Back in the Survivor: Philippines, we got to see the worst tribe of all-time. Of course, saying worst without any qualifiers makes it subjective but statistically, nobody can top Matsing. They have a winning percentage of 0% and the first four boots from the season came from their side. Even Ulong managed to win two challenges, though they had far more chances to compete than Matsing did.

Despite the initial bloodbath for Matsing, the tribe’s two remaining players, Denise Stapley and Malcolm Freberg both managed to make it to the final four. As we all remember, Denise eventually pulled out a victory after attending every single tribal council that season had to offer. From the ashes of Matsing rose two phoenixes who were not going to simply lay down and die.

Because Malcolm and Denise were able to navigate through the difficulties of those first 12 days, people have advocated for others to try the “intentional Matsing”. That is, decimating your tribe down to only the useful people and then working with lesser numbers to infiltrate the majority. Can it be a viable strategy or was it a stroke of good luck combined with Survivor talent that helped Malcolm and Denise get their footing in the game?

First some things need to be acknowledged. The most obvious being that Malcolm and Denise turned out to be the best players on their season. I don’t think it’s even particularly close. Abi-Maria Gomes is too volatile to ever be a real threat, Pete Yurkowski is too cocky. Jeff Kent was a savvy player but he didn’t inspire much confidence in others so he was always asking to be blindsided. For as much as I love Jonathan Penner, it’s never been because he is a good player.

Looking further, the non-Denise members of the final three aren’t exactly Survivor royalty either. Mike Skupin is a clusterfuck of a character who showed in his second time around that he is really bad at the strategic elements of Survivor. Lisa Welchel had some potential to be a good player. She just hemmed and hawed so much without ever pulling any moves. She certainly received a fair bit of airtime for her story but she was never driving the gameplay forward.

Having the two best players in a tight alliance that was never going to turn on each other until the end-game is huge. Malcolm and Denise were smart enough to see the cracks in the different alliances and were able to pull people here and there to form a new majority alliance seemingly out of nowhere. In their case, not having the baggage of dragging an Angie Layton, or even a Russell Swan, made it a lot easier for them to maneuver strategically.

These people just somehow let us get a majority!

Another thing that needs to be flagged is that this only works in a season with three tribes. Unless that season is Samoa in which case, Shambo Waters is there to sink her own side and that alliance is chomping at the bit to cannibalize itself anyways. For a more obvious example of what happens when one side is seriously hurting for numbers come the merge in a two tribe season, look at Survivor: Palau. Stephanie was able to slide by one vote because Coby Archa was doing his best Colton Cumbie impression when nobody wanted to “play with him”. Then she survived another vote because Janu Tornell quit. After that she was done because Koror had bonded so closely together they were never going to let outside interference sink their plans.

The beauty in Matsing’s failures was that with three tribes, they represented an option. Come the merge, the two larger tribes were going to want to get an advantage on each other. While they could have looked at Matsing as spare change to get rid of before the bills, it wouldn’t have made sense. Both sides saw Malcolm and Denise as possible numbers for their side so that they could become the majority. While in theory, they were in danger by being under such a large minority, in practice they were never going to go early in the merge because of their usefulness to both Tandang and Kalabaw.

We’ve seen the Matsing work on other occasions, even if it wasn’t intentional. In Survivor: Cagayan, Luzon aka: the Brains, were a hot mess. They lost three of the first four immunity challenges. They were able to cut the three people they needed to. David Samson, Garrett Adelstein, and J’Tia Taylor were the three obvious people dragging down the tribe.

Garrett does nail the Titanic pose though. 10/10.

After that, they swapped into two tribes and no brain went home until Tasha Fox became the 6th member of the jury. Spencer Bledsoe fell into the 4th “r.obbed goddess” role and Kass McQuillen became the maid of honor in 3rd place. By ditching their dead weight, the three brains were able to make their way into the game even if unlike Malcolm and Denise, the brains didn’t always works together. Or even like each other.

In the other Brains vs Brawn vs Beauty season, Survivor: Kaoh Rong, we saw a similar thing happen. The brawn tribe looked like a competent team on paper but in practice, it turns out they were a hot mess. Before the tribe swap, they lost three challenges and had to send three people home. Darnell Hamilton was the first casualty, though he was arguably not a bad contributor. Then Jennifer Lanzetti had her infamous last stand, literally, at the season’s second tribal council.

Still can’t believe this happened.

It wasn’t until Brawn’s third tribal that they addressed their actual issue. Between Scot Pollar, Kyle Jason, and Alecia Holden, things had become impossible to fix. Scot and Jason hated Alecia and vice versa. The tribe opted to vote out Alecia and it allowed all of their games to flourish. Scot and Jason became jury members after almost getting a strangle hold on the game. Cydney Gillon went her own way, made some good bonds and came up just short of final tribal council, finishing 4th.

In the upcoming Survivor: Heroes vs Healers vs Hustlers we are going to see three tribes of six battle it out. To my estimation, one tribe might be lacking in challenge competence when compared to the other two and those are the Hustlers. I do believe that there is a very real possibility that we see the tribe lose multiple immunity challenges to start the season. If you’re on that tribe and think similarly, why not try to form an alliance to keep you safe early and simply allow the Matsing to happen?

I also believe that the shrewdest players of the season happen to have been thrown into the Hustlers tribe. There’s also the fact that unintentionally, the producers have put Patrick Bolton and Ali Elliott, two people who know each other outside of the game, on the same starting tribe. Ali happens to be one of the players this season I think may be among the cream of the crop in terms of understanding the game.

If there was ever a perfect set-up for the intentional Matsing, this might be it. A tribe that appears weaker than the other two. Two people who will probably have reason to align with each other due simply to familiarity. Should they lose the first three, or even four, challenges and get to a swap, those two players will become numbers for other alliances to use. From there, they could easily follow the blueprint laid out by Malcolm and Denise to get some power in the game and flip things around.

Knowing that Ali is a fan of the show and has likely seen the Philippines, hopefully this is something that crosses her mind. It may be risky to willingly let your tribe fall so drastically behind so early but it may also be worth it. You’re going to have to eventually cut those people from the game anyways, so why not get a head start on it?

I do hope we see them attempt an intentional Matsing because we need more evidence on this matter. Is it a sound strategy? Was it simply just that Malcolm and Denise were so much better than the rest of their cast? Hopefully we get some information about that when season 35 begins.