Hi, everyone! Welcome back to my blog and to my Power Rankings after the ninth episode of Survivor: Winners at War! Probst was right when he said this episode’s title — War is NOT pretty, and that manifested itself in an absolutely chaotic episode with two challenges, an Edge of Extinction segment, and a whole lot of scrambling at camp and a Tribal Council that I’ll never forget! Finally the gloves are coming off and this season is getting even more insane — and I LOVE IT!

For those new and returning, here’s how my Power Rankings work. Each week I’ll rank the Castaways by tribe based on a few (admittedly-somewhat-arbitrary) factors: How likely I think they are to go home in the next episode, how much ‘power’ they have in the game (whether that’s physical, social, strategic, or a combo of all 3), how they performed in the previous episode, and what — if anything — seems to be in store for them in the next episode based on previews and the like. I’m going to try a new format with this, so everyone’s ordered from first to last from top to bottom. There’s not a points system and no big prize at the end for me — this is just for fun! Finally, I’m not spoiled in any way, and I intend to keep it that way. So, PLEASE don’t send me spoilers. That’s not cool.

And now, with out any further delay, let’s get on to the Power Rankings!

SPOILER WARNING: IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN EPISODE 9, “War Is Not Pretty”, DON’T SCROLL DOWN PAST THE INDIVIDUAL IMMUNITY NECKLACE!!! GO WATCH THE EPISODE, THEN COME BACK AND ENJOY!

Kim had a great episode, despite being still on the quieter side of the edit. She not only picked the winning team for reward, but she won Immunity and took the US Survivor record for the most Immunity wins by a woman with FIVE! For fans of International Survivor, she’s still behind Brooke Jowett from Australian Survivor who has 7 all-time wins, but I could easily see Kim tying or breaking that record! Kim was initially putting forth the split between Nick and Michele with Nick as a target, noting that he was a big target, but eventually went with the flow and voted out Adam. I think her sights are still set on Nick, and with an Idol in hand as The Next Time on Survivor segment showed her saying she’s willing to go to the Edge making a move, she wields a lot of power as a social, strategic, and physical threat that somehow has played a very under-the-radar game and has clawed her way back from the bottom of Dakal to the top of Koru. Though she was a little out of the loop when Denise told her the vote had shifted from Nick to Sarah, she was easily able to get back on top of things when Tyson told her Adam had thrown Sarah’s name out, and that adaptability is exactly what I like to see. I think her and Tyson might be a little closer than we’re seeing, but that’s just a hunch. Regardless, it proves that she’s playing phenomenally — and hopefully will continue to do so.

Jeremy‘s amazing asset is that he is such a good social player who people seem to easily trust — despite him pushing so hard to keep Wendell last episode — as he was able to just seemingly sit on the bench at camp all day and let the plans come to him. That’s remarkable because it means that if everyone sees him as a valuable ally and number, he probably won’t be targeted. However, he’s still a big threat and I think that’s not forgotten. He also has reached the final time he can play his Safety Without Power advantage, so I imagine a key moment next episode will be whether or not he plays it. If he is in danger and saves himself, it could buy him valuable time (perhaps to look for that Idol that nobody’s found yet?), but if he uses it when he doesn’t need it it might actually increase his threat level more. Either way, he also could doom a plan from working because his vote might be necessary — and thus he essentially wastes the Fire Token he spent to purchase the advantage. It’ll be a complex thing for sure, especially since the Next Time on Survivor segment shows that he might be a target, but I think it ultimately gives Jeremy a lot of short-term power right now and if he can save himself and let the others have at each other and he can take a page out of the Hyena’s playbook and cobble together the leftovers, it would be pretty rad.

Tyson has done a phenomenal job of staying out of the limelight after his return from the Edge, as he’s a central figure in the tribe who people go to when they need to rally the troops. We saw him being a big part in the efforts to voting out Sarah, but then flipping things on Adam by leaking to Kim that he was the one who threw Sarah’s name out in the first place. Tyson achieved the desired outcome — with perhaps a bit more chaos than planned — with nobody the wiser. He said he didn’t like confusion in the game of Survivor, but when there’s enough of that, people forget about you. That’s pretty much what happened — despite an alarming scene where he was revealed by Tony to be the source of the leak in the plan to vote out Sarah. Yet, he survived without a vote against him this Tribal. This is why Tyson’s one of the greats, and if the new-schoolers don’t watch their backs, they could be next. I think the Sarah vote could have actually worked really well for Tyson because it would possibly keep Ben closer to the ‘Lions’, but ultimately voting out Adam was the better play because it keeps Sarah, who is close to Ben and Tony, as a proxy Lion. Tyson is playing so well right now, and I’m excited to see what he does next.

Michele had a rollercoaster of an episode — having been left out of the vote, she was understandably pissed, telling Nick she thought everyone was a bunch of dingbats (Come on, how was THAT not the episode title?). She handled herself in the wake of Wendell’s blindside remarkably well compared to Nick, and her composure allowed Adam to let her in on his theory about the Idol at Tribal (which unfortunately was not correct). She was a key factor in the blue team of herself, Sophie, Kim, Ben, and Sarah winning reward thanks to her and Sophie winning out on the puzzle, and the resulting moment of her reading the fortune cookies from the Chinese Take-Out reward was the sign from the Survivor Gods she needed to accept Parvati’s steep price for the 50/50 Coin advantage — a hefty four Fire Tokens, her entire stock. Now, the advantage itself is a massive risk in that it’s not a guarantee of her safety. It can only be played until Final 7, so it’s inherently less powerful than a normal Idol. However, Survivor is not a game won without taking risks, and if it works, it could very well save her bacon when she needs it, and if not… then it was a wasted buy. However, who knows how often more advantages will be bought and sold? I say that taking any opportunity you can is the right move because any tools in your arsenal are better than no tools. Michele was also unfortunately one of the initial targets of a split vote on her and Nick, being on the bottom overall, but that was quickly quashed in favor of splitting on Nick and Adam. I think what Michele really has going for her right now is that she’s really not much of a target when the bigger threats are starting to come for each other and making power grabs, and she is also so adaptable and willing to work with and cut whoever she needs to to stay alive. She was easily amenable to targeting Sarah alongside Nick, Jeremy, Ben, Adam, and Tyson, but was just as easily amenable to the vote flipping to Adam. That adaptability and the 50/50 coin will hopefully serve her well as the game continues to heat up.

Sophie had no confessionals this episode and was seen as a potential target by Nick, but that was quickly shifted by Adam into the Sarah vote. So… there’s not a whole lot to say about Sophie this episode. However, next episode might be a different story — the Next Time on Survivor segment at the end of Episode 9 showed that Jeremy wants to break up her and Sarah, so if Sophie catches wind of this, it’s a good thing she has her Idol. I think Sophie’s gotta work really hard on her threat level mitigation at this point, because more and more people are realizing how hard and how well she’s been playing, but as the game becomes more fluid, I think more people have more strong connections with others than she does.

Tony was a central narrator (read: lecturer) this episode, attempting to calm down Nick during the fallout from Tribal, describing the error of Sarah’ move, and even going so far as to explain to Adam how to vote at Tribal! Tony is so funny, but what’s amazing is that he’s actually playing really well — so well that it’s really a different side of Tony. When he’s not looking for Idols or sitting in his Spy Shack or Spy Bunker or building crazy ladders, he’s actually a stalwart ally, as we saw when he worked with Ben and Sarah to get to the bottom of Sarah’s name being thrown out by Adam. While Tony is still worried about the lower-profile ‘Hyenas’ moving in to scavenge the leftovers from a potential brawl between the ‘Lions’, ultimately I don’t think it will be that simple. We saw Lions and Hyenas working together this episode, and I think that as the game becomes less cagey and more no-holds-barred, it will be more a game of adaptability than binary playstyles.

Ben, despite being loud and gregarious, has played a phenomenal game once more thus far. He’s the only player left with a perfect voting record, pretty much everyone left seems to not be targeting him, and his championing of the ‘Lions’ of the game seems to give him a bit of breathing room. Now that his hilarious bicker-feuding with Adam has come to an end, I’m curious to see where his game will go from here. The only wrinkle I see right now is that Adam was putting it out there that he and Sarah were really close (the truth), and so that might be cause for targeting Ben, but I think that Sarah is probably going to draw more heat (see below) for her actions this episode. Though Ben is often seen as a paranoid player, his paranoia seems to be working in his favor as it has kept him alive without a vote against him for 23 days in the game.

Sarah has had such a growth over her three seasons of Survivor, and this episode proved it — she gave up her reward spot to Nick on a human level, and hoped that it would teach people to be nicer to each other. Now, on a game level, that was an absolutely terrible move — everyone, even Nick, saw it as a game move and not a human niceness thing. Sarah has a reputation for backstabbing her closest allies and using her social game as a mask for an insanely good strategic game, and thus it was perfectly logical for Adam and Nick to gun for her. Unfortunately, Sarah was able to rally the numbers and get rid of Adam. Again, this is just a testament to Sarah’s high caliber of gameplay. I think that with her Vote Steal that expires far down the line at Final 5, if things go south she’ll have something she can use to leverage her power, but I worry this is in the beginning of the end for Sarah, and her reputation and gameplay will catch up with her. The seeds have been sown, and sooner or later everyone will have to remove all obstacles in their way, and Sarah will present herself as a big obstacle.

Denise was a much quieter figure this episode. I was interested in that after the tribe got back to camp and the winning team (plus Nick, minus Sarah) went on Reward, Denise, Jeremy, Adam, and Tyson had expressed that Sarah’s move was definitely gameplay and it had seemed like an unspoken pact to vote for Sarah was made, get Denise, through all the chaos of the post-Immunity Challenge scramble, ended up voting for Nick. She had a big peak a few episodes ago voting out Sandra, but now she’s leveled off — so perhaps her threat level has as well. I’d still wager Tony would still gun for her, especially if he finds out that she was in on the plan to vote out Sarah. Overall, I think Denise is still in a pretty good position, but I think everyone but Nick is theoretically in a good position. She still has her alliance with Jeremy and Kim, so it’s possible that she will stick with them. However, will her voting for Sarah make Kim not trust Denise? So many questions. The silver lining, though, is that Denise got Adam’s Fire Token, bringing her total to 3.

Nick dodged more than a few bullets these past few episodes, huh? I mean, getting left out of the vote ON HIS BIRTHDAY last episode (at least he wasn’t doing dishes), and now he’s still on the outs and was still on the chopping block all episode. Although he was brought on reward via an exchange by Sarah, he still seemed to have a tough time rallying numbers to his side, despite an effort to throw Sophie under the bus to Tyson which led to Adam convincing him, Jeremy, and Tyson to go for Sarah. Of course, that actually saved Nick because Tyson then leaked Adam’s plan to Sarah. Nick got really lucky, but I don’t know how much longer it’ll last. He’s perceived as untrustworthy and a challenge threat, and that’s a heck of a deterrent when it comes to finding allies. However, in a game that’s shaping up to be the fluid mess of madness I’ve dreamed of, I think that people will want Nick as a number rather than voting him out just yet. Now, I’ve put him last because I’m not super confident about that projection… but hey, I’ve gotta hope! Nick has three Fire Tokens — tied with Denise for the most in the game right now — so hopefully he might be able to barter some to make a move.

And now, to give my thoughts on the eleventh winner voted out and sent to the Edge of Extinction:

Ahh, I was wrong about Adam’s chances of slinking into the shadows and letting others go at each other, huh? What a bummer, because I’ve always been such a big Adam fan, and this episode just proved that even more than usual. Adam has such a big passion for the game and he was definitely one of my inspirations when I played Season 3 of Survivor Michigan (speaking of that… it’s premiering this summer on Youtube!). Though this episode his many mistakes finally caught up with him, he did not go down without a fight by any means. His thought that the fleur-de-lis at Tribal was an Idol is honestly something I think I would have tried, so I respect him for having the chutzpah to go for it, even though it didn’t work. I think he really sunk his ship with Ben when he told him that it didn’t matter who was putting out there that Ben and Sarah were too close — practically an admission of guilt if I’ve seen one — but he still fought til the bitter end. Thank you, Adam, for being an inspiration. ❤

Overall, this episode was pretty fun. The segment where practically everyone’s name was thrown out right before Tribal was absolutely INSANE. The challenges were both fun, the Edge segment was great… there was a lot to love, despite the heartbreak of seeing Adam go. Editing imbalances still plague the season in my mind (I still want more Kim, Denise, and Michele! Sophie and Denise had no confessionals!), but it’s still so fun to watch.

And that does it for my Power Rankings for Episode 9! Let me know in the comments or on Twitter what you think! Do you agree with my rankings? Do you think I’m crazy wrong? Do you just want to talk Survivor? I want to hear from you!

Catch Episode 10 of Survivor: Winners at War, entitled “The Full Circle” on Wednesday, April 15th at 7 PM Central, 8 PM Eastern! The previews are hyping up the BIGGEST Loved One’s Visit ever in Survivor history, with what looks like to be whole families being flown out! I usually don’t cry at Loved One’s Visits, but dammit, I might just tear up a bit this time. Previews have also hyped up this episode as yet another strategically chaotic mess, so I can’t wait to see what happens and who gets sent to the Edge of Extinction! I absolutely ADORE everyone left in the game, so it’s going to be heartbreaking no matter what!

Thanks so much for reading, and if you want to stay updated on the goings-on of the blog, ask me questions, or find out more about me personally, follow me on Twitter!

-Austin