When the playerlist was revealed, I was very thankful that so many of my friends from CAP signed up, but it was apparent that at the beginning of the game that I was separated from them. I knew no one on the original Root Tribe, but I at least knew about Jalmont as the host from the last two seasons. As such, I immediately created a “host alliance” with Jalmont and for the first days of the game he was my only ally. Despite being my only ally, it just didn’t seem like Jalmont was giving me quite as much attention as I wanted so I tried to be brave and branch out. Eventually other users such as Shubaka and Ullar began talking to me minimally, but when Mithril and I started talking things just clicked at a strategy level and when Hawkie and I started talking things felt to jive very well at a friend level. Root won the first challenge but lost the next three in a row. For the first vote, I was thankful that the two names coming up, Shubaka and Rodan, were not mine. Shubaka tried his best to create some sort of bond with me during his last days, but after talking to his supposedly closest ally, LG, it was apparent everyone wanted to keep Rodan instead of Shubaka. Hearing from LG that he was tighter with Rodan than Shubaka despite Shubaka/LG having a close relationship (I believe one tidbit proving this was their massive snaphat streak) cued me in on that Rodan occupied a powerful place in the tribe. When Ullar quit the game, Asek got subbed in and Mithril and I worked to welcome him to the tribe and formed a three person alliance. Around this time, after much anguish, I solved the last (11th) riddle and earned the Hidden Immunity Idle. After I lost the Arceus matchup, I heard from Jalmont/Mithril/Asek that my new good friend Hawkie was on the chopping block. I didn’t want to see him go but I didn’t want the tribe mad at me for knowing that 1) I solved the riddles and 2) I went against them to play the idol for Hawkie. So, instead I flat out gave Hawkie the idol to play for himself and told him to vote out Rodan so that the biggest social threat on the tribe would be gone. And that’s how Rodan got out. After losing yet another challenge, Hawkie was on the chopping block again and after talking with Jalmont, Mithril, and Asek it seemed like there wasn’t any way to save Hawkie and I had very sadly vote out my friend in order to preserve my relationship with the rest of the tribe.
And then the tribe swap happened. LG was the only original root that got on my new tribe but I was also thankful to be with PD and Animus since I knew them from outside the game. LG, Blazade, and I formed a “metal bros” alliance based on our Walrus experiences and PD, Animus, and I formed a CAP alliance. My new tribe was much more competitively impressive than my first tribe and I helped us win two of the three immunity challenges. The one time we lost we voted the odd man out, twin (originally Blazade and PD wanted each other out but I made sure to convince them to target twin instead since both Blazade and PD were people I wanted to have long relationships with in the game). Meanwhile, I had to watch as my allies Mithril and Asek were voted out during the stay at a different tribe.
After the second tribe swap, LG and Blazade stayed on my tribe but I was separated from PD and Animus. I was also reunited with Jalmont and I began to talk to DLE a lot. DLE seemed like a very nice guy and was one of the most friendly and level headed people I’ve met in the game. Jalmont told me a little bit about being on good terms with DLE, and I then kind of used this to wedge myself into a little alliance of sorts with them by telling DLE the obvious that Jalmont liked him and Jalmont that DLE liked him and that I liked them both. Of course they already knew this, but the purpose of me telling them that we liked each other was to get myself into some sort of friend group with them; if you tell someone you like their closest ally and that they like them back, it means you’re someone who likely has similar goals to them in the game. After a while I cultivated a nice relationship with DLE and eventually when I asked him about relationships he had with the Groudon players, he told me that he really trusted Flyhn a lot based on how he played other circus games. Throughout my entire time on Kyogre, I tried to communicate with sparktrain, but he didn’t respond to me until pretty much when we lost the last challenge before the merge (the only challenge that Kyogre lost). Facing tribal council, sparktrain told me that he and Pidge wanted to vote out LG and I told spark that I wanted to vote out Wob since LG and I were friends. Sparktrain didn’t want to budge even after this and a tie vote looked very likely… and then LG quit the game. LG was the one person who had stayed with me throughout the game up until this point and he was a great friend so it was very hard to see him go.
Up next the remaining 14 players merged and I was reunited with PD, animus, and for the first time in the game with viper as well (who I at this point had a moderate connection with via CAP LC). Flyhn, the kid I heard so many good things about from DLE, also became someone I was interested in communicating with. The CAPLC group and the group of my new circus friends were groups I was already used to working with at this point in the game but due to the merge the groups got a lot bigger and it seemed a bit unsettling for me because I cared about people in both groups but my two ally groups really didn’t seem to like each other; the biggest tension was probably between Blazade and PD.
During the first vote of the merge, PD was supposedly allied with Hilo and Whydon, who had told him they had an idol. PD seemed to be a big target for the merged tribe, so Hilo and Whydon said they would give him an idol to be safe. Little did Hilo and Whydon know that I had experience in giving idols away so I knew the exact procedure of what had to happen with the hosts, so when the vote was drawing close and PD still hadn’t received a message from the hosts that he was given an idol, I knew something was up. To save my ally PD, I sent out a PM to members of my circus friends group and the CAPLC group and told them that Hilo and Whydon had an idol and that we needed to blindside one of them quickly to keep the threat in check. I wasn’t 100% sure if their idol was even real at this point but the chance of leaving a huge power couple in the game with an idol was a scary thought and so I managed to convince enough people to change their votes at the last minute, and that’s how Hilomilo was voted out.
After PD won the next challenge, he told me that Whydon wanted to make amends and to keep the alliance they used to have strong and united. I was very skeptical of this but PD was very adamant that sticking with Whydon was the best thing for this vote so that trust could be restored. The target was revealed to be DLE. It was a very tough decision for me, but I also realized the DLE’s positive traits that made me really want to be his friend were also traits that made him a big threat in the game. Ultimately I decided to vote out DLE because it seemed like he was closer to Flyhn and Jalmont than I was and I wanted to eliminate a threat while making his allies closer to me. After the vote happened, I lied and said I didn’t vote for DLE. I’m not sure if people actually believed me, but they didn’t call me out and I stayed on good terms with Blazade, Flyhn, and Jalmont and continued to have pleasant conversations with them and strategize with them.
The next challenge was the QR one. I had found one of the QR fourths very early and then suddenly I got a discord message from Blazade saying that he found another and he immediately shared with me. He said he wanted me to win the challenge because he didn’t have the time for this shit but before he left I stopped him and shared my quarter with him and told him I had been researching decoding partial information from partial QR codes. Within something like an hour we were able to figure out a few letters from the QR code and Blazade used that to guess the answer to be Masquerain, and he won immunity. It was very fun working with Blazade during that challenge but this is also where I realized just how incredibly smart he was (and I marked him as a threat for much later down my list). From this point, Blazade told me he wanted to vote PD out. I tried to figure out the numbers of who was voting for who, but Blazade never really shared why he knew he had the numbers of his side. From here I went with a gut decision to stay loyal to PD and not vote him out. But this turned out to be the only vote in the game where I didn’t get the result that I wanted and Whydon betrayed PD again, sending him to the jury.
As soon as the vote was revealed I absolutely knew Whydon betrayed PD and I started planning to get Whydon out next. After the challenge was over, Flyhn told me that Whydon was gunning for me next while Whydon was trying to be sweet and friendly to me (which I saw through immediately). Trying to get Whydon off my trail, I told him two different lies. 1) Viper and I were fighting/didn’t trust each other after the last vote and that I wanted viper out and 2) That I would be quitting the game sometime in November due to a long school trip and that I just wanted to help make sure that my allies, including Whydon himself, made it far in the game and I would support them until I had to quit. The viper lie was to make Whydon think I didn’t have as many allies as he thought I had and it also helped show Flyhn that I cared about him more than viper. I'm not sure he actually bought the lies and there was this eerie vibe that Whydon and I were smiling and talking pleasantly to each other but that we both knew we were lying. Meanwhile, I decided it was about time to probe some information about the idol. Previously Whydon has said he was going to play the idol at the previous tribal councils but never did so I was getting suspicious if the idol even existed. I asked Whydon when the idol expired and he answered that it was good until the final five. I knew this was a lie because I had earned the Root idol and the confirmation message said it was only good until the final seven. Convinced that Whydon’s idol was either fake or that he wouldn’t play it because he lied so many times about it already, I was very confident and got my groups on the same page and we voted out Whydon.
At this point, Pidge was the first player to win two immunity challenges so when he lost the next one I wanted to target him. Upon sharing this with Flyhn I also learned that he was the person who solved one of the earlier tribe puzzle challenges in a ridiculously short amount of time (up until this point I thought spark was the one who solved it). As a result, Pidge’s threat level was through the roof and we were able to get him out. Before the vote sparktrain told me he and pidge were trying to vote out Animus. I definitely didn’t want that to happen because animus was an extremely loyal ally to me. After Pidge was voted out, sparktrain was the next to go as a result because I wanted to protect Animus.
And then there were 8. At this point in the game, I figured that Jalmont and Blazade were my biggest competition but I knew it was risky trying to get them out and absorb the blood and ruin my relationship with Flyhn and the one left. So I devised the plan to force a tie and I voted Jalmont out in the tie, trying my best to claim to Flyhn and Blazade that I only did it because I didn’t want to risk one of them dying via rocks. Blazade wasn’t really buying it fully but it preserved our relationship long enough all the same.
At this point in the game, Flyhn, Blazade, Animus, and Viper were the people I talked to the most. Viper appreciated that I saved him during the last vote and as a result he was willing to take out Haruno instead of one of Flyhn or Blazade next. It should be noted that I saw Haruno as a floater threat and I wanted Haruno out because he took up a seat on the final three that I wanted to go to my allies or me. Flyhn however still very much wanted to vote out Viper. Blazade backed me up when I tried to argue against Flyhn and after a discussion that Flyhn felt a little bit burned in, we voted out Haruno next. After that getting DBW out was an easier sell because I told Flyhn/Blazade that if we tried to vote viper it would be a pointless tie but if we worked with viper to get out DBW that we could get viper out the next time. And thus wob left.
My ideal final five was then realized. Viper and Animus wanted me to help them get Blazade out. Flyhn and Blazade wanted me to get Viper out. I chose to vote Blazade out because if I voted viper out and didn’t win the final four challenge I figured Blazade would rather take Flyhn and Animus to the end over me (especially since I had my threat level soar with my immunity wins at this point).
The final four challenge was extremely nervewrecking. The challenge was gen 4 battle factory single elimination tournament and we were required to post replays. I orchestrated a plan with viper and animus that would conceal team information/composition because gen4 replays don’t show team preview. That is to say, the plan was for one of us to throw to another while as little information about the mons of the winner was revealed; this was so that in case Flyhn won his match that he wouldn’t know what his opponent’s team would be in the finals but his opponent would know his team. When the bracket was revealed, viper was against Flyhn and I was against animus in round one. Viper lost to Flyhn’s Heatran, Dragonite, and Claydol (Flyhn easily got better mons that any of the rest of us) while I won against Animus only using my Absol. Then when I fought Flyhn I led with my Feraligatr (I publically asked at the beginning of the challenge and rssp1 said leads could be changed) and was able to immediately pressure his Heatran and Flyhn couldn’t really recover, even if my Battle Factory team wasn’t quite as good as his. So, I won final immunity largely thanks to Animus’s help that he gave me in r1. It was an incredibly hard decision to vote out either Flyhn or Viper, but in the end I chose to vote out viper because I think he would have had more friends on the jury than Flyhn. I also wanted to show that Animus was more loyal to me since up until this point in the game Animus was very loyal to both me and Viper. Viper also betrayed me in MBR which damaged our trust levels slightly, coupled with the fact the every few days viper would go back and forth on whether he wanted to fight to win in final tribal council or throw to me or have me throw to him.