Team from Blood versus Water

I need a better title for this blog post, but I can’t think of one. I’ll just stick with the one you see. You’ve probably seen this before in my blog. I come up with a list of players from a season for a strange twist. You’d see: there’d be three tribes on a potential season like this. Two would be randomly comprised of new players and one would have all returning players from the same season. You have to wonder if that would put that tribe ahead of the other tribes, since they all played the same season originally. Then, you have to wonder if we are just supposed to do two random tribes of new people. They could do a twist, in the vein of blood versus water, where a blood relative is on one tribe, a water relative is on the other tribe, and you have a tribe of returning players. But I don’t think that it will. Since this is just a hypothetical blog post anyways, then I won’t have to worry about any damage being done by creating this post since it might not be done anyways. So I’m thinking of players from the twenty-seventh season that should return to play this game again in a twist like this. I’ll get to more details later. Also, you may wonder what location this hypothetical season would be filmed at. While they could return to the Philippines, since it has been used too much, I would go to a new location. Which location? Papua New Guinea would be the location that I choose.

I originally had a different plan for this post, but then the cast of Survivor 31 was announced. So I decided to change who would be on the team. I once considered putting Vytas and Ciera on the team for this twist in question. Since they are both now returning players, their places will be replaced by other people in question. I changed some things, but most of this post will be the same as it was, such as the first paragraph.

First off, this is the first time I have to worry about how returning players will affect casting a season like this. Would I want to include anyone who was a returning player from Blood versus Water? I could, but I won’t. And here’s why: While anyone from this season would be someone I want to return (although Caleb obviously can’t and they won’t bring back quitter Colton), I feel that only new players would make sense as returning to this game. They are already going to be returning players and them just playing the second time would be enough of an advantage. While I could include the Galang tribe members in their own twist, it also wouldn’t work. You have a four time player (Rupert) with nobody to pair him with. Then you have the three players that all played for the third time (Candice, Tyson, and Tina) that could only make half of a tribe and not a whole one. And while six two-timers are left, one of them quit (Colton), ruining the twist for the other five left (Laura Morett, Gervase, Kat, Monica, and Aras). While I could mix and match them, I won’t. If I wanted a team y, they would be the five two-timers who didn’t quit and Tyson, discrediting those who have played the most. But is that fair? I don’t think so.

Now we are left with the new players from Blood versus Water. There were ten of them. Obviously, Caleb can’t play again since he’s dead. So we are then left with nine choices and I have to get rid of three of them to leave myself with the six that I need. Normally, when I do this twist, I’d want to get every tribe represented. Until a switch happened, that wouldn’t have been possible, but it kind of is. Now that the cast for season 31 is announced, I’m not choosing Ciera or Vytas since they have played the game again already. I would want players from this season who have not yet returned. So that automatically leaves me with the three men that I have to choose. Then there are four women for me to choose from. I decided that the player that I’d leave out is Rachel. Rachel didn’t seem to add much to the season and she’s the only contestant from this season to have never won a challenge. I would want her to return, just not on this season I’m planning. So I now have the players that I want for team x on this season. I’ll get to why in just a moment. The team: Laura Boneham, Marissa, Katie, John, Hayden, and Brad. Why them? Well, I’ll explain.

You see, Laura Boneham is on the team because she wasn’t really on Tadhana that much. Her being on a different tribe throughout most of the season would make her a more valuable choice. Plus, she could use a second chance at the game after what had happened that got her voted out. Marissa was chosen because she was pretty well on Redemption Island, even though she wasn’t there that long. Plus, with the way she was voted out, she probably should return to the game again. Then we have Katie. She switched to Galang at the tribe swap and played with her mother, the first contestant to play with her loved one. Never getting more than a single vote at tribal council, when her alliance foolishly drew for rocks (foolish, due to the odds against them), she was the one eliminated. She was a pretty good player, even if she got a lopsided edit.

Then we get to the men that I’ve chosen. Please note that the men are an automatic list as the rules I created don’t have any alternates to these three men. I’ve chosen John because he was pretty good at the game. He got blindsided by his alliance, but was able to prove himself at Redemption Island only to fall short when he would have gotten back in the game. Hayden was a pretty good player, despite not doing as well with Survivor challenges as he did with Big Brother challenges. I think that he’s a better choice than Brad, for reasons stated above. Even if he has played more than one reality show, he would still probably be a good returning player in a season like this. Last, we have Brad. He created the men’s alliance his season. It didn’t work all that well and he ultimately got turned on by his old allies. So that could be a good enough reason to bring him back.

Now that I’ve mentioned the team, I will get to why everyone from this season should return to play the game again. Well, Caleb cannot play again and they probably won’t want Colton back. But I will make my case for all the other players from this season. Rupert is a great player who gets unnecessary hatred for no good reason. He is a staple of Survivor and deserves to keep coming back. Rachel deserves to come back since she was only voted out to try to get her boyfriend out of the game. Marissa deserves to come back since she was unfairly voted out first and a better player than some people realize. Candice deserves to come back since she was mostly screwed in the first impression twist and proved herself a good player on Redemption Island. Plus, math dictates that she will be back for the 34^th season of Survivor (since she has done the 13^th, 20^th, and 27^th seasons). Brad deserves to come back since he was in control of his tribe until the tables turned on him. Kat deserves to come back since she’s better than some people realize and always seems to be booted over the last man on her tribe. John deserves to come back due to his skill in challenges and overall likability. Laura Boneham deserves to come back since she made bad choices and could thus get redemption by playing again.

Aras deserves to come back since he was in control of the game and lost his place when other people knew it. Vytas deserves to come back due to the way he was screwed in Redemption Island by a single second. Katie deserves to come back since she was very likable and only eliminated due to a rock. Hayden deserves to come back since he was a great social player and could use another chance to prove himself at this game. Laura Morett deserves to come back due to how great she was at Redemption Island, how she avoided returning there immediately without immunity, and how she played the rest of the game so well. Ciera deserves to come back since she lasted the longest out of the new players this season and played a very good game, even at the cost of all her allies. Tina deserves to come back since she proved that she was still a huge threat, even after her pitiful finish in All-Stars. Gervase deserves to come back since he proved that even after a long time playing the game, he could still do quite well at it. Monica deserves to come back since she has proven that she can reserve her previous bad game into the most improved finished that a returning player has had so far. Tyson deserves to come back since he is a funny person who is very good at the game, even if he’s messed up in the past.

We then get to the list of how I see these contestants returning for the future. Well, before I get to that, I’ll explain some stuff about it. I will only include new players from in the second chances season. Others could qualify for that, but I don’t think that will happen. I am skipping a blood versus water section, although any of them could return again that way, with a different partner of course. They probably wouldn’t have players that were partners each return in a new blood versus water season, but they could have one of the two return. Despite the fact that half of this season was returning players, I will still mention some of them in returning player ways. But I will not include any repeats based on things that have already happened. For example, you won’t see Tyson mentioned as a villain as he has already done that. Also, I should note that the addicted to Survivor group on facebook is where I got the ideas for who would be on what collar tribe. Now, on to the list.

Heroes: Laura Morett, Tina, Hayden, John, Katie, Marissa. Villains: Aras, Monica, Brad, Ciera, Vytas. Second Chances: Brad, John, Katie, Laura Boneham, Marissa, Rachel, Vytas. All-Stars: Gervase, Aras, Candice, Laura Morett, Monica, Tyson, Brad, Ciera, Hayden, John, Katie, Vytas. Favorites: Aras, Candice, Kat, Laura Morett, Monica, Rupert, Tina, Tyson, Brad, Ciera, Hayden, John, Katie, Marissa, Vytas. Brains: Gervase, Aras, Tina, Hayden, Vytas. Brawn: Candice, Laura Morett, Monica, Rupert, Tyson, John. Beauty: Kat, Brad, Ciera, Katie, Marissa. White collar: John, Candice, Monica, Brad, Katie. Blue collar: Ciera, Laura Morett, Tina. No collar: Aras, Vytas, Tyson, Gervase, Hayden, Kat, Rupert, Laura Boneham. One returnee per tribe seasons: Tyson and Aras (due to their rivalry), Marissa, Candice, and Rachel (due to all being on Redemption Island when Colton quit and not getting anything good out of it), Kat and Laura Boneham (for both being voted out of their mostly women tribe), Hayden and Laura Morett (since they faced the worst challenge and lost the game because of it), Katie and Vytas (since they were both eliminated from the game over dumb situations). I would add John to the list, if he can be paired with Christine from South Pacific. Those are different seasons, but I think it would work. Or, we could pair him with his rival Brad. Brad might actually work better…

Well, I’m not sure what else there is to say regarding all that. I’ve probably rambled on far too much about a twist that will more than likely never happen. It could, but probably won’t. The point of this blog post was mostly about why the players from Blood versus Water should return, instead of how this twist could work. But we’ll see what happens. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.