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With Heroes vs. Villains coming up I've decided to come up with a quick write up about my intuition on Natalie and the others before the new season. I didn't study all the post-game interviews for every single contestant like I tried to do in the past, so if there are any mistakes or any special notes to bring up go ahead and do so 1. James "J.T." Thomas, Jr. 2. Parvati Shallow 3. Yul Kwon 4. Todd Herzog 5. Earl Cole 6. Danni Boatwright 7. Chris Daughtery 8. Jenna Morasca 9. Tom Westman 10. Aras Baskauskas 11. Natalie White 12. Robert "Bob" Crowley 13. Sandra-Diaz Twine 14. Vecepia Towery 15. Amber (Brkich) Mariano 16. Ethan Zohn 17. Brian Heidik 18. Richard Hatch 19. Tina Wesson Natalie Natalie is very similar to Amber as a player. Both of them are sweet and beautiful girls with very strong social games, solid challenge abilities, and above average strategic games. They are very complete players, and I think each would go far in many different games. I put Natalie higher than Amber though, because Natalie had more experience and Survivor knowledge than ASS Amber. Natalie is a fan of the show, and after 19 seasons of watching different strategies and situations, obviously she's got an advantage over former winners who had a lot less 2nd hand experience. I was most impressed with Natalie when she told Mick or Jaison back at Foa Foa before the merge and when they were down in numbers that they could totally make a comeback. That not even considering giving up and that positive constructive attitude is not only a winning one, but also demonstrated that she knows that anything can happen in Survivor. Key differences in Natalie and Amber's game are that Amber had the advantage of being a non-threat respective to the larger reputations in All-Stars, and Amber used seduction as a strategy (it bagged her Rob which snowballed into a full blown real romance that won her the game). Both Amber and Natalie also did ride coattails to an extent. Unlike others though, I've always felt riding coattails or playing 2nd in command is a viable and respectable strategy if it gets you the win. On day 1 of watching Samoa, I was like Natalie can totally win if Russell is dumb enough to take a nice beautiful girl to the finals, and he turns out to be a goat (which was likely), then she's gonna win Natalie's main weakness was relying too much on Russell. An alliance can make or break you, and when you decide to trust and rely on somebody that much, you could be making a game winning move or a game ending blunder. A final 2 alliance is always a high risk, high reward move. That said, if it works out, then it's great. And obviously in Natalie's case, I'd have to agree with Russell by far her best move was allying with Russell. Her possibly being the main reason why the vote got switched to Erik was large too, but getting Russell on her side and him being foolish enough to wanting to take her to the end was far more profitable. So there's always luck involved in that, and in this case, Natalie's luck was near perfect, because Russell and Mick were the perfect trio to go to the end with. Mick became the first real male Amanda finalist and has given one of the worst jury performances I've ever seen. It was shocking how much he absolutely crumbled, since he arguably played a decent outlasting game. Russell I thought gave a decent jury performance. It wasn't bad, and it wasn't great. In certain seasons, he could've won with that jury performance. Same with Natalie. She gave a solid jury performance. It wasn't amazing but it was solid, and she did well to highlight her strengths and promote herself but in a non-offensive way. By far, Russell played one of the most amazing games I've seen to date, but his fatal flaw was taking likeable girl to the end who probably had no business making the merge, and let her have all the face time and jury managing opportunities while he saved his tribe's butt finding idols and fooling Galu. That is a massive mistake. I actually sympathize with Russell there, because it sucks to do all the work and to dominate and control the game like he did and lose, but that's the game. Survivor is not fair, and Survivor's winning criteria is not who Outwits, Outplays, and Outlasts the best. Survivor's winning criteria is quite simple: 1. Outlast 2. Get Lucky With The Jury You can influence a jury with social game, dazzling them strategically, or getting rid of people in ways that will give you votes, and so on...but there are no guarantees with a subjective-minded jury composed of distinct individuals will vote based on criteria that can NEVER be pointed with 100% certainty. It can be pick a number. It can be, "I want to vote for strong women". It can be, "I want to vote for somebody with a good work ethic and made camp life more bearable". It can be, "I want to vote for somebody who needs the money the most". And so on The reason why Natalie is below 8 of the other winners is that the rest of them demonstrated more skills generally (challenge ability, providing, strategic know-how, etc.). From a ranking standpoint, it's harder to gauge the depth of a winner's skill when they didn't need to step up and play more aggressive games. I don't take away credit for riding coattails if it's the best strategy for them to win, but I also can't also credit and assume that they are brilliant strategists or persuasive geniuses either. Why does Natalie rank higher than others? Natalie vs. Tina - Same type of player, but Natalie has got beauty and youth on her side, had seen more Survivor strategy than Tina could've experienced back when Tina won (not her fault, but a fact), and overcame way more odds like a 8-4 minority at the merge. They're similar in many other aspects. They were both active strategists and social players, had key male allies who helped them when they were vulnerable and also brought them to the finals Natalie vs. Richard - The main reason why Hatch is ranked lower is lack of Survivor strategic knowledge. Natalie knew more about the possibilities of the game coming into her season than Hatch could possibly know when he first player. Hatch could be a much better player now, but as far as Borneo Hatch goes probably not. Depending on the situation, Hatch would do more effectively in groups which valued providing abilities and could deal with his arrogant personality. Natalie would do better in groups that underestimated likeable females and arguably more complex and random strategic scenarios like Survivors that involve final 3s or immunity idols Natalie vs. Brian - Similar to Hatch and Russell, Survivors where a jury can't stand the arrogant or the specific type of social gameplay of the more aggressive dominating male types are juries that would not reward Brian and Natalie would have the edge. Juries where the majority respect aggressive gameplay, overt control, providing ability, etc. would probably favor Brian. However, Brian didn't seem to schmooze over Sook Jai at all (at least as portrayed), and Natalie displayed a decent amount of skills where I think she'd win out over Brian the majority of the time. And again, as all the other winners, Natalie has more watching experience to work with. I'm not going to repeat this but it goes for all the others I'll be comparing her to (even those I ranked above her) Natalie vs. Ethan - This is a tougher match, and I can see Ethan doing better than Natalie in several scenarios, but overall I give Natalie the edge because Ethan gave a worse jury performance. They both relied heavily on their alliances, but Natalie had a 8-4 merge disadvantage, and Ethan could possibly have lost his merge advantage. Ethan's a better athlete though, but he didn't dominate in challenges and Natalie while no force didn't show any significant weaknesses as a challenger Natalie vs. Vecepia - This is where it starts to get tough, because Vecepia played a much more aggressive and independent game. She also won more individual challenges than Natalie. Vecepia also won in a season where the competition was way less naive about the game and like Natalie overcame tremendous odds despite starting off on a loser tribe. Both women know how to blindside. Like the other winners, they are both strong socially and strategically. I give Natalie the edge mainly because of the 2nd hand experience of watching more seasons. Natalie showed enough independent spirit when she asked Galu to get rid of Erik, for me to feel she is not a complete sheep or couldn't play the game differently if Russell was on Samoa Natalie vs. Sandra - The only reason why Sandra is ranked so low is that she is weak in physical challenges and possibly all types of challenges, and thus needs to be taken to the end in most of the scenarios. Sandra is one of the strongest strategic players I've seen, so she is a unique case. If Sandra has enough luck to get to the merge though, then she'd probably win more than Natalie. I give the edge to Natalie, because she'd probably be less of a target at the start than Sandra is most scenarios Natalie vs. Bob - Bob's edge is that he can make fake idols, and he was a good provider. Natalie was probably a better social player, and highly likely a better strategic player though. Natalie was actually more active in controlling the game than Bob ever was. Sugar taking Bob to the end is much more of a lucky situation than Russell taking Natalie to the end in my opinion. Mostly because Sugar's reason for taking Bob was unique and downright stupid (from a winning perspective), whereas Russell taking Natalie to the end was more questionable. It wasn't his best move, but it was a lot more reasonable