It's been six months since we learned which of our favorite players would be flying to Fiji to compete on Survivor 50. But now that Survivor 49 has wrapped up and the full cast list is official, we also got our first look at what's to come for the milestone season.
While there's a lot to unpack there—Billie Eilish Boomerang Idol?—the most interesting thing is seeing how our players (some of which haven't played in 25 years) are approaching the game this time around, and how they will deal with players like Savannah Louie and Rizo Velovic, whose game will be a mystery to the other players.
Savannah Louie and Rizo Velovic have an advantage over everyone else in Survivor 50
The turnaround time from Savannah's win to their return to Fiji was only 21 days—less time than they were even out there for either season. This means that none of their competitors know what type of game they played.
While it might seem a little intense and chaotic that they're immediately going from one game to the next, that's actually going to be another major advantage for them.
We always hear about Survivor players returning from the show and taking a while to remove the game mentality from their everyday lives. All of our other players have had the time to isolate Survivor-mode from their mindsets, but Savannah and Rizo never really left the island.
While it's likely that host Jeff Probst introduces Savannah to the group as the latest Sole Survivor and probably mentions Rizo went out at fire—so everyone knows how they placed at least—he's not going to spend an hour on the marooning beach plotting out every detail of their game so everyone's caught up. No one will know about Rizo's incredible immunity idol play. No one will know about Savannah's strategic social withholding, and no one will know that they were day 1 allies.
They're deeper in this game than anyone else is even prepared for and no one knows what to expect from them, which makes them both the most dangerous players out there and the ones everyone else is going to want to have on their side. On top of that, they've each how the other 23 players navigate the game while only one other player has seen how they operate within the game. That's huge.
There's pretty good odds that we might have the first back-to-back winner in Survivor history, but we'll have to wait until February to find out.
Looking at the full cast, there are some players on Survivor 50 who built their game around the strategy first demonstrated by others joining them. We know players like Colby Donaldson and Ozzy Lusth shaped the game for our future strong providers like Jonathan Young and Joe Hunter. But in the new era of Survivor, will Ozzy's role at camp be as necessary as it once was, or will he be an immediate threat who needs to go?
Same with well-known socially savvy players like Cirie Fields and Dee Valladares—who already won once from her great social game. Everyone knows exactly the kind of game they're capable of, so how high of a chance do they really have to make it to the end?
Or course, Cirie previously revealed that this will be the "best season ever," which leads us to think that she at least makes it to the jury, earning the ability to witness the entire season unfold.
Part of the reason this season might be revered so highly by its players is because there are two massive wildcards in the cast that are going to shake up the game with their presence alone.
Survivor 50 premieres on Feb. 25, 2026, on CBS and Paramount+.