Previously on Survivor Hamilton: Old Meets New
With the merge right around the corner, our 3 teams competed in Monday’s high stakes Immunity Challenge. Because 7 of 12 participants got their questions wrong, the scores came down to the thinnest of margins, sending Kobara to Tribal Council. The drama didn’t stop there with the blindside elimination of OG Kobara, and Survivor Hamilton veteran, Cowin.

Since the Tribe Swap, we’ve seen four OG Kobara players voted out of the game. Amanda ran out of time on Nevala after the majority FIRST eliminated Andre and Dave. Ulloo has only voted out Shareed and Sasha, while Kobara has had a different experience. With Dave and Sharon as options immediately after the swap, Kobara voted out Jonathan and Elliott instead. Though Dave transferred away, Sharon has continued to survive with Tuesday’s ouster of Cowin.

Kobara has been a “strategy first” team since the very beginning. Don’t let the open communication and friendliness fool you, each of these players is committed to do whatever it takes to win this game, and they’re coming for veterans! Cowin had clearly been a target of Kyle for a number of weeks, but Kyle wasn’t able to make that move alone. There are plenty of angles on Kobara, and they will only get more exposed once the merge hits.

The four “bastards” on Nevala narrowly escaped Monday’s Immunity Challenge with a win, and would need to carry every bit of that luck to today’s challenge too. 11 of the first 16 players voted from the game were on Nevala when it happened, and so I’m sure that everyone who’s spent significant time there simply can’t wait for the merge. But to get these 4 friends (and sometime rivals) to the merge together they’d need one final push to make it happen.

It honestly seems like Ulloo has had a pretty relaxing time overall since the Tribe Swap. Ten separate Tribal Councils had come and gone since then, and Ulloo only lost Shareed and Sasha. Just like on Nevala, a 4 player majority had been formed very early once Ulloo was created, and those lines hadn’t changed much. What had changed was the fact that Ulloo was the team to beat in Immunity Challenges. Every player had improved since the Tribe Swap (even marginally in David C.’s case) and that’s really what kept them away from Tribal Council more than the other teams.

But there was also speculation about a Hidden Immunity Idol and who had it. Had Sasha been voted off with it? If so, why hadn’t she played it? Did Ruth have it, and if so, did that mean she had a guaranteed spot in the Merge? If neither Sasha or Ruth had it, did one of the other players masterfully hide their secret? We may never know the answer to those questions, or Ulloo could lose and we could find out very soon…

For today’s Immunity Challenge we are going back to the matchup format. There will be four head to head to head matchups, with the first player in each match to answer their question correctly earning 3 Points for their team, while the 2nd place player will earn 1 Point. The two teams with the most points after all 4 matches are complete will win Immnunity, while the losing team will head to Tribal Council on Saturday. This would be a really crappy one to lose. So don’t!

Kobara and Ulloo each have an extra player, so they’d need to decide who would sit out today’s Immunity Challenge. Jordan will sit out for the 2nd time for Kobara, while Bryan will sit out for his 2nd time for Ulloo.

Now onto our matchups for this ALL IMPORTANT Immunity Challenge. First up…

Chelsea vs Chris vs Paul

With Bryan sitting out today’s challenge, Chelsea is the overall top performer participating today, and she’s going up against 2 other challenge threats though Paul was consistent rather than flashy, and Chris was going in the wrong direction over the past number of weeks. Would Chelsea redeem herself after failing to collect a point in either of the last 2 matchup challenges? Could Chris keep his alliance off the chopping block? Could Paul bounce back from Monday’s wrong answer?

True or False – if you put your right hand on your left ear and your left hand in your left pocket, then look in a mirror, you’ll see that your right ear is being held by your left hand and your right hand is in your left pocket? 

This was a fun, confusing question, though not difficult at all when you read it slowly. The answer is false, which we’d hope that all 3 players would get. But who would be first? Well, the first overall answer came in from Chris, and he was correct, earning Nevala 3 points and a much needed head-start. Surely Chelsea wouldn’t mess up another matchup right? Well yup, because Paul buzzed in correctly a minute after Chris, and a minute before Chelsea.

Kobara: 0
Nevala: 3
Ulloo: 1

Graham vs Jon vs Ruth

Graham would be happy to be back in the driver’s seat after sitting out Monday’s challenge and seeing his ally Cowin voted out at the subsequent Tribal Council. He’d be in tough however as Jon and Ruth were the 2nd and 3rd strongest post-Tribe Swap performers, after Bryan of course. This was probably the matchup to watch today, because as we know, the difference between Immunity and Tribal Council could be one correct answer.

What is the sum of all numbers less than 50 that contain the digit “1”?

This one was also not difficult. Take your time, count em out, add em up, and you got your answer – 239. But did anyone get it? Graham must have been eager to be back in control of his own destiny because he answered second overall, but somehow his answer was 115. Very wrong. Jon answered immediately after with 14, which is probably the amount of “1’s” under the number 50, but not the sum of those numbers. Ruth took an extra moment to solve for the correct answer, scoring 3 points for Ulloo! Kobara off to a ROUGH start.

Kobara: 0
Nevala: 3
Ulloo: 4 

Kyle vs Peter vs David C.

While David C. was considered a potential “weak link” in the challenges due solely to the time zone difference, he’d actually been very consistent all season long. He had a couple last place finishes that sent Ulloo to Tribal Council, but outside of those he’d been pretty strong. Who knows what would happen if he hit 3 strikes though! Kyle and Peter were rare players in that they’ve gotten WORSE as the season wore on. While they were both important parts of Kobara’s early 7-1 run, they have both struggled since then, not contributing much to the team challenges. Today was the time to put up or shut up.

If somebody born on March 13th, 1878 died on January 2nd, 1953, how many birthdays had they celebrated by the time they died? 

I suppose this could be considered a trick question depending on whether you count the literal birthday, but the answer in the book is 74 so that’s what we’re going with. Peter answered this question very quickly for Nevala, earning another 3 points. Then a couple minutes after that, David C. got his correct answer, meaning once again Kyle was useless for Kobara, earning nothing with another very delayed response.

Kobara: 0
Nevala: 6
Ulloo: 5 

Sharon vs James vs April

Though ranked “last” on Nevala when all challenges are taken into account, James had outperformed both Chris and Peter since the Tribe Swap, offering real value and Nevala’s only match win on Monday. Sharon and April had both DRASTICALLY improved since their time on Nevala. The learning curve was a tough one, but both Kobara and Ulloo have been lucky to have these women contributing to team success, and they’d be looking to continue that today.

 

Those letters are on any standard keyboard, meaning the next letter in the sequence is “H”. Obviously this Immunity Challenge was already over before it began, because Kobara can’t do matchups. Would it continue? Well, James answered quickly and incorrectly halting his high performance streak at 1. April was next to answer, correctly I might add, scoring another 3 points for Ulloo. (That’s 4 correct answers for Ulloo BTW) Then, with the last answer of the challenge, Sharon answered “J”, earning nothing for Kobara to add to all the nothing they already had.

Kobara: 0
Nevala: 6
Ulloo: 8

Ulloo wins Immunity!!!

Nevala wins Immunity!!!

Another thing that those 9 players won? A spot in the MERGE!!! Congratulations Nevala and Ulloo, you have all earned a spot in the upcoming merge tribe! More details below, and to follow over the next couple days!

So Kobara completely choked yet again and will have Tribal Council with me on Saturday. And as many of you had suspected, Saturday will be the last Tribal Council before the Merge! Someone from Kobara will become the 17th player voted from the game, and will join Exile Island on Saturday night – but they will immediately get a chance to get back in the game…

You heard that right. The 17 players voted off their teams throughout the season will compete on Sunday in a series of 3 challenges to earn their spot back in the game – just in time for the Merge. On Sunday evening we will reveal our 14 player merged team, details about the rest of the game, as well as an on-the-spot Reward Challenge for our new tribe. But before that can happen, Kobara needs to vote a poor unfortunate soul out of the game at the worst possible time on Saturday.

MH

oof

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