Survivor Mafiascum Rankdown (Properly Dead. Leave it dead)

[Crazy]

My first cut will be

Fred

from Survivor: Hogwarts, played by Nobody Special. He never voted or posted in his confessional; I'm not sure if he ever PMed anyone. And while NS was an early boot in all three games he played (Destiny Islands and PSV being the others), Fred is his worst showing.

[Crazy]

I'm going to cut

Daisy

from Mushroom Kingdom, played by Haylen. Mushroom Kingdom had a mechanic with six secret groups of five players. The last secret group with all five players remaining would earn five Immunity Idols. Unfortunately, if anybody was voted off without playing their idol, then all five idols would be lost.

Our group got the idols, and Daisy was in our group. Daisy was very inactive, but somehow managed to outlast 9 other players nonetheless. But when she received her idol, she still couldn't manage to vote at the next TC or play her idol, and so all of our idols were lost. Thanks, Daisy! You are one of very few players who have influenced the game by being inactive!

[Crazy]

I lightly flirted with Warlock's Daughter and also offered her an alliance. She declined. How tragic.

[Crazy]

I'll cut another inactive from Mushroom Kingdom,

Bowser

. He was on my tribe but I'm not sure if I ever spoke to him. He somehow survived the first vote thanks to a huge war between powerful players. But the following round, he was sent to the Arena to compete in an elimination challenge. He didn't show up for the challenge, and that was it.

[Crazy]

Kai Leng was the one true victim of driving the ship forward.

[Crazy]

458. Whomp - Mushroom Kingdom (gandalf5166)

"Hi, I'm Whomp, and I just want to mention that this is by far the most retarded competition I've ever been in."

Probably my last Mushroom Kingdom cut for now, but as Drench said, that game had far too many players, and a good portion of them didn't bring a whole lot to the table. Whomp was a guy who intentionally voted himself into an Arena Challenge in order to challenge Cheep Cheep. Whomp didn't like the endurance-esque challenge and gave up, then posted the above quote in the public MS thread, revealing his identity.

[Crazy]

452. Nagisa (pickemgenius) - Season Finale

(CC's edgic, circa 2014)

I have no intention of adding to any drama in this thread, and I have nothing against PEG personally. However, I found some comments made by Nagisa to be in poor taste so I am making this cut. Other than that, I admit Nagisa was pretty fun for the early pre-merge, and added at least something interesting to an extremely boring game. Unfortunately, I feel like the line of what makes "good drama" was crossed here.

[Crazy]

445. Jack (

Umbrage

xtopherusD) - Mass Effect

"Vote Harbinger, because I know he's not going to be eliminated now anyway."

Just active enough to survive longer than Mordin Solus, but not enough to leave much of an impression. Although her final vote did end up foreshadowing the winner of the game, so that's something.

[Crazy]

441. Arlie - Expected the Unexpected (21st Place)

-

"Derrick and I are buds. We see eye to eye, and it's been working. I like how far this is going, and I want to continue with this. We bonded over Big Brother 16, and man this guy is just awesome."

Arlie was a player in Survivor: Expect the Unexpected,

While I am pleasantly surprised that all the players from EtU have made it this far, since it was a pretty solid cast, in my opinion, I don't believe that Arlie should be the first boot from the game. I was really excited to see Ani apply for EtU and I think he had real potential. He wasn't in a particularly

bad

position in his tribe, but rather he left due to the nature of the HoH twist, and Jessie not wanting to put himself in a dangerous position going forward by cutting a more obvious outsider. While EtU definitely lacked in the latter stage of the game, I always thought the first couple rounds were very unstable and entertaining to watch.

Four of Arlie's tribemates at the time of his boot ended up making the Final 4, so I feel like in a different set of circumstances Arlie could have had real success in EtU. And I also think that Ani could have been a more interesting addition to the EtU endgame than at least one or two players who did make it far. Mostly, while I have no objections with Eon being the last game to have all its players remaining, I don't believe that Arlie should be the first boot from EtU, and I have someone else in mind for my next cut.

[Crazy]

440. Derrick (Aeronaut) - Expect the Unexpected

"I'm probably dead wrong about all of these things. That's OK though, I'm Derrick; I'm sure to win.

So here's my first cut from EtU. Aeronaut showed a lot of potential on his application, but unfortunately, I don't think it really came across during the game. I think in a normal format, Derrick would be the fairly easy first boot, but due to the HoH twist, and Zach buddying up to him, he lasted a little longer than expected. The way things were going, I wouldn't have been particularly surprised to see him last far into the game, albeit as a pawn.

Later, during the shipwreck, my fellow mod Monty noticed that Spencer's and Derrick's answers to the challenge questions looked a little fishy, that perhaps they had Googled the answers. When we questioned Spencer and Derrick on this, Spencer lied while Derrick didn't respond. Unfortunately, we made the call to modkill both of them. While I didn't regret the call on Spencer, I was worried about modkilling Derrick, in that we might have scared a genuine newbie away from playing again. I was glad to see that Aeronaut had played again in #2016, but seeing how Vermin Supreme has already been cut from this ranking, he probably wasn't any more effective there than he was in EtU. Who knows, though? Maybe Aeronaut's time will come in the future.

As for why Derrick and not Spencer, I felt that Spencer was a pretty interesting character for his stay in the game, and I can't really say the same for Derrick.

[Crazy]

No points for the historical value of being blindsided with an idol at the first TC? Even Garrett Adelstein did better than that.

[Crazy]

[9/14/2016 11:24:31 PM] Alex (Xalxe): how have none of mine been cut yet tbh

434. Lupin (Xalxe) - Hogwarts

"Episode 2: Is Everybody Making Friends Without Me?"

I wasn't a part of your original tribe though apparently you did well enough to outlast Lockhart and Viktor. Unfortunately, by the time we ended up on the same swap tribe, you had completely vanished and I never exchanged one PM with you. On the plus side, your absence made the Hogwarts tribe a pretty easy ride, and I was able to spend most of the time talking with Ceph instead of worrying about strategy.

[Crazy]

Okay, imagining Voldemort as the awkward third wheel in that group just makes me love that character even more.

[Crazy]

I believe that Major Kirrahe *did* actually flake out of a game by not voting.

[Crazy]

431. Link (Nobody Special) - Destiny Islands

"Please stop typing in my confessional.

I mean, I guess Link kind of existed more than the other two NS games. But he couldn't have been that great, since his own tribe booted him post-swap despite having a 4-3 majority. And is anyone really going to object to NS being the first player to have [all] three of his games eliminated from this ranking?

[Crazy]

I actually remember talking to Thwomp a fair amount, and I was probably one of the ones who told him about the majority alliance. I think we miscommunicated, though, and he thought that I was part of the alliance, though after the first TC I was absolutely on the wrong side. But Thwomp still voted me on his way out, thanks, Thwomp.

[Crazy]

421. Tingle (SleepyKrew) - Hyrule

"Tingle Tingle"

We love Tingle. Everybody loves Tingle. Tingle loves Tingle. Even my little nephew loved Tingle. But Tingle... you were a little too much Tingle. There are many words in the dictionary, and while "Tingle" is absolutely a fantastic word, I think that single word covered too large of a percentage of your vocabulary in this game.

You should probably also vote. If you managed to vote or made a significant attempt to save yourself, then I doubt I'd cut you yet, just out of love for Tingle. But at this point in the ranking, I'm not sure there's much room left for someone that left on a 12-0 vote.

Wish you made it farther, Tingle. You could have been a legend.

[Crazy]

Stop idoling my cuts, people! These weren't even supposed to be my controversial ones.

[Crazy]

That first TC was kind of a mess... I think Cao Boi and Jessie were not Nicole's intended nominations, but they were her conditional picks and the deadline ran out. I believe she had intended to nominate Elissa and Keith instead.

[Crazy]

415. Bofran Taiatai (JDGA) - Names Are Hard

"Rest assured, however, that should we lose you're likely to get some entertainment. Not that I'm planning to let us lose. Go get your entertainment from the other loser tribes, you jerks!"

I enjoyed playing with Bofran and she was one of the few people in NAH who I was legitimately loyal to. On our tribe, Bofran and I were both near the bottom, likely 6th and 7th in some order, and the idea of working with her appealed to me because of that. (Apparently her intentional UTR strategy worked very well on me!) Heisenburg was also on our tribe, a newbie who didn't really understand the social game at all. Despite Bofran vanishing during TC and self-voting, we still eliminated Heisenburg, and Bofran ended up quitting the game not too long after that.

Bofran was great while she lasted, and her confessional certainly reflects that, though I wish she had been able to stick around a little longer. Unfortunately, though, the way things ended up, Bofran didn't make much of an impact on the game, so I feel she's an appropriate cut here.

There, idol me! ^_^

[Crazy]

I really appreciate how four of the five members of Thunderstone (Totodile, Charizard, Alakazam, Gengar) were never actually voted out.

[Crazy]

408. Arya Stark (Espeonage) - Game of Thrones

"Look at my face. It says bitch please."

I've started reading Game of Thrones and what a fantastic game it is. Even every one of the pre-merge boots seems really fun and memorable, with one real exception, Arya. I don't think Arya is the worst player of all the cuts remaining, but she seems to be the least interesting character from Game of Thrones within a good margin. Her confessional dropped after the first round, so it's hard to really discern the reasons she was booted. Theon apparently

despised

her, though I can't give too much credit to that. Really, Arya just seemed like a very MOR2 presence without any defining moment to her game. Other early boots like Brienne, Bronn, and Sansa had such strong personality exuding from their confessionals, and Arya ultimately seems like the only forgettable player in an unforgettable game.

[Crazy]

Let's just rank all the different Rorys, Zeldas, and Pikachus.

[Crazy]

I never really thought of Wiggles as female considering his character choice was four men. If that was the intention, it was lost on me.

I personally don't have a problem with the cut, though, but I have a biased outlook. Wiggles' persona was so clearly fake to me that I really had no idea how to interact with him. Half the time I wanted to be like "Yeah, can we start talking like normal people now?" but I never went through with it. If it had been possible to vote him off instead of Toby, I would have.

Also he and Dr. Teeth voted for me, those bastards.

[Crazy]

I loved seeing Hayden and Kat flirt with relevant GIFs in the tribe forum, but I don't really remember anything else about Hayden. He's probably the most forgettable person from EtU, overall.

[Crazy]

401. Bob-Omb (Dry Fit) - Mushroom Kingdom

To tell you the truth, my goal is to not be the first one voted out!

Bob-Omb managed to at least vote every TC, which is more than you can say for many pre-merge Mushroom Kingdom players. Apart from that, I have very little to say about Bob-Omb.

[Crazy]

394. Spiritomb (Phillamon) - Sky Pillar

I've come off as inactive, which is accurate, but means I'm going to garner a LOT of votes.

Spiritomb was a part of the dominant Forina tribe, and after a swap, Togepi (Klick), Graveler, and I ended up facing a block of 5 of them. I managed to exchange a couple PMs with Spiritomb, but he basically shut me down completely saying he was happy with his group of 5 and everyone was active. Spiritomb, naturally, was the least active and least interesting of the five, and eventually Spiritomb left in the second Shipwreck vote as an easy consensus boot, in lieu of voting off an active player.

[Crazy]

I remember I won an extra FTC vote at the auction, but it required that I made it to the F2 with the player I chose. And I chose Bullet Bill even though I wasn't really aligned with him because I needed to get to the end with someone I could beat.

(Naturally, I played terribly and was booted that round anyway.)

[Crazy]

387. The Riddler (Axxle) - Arkham Asylum

"Riddle 1: What room can no one enter? A mushroom!"

Riddler had the potential to be an interesting character. He created his own riddle thread and was generally fun. He also happened to be my handcuff partner, so I enjoyed playing Password with him for an immunity challenge. Unfortunately, he went inactive after the swap and was booted in a landslide so we never got the chance to reconvene and dominate the rest of the game. That was sure to happen, right?

No?

[Crazy]

I really wanted Homer to mutiny!

As for the pace of this, generally I've been trying to keep myself one cut ahead so that I can always just post something when I see it's my turn. But I don't really mind this pace since it's giving me time to look into some games that I don't know as much about as others.

[Crazy]

I want in on the contest!

380. Kaidan Alenko (D3f3nd3r) - Mass Effect

"I have been hearing bad things about Thorian, though."

Kaidan had an early alliance with the Thorian, who was the big pre-merge villain of Mass Effect. At his tribe's second TC, Kaidan was led to turn against Thorian, only for his alliance to blindside him instead.

Kaidan was also one of the 5/12 pre-merge players to participate in the re-entry challenge, so good for him. If he had been chosen instead of Major Kirrahe, who ended up disappearing, then the post-merge could have been very different, indeed.

[Crazy]

Do y'all have a defender killing contest going on right now or something?!

I was a disaster until you showed up Something changed when I played PSV after a few months' hiatus from Legit Survivor (April to September of that year). Before that, I was really bad.

I thought you were pretty good in EtU! Or does that not count as legit Survivor?

[Crazy]

I think idols work; it's probably just our own fault for wasting all the idols already.

I don't have a huge problem with the Gastly cut, though. A lot of the recent cuts are players that were moderately fun while they lasted but didn't have a huge impact on the game, and I think Gastly fits there.

[Crazy]

373. Toby Fox (MechaGoomba) - Battle of the Bands

"Yeah I seriously overestimated my ability to deal with the stress of this game.
I'm not going to be throwing immunity challenges but I'll probably get voted out eventually just because I can't really play properly at this point."

Toby didn't PM very frequently, and like many first-time players, he probably underestimated the social aspect of the game. He also made a mildly rude comment to Coldplay in a public thread that got him off on a bad start. By the second or third round, the stress of the game was getting to him and he wanted to quit. This didn't last; however, by the time we actually attended TC, his spirits had lifted and he wanted to stay. Alas, his tribe threw a challenge to vote him off, because some were afraid he would flip after a swap.

(Granted, we probably would have lost that challenge anyway.)

[Crazy]

I don't know, what else have you played in?

Remaining D3f games:

Lincoln, Eddard, Kindred, Cookies & Cream, Machoke, Keith, Y, Gus, Ultron.

[Crazy]

Didn't realize it was my turn...

372. Claire (Keybladewielder) - Greece

"Just saying; I freaking called it. I knew it."

Claire seems to have been living in her own little world. If you read just her confessional, she was doing a great job until swap and got voted out in an exciting TC. But if you look at it from anyone else's perspective, Claire is essentially invisible. As a player that was never on Claire's tribe, I heard somewhat interesting things, but I also heard that she was likely to be eliminated early on. Before making this write-up, I didn't actually realize how amusing Claire's story was! I have a new appreciation for her. She tried her best, and it made for a fun little arc, but she had relatively little impact on the game as a whole, and that's why I see now as a good time for her to go.

I just read (most) of Greece and Claire's confessional is perhaps the most misleading confessional ever. She seemed like she was the mastermind behind two entirely different four-person alliances, but somehow everyone else just saw her as irrelevant. I guess that's a point for the "social game."

I wish she had a better downfall, though. She only seemed to be eliminated because she was the "inactive" on a 3-person tribe. How boring.

[Crazy]

Agitha got twist-screwed. She would have gotten a fair bit deeper without the precursor to Rotten Bananas.

You might be thinking of Medli?

[Crazy]

366. Jenna (elusive) - Expect the Unexpected

"At this point who do I still want in the game? Or who do I think should win? Jessie or RC."

I really wanted to like Jenna, and while I was rooting for her pretty much the entire game, ultimately her character was more frustrating than anything else.

It started off okay. Jenna made a close alliance with Joe, which I thought was great. Aronis was one of my favorites from Hyrule, and I always love to see underdogs join together. Jenna also seemed to have a pretty solid social game, especially for a newbie. After RC survived being nominated against Arlie, RC became a member of Jenna's tribe, and eventually Jenna and Joe joined the large anti-Casaya movement, which was largely spearheaded by RC.

After a while, it became clear that Jenna and Joe were on the bottom of their alliance, with RC, Kat, and Jessie seeming like an indomitable trio. Joe realized this and worked with outsider Elissa in order to flip the game and vote off RC. Unfortunately, thanks to Zach, this plan fell through. Now despite this plan making

absolutely perfect sense

, Jenna was never on board with it, and was actually upset at Joe for flipping. After this, Jenna basically resigned her position in the game and decided to her goal was to get the "deserving" people to win, meaning Jessie or RC. Naturally, Elissa and Joe were the next two boots, and Jenna followed right after, when she didn't make an attempt to appeal to Zach, who ended up winning the Veto that round.

I don't want to be too strict with the Ciera Eastin "Play to win" thing, because I don't expect people to be stone-cold gamebots willing to cut anybody. But when it comes to a point where someone is intentionally playing against their own self-interest, and doing that makes the game more boring in the process, then I don't think that makes a good character. Jenna was memorable, sure, and if she had been booted a couple rounds prior when she was nominated against Jordan, I could probably appreciate her character more. As things turned out, though, I think this is an appropriate spot for her, especially considering how Thomas was cut ages ago.

[Crazy]

360. Gus (D3f3nd3r) - Greece

"And I missed merge. Crap."

Gus seems to have been a particularly average player. He definitely wasn't the worst player on his tribe, but he definitely wasn't the best, either. After the swap, he found himself on a 2-2 tribe along with Xander from his own tribe, and Jamie and Stiles from Zante. When Simis was sent to vote in the TC, that made the vote 3-2 which put Gus and Xander in an effectively impossible position. And Gus was voted off.

Claire then forfeited the RI duel and Gus thought he was going to be back in the game, until Redemption Island turned out to extend one TC

past

the merge. Then Monika was booted and defeated Gus in perhaps

the most important challenge in MS history.

Poor Gus.

As it turned out, the challenge was some sort of ball-related posting challenge that seemed similar to a challenge that D3f3nder aced in League of Legends. Points for irony, I suppose!

[Crazy]

Also, I loved Cornelius. My impression was that he was hoping to create an endgame with Doge and Star. I hadn't wanted to argue against him at my own boot, though it was probably my only realistic chance of staying. (I was probably gone anyway.) As a character, though, I had hoped for better things for him than for him to get ditched at the bottom of the majority alliance. =/

[Crazy]

What was his Dream Ability though

Eddie Riggs had some weird Bus Driver ability, apparently. Which is really boring since it's not incredible like Spyro's Master Sword or Kairi's Legendary Box, or really stupidly bad like Master Chief's "You can give up your vote to send your tribe to TC" ability.

[Crazy]

But still, Eddie Riggs must have been notable enough to get a spot on

All-Stars

(!!!) only to be the first boot.

[Crazy]

But still, Eddie Riggs must have been notable enough to get a spot on

All-Stars

(!!!) only to be the first boot.

As I said, he got 6th place.

Hey, an irrelevant 6th placer on MS returned for All-Stars and got booted first, while on the real show an irrelevant 6th placer returned for All-Stars and won!

[Crazy]

353. Nightwing (Crazy) - Arkham Asylum

It seems like the time to cut my worst character. While Nightwing is perhaps not technically the worst I've ever played on a technical level, Luigi and Scizor have the excuse of coming from a different era, and both were more impactful as characters than Nightwing was.

It's pretty surprising that Nightwing even made it to the merge. I survived my first tribe by not being Bane or Warlock's Daughter, and then at the shipwreck everyone was focused on the larger targets of Two-Face and Alfred. After a swap, I ended up with an easy tribe where I didn't have to do much to survive over the inactive Penguin and the clear outsider Red Hood, and I still almost got eliminated over Red Hood. Later, Red Hood returned to the game, and I was recruited to join his tribe so I could be the "easy boot" if that tribe ever went to TC. Luckily, we never did, and then I was in the merge, yay.

After the merge, I basically attached myself to the dynamic duo of Scarecrow and Phantasm, and proceeded to do nothing as they told me last minute whatever vote was about to happen. By the time F8 rolled around, I was having some sort of goat crisis as I was determining who I could most likely beat in a F2. (The answer was, of course, nobody, especially since it was a F4 jury vote) Then I went all Claire-from-Greece and formed two conflicting F4 alliances, until Scarecrow was elected in a Kingmaker round and booted my ass out.

Now typically, I like underdog characters, and I hope in some more recent games I've pulled off the "likable underdog" archetype better than I did here. But I don't think Nightwing fits that role in any sense, because Nightwing didn't do much at all until the round he was booted. Rootable underdogs have to be aware of their poor position and try to change things, and Nightwing didn't. Nightwing was simply a goat and a pawn to be used by the actual players, and that's typically a role I

don't

enjoy watching.

The only potential I see for Nightwing as a character is if he could be considered some sort of hilarious trainwreck. But I think Nightwing was too boring and passive even for that.

[Crazy]

In a gameplay ranking, Gothmog would be a steady #106.

[Crazy]

I liked Spencer's character mostly because he won HoH early on, which made it so people actually had to work with this dude that would otherwise be an easy early boot because he stinks at PMs. The mechanics favored people like him and Derrick early on, though whether that's a good thing or not is debatable. At the time I thought it was a good thing, though I'd rather have had a decent endgame and a boring pre-merge rather than the other way around.

I thought Viktor's scheme to steal Lockhart's gold was the most hilarious thing ever during the game. I always wished I had the chance to interact with him!

[Crazy]

346. Houndour (dramonic) - Seafoam Islands

"I'm not playing to be the most threatening player"

(Yes, I know that image is of a Houndoom. He evolved after he got voted off.)

Houndour didn't seem to be particularly interesting. I was in a tribe with him for 3 rounds but apparently I never exchanged a PM with him, which admittedly is probably my fault as much as it is. Pre-swap, he was a member of the never-losing Water Stone tribe, until he got stuck on Silver Wings, a tribe which attended five consecutive TCs. Houndour left on the third one.

There's not much I can say about Houndour other than generic vote-related stuff. I don't think Houndour had any particularly close allies or any defining character moment.

[Crazy]

339. Heisenburg (Narninian) - Names Are Hard

"Heard through PMs that because I haven't been making small talk or posting in spam threads I might be on the chopping block. I don't think I can bring myself to spam to save me, so I'll have to work harder to ingratiate myself through other means."

I've been tossing Heisenburg and Toby Fox in the same boat in my head for a while now, although I suppose Heisenburg was the more interesting of the two, considering he never wanted to quit and he was vehemently against any sort of small talk. He also told Simba and Jagger he had an idol during the round he got voted off. So that's mildly interesting.

Honestly, though, the guy was selected as the obvious first boot from the get go. Most talks of strategy seemed to involve "What happens after the Heisenburg boot?" He just wasn't enough of a presence to even be a factor in the game. I think Heisenburg's character was more entertaining in theory than it ever was in practice. As it stands, I think Heisenburg was more of a

potentially

entertaining character than one who actually delivered.

Also, I think Narninian had a much greater impact as Spencer, so I don't feel the need to keep Heisenburg much longer.

[Crazy]

332. Fresh Fig (Gale Wing Srock) - Pretty Super Vanilla

"I really hope that the Blue Bells see me as their sixth member and take me to the merge. I am sure that I would vote with them, because the other tribes are just sitting ducks right now."

Fresh Fig was a particuarly harmless UTRP newbie who never managed to get any solid grip in the game. He attended fewer TCs than most other players, and only narrowly survived his first TC, when Raspberry was eliminated.

By the time his second TC rolled around, Fresh Fig was on a tribe with 3/5 original Blue Bells (Orange, Mint, and Huck). Fresh Fig wanted to be the unofficial 6th member of the Blue Bell tribe, although he made the mistake of telling them that he "just wanted to make it to the jury." This comment was taken out of proportion and it was concluded that Fresh Fig was too untrustworthy to take to the jury phase, even though Fresh Fig was essentially harmless and very loyal to the Blue Bells.

[Crazy]

From what I can tell the biggest change is that the social game was a lot less important than it is now. And, to be fair, there was a sizable amount of fodder in the 30-person cast. But the strategy wasn't lacking and it was a blast to play.

[Crazy]

325. Major Kirrahe (Cybele) - Mass Effect

"You should see that I was an active player that made one dumb mistake. I hope that's enough for a second chance."

Major Kirrahe started off as a significant character. She was in a great position in her tribe, with a core alliance of Thane and Samara. When their tribe went down to four, Thorian was the obvious target, although when Kirrahe let Thorian know this, Thorian played his idol and took her out instead. If this was all there was to Major Kirrahe's story, I wouldn't cut her from this ranking yet. As it stood, she was a particularly active early boot who left in a memorable way.

Unfortunately, there was later a challenge right after the merge that allowed the winner to bring someone back to the game. Kasumi won this challenge and chose Major Kirrahe.

Kirrahe didn't last very long post-merge before completely disappearing. Moreover, she disappeared at a very inconvenient time, just when her alliance was about to make a huge power shift and take out Tali. Kirrahe self-voted this TC, which caused a tie. On the revote, Kirrahe still self-voted, and so did Captain Narom, which resulted in Thane getting eliminated. Kirrahe was later modkilled for inactivity during the next TC, as the alliance of Harb, Tali, Liara, and Garrus ran the endgame.

I don't think the endgame that Mass Effect got was a negative outcome, but I've always thought that Major Kirrahe's disappearance puts a big asterisk on that game as a whole. So for that reason, I think Major Kirrahe's return actually hurt the game, which is why I am cutting her here.

[Crazy]

Three Cybele cuts in a row? :O

I absolutely loved Jenn. She was in an early alliance with the eventual F2, Kat and RC, and was really overzealously trying to put all three of them together on the same initial tribe. She failed, though, and got bumped to Luzon. But it turned out okay when she became part of the dominant alliance there with Jordan and Zingbot. Then she won the shared cross-tribal veto along with Keith and Zach from the other two tribes, aka the most random trio ever. Also, Jenna

hated

her. I'm not sure why.

If Jenn hadn't disappeared, I would idol that cut so hard. But I gave her the edgic of CPM5-OTTN4-INV1, which is pretty remarkable in itself.

Also, one very important thing about Growlithe is that he apparently had a vote steal that would have saved him! But he had given it to Heracross, and then got blindsided. Heracross then used that vote steal during his own boot TC, which would have saved him if

Scyther had not been an idiot that already voted

kthx.

[Crazy]

That's a good point I hadn't considered. Maybe if Jordan hadn't been HoH then you guys would have been able to boot Jenn at the first TC, even before she went inactive.

[Crazy]

While it is interesting that Larvitar is completely unknown, the more interesting thing about him is the thread he posted during his TC. He was basically anti-alliances and he suggested that the 5 members of Leafstone all vote in a circle so that we would draw rocks. (I actually forgot about this plan until just looking at his thread now.)

Funny that Larvitar's plan almost happened for real in Magic Kingdom. At this point, maybe we should just presume that Larvitar was Malkon and he just had a 4-year absence.

[Crazy]

318. Merry (DeasVail) - Middle Earth

"I don't think this is good for me. I'm becoming super paranoid and keep imagining everyone conspiring against me."

Merry, as far as I can tell, is DV's first game of Survivor, and to his credit, he performed better than many players do in their first game. Unfortunately, though, Merry seems to be a pretty boring character, and when I look at the characters from Middle Earth who have yet to be cut, Merry just doesn't stand out.

Merry started off on Anduin, which was probably the most interesting of the three initial tribes in Middle Earth. Anduin featured a complex web of alliances which included everybody except the obvious first boot Arwen. Merry was part of the alliance, but not in the core of it, and other players were concerned about his connection to Legolas. Legolas was booted, and Merry was seemingly left out of the vote.

After the swap, Merry was in a majority position along with his former tribemates Boromir and Halbarad, and eventually Aragorn. During this time, Merry seemed to be sympathetic to the minority, Gollum and Galadriel, so when Gollum was getting voted out, Merry decided to... self-vote? That's nice, I guess?

Post-merge, the Silver tribe took control, and Merry was voted off at the second post-merge TC in a unanimous 9-0 vote.

Overall, while Merry didn't play

terribly

, he was never the one driving the action, and he never had a strong moment that defined his character. Then he was eliminated in a pretty underwhelming way.

Also, he looks just like Pippin, at least coming from someone with no knowledge of Lord of the Rings. Oddly, DV actually did make it to the F2 with Pippin (Snakes) in the very next game, Mario Bros. Then, several years later, he made the F2 with the runner-up, Betch, in Doctor Who.

[Crazy]

Oh, and apparently I cut our first 9th placer, which leaves 1st and 2nd as the only positions untouched.

[Crazy]

I had thought The Thorian quit on his own, but that he was going to be the next vote anyway.

[Crazy]

311. Danny (TS) - Season Finale

"I'm not too worried about winning. Most of the jurors already have their minds made up to vote Jesse which is a little unfair"

In Survivor: Season Finale, Jesse played perhaps the most blatantly dominant, boring game in MS history. Danny was Jesse's sidekick, pretty much.

The problem is that there was no reason why Danny had to fall into that role. By all accounts, Danny played most aspects of the game very well. He was well-liked and built good connections with the other players. In addition to Jesse, he was close to Thomas, reasonably close to Yzma, and had a very close bond with Carmen from the other tribe.

Unfortunately, Danny seemed to have a fairly indifferent attitude to the game. He seemed to feel like a Pagong was simply the fact of the matter, and that going to the end with Jesse was the only possibility. Danny likely would have beaten Nappa handedly, but his confessional does not suggest that he ever considered that to be an option, or that he ever considered any non-Jesse option, really. (The quote above is actually from

before

the F3 immunity challenge.) I guess I could be inspired by Jesse and Danny's mutual loyalty, but I'm not.

[Crazy]

Goofy wasn't actually Reck, Goofy was orcinus_theoriginal. I think Reck might have been the first person voted out of Castle Oblivion? Or am I wrong?

[Crazy]

304? Zingbot (Klick) - Expect the Unexpected

"MY FAVORITE POKEMON IS FROSLASS!"

Zingbot was a fun character choice with a lot of potential. He started off pretty well and formed an alliance with Jenn and Jordan. After Jenn disappeared, Zingbot volunteered to be nominated against her so he could head to Casaya. As HoH there, he targeted Jay in an effort to break up that tribe's majority alliance.

After a shipwreck twist that put the remaining 15 players together, everyone was pretty content with eliminating Spencer, although Spencer saved himself by "winning" a Power of Veto challenge, which resulted in Jessie to select Zingbot as a replacement. Zingbot's activity after the shipwreck had started to wane, and he was seen as a periphery of the Casaya alliance which everyone wanted to target for some reason. Zingbot was voted off, only for the eviction to be canceled when it was discovered that Spencer's veto win was illegitimate. Then Zingbot quit the next round anyway. Zingbot came into the game strong, but exited the game in a pretty anticlimactic way, which didn't leave his character with much of a *story arc*.

[Crazy]

297. Brienne of Tarth (Chevre) - Game of Thrones

"We're slowly creeping toward that uncomfortable stage where people are truly sizing one another up and I never know how to handle it, so I just wait and do well in challenges until someone decides to pull me in."

In her confessional, Brienne comes off very likable and I can't help but root for her even though I know she gets eliminated. Brienne also gave a valiant effort to try to stay in the game, which is great to see for an early boot. Unfortunately, though, most of her tribe seemed to describe her as "quiet" which is the adjective of death in Survivor. Brienne didn't seem to have many social connections, apart from Dany, and while she was a likable presence for her short time in the game, ultimately she didn't last long enough to have much of an impact.

[Crazy]

In so many ways, xof's write-up is absolutely perfect, but maybe I can put a different spin on things.

First, I do agree that Jesse is a "gamebot" for the most part. But personally I don't remember ever finding his confessional boring towards the game, especially considering that the rest of his tribe wasn't exactly dripping with excitement. Jesse was often the only person giving any huge insight into the strategy of the game, and that's an important role.

But the reason I am idoling Jesse isn't because of his entertainment value. To be honest, the game might have been a lot better if someone else had been cast in Snakes' place. Jesse was so dominant that it made the game boring as a result, but none of that is actually Jesse's fault.

The reason I think Jesse is a good character (yes, really) is because of his unquestionable impact on the game itself as well as the site meta as a whole. As for the game, his hands were all over

every single twist

we put out. An immunity idol shared between tribes? An ambassador role, that involved him picking the merge boot, along with Dora? The sole vote at Final Four, as a result of being voted the most threatening player earlier in the game? All Jesse. The last twist was even designed as a subtle way to get the players to vote off Jesse-types, but Jesse just managed to soak up all these things and carry on. Practically everything in the game revolved around Jesse, and as frustrating as that was... it's kind of remarkable when you look back on it. Jesse might have created a predictable game, but he was by no means forgettable.

Beyond that, and I may have some bias here, but I think Jesse's character has had some impact on the site as a whole. Just like the real show, sometimes bad seasons can become some of the most memorable, and lead to some interesting looks at the meta-game. I think Season Finale works well as the Redemption Island of MS. Jesse showed that Pagongings can happen, and that it's entirely possible for a dominant player to just blaze through the game. Survivor is never a guarantee of entertainment value, and the crappy seasons can be just as important and relevant as the actively exciting ones. Jesse not only defined an entire game, but practically a whole archetype of winning games. His character is such an odd mix of boring, frustrating, memorable, and historical, that I have no idea where he should place in this ranking. But for now, I'll settle with not eliminating him quite yet.

[Crazy]

I never realized that Abridged was finally Stunky and Unown's opportunity to make it far together. How sweet.

[Crazy]

291. Luigi (Crazy) - Mushroom Kingdom

"I keep imagining this time "when I'm in control," but I may be taking it for granted that that time ever will exist. But trust me, if I get to that point, Goomba will not win this game."

Rereading my confessional in Mushroom Kingdom... it was pretty cringey. It seems I had some delusions of playing a sneaky double-dealing mastermind role, but that never really came into play. A large portion of my confessional is smug gamebotting that I don't need to explain in detail, so I'll just go over a quick summary.

Apparently I started off the game in a majority alliance led by Rosalina, but with Diddy's encouraging, I voted against her in the first TC. We failed, and Hammer Bro was eliminated instead. This put me in a minority position, and due to a twist where each round we would vote two people into an arena to battle for their lives, I somehow ended up in a battle AGAINST Rosalina. I won an endurance challenge, eliminating Rosalina, and allowing me to become a captain of a new tribe.

After the swap, I worked largely with my secret group partners, Diddy and Donkey Kong, though Diddy ended up blindsiding me with the Toadette boot.

By the merge, I should have been in a solid position, since my original Pink tribe seemed to have the most power and influence, and our main target, Koopa, was eliminated at the merge TC. Unfortunately, I didn't have the ties to back my position up, and it didn't help that I was actively trying to sabotage my own group by backstabbing Donkey Kong for no reason.

My boot was probably a foregone conclusion, since I didn't have many connections and nobody trusted me. But I had a solid boot episode! First, I managed to win 7 of the 20 auction items, but none of them were particularly useful, so that only ended up making me a more attractive target. I also desperately pretended I had an idol (Diddy's idea), which never really works. And then that was it for Luigi. I'm pleasantly surprised that he's made it this far compared to a lot of other Mushroom Kingdom characters, but ultimately he was just an average character back then, and a below average character today.

[Crazy]

I think a lot of characters had no clearly defined arc, at least not as strong as Elizabeth Warren did. Regardless, I think she deserves to be the last remaining first boot. Tingle being around this long was kind of ridiculous IMO. But to each their own.

[Crazy]

What a vindictive kid.

[Crazy]

285. Happy Mask Salesman (CuddlyCaucasian) - Hyrule

"I'm done being bored and sitting around in this game. Tetra told me she assumed that I had an F2 with Navi and im like naw bitch have you seen his walls?"

Happy Mask Salesman, or "Zefron," for some reason, was in a remarkably good position during the game. He was aligned with pretty much all of the power players on his original tribe. Most notably, he was part of the infamous Chatzy Alliance with Navi and Epona. But unlike Navi and Epona, Zefron was not particularly loyal to that group. As the swap hit, he started to draw closer to Tetra and Eldin, and pegged Navi as too big of a threat to take far in the game. Zefron was packed right in the center of the action, and he was bound to be an impactful force in the endgame had he stayed.

Unfortunately, though, he quit before any of those plans became reality, which means his entire character was based on what he might do, instead of what he actually did. None of the three TCs Zefron attended before he quit were especially interesting or important in the grand scheme of things. His quit itself saved Mido, who was the last surviving member of the Exiled Four, who ended up being somewhat of a rootable underdog.

Zefron was arguably in the single greatest position in Hyrule before he quit, but I feel like a good character shoud have a strong boot episode that supplies a good ending to their story arc. I don't blame anybody for quitting, but usually quitting is not a fulfilling exit. Zefron had a lot of potential, but I feel like he didn't last long enough to make any compelling actions in the game.

[Crazy]

I mean Vaati probably wasn't beloved by the other players but he did have an amazing boot episode for such an UTR character. Granted, he really was known for only one moment, and was pretty irrelevant for the six rounds before that, so I can understand the cut. I wouldn't have cut him anytime soon, though, because I think a lot of characters didn't have a "signature moment" the way Vaati did. But I tend to value a player's impact and story arc more than their personality, which is why I cut Zefron, for instance.

[Crazy]

278. Garrus Vakarian (kdowns) - Mass Effect

"I purposely took myself out of the game because I didn't want to get dragged into F2 and get slaughtered.

Garrus seems similar in a lot of ways to kdowns' other 4th place game, Glenn, who was cut a while ago. Like Glenn, Garrus played a pretty UTR game most of the way, where he was towards the bottom of the majority alliance throughout the post-merge. Also, like Glenn, he had plans to take out the power players in the last stretch, but none of those plans ultimately came to fruition. The reasons why Garrus never made a move don't seem especially clear, but it seems he was never able to get the numbers on his side. However, I think Garrus had a little bit more of an arc than Glenn did, which makes him a moderately better character.

Garrus started on the AAMU tribe, where there were two easy inactives to boot in Mordin and Jack. After the swap he found himself in danger, where Samara joined with Kasumi and Narom to form a majority on Cyanide. Garrus may have been eliminated at this TC, but Tali, Garrus' secret cross-tribal partner, was able to use a reward item to give him immunity. With Garrus immune, the majority #blindsided Joker instead.

After the merge, Garrus worked with Tali, Liara, and his original tribe member Harbinger. While Garrus seemed to have a master plan to cause a power shift and eliminate the threats, ultimately he ended up in the Final 4 with his entire alliance. After Harb won immunity, Garrus decided to quit so that Tali would not be voted off, and Garrus would not be taken to the end as a FTC goat. In reality, Garrus was going to be voted off, anyway, but the situation created a nice bit of conclusion with the Garrus/Tali arc, in that they both saved each other from elimination. Sort of.

[Crazy]

I don't quite understand how Tingle is considered to have more impact than Elizabeth Warren. She had a full story arc in one round of the game, and Tingle didn't even submit a vote or make any alliances. The other players might have seen her as irrelevant, but as a character in her own merit, I don't feel like she was.

[Crazy]

It's literally only the fact that it's the first round. Take that away and it's a perfectly normal thing - person finds an idol and doesn't use it, being sent home. That fact alone does not deserve 200+ extra spots.

Well, to be fair, nobody else who was blindsided holding an idol has been cut yet, either... especially not 200 spots ago, unless if I missed something.

[Crazy]

Since this concept of "dying" is brought up, I'll say that I'm honestly not as committed to this as I should be, and I have a ton of past game reading to do, but I still think this is a great project so I'm just going to be super Neutral Box person here and say that I'll stick around if this continues, but I won't be too phased if people want to let this go.

I'm also not really knowledgeable enough about all these past games yet to suddenly fill out a huge list and jump straight to the Top 100... unfortunately.

[Crazy]

Yeah, honestly, the gradual pace of this thing is the only way I'm going to be able to keep up with this. I'm not at all prepared to start writing meaningful cuts on Top 100 characters. I know I should be more well-read by now, but I'm not.

And, honestly, I don't think it would feel right. Everyone left is at least significant in some way. Doing a mass slaughter of moderately interesting characters wouldn't feel right after we gave all those characters in the 400's actual write-ups.

[Crazy]

That's a fair point... over the past month we're averaging about a cut every 2 days, at that pace, by the time this finishes we'll be well into 2018.

There's 7 of us, what if each of us just claimed a day of the week that we always post our cuts? Then if someone misses their deadline, then we just skip them for the moment and then they can catch up later? I don't think it should be too unreasonable for everyone to commit to one cut per week, right?

[Crazy]

272. Medli (KingdomAces) - Hyrule

"Is saving someone else's pawn really worth sacrificing your own bishop? Even if that someone else happens to be the queen?"

Medli was someone who seemed to have some struggles building close bonds with her tribe, but who nevertheless put forth a strong effort. This made her easy to root for, and her confessional is enjoyable to read. She also came very close to finding the idol, but Navi beat her to the punch.

Medli was also the victim of a twist that resulted in Korok's two biggest goats, Link and Vaati, becoming exiled and immune. This meant that Korok was left without any easy option, but the tribe as a whole eventually settled on Medli. Neither Link nor Vaati survived a single TC afterwards, and both of them have been cut from the ranking already. Medli also recognized the danger of exiling Link and Vaati, but the rest of her tribe apparently didn't get the memo.

While I thought the twist was interesting at the time, I can't say that it amounted to much. Medli was somebody who could have been an interesting character, but didn't last long enough to have the opportunity. And it's hard to put too much of the blame on Medli herself.

[Crazy]

Hey, guys, I've really lost my interest in this, and I'm not really prepared to keep at this for the next couple of years, so I'm going to /out. Sorry...