Survivor edgic notes: One major factor common with recent winners

While the editing is an important tool in determining a Survivor winner, one commonality at the merge should show you who shouldn’t win.

There have been many different types of winners in Survivor. There’s been the originator; the creator of the alliance. There’s the woman who usurped the goat from the much-better player, cutting them at the Final Three and using the goat for their own advantage. There’s even the mastermind; the kind of player that has acolytes following their will.

Many players have won the game in many different ways, but when it comes to Survivor edgic, their stories are usually somewhere behind the forefront of the action before and at the merge; just behind the most visible people, but not too far behind. That’s one way of determining who’s likely to win, but upon research, I may have found another universal based on the most recent half of Survivor history.

Ever since Samoa (season 19 aka the beginning of the second half of the show’s history), at the merge Tribal Council the winner has voted in the majority plan all but once. This includes split-voting to avoid an idol and voting for the majority decision even if the majority of votes are canceled by an idol.

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Only Denise Stapley has made it to the Final Tribal Council and won having voted in the minority at the merge episode. This point of the season is crucial when determining edgic regardless, as the ability to have the game awareness required to align yourself in the majority helps you escape from long-term doom.

It’s kind of fitting that Denise is the only winner in the last 18 seasons to buck this trend. She best exemplifies going against the odds, considering she went to every single Tribal Council of the season, showing how hard she had to work through her impeccable social game to make her winning game thrive against the majority.

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Relating to Survivor Ghost Island, this offers us no answers we don’t already know. Everyone voted in the majority at the merge, as Angela and Desiree voted for Libby in case Chris used an idol to have a 2-1 majority in that instance. Still, for future seasons, unless there’s an alliance-flipping woman who gets that traditional female under-the-radar winner edit, counting out anybody who votes against the merge majority is a huge clue into finding out who wins that season of Survivor.

This piece incorrectly identified Sarah Lacina as a player to buck the trend, where in reality she voted to split with the majority. It has since been updated.