Previously on Survivor Hamilton: Old Meets New
We truly are nearing the end of our game, with one intense Tribal Council after another. On Saturday, our players treated us to the most exciting TC yet with Chris playing a Hidden Immunity Idol, Graham using his Top 8 Tournament of Champions Reward to nullify Chris’ Idol play, and a secret player stealing Chris’ vote with a Vote Steal advantage. The result was Chris being sent to the Jury only a few days after his brother Kyle. And now, our Top 6 will battle it out for a coveted spot in the Final 5.
It almost seems impossible, but Chris was finally eliminated from Survivor Hamilton, despite being a central cog in Survivor Hamilton: Old Meets New’s strongest season-long alliance – The Bastards. He had played a very strong strategic game, and had built relationships with most of the key players along the way. He had even worked to build a 4-3 majority, but that majority was nullified along with his Idol on Saturday, and his game is over (not counting his vote on the Jury). But for our 6 remaining players, there is no rest to be found.
Their next Immunity Challenge is tonight, and a spot in the Final 5 is up for grabs. Graham had won 2 individual Immunity Challenges in a row, with Jordan winning 2 before that. Jon had also won individual Immunity twice, while Bryan and James had one win each, and April was still looking for her first individual victory. The stakes could not be higher. Three advantages were played on Saturday and nobody could be sure how many were still in the game, but it seemed like there was only one left. That makes the individual Immunity necklace the most coveted possession in the game, and the only SURE way for these 6 players to guarantee themselves safety.
While James and Jon certainly seemed like they needed the necklace the most, they would maybe feel better about the fact that there was another player that sided with them on the last vote, and if he/she stayed close, that would make the numbers 3-3. But it was just as likely that the other 4 players (April, Bryan, Graham, Jordan) would form a 4-player majority, thereby sending the other two to the Jury after Chris. But as we’ve been discussing at Tribal Council, while there is no million dollars for the winner, the Jury is going to want to see BIG moves, and no alliance was completely solid. Our Top 6 also needed to consider who they were bringing along with them to the final stages of the game. Each player would have to decide whether the players they were sitting with could be beaten at the end or if they’d be standing in the way of the Jury’s vote.
With lots to consider, we begin our 27th Immunity Challenge of the season…
But before we do that, April has decided to use a Reward that will give her a time advantage on today’s Immunity Challenge!
Due to the complexity of today’s challenge, and just how quickly players have been reacting to and answering our Immunity Challenge questions, it was determined that April will get a 4 minute and 30 second head-start. With the steps below required to win Immunity, we felt that was an appropriate lead:
1. Solve the clues below (every answer will be a number)
2. Find each number’s corresponding letter in the alphabet (1=A, 2=B, 3=C, etc.)
3. Once you think you have enough letters, unscramble the letters to solve for the Codeword (which will be relevant to our game)
4. Once you’ve found the Codeword, send it to me via one single WhatsApp message. If you send 2 WhatsApp messages to me during the challenge you will be disqualified.
The Clues:
1. Shareed’s place in the game. (22=V)
2. Three touchdowns with extra points. (21=U)
3. The number of US states starting with “M” plus the number of US states starting with “V”. (9=I)
4. Dave S’s place in the game. (18=R)
5. How many billboard Top 100 #1 Hits does Mariah Carey have? (19=S)
6. Emmitt Smith’s jersey number. (22=V)
7. The total number of Canadian provinces and territories that start with “N”. (5=E)
The letters “VUIRSVE” when unscrambled forms the correct Codeword of “SURVIVE” – so let’s see how our Top 6 players fared, especially April who had that head-start.
EDIT: It turns out there are 10 M+V states even though I counted and double and triple checked, meaning that instead of “I” our players had to contend with a random “J” thrown in there. Apparently some players saw the bigger picture and figured it out, while others were stumped on some of the different clues so we’re just going to run with it.
EDIT 2: I’ve decided I hate writing the posts AND running the Immunity Challenges. Next time around the challenges are being outsourced completely so that I can focus on the fun parts.
At the time of writing this sentence, Jordan and James are nowhere to be found. I did get a text from James decrying that Mariah Carey had had 50 hits, which… NAME THEM JAMES if you’re such an expert on Mariah’s top tunes.
Actually by now we do have the correct answer of “Survive” from both James and Jordan, who were the last 2 to respond but I certainly feel for them due to today’s confusion.
The 4th player to respond was Bryan with the correct answer, likely seeing the big picture or conferring with his alliance. But 4th gets Bryan nothing.
Graham was the 3rd player to answer, checking in with Survive, and in a reverse of the recent trend, he was only a few seconds AFTER April.
So April was the 2nd player to send in her answer via WhatsApp, and by answering Survive, she had a good chance to win her first individual Immunity necklace.
But what about Jon?
Well Jon was the fastest player to answer, a full 3 minutes before April. But his answer of “116” was initially very confusing. On further review, 116 as the answers from all the clues added up (even HE somehow got the correct number total despite my mixup) so it looks like Jon missed the 2nd half of the challenge altogether in his haste to answer quickly.
So that means…
April wins Immunity!!!
That’s her first individual Immunity win of the season, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. Not only did April use her Reward correctly, but she navigated my own dumbass mistake to somehow reach the correct answer. Now April is guaranteed her spot in the Final 5, and on Wednesday night we’ll find out who’s joining her!
Good luck everyone, and I hope that you all keep an open mind to every player’s pitch, because the plan you currently have may not truly be the one that helps you win the game. Getting to the end and losing is still losing. There’s only one winner, and the Jury has been pretty clear that their perception is reality. So continue to use your remaining time in this game to shape their perception with moves they’ll respect.
MH
Survivor Hamilton 