Ten Worst Survivor Tribes

Before I say anything else, I might as well point out that there might not be a cast assessment in this blog this year. I have not been able to find the preview show I was looking for online. Without it, I'm not sure how I could do it. Let me know if you can think of any good links that would work for a cast assessment. Meanwhile, I'll get to the actual point of this blog post. This could be my last random post before the new season starts.

I once posted what I thought the ten dumbest Survivor tribes were. Now, there’s a difference between dumb tribes and just plain bad tribes. So I will go into deal about which ten tribes I think are the absolute worst in Survivor history. I am picking the ten that I think did far worse than any other tribes. I will also mention which tribes aren’t going to get a place on this list and what tribes came close, but ultimately weren’t worthy of being with the main ten.

What are the ten? I’ll get to that later. But, first I should mention the tribes that I’m not choosing. Some tribes are complicated due to tribe swaps messing up the tribe. With La Mina, for instance, the original tribe is not remembered as much as the post swap tribe, which didn’t do as well in the game. The original Aitutaki was pretty bad, but we remember the Aitutaki four alliance that dominated after the merge so this won’t appear. I will mostly consider the original tribes and how they did. That’s why a tribe like Fang won’t appear on this list, although they were pretty bad. I’m also only talking about tribes that did bad before the individual stage of the game. That’s why you won’t see Pagong on this list. Something that I feel that I must note here is that since Ravu only lost a ton due to the worst twist in Survivor history, you will not see it on the list because it did not have a level playing field like other tribes that are on the list did.

Now to the honorable mentions: It’s a bit complicated wondering which tribe was the first to be considered among the worst. Was Samburu bad enough to be on the list? Not in my mind. And Sook Jai was a pretty bad tribe, but mostly not until after the fake merge. Zhan Hu was pretty bad, but ultimately, not bad enough for this list. And I’ve mentioned before how I think that Fang is too confusing to be on this list. Before I get to the top ten, there’s something that I should mention: if a terrible tribe managed to produce the winner of that season, I’m still going to put the tribe on the list, but I will put them towards the beginning of the list instead of the end. Regardless of that fact, they were still bad tribes. Also, please remember my list of dumbest tribes because tribes that made dumb moves aren’t necessarily bad in the way tribes on my list are. But now, I’m onto the list.

#10 Matsing (Philippines): You might be wondering why this is only number ten. It’s the only tribe that never won any challenges. But tons of worse tribes lost plenty more challenges than Matsing. Plus they are kind of redeemed by how well Malcolm and Denise did. The tribe was dissolved based on how pitiful it was and it shouldn’t be excluded from the list because of having the winner come from it. So I made it number ten on this list because it is one of the worst tribes in Survivor history.

#9 Maraamu (Marquesas): This is considered to be the original tribe that sucked. It went onto a losing streak very early into the game and it wasn’t until after a tribe swap happened that this tribe won challenges. It only had three challenge wins, a record that wasn’t broken for a while, although I forget if it was tied anytime soon afterwards. What’s interesting about this tribe is that three people on it got to be on a tribe with every contestant this season. That’s a feat that doesn’t happen easily. It was also people who were members of this tribe that formed the outsiders alliance that ending up flipping on the would-be final four. The winner of the season was from this tribe, but it still sucked.

#8 Foa Foa (Samoa): This will be the last bad tribe on the list that ended up having the winner of the season. Starting with number seven, the other tribes would not wind up producing the winner. You see, with the effect of Russell Hantz’s sabotaging his own tribe, they failed a lot in the game and ending up winning only one reward and one immunity challenge, losing all the rest. Despite this, the four members that made the early merge all outplayed the other tribe despite the two to one odds against them. Nobody even knew what happened until it was too late. Were they not saved by the early merge, they might rank closer to number one. But they produced a great winner, even though they sucked as bad as they did early on.

#7 Luzon (Cagayan): Brain fail are the two words that perfectly describe this tribe. It was pretty funny to me to see a tribe full of smart people be so dumb at playing the game. They lost half of their members pretty quickly. After being saved by a tribe swap that actually got rid of the tribe, the rest of the members made it pretty far, but none of them made it to the end. While they could have been better had they actually known how to use their smarts, they ultimately failed at living up to their name and earn a spot on this list.

#6 Heroes (Heroes versus Villains): You may think that I hate on the heroes tribe too much. You’d probably be right. But this tribe was pretty pitiful, when you think about it. It probably suffered from bad casting. (Look at the females on this tribe and tell me why any of them were heroes because I’d really like to know why myself.) And while one would probably like the heroes to succeed, simply because they were heroes, these people probably weren’t who you wanted to win. They failed a lot in the game and were pretty weak in the game. It does not surprise anyone that they failed. If only they were better cast.

#5 Espada (Nicaragua): In an old versus young season, you wouldn’t think that the old tribe would do well. But just how bad it did is why it is now on the list. While you’d want an old tribe to win to defeat stereotypes about it, it didn’t do that well as a tribe, even though they had some good players. A medallion of power advantage might have been the only reason the original tribe won a challenge. They also had some pretty weak players that didn’t do so well.

#4 Morgan (Pearl Islands): In the very beginning of the game, this tribe failed pretty quickly and stayed failing until the other tribe intentionally threw an immunity challenge. Due to a twist, the highest ranking member of the tribe was also the third person voted out of it. It did suck a lot and only succeeded in some way due to Drake’s bad decisions. Ultimately, whereas other minority tribes before it pulled a turnaround after the merge by producing the winner, this tribe was the first premerge minority tribe (in my mind at least) to not wind up with the eventual winner coming from it. At least they brought us Darrah who could have done more were it not for that stupid immunity twist towards the end. Oddly, nobody from this tribe has been asked back for another season. But since they were as bad as they were, it shouldn’t be that much of a surprise.

#3 Gota (Caramoan): Ah, Gota. So many people were bad from this tribe. It’s highest placing member was one of the most obvious goats to enter the final tribal council. In a fans versus favorites season, you’d except the fans to do bad. But this tribe failed terribly at the game. Like the heroes tribe, it was probably miscast, if you believe the rumors that over half of the tribe was recruits. It can be a bit of a surprise that this tribe succeeded in anything at all. The only thing that made it good was after the tribe swap which still caused its original members to lose. Some of these players knew what to do in the game, which is a good thing in the end. But it failed miserably as a tribe in general.

#2 Coyopa (San Juan del Sur): This may only be on the list since this season this tribe was a part of aired recently. But, when you think about it, it was a pretty pitiful tribe. Only the merge saved this tribe, but not enough to have a serious contender for the win. One might not even be able to say for sure what had happened that caused this tribe to be so terrible. How were all the good loved ones on the other tribe? Why did this tribe due so poorly? Like many bad tribes, we may never actually know the real answer. But this tribe was very terrible at the game and what it enthralled.

You may be thinking right now: okay, there’s an obvious bad tribe that hasn’t been listed yet. It has to be number one, right? Well, to me the answer of the worst tribe in Survivor history would have to go to a single tribe alone. No other tribes are even close to being as terrible as it was. The term used for describing a terrible Survivor tribe comes from it. It won barely any challenges, not one of them for immunity. It lacked any clear leadership and near the end of its existence, we saw the other tribe being able to sit out the same members in back to back challenges just because the other tribe didn’t have hardly anyone left on it. A unique twist happened because it was so pitiful; one never seen in any other Survivor season. Only one member from it made the individual stage of the game. You may have guessed it by now, but there’s one clear and obvious choice for the worst tribe in Survivor history.

#1 Ulong (Palau): At first, nobody knew that this tribe would be so freaking terrible. Nobody was prepared for just how much this tribe would lose. It was actually quite interesting to see them lose so frequently in the game. One member was able to outlast all the other tribe members while the tribal part of the game was still happening. It’s a bit surprising that she was able to outlast two of the other tribe’s members. But Ulong was so bad at the game, a merge didn’t even happen because of how few members (or, technically, just a single member), they had in the game. I don’t think that any other tribe was as bad as Ulong one. That why it gets my number one pick.

Well, I hope that I didn’t forget any notable bad tribes. I don’t think that any tribe other than Ulong deserves to be number one. You may notice the difference between this list and the one that I did on dumb tribes. There is a clear difference. I also hope to return at some point with a best tribe list, but I won’t make any promises about it yet. Keep an eye out on this blog anytime Survivor is on hiatus and you should see interesting posts like these. Well, I hope that they are interesting and I hope that there are people who are reading it. Please keep reading this blog of mine, although I’d probably keep posting even if people didn’t read it. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.