We have a tribe swap on the way in Survivor 49 episode 4, "Go Kick Rocks Bro," on Wednesday, Oct. 15. So far, we've seen two previews of the episodes so far, and it seems like we already know who will be on the new tribes.
We have a very interesting scenario in Survivor 49 because we have 14 players left in the game after Jake Latimer was pulled from the game and Jeremiah Ing was voted out in episode 3. We don't have a clean tribe swap for three tribes of five players, so we're either getting two tribes to seven or uneven tribes until the merge.
Conventional thinking seems to be leading everyone to assume that we'll be going down to two tribes of seven players in episode 4.
Survivor 49 preview reveals the new Hina tribe
In the Next Time on Survivor preview at the end of episode 3, Jeff Probst tells the players to drop their buffs to do a tribe swap. We see six players wearing yellow buffs as the trailer continues. Those players are:
- Savannah Louie
- Nate Moore
- Rizo Velovic
- Sophi Balerdi
- Matt Williams
- Jawan Pitts
The sneak peek of the episode also reveals Nate, Jawan, and Sophi are new members of the Hina tribe, officially, so we have to assume that Rizo and Savannah also ended up on the tribe based on their yellow buffs. Matt is the wild card, and we'll talk more about him in a second.
If we have two tribes of seven players, we're still missing one player on the Hina tribe.
We also see three players who appear to be wearing blue buffs, likely representing the Kele tribe, including:
- Shannon Fairweather
- Steven Ramm
- Kristina Mills
That leaves five players still unaccounted for in the previews. Those players include:
- Sophie Segreti
- Jason Treul
- Michelle "MC" Chukwujekwu
- Alex Moore
- Sage Ahren-Nichols
So, we have two scenarios at play. Four of those players – Sophie, Jason, MC, Alex, or Sage – will be joining Shannon, Steven, or Kristina on the Kele tribe, while the other will be joining Savannah, Matt, Nate, Rizo, Jawan and Sophi on the new Hina tribe. Or, that won't happen at all.
There could still three uneven tribes in Survivor 49 after the tribe swap
If you see the challenge setup at the beginning of the Next Time on Survivor preview, you probably noticed that there are three tribe stations, basically. It looks like three tribes are going to compete against each other.
The only way that works is if two tribes have five players, while one tribe has four players. Based on the previews, we know that the Hina tribe has at least five players, including Rizo, Jawan, Sophi, Nate, and Savannah. We know that the Kele tribe has at least three players, including Steven, Kristina, and Shannon.
That means, of those five players plus Matt, one or two would be on the Kele tribe and the rest would be on the Uli tribe.
Again, Matt is the wild card because he's shown in the preview, and it looks like he his part of the new Hina tribe, but he's also part of the old Hina tribe. The clip that they showed in the teaser trailer could definitely be from before the tribe swap to get fans to think he's going to remain on the tribe.
Ultimately, I'm leaning toward the two tribes of seven because I think that's what makes the game the most interesting variation moving forward, but it's going to be really interesting to see how it all goes down in Survivor 49 episode 4 on Wednesday, Oct. 15!