The much anticipated Winners at War season starts tonight with 20 former winners returning for the first-ever $2 million prize.

A few years ago I ran a few seasons of a pick'em game that many people joined in on. I had to abandon it in the fall of 2016 after getting in a car wreck, but thought I'd throw it out there with the season about to begin.

The Rules:

• Pick a team of 5 people - at least 2 of each gender
• How they perform throughout the game gets you points
• All picks have to be emailed to me at txagssurvivor@mail.com before the 2nd episode airs on Wednesday, February 19, at 7 pm CDT
• Once I've got all the picks, I'll make a spreadsheet and update it weekly.
• Don't post your picks here, EMAIL THEM.
• Post a message when you've made your picks so I can make sure I got them.

Pre-Merge Points

• Tribe wins immunity - 1 point
• Player finds HII - 2 points
• Player finds an advantage - 2 points
• Player uses an advantage to vote someone out (pre-merge) - 2 points
• Player uses advantage to save themselves (pre-merge) - 3 points
• Player uses HII to save themselves or someone else successfully (pre-merge) 3 points

Player makes the merge - 5 points

Post-Merge Points

• Win Individual Immunity - 5 points
• Player finds HII - 3 points
• Player finds an advantage - 3 points
• Player uses an advantage to vote someone out - 4 points
• Player uses HII to save themselves or someone else successfully: 4 points

Edge of Extinction Bonus
Players wins EoE Challenge to get back into the game - 5 points


Top 6 Bonus

• 6th place - 2 points
• 5th place - 4 points
• 4th place - 6 points
• 3rd place - 8 points
• 2nd place - 10 points
• 1st place - 15 points

List of Players
Natalie
Tyson
Danni
Sophie
Jeremy
Sandra
Ben
Michele
Wendell
Adam
Yul
Sarah
Amber
Rob
Parvati
Kim
Denise
Tony
Nick
Ethan

Why wait until the second episode?
We should know who's out there.

I guess it has more to do with the timing of this thread.

Because not everyone can watch it tonight.

First?

Can I pick Parvati five times?

Can I pick names only in Mambo No. 5?

Why not use the survivor draft site?

That was liking watching Infinity War for Survivor fans. Really impressed with how many people they got to come back and to do so before any of them were clearly over the hill - nobody is older than mid-40s I think.

Boston Rob blew me away with his strength in the water. Survivor is always the great showcase of people with strength from years of physical labor vs. people with strength from working out in the gym, but only so they can work out in a gym.

I really like Yul, he was one of my favorite players ever. Never gets irrational. Think I'll root for him. Unbelievable how hot Parvati is 10 months after having a baby. Tells everyone she isn't going to flirt, flirts with Rob 10 minutes into the game.

I also enjoy how self-aware Tony has become. One of my favorite all-time moments is him doing a puzzle with no clue what he was doing and then telling the camera "I could have stood there all day, I wasn't going to solve that thing."

If you guys want to play the pick'em, I'm all for keeping score. Otherwise, really looking forward to the season.

Tony Franklins Other Shoe said:

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First?

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Got your picks, thanks!

Is Sandra really that butt hurt or is that just her on screen ***** act?

It is pretty telling how the "older game" players acknowledge how they are sprinting just trying to keep up.

I too thought Rob was gonna blow an ankle out or rip a muscle doing the challenges. The guy balls out.

bbattbq01 said:

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Good first episode. Obviously Rob and Amber we're going to be in trouble. Rob is just so good at survivor.

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Best ever, IMO. As far as I'm concerned, he's a legit 2 time winner. He carried Amber that season and proposed to her before she won.


The way he got Ben to spill his guts was pretty impressive. Rob is intimidating without being overt about it.

I liked it. It may just seeing some of these people back after so long but I dont care.

While EoE is terrible I totally get it for this this season. These players need a little something extra if they are going to take 7 weeks away from their families.

Does anyone REALLY believe that Rob didnt tell Sandra he was going to play in S40? I feel like thats a load of crap.

Great to see some of the older players back in the game - Ethan and Yul have been away for years.

I'm not a Rob fan. The overall love for him drives me nuts. They had to give him a season for idiots for him to win and it was his 4th try.

Natalie was one of my winner picks. Really didnt see her going out so early. She is such a beast in comps. I hope she makes it back in the game.

Tony Franklins Other Shoe said:

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Is Sandra really that butt hurt or is that just her on screen ***** act?

It is pretty telling how the "older game" players acknowledge how they are sprinting just trying to keep up.

I too thought Rob was gonna blow an ankle out or rip a muscle doing the challenges. The guy balls out.

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Sandra may have invented it to get the heat off her, because any normal group of people should vote her out first - she's won twice! But she makes Rob the bad guy - he's sneaky and a liar, and by proxy his wife is the same way, and here's our first target while Sandra, a terrible physical competitor, gets through that tenuous first vote and starts working alliances and numbers and let's discuss all these threats who aren't me.

How many cameras will be pointed at Rob's face for his reaction at the first reward challenge next week when he doesn't see Amber?

Rob will probably find out before the challenge since he will receive Amber's fire token. My theory is that no advantages can be found on the main island(s) but can only be "gifted" by people who find them on EoE.

This creates a very compelling angle with Amber spending a large majority of the game on EoE. She will almost certainly give every advantage she finds to Rob unless for some reason she thinks it could backfire. For her, Rob winning is every bit as good as her winning.

Interesting since supposedly one of the only rules of Survivor is you can't conspire with another cast member to split the money. That is effectively what they are doing since they are married.

Good call on the tokens. Given the "poker alliance" narrative I actually was thinking what if 4 of them or more said - let's pool our efforts to winning this and split the money 3-4 ways. Especially once they found out it was $2 million at stake.

Assuming Sandra won't win again (after all, she was basically carried twice), will she stop calling herself queen when there is another 2 time winner who beat her head to head?

All Star seasons are the best. It's just a different pace of play. Heroes v Villains was an all-timer, and this just had the cast makeup to be a next-level entertaining season.

I continue to watch The Challenge on MTV pit the same folks against each other, and I'd certainly watch Survivor pit a recurring crew repetitively against each other in a more cerebral game with differing results. It's cheap to produce, and they could do more off-cycle summer stunt seasons the way the Bachelor has franchised.

Anyone notice the fire tokens (2) in the skull's eyes of the immunity trophy? Hiding in plane sight a al China with James finding the 2 immunity tiles above the camp archways.

LHIOB said:

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I liked it. It may just seeing some of these people back after so long but I dont care.

While EoE is terrible I totally get it for this this season. These players need a little something extra if they are going to take 7 weeks away from their families.

Does anyone REALLY believe that Rob didnt tell Sandra he was going to play in S40? I feel like thats a load of crap.

Great to see some of the older players back in the game - Ethan and Yul have been away for years.

I'm not a Rob fan. The overall love for him drives me nuts. They had to give him a season for idiots for him to win and it was his 4th try.

Natalie was one of my winner picks. Really didnt see her going out so early. She is such a beast in comps. I hope she makes it back in the game.

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I think EoE was horrible the last time, but I also think it works well for this season.
Edge of Extinction works well in a All Winners season, or a legends/celebrity season. These people are all superstars and ultimately the tv viewing audience wants to see these people.

I don't mind a losers bracket, but they should only bring people back at the merge, and at maybe 7 players left.

I like the idea of tokens. I think this will be a nice twist to the game.
One of the things being mentioned is that many of these players already know each other and have pre-formed alliances.

My pick for the winners is the female cop; Sarah.

Lots of cool extras from Dalton Ross

https://ew.com/recap/survivor-season-40-premiere/

I got your picks Tallgrant - thanks

got your picks Agsquirrel97 - thanks - feel like you either won or finished in the top 3 of the Game of Thrones picks last year.

I'm also looking closely at the editing this season: bit of a head fake when they wanted us to believe one of the "poker" players was on the chopping block when in fact Amber was the clear choice.

A shot across the bow of Rob.

No doubt Rob will get blindsided soon with Sandra and Parvati to follow. Then they will get on more of an, "even ground" and more normal game will develop.

Of course, as usual, I could be wrong...

http://insidesurvivor.com/survivor-winners-at-war-edit-bay-episode-1-42652

I always like to try to read into the editing too!

Southlake said:

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I'm also looking closely at the editing this season: bit of a head fake when they wanted us to believe one of the "poker" players was on the chopping block when in fact Amber was the clear choice.

A shot across the bow of Rob.

No doubt Rob will get blindsided soon with Sandra and Parvati to follow. Then they will get on more of an, "even ground" and more normal game will develop.

Of course, as usual, I could be wrong...

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Isn't amber by proxy part of the poker alliance?

Rob isn't my favorite player. That would probably be Ben (Marine with PTSD). But I don't think he's the best. We all have biases, but that's not why I think Rob is the best.

Maybe I used the wrong term, my point is that Rob is pretty much a defacto 2 time winner. He won himself and then basically carried Amber with him to the top 2 (and proposed). Basically either way he'd win that final. The reason Amber got voted out this season was because of Rob. Not because she was an outstanding player herself or was sucking in challenges. Clearly the rest of the cast think of him as a threat. The fact that past season successes factor into the current season clouds who is really the best or not. I think that if every player went into a given season blind about the other players, then Rob would have a higher probability of winning than anybody else. That is why I think he's the best. Of course there is no way to prove that, I'm just going on what I see each season. I don't think he is the clear best, but edges out Parvarti, Cochran, and couple others.

Sandra self proclaiming herself the queen of survivor is like Bill Russell claiming he is the best NBA player of all time because he has the most rings. Nobody in their right mind thinks that. Hell Robert Horry has more rings than Michael Jordon, does that mean he is a better player? Clearly not. He's not even in the hall of fame.

If you are going to count the times that Rob got voted out early, then you have to include the time Sandra got voted out early. If you average up all their finishes, she isn't close to being number one. A lot of players played once and won once. So they have a 1st place average. But even if you include only multi-time players, Parvarti got 1st, 2nd, and 6th (3rd place average) and Cochran got 10th and 1st (5 average) while Sandra 1st, 1st, and 15th (5.66 average). However, I think it is foolish to ONLY go on where they finish (and especially foolish to only pick 2 out of their 3). It's better to just look at how they they play since luck is a huge factor in Survivor.

There, Sandra is an embarrassment. She sucks at challenges, so she has to hope like hell her team makes the merge so that she can be carried by others as a non-threat. People then argue that her cunning keeps her in the game past that, yet her plans almost always failed. In her first win, she was carried to the end and chosen over Fairplay because she was weak. Yet she won because the other person in the final 2 with her was already voted out once and was brought back by that ridiculous "outcast" BS. In her Hero/Villian season, she was carried by Russell to the end and merely earned the sympathy vote because everybody hated Parvarti and Russell by then (because they were the reason the jury was voted out.. Sandra did nothing). Both were despite her efforts, not because of them.


Now, if both Rob and Sandra make the merge, I expect Rob to be voted out ahead of Sandra because he is a both a challenge and strategy threat. Sandra is neither. I think there is a high chance that Sandra doesn't make the merge (unless her tribe carries her in Challenges). But again, people are playing with knowledge of past seasons. If everybody were going into it blind, then I would give Rob a pretty damned high chance of winning the whole thing. But that is not the world we live in.

Sandra might not be the best player, but she's the most successful. Just because she's a ***** doesn't mean she's not a great player.
Survivor is not a team sport, basketball is. The individual is all that matters in Survivor. The only barometer in Survivor is winning the competition and the money. I can probably name 20 winners out of 40 seasons, but I can't think of more than 3-4 runners-up.

Basketball is different things to different people. Some want to be the greatest player ever. Some want to make the most money. Some want to win the most titles. By the barometer of most titles won, which most guys say is what they really want, Bill Russell is the most successful player ever, and by that singular statistic, Robert Horry is more successful than Michael Jordan.

tx1c and whoever "John" is - I got your picks. If you want to play the PIckem you have until Wednesday at 659 PM CDT to get them (post at top of thread has rules) - we are rapidly approaching double digit competitors

Oh snap, Russell Hantz kneepads are back.

picks sent!

MuckRaker96 said:

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Sandra might not be the best player, but she's the most successful lucky. Just because she's a ***** doesn't mean she's not a great player.
Survivor is not a team sport, basketball is. The individual is all that matters in Survivor. The only barometer in Survivor is winning the competition and the money. I can probably name 20 winners out of 40 seasons, but I can't think of more than 3-4 runners-up.

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FIFY. (And yes luck is huge part of the game. But don't let Sandra sell you on it being her skill.)

Quote:

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Basketball is different things to different people. Some want to be the greatest player ever. Some want to make the most money. Some want to win the most titles. By the barometer of most titles won, which most guys say is what they really want, Bill Russell is the most successful player ever, and by that singular statistic, Robert Horry is more successful than Michael Jordan.

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I bet Robert Horry himself wishes he was Michael Jordan. I highly doubt Rob wishes he was Sandra.

expresswrittenconsent said:

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Oh snap, Russell Hantz kneepads are back.

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I don't think Russell is the best.