On Survivor Rankings, the variance of Survivor, and where winners could have lost
Preface: I originally intended this as an original r/survivor post, but it got too long.
SPOILERS: If you do not wish to know how any of the first 29 seasons of Survivor went, or how Survivor Oz's rankings of Survivor players up to that point (done around the start of 2015) went, do not read this post.
I've been getting back into Survivor for the past few weeks, and listening through Survivor Oz's pre-Worlds-Apart rankings of every Survivor player up to that point (yes, I listened to all of it in the past week) was really illuminating- particularly in the end, where it really exposed a strange attitude that seems prevalent in the Survivor community.
The worst winner (Natalie White) came in at number 40. Given that there were 442 Survivor players at this point, this means they thought the worst winner of Survivor was better than roughly ten out of eleven of the other players, and more than 97% of the non-winners. The best non-winner (Cirie) came in at number 20. This means that they thought that all nineteen of the top players of all time won, and that over two thirds of the winners up to that point were better than Cirie.
Only seven winners (Nat W, Amber, Sophie, Jenna M, Tyson, Vecepia, Yul) finished below other players in their winning season (Russell H, Several, Cochran, Rob C, Tina, Rob M, Parvati). This means that, according to the list, 22 out of the 29 first seasons (or over three quarters of them) were won by the best player.
Even more surprisingly, the Ozlets were extremely scared of the backlash that could ensue because non-winners were treated as well as they were (although one major subset of that was ranking Russell Hantz over Natalie White, which I agree was probably wrong). It seems that in many elements of the Survivor-fan community, winners' games are treated almost as immaculate works of art that can never be criticized.
As one of my many interests that I go off and on with apart from Survivor, I am into sports analytics. It is very-well known among those who statistically analyse sports that the best team doesn't always win the championship- in fact, when the Warriors were somewhere around 50% to win it all before the start of last year on some sites, it was quite shocking, because teams *never* have that kind of odds- and that's in the least-variant sport out of the four major ones (the NBA). I also learned to be sensitive to sample size- a great team could easily lose one game to even an outright-bad team. Even the great teams go on losing streaks, and so on and so forth. As it applies here, I just don't see how the winners should have that much of an advantage in these rankings, especially if there is "tape" that certain non-winners give that suggests they would win more "simulations" of Survivor games than certain winners.
I understand that we also have limited information on these players. Thus, it could be said that many of these lower-than-40 players are, in fact, better than winners, and that we just don't know which, and thus have to rank the winners higher because of what we know. However, it just seems completely absurd to me to suggest that any player, let alone a "run-of-the-mill" best player on a given cast, would win three quarters of the time. Survivor is almost certainly less variant than the other show I'm getting back into (Big Brother), but there are still quite a few different sources of variance I can see in Survivor.
I have a lot to learn as far as Survivor history is concerned, and there are many seasons I know little about (an din my previous stint of interest in these shows, I didn't examine games and moves critically in the way I do moreso looking back now). I will, however, try to construct a list here of certain things that were either generally outside the winner's control, or easily could have gone differently that could have greatly impacted, or downright negated, it. Although I'm admittedly not the most learned, I expect this list to grow as I learn more, not shorten.
When you read this, try to think about whether having 28 of the top 40 be winners (as SOz did) is justified. Occasionally, people's placements in their ranking will be shown.
General points:
- With a few exceptions (as I've had told me when I brought it up before), most winners of final-2 seasons would not have won had the wrong person won final immunity (granted, Survivor's challenges are less variant than BB's- although there's one instance coming up where the unexpected happened at FI).
- Winners of F3 seasons may not have won had they been F2 seasons, and vice versa (I'll only go into the specific ones where it was thought that one would be the other, though). F2 seasons have more variance, for the above reason.
- So much decision-making from so many people is involved in every Survivor season that, in order to say that all of the ones that benefited the winner were manipulated by the winner, you'd have to basically say that every winner has a superhuman level of skill in manipulating people. Otherwise, you'd have to say there's a fair deal of variance in the extent to which the other players make decisions that further a player's win, even in cases of good manipulators. There are surely numerous major decisions that helped players' wins that were primarily influenced by something/someone other than the winner.
- As far as good decisions made by winners, unless you grant a similarly-superhuman capacity of decision making and foresight to these winners, we'd have to concede that at least some of them were made without full knowledge that/how it would help their winning chances. Further, many of them were not the idea of the winner.
- It's quite probable that a given player will perform better against some casts than others (both in terms of the general quality of the other players, and of certain attributes of them).
- Particularly in two-tribe seasons, having the upper hand at the merge is crucial, and although a player can at times overcome a numbers disadvantage, and a good challenge player could help tilt the scales for their tribe, it seems undeniable that the tribemates around a player can greatly impact their winning chances in this regard. One example below is one that particularly stands out, where one tribe makes a crucial mistake with only a little bit of egging on from the other tribe (and basically none by the eventual winner).
Specific cases:
- Under modern rules (where the original rules were really poorly-thought-out), if Kelly sticks with Sue (#97) at the F4 of Borneo, there is a fire-making challamge between her and Rich (#6). Under Marquesas rules, rocks are drawn between Rich, Sue and Rudy- Rich has a 1/3 chance of going home in that scenario, and a 1/3 chance of losing Rudy, such that Kelly's F3 decision may not have been as obvious.
- If Clay handles Jake at the FTC of Thailand a bit better, Brian (#10) may well lose to him.
- I have heard that if Drake goes to tribal council earlier, Sandra (#1) is the first person voted out of that tribe. If this were the case and it did happen, she would likely be a contender for a bottom-50 spot on a SOz-like list.
- If Lill doesn't somehow beat Fairplay (#27) in the final immunity of Pearl Islands, Fairplay almost certainly would have cut Sandra for an easy win (although that's what everyone must have said about Woo, so who knows).
- If Cirie wins fire against Danielle in Panama, I have heard that Aras (#17) takes her and loses to her.
- If Cook Islands is a F2, Yul (#13) would have a chance against Ozzy (#67) in the final immunity challenge, but Ozzy would be the favorite, and the winner would vote the other out and easily win.
- If Fiji is a F2, Earl (#5) would have to win final immunity or convince Dreamz (#189) or Cassandra (#102) to make a Woo-esque decision in order to still win.
- If James plays one of his idols in China, because of Peih-Gee's clever move to write his name down, Todd (#4) would have to survive a revote against her to stay. Again, I don't know *that* much about the situation at that stage, and he'd presumably have Amanda and Courtney (and'd need one more), but in the chaotic context that would be in, who knows what would happen there.
- If Fairplay doesn't volunteer as the first boot of Micronesia, Parvati (#9) may well have been the first boot.
- If Amanda doesn't find the idol at the F6 of Micronesia, Parvati's win again gets a little dicy. As I've discussed on here before, it's possible that Cirie (#20) would then have herself better-positioned with Natalie and Alexis, such that they would take her to the end instead of Parv.
- If Micronesia is a F3, Parvati's win, yet again, would at least be in question. I heard the Historians go through it, and it wouldn't be as simple as some would have it for Cirie to win if you go juror-by-juror), but this is still worth bringing up given that it was ostensibly expected that it would be a F3 (this also undercuts any argument that Cirie wouldn't be taken to the end because she's a threat, because Parv and Amanda took her there thinking it was the FTC- also what was said earlier about Panama).
- If Bob (#26) doesn't basically have Sugar playing for his win at the end, he would at least have a tougher time. It's possible he did, but I didn't get the sense from listening to SOz that he was some sort of mastermind who manipulated Sugar into doing this.
- If Brett (#172) wins final immunity in Samoa, he wins the game.
- If Tyson doesn't screw up the split-vote in HvV, Russell goes home, and the entire complexion of the season changes such that it's not even really possible to say what would have happened. Fortunately for Sandra, though, she was in the six-person alliance in this case.
- If JT doesn't give the idol to Russell in HvV, a Villain may well have gone at the merge, and again, the rest of the postmerge game would look entirely different.
- Jerri (#37) was extremely close to winning final immunity in HvV, and would have had a considerable shot to win if she did.
- Fabio (#32) relied on late immunity wins in order to win the game.
- If Penner does a little bit better at convincing Lisa and Skupin, Denise (#15) finishes 7th in Philippines.
- Many things that happened at the F10 TC of Caramoan could have gone differently and changed the course of that season.
- Tyson (#22) had a 1/3 chance of exiting the game (although he'd have RI, so he wouldn't technically be eliminated) at the F6 rock-draw of BvW.
SPOILERS: If you do not wish to know how any of the first 29 seasons of Survivor went, or how Survivor Oz's rankings of Survivor players up to that point (done around the start of 2015) went, do not read this post.
I've been getting back into Survivor for the past few weeks, and listening through Survivor Oz's pre-Worlds-Apart rankings of every Survivor player up to that point (yes, I listened to all of it in the past week) was really illuminating- particularly in the end, where it really exposed a strange attitude that seems prevalent in the Survivor community.
The worst winner (Natalie White) came in at number 40. Given that there were 442 Survivor players at this point, this means they thought the worst winner of Survivor was better than roughly ten out of eleven of the other players, and more than 97% of the non-winners. The best non-winner (Cirie) came in at number 20. This means that they thought that all nineteen of the top players of all time won, and that over two thirds of the winners up to that point were better than Cirie.
Only seven winners (Nat W, Amber, Sophie, Jenna M, Tyson, Vecepia, Yul) finished below other players in their winning season (Russell H, Several, Cochran, Rob C, Tina, Rob M, Parvati). This means that, according to the list, 22 out of the 29 first seasons (or over three quarters of them) were won by the best player.
Even more surprisingly, the Ozlets were extremely scared of the backlash that could ensue because non-winners were treated as well as they were (although one major subset of that was ranking Russell Hantz over Natalie White, which I agree was probably wrong). It seems that in many elements of the Survivor-fan community, winners' games are treated almost as immaculate works of art that can never be criticized.
As one of my many interests that I go off and on with apart from Survivor, I am into sports analytics. It is very-well known among those who statistically analyse sports that the best team doesn't always win the championship- in fact, when the Warriors were somewhere around 50% to win it all before the start of last year on some sites, it was quite shocking, because teams *never* have that kind of odds- and that's in the least-variant sport out of the four major ones (the NBA). I also learned to be sensitive to sample size- a great team could easily lose one game to even an outright-bad team. Even the great teams go on losing streaks, and so on and so forth. As it applies here, I just don't see how the winners should have that much of an advantage in these rankings, especially if there is "tape" that certain non-winners give that suggests they would win more "simulations" of Survivor games than certain winners.
I understand that we also have limited information on these players. Thus, it could be said that many of these lower-than-40 players are, in fact, better than winners, and that we just don't know which, and thus have to rank the winners higher because of what we know. However, it just seems completely absurd to me to suggest that any player, let alone a "run-of-the-mill" best player on a given cast, would win three quarters of the time. Survivor is almost certainly less variant than the other show I'm getting back into (Big Brother), but there are still quite a few different sources of variance I can see in Survivor.
I have a lot to learn as far as Survivor history is concerned, and there are many seasons I know little about (an din my previous stint of interest in these shows, I didn't examine games and moves critically in the way I do moreso looking back now). I will, however, try to construct a list here of certain things that were either generally outside the winner's control, or easily could have gone differently that could have greatly impacted, or downright negated, it. Although I'm admittedly not the most learned, I expect this list to grow as I learn more, not shorten.
When you read this, try to think about whether having 28 of the top 40 be winners (as SOz did) is justified. Occasionally, people's placements in their ranking will be shown.
General points:
- With a few exceptions (as I've had told me when I brought it up before), most winners of final-2 seasons would not have won had the wrong person won final immunity (granted, Survivor's challenges are less variant than BB's- although there's one instance coming up where the unexpected happened at FI).
- Winners of F3 seasons may not have won had they been F2 seasons, and vice versa (I'll only go into the specific ones where it was thought that one would be the other, though). F2 seasons have more variance, for the above reason.
- So much decision-making from so many people is involved in every Survivor season that, in order to say that all of the ones that benefited the winner were manipulated by the winner, you'd have to basically say that every winner has a superhuman level of skill in manipulating people. Otherwise, you'd have to say there's a fair deal of variance in the extent to which the other players make decisions that further a player's win, even in cases of good manipulators. There are surely numerous major decisions that helped players' wins that were primarily influenced by something/someone other than the winner.
- As far as good decisions made by winners, unless you grant a similarly-superhuman capacity of decision making and foresight to these winners, we'd have to concede that at least some of them were made without full knowledge that/how it would help their winning chances. Further, many of them were not the idea of the winner.
- It's quite probable that a given player will perform better against some casts than others (both in terms of the general quality of the other players, and of certain attributes of them).
- Particularly in two-tribe seasons, having the upper hand at the merge is crucial, and although a player can at times overcome a numbers disadvantage, and a good challenge player could help tilt the scales for their tribe, it seems undeniable that the tribemates around a player can greatly impact their winning chances in this regard. One example below is one that particularly stands out, where one tribe makes a crucial mistake with only a little bit of egging on from the other tribe (and basically none by the eventual winner).
Specific cases:
- Under modern rules (where the original rules were really poorly-thought-out), if Kelly sticks with Sue (#97) at the F4 of Borneo, there is a fire-making challamge between her and Rich (#6). Under Marquesas rules, rocks are drawn between Rich, Sue and Rudy- Rich has a 1/3 chance of going home in that scenario, and a 1/3 chance of losing Rudy, such that Kelly's F3 decision may not have been as obvious.
- If Clay handles Jake at the FTC of Thailand a bit better, Brian (#10) may well lose to him.
- I have heard that if Drake goes to tribal council earlier, Sandra (#1) is the first person voted out of that tribe. If this were the case and it did happen, she would likely be a contender for a bottom-50 spot on a SOz-like list.
- If Lill doesn't somehow beat Fairplay (#27) in the final immunity of Pearl Islands, Fairplay almost certainly would have cut Sandra for an easy win (although that's what everyone must have said about Woo, so who knows).
- If Cirie wins fire against Danielle in Panama, I have heard that Aras (#17) takes her and loses to her.
- If Cook Islands is a F2, Yul (#13) would have a chance against Ozzy (#67) in the final immunity challenge, but Ozzy would be the favorite, and the winner would vote the other out and easily win.
- If Fiji is a F2, Earl (#5) would have to win final immunity or convince Dreamz (#189) or Cassandra (#102) to make a Woo-esque decision in order to still win.
- If James plays one of his idols in China, because of Peih-Gee's clever move to write his name down, Todd (#4) would have to survive a revote against her to stay. Again, I don't know *that* much about the situation at that stage, and he'd presumably have Amanda and Courtney (and'd need one more), but in the chaotic context that would be in, who knows what would happen there.
- If Fairplay doesn't volunteer as the first boot of Micronesia, Parvati (#9) may well have been the first boot.
- If Amanda doesn't find the idol at the F6 of Micronesia, Parvati's win again gets a little dicy. As I've discussed on here before, it's possible that Cirie (#20) would then have herself better-positioned with Natalie and Alexis, such that they would take her to the end instead of Parv.
- If Micronesia is a F3, Parvati's win, yet again, would at least be in question. I heard the Historians go through it, and it wouldn't be as simple as some would have it for Cirie to win if you go juror-by-juror), but this is still worth bringing up given that it was ostensibly expected that it would be a F3 (this also undercuts any argument that Cirie wouldn't be taken to the end because she's a threat, because Parv and Amanda took her there thinking it was the FTC- also what was said earlier about Panama).
- If Bob (#26) doesn't basically have Sugar playing for his win at the end, he would at least have a tougher time. It's possible he did, but I didn't get the sense from listening to SOz that he was some sort of mastermind who manipulated Sugar into doing this.
- If Brett (#172) wins final immunity in Samoa, he wins the game.
- If Tyson doesn't screw up the split-vote in HvV, Russell goes home, and the entire complexion of the season changes such that it's not even really possible to say what would have happened. Fortunately for Sandra, though, she was in the six-person alliance in this case.
- If JT doesn't give the idol to Russell in HvV, a Villain may well have gone at the merge, and again, the rest of the postmerge game would look entirely different.
- Jerri (#37) was extremely close to winning final immunity in HvV, and would have had a considerable shot to win if she did.
- Fabio (#32) relied on late immunity wins in order to win the game.
- If Penner does a little bit better at convincing Lisa and Skupin, Denise (#15) finishes 7th in Philippines.
- Many things that happened at the F10 TC of Caramoan could have gone differently and changed the course of that season.
- Tyson (#22) had a 1/3 chance of exiting the game (although he'd have RI, so he wouldn't technically be eliminated) at the F6 rock-draw of BvW.
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