No one wants to be the first person voted out of Survivor (Hamilton). That’s just a fact. After all the anticipation, planning, and sleepless nights, going home first is the ultimate let-down, but there’s no way around it; somebody’s gotta go. On Monday, Kobara and Nevala competed in Survivor Hamilton: Old Meets New’s very first Tribal Immunity Challenge. With the new format, and all 30 players ready to provide their answers at the same time, the results were quite close, but as you can see below, Kobara still walked away with a pretty convincing victory.

I had anticipated that Kobara would dominate the “Old VS New” battle early, winning at least 3 out of the first 4 Immunity Challenges, but the impact of scheduling the questions within a standard time-frame looks to have leveled the playing field somewhat. While all of the usual suspects from last season on Kobara were still at the top, the time difference between James’ answer and Wayne’s answer at the bottom was only 3 minutes. Last season there were hours in between some Immunity answers, so the margins in Survivor Hamilton have never been closer. That’s good news for Nevala.

All that being said, Nevala has a lot to be proud of. Not one member of the tribe had ever competed in a Survivor Hamilton Immunity Challenge before, and with the new format, there wasn’t a lot of past information to go off of to help them strategize. They went through their first battle with Kobara, learned a lot of valuable lessons, will fight even harder next time, but unfortunately still need to vote out one of their own tonight.

Coming out of the Immunity Challenge, you can imagine that certain members of Nevala would feel more worried than others. Ian had clearly answered the most quickly, and along with Jon and Andre, had to feel pretty safe. On the other end of the spectrum, you had 6 players submit their answers after Kobara’s last member, James. Of those, you have Jim, April and Ross; 3 players that everyone assumes are working together due to the family connection, which had put an early target on their backs. You also have Wayne who answered dead last, due mostly to forgetting that WhatsApp is the correct channel to submit the answers.

Answering last for your tribe is never a good thing, but at least in this case the overall challenge length was so short, and all the answers so close together, that it’s not like Wayne blew it for Nevala. Of course he’d want to ensure this didn’t becoming a trend, but it was more likely that the tribe’s attention would first turn to Ross. Of all the players in the game, Ross had shown the least effort in terms of getting to know the tribe, showing initiative, and demonstrating an interest in the social aspect of Survivor Hamilton. Because of family connections, and an assumed alliance, Ross had to feel pretty safe, but perception is rarely reality, and even those in his “alliance” were sure to be having second thoughts.

What good is an alliance-mate if they take hours to respond to a group message, or worse, never do? What if that delay in communication comes during an essential Immunity Challenge, when your alliance is in danger of being targeted? Still, a number is a number; and this early the game, players on Nevala could count on one hand the amount of people that they trust. Not to be overlooked, what impact would Kobara’s interference have? Many players on Nevala have connections on the other tribe, and with constant advice from returning players in their ears, how would these newbies decide what was best for them individually, and as a tribe, moving forward?

First, watch the Nevala Tribe sit down with me to discuss what went wrong in the first Immunity Challenge, tribal dynamics so far, and how they decided on who to vote for. That discussion will be followed by a reading of the votes, and the next episode of PLAYED! with Meg & Mike, where we break down everything that happened with the first Immunity Challenge and Tribal Council.

And now, the results.

Since players have not yet gotten the chance to win a Hidden Immunity Idol yet, we will commence with the reading of the votes. Once the votes have been read, the person voted out will be immediately removed from the game, as well as the Official Nevala WhatsApp group. Good luck to everyone, and…

here

we

go

 

 

First vote: 

Second vote:

That’s 1 vote Ross, and 1 vote Wayne.

Third vote:

That’s 2 votes Ross, and 1 vote Wayne.

Fourth vote:

That’s 3 votes Ross, and 1 vote Wayne.

Fifth vote:

That’s 4 votes Ross, and 1 vote Wayne.

Sixth vote:

That’s 5 votes Ross, and 1 vote Wayne.

Seventh vote:

That’s 6 votes Ross, and 1 vote Wayne.

Eighth vote:

That’s 7 votes Ross, and 1 vote Wayne.

Ninth vote:

That’s 8 votes Ross, and that’s enough.

By a vote of 14-1, the first player voted out of Survivor Hamilton: Old Meets New is…

As I said before, somebody always has to be first, and Ross was as good a choice as any. Success in Survivor Hamilton really comes down to 2 things: social connections and response time. Through the first few days of the game Ross had neither of those. Couple that with the fact that university classes will resume shortly, and it was unlikely that Ross was going to turn it around any time soon. I’m really grateful that he signed up, and I’m sure there are some people who had been counting on Ross as an alliance member, but this just wasn’t his game. The people who had been meaning to have Ross’ back, and who were hoping he’d have theirs, ended up unanimously voting him out for the good of the tribe.

If there’s one thing that a unanimous vote does, it’s that it brings a tribe closer together, and her’es hoping that the collaboration Nevala showed tonight spills into tomorrow’s Immunity Challenge; or else they will lose another tribe-mate this weekend.

And now, PLAYED! with Meg & Mike!

 

MH

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