You might think to yourself, “how hard is it to win the game when you enter the merge with numbers”? It’s a fair question. We’ve seen what can happen to tribes who don’t necessarily like each other but have the majority going into the merge. Think of Survivor: Vanuatu when Chris Daugherty was able to divide the women’s alliance against each other and slither his way to a win. In Survivor: Guatemala, Danni Boatwright managed to propel herself from the last remaining member of her tribe to an all-out victory.

Looking into the future, there are even better examples of dominant-on-paper tribes collapsing at the merge. In Survivor: Samoa, Galu gave away an unheard of 8–4 majority because they couldn’t get along long enough to Pagong the Foa Foas. In Survivor: Phillipines, Tandang never even went to a tribal council in the pre-merge only to vote out one of their own as the merge boot. The point is, if you don’t like each other as people, it’s much easier to flip on an alliance than people might realize.

Which is why Aras’ ability to keep Casaya a strong unit was impressive in Panama. It could have been easy for Bruce to feel left out and flip over to La Mina and end all of Casaya’s game. When Shane and Courtney were having their millionth argument, she could have easily taken her ball to La Mina’s side. Same goes for Danielle who considered flipping on more than one occasion. Despite how close it may have gotten to crumbling, the Jenga blocks never fell down for Casaya. A lot of that credit should go to Aras who became his tribe’s sounding block. The one who would go to people and allow them to talk out their issues.

Aras is also the reason Cirie was able to fall into the core of the Casaya alliance. Well, Aras and Casaya’s uncontrollable insanity. They formed a very close bond as the two normal people on the tribe and quickly, Cirie and Aras trusted each other more than anybody else in the game. The show didn’t highlight their bond as much as they could have but it’s obvious from Aras choosing Cirie to go on the cruise reward and Aras siding with Cirie at final four that they were ride or die. Aras’ social skills allowed him to rope in the best strategic player to his side and it paid dividends for him.

The original Denise and Malcolm.

The only thing that kept La Mina from getting an actual Pagong was Terry’s outright refusal to lose immunity challenges. Aras was the first to finally defeat Terry in an immunity challenge and prove that it could be done. Aras is also the only player to really stand-up to Terry’s holier than thou attitude and not be afraid to give it back to him.

It says something that after the merge tribal council, any La Mina leftover voted for Aras. They saw him as the leader of that Casaya alliance. They knew that if they could vote him out of the game, La Mina might have a chance to survive because the alliance would immediately crumble. There was no reason for people like Cirie and Shane to be sharing a side were it not for Aras in the middle, holding everything together.

Even looking at Aras’ second season, Survivor: Blood vs Water, proves how big of a threat Aras is in the game. Quickly with the returning players, Aras establishes a majority alliance. He places himself dead in the middle of it, like he had in Panama. Everybody trusts him and he appears to be in a good spot. The only thing stopping him from establishing a stranglehold on the game at the merge is Tyson Apostol being perceptive enough to see what was going on.

If Tyson doesn’t plan for the merge and strike at Aras when he wasn’t expecting it, the Aras/Vytas and Tina/Katie alliance gets complete control of the game. All of a sudden, Aras can easily navigate to the end-game and a possible second win isn’t completely out of question for a player everybody seems to forget.

While he never put forth any ground breaking strategy, Aras was deathly effective at everything a Survivor winner needs to be in order to pull out that win. He isn’t flashy, especially in comparison to the rest of his tribe, he doesn’t give many memorable one-liners and he doesn’t have a huge storyline. Because of that, Aras really does not get a lot of shine as a Survivor winner and that’s a shame.

Were the powers that be ever inclined to put together an all-winners’ season and Aras were invited back, look out for him. While the power players plot out each other’s demises, Aras will be keeping to himself, making bonds and slowly gaining power. Don’t be surprised if before Survivor is done, Aras Baskauskas joins Sandra in the ranks as a two-time winner.