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, like 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.  

Top 10 Things We Have Yet to See on Survivor (But May Someday)

 I do a lot of blog posts on one of my favorite TV shows ever, Survivor.  I enjoy how the game has evolved over the years, and new things are happening all the time with its evolution.  We had a fan-favorite player get eliminated by default with Cirie in Game Changers.  We had a tribal in Second Chance where idols negated every vote.  But some instances or occurrences have never happened in Survivor history.  With all the new advantages and the numerous idols put into play by the showrunners, not only are some of these things likely to happen, but I think they (Jeff included) want them to happen.

10. A "No Vote" Tribal Council
One thing I'm not a fan of in recent seasons is how easy it is to lose your vote.  In fact, in Season 44, just going to the summit meant you lost your vote, unless you got lucky and succeeded in that 1/3 shot of getting an advantage.  It's so dumb.  Anyway, with how easy it is to lose your vote, and with shots in the dark, and with how small tribes can get, I feel like a "no vote" tribal council may happen someday.  I'm sure they have a plan in place for this, but this "dramatic moment" would feel so contrived, as do a lot of them in recent seasons.  And by a "no vote" tribal council, I do not mean a tribal council where all votes are negated.  That's happened before.  I mean a tribal council where everyone present has lost their vote or chooses to lose their vote.  Very unlikely, but it's theoretically possible.

9. A plurality tie at Final Tribal Council
I have a feeling this could happen in 44 (Spoiler alert: It does not).  But given three finalists, a tie with a plurality vote is certainly possible.  With 8 jurors like 44 has, we could see a 3-3-2 final vote.  Or if they had 9 jurors, a 4-4-1, or do I even say a 3-3-3?  We've seen a tie before in Ghost Island, but in that case, Laurel did not receive a vote and ended up casting the tie-breaking vote.  So if there's a 3-3-2 tie, how is it broken?  Do the 2 people who voted for the 3rd place person and the 3rd place person themself break the tie?  We may get that answer someday.

8. "Everyone's Safe" Tribal Council
This is what I think Jeff and the producers want most.  A tribal council where everyone is safe via immunity, idol, advantage, or shot in the dark.  We were close to it with the Cirie elimination in Game Changers.  But what would happen here?  They just vote out two people next time?  Everyone's safety cancels out and gets removed?  Draw rocks?  They fight for it?

7. Someone puts themselves into final 4 fire making and loses
We've seen it only once before where the player who won final immunity put themselves into fire: Chris in Edge of Extinction.  He won his fire-making duel with Rick Devens and then won the game.  A few others have considered attempting it, some of them regretting not doing so.  I think we will see (and likely soon) someone put themselves into fire, but lose.  It's become a running trend that winning fire-making looks a lot better to the jury.  This would happen when someone needs a boost to their resumé and knows they have no shot at winning without it.

Update: Heidi in 44 put herself into fire making, but won the fire making over Carson.  However, she still did not win the game, the first to put themselves into fire making but lose the game.

6. Multiple fake idols played at one tribal council
Hard as it may seem, we've never seen multiple fake idols be attempted to be played at the same tribal council.  For the first time in 44, producers made and introduced fake idols into the game.  In the past, players always had to make them themselves.  I think we may soon see a tribal council where someone attempts to play an idol but it turns out to be fake, and someone else attempts the same, feeling like there is no way theirs could be fake as well.

5. A player gets all the way to the end without ever having been vulnerable at a tribal council
I'm sure there have been a few players who have been somewhat close.  But this may never happen.  However, it theoretically is possible that a player gets all the way to the end without having been eligible to be voted for.  Their starting tribe would have to win every immunity, and they'd have to win individual immunity or be separated into a group that doesn't go to tribal every vote until the Final 3.  This person would have to be godlike at challenges.  They'd have to be smart with puzzles and athletic for endurance challenges.  I wonder if this ever happened, would this make a jury want to vote for them or not?  

4. A rock draw on a plurality tie
We've seen some rock draws in Survivor history, from Marquesas to Blood vs. Water to Millennials vs. Gen X.  But we've never seen one when there's been a three-way tie (or more).  I believe Survivor has had a three-way tie before, but it's always been resolved on the revote.  You'd think perhaps there'd be a tribe of 6 people with three twosomes, the twosomes all targeting three different people.  But generally, two pairs of twosomes get together to target one of the two odd people out.  Or, if a tribe has three people, each one targeting someone else.  I thought we might've seen that on Tika in 44 when they had just Caroline, Joshua, and Yam-Yam.

3. Someone gives someone their immunity necklace who then in turn plays an idol for them
I just think this would be a cute moment if it ever happened.  Two players close in the game, both of whom would be vulnerable.  One has individual immunity, but they decide to see if they can throw off the opposition and they give their immunity to their ally.  Said ally then plays an idol they happen to have on the first player.  This has never happened before, since the second player could just play their idol, but I'd still love to see it for the drama and fireworks.  Plus, it's something players would have to come up with, not the producers.

2. A player votes out someone with their idol
Let me explain.  In 44, we saw the introduction of the "Control a Vote" where Heidi got to control Lauren's vote.  Also, players loan idols all the time, namely in recent years to avoid the Knowledge is Power advantage.  This could mean someone is forced to vote out someone who has their idol.  That would just be such a kick in the nuts.  

1. A rock draw for $1 million?!
Even with a final three, a deadlock tribal council is possible.  I believe, for this reason, the show tries to avoid a jury size that is a multiple of 3 (namely 9).  I don't believe they've had a jury where the final 3 could've each gotten the same number of votes.  But I could be wrong.  But surely they must have something in place for this in case it happens.  For example, in Winners at War, what if one more person had left the Edge (joining Sandra in doing so), and the 15 jurors split their votes 5-5-5 between Tony, Natalie, and Michele?  Surely they wouldn't do a rock draw for $1 million, right?  I guess they'd have the jury talk it over until they came to a consensus.  Or possibly re-vote until someone gets the majority.  

BONUS (Unlikely): A juror that never casts a vote
We saw in 44 how Matt got to the jury, despite the only time he ever cast a vote being the time he got voted out.  Well, with how much the producers love taking people's votes away in mind (and the Shot in the Dark), we could see a juror on Survivor who never casts a vote, not even for a winner.  This could only happen if they re-introduced the "Remove a Juror" advantage, as seen in Kaoh Rong.  That was only introduced because of the med-evacs and needing an extra challenge, but I feel like we potentially could see it again.  Imagine, you get on the jury, but you don't get to cast a vote all game.  We will probably see a juror at some point that the first time they put pen to paper is for the winner.