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Russell made the headline moves, but he wouldn't have survived long if he hadn't had Natalie, Mick, and Jaison protecting his back from others. Whenever there was a thought of voting Russell out, each of them discouraged it, and certainly not just because Russell told them to. (No doubt Russell thought that was the case, but that's because part of the strategy was to have Russell underestimate them, particularly for Natalie.) Yes, Russell played extremely well in finding the hidden immunities, but the truth is that he was scrambling aimlessly during the first two TC's following the merge. It was Natalie who approached the Galu women to turn the tables on Erik. Even if, as Russell claims, he was aware of this move, it was up to Natalie to pull it off. Russell got lucky when the Galu voted for him the next TC, or else he would have wasted his idol while Jaison or Natalie went home. (True, Natalie got lucky too, but then maybe there's a reason Russell was targeted.)

Sure, Russell convinced John to sell out Laura, but he didn't have to work very hard to do so. But, as the tribe thinned, the key was preventing the paranoia from breaking up the alliance too soon, all while Natalie convinced Russell that she was completely loyal and "not a threat". As others have mentioned, Russell was not targeted by the other Foa Foa because they all saw him as the goat. They all knew he could not win with the way he was poisoning the jury against him.

Natalie, in the meantime, made real connections with the other players before they joined the jury. This is the essence of why she won. And the bonus was that Russell totally discounted what she was doing because she painted it to him as being his spy. That's the genius of her strategy, accomplishing two kills with one stone. She was setting herself up for the win all the while she was keeping her goat convinced that she was purely his pawn. And it wasn't just Russell obviously since Mick and Jaison turned on each other instead, preferring to face Natalie than the other. The ironic thing is that both Mick and Jaison seemed to be playing with the same game plan as Natalie except that neither developed personal ties with the jury. Given that, those two probably should have overthrown Russell because they needed to build a case for a win with the jury, and they failed, partly because Natalie stuck with Russell making a coup somewhat dangerous when it wasn't strictly necessary given that each thought that Natalie was a nobody and Russell a goat.

It isn't a splashy strategy, and it doesn't translate well over the course of the season, but it is very effective. If Russell was as good a player as he thought he was, he would have seen that Natalie was making too many friends to be a safe jury opponent, but he allowed himself to be blinded by his own arrogance on the "superiority" of his own gameplay. Dumping Shambo was probably his biggest mistake because it left him with few good options. It would have been interesting to know whether Russell would have beaten Mick in a two person final TC.