Top Ten Best Survivor Challenges

When it comes to ranking the best of the best in terms of Survivor challenges, you might be wondering what I believe are the greatest Survivor challenges in the history of the show. Well, I might as well mention them and include a link as to which challenges are which in case you get confused. All links will be from Survivor Wikia. But I might as well mention which challenges I think are the best and why.

Rules: #1 Only challenges that have appeared more than once can appear on the list. If it were a good challenge, why would it only appear once? I’m not saying that it wouldn’t happen, but you’d think that the best challenges would appear over and over again. #2 I’m not including the Survivor Auction as I have no idea how to classify it as a challenge. Is it a challenge? Is it a twist? Is it an event? I feel that I have enough challenges to choose from without it. To me, it takes place instead of a challenge and isn’t actually one. #3 Both tribal and individual challenges have to be included. #4 Both reward and immunity challenges have to be included. #5 A final immunity challenge has to be included. #6 An opening challenge has to be included. I think those are all the rules that I can think of.

Honorable mentions: Survivor Quiz is a pretty good challenge, but I feel it is too close to another choice on my list to make the top ten. Shoulder the Load is a great challenge demonstrating strength, but I don’t think that it works in the long run for a top ten. Build it up, Break it down is a challenge I love a lot, but I just don’t like it enough to put it on my top ten. Blind leading the blind brings entertainment whenever it is used, but it would just barely make the cut in a top eleven and thus wouldn’t be in a top ten. I also like Get a grip a lot, but not enough to put it in this list. And I would like fallen comrades, but it wasn’t that great a challenge even without its controversy in Africa. I do like the concept of the challenge, but I don’t feel that it works as well as it should. On to the top ten where I have a link from their page on Survivor Wikia so you can look up more info about the challenge.

10- Survivor folklore: This challenge has contestants listening to a story about someone related to the location that they are at. This is a fun and great challenge, in my mind, even if it is only good enough for number 10. It’s nice that they incorporate some cultural aspects to the show at times in the challenges and that is why I like this challenge a lot. I just wish that we would see more of it in the current seasons than we do.

Link for more info: http://survivor.wikia.com/wiki/Survivor_Folklore

9- Distress signal: This challenge is a classic survival situation which makes sense as something that would work as a Survivor challenge. All you have to do is create a signal that a person on a plane would be able to see. Is your tribe better at it than the other tribe is? Could you get rescued when they can’t? Once again, I don’t know why we still don’t see the challenge in newer seasons when we should.

Link for more info: http://survivor.wikia.com/wiki/Distress_Signal

8- Quest for fire: Remember the first ever challenge on Survivor? I wouldn’t do a top ten without including it. While it always has different variations, it basically involves the new tribes lighting a fire to win the challenge. It is the type of basic thing that makes the perfect first challenge in a season as fire represents your life and without it, someone on your tribe won’t have life in the game anymore.

Link for more info: http://survivor.wikia.com/wiki/Quest_for_Fire

7- Survivor Obstacle Course: Sometimes basic concepts make for good challenges for Survivor. What better concept than an obstacle course? (Well, I do have six other challenges that I think are better challenges and one of them is based off of a simple concept.) You could practice this challenge before going on Survivor. Heck, you could even design your own version of this challenge if you wanted to. Have any of my readers not done an obstacle course? I don’t recall this challenge ever causing problems in the game. That’s why I like it so much.

Link for more info: http://survivor.wikia.com/wiki/Survivor_Obstacle_Course

6- When it rains, it pours: While people often criticize the endurance challenges on Survivor (probably only due to their overuse in season after season), sometimes it can prove to be the best challenge used. Jeff loves tempting the contestants to step out of the challenge. Some contestants love to drop out in front of all the other people in the game for these food items. But if you are really into it, you just keep your hand held high and prevent the water it is attached to from falling down on you.

Link for more info: http://survivor.wikia.com/wiki/When_It_Rains,_It_Pours

5- Hand on a hard idol: Survivor’s only exclusive final immunity challenge is something that I’m surprised we don’t see more often. It has only appeared on Survivor a mere four times. But it makes a great last challenge for a Survivor season. It makes a great lead-in to the end. And it should be used even if they don’t use the final two again. It could make a good final duel for Redemption Island. All you have to do is hold onto an idol for as long as you can.

Link for more info: http://survivor.wikia.com/wiki/Hand_on_a_Hard_Idol

4- Survivor Smorgasbord: Better known as the gross food eating challenge, this is a staple of Survivor challenges and something that really works well in the game. I’m surprised we don’t see it more often even though we do see it as often as we do. But this hands down has to make the list. No one would ever want to compete in this challenge, but it makes sense that it is here in the game. You could even wind up liking the food the way Tom Westman did.

Link for more info: http://survivor.wikia.com/wiki/Survivor_Smorgasbord

3- The Maze: Okay, so I like mazes a lot. And I like them better when you can see what you are doing versus being blindfolded the whole time you are going through it (although the other variation should be an honorable mention, I didn’t say it as I didn’t want to spoil this choice). You see it a lot during the finale episodes of seasons nowadays which make finales even more memorable. Solving a maze never looked more fun.

Link for more info: http://survivor.wikia.com/wiki/The_Maze

2- Touchy Subjects: This challenge is such a classic that you have to wonder why we don’t see it enough. That’s not to say that we haven’t seen it a lot, but we don’t see it anymore. First, contestants do a poll of what they think about their tribe mates. After that, they then vote on the most popular answers. It works best as a reward challenge. Whoever gets something right gets to take steps to knock someone out of the game and with three strikes, they are out. Anyone can try to knock out someone else. But it makes the game more interesting to see tribe dynamics after the merge being shown this way.

Link for more info: http://survivor.wikia.com/wiki/Touchy_Subjects

Now while I like every challenge on this list, there is one that I like more than any other. It wasn’t that hard of a pick for number one for me. The best challenge in my mind is something so simple and basic that you have to wonder why we haven’t seen it in a really long time. I guess that I like too many classic challenges, but this one I like most of them all.

1- Perch: Imagine just having to stand on a perch for as long as you can. But then the desires of wonderful items come up. Would you lose immunity and your clothes for chocolate and peanut butter? Would you give up security in the game for any sort of sweet? This challenge has been seen mostly as the first post merge challenge of the game. It shows you how the newly merged tribe feels about their place in the game. And it makes for what I think is the best challenge in all of Survivor.

Link for more info: http://survivor.wikia.com/wiki/Perch

Well, that’s all I can think of for this blog post. I would have included pictures instead of links, but I wasn’t sure if pictures would actually post to this blog. You can look back through the archive and see the ten worst challenge post that I did to see the fail of pictures that I was trying to do. You can also compare that list to this list. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.