With the original Uli tribe now in the majority and 12 players left in Survivor 49, it's that time in the game where—historically—our castaways compete in their first individual challenge for their first chance to earn the merge.
As we're starting to pick up, Survivor 49 is not following the same rules of its new era predecessors, and viewers might be in for a game change in Wednesday's new episode as well.
Spoilers ahead for Survivor 49 episode 6, "The Devil's Shoes."
After Jason Treul was voted out in episode 5, we were treated to the usual "next time on Survivor..." preview. But where we normally get a little peek into what's to come, last week's promo might have revealed much more than the show meant to.
The trailer kicked off with host Jeff Probst announcing, "New tribes. We got a new game." His words allude to another tribe shake-up while the visuals accompanying it—the challenge arena set back up for a three tribe game—confirm our 12 remaining players are being redistributed back into the original 3 tribes: Hina, Uli, and Kele.
And as the first look goes on, it's revealed who makes up these 3 new tribes.
What are the new tribes of Survivor 49?
New Uli: Kristina Mills, Alex Moore, Nate Moore, Sophie Segreti
New Hina: Savannah Louie, Rizo Velovic, Sophi Balerdi, MC Chukwujekwu
New Kele: Sage Ahrens-Nichols, Jawan Pitts, Steven Ramm, Shannon Fairweather
Most recognizably, we can immediately identify all 4 faces of the new Uli tribe during the first challenge clip as Kristina, Alex, Nate, and Sophie work together to push a cart across the arena. Before the cut though, on the far right of the Kele tribe you can easily spot Sage's tall body and long arms also working hard to kick off the challenge.
Then we cut to a clip featuring a chicken jail break, but if you take your eyes away from the escaping chicken, you'll notice Jawan is wearing a blue buff (while he's previously worn red and yellow) and Steven is chasing after the chicken with him. And for a split second you can spot Shannon's back as she jumps away from the escaping hen.
And if those quick glimpses of Sage and Shannon weren't enough confirmation, we're then treated to a full on conversation between the two where Shannon is wearing a blue buff as a shirt and Sage has hers wrapped around her wrist. That leaves Savannah, Rizo, Sophi, and MC as the only players we don't get a straight shot of in the trailer, putting them on the Hina tribe.
What does this mean for the game moving forward?
The fact that Savannah and Rizo keep getting so lucky as to continuously end up on the same tribe together when they're basically each other's no. 1's is a miracle in the game of Survivor. And with Sophi and Savannah's bond after the last swap, MC could be in real trouble if Hina doesn't win immunity this week.
And on the opposite end of the spectrum, how Shannon and Sage keep finding their way to each other when they want nothing more than to snuff out the torch of their original tribe member, is another crazy way Survivor keeps players on their toes. But with Steven already against Shannon's intense game play, all Sage has to do is bring Jawan in and convince him that he is actually on the bottom of Uli with her—something that might be much harder than it sounds considering how deep his loyalty lies—in order to blindside Shannon should Kele lose.
And new Uli is such a random group of players that I can't even begin to guess what moves they might make, but based on previous public impressions, I'd say Sophie is probably in the most trouble of the 4. But we'll have to wait until Wednesday to find out how another tribe swap changes up the game!