Top Ten International Twists that Should Appear on the US Version

If you know about international versions of Survivor, you know that they do some twists that the US version hasn’t done. A lot of the twists that appeared in the US version originally appeared in foreign versions of the show before they appeared in this version. Since I looked up information on Wikia and Wikipedia about what would work, then I thought that I would tell you about the top ten twists from international seasons that I thought would work well in this one.

#10 elimination challenges: These have been done at random places in the game in other versions of Survivor. They have been done at the beginning where the challenge would determine who would stay in the game and get to compete. They have also been done even later in the game towards the final four where whoever didn’t last would be sent to the jury. I don’t know if it is a good idea as any of the others so I only have it at number 10.

#9 tribe votes out member of other tribe: An unfortunate thing happened after a person was voted out of the Swedish version of Survivor: she killed herself. With them thinking the rejection of being voted out of her own tribe might have been the cause of this, they changed the rules so that it would be the contestants on the other tribe who would vote out members of the losing tribe. People have thought for a long time that the twist should be done on the American Survivor. I might add a caveat where it would happen at a double tribal council with both tribes getting to do it to each other.

#8 separate contestant: A player once learned that he would be starting out on his own and would have to build a raft if he wanted to compete in the actual game that was taking place. He was able to do this even though it took him four days. The contestant joined a tribe that won a reward challenge and was then able to compete with them for the rest of the game. I don’t know if the tribe knew what they were competing for in the reward challenge or if the extra contestant was the only thing that they were going to win potentially.

Tangent: Something about what I don’t know about this twist makes me think of a good idea for another twist. Imagine a reward challenge where the contestants didn’t know what they were competing for. What would the stakes of a challenge be like where they don’t know what the reward is?

#7 the cursed pearl: There are some variants on this twist. Typically, there will be a normal pearl that would count as an extra vote against you. But you better not lose it or it would count as two extra votes against you. Then there is the blood pearl which is pretty much the same rules with an additional vote for each time it is used. There is also the white pearl with the power to take a vote away from you that I’m guessing wouldn’t count if you lose the pearl. I don’t know the rules with who would get it and what limitations would be with it. But I do know that it would put people on their guard to not get the pearls and not lose the pearls that have negative effects.

#6 temptation challenges: What is different about this? Well, one would compete in a challenge or at least be given a chance to compete. Only there are negative affects for taking the temptation. You would know what the consequence of the challenge is so you know if the risk is worth taking or not. It might take out some of the issues with it by knowing too much, but it would seem like an interesting idea regarding it.

#5 the joker: This is a type of twist that would keep people alert in the game. A random person would get to join the game sometime through it. Now these people are normally unable to win since they have not been part of the game the whole time. But they are there to mess the game up and keep people on their toes. They are also used as a contingency plan at times and maybe would be able to win the game if they were replacing a late game quit or explosion. The way that I’d like to see it used is at the final 11 using the loved ones challenge where the winning person would enter the game as a joker.

#4 the veto armlet: Here’s another one that would shake up the game. If you are given the veto armlet, you are not able to vote at the next tribal council. I don’t know the rules with giving it like if you are given it if you are able to then give it to whoever you want except for maybe the person who gave it to you. You’d have to be careful not to piss someone off or your vote will be taken away.

#3 the black vote: Revenge! This one is all about revenge. The moment you are voted out of the game, you would get to cast the black vote and it would be counted at the next tribal council against that person unless they had immunity. You’d have to be careful when blindsiding someone or they will get to vote against you one last time.

#2 individual tribe from beginning: This twist has been done in foreign versions of this show. They have ways of resolving the odd number of contestants while regularly switching up the remaining people in the game. It would go away to the normal game later on into it. We have heard people talking about this for a long time. Is there any reason why they haven’t done this yet?

#1 location from country: While some might think this is generic, it is such a wonderful type of idea that you have to wonder why it hasn’t been done before. You could start with three tribes: one with people from the Midwest, another with people from the east coast, and another with people from the west coast. Or you could do rural versus urban versus suburbia, even if it seems like they already did this in Worlds Apart. It would be a good idea to me to start with where people were in the country.

There are other twists that I thought about putting in here, but I don’t think that they would work in the American version. Tribe x seems too complicated to work. They could try Survivor in a cold place like those in Norway did once, but I doubt it would work. It would seem too dangerous to me. Another one that I read about was banishment, but it seems too similar to Exile Island to be much different. They also did twists with contestants from other reality shows competing on one, but I just don’t think it would be a good idea. I hope that you liked my list and I haven’t missed any good twists that other seasons did. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.