Michael Yerger made a bold play that didn’t work in Survivor Ghost Island last week. What would have been a better way to approach a flip situation?
As much as Michael Yerger is an interesting player and a rootable character, his standing in Survivor Ghost Island now sits on uneven territory. Last week, he not only used his Survivor China idol at Tribal Council, but he publicly acknowledged the idol ahead of the vote, lied about the power it held, pleaded to Sebastian and Chelsea to flip, told everyone the Malolo four were going to vote Bradley and to play a game on their own behalf by voting for him, too.
Unfortunately, though he showed a ton of guile in making the play, not only did nobody flip, but he used the idol on the wrong person and got his best friend, Brendan, voted out. Of course, Michael acknowledged that it was a 25% shot that the plan could work even without lying about the idol’s power and trying to flip someone, but could his plan work out if he did things differently?
We’ll go through some options and weigh the pros and cons.
Trying to get Chelsea or Sebastian to flip at camp
Something that we didn’t get to see in the edit was Michael try to go to Desiree directly on Day 11 (the day before Tribal Council) and try to tell her that Bradley viewed her as weak in the past couple of challenges. She said she’d be dumb to flip, as it didn’t work to her game. Unfortunately, it just ended right there and the scene is so awkwardly stilted that it makes sense it wasn’t in the show.
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That’s the reason why Michael targetted Chelsea and Sebastian; he knew Desiree wasn’t going to flip. This makes it even harder to pull off a surprise attack at Tribal Council because Michael is making a blanket call to arms where a personal one-on-one didn’t work.
If he had gone to Sebastian personally and told him Malolo was going to use an idol on one of their own, he would have had shared a secret with a potential ally that showed vulnerability, making it easier to get Sebastian to trust him. Michael was going to reveal (and use) the idol at Tribal Council anyway; why not take time after losing the challenge to make that play on Sea Bass?
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Hiding the vote target at Tribal Council
One possibility Michael Yerger had at the Survivor Ghost Island episode 4 Tribal Council was to say that he was going to use the idol and the four old Malolo players were going to put their votes on somebody, but only confirm among themselves who they would vote for with a signal or a codeword if they felt like somebody was ready to flip.
Betsided
This way, they get to put the idea of paranoia further into their castaways’ heads, noting physically to each other that they’ve switched the vote and whisper the name into somebody’s ear. At that point, it probably becomes a whisper party, and those are fairly annoying. Furthermore, there’s no guarantee that person who flips doesn’t just blurt the details to their alliance. Also, the idea of one of the five Naviti screwing up the vote being the reason they, themselves, are voted out might be an incentive not to pull that off.
Lie about the idol’s powers differently
Granted, Survivor Ghost Island players didn’t get to watch Ben Driebergen play his idol before the votes were cast, meaning they didn’t get to see a historic idol play happen in front of them. They had no idea that you could do such a thing, meaning that this next trick is knowingly cute and a post-facto idea.
Michael already lied about the double idol power, but what if he said he plays the idol for somebody before the votes are cast and then says that he gets to protect another player after the votes are cast? That way, he gets to lie about the double idol protection and instill that fear into the old Naviti players on Malolo as the suggestion to flip becomes more enticing.
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Even in that situation, though, it does appear to be a more complex version of his already brilliant lie, and it’s 12 days into starvation mode to be too complex of a thought to have. Still, in the pantheon of Survivor what-if questions, it’s a relatively recent and interesting debate to be had; could Michael Yerger have willed his way into tricking Naviti to vote out one of their own?