play it then backing away would be especially detrimental to me. It would hurt my threat level to have it, would not save me for long if fred/pomfrey wanted me out, and there was always a chance angelina pulled together votes secretly onto me without a vote split or used items and I could go home instantly.

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F8 AND F7

Unless I'm missing a strong vendetta against me somewhere, it doesn't seem rational for ron, poppy or fred to turn against me before f6 at the earliest. Voting out someone in this group right now at f8 would put the rest of the group down 3-4 against a amos/lily/cormac tight group and a draco floater that could go either way but is less attached to fred and pomfrey than ron and I.

Voting out someone in the group at f7 would still risk a 3-3 tie and, if poppy or fred flipped to target me it would leave ron mad at them and closer to draco than them. Ron and Draco would probably flip to get rid of pomfrey and fred and go to the f4 with the lesser jury threats. If Ron turned on me, he would be forced to rely on people he hasn't really talked to at all to go the rest of the way.

I actually had two chances in this challenge to potentially box in Draco if I wanted to go out of my way, but I deliberately stuck to chasing around Amos on the map, even when I knew going to the top corner would probably end my chances of winning. Draco winning immunity here is maybe the best case scenario because he is closer to me and ron than anyone else and cormac/lily/amos all don't really help my game at all at this point. Ron and I don't have to protect him this round.

Draco still seems to want to eventually work with Ron and I so that option remains open, if not ideal.

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THE PATH FORWARD

I'm definitely still seen as a threat, but one thing I have going for me that excites me is being in an alliance with the person voted most likely to win the game in majority rules. And Poppy is very aware of the target that puts on her. She's already hinted that our best shots are to stick together because with one of us gone the other would be an obvious target. I also think my jury stock is falling the more it becomes clear that I don't have relationships with some people on the other side. And I can play up Lockhart and Angelina publically campaigning against me, although I secretly think they could both be persuaded to have a lot of respect for my game.

If I can get to F6, poppy might be seen as the biggest threat, I might be able to bluff an item, I might be able to win immunities, I might be able to vote with poppy loyally, I might be able to flip to work with ron and draco. There are multiple paths from F6 to FTC.

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THE VULNERABILITY

I definitely have a reputation as an item finder now. Fair or not. And while I THINK the fake instagram clue at merge was effective in solidifying personal relationships with the people I shared it with, and it definitely helped me find the Slytherin idol relatively undetected, people probably think there is still a prize from that out there. And I was the first to show it to people so, combined with my reputation as an item finder, there may be concerns that I have something else. If I make it to f6, this can be used to my advantage with an item bluff, but it's also the only reason why I could imagine me being blindsided is a possibility at F8 or F7.

In particular, Fred might be wondering if my niffler really revealed both the instagram and the ingredients for the slytherin idol or if I found the instagram earlier and only revealed it after I had solved it. I'll have to think of a way to innocently explain away the instagram account if I get asked about it. And I can't just reveal I invented it because that is fishy and tbqh it's intimidating that I made that thing weeks before the game even started.

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THIS VOTE

Sounds like Amos and Lily are the preferred targets for most and they both really don't talk to me at all so that's fine. Lily apparently has an invisibility cloak tribal skip so if she uses that I may finally be able to vote Amos. If she has it but doesn't use it we probably need to vote for her. Fred plans to use the heir of slytherin thing to petrify someone.

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Regardless of what happens at this point, I'm really proud of my ability to read Snape, Lockhart, Angelina and co. and survive 5 straight tribal councils where I was public enemy #1 to the majority of the tribe. Amos is the only one left from that original scheming group of 4 that had 2 idols, an idol nullifier, a challenge advantage and maybe a vote nullifier or an invisibility cloak. For the most part they directed everything they had towards trying to get rid of me and I've outlasted the three biggest personalities from that group. If I can get rid of Amos this round, it would tie a nice little bow onto my that plotline carrying through the season.

I think Lily was the only other person left that I declared a vendetta against in my confessional (for liking "Passengers") so getting rid of her her would be the nice cherry on top of my revenge sundae.