5. Sarah Lacina
After a fairly significant pre-merge phase, Sarah Lacina faded a bit into the background at the merge. Such is the case for everyone actually calling the shots this round not named Sophie, but she still has the ties, the named alliances, and the social bonds to tie her to the middle of the pact. Not being the swing vote and, ultimately, the merge boot in a season with Tony shows that her gameplay has risen.
Yes, this is the third time that Sarah has played in a season featuring Tony Vlachos, yet we didn’t see the roots of Cops-R-Us come into formation. It could have been the fact that there was a lot to unpack in a merge that featured an Edge of Extinction Challenge on top of the regular proceedings, but we did get her perspective as the players dropped their buffs.
The fact that Nick Wilson is targeting her might be enough to shine a spotlight on her game, although her being aware that someone on the bottom is targeting her is good enough of a sign that she’s in control of her fate at this moment. She still has a Vote Steal advantage in her pocket, which might be enough in a Final 11 situation to, at least, force a revote if push came to shove.