Top Eight Tribal Councils of the New Era

The New Era is technically over with the conclusion of Survivor 49, so I thought I'd make a list ranking the Top Eight Tribal Councils of the New Era.  Why eight?  Because that is literally all that I can think of that were memorable enough to include on a list.  

These tribal councils were the ones that got me on the edge of my seat, got my heart pumping, got me shocked, or all of the above.  This will not include Final Tribal Councils or Firemaking Councils/challenges, so only up to the final five vote.  It would include potential final four votes, but they essentially got rid of them by including forced firemaking.  Perhaps if I remember another, I'll include it on this list, and make any changes in a different color.


8. Survivor 48: Mary's Shot in the Dark hits, Cedrek is left deciding between Sai and Justin
I'm only ranking this at eight because it involved a player losing their vote in Justin, but this tribal was pretty crazy.  Mary was the fairly obvious target, so she played her Shot in the Dark, which miraculously hits and saves her.  Then, on the revote, there is a split between Sai and Justin.  Then some wonky Survivor rules came into play, which meant Cedrek, by not being a part of the vote (but still having one), was the only one who would decide who went home, and he shockingly went against his original vote for Sai and sent Justin home.  I felt so bad for Justin, especially since he lost his vote in a manner that was completely outside his control.

7. Survivor 42: Deadlock between Jenny and Lydia, and Strunk caves in
Another smaller pre-merge tribal, this one was also a deadlock, and they got to a point where drawing rocks was on the table.  Hai stood firm and said he would go to rocks, not giving away his position.  Daniel Strunk, however, really did not want to go to rocks and caved, and Jenny was sent home.  The tension in the air for this one was palpable.  And for Strunk, he ended up being voted out two episodes later, so maybe he should have just gone to rocks.  And this is lower with number eight because it involved a player, Chanelle, losing her vote.  If she had not risked her vote, this tribal council would have never happened, at least not this way.

6. Survivor 48: Kyle and Kamilla blindside original Lagi and Thomas with their idol and advantage
After the tribe swap in 48, Kyle and Kamilla found themselves on the bottom against the three original Lagi men in Joe, Thomas, and Shauhin.  Fortunately for them, they had acquired an idol and an extra vote before then.  Leading up to the vote, Kyle and Kamilla expertly duped the other three into thinking they weren't close and would just vote for the other.  However, when tribal came, they played both the idol and advantage correctly, and Thomas was blindsided.  Now, with the successful idol play, the extra vote was not necessary, but they were likely being extra safe.  It was still an epic blindside.

5. Survivor 44: First Vote on Ratu results in the first successful Shot in the Dark, a Shot in the Dark used to hide someone's allegiance, a banked vote, and a successful idol play.
This will likely forever be my favorite first vote of a season in the New Era.  Before tribal, Brandon found an Idol, which he ultimately played for himself.  Yet, the majority of the people who actually voted decided to vote for Brandon, hoping he wouldn't play it, or, at the very least, would flush it from him.  Jaime played her Shot in the Dark as she was worried at her first tribal (when she shouldn't have been), and it became the first ever Shot in the Dark to hit, although it negated zero votes.  Matthew strategically used his Shot in the Dark to hide his allegiance (since it took his vote away).  Lauren earned a Bank a Vote advantage on the journey, which she used to save her vote for a later tribal council, and Brandon played the idol he found earlier to negate Kane and Maddy's votes on him.  That all resulted in Brandon's lone vote for Maddy being the only vote that counted, sending her home.  

4. Survivor 45: Final five vote results in a 2-1-1 vote, and Dee narrowly escapes a blindside
This final five vote was crazy.  Case in point, without Jake's idol play on Katurah, it would have been a 2-1-1-1 vote.  Madness.  Anyway, Jake was counting on Katurah voting out Dee, and his good faith gesture in her agreeing to the plan was him playing his idol on her.  But Katurah did not repay Jake's kindness, voting instead for the safe vote of Julie.  Had she gone with Jake, the season would have turned out much differently.  This vote definitely sank Jake's game.  

3. Survivor 45: Kaleb's Shot in the Dark Hits, negating a unanimous vote
The season prior, we witnessed the first-ever Shot in the Dark to hit in Jaime's.  But it did not negate any votes.  Kaleb knew he was the target, so he played his Shot in the Dark, and for the first time in Survivor history, it negated votes.  Not only did it negate votes, but it negated a majority vote, AND it negated a record 11 votes.  No other idol play or shot in the dark play has ever negated that many votes.  The reactions by everyone, especially Kaleb, when Jeff revealed the "Safe" parchment, made this moment special.  Unfortunately for J. Maya, they had to revote, and she was the next target after Kaleb.

2. Season 45: Kellie's blindside results in some memorable reactions
This vote showed we don't have to see idols or advantages to have a great tribal.  At this tribal, Jake was at the bottom, and he was the perceived boot by many, including most of the audience.  But little did many know, the majority had turned on Kellie due to her being a threat.  It resulted in two great reactions from those who got votes.  First, Jake's epic reaction of "WOAH...!  Sorry... woah," is still hilarious to this day, showing how he initially reacted and then corrected his reaction to be more polite.  Then Kellie's "What the hell, guys?" was the cherry on top, as she grabbed her torch.  We need more reactions like this when people get voted out!

1. Survivor 43: Jesse blindsides Cody and flushes Karla's idol all in one fell swoop
This may be the greatest performance at a single tribal council in the New Era, maybe in all of Survivor.  Jesse managed to sway Gabler and Owen into blindsiding Cody.  Not only that, but he managed to flush Karla's idol by playing one he had recently held onto from Cody.  Cody had wanted it back, but Jesse was able to hang onto it for one vote long enough to blindside him.  This instantly put Jesse at the very top as the frontrunner, and if he could've only beaten Gabler in fire, he easily would've won this season.  

Determining Through Process of Elimination Who Will Win Survivor 50

 Survivor 50 is just more than a month away, and I thought I'd attempt to determine the winner of this upcoming season by process of elimination.  Basically, I'm slowly going to exclude players in groups or one by one until I'm down to one.  At one point, I will say which group I think the winner will almost assuredly come from, but I will still narrow down all the way to one.  This will be fun to go back to once the season is over to see how close I was, and what metric may have eliminated the winner (when it shouldn't have).

As a refresher, here are the players, in order of first appearance on Survivor:
Jenna Lewis-Dougherty, Colby Donaldson, Stephenie LaGrossa-Kendrick, Cirie Fields, Ozzy Lusth, Coach Wade, Aubry Bracco, Chrissy Hofbeck, Christian Hubicki, Angelina Keeley, Mike White, Rick Devens, Jonathan Young, Emily Flippen, Dee Valladares, Tiffany Ervin, Q Burdette, Charlie Davis, Genevieve Mushaluk, Kamilla Karthigesu, Joe Hunter, Kyle Fraser, Rizo Velovic, Savannah Louie

Now I'm going to eliminate them based on things that typically winners do not exemplify. 

The first thing I'm going to eliminate is the known final tribal goats.  These players are either laughingstocks or not taken seriously, and haven't necessarily made a final tribal council, but if they did, they got at most 1 vote.  Now, if someone did get to a final tribal council and got 1 or 0 votes, that doesn't necessarily mean they will be kicked out here.  It's based on whether I think they can change.

With that, we will eliminate Stephanie, Angelina, Mike, Jonathan, Q, and Joe.  Considered Chrissy, but I feel like she could make a better FTC case.

That leaves the remaining group at Jenna Lewis-Dougherty, Colby Donaldson, Cirie Fields, Ozzy Lusth, Coach Wade, Aubry Bracco, Chrissy Hofbeck, Christian Hubicki, Rick Devens, Emily Flippen, Dee Valladares, Tiffany Ervin, Charlie Davis, Genevieve Mushaluk, Kamilla Karthigesu, Kyle Fraser, Rizo Velovic, and Savannah Louie.

Now I probably should've done this from the start, but the second thing we are eliminating potential winners from is if they were a previous winner.  I can't see a single winner being allowed to get to the end.  And if they did, I can't see a jury re-rewarding them.  So that kicks out Dee, Kyle, and Savannah.  

That leaves us with Jenna Lewis-Dougherty, Colby Donaldson, Cirie Fields, Ozzy Lusth, Coach Wade, Aubry Bracco, Chrissy Hofbeck, Christian Hubicki, Rick Devens, Emily Flippen, Tiffany Ervin, Charlie Davis, Genevieve Mushaluk, Kamilla Karthigesu, and Rizo Velovic.

Next we are going to take out players that haven't played too recently.  Here is how many seasons passed between a returning player's win and their previous season: 6, 4, 13, 2, 3, 7, 2, 6, 6.  Sandra was the outlier at 13.  But no one has ever won with more than 13 seasons separating them from their previous season.  However, Survivor has been slack on the returning player seasons in recent years, so I'll be a little lax myself and allow back to 34, Game Changers.  So I am going to have to eliminate Jenna, Colby, and Coach.  

That leaves us with Cirie Fields, Ozzy Lusth, Aubry Bracco, Chrissy Hofbeck, Christian Hubicki, Rick Devens, Emily Flippen, Tiffany Ervin, Charlie Davis, Genevieve Mushaluk, Kamilla Karthigesu, and Rizo Velovic.

I'm going to eliminate Rizo.  People haven't seen his game, and even if he somehow manages to sneak his way to the end (unlikely), he's likely not beating more experienced/likable players.  So we are down to 11.  

In what will perhaps be the hardest round for me personally, I'm going to have to eliminate the final tribal council darlings.  These are players that are just too likable for their own good.  So that will eliminate Cirie, Christian, and Rick Devens.  I recall seeing a video Jeff posted after 50 finished shooting, and he didn't seem too thrilled/excited for the result, which leads me to believe these three did not win.

That leaves us with the 8 of Ozzy Lusth, Aubry Bracco, Chrissy Hofbeck, Emily Flippen, Tiffany Ervin, Charlie Davis, Genevieve Mushaluk, and Kamilla Karthigesu.  

Now I'm going to eliminate those who wouldn't be taken to the end, and can't win fire or immunity easily.  That eliminates Emily and Kamilla.  I don't think either has a good path to get to the end.  By the way, this also would have eliminated Cirie.

We are left with the 6 of Ozzy Lusth, Aubry Bracco, Chrissy Hofbeck, Tiffany Ervin, Charlie Davis, and Genevieve Mushaluk.  

Now I'm going to eliminate Ozzy.  Sorry Ozzy.  One, it's been 16 seasons since he played, and two, he has never shown the strategic or social acumen to win.  He's a likely target around the merge, like he was in Game Changers.  

That leaves us with Aubry Bracco, Chrissy Hofbeck, Tiffany Ervin, Charlie Davis, and Genevieve Mushaluk.  This is the group I think the winner is almost for sure coming from.  But now I have to make some tough calls.  From this point on, I think I will likely eliminate the winner if I haven't already.  And I'm going to go one by one at this point, with a brief explanation for each.  

Tiffany is out.  Do people want Tiffany to be the Winner of 50?  I can't see it.  

Charlie is next out.  He was the last man standing for me.  He's too big a threat, nearly winning and showing skill in all phases of the game.

Aubry is next out.  She has slowly gotten worse each time playing, and she is a known social/strategic threat.  

That leaves us with Chrissy and Genevieve.  And I'm going to eliminate Chrissy.  She has a great story, but I think she's a bit too old, might be sniped early, etc.  Too many things could go wrong for her.  That leaves Genevieve Mushaluk of Survivor 47 as my winner pick!  Crazy as it might seem, she's going fly under the radar and then make a great case at final tribal.  I'm curious to see if I'll be right on this one.  I'll do my Survivor 50 Preview and Predictions when it gets closer, but it looks like my winner pick will indeed be Genevieve.