Asmat Tribe

Hey, I'm Vytas of Stranded: Portugal and Stranded: All-Stars in Marquesas

Welcome to Stranded in Indonesia!

You'll be seeing a lot of me here, as well as our 10 other co-hosts as we pick your brain to see what's really going on in your head throughout the game. Feel free to ask any of us questions in here if you need to, we've all been through it before and are more than willing to help.

Each round, we'll start by asking some introductory questions, and I just want to ask that you answer in complete statements. We will be actively blogging on each episode, and it's easier to do so if we have real quotes and complete thoughts as opposed to simple yes or no answers. We hope you keep up with your confessionals daily during the week as a way to vent and discuss the events of that day. The more you update your confessional, the better idea we have of whats going on in your head, and also the more fan favorite points you'll earn yourself come the end of the season . You don't have to only update when you are prompted to, whenever you have an idea shoot it at us because we want to know everything.

So..

How confident are you going into this game that you will win?

What are your opinions of your fellow tribemates?

What is your strategy and approach to the game?

How do you think your rep fits you? Do you think being this character will affect your gameplay at all?

What are your thoughts on the leader twist? Change your strategy at all going in to these first few days?

Best of luck out there.

I will definitely get back to you on those questions after I know a little more about everyone!

Just to clarify, there will be a leader twist tonight AND a vote? A vote FOR a leader, but no actual vote OUT, correct?

Sierra wrote:Just to clarify, there will be a leader twist tonight AND a vote? A vote FOR a leader, but no actual vote OUT, correct?

yes.

Holy shit this game is active. The entire tribe is playing so hard already. Anyway, I'll get to your questions now, Vitinho.

How confident are you going into this game that you will win?

Reasonably confident I can win. I'm not gonna say it'll be a cakewalk because it won't be. Seems like a lot of competition in this tribe, and they all really seem to want to play hard. We'll see.

What are your opinions of your fellow tribemates?

I like Kelly and want to trust her, but don't fully right now. Same with Dan and Joaquin. Joe I'm iffy on, he's a nice guy but not too talkative with me so far. Jenn is one of my favorites on the tribe but I'm not sure everyone feels that way.

Shirin cracks me up in a way, although I do think she could be early-round fodder. I also never underestimate players who come into the game like a "dead man walking", as I've seen that type of player slowly and steadily gain more interest in the game if they're able to get their feet in the door. I don't want her in the game because she's going to be tough to predict, and she's going to be impossible to get anything real from. I just would lose patience so fast I don't even wanna deal with it. I hope she keeps digging her own grave, but it is way too soon to say that's going to happen.

Max I'm iffy on, we haven't really talked at all yet. So is to me what I probably am to so many players I've gamed with. The person you can type a novel to and get a couple sentences in response. We haven't talked about anything too game-related yet, so I'm not sure about her. My first impression from PMs and even the boards is... meh. Holds her cards very close but not in a way that makes me want to peek and see what she's hiding. All this is subject to change, though.

What is your strategy and approach to the game?

Don't get voted out, and avoid the boot in a way that rides the fence between being noticeable, yet not making me too obvious a threat. Right now I'm in something of an alliance with Dan, Joaquin, Joe, Kelly and maybe So. I don't know what they think of me, but I feel like right now this alliance has some potential to become a solid voting bloc for the time being. I don't really love Joe or So yet, but I'd much rather be on the side of things that has an idol than the side that doesn't. For now I'm looking to ride the middle, which I'm sure is the goal of a lot of people out here, but I'd like to think I'll do a better job than they will.

Right now, and for the foreseeable future, I'm just trying to avoid being viewed as the "power" or decision maker, but also be agreeable enough with everyone where I would have options if the shit were to hit the fan. If I can achieve that perfect balance, I can ride this out to the merge I think. I've seen some players make the mistake of viewing the pre-merge factions and divisions as the end-all, be-all and it's just not. This isn't the final 9, not even close. It's just Phase 1 of the game. Clearly you need to account for things like swaps and make sure you stay protected, but for the most part I feel like I'll be social enough to where I'm never on the bottom, but not too well-liked to where I'm going to get burned.

How do you think your rep fits you? Do you think being this character will affect your gameplay at all?

Sierra is a good choice because I think she really does fit my style of playing, but I probably won't be incorporating any aspects of Sierra or changing my game up based on my rep.

What are your thoughts on the leader twist? Change your strategy at all going in to these first few days?

Umm... I mean maybe. It makes me want to get in pretty good with So, though I'm not sure what will happen if she's voted out. Like, would there be a new leader? Is that left up to us to try to guess? Would a new leader come with the new responsibility of doling out yet another public idol? These are some things I have to think about now, in addition to the other more obvious benefits/drawbacks of being elected the leader. Overall it's not going to have a major impact on how I play, but that could certain change.

Yeah I can't sleep. I just sent Max a weird, loooong message and I'm not even sure what my intentions were in doing so. It was like 10 minutes ago and I swear I can only remember like a third of it. Maybe it was some kind of weird subconscious way to try to convince him to forget about the fact that he was online for like 3 hours straight, just as I was, and in that whole time I didn't send him a single message. I always feel bad when I do that, yet feeling bad never stops me from doing it.

I really do want to make somewhat of an effort to have a running dialogue with every player in the game. That's going to become earth-shatteringly tedious if I make it to final 12 and then we merge. Call me an asshole but I so hope it's a final 10 merge just for that reason alone. However, as I expect this game to be a Final 3 FTC as opposed to a Final 2, I'm really gonna need to earn it if I want to win. I find it's easier with a F2 just because if you can navigate your way through with someone shitty, you could just win easy.

But to win an ORG convincingly in a final 3 setting you generally need to be able to stave off the "he/she's the biggest threat left" crowd, and you need to outshine your two FTC counterparts. Not easy at all. I've never made it to the end of a F3 game before.

My target is Shirin because it seems like she's everyone's target. Right now I'm pretty much expecting that there will be at least two rounds before the merge and after a swap. And so I want people who I think I could convince to want to keep me around to stick around. Ideally we'd win a couple immunities, maybe not all of them but enough to ensure a majority in both tribes post-swap. There has really been that whole #Asmat culture established and I feel like there's a lot of genuine teamwork around here right now. I think the format and the separation of the two tribes into totally different boards has really helped to cultivate that team mentality with a lot of my tribemates.

Based on that, I do think that any pre-swap/pre-merge challenges could take on an even greater importance. I am really trying to keep us all gung-ho #HazmatAsmat for life, because if there is a swap I want us together. And I want to go out of my way to make sure people know that I'm Hazmat to the end, because it's a nice way to show people I'm loyal and hide my true opportunistic self for a bigger chunk of the game.

I don't think I was very good on the first night. There were some people in the tribe I didn't really hit it off with. That's okay, I'll straighten out the ship and figure out ways to secure my place in the "middle" before it's too late, I think. There's a full game to be played, and I think a mistake some people will make is trying to play it all at once. Not being patient and waiting for their opportunities. I hope that happens here.

If I've really entered the majority of this tribe the way Dan, Kelly, Joaq and Joe have led me to believe, that's great for me. Dan and maybe Kelly or Joaq may be seen as the figureheads of the alliance after it becomes obvious to everyone, and hopefully that would minimize my risk of being idoled out. I don't want to be seen as the type of player where an idol should be spent getting me out.

That's kind of it for now I guess. Loving the game so far! We'll see what happens with the challenge on Sunday, I can't thank you enough for full weekends off, and hopefully we begin a winning streak and start sending some of these Yali yahoos packing. I don't want to see any blue in the Loser's Lodge for the foreseeable future.

Ah while I'm here I'll ask. What is your stance on invisible activity? Frowned upon? Against the rules? Legal? Sometimes I find it helpful in certain types of challenges, or in situations where it behooves me not to be present to read certain PMs but still want to reply to other PMs, etc.

Eh, frowned upon really.

Also, there is a group PM feature if you want to say... start an alliance chat with more than one person.

Sierra wrote:or in situations where it behooves me not to be present to read certain PMs but still want to reply to other PMs, etc.

Already sick of the PMing eh?

Yo homgirl. Good Luck.

I gotta question for ya. Who are you finding yourself closest too at this point?

Thanks!

Uh... I guess I would go with Kelly or Dan as of right now. I feel like they've been the most open with me overall about things and I've clicked with them the best. There's no one I dislike but those two and Joaquin are probably my favorites so far.

So we have a new Shirin. I really do hope everything is okay with the real-life person behind Shirin. I've been sort of targeting her and subtly bashing her for game purposes the whole time, but according to Kelly and So she was actually saying some suicidal-type things in her messages to them, which I was very sad to learn. I really do hope that things work out for her in any case. I had originally just sort of made the assumption that she was trolling to some extent and didn't take her attitude that seriously, but now I really hope she's okay. Some things transcend the game even if they're a part of the game, and of course this is about the most glaring example possible of that. It's always important to remember that there's a real person behind the avatars, and it's easy to forget that when you're being competitive. So, whatever is going on, good luck Shirin!

In a game sense, it's better for our Asmat tribe that Skypegate happened now than in a couple of days, when it would likely be too late to make an in-game replacement. A rule violation like this at a later date would have left us down in numbers, so I feel like our tribe is fortunate to still be even in numbers.

New Shirin has apparently not been on yet, and of course the selfish part of me wants that to continue, at least long enough to where she will remain an early target. I'd like to remain unified for as long as we can given my tribe swap paranoia. I have a good feeling that the other tribe is more likely to be unified than fractured, probably with a solid "power core" of its own. I get the vibe we have several (relative) newbies to the ORG world on our tribe, so I can't help but feel like there's a good chance the other tribe is in a similar spot. And I think newbies tend to value tribe loyalty highly to get as far as they can, in a lot of situations.

Ideally, we'd peel off Shirin first whether she shows up or not. I have something in the range of "like" and "indifference" to the other 7 of my tribemates, which includes Max, Jenn and even So who aren't currently a part of this supposed group of 5 that have the majority.

Dan seems to have done the majority of the work assembling it, but maybe they just want me to feel that way. Maybe they just want me to believe I'm not one of the "add-ons". Which doesn't bother me right now, since the only thing I want right now is the majority not looking my way. Anything beyond that is gravy as far as I'm concerned. It feels to me like I'm playing a pretty good social game so far, and that's exactly what I want. Pretty good. Not great, not shitty.

I know I'm a bit of an asshole, so sometimes the whole "how is everyone today?" lovey-dovey demeanor of the tribe is going to grate on me. I feel kind of bad about that, but I just know myself too well. It's going to annoy the piss out of me. My tribe may notice that and dislike me for it, but I hope not. I'm trying to be as real as I can, I don't want to be the player that lays things on too thick and comes off as fake due to it.

Kelly, I can't tell if she's super-nice or super-fake. It's hard to trust someone who is so obviously going to be nice to everyone... all the time. Right now she seems to be in one of the better positions on our tribe given the information I've gotten. Jenn and So who aren't even in our alliance with Joaq, Joe and Dan both are very high on Kelly, and I could see her becoming a major social threat because she's way more likable than I am, and seems to be really interested in learning about everyone.

Dan is one of the savvier people here, and also someone who I suspect won't shirk entering a decision-making role. I really think it would be great to hide behind a Dan or a Kelly for the time being. If I had to rank my fellow tribemates right now as to where I value them in our Asmat pecking order, it would be...

1. Kelly
2. Dan
3. Joaq
4. Jenn
5. So
6. Joe
7. Max

*giant gap*

8. Shirin

Joe is in my alliance, but given how highly people like Dan talk about him, it's clear I'm not one of his more valued alliance members, and if he were to make a move with someone else, odds are decent it could come at my expense. Dan also mentioned that Joe and Kelly are pretty tight I think. I'm not sure how quickly the dynamics within our Asmat 5 alliance will come into play, but hopefully I can help to delay us fracturing for as long as I can.

Jenn, I like. In fact I want to work with her. She doesn't give me much to work with in PMs, but I don't mind that at all. I know she likes me, Kelly, Joaquin and I think Max, so for the time being I feel pretty protected on all sides. Kelly pointed out in our 5-way group message that she mentioned working with us, which re-affirms what I believe to be true about Kelly, that she is at least currently loyal to us.

So also seems to be attached to Kelly, and apparently she felt comfortable enough with her to begin talking about the idol and what she should do with it, which obviously means she's looking for people to give her the green light to keep it. Dan disagrees that we should loop So into the alliance and thinks we're better off letting her burn it at the first TC. I can see the pros and cons to each angle and I think we can make it work regardless, and I get along well with So, and therefore I'll just let this decision go to the "higher-ups" and use my indifference to solidify myself as a more passive and go-with-the-flow sort of player.

I think Kelly's loyalty is an important thing for me to secure right now. I think she has a lot of power in the tribe and I wouldn't want her to put me in her crosshairs for any reason. I'm going to establish myself as a sounding board for her and see where that goes.

Tomorrow, hopefully we win immunity but if not, no big deal. Hopefully we'll be able to vote someone out with little to no fanfare (maybe Shirin but I'm not dead-set on that quite yet), and then continue to establish our majority. Max doesn't seem to be too worried about talking game, and I'm not sure if that's a sign of anything yet, but it is possible that some of the others have linked up and are protecting each other, so to me, the quicker we can get rid of another number that they can turn to, the more confident I'll feel. Unless I'm being played by D, J, J and K.

Dan just told me semi-convincingly that I'm his #1. I probably lean more toward Dan as the tribemate that I'd most likely be able to use as a strategic sounding board without holding back, because I plan on taking more and more of a submissive role within this tribe as our alliance begins to separate in numbers from the minority, if we stay together. And at that point I don't want the jury threat label.

I'm surprisingly one of the more substantive strategic PMers here, from what I gather, and Dan pretty much said the same thing. I don't know if that's going to make him feel apprehensive about going too far in the game with me, but I can't NOT have a strategy partner and he's the closest thing to a fellow gamebot that I have right now. Definitely an interesting dude, a New Zealander. Not sure I've ever met or spoken to a New Zealander before, and his hours are obviously a bit of an issue for PMing, but it shouldn't be too big of a problem for him.

I like Dan and Kelly for totally different reasons, but I don't think Dan is a huge fan of her and seems to be implying he thinks she may be double-dipping with So, and certainly doesn't seem to feel as good about her as she does about me, Joe or Joaq.

It's no secret I've already pegged Dan as an early frontrunner to shield me for the first few rounds at the beginning of the merge, so I'd like to see that come to fruition. I still want to be his strategic sounding board, but I'm not sure how I feel about him viewing me as his strategic equal or whatever he said. I'd rather him view me as his dependable ally who will overall concur with his every whim, while being honest and thoughtful in my feedback. He is the most forward member of the tribe (other than maybe Kelly), so I think he's going to be the early "queen" of this tribe, the go-get-shit-done piece. Being in the back pocket of both Dan and Kelly should be something that helps me if I succeed at it, since it seems like Joe and Joaquin are happy to go along for the ride right now. But things are never what they seem on the surface, so my eyes are always peeled...

Joe has... I'll be honest, he's given me almost nothing to work with since this game has started. He's a positive team member and things like that, and right now I'm working with him, but either he's not playing hard yet, or he's playing hard with people that aren't me. Joaquin, same thing to a lesser extent. I like them both, but I value their games least out of the 5 and would just as soon dump them off for Jenn or even So. Still, I don't think shaping the pre-merge is necessary to get a win. As long as you play and are a factor, the juries I've seen judge mainly off the post-merge, and it can be harder to navigate the post-merge if you had a huge, game-shaking impact in the opening few rounds when you probably would've been better served staying in the shadows.

I must admit, I WANT to have the impact you talked about in one of those advice columns, Jeff. But I don't want to have it yet, I'd rather it come at like F8 or beyond! I can totally see where you're coming from with your assessment that you'd rather be an early boot who made a splash than a mid-jury or FTC loser who went out quietly. It is admittedly WAY more fun that way, but I feel I have a better chance of shaking up the jury phase by NOT shaking up the pre-merge.

That is large part because on this tribe... I don't know how well sticking out like a sore thumb will be taken to. Not too many in this group are going against the grain from what I can sense. For a tribe that calls itself Hazmat Asmat, I don't get the sense that too many of these guys are going to be playing with fire early. I know it's just first impressions and I know we basically haven't even gotten started yet, but that's my read so far. Barring major fuckups, this early game should be a breeze. Is that cocky? I don't think it's that cocky.

Post count. It's right in the middle, maybe a bit on the lower end. That's just the way I want it. Some of these guys are in the 70s and 80s already, thanks probably in part to confessional questions and puzzle attempts, and while I know it's not a "big deal" big deal, it's still something that's going to get noticed. I want everything about Sierra, to be the middle-of-the-road, non-threatening presence that I'm trying to be at the moment, right down to challenge performance, activity level and even post count.

I will never NOT overthink, and it's usually to my detriment when I look at the small details and miss the bigger picture. I'm prone to it from time to time, more than I care to admit. Could be happening right now. There might be 4 people waiting for me to offer them alliances and I'm not seeing it. But I'm just trying to stay the course, not get caught up making too many deals and being on too many peoples' sides. I don't want to be the answer when the inevitable "Who is most likely to win this game?" "Who do you trust the most?" questionnaire comes up at a pivotal point of the game, and then focus turns to me and those who need new alliances use that to target me. I feel like if at any point, I reach the top of the totem pole, I fucked up. It's such a shit spot to be in. I'd be the Cirie; a terrible challenge competitor who everyone can see will sweep a jury vote.

And that's just not a good game. There's such a thing as playing too good of a social game. It's just not that impressive to me to find a way to be liked by everyone in the game, and then have the walls cave in at F7 or 6 because there was nothing behind it.

There I go rambling again. Anyway, back to the tribe. New Shirin still hasn't showed up and it's beginning to worry me. I fear that she's gonna come dangerously close to putting you guys in another tough spot if this keeps up over the course of a few days, which could really put us behind the 8-ball and make these first few challenges must-wins. That's completely selfish of course, I could give a fuck if she never logged in if there was no ejection risk attached to her. Losing that first-TC buffer before even losing a challenge would suck, but we'd bounce back. Maybe then I'd be a tad more inclined to push for So to hang onto her idol. Maybe.

Max I remain meh on and he's my ideal second choice out of here behind Shirin. It's nothing personal. I semi-ignore him though I know that's a risk. I don't think I'm on his hit list, but I don't want to be the one he views as his best friend either.

I just want to continue to latch onto those I view as power players and have them continue to want me to stay, hopefully shooting down anyone who dares suggest I go home. Why do I feel like the other tribe is where all the insanity is gonna happen pre-merge?

Do I dare abstain from our first vote? Stray maybe? I feel like the stray vote phenomenon has grown stale, and I always roll my eyes when I see it. Still, I can't help but wonder with this crew if it could cause mass paranoia, and potentially I could even set someone up? Maybe abstain altogether from the first vote to try to set up someone on the "bottom" as a non-factor, then round 2 cast a stray vote to hopefully make someone look like they aren't down with the Asmat cause. The risk involved is the fact that in this game, messages can be attached to votes, and I'd imagine almost everyone will get in on that. Eh. I think I just talked myself out of it actually. Still, something to put on the back burner. I feel like someone should put the lack of self-vote penalties to good use in some way, probably won't be me though.

I kind of want So in our alliance the more I think about it, but Dan makes some good points about not knowing where her head is strategically. May try to look into that a bit tomorrow and see if we can work with her, and whether or not that means we even need the idol. In a perfect world if all 6 of us were working together, we could split votes and not worry about a thing until merge. But then there's the fear that someone will bite the apple.

We are pretty prepared as a tribe for challenges, and Kelly and company will probably continue to keep us that way, so I'm not sure if I even want there to be an idol in our group, certainly not in the hands of someone who has tiebreaker powers and a bunch of other goodies. So is in a very powerful position right now and people seem to be overlooking some of these leader perks of hers. I'll be sure to remind these guys about them if I ever need to, that's for damn sure. I won't feel legit safe until I see the alliance work together for a few votes, and until we get past the point where So can force a tie that she can then break on her own to secure herself a nucleus of loyal soldiers behind her. It could be a risky but lucrative "big move", one of very few that I can see happening in the near future. Maybe I should work more on Max and Jenn to make sure that a move isn't made against me specifically if the current "minority" takes charge of the tribe.

Come on Shirin... log in damn it!

These are some AMAZING juicy updates <3 I picked you to win in the draft cause of your great app and already I'm impressed!

Hmm... surprisingly eventful day. I have some thoughts, none of which I'm too happy about at the moment.

I was a huge reason we lost tonight's immunity. Not the only reason, but one of the bigger ones. I'm pissed about that. I mean, not about the fact that I looked like shit in a challenge, I love that aspect. But the fact that we actually lost on top of it is irritating.

Now Shirin is almost certainly going home, I think. Unless Kelly gets me crossed up in double-dealings at final 18 when I'm trying to appear trustworthy. I could try to play the game with her, and it's possible it could work. But it also carries a lot of risk. Risk that I'm not sure is worth the reward. She's trying to get me, her, So and Jenn in another alliance and subtly hinted that she's starting to become annoyed with Joe (which admittedly falls in line with my ideal master plan of Joe leaving right behind Max). Balancing this with Dan and Kelly is going to be difficult, because I do like Dan as well and want to work with him and he seems very level-headed. A good ally who I think views me as a close friend right now.

There's obviously some dissension in the ranks with Dan and Kelly pretty obviously butting heads in what seems to be a budding power struggle in the tribe, and I feel somewhat caught in the middle of that. Dan seems to be feeling me out for hints that I may be more loyal to Kelly than I've let on, and maybe he's caught onto that. The fact is, knowing what I know, I don't think it's worth trying to stop So from keeping her idol, risking her spidey senses going off and suddenly going rogue.

I don't want to play both sides right now at all, but outside of Dan, that Jenn-Sierra-Kelly-So girls alliance is somewhat of an enticing idea since I talk to them a lot more than I do with Joaq and Joe right now. Those two are really nice to me and are key players in our 5-person alliance but... we don't really have substantive talks individually, and a lot of that is my fault.

I don't know. I'm going to get off for tonight and check in with these guys tomorrow.

With my luck, So idols Shirin and I go home. Never expect anything other than the worst.