EP9 - Free Agent Frenzy

 The Hangry Survivor - Free Agent Frenzy

Give me an inch and I'll take a mile -- Great work again from the blog's art team, taking a single quote and running entirely too far with it.

The New Map:

Not going to lie, as someone who is not particularly artistically or data inclined, this is the best I could do with how I see the relationships in the game. Building a map of the Red-Orange/Grey-Yellow Spectrum was easier before when there was a Yellow-OG vector. As of now I'm considering it dead in the water. 

I'm not talented enough to know how to graph how relationships show up on a mesh-graph thingy so please accept my best attempt at how I see how the player relate to each other. The coloured dots represent their relative position to their original tribes. The position of the player's image represents how strong their connection is to the others relatively (Definitely not linear or reciprocal in some cases...but trying my best to represent how they stack up).

"I'm a free agent"

First thing we notice is that huge swing from OG-Yellow boss Sophie-Yellow. Her feet are put to the fire last tribal, she quite literally highlights her huge target potential which gets her the oft uttered "another day in this game". Sophie-Yellow is apparently shocked that so many people outside of the OG-Red at tribal were surprised to see her back over MC. She appears to take this personally (or just pitches it this way to reduce her threat level), and declares herself a "free agent", looking to buddy up with whoever she can to reduce the risk of her being targeted again.

In reality, she's not a "free agent" so much as declaring her willingness to cast aside her old loyalties to rapidly generate new ones. Her newfound vulnerability with fewer allies and no advantage-idol screen pushes her into the arms of (or maybe at the feet of...) the Ri-S-S posse (Rizo, Savannah, Sophi-Blue). 

The other truly allied players in the game are JawS (Jawan and Sage). They are doing a great job of playing their game while not overtly flying the OG-Yellow flag when distancing from OG-Red. This approach has allowed them to orchestrate the last few weeks of the game without falling squarely in the sights of those at tribal. 

The rest? They're all free agents, they're all playing the middle ground, what is interesting to see is that none of them particularly seem to be aware of the size of the middle ground and trying to steer it. It feels a situation where they're waiting for the first one to blink and be pounced on, after that happens, I expect we'll see battle lines drawn. Pure and simple, if you've been coasting with the flow of the game without calling shots, you're not doing enough to bolster your allied numbers. 

Rewards and Immunity

I'm not sure how many others (Sophi-Blue included) looked at these teams but Yellow looked STACKED! Rizo and Jawan have proven themselves as great hoopers (more in the ball in net sense up to this point) and not offence to Kristina or Savannah, but I don't have either of them on my brute strength bingo card. Alex comes up huge and sinks the shots he needs to to win reward for his team. Kristina seeing how much this reward would mean to Jawan, plays to Jeff that she wants to give it to Jawan instead. Jawan, after some resistance, accepts.

Is it just me, or does Sophie-Yellow kill the good chicken vibes? I think I catch an eye roll from everyone else at the table when she goes right into talking game rather than just savouring the moment.

Caption: Jawan realizes that having to sit beside Sophie-Yellow at the Chicken reward was less about Kristina being a good person and more about not having to hear Sophie-Yellows braggadocous bullshit. Savannah and Alex wishing they'd noted this reward too.

The immunity challenge is where things start to get interesting. Jeff tells the competitors that there isn't just one but two immunity necklaces up for grabs, one for each sex. First of all, SPACE FACTS! They're great and really should be a mandatory part of each episode, better yet, make it a part of every commercial break (Jeff -- all this brand talent and I'm just sitting here on a rogue blog, call me!). 

Space facts launch Steven into the immunity stratosphere and we have our first safe player. Then it becomes the another extreme battle between Savannah and Sophie-Yellow, who you can tell are putting their everything into it. Savannah comes out on top, and Sophie-Yellow should be shitting herself again. 

Instead what we get, is Rizo pouncing on Alex playing for information, while buddying up with everyone. This is a great read from anaotherwise egocentric high rolling player (if the edit is to be believed). Rizo pours his read to the other players to get someone who is otherwise not a threat to them, and spins it as someone who could potentially become one, getting the heat off of him, despite being the available target in Riz-S-S for a few weeks now. 

Kristina and Steven target Sophie-Blue, everyone else piles on Alex. What does this tell you? For me it fleshes out the middle ground a bit more. If Alex wins immunity, this very well could have been a vote on Steven. His space facts were phenomenal, but he occupies the same general space in the game as Alex, he isn't rubbing anyone the wrong way, and gets on with all the players in the game. When folks don't establish themselves with other players, they become easier to get out because it's easier to spin them as someone who hasn't aligned themselves with you, Rizo understood this and it was Alex's undoing. 

Kristina we've already established as a GOAT, she has an idol and has no reason to play it unless she's going for a move to preserve a major ally. Her largest ally, Sophie-Yellow, has done an about turn and pitches herself as a "free agent" when she's really just a lost ship looking for a port (And any will do in a storm). So Kristina looks to the next most likely ally with no OG-Red history, Steven, who make the smart play to try to unseat Sophi-Blue from the Riz-S-S. This would have been a really clever play from Jawan and Sage, but they bought into Rizo's narrative, and THAT is the major play from this week. 

So what now?

Riz-S-S are in a very strong position with advantages, and idols. The rest of the group don't even know the full extent of Savannah's extra vote and Sophi-Blue's advantage. The smart money is an attack on Savannah or Sophi-Blue and trying to starve the idol into submission re-Rizo. His idol expires at a certain number of players, if he coasts until then, the others can go for the kill anytime after that. 

The time to "Wake up" is now. Sage and Jawan are a known entity, where they haven't made a stand is directly against Savannah or Rizo. If the others (looking at you Kristina, Steven, Sophie-Yellow) realize they have the potential to launch a strong attack against Rizo-Savannah-Sophi-Blue and dominate the numbers, it could be lights out. 

Rapid thoughts on Episode 9:

1) I now understand why they didn't give Sophie-Yellow talk time in the first few episodes, holy shit she is grating to listen to.

2) Rizo is finally demonstrating some of the mastermind big-talk and seeing it pay off

3) ....that doesn't mean i'm not gritting my teeth EVERY SINGLE TIME he doesn't play his idol

4) Eventually Savannah or Sophie-Yellow are not going to be holding immunity, when that time comes, it's going to get messy. 

5) Sage is doing a superb job of keeping her threat level down, just collecting her blackheads in a jar, one and a time.

6) Kristina sending her reward Jawan's way was just a nice human moment, I also respect and totally feel Jawan's initial response. I am glad he accepted it, it's nice to see good things come to good folks.

7) Sophie-Yellow blowing up her alliances and walking into Savannah and Rizo's lions den is a weird take. It really illustrates how poorly defined the middle is. 

8) Sophi-Blue's point about folks needing to wake up is a really good metaphor for how people are sleep walking through this game. If you aren't establishing yourself as a number people need to depend on, because you have their back and they have yours, you are expendable. 

9) Sophie-Yellow and Steven are the biggest targets going forward in the middle, watch for JawS or Riz-S-S to court them to attack the other group. If one is too explicit in how they plan to vote it'll be pounced on. 

10) Maybe the real free agent frenzy is yet to come and JawS and Riz-S-S fight for numbers in a push to the final?

Breakout players (Fantasy Points):

Ep8: Savannah continues to perform well this week racking up the most points (25 points) with Steven not far behind with 20pts

                        

Season MVP Race: Kristina and Savannah take pole position with 90pts each

                       

                         

Fantasy Tribe Points Graph:

The fight for the jackpot is separating at the top again with Ryan (390pts) just falling behind Chelsea who has re-staked her claim to the lead with 400 points. Richard just inches ahead to third at 360pts. 

Underdogs (Kristina, Sophie-Yellow, and Sage) maintain a strong presence with 285 points.

All the free agent banner relations I could think of:

Jawan and Sage are from the same origin (OG-Red) (New York -- Yankees/Mets)

Steven is a rocket scientist, giving space facts ("Houston we have a problem" Houston Astros)

Alex got a big O this week by getting voted out. (Baltimore Orioles)

Savannah and Sophie-Yellow are ace pitchers, facing off against each other, going deep innings trying to close the game vs the other. 

R