Malkon?? Woah

-Vote prediction-

Edelgard: Felix, Lorenz, Caspar, Raphael, Ashe, (Shamir)
Dorothea: Hapi, Dimitri, Petra
Shamir: (Dorothea), (Edelgard)

Because [Ashe] never got to present himself I can never know if he'd properly own what he's done.

*laughs in 'posted opening speech draft in confessional'*

To Shamir, I do feel your speech adequately covered most of your game and gave me insight to parts I wasn't working with you during. This is probably a very odd question but one thing I've never wrapped my head around is that it had always felt like you were under-valuing Dimitri as an ally. In the early game prior to his first mutiny incident you didn't seem to care for him at all, you were ready to get rid of him when he mutinied to the flame army, you tried to at the merge boot, and you willingly let him go at F9. Whereas it seemed (though I could be wrong on this) Dimitri always had you high on his list of allies, being only behind the other deer.

So I guess I'm asking you to either explain why my assertion of you under-valuing Dimitri as an ally is wrong, or to explain how your game was in a good enough position to never need him.

You clarified my question before I had time to type it lol.

Shamir has a nice speech, do feel that I got cropped out of significant parts of it. Though that's more of an 'I'd have things to say were I a fellow finalist' than anything I care about as a juror.

Edelgard has a super awesome speech. Like I thought I had dropped her from my vote consideration but am open to the possibility now.

Dorothea had a poor speech in my eyes, I don't have much comprehension of what she did from it besides bond with people, which the other two finalists also did.

This was draft #2 I had written, when I still thought F4 was a smooth round. So it assumes a FTC of me/edel/shamir. Also would have edited a bit more, like using more consistent phrasing when referring to the two 'sides' of the game and I probably would've made it a bit less arrogant though when writing I was trying to fluff up the position I had throughout the game and detract a bit from Shamir/Edelgard. I also probably would have committed harder to the votes I expected to get, ie rewriting bits referring to Raphael to better explain my decisions regarding him.


And Ultimately, I still have a lot to learn.
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One could say I attempted to play twice the game of most people. During the premerge I got myself into a position where I was essentially guaranteed to survive to the next swap even if my tribe lost every challenge, then mutinied to another tribe to do it over again. During the post-merge I was playing with both sides of Shamir/Edelgard/Dimitri and Hapi/Petra/Dorothea, being grouped as close to all sorts of different players throughout the middle rounds of the merge. I managed to rarely be at risk, the only rounds I was in any sort of danger were F8 and F7. I also played a huge role in several votes, namely Yuri, Felix, and Raphael, and formed multiple crucial alliances including SPADE and Happy Gang. I had the best social game of any player, a strong strategic game, and the only reason I'm not here against weaker opponents is that I got unlucky with idols.


Blue Lions
On the Blue Lions one of the first things I did was evaluate the tribe, looking for whom I could work with long-term. Evaluation came back that this was an inactive tribe with the only active members being myself, Hapi, Petra, and kinda Caspar. This led to creation of PTAT group pm between the first three, and a bit later Petra made Mates of Tribe group pm with all four. I was gonna be surviving this tribe, but it was gonna be boring, and it would likely to alot of work come swap with most of Lions likely getting picked off so I bid mutiny to the tea party.


Tea Party 1
We lost the challenge, but Alois had also bid mutiny so convincing him to switch tribes with me wasn't very hard. That first tea party was pretty inactive so I didn't learn much about either other tribe at that point.


Black Eagles
Arriving to Black Eagles, the first order of business was making sure I wasn't on the outside and finding who the tribe's weakest link is. The latter didn't take long to realize, Balthus. To try to accomplish the former I made an AsheN Eagles group pm with Shamir and Yuri prior to challenge results as those two were the two I exchanged the most messages with and felt best about. Raphael was also made leader here (I didn't participate in the challenge) which was something I made careful note of looking into the cause of.


Cyril Vote
Although the Balthus vote was trivial it looked like the next would not be. Shamir and I had discussed between Edelgard, Cyril, and Dorothea, coming to a decision before our next loss. Come then, Cyril, Dorothea, and Yuri were all wanting Edelgard out whereas Edelgard and Raphael were targeting Cyril. We stuck to our discussed plan and Cyril was taken out, also breaking up the suspected day1 alliance of Cyril/Dorothea/Yuri/Raphael that Dorothea and Yuri were trying to work with.


Holy Kingdom
Arrival to the Holy Kingdom led to reuse of the PTAT group pm which I was initially pushing Dorothea in. However, Dorothea did a good job at connecting to Hapi/Petra which the two deer flunked at, so I quickly gave up. After losing the challenge our first vote was set to be Hubert, however Annette's inexperience got in the way. Annette talked about wanting Petra out because of her language gimmick and so much as told Petra directly she didn't like her.


Tea Party 6
Also during this time was an important Tea Party; We had heard Alois was wanting to come over and PTAT had been discussing one of us leaving so that Dorothea would feel more comfortable with us. As leader, Hapi was out of the discussion. Petra's argument for it was that I already had a turn to mutiny, but I was able to convince her to let me have the Tea Party and by extension the influence upon another tribe when the Holy Kingdom had stabilized.


Leicester
I showed up to this tribe to Lorenz idoling out Lysithea, which made for an awkward dynamic; Shamir was very thankful I had shown up when I did and Lorenz was very desperate, sending me a ton of messages over the short time period. However in the long-term this idol play proved beneficial to Shamir, as Lorenz absorbed the target off of her at F11, whereas Lysithea had better ties to the blue side of the merge if she even survived the church/army tribes. I never managed to connect well with Claude during my time on the tribe, which made him someone I wanted to see go in the coming rounds. One contrast between Shamir and myself was that Shamir Mutinied away leaving me on a four person tribe which she described as would-be hell when I showed up (Lorenz, Claude, Edelgard and Shamir/Ashe), whereas both times I mutinied Hapi & Petra were left in the central alliance with a plan of action.


Flame Army
This tribe was the major payoff of me mutinying around earlier. I already had met everyone on the tribe but Mercedes which put me in a great position; In not so great of a position was Hapi, who had only really met me previously. Shamir was supporting me to keep Hapi in the game so it only mattered to get one more vote off of Hapi during the two rounds of play. During F14 round, Shamir and I discussed the alliance concept SHAPED of us, Hapi, Petra, Edelgard and Dorothea; the players I felt best about and perhaps not so coincidentally the players I had been on a tribe with twice prior to this point. We decided against it due to instability with Hapi and potentially Edelgard. I would also like to take a moment to boast the accomplishment that no member of this group of six received the majority of votes until final five. Mercedes marks the only pre-jury boot whom I hadn't lied about where I was voting to, as the only other push was Hapi and that felt much too blatant of a lie.


Yuri Vote
Dimitri had mutinied over and created Mutiny Trio group pm with Shamir; He also said he didn't want to vote out Hapi before merge out of pity, so that was great news if I could hold him to it. I was also just feeling great about Dimitri so I had my sights set on one of the other three when we lost. There was an immediate scramble period of Shamir asking me for a plan and Hapi asking me who she needs to push and some miscommunication between those two. I told Hapi that her best chance was probably getting Shamir and Dimitri with us onto one of the two Eagles. I then went to get a name out of each player besides Hapi/Shamir. Claude -> Yuri, Dimitri -> Yuri/Edelgard, Edelgard -> Hapi, Yuri -> Dimitri. I brought this information to Shamir and we decided to consolidate the vote onto Yuri, though I put off messaging Edelgard because I wasn't sure how she'd feel about the vote. I knew it had worked when Edelgard sent a pleased message to me saying "Claude suggested we make up with Hapi to blindside Yuri". Hapi and I were the only winners of this vote over a Hapi vote as it was a mistake for Claude as Hapi was the reason he left over Dimitri at F12, for Edelgard as Yuri/Claude at F11 is better for her than Hapi/Dimitri, for Yuri as he left, for Shamir as Hapi went for him at F11 and though you can argue Shamir gained my trust I was stuck with her anyway, and Dimitri was already too far in the hole to have a win scenario with this vote.


F12
I merged to no new faces. Main focus was trying to figure out where people's closer loyalties were after all this time. The three deers, Felix, and Caspar were the names out as targets, (though I suspect the Felix push was mostly people hearing other people hear Felix from me). Dimitri proposed a 'voting block' here between the members of Leicester and himself. The vote consolidated between Claude and Dimitri because I wouldn't agree to vote Caspar so Dimitri's block would be one vote short. Still though, Shamir thought the majority was wanting Dimitri out and I tried to convince her that wasn't the case, but she ended up being blindsided by the vote outcome anyway due to believing Caspar, Lorenz, and Raphael, all players whom I knew where their vote was going.


F11
This round was the major turning point of the game for me. Ever since the 3 person FTC had been announced my vision was a FTC with Hapi and Caspar with Shamir being booted at 4 or 5, and remarkably that vision had survived up to this point. With only Leicester and Hapi being active during Thanksgiving, several sets of rumors got spread by Hapi/Shamir/Lorenz about each other such that when other players got back the vote had to be between those three, two of which were my closest allies prior to this point. Lorenz also leaked out the alliance of himself, Raphael, Dorothea, Hapi, and Petra. Due to the circumstances, I was trying to move Dimitri's block onto Lorenz from Hapi, and the Blue side onto Lorenz from Shamir, still sitting between the two sides. With assistance from Dorothea the latter happened, moving the majority vote off of Shamir, but was unable to achieve the former. Once again I voted on the opposite side of Shamir with her knowledge while remaining close. A crucial thing about this 6-5 vote was it used up Lorenz's idol, and had I instead voted Hapi she still goes home but the idol doesn't get played.


F10
Step one clear things up with Lorenz. Despite being the main pusher of his name the previous round, this was somehow successful and he appeared to trust me more than Dimitri, who's closest ally had to be Lorenz from lack of other options. During the previous round I had flubbed my status with Felix and so was trying to take him out this round. With Hapi gone and Lorenz learning to shut up, there wasn't much push back for much of the round but there also wasn't much initial push apart from me. Happy Gang was formed this round with Caspar, Dorothea, and Petra, keeping me integrated into the blue side of the game. The group vaguely wanted Dimitri out instead of Felix so before going to sleep I chose to cast my vote onto Dimitri without telling anyone, which led to the 5-5 tie.


F10 Revote
Dimitri and Felix were my #1 and #2 choices to leave (Raphael as #3) so rocks was entirely off the table for me. I told Raphael's side it was an idol vote and told Petra/Dorothea we didn't need Felix so we should be flipping on the revote.


F9
This round I created SPADE from the unused SHAPED alliance concept. The goal was to trick Edelgard/Shamir into two votes from their side to give Happy Gang a majority. Edelgard messaged me with a "This is fine but you realize that Dorothea will use this to send out Dimitri" and internally I was thinking that was the plan. I later discovered that right before this Caspar made an alliance with the same people plus him minus me, I'll speak more on that alliance and the Caspar boot after opening speeches. Raphael also made Eagle's Nest with Shamir and I this round since he realized I was growing distant from him, though I never really put much value into that group.


F8
Was looking for one more turn on the Leicester side, and Lorenz was offering, saying the round prior he had been wanting to vote out either Raphael or Edelgard. Happy Gang was excited as we were all looking to take out the big threat in Raphael by this point, but Lorenz backed off on us. Shamir did get her mind set on a Lorenz boot and made it happen. Raphael apparently had thought that there would be a majority of votes on me, which I had found a ridiculous conclusion at the time, but became clear was something he had believed.


F7
Happy Gang was still looking to take out Raphael, and this was my immunity win. Everyone was like "it's so fortunate you won immunity this round, your name was out there". To which I was very confused since my name shouldn't even have been up for consideration from my perspective, no one wanted it and yet it was. I was able to process of elimination that the person genuinely pushing me was Caspar, and so turned on Happy Gang to take my shot at him, much to Dorothea's dismay that she tried to get Raphael to vote Edelgard. Although not entirely sure at the time, with hindsight I am confident this was the correct choice for me as I was completely off the table of options after this round with Caspar gone, and Dorothea told me about the alliance of SPADE-me+Caspar, which is likely the reason Caspar was targeting me. Also this round I was in a position where I likely could have taken out whoever I wanted barring idol plays, being sat between two trios.


F6
Raphael and I had been talking about how we could clip the Dorothea/Petra pair this round and then the Shamir/Edelgard pair the next to have an easy path to FTC, and I do believe it had been his intention to do so. In reality with the idols, this results in Raphael going out in 4th instead of 6th and us reaching the same FTC. I decided against this, simply because I didn't need him for the upcoming rounds and viewed him as the biggest threat still in the game between his phenomenal pre-jury and being in a control position for the entirety of the merge besides the F8 round.


F5
This was a round of gahh idols, so I really couldn't have any control over the outcome. No matter who possessed the idols and immunity win though, I would've survived as I had the votes over every other player left in the game. Had it not been for idols this would be another instance of me being in the middle and getting to take out whoever I wanted.


F4
Uninteresting round, for the record I would have voted out Dorothea even if Shamir was an option.


Conclusion
I voted in the majority and typically played a large role in where the vote was going every round with exception of F10, which was a tied vote and I literally led the charge of the side I flipped to on the revote. Although I was bad at challenges and idol hunting, I still did what I could structurally, making the most of Tea Parties. I've definitely got more detail to go into some of this stuff, so I hope you guys ask good questions. I also have questions for a few of you, some with the intent of furthering my case to win and others just out of curiosity.


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In terms of questions, was gonna ask Caspar "prior to me winning immunity, what were your plans for the F7 and F6 rounds?" Then using his answer to argue either my F7 decision or my play up to that point, depending on what the answer was.
With Raphael asking something about the importance of Yuri to his game so I could elaborate on that decision.
With Lorenz I wanted to ask him more on his perspective of the F8 and F9 rounds and try to sort out the disagreement there.
With Hapi I was gonna comment on my two mutinies and see what her response was.
I didn't have a question in mind for other four jurors, probably just if something came up in one of the other finalists opening speeches.

Was probably better for me to lost that card game than face that jury lol.

Do still think I likely would've had the Raphael/Dimitri/Hapi votes and maybe Lorenz too over Shamir/Edelgard which is what I was predicting while in the game but hard for me to say for sure.

I having of the questionings! Why no one be of vote of Edelgard of final 4?!

For once this game (well third time probably) I told the person going home I was voting for them. From the in game perspective the big threats were Shamir and Dorothea here as Shamir was/is viewed as the dominant player over Edelgard.

Can you expand on the emotional reasons?  Im currently leaning Edelgard, but want to know why not?

She literally did not speak to me after I lost the immunity challenge so that's a question for Shamir.

9:30 EST works fine for me! (Just wanted to know so I can do other things between now and then)

At least this challenge is in my skillset and not in Dorothea's.

*sigh*