Though it was telegraphed well in the edit, we need to provide the Survivor: Winners at War episode 11 voting results to discuss a brilliant move.
This piece will discuss the Survivor: Winners at War episode 11 voting results for “This Is Extortion,” while providing the full results of the show’s Tribal Council.
When players pull off crazy moves in Survivor, they’re not necessarily thinking about how intricate, convoluted, or masterclass their attempts are at that moment. As Cirie Fields pointed out today, she wasn’t necessarily thinking how excellently crafted her 3-2-1 vote maneuver in Survivor: Panama — Exile Island was; she just needed to get a majority vote in a potential tie scenario.
That said, if there’s one player who will think through all their scenarios possible multiple times over before trying to pull them off, it would be Tony Vlachos. His winning game in Survivor: Cagayan involved strategizing through the night and planning his next move while others were sleeping, so it only makes sense that his Winners at War emergence comes in a similar fashion in episode 11.
Tony had already found a Hidden Immunity Idol at the beginning of the episode, and having that knowledge allowed him to play double agent with Kim’s minority alliance all day. However, his winning immunity for the second-straight week gave him the opportunity to use up his social capital to implement a blindside.
With the majority’s plan being to throw two votes onto Michele and the rest voting Jeremy, the stars aligned for Tony to split the difference. He already gained a fire token from Jeremy, Nick, and Ben each to avoid the Extortion Advantage (something we’ll discuss fully in due time), so he knew that he was capable of finding four people out of nine in the game to make a majority group.
Waiting until the last minutes before Tribal Council, Tony went over to Nick and convinced him to vote alongside Tony, Jeremy, and Michele to blindside Sophie. With Nick’s blessing, Tony spilled the real voting plans to Jeremy, who was under the pretense that Tony, Kim, Denise, and Michele were voting out Ben alongside him.
It was a necessary last-minute move for Tony, although risky. He knew that if Kim and Sarah were voting for Michele and Denise, Sophie and Ben were voting for Jeremy, that would be a majority of five splitting their votes two ways, allowing his group of four to come out on top. In his mind, it would also mean getting Jeremy to save himself by jumping onboard while also taking out Sophie, who had been getting too close to his Cops-R-Us ally, Sarah.
These are the Survivor: Winners at War episode 11 voting results, broken down by player receiving votes and who voted from whom:
- Four votes for Sophie Clarke (Nick, Tony, Michele, Jeremy)
- Three votes for Jeremy Collins (Ben, Sophie, Denise)
- Two votes for Michele Fitzgerald (Sarah, Kim)
Tony has burnt a lot of bridges by pulling off this move, and he doesn’t necessarily have a Trish this season to help calm down those angry with him. However, he is pulling off such a move to force a Final Eight where he has shields on both sides working for and against him. If there’s someone who can navigate the chaos, it’s somebody who won in an even crazier fashion!
Plus, this 4-3-2 split vote maneuver will go down as one of the best in Survivor history, especially since it required social manipulation, strategy, and zero idols or advantages to pull it off.