Survivor Winners at War: Ranking all 20 performances from season 40

2. Sarah Lacina

In Game Changers, Sarah played a strategic and cutthroat game to prove victorious. She was able to deceive several allies, use advantages correctly while staying under the radar. It was fun to watch Sarah’s different approach in Winners at War. She still had a fierce drive to win and wasn’t afraid to lie, but she clearly played a much more socially aware game.

In pre-game interviews, Sarah’s name came up as the person that the Winners at War contestants wanted out first. She was able to shatter that reputation of being a conniving player by building genuine friendships from Day 1, especially with Tony, Sophie, Kim, and Ben. That put her in a great position when the merge came.

Spending a lot of time with Sophie and Kim somehow made everyone forget that Tony and Sarah were working together. That prevented her name from surfacing for a majority of the merge. After Tony blindsided her by taking out Sophie, Sarah’s concentrated frustration with him kept Tony at bay. From that point onward they were always on the same page.

Sarah’s tight bond with Ben and Denise allowed her to temporarily bring them in to make sure Cops-R-Us could keep their majority. Their friendship went so deep that Ben willingly fell on his sword for Sarah to advance and expand her resume. Her stirring speech on gender bias was also a brilliant move to begin working on the minds of the jury. If her fire was only slightly stronger, I think Sarah would have been Survivor’s second two-time winner.

Highs:

– Forming perhaps the strongest alliance ever with Tony and Ben
– Playing a top five all-time social game by building several real connections
– Successfully sneaking into Sele’s camp to grab an advantage
– Using her Vote Steal advantage effectively
– Being Tony’s partner in crime with the spy nest
– Having the awareness to tell Tony not to use his idol on her
– Making a pivotal speech at the Final Six Tribal Council
– Being so close with Ben that he allowed her to vote him out
– Blindsiding Tony by taking out Ben

Lows:
– Feeling distraught at times by the way she was perceived in Game Changers
– Getting a little overconfident believing that Natalie didn’t have an idol
– Being so close to winning the Final Four fire-making challenge