Survivor season rankings: All Survivor seasons, ranked

12. Winners at War

The show heard fans’ cries for an all-winners season and season 40 delivered right before the show’s 20-year anniversary. The cast was stacked from big-time names like Boston Rob, Parvati, and Sandra while also bringing back some of the best-ever winners like Kim and Tony and throwing in some of the more underrated names like Sophie and Denise.

While the case was amazing and made for a fun watch on a weekly basis, Winners at War had its fair share of flaws, which is why it’s ranked just outside the top ten. For one, the Edge of Extinction is a terrible twist and allows a player voted out to have a strong shot at winning the game with all of the jury connections they build while on the Edge.

Second, the editing was a mess, but that’s to be expected when the Edge of Extinction exists and wrongfully robs players who are still in the game of air time. It was difficult to follow who was aligned with who each week and that was frustrating for the viewers.

Third, the old school players were taken out early and that was unfortunate. Survivor is a new school game now and we all knew that, but it’d have been nice to see Parvati, Rob, and Sandra stick around longer.

BUT, even with all of those knocks on the season, we were still treated to a fun season that took our minds off of a global pandemic. We had moments like Denise slaying the queen, Adam trying to play the podium at tribal council, and got to see all of our favorites play what could be one final time.

The best part about Winners at War was that Tony truly deserved to win and when the votes were read, he was crowned the show’s second two-time winner. While this season might not age well, during the initial airing of it, it was hard not to be on the edge of our seats week after week.