TRIBE ANALYSIS

 

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Boran

Voting Percentage: 47

Season: 3, Alliances: Ethan/Kim/Lex/Tom, Isolated Players: Diane, Jesse, Clarence, Kelly, Best Position: 1st

 

The Ethan, Lex, Tom alliance formed extremely early in this game and ran into little to no opposition within their own tribe as the isolated players spent their time sucking up to this trio as opposed to organizing against them.  A player swap occurred after the fourth tribal council which worked out well for this tribe as defectors from the self destructing Samburu tribe helped them get rid of one enemy player and votes against helped them get rid of a second.  Once at the merge they were comfortably in the majority, but then suffered a collective brain cramp of hyper-paranoia spawn by their cramped living conditions.  The dominant alliance decided to target one of their own in Kelly even though this brought the two tribes to the point of being tied in numbers.  It was only the fact that the other tribe was completely dysfunctional and helped them remove one of their own tribe-mates, that Ethan, Lex and Tom were able to come back out on top.  After that, the only wrinkle in Ethan’s and Lex’s plan came when Kim won the final two immunity challenges.  She took Ethan with her and was easily beat in the jury vote.  As with Tagi, the voting percentage of this tribe was not only brought down through the actions of the dominant alliance but in the inability of the lesser players to seize control themselves.

 

Chapera

Voting Percentage: 72

Season: 8, Alliances: Amber/Rob M/Tom, Isolated Players: Alicia, Rob C, Susan, Best Position: 1st

 

The Rob M, Amber, Tom alliance formed very quickly and with only six in the tribe, they then dominated. They made the right move first off by taking out Amazon Rob, the only person that wouldn't be content just riding in the shadow of the dominant group. After that, something interesting happened. The Saboga tribe was dissolved and Chapera had two new members, Rupert Boneham and Jenna Lewis. What was interesting was that Rob and Amber abandoned their alliance with Tom and formed a final four pact with Rupert and Jenna. Normally abandoning your tribe-mates like this is not the smart way to go, but there were rumors that Tom had made a pregame pact with Lex of the Mogo Mogo tribe and Rob felt unsure of where Tom stood. Smart or not, Rob and Amber stuck with Rupert and Jenna. Sue quit before the merge, Alicia went at seven and Tom at five. Rob and Amber pretty much got a free ride to the final two but once they arrived, there was so much anger directed towards Rob from the people that thought they were in his "in" crowd, that they spitefully voted for Amber, which really didn't make any sense as Amber was just as guilty as Rob in any decisions that were made.

In the three tribe All-Star game, Chapera was the only tribe that played the opening stages right. Concentrating on team solidarity instead removing threats, Chapera arrived at the merge comfortably in the majority. In fact, thanks to Mogo Mogo and Saboga doing such a good job removing those threats early, Rob and Amber were left the only ones playing the game with any skill at all.

 

Chuay Gahn

Voting Percentage: 57

Season: 5, Alliances: Brian/Clay/Helen/Jan, Ghandia/Tanya Isolated Players: John, Ted, Best Position: 1st

 

An interesting tribe alliance wise, as most players seemed to think that Brian was the player to suck up to rather then forming their own alliances.  A union between Brian, Clay and Ted seemed to form very early and Ted was obviously thinking of Brian as a final two partner.  Brian on the other hand was keeping his options open and likely felt from early on that he wanted to be sitting next the abrasive Clay in the end.  This move should have been his downfall but the other members of the tribe never could get their act together and get rid of either Clay or Brian himself.  The defining moment for this tribe came after John and Tanya were gone and Ghandia accused Ted of molesting her in the night.  What actually happened is unclear, but the results of this fall out was not as it appeared that the tribe split along gender lines and seemed to be heading for a tie.  It looks like Brian seized this opportunity to promise Helen a final two spot (now the third person he has made this promise to) and this brought Helen over to vote with the guys.  By the time Ted realized he wasn’t part of this alliance, it was too late and Jan was just happy to ride along in the fourth position.  Brian’s position at the top should have been a shaking one as Helen and Jan were a natural pair and could have easily used Ted’s support to remove Clay, but it never materialized and Brian and Clay were permitted to coast into the final two.

 

This tribe has no blunders, but no great moves either in its voting as each player seemed determined to simply follow the path of least resistance to end.  It certainly represented the most boring tribe to have to watch in this game.

 

Drake

Voting Percentage: 39

Season: 7, Alliances: Christa/Rupert/Sandra, Burton/Michelle/Shawn, Jon/Trish, Best Position: 1st

 

A very strong tribe thanks to everyone falling behind Rupert’s leadership early in the game, these guys look like they were going to easily get the best over their fractured opposition at Morgan.  For the first nine days, they didn’t lose an immunity challenge until the cliquish Burton/Michelle/Shawn alliance showed a tremendous lack of judgement in approaching Rupert to remove Christa after throwing a challenge, who they found annoying.  Not surprisingly, Rupert didn’t consider this move for a second but when his alliance mate heard of this they decided to throw the challenge anyway and use Jon’s and Trish’s support to remove Burton instead.  Not surprisingly, tribal unity began to crumble after this and the challenge loses followed.  After Michelle went next, Trish and Jon jumped the gun and thought they could use Christa’s and Sandra’s support to remove the popular and strong Rupert (another gross misjudgment from this tribe).  Instead it was Trish that went and after one more loss (and Shawn vacating) this tribe was now entering the merge tied.

 

Then came the twist.  Just before merging two players were returned to the game Burton and Lillian.  Lillian was angry at her own tribe (with good reason) and immediately sided with Drake and suddenly these guys were back in the majority with Christa, Rupert and Sandra squaring off against Burton, Jon and Lillian.  The thing is the first alliance didn’t recognize the existence of the second and soon the second was using the support of the other tribe to remove Rupert.  The attack was premature as the obvious move on Christa’s and Sandra’s was to join forces with the two remaining true Morgan’s and come back at Burton and Jon, but unfathomably they didn’t do this and stayed true to the deceitful due.  You would think Burton and Jon could have slept walked their way to the win but no, Burton had to let Lillian know that she wasn’t in a final two situation with him at all.  Angered once again, Lillian joined forces with Sandra and the last remaining Morgan to take out Burton.  In the end it was Sandra and Lillian with Sandra pulling the easy win in a game that see-sawed back and forth as players threw the advantage from one side to the other.

 

Jaburu

Voting Percentage: 58

Season: 6, Alliances: Heidi/Jenna/Shawna, Deena/Christy, Jeanne/JoAnna, Isolated Player: Janet, Best Position: 1st

 

A tribe that was an absolute mess at the beginning.  They did the right thing in first removing the isolated, and physically failing, Janet but then the two factions headed by Jenna and Jeanne went head to head.  Deena and Christy were the swing votes but Christy couldn’t get along with the abrasive JoAnna and they sided with the three younger women even though they were obviously outnumbered and JoAnna and Jeanne represented their strongest players.  They were saved by a swap when Heidi, Jeanne and Christy went to the other tribe and were replaced by three men who’s thinking skills certainly dropped once in the presence of scantily clad, young women and they immediately abandoned their previous plans and joined forces with Heidi (and subsequently Jenna) and Deena (and subsequently Christy) even though they were obviously outnumbered.  Interestingly enough, after the merge, the pair of Heidi and Jenna stayed true to Alex and Rob because Alex was loyal to them over Rob.  Rob learned too late that he wasn’t in charge of this game and despite some flip-flopping, he wasn’t able to keep Jenna from making the final two where her jury support earned her the easy win.

 

Kucha

Voting Percentage: 46

Season: 2, Alliances: Elizabeth/Michael/Roger, Alicia/Jeff/Nick, Isolated Players: Debb, Kimmi, Best Position: 4th

 

Kucha lost their first immunity challenge and made the dubious move of voting out contributor Debb because she had difficulty fitting in over less strong, but social more adept players like Roger or Kimmi.  This strong tribe then won their next three immunity challenges in a row and even after losing the fifth and booting Kimmi (again done for social reasons as opposed to strategic), they seemed to still have the game well in hand.  Michael then fell into the fire and had to be removed from the game putting the two tribes tied in numbers going into the merge.  Kucha was way to overconfident going into the endurance type immunity challenge and far too many of them bailed early allowing their target with votes against (Keith) to emerge the winner.  The wheels then fell off when Jeff went due to previous votes against in a tie vote.  Alicia quickly followed and the players left, Elizabeth, Nick and Roger, made the mistake of opting for flying below the radar as opposed to looking for weak points in the opposing tribe, of which there certainly were some.  Although this tribe seemed strong, they never really got into game mode, voting far more for players they didn’t like as opposed to thinking ahead in the game.

 

Maraamu

Voting Percentage: 80

Season: 4, Alliances: Rob/Sarah/Sean/Vecepia, Gina/Hunter/Patricia, Isolated Players: Peter, Best Position: 1st

 

Definitely the tribe with the most interesting dynamics early in the game, the situation was complex right from the early boot.  Sean and Vecepia were drawing close with Peter while Hunter, Gina and Patricia were drawing together and Rob was bonding with Sarah.  The early consensus after losing the first immunity challenge was to target Sarah, but Peter drew attention to himself by wanting to vote out Patricia.  This drew the ire of everyone save Sean and Vecepia, and Peter was gone.  With Rob and Sarah drawing closer to Hunter and Gina, it seemed the later pair had a lock on control of this tribe, but then they, with Patricia’s help, decided to vote out Sarah which pushed Sarah and Rob to Sean and Vecepia and they voted out Patrica.  Now this foursome had control of the tribe but with their third consecutive immunity lose, it was beginning to look doubtful there was going to be much of a tribe left to control.  Here Sean and Vecepia did their only dubious bit of voting in helping to take out the athletic Hunter.

 

A swap after the third tribal council put this tribe in the minority on both sides of the island, making their future dubious indeed, but Rob, Sean and Vecepia demonstrated how the weaker tribe should play the game.  They never allowed themselves to fall into the roll of the dominant alliance’s soldiers and never gave up trying to find cracks in the Rotu armour.  Although Sarah and Rob fell by the wayside, Sean and Vecepia eventually found those cracks in the form of Neleh, Pashcel and Kathy.  Sean went down at five, but Vecepia won the immunity challenge at four and suddenly she was the one the other two players wanted with them in the final two.  Some mid-challenge negotiating got Vecepia beside her player of choice in the final two and she won.

 

Mogo Mogo

Voting Percentage: -27

Season: 8, Alliances: Kathy/Lex/Shii Ann, Isolated Players: Colby, Jenna M, Richard, Best Position: 6th

 

I always thought Pagong set the standard as to how not to play the game but then came Sook Jai. Now we have Mogo Mogo which (please!) has for all time set where the bottom of the scale should be. I think the problems with Mogo Mogo were indicative of the problems with the whole All-Star season. With everyone knowing who the strong (read: smart) players were, the weaker (read: dumber) players immediately teamed up and targeted them. Worried about her ailing mother, Jenna quit the game but after four episodes Mogo Mogo had still to go to tribal council. Then the Saboga tribe was dissolved and two of their members sent their way: previous winner Ethan and super aggressive Jerri. You would think Mogo Mogo had things set up pretty well, but then the wheels came off. Despite it still being a long way to the merge, Mogo Mogo decided to start targeting their own instead of the true dangers in their tribe (Jerri and Ethan - in that order) and contributor Richard was gone. Not content with that, Lex and Shii Ann (Kathy was out on a reward with Chapera, but certainly would have been in on the plan), with the help of the very willing Jerri decided their tribe's biggest contributor should be the next to go and out went Colby. Not to break the pattern, Ethan followed next.

But with the merge neigh Mogo Mogo was given a gift. Amber, a member of the dominant pair from the leading tribe, came their way in a swap. Removing her throws the alliances in the other tribe into flux which can only be a good thing for the tribe in the minority. Instead of removing Amber though, Lex, Kathy and Shii Ann figured the better idea was voting out Jerri in an effort to try and buy the loyalty of the other tribe. This is up there as one of the most foolish blunders in the history of this game. I mean, why try and win challenges at all if you think seeing your own voted out is such a great strategy? It just doesn't make sense.

Once the merge hit, this tribe went into the predictable self-righteous loser mode, alternating between berating the dominant players - for not being as stupid as them apparently - and sucking up to them in a lame attempt to improve their standing. Needless to say, they weren't successful.

 

Morgan

Voting Percentage: 30

Season: 7, Alliances: Andrew/Osten/Ryan O/Tijuana, Lillian/ Ryan S, Isolated Players: Darrah & Nicole, Best Position: 2nd

 

A weird and rather dysfunctional group in that began with the forming of the cliquey dominant alliance.  Osten, almost from the beginning wanted to quit and despite his physical strength, he was a complete liability both at the challenges and in camp.  Despite that, the dominant group was bound and determined to remove isolated players in Nicole and then Ryan S.  What really told was when, instead of removing the useless Osten or the next to useless Darrah, they removed one of their hardest workers in Lillian even though she would have undoubtedly remained loyal to them.  Eventually Osten simply quit the game and when embittered Lillian returned in a twist at the merge, she immediately, and understandably, joined forces with the other tribe.  From then on the remaining players couldn’t really get back into the game.

 

Ogakor

Voting Percentage: 94

Season: 2, Alliances: Colby/Keith/Tina, Amber/Jerri/Mitchell, Isolated Players: Kel, Maralynn, Best Position: 1st

 

Aggressive alliance forming almost got this tribe into trouble early on with the booting of the athletic Kel, but by the third boot the dominant alliance of Colby, Tina and Keith were firmly in control when Mitchell went in a tie vote.  Though, they were certainly helped along when Mike Skupin of the Kucha tribe fell into the camp fire and had to be removed from the game, once on top after the merge, the dominant alliance set the model on how to play the game.  Especially impressive was how they handled the aggressive Jerri Manthey by promising her a position deep in the game and then using the weaker tribe to remove her at the earliest safe opportunity.  The dominant pair of Tina and Colby formed the heart of the best alliance to play this game in five seasons and likely represented the most difficult decision for a jury to make when they had to choose the winner between these two.

 

Pagong

Voting Percentage: 14

Season: 1, Alliances: Gretchen/Jenna/Colleen, Isolated Players: B.B., Ramona, Joel, Greg, Gervase, Best Position: 6th

 

Although I listed an alliance above, it really wasn’t.  Just a group of players that seemed to have a mutual interest that likely would have formed an alliance in any other run of this game, but this was the first time through and these players didn’t learn until it was too late that alliances were a necessity to success.  That all being said, these guys played a good pre-merge game, booting non-contributors like B.B. and Ramona early and then the athletic, but annoying Joel, just before the merge.  Where everything fell apart was after the merge when the Tagi tribe voted mostly as a block while the Pagong tribe’s votes were scattered everywhere.  Their defacto leader, Gretchen, was the first one targeted by the other tribe and the players left didn’t even realize what was going on until after the next immunity council where Tagi removed Greg.  By then it was too late, but they slipped into waiting to be booted mode instead of working on Tagi’s weak link in Kelly.  It was their miserable post merge game that really brought their scores down.

 

Rotu

Voting Percentage: 68

Season: 4, Alliances: Kathy/Neleh/Paschel, John/Robert/Tammy/Zoe, Isolated Players: Gabriel, Best Position: 2nd

 

An interesting tribe that didn’t loose a tribal immunity challenge until the fifth one.  As such, alliances seemed slow to form.  John and Tammy formed a pair fairly early and drew in Gabriel.  It appeared that Paschel, Neleh and Zoe were drawing together leaving Robert and Kathy isolated.  A swap after the third tribal council changed all that though when Kathy, Paschel and Neleh went to the other tribe in exchange for Rob, Sean and Vecepia.  When they finally lost their first challenge, it seemed the days for the new recruits were numbered, but Gabriel began claiming not to be into forming alliances and was there just for the experience.  Not knowing where Gabriel stood, John and Tammy joined forces with Robert and Zoe to make the risky move of taking out Gabriel.  The only thing that saved the vote from being a tie was Gabriel bowing out without a fight.

 

After the merge, things got interesting as the new alliance of Kathy, Neleh and Paschel decided they were not going to wait around to be picked off by the dominant quartet and joined forces with Sean and Vecepia to begin taking out the dominant alliance.  With a lot of great voting early on, this tribe began to fizzle out strategically as Kathy was incapable of bettering her position over the dominant pair of Neleh and Paschel, while Neleh and Paschel were not ruthless enough to better secure their position on top by trimming off the deadwood within their own alliance earlier, which likely cost those two the game when Vecepia was able to win immunity at four and worked her way into the final two.

 

Saboga

Voting Percentage: 53

Season: 8, Alliances: Jenna L/Jerri/Rudy/Rupert, Isolated Players: Ethan, Tina, Best Position: 3rd

 

The tone in this tribe was set early by Jenna immediately making it very clear that the two previous winners (Tina and Ethan) were going to be the first to go. Not surprisingly, they lost the very first immunity challenge. Not surprisingly, as soon as tribes want to begin removing their own members, they don't tend to win challenges. They made the right call in removing Tina first, not so much because of the threat she represented (though she did), but because they are giving up nothing towards winning challenges while at the same time limiting Ethan's options. It's after this that the tribe went wrong. At Pearl Islands, Rupert dominated the personality in his tribe and Drake kicked ass. This time he wanted to step behind someone else's shadow, and the two shadows he picked were Jenna and Jerri. This tribe would have been a lot stronger (physically, mentally and socially) if Rupert and Rudy had made a deal with Ethan and removed Jenna. Even when Rudy injured his foot, Rupert wouldn't step into the limelight and he let his most solid voting partner go rather than cross any decisions made by Jenna and Jerri.

In every way, this tribe was weaker than their competition in Mogo Mogo and Chapera and eventually they were dissolved after losing an all or nothing challenge. Ethan and Jerri went to Mogo Mogo while Rupert and Jenna went to Chapera. You would think they would be dead meat, but some interesting things happened. At Chapera, their leader, Rob, felt, with good reason, he could trust Rupert and Jenna more than his own tribe-mates and made a final four deal with them. At Mogo Mogo, seeing how well the strategy worked at Saboga, Lex, Kathy and Shii Ann began an orchestrated campaign to remove their biggest threats and like Saboga, Mogo Mogo went on a losing tear which did eventually catch up to Ethan. Jerri, on the other hand, finally feeling fairly secure with her new tribe, was Kelly Goldsmithed in another brilliant play by Lex that completely ignored the simple ability to count the members in each tribe.

It would have been interesting to see how things would have played out had former alliance-mates Rupert, Jenna and Jerri all made the merge, but it wasn't to be. Once at the merge, Rupert and Jenna were content to ride out their final four promise to Rob and Amber and the rest of the game proceeded in a very predictable, and boring, fashion.

 

Samburu

Voting Percentage: 35

Season: 3, Alliances: Carl/Frank/Linda/Teresa, Brandon/Kim/Lindsey/Silas, Isolated Players: none, Best Position: 5th

 

Even though a strong tribe that won its first two tribal immunity challenges, this tribe was in trouble from the get go.  With no isolated players, this tribe formed into two, very well defined alliances which were destined to go head to head.  What likely should have happened in this situation was for the lesser players in each alliance to form a tertiary alliance to avoid the tie, but with age and life style splitting this tribe right down the middle, that wasn’t about to happen.  When the tie vote occurred, it went to a sudden death quiz between Carl and Lindsey, which Carl lost.  After Carl’s leadership was gone the tribe self destructed.  When a player swap occurred after the fourth immunity council of the game, Frank and Teresa went over to the other tribe with Silas and wasted no time at all handing his head over to them.  Because of the votes on Lindsey, she went in a tie vote back at the home tribe, and the once mighty Samburu went into the merge down two players to Boran.  Once at the merge, Samburu could not heal the rifts between their players even when Boran’s blunder of voting out Kelly all but handed the game back to them.  Their disunity cost all of them the win.

 

Sook Jai

Voting Percentage: -3

Season: 5, Alliances: Erin/Ken/Jake/Penny, Jed/Robb/Stephanie. Isolated Players: Shii Ann, Best Position: 6th

 

Pagong had the excuse of being one of the first tribes to play this game to explain their miserable score, this tribe has no such explanation.  Overconfidence was likely at the root of their problems as this tribe was head and shoulders above their opponents physically and should have been able to go into the merge in the majority easily.  Instead the dominant alliance of Erin, Ken, Jake and Penny isolated the other players and started voting them off starting with those that were contributing the most to the tribe and challenge strength.  Their tribe quickly became bitter and divided and soon was no match for the tribe from the other side of the island in the immunity challenges.  A delayed merge certainly didn’t help them, but even if the merge had occurred as per normal, they would have been in trouble as the embittered Shii Ann was ready to join forces with their opponents.  Once in the minority their performance didn’t improve dramatically as they were scattered in their ability in trying to find the weaknesses in their opponents.  There best play would have been to try and work on Chuay Gahn’s most isolated players, Ted and Helen, trying to get them to turn on their masters Brian and Clay.  Instead they sucked up to the dominant pair and sat around waiting their turn to leave.

Tagi

Voting Percentage: 59

Season: 1, Alliances: Kelly/Richard/Rudy/Susan, Isolated Players: Sonya, Stacey, Dirk, Sean, Best Position: 1st

 

The tribe that figured this game out first, they easily were able to get the best over their opponents in Pagong.  The tribe started off right by targeting the physically weak Sonja but Richard was more concerned about threats to his leadership in Stacey and Dirk.  Eventually, his leadership won out and these players were removed and his alliance was built.  Once at the merge, Tagi easily handled the other tribe as they were not voting as a block.  Likely their smartest move was in first targeting Gretchen after the merge, the one player with the leadership skills to mount an opposition.  The dominant alliance’s weakest link was Kelly who alternated between voting with them and not.  By the time enough of the other tribe were gone to safely remove her, Kelly went on an immunity streak which prevented Richard and Rudy from taking her out.  In the end Kelly ended up in the final two with Richard and lost in a close vote.  Richard defined how this game should be played, but certainly wasn’t immune from mistakes like targeting tribal contributors early and allowing Susan to go deep in the game instead of the manipulatable Sean.  This later mistake nearly cost him the game at four when Kelly once again won immunity but bailed before forcing a tie vote to stand and instead helped to vote out Sue.  The rating of this tribe was further brought down by Kelly’s and Susan’s play.  Richard certainly annoyed the opposing tribe and if these two were on the ball they could have easily used that support to remove Richard and Rudy and ride to victory themselves.

 

Tambaqui

Voting Percentage: 61

Season: 6, Alliances: Alex/Rob, Butch/Dave/Roger, Daniel/Ryan, Isolated Player: Matthew, Best Position: 2nd

 

The tribe that really should have produced the winner in this game except for ineptitude during the middle-game.  They started well when Alex and Rob fell behind Roger’s leaders and booted the other player running for king wolf in Ryan and then followed that with his follower Daniel.  They became and efficient and well functioning tribe and all the remaining six players made the merge.  So what happened?  Well Alex, Rob and the isolated Matthew went over to the all female Jaburu in a swap.  The next thing you know those two have abandoned Butch, Dave and Roger, a trio they could have easily gotten the better of and joined forces with three women, forgetting that once the tribes merged their penises would be outnumbered in this alliance.  From this moment on the game belonged to the women, in particular Jenna and Heidi, even after Rob realized this wasn’t going so well late in the game and began flip-flopping.