Survivor Season 41 episode 5 power rankings

Survivor Season 41 is fully in the thick of things. We’re nearing the merge stage of the game where things will start to really pick up. That means players are trying to solidify alliances and accumulate as many advantages as possible.

To that end, we saw Shantel “Shan” Smith and Ricard Foye playing a dangerous game trying to outplay each other on Ua beach. Of course, it didn’t end up majorly hurting either of them, but that potential loss of trust has definitely impacted our rankings. That said, power rankings tend to explode at the merge, so take the below with a hefty grain of salt.

Survivor Season 41 power rankings: Week 5

Out) Genie Chen (Last: 11) – Once Ua lost another immunity challenge, this was the most likely outcome. Doubly so with Genie choosing not to take that advantage for herself. She’s not the worst player on the season, but the writing has been on the wall for weeks now that she wasn’t going to be a major player in this season of Survivor.

12) Heather Aldret (Last: 13) – Well, the Heather content was good while it lasted. Another week, another ghosting from Survivor editors. She’s probably not being voted out anytime soon but she has, in the words of Spencer Bledsoe, “zero percent chance of winning the game.”

11) Erika Casupanan (Last: 12) – Erika is in the same boat as Heather. She might not be in too much trouble, but what’s the point behind voting her off right now? She isn’t winning, but we’d be surprised if she’s a merge boot.

10) Tiffany Seely (Last: 9) – Tiff is just too erratic to be seen as a reliable ally at this point. The school teacher is all over the place this season. That’s not the person you want in your alliance heading into the merge. She probably survives the first few boots, but we think Evvie Jagoda and Liana Wallace will cut her sooner than later.

9) Xander Hastings (Last: 8) – Xander is the classic merge boot. He’s a young, athletic man with known advantages. Without question, he’ll be a target for just about everyone. Now, can they actually get him out? That remains to be seen, but you can bet the farm that they’ll try when they have a chance.

8) Naseer Muttalif (Last: 8) – Naseer has an idol now. Factor in that he’s on the dominant tribe in terms of numbers and he’s probably in a good place for now. That said, he has beasted a few competitions this season, so he’s going to be seen as a threat. It’s hard to see a path for him to win, but we’re hoping it happens. Naseer is just incredible television.

7) Danny McCray (Last: 7) – Danny is somewhat similar to Xander in terms of being an athletic man that’s classically seen as chopped liver once we hit the merge. However, he’s not nearly as visible as Xander as a threat in the edit we’re seeing. Instead, he’s insulated by a powerful alliance that he isn’t seen as the head honcho for. We can definitely see Danny making a run deep into this game.

6) Liana Wallace (Last: 6) – Not too much Liana content in this episode, but she’s definitely in a decent spot heading into whatever variation on a merge we have coming this week. She’s firm with Evvie, who has a potential cross-tribal alliance with Deshawn Radden. It’s easy to see a path for her to get to the end, she’ll just need a few moves to boost her resume if she wants to win.

5) Deshawn Radden (Last: 5) – Deshawn looks to have a good relationship with everyone on the Luvu tribe. That likely means he’ll be fine with whatever comes with the merge. From there, he has room to operate and could take control of the game if he plays it well. That said, we haven’t seen much from him strategically, which could turn into a problem.

4) Sydney Segal (Last: 3) – We’re dropping Sydney by one spot simply because we haven’t seen her strategize. Much like Deshawn, she’s in a great spot and has had confessionals in every episode. That lets us know she’ll likely play a big part in the game going forward, but it’s hard to predict her as a winner without knowing more about how she’ll play when she actually has to go to tribal.

3) Shantel “Shan” Smith (Last: 1) – Shan is out of the top spot because it feels like she overplayed with Ricard this week. Knowing you’re going to be in a tight twosome with whoever you don’t vote out from Ua last week means you want to be on great terms with them. Putting pressure on Ricard to give her all of the advantages feels like a mistake. She could very well still win, but we’re less bullish on her after that play.

2) Ricard Foye (Last: 4) – On the other hand, we’re nearly all-in on Ricard after he stood firm to Shan’s pressure last week. He hasn’t really been shown to be the driving force behind their duo, but this week we saw him take a stand and get his way. That could hurt the two going forward, but it was a smart move from Ricard that shows he’s ready to take his game to another level in the merge.

1) Evvie Jagoda (Last: 2) – Evvie is back on top ladies and gentlemen. They didn’t really do much this week, but Shan’s overplay has put Evvie in the top spot for us. They have strong alliances both in and out of their tribe and have shown they have the skills to perform when it’s time to vote. Look for a deep run, if not a victory for this Ph. D student.