When you call a season Survivor: Game Changers I suppose it should be expected to see a change to the game. That will be happening this season when for the first time ever there will be no revote after an initial tie vote. What does that mean exactly? Speaking to Josh Wigler at Parade Magazine, host Jeff Probst said: “There will not be a chance for people to change their votes. You go directly to the tiebreaker, which is openly discussing among yourselves who you want to get rid of. If you can come to a unanimous decision, then that person goes home. If you can’t get a unanimous decision, everybody draws rocks.”
The revote after the tie has been a staple of the show from the very beginning and has led to some all-time great Survivor moments. Back in Survivor: Samoa, the outnumbered Foa Foa alliance were able to flip Galu’s John Fincher at the revote, continuing their impressive comeback. And another John made a famous flip at the merge vote in Survivor: South Pacific when Cochran turned on his old Savaii tribe. Only three times in Survivor history as a tie vote led to a rock draw, one of which happened just last season in Survivor: Millennials vs. Gen X.
It was during Millennials vs. Gen X when Probst said he realized the cast were getting a “free look into the future” by splitting votes in the event of an idol play. Players will no longer get that freebie. Continuing his discussion with Josh Wigler, Probst explained: “If you want to know if somebody has an idol, you’re going to have to be willing to risk the consequence that if you don’t [make the move], you might find yourself in a tie-breaker and you might go home.”
While Probst believes it could give more opportunities for those in minority alliances, there is a possibility it makes people more risk averse. If there is more chance of a rock draw, it could make players less inclined to flip and instead stick with the numbers rather than risk a tie. Either way, it will be interesting to see how this plays out during Survivor: Game Changers. Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
For a sneak peek of the season including the new twist reveal, check out the video below courtesy of Parade:
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This is terrible!
So they want this season to be LESS strategic? We were just starting to see people be willing to force a tie and now we’re never going to see that again. Remember, last season Will said he’d have flipped if he knew that it would’ve gone to rocks. I agree that all this is going to do is disadvantage a minority even further because people aren’t going to be willing to flip at even numbers now.
I think it means making sure the players have their decision before they get to the voting area. It means more active play on the camp, or even a liver tribal. It also prevents a big thing post-CI — split votes. A 3-2-2, 4-3-3 and even 2-2-2 (on paper could be a 2-minority lockdown) is almost meaningless, because if the major target uses an idol, they are immune at the upcoming rocks, and with the other minority member being immune by the tie rule, it makes the purpose of the split vote nullified on those cases, or the majority will only have less than maybe 25% chance to rock out a minority member.
No revotes? A good and bad idea at the same time. Half the fun in Survivor should be the unpredictability not only of the players but also of the game. If it’s all about sticking with the numbers and people not taking risk of drawing rocks, it’s kinda like boring, might as well Pagong the other tribe. I would like to see the constantly shifting voting blocs as in Survivor: Cambodia. At least players there played hard and hard to tell who would be going home.
interesting. love how aubrey looks straight at ciera like damn….this is your fault.
Haha exactly!
I like this new twist
I’m really interested to see how this plays out. I have been so tired of alliances splitting votes at essentially every tribal council to protect themselves from idol play. Shake up the majority alliance a little bit!
Once again I think Jeff Probst has sensed a problem and rushed into a flawed solution that will make things less interesting. If someone is a swing vote they can refuse to make a decision by voting for someone random.
I think it is a bad idea
Something that might come into play that is interesting is the thought of a minority alliance forcing a tie. If someone gets word of 2 people in a minority alliance being targeted, the minority alliance can rearrange their own votes to force a tie between those two people in the minority alliance and then force a rock draw by not coming to a unanimous decision.
So even if the alliance numbers are 7 against 3. If 7 tried to split the vote 4-3 just to be safe, one of the minority alliance members could switch their vote making it 4-4 and keep both members safe.
It’s an interesting loophole to this new gameplay and I’m curious to see if or when it will play out.
Wow great idea. Very risky but also very rewarding if played correctly.
That would be a good idea, but unless a minority alliance has an equal number of votes as the majority alliance, which is impossible, it won’t work. It would only work if the majority alliance split it’s votes, which it won’t do under the new rules.
What is Jeff thinking? Why on earth would he discourage people from flipping? Now people aren’t going to be willing to split the votes, which means instead of a minority alliance facing half of the majority alliance, it now has to beat the whole thing. One person cannot change the game, it will require a greater number of people to do so. Idiot Jeff. This season had promise! It would truly take a game changer to take the risk of going straight to rocks. Thanks for casting Sierra Dawn-Thomas, the woman who passed up many opportunities to flip!
You are right about the vote split, but on the other hand a small alliance that previously couldn’t use an idol because of the fear of split vote will now have bigger odds to play it correctly (wentworth in Cambodia style votes will happen more often). But overall I agree, we will have to wait and see how it affects this season.
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