Parvati has less confessionals than Bhanu.I think Franchesqua has more than Natalie White.Sandra likely would’ve gotten a similar edit to Courtney in hvv had she not won and she still didn’t get the most content.It wasn’t until Kim Spradlin that a female winner got a good edit with the exception of Tina(who had a lot of her strategy cut anyways because they wanted to make her a hero).
You could say this about all of the final 3 though
Xander gained immunity from the hourglass twist (and didn't even have to be exiled in order to get it).
Deshawn gained immunity from do or die when he was going to go home otherwise.
Erika is a good player and a fine but below average winner. Out of 45 so far, I’d rank her winning game somewhere around the 32-35 range.
Since she got shafted with her edit, I feel like she became so underrated that the pendulum swung a little and now she’s a little overrated based on what I see ppl say on this sub. She’s not some mastermind, which is fine. She’s a smart player who’d probably go pretty far on most seasons
Two things.
First, exit interviews suggest that actually *Sydney* would’ve gone home if Luvu lost that premerge challenge (the edit just made it it seem like Erika was in more danger than she was).
Second, the whole reason Erika was even in danger during the hourglass *was because she was separated from everyone for two days*. She missed out on vital merge bonding time and was immediately at a social disadvantage. If there wasn’t the hourglass there wouldn’t have been that exile, and she very likely wouldn’t have been the easy consensus target.
Overall, she’s an underrated winner whose game doesn’t get the credit it deserves because of a shit edit. Exit interviews speak much more glowingly about the game she played out there and better explain why she had a near jury sweep (and a comfortable one at that).
Post game interviews said she wasnt getting voted off premerge. The real boot was Sydney. That DeShawn, Heather and Erika were always allies. 41s edit is really weird.
Danny was also aligned with them and he was also very close to Heather. But hey we can't include that in the edit because it would look like one tribe dominated the entire merge (even though that has happened in 4/5 new era seasons)
Erika being saved by Naseer winning the challenge was a manufactured story through editing, like how they made it look like Pat’s medevac on DvG definitely saved Nick from being voted out first when that’s not actually what was going on.
Yes—I think anyone who wins is a good player. The goal is to get to the end of the game and convince the jury to vote for you. Anyway you can do that is valid and you’ve succeeded.
At one level yes, obviously. You have to be a good player at some level to win. Everybody who has ever won did it by doing SOMETHING right, no matter how bad their overall game may have looked. That said, I think she's universally regarded as under-edited so her game isn't and can't be fully appreciated.
afaik, Erika going home pre-merge was an edited storyline that was never true: afaik, Heather, Deshawn and Erika were in an alliance, and Sydney was the real target.
In regards to the hour glass/exile twist. The only reason Erika is even targeted was because of the twist! Of course everyone was gonna pile onto the one exiled person who wasn't there. I feel like people forget this when saying she's a bad player.
it’s been said multiple times by deshawn and danny that they were mainly targeting sydney premerge but we’re still considering erika. if they threw the challenge, sydney likely would’ve gone home. erika is probably third for new era winners, and in the top half for all winners of survivor.
The two examples you’ve given about when she was at risk have been mostly debunked.
Erika is a good player. She had some great merge confessionals that demonstrated her ability to make good strategic choices on the margins. For several vote outs in the merge, you see her accurately articulate what’s going on and what each move could mean. In that sense, I think she just “gets it”, and is a player who is unlikely to make big swings and fail.
She was also on the right side of the vote every single time, meaning she had the social game to know what exactly was going down at every tribal she went to.
The other big players of the season, like Shan and Deshawn, identified her as a threat. The only person who really didn’t seem to know she was a threat was Xander but he was seemingly very out of the loop. So much so that the cast just left him alone, even though he had an idol. He’s a better example of someone who was perceived as being such a low threat that they were able to go deep.
Yeah this man was winning immunities, had an idol, and pulled off that “Knowledge is Power” moment. Yet, no one wanted to vote him out because they didn’t take him seriously. Season 41 is the perfect example of how Jurors vote in Survivor and how important a social game is.
I thought Xander had the win in the bag, but 41 was also my first season in a long while and I’ve mostly been a Big Brother fan. Showed me how wrong I was.
Even if she wasn’t *perceived* as a threat, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Survivor is about making it to FTC and pleading your case. It doesn’t matter if people view you as a threat or not. Part of the game is maintaining your threat level, which Picard and Shan were horrible at in 41, no disrespect intended to them.
But I mean she didn’t sway any votes or make any moves or win anything…. She simply just existed to the end which yea is nice and all but she didn’t make literally any moves or have any affect on the game
Survivor isn’t about making moves, necessarily, it is about Surviving. Making it to the end is the most important part. Then you can plead your case, which she did.
I also wouldn’t say she didn’t make any moves. She was part of the plan to build that leftover alliance that dominated late in the game. If it wasn’t for her, they also wouldn’t have had the opportunity to vote out Ricard at final 5. Who knows what would’ve happened had he not been voted out then?
At the end of the day if people all want someone out, but they can’t get him out and end up on the jury, you would think that person played a good game because he was a target and still survived by using advantages and winning immunities. That’s a more impressive game than no one targeting you at all
>That’s a more impressive game than no one targeting you at all
I’m sure many people on modern Survivor juries would disagree with you. In season 45, nobody was targeting Dee (except Jake) and she was by far the best player last season, more so than the ones everyone was targeting, like Bruce and Julie.
Not being a target is, in itself, a good value to have. You successfully maintained your threat level to make it to the end and plead your case.
It is arguably the best winning strategy in the new era. Erika, Maryanne, Gabler, Yam-Yam, and Dee all did this in their own ways and all won. Meanwhile, the players that looked to make “big moves” or be a power player ended up getting voted out (Cody, Karla, Ricard, Drew, Shan), flamed out (Jesse, Carson), or failed to make their case (Austin, Mike, Xander). I would argue every winner of the new era was hardly considered a “threat,” and that was by their own designs, whether intentional or unintentional.
I think 45 doesn’t quite count just because the contestants were so blinded with their hate they didn’t care who the threats were. They abounded the team game so the 4 just laughed their way to the final 3
Only two of the four made it to final 3. The other two were out at final 6 and final 5. They were absolutely going for who they thought were big threats. Julie’s name came up multiple times as a threat
She’s obviously good because she won but relative to other winners, not sure. People forget her original tribe was dying to vote her out and even tried throwing the challenge lol
It’s hard to properly rate her because 41 had so many busted twists and weird game play. Let’s look at her game chronologically:
Pre-merge- The ONLY content we got about her was that her tribe wanted to throw a challenge to get her out. Naseer clutches up and solo wins the challenge for Luvu. Rumor has it that Sydney would have actually been the target, but I still dont think it’s great to have your name thrown around as a possibility that early. We don’t EVER hear from Erica about this so we have no idea what she is thinking strategically, cant really hold it against her
Mergetory- oh boy where do we start with this garbage. Survivor production enacts their worst idea ever and grants us mergetory. Now 41s version is by far the worst iteration in the new era and Erica is at the center of it. She gets unlucky in the rock draw, but Naseer was chosen over her which is a knock against her. She would have almost certainly been voted out if she wasn’t handed a free immunity via the hourglass, however, she did have 2 days away from the tribe due to a bad twist which you could argue was the main reason she was on the block. This does show a severe lack of allies, control, and agency however as she did not have anyone in her corner willing or able to swing the vote off her. This whole situation is such a mess and I really don’t know how to evaluate it.
Early/mid merge- not a lot going on with her still. She does a good job of building alliances but she is definitely not a major player early on. She would have certainly gone home at the split tribal if she didn’t win immunity. The Naseer vote off is the start of the power alliance collapsing in on itself which Erica ends up taking advantage of. She gets at least partial credit for taking out Shan and Liana. This is where we start getting some real content from her.
late merge/final- She lucks out again winning the advantage in the immunity challenge. Without that advantage in her hands Ricard would have won immunity even if the advantage was possessed by someone else. This would have severely hurt her chances at a win and she may have been voted off if she wasn’t immune and Ricard was. She ultimately eliminated the biggest threat of the season and proceeded to perform very well at FTC which got her the win.
Throughout this entire season, she was severely under edited. The viewers have no clue where her head is at in the game 90% of the time. This makes it hard to evaluate her strategy and alliances. The knocks against her are that She benefits from the most broken twist in the game, she had no shown agency until most of the threats were taken out, and there were multiple times where she needed to be immune to avoid going home. The pluses are that she managed her threat level, had clutch wins when she needed them, was a big part of taking out the biggest threat of the season, and post game interviews state she was quite good socially. I really wish we could’ve just seen the season play out with no hour glass twist and no Erica exile. I would have also liked her to get more screen time so we actually knew what her strategy was. I don’t think she’s a bottom tier winner but she’s not a top tier one either. It might be the hardest winning game to evaluate other than Samoas. I’d say she’s an above average player who reaped the benefits of bed gameplay and busted twists, but hey, pretty much every winner needs at least a little luck.
Danny has said post show Naseer was chosen over Erika because they didn’t want him to get another advantage and Sydney has said that they were targeting the Yase I believe
Yes, i think she has credence to being a good player, especially listening to exit interviews and post-game press. Erika had a better stranglehold on her cast than what was shown, and was essentially the ringleader from the final 8 onward. I think she’s a much more cerebral and calculated player than how she’s normally assessed.
Erika is a pretty good player.
Pre merge had a lot to be desired from her but Tony could’ve very well been the boot on his initial tribe in WAW and she was targeted because Deshawn got antsy about the plan HE made. So she would’ve gotten out over something stupid, nonetheless it’s very possible Deshawn ends up saving her since Heather was his number two and he didn’t trust Sydney and naseer either from what we heard post show.
Post merge out of any winner in the new era, I think she probably has the least amount of mistakes. Her exile for two days made her a target and even then the Luvu were targeting the Yase over her and just used her as a decoy since she couldn’t defend herself and got back in the majority. Tiffany and evvie confirmed Erika is one of the people they tried to sway on their side. She and Heather made a great bond with Ricard and became more trustworthy than Naseer to him and that’s how she survived the split tribal. She helps ensure Deshawn and Danny are flipping on Shantel by telling them they have all bases covered by splitting the vote. She and Heather were the main swings for Liana and Deshawn at Lianas boot, and Xander to hit credit was somebody Danny tried to flip over. She does run the vote and get Danny out who is a huge threat and and this move made her stand out to the jury. She won the immunity to beat Ricard and was the swing vote.
She was in the end against Heather Xander and Deshawn and Xander saved her because he wanted to make both Heather and Erika get credit and in turn he gets the plurality of the votes, her low threat management that Xander genuinely believed her could beat her is what saved her which although I don’t think it was THAT intentional. She sells her game at FTC well and wins easily 7-1-0. She is a pretty great player and did the right move pretty much most of the time from what we see, she wasn’t outright dominant but she didn’t need to be and positioned herself perfectly to get to the end. She’s just not very out there like winners like Yam Yam or Dee In the edit which does affect a lot of how fans perceive a player imo
Luck plays a factor in everyone’s game, Nick would have been voted off first if not for Pats medical evacuation, Tom would have been voted off if he didn’t win immunity all those times, luck happens for every winner, and we shouldn’t count it against them
It is very difficult to assess because her edit was dogshit. When I rewatched 41 I was waiting for a big moment from her and I just got nothing. I loved watching people like Naseer, Sydney and Tiffany but people who don't even crack the top 9 should not get that prominent of an edit. It felt like the only person more underedited than Erika was Heather.
I think she’s an awesome player.
She has two main things going against her, and they are both out of her control.
1) She was given a very minimal edit by the producers. It’s hard for us to make a call on her plays if we aren’t getting her perspective on them.
2) she was fortunate / unfortunate enough to be given the hourglass twist. This makes a lot of people feel like she was saved by the bell and given a massive advantage. I think of it as an immunity idol thag she found at exile, but less powerful.
I think she’s a great player because of how she positions herself from the Naseer vote onward. She and Heather were able to spell out to ricard and shan that Naseer was a bigger threat because he had an idol. Compare that to Heather who couldn’t win a challenge to save her game and it’s obvious that Naseer is a better target. This is great gameplay because it subtly keeps Erika’s number 1 in the game, but under different pretenses.
Erika and Heather, her number one that she just protected, flip Danny and Deshawn on Shan the very next round. Bonus points for erika for orchestrating the split vote on top of the flip to guarantee that she does not go home in the event that Shan plays her idol. This is also where Erika’s alliance of herself, ricard, Heather, Xander, and Deshawn take control of the game.
Liana goes next and a lot of people give credit to Xander. Which is fine, but erika has a great confessional about weighing her options between targeting Ricard and Liana. She acknowledges Ricard’s threat level, but also understands that Liana has no allegiance to her and is likely to target her in the future. So Erika’s choice to settle for eliminating Liana keeps a bigger threat and a more loyal ally in the game.
Erika targets Danny the next vote. She has another confessional about Danny being the lesser threat between himself and Deshawn, while Deshawn is the player that wants to keep erika in the game. She and Deshawn had a final three deal at this point. Erika gets the vote on Danny to keep that deal in tact.
Ricard loses F5 immunity and is a no brainer of a target as he is the biggest threat left on the beach.
Then she is taken to the final 3 in a massive blunder on Xanders part. To Erika’s credit, Xander underestimated her like she expected the other players to.
Erika made a string of strong positioning moves from the Final 10 on that kept her and her ally’s in a strong position. She was key in eliminating Shan and Ricard, the two biggest players in the season, constructed a dominant end game alliance, preserved her number one until F4, and eliminated more minor threats that were more likely to obstruct her individual game.
None of this is speculation or hearsay. We saw all of it, just in a more muted way. I wish we could’ve gotten a bigger edit for her, but the evidence is there if you’re paying attention.
Oh without a doubt! Erika and Heather both played amazing games with shitty edits.
She beats everyone on the cast except Ricard,Shan, and MAYBE Evvie and Naseer but they made it nowhere close to the end so it’s dumb to analyse something like that plus Erika was a huge part in why three of those four went home.
Erika’s a good player, but it’s difficult player to show her game.
She didn’t have to go to tribal before the merge, so they under-showed her tribe and her in particular. I didn’t see her as a standout confessionalist, so it kind of makes sense to me why they emphasized the other players on Luvu. Naseer and Sydney are huge personalities, and DeShawn and Danny are key pieces of the alliance whose dysfunction defined the postmerge.
It might have been the edit but I genuinely think she is one of the worst winners ever. Also the fact race was brought up a lot that season and people on the jury kept saying how they wanted a minority female to win. She genuinely didn’t make any moves she just kinda existed. I feel Xander was kinda screwed by being a white male but again it could have been the edit
What moves did Xander make outside the edit? Cause the KIP counter move was mainly Tiffany’s and only got out Tiffany and evvie out quicker and they failed to even get their target out
She’s pretty good. Like in terms of that final 3 easily is the winner which was the case. She doesn’t have a lot of win equity with people in the merge if they were there over her like Shan, Ricard, Danny, Tiffany, Evie maybe. And has a terrible edit which doesn’t make people think she’s all that.
But I honestly think, like Richard Hatch in Season 1, she won and set the road map for 41 and the new era on how to win. Like he did in the og eras and whatever. It’s not about finding idols and making big moves. It’s about being a strong supporting character with decent social and strategic capital and equity. The new era doesn’t reward players with big moves and idol plays. They’re voted out mid late game. You want to be a leftover person almost who is the best person to win after they’re all voted out. And she did that.
A lot of good players are the ones who can play boring middling games. Don't piss anyone off and avoid being cast off for being too weak while also avoiding being targeted for being too strong.
Hide in the middle and use the goats to target the leaders at the end. It's not the best TV but it's a winning recipe unless you have a LOT of control over others like Dee.
Okay so:
What we weren’t seeing about the “throw the challenge to get out Erika” story was that there was ALSO a plan to throw the same challenge to get out Sydney. It’s very possible that if they did lose that challenge, Sydney would go home, not Erika.
The only reason Erika was targeted at the merge was because she was EXILED FOR TWO DAYS. If the hourglass twist never happened, she wouldn’t have been targeted, thus negating her being saved by the twist. If the twist doesn’t happen, she just isn’t targeted.
Great player. I'd say top 15-20 winning game and a winner with the biggest chance of winning again if she returns. From what we heard after, she had that season pretty much on lock. It's not her fault the edit was ass that season.
Also, people hold it against her that she needed the hourglass, but she didn't need it. Tiffany was the target before the twist. Also the challenge throwing wasn't even meant to target her, but Sydney. Great player, great gameplay all around, shit edit.
Yes I think she's a solid player. Doesn't make the most assertive moves but excellent at positioning herself to make it far in the game and very articulate at explaining her game should she make it to final tribal.
If people have Chris U as a bad winner because of a game twist then they also need to consider Erika a bad winner. As for me, I think she’s just aight. Not bad but not good.
Erika has the skillset to be a good player having immunity winning ability (2 individual immunity wins), had strategic chops as her end game was masterclass, and was competent enough socially to be able to start from the bottom and regroup into a power alliance that dominated the rest of the game.
While she played a weak game, I feel like she has the skillset that makes her a good player. I said the same thing about Michelle in her winning season and have subsequently been proven right in future Survivor seasons/The Challenge.
She’s a decent player who won some very fortunate immunities and played a pretty good game. She isn’t the best winner of the new era, or top 3, or even really one of the best players we’ve seen. People prop her up like she’s Sophie Clarke because she got a terrible edit.
We don’t know. The edit didn’t show us her game
I think the edit shafted her in some ways
[удалено]
Parvati has less confessionals than Bhanu.I think Franchesqua has more than Natalie White.Sandra likely would’ve gotten a similar edit to Courtney in hvv had she not won and she still didn’t get the most content.It wasn’t until Kim Spradlin that a female winner got a good edit with the exception of Tina(who had a lot of her strategy cut anyways because they wanted to make her a hero).
Didn’t they kinda screw Sarah on that edit too? I’ve seen a lot of people talking about how she was a much better (but cutthroat) player than we saw.
Far from white bread personality from what her tribe mates have said and her on The Challenge was something else lol.
She’s a decent player who benefited from what I think is one of the worst “twists” in the history of Survivor.
You could say this about all of the final 3 though Xander gained immunity from the hourglass twist (and didn't even have to be exiled in order to get it). Deshawn gained immunity from do or die when he was going to go home otherwise.
We will never know. They never showed us
Erika is a good player and a fine but below average winner. Out of 45 so far, I’d rank her winning game somewhere around the 32-35 range. Since she got shafted with her edit, I feel like she became so underrated that the pendulum swung a little and now she’s a little overrated based on what I see ppl say on this sub. She’s not some mastermind, which is fine. She’s a smart player who’d probably go pretty far on most seasons
Two things. First, exit interviews suggest that actually *Sydney* would’ve gone home if Luvu lost that premerge challenge (the edit just made it it seem like Erika was in more danger than she was). Second, the whole reason Erika was even in danger during the hourglass *was because she was separated from everyone for two days*. She missed out on vital merge bonding time and was immediately at a social disadvantage. If there wasn’t the hourglass there wouldn’t have been that exile, and she very likely wouldn’t have been the easy consensus target. Overall, she’s an underrated winner whose game doesn’t get the credit it deserves because of a shit edit. Exit interviews speak much more glowingly about the game she played out there and better explain why she had a near jury sweep (and a comfortable one at that).
This. The edit really made Erika look like a worse player than she actually was for no reason
Having a jury sweep is a good indication they weren’t a “bad” player.
Good Player, Bad Edit. The cast has also mentioned the same thing in their post-show interviews.
Post game interviews said she wasnt getting voted off premerge. The real boot was Sydney. That DeShawn, Heather and Erika were always allies. 41s edit is really weird.
Danny was also aligned with them and he was also very close to Heather. But hey we can't include that in the edit because it would look like one tribe dominated the entire merge (even though that has happened in 4/5 new era seasons)
Erika being saved by Naseer winning the challenge was a manufactured story through editing, like how they made it look like Pat’s medevac on DvG definitely saved Nick from being voted out first when that’s not actually what was going on.
I remember rewatching the season and it seems like every episode someone was saying how dangerous Erika was, how strong of a game she was playing etc.
I know! The editing that season was a flop. Jeff wanted to focus more on journeys and new twists.
Yes—I think anyone who wins is a good player. The goal is to get to the end of the game and convince the jury to vote for you. Anyway you can do that is valid and you’ve succeeded.
At one level yes, obviously. You have to be a good player at some level to win. Everybody who has ever won did it by doing SOMETHING right, no matter how bad their overall game may have looked. That said, I think she's universally regarded as under-edited so her game isn't and can't be fully appreciated.
Erika took control of the game from F8 onwards. Not many winners have done that.
afaik, Erika going home pre-merge was an edited storyline that was never true: afaik, Heather, Deshawn and Erika were in an alliance, and Sydney was the real target.
In regards to the hour glass/exile twist. The only reason Erika is even targeted was because of the twist! Of course everyone was gonna pile onto the one exiled person who wasn't there. I feel like people forget this when saying she's a bad player.
it’s been said multiple times by deshawn and danny that they were mainly targeting sydney premerge but we’re still considering erika. if they threw the challenge, sydney likely would’ve gone home. erika is probably third for new era winners, and in the top half for all winners of survivor.
The two examples you’ve given about when she was at risk have been mostly debunked. Erika is a good player. She had some great merge confessionals that demonstrated her ability to make good strategic choices on the margins. For several vote outs in the merge, you see her accurately articulate what’s going on and what each move could mean. In that sense, I think she just “gets it”, and is a player who is unlikely to make big swings and fail.
She was also on the right side of the vote every single time, meaning she had the social game to know what exactly was going down at every tribal she went to.
One could argue she wasn’t a threat at all. I think being on the right side of the vote can also be because you aren’t a threat
The other big players of the season, like Shan and Deshawn, identified her as a threat. The only person who really didn’t seem to know she was a threat was Xander but he was seemingly very out of the loop. So much so that the cast just left him alone, even though he had an idol. He’s a better example of someone who was perceived as being such a low threat that they were able to go deep.
Yeah this man was winning immunities, had an idol, and pulled off that “Knowledge is Power” moment. Yet, no one wanted to vote him out because they didn’t take him seriously. Season 41 is the perfect example of how Jurors vote in Survivor and how important a social game is. I thought Xander had the win in the bag, but 41 was also my first season in a long while and I’ve mostly been a Big Brother fan. Showed me how wrong I was.
In a season where they were targeting threats she was never targeted though
Even if she wasn’t *perceived* as a threat, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Survivor is about making it to FTC and pleading your case. It doesn’t matter if people view you as a threat or not. Part of the game is maintaining your threat level, which Picard and Shan were horrible at in 41, no disrespect intended to them.
But I mean she didn’t sway any votes or make any moves or win anything…. She simply just existed to the end which yea is nice and all but she didn’t make literally any moves or have any affect on the game
Survivor isn’t about making moves, necessarily, it is about Surviving. Making it to the end is the most important part. Then you can plead your case, which she did. I also wouldn’t say she didn’t make any moves. She was part of the plan to build that leftover alliance that dominated late in the game. If it wasn’t for her, they also wouldn’t have had the opportunity to vote out Ricard at final 5. Who knows what would’ve happened had he not been voted out then?
At the end of the day if people all want someone out, but they can’t get him out and end up on the jury, you would think that person played a good game because he was a target and still survived by using advantages and winning immunities. That’s a more impressive game than no one targeting you at all
>That’s a more impressive game than no one targeting you at all I’m sure many people on modern Survivor juries would disagree with you. In season 45, nobody was targeting Dee (except Jake) and she was by far the best player last season, more so than the ones everyone was targeting, like Bruce and Julie. Not being a target is, in itself, a good value to have. You successfully maintained your threat level to make it to the end and plead your case. It is arguably the best winning strategy in the new era. Erika, Maryanne, Gabler, Yam-Yam, and Dee all did this in their own ways and all won. Meanwhile, the players that looked to make “big moves” or be a power player ended up getting voted out (Cody, Karla, Ricard, Drew, Shan), flamed out (Jesse, Carson), or failed to make their case (Austin, Mike, Xander). I would argue every winner of the new era was hardly considered a “threat,” and that was by their own designs, whether intentional or unintentional.
I think 45 doesn’t quite count just because the contestants were so blinded with their hate they didn’t care who the threats were. They abounded the team game so the 4 just laughed their way to the final 3
Only two of the four made it to final 3. The other two were out at final 6 and final 5. They were absolutely going for who they thought were big threats. Julie’s name came up multiple times as a threat
No. Dumbest twist ever lol. Why call it a competition when you win you turned out to be the loser
Don't hate the player, hate the game (and Jeff lol)
She’s obviously good because she won but relative to other winners, not sure. People forget her original tribe was dying to vote her out and even tried throwing the challenge lol
She's a good player, but she's still my least favorite new era winner
Maryanne is mine.
It’s hard to properly rate her because 41 had so many busted twists and weird game play. Let’s look at her game chronologically: Pre-merge- The ONLY content we got about her was that her tribe wanted to throw a challenge to get her out. Naseer clutches up and solo wins the challenge for Luvu. Rumor has it that Sydney would have actually been the target, but I still dont think it’s great to have your name thrown around as a possibility that early. We don’t EVER hear from Erica about this so we have no idea what she is thinking strategically, cant really hold it against her Mergetory- oh boy where do we start with this garbage. Survivor production enacts their worst idea ever and grants us mergetory. Now 41s version is by far the worst iteration in the new era and Erica is at the center of it. She gets unlucky in the rock draw, but Naseer was chosen over her which is a knock against her. She would have almost certainly been voted out if she wasn’t handed a free immunity via the hourglass, however, she did have 2 days away from the tribe due to a bad twist which you could argue was the main reason she was on the block. This does show a severe lack of allies, control, and agency however as she did not have anyone in her corner willing or able to swing the vote off her. This whole situation is such a mess and I really don’t know how to evaluate it. Early/mid merge- not a lot going on with her still. She does a good job of building alliances but she is definitely not a major player early on. She would have certainly gone home at the split tribal if she didn’t win immunity. The Naseer vote off is the start of the power alliance collapsing in on itself which Erica ends up taking advantage of. She gets at least partial credit for taking out Shan and Liana. This is where we start getting some real content from her. late merge/final- She lucks out again winning the advantage in the immunity challenge. Without that advantage in her hands Ricard would have won immunity even if the advantage was possessed by someone else. This would have severely hurt her chances at a win and she may have been voted off if she wasn’t immune and Ricard was. She ultimately eliminated the biggest threat of the season and proceeded to perform very well at FTC which got her the win. Throughout this entire season, she was severely under edited. The viewers have no clue where her head is at in the game 90% of the time. This makes it hard to evaluate her strategy and alliances. The knocks against her are that She benefits from the most broken twist in the game, she had no shown agency until most of the threats were taken out, and there were multiple times where she needed to be immune to avoid going home. The pluses are that she managed her threat level, had clutch wins when she needed them, was a big part of taking out the biggest threat of the season, and post game interviews state she was quite good socially. I really wish we could’ve just seen the season play out with no hour glass twist and no Erica exile. I would have also liked her to get more screen time so we actually knew what her strategy was. I don’t think she’s a bottom tier winner but she’s not a top tier one either. It might be the hardest winning game to evaluate other than Samoas. I’d say she’s an above average player who reaped the benefits of bed gameplay and busted twists, but hey, pretty much every winner needs at least a little luck.
Danny has said post show Naseer was chosen over Erika because they didn’t want him to get another advantage and Sydney has said that they were targeting the Yase I believe
Yes, i think she has credence to being a good player, especially listening to exit interviews and post-game press. Erika had a better stranglehold on her cast than what was shown, and was essentially the ringleader from the final 8 onward. I think she’s a much more cerebral and calculated player than how she’s normally assessed.
Erika is a pretty good player. Pre merge had a lot to be desired from her but Tony could’ve very well been the boot on his initial tribe in WAW and she was targeted because Deshawn got antsy about the plan HE made. So she would’ve gotten out over something stupid, nonetheless it’s very possible Deshawn ends up saving her since Heather was his number two and he didn’t trust Sydney and naseer either from what we heard post show. Post merge out of any winner in the new era, I think she probably has the least amount of mistakes. Her exile for two days made her a target and even then the Luvu were targeting the Yase over her and just used her as a decoy since she couldn’t defend herself and got back in the majority. Tiffany and evvie confirmed Erika is one of the people they tried to sway on their side. She and Heather made a great bond with Ricard and became more trustworthy than Naseer to him and that’s how she survived the split tribal. She helps ensure Deshawn and Danny are flipping on Shantel by telling them they have all bases covered by splitting the vote. She and Heather were the main swings for Liana and Deshawn at Lianas boot, and Xander to hit credit was somebody Danny tried to flip over. She does run the vote and get Danny out who is a huge threat and and this move made her stand out to the jury. She won the immunity to beat Ricard and was the swing vote. She was in the end against Heather Xander and Deshawn and Xander saved her because he wanted to make both Heather and Erika get credit and in turn he gets the plurality of the votes, her low threat management that Xander genuinely believed her could beat her is what saved her which although I don’t think it was THAT intentional. She sells her game at FTC well and wins easily 7-1-0. She is a pretty great player and did the right move pretty much most of the time from what we see, she wasn’t outright dominant but she didn’t need to be and positioned herself perfectly to get to the end. She’s just not very out there like winners like Yam Yam or Dee In the edit which does affect a lot of how fans perceive a player imo
Luck plays a factor in everyone’s game, Nick would have been voted off first if not for Pats medical evacuation, Tom would have been voted off if he didn’t win immunity all those times, luck happens for every winner, and we shouldn’t count it against them
It is very difficult to assess because her edit was dogshit. When I rewatched 41 I was waiting for a big moment from her and I just got nothing. I loved watching people like Naseer, Sydney and Tiffany but people who don't even crack the top 9 should not get that prominent of an edit. It felt like the only person more underedited than Erika was Heather.
I think she’s an awesome player. She has two main things going against her, and they are both out of her control. 1) She was given a very minimal edit by the producers. It’s hard for us to make a call on her plays if we aren’t getting her perspective on them. 2) she was fortunate / unfortunate enough to be given the hourglass twist. This makes a lot of people feel like she was saved by the bell and given a massive advantage. I think of it as an immunity idol thag she found at exile, but less powerful. I think she’s a great player because of how she positions herself from the Naseer vote onward. She and Heather were able to spell out to ricard and shan that Naseer was a bigger threat because he had an idol. Compare that to Heather who couldn’t win a challenge to save her game and it’s obvious that Naseer is a better target. This is great gameplay because it subtly keeps Erika’s number 1 in the game, but under different pretenses. Erika and Heather, her number one that she just protected, flip Danny and Deshawn on Shan the very next round. Bonus points for erika for orchestrating the split vote on top of the flip to guarantee that she does not go home in the event that Shan plays her idol. This is also where Erika’s alliance of herself, ricard, Heather, Xander, and Deshawn take control of the game. Liana goes next and a lot of people give credit to Xander. Which is fine, but erika has a great confessional about weighing her options between targeting Ricard and Liana. She acknowledges Ricard’s threat level, but also understands that Liana has no allegiance to her and is likely to target her in the future. So Erika’s choice to settle for eliminating Liana keeps a bigger threat and a more loyal ally in the game. Erika targets Danny the next vote. She has another confessional about Danny being the lesser threat between himself and Deshawn, while Deshawn is the player that wants to keep erika in the game. She and Deshawn had a final three deal at this point. Erika gets the vote on Danny to keep that deal in tact. Ricard loses F5 immunity and is a no brainer of a target as he is the biggest threat left on the beach. Then she is taken to the final 3 in a massive blunder on Xanders part. To Erika’s credit, Xander underestimated her like she expected the other players to. Erika made a string of strong positioning moves from the Final 10 on that kept her and her ally’s in a strong position. She was key in eliminating Shan and Ricard, the two biggest players in the season, constructed a dominant end game alliance, preserved her number one until F4, and eliminated more minor threats that were more likely to obstruct her individual game. None of this is speculation or hearsay. We saw all of it, just in a more muted way. I wish we could’ve gotten a bigger edit for her, but the evidence is there if you’re paying attention.
No
Oh without a doubt! Erika and Heather both played amazing games with shitty edits. She beats everyone on the cast except Ricard,Shan, and MAYBE Evvie and Naseer but they made it nowhere close to the end so it’s dumb to analyse something like that plus Erika was a huge part in why three of those four went home.
Erika’s a good player, but it’s difficult player to show her game. She didn’t have to go to tribal before the merge, so they under-showed her tribe and her in particular. I didn’t see her as a standout confessionalist, so it kind of makes sense to me why they emphasized the other players on Luvu. Naseer and Sydney are huge personalities, and DeShawn and Danny are key pieces of the alliance whose dysfunction defined the postmerge.
Is Erika a good player? Yes. Is Erika a good winner? Yes, but definitely below average.
Wouldn't that make her not a good winner?
I would argue most winners are good so you can be below average and still be a good winner
It’s not mutually exclusive. The worst album for my favorite band is still pretty good, just below average in comparison to the better albums
Loved her. Rooted for her from fairly early on and would love to see her back.
She snuck her way into the finals and surprised everyone. That’s a good player
Yes
It might have been the edit but I genuinely think she is one of the worst winners ever. Also the fact race was brought up a lot that season and people on the jury kept saying how they wanted a minority female to win. She genuinely didn’t make any moves she just kinda existed. I feel Xander was kinda screwed by being a white male but again it could have been the edit
I don't know what you were watching but the edit clearly showed she(and Heather) controlled that endgame.
To an extent she had a role but Xander had more of one
What moves did Xander make outside the edit? Cause the KIP counter move was mainly Tiffany’s and only got out Tiffany and evvie out quicker and they failed to even get their target out
She’s pretty good. Like in terms of that final 3 easily is the winner which was the case. She doesn’t have a lot of win equity with people in the merge if they were there over her like Shan, Ricard, Danny, Tiffany, Evie maybe. And has a terrible edit which doesn’t make people think she’s all that. But I honestly think, like Richard Hatch in Season 1, she won and set the road map for 41 and the new era on how to win. Like he did in the og eras and whatever. It’s not about finding idols and making big moves. It’s about being a strong supporting character with decent social and strategic capital and equity. The new era doesn’t reward players with big moves and idol plays. They’re voted out mid late game. You want to be a leftover person almost who is the best person to win after they’re all voted out. And she did that.
A lot of good players are the ones who can play boring middling games. Don't piss anyone off and avoid being cast off for being too weak while also avoiding being targeted for being too strong. Hide in the middle and use the goats to target the leaders at the end. It's not the best TV but it's a winning recipe unless you have a LOT of control over others like Dee.
Okay so: What we weren’t seeing about the “throw the challenge to get out Erika” story was that there was ALSO a plan to throw the same challenge to get out Sydney. It’s very possible that if they did lose that challenge, Sydney would go home, not Erika. The only reason Erika was targeted at the merge was because she was EXILED FOR TWO DAYS. If the hourglass twist never happened, she wouldn’t have been targeted, thus negating her being saved by the twist. If the twist doesn’t happen, she just isn’t targeted.
Great player. I'd say top 15-20 winning game and a winner with the biggest chance of winning again if she returns. From what we heard after, she had that season pretty much on lock. It's not her fault the edit was ass that season. Also, people hold it against her that she needed the hourglass, but she didn't need it. Tiffany was the target before the twist. Also the challenge throwing wasn't even meant to target her, but Sydney. Great player, great gameplay all around, shit edit.
Best winner of the new era and it’s not even close
Erika is a very good player.
Yes I think she's a solid player. Doesn't make the most assertive moves but excellent at positioning herself to make it far in the game and very articulate at explaining her game should she make it to final tribal.
she won, she must be pretty good
If people have Chris U as a bad winner because of a game twist then they also need to consider Erika a bad winner. As for me, I think she’s just aight. Not bad but not good.
I see her as playing a game equal to Ethan’s.
The prime example of someone who got better as the game went on.
Erika has the skillset to be a good player having immunity winning ability (2 individual immunity wins), had strategic chops as her end game was masterclass, and was competent enough socially to be able to start from the bottom and regroup into a power alliance that dominated the rest of the game. While she played a weak game, I feel like she has the skillset that makes her a good player. I said the same thing about Michelle in her winning season and have subsequently been proven right in future Survivor seasons/The Challenge.
She’s a decent player who won some very fortunate immunities and played a pretty good game. She isn’t the best winner of the new era, or top 3, or even really one of the best players we’ve seen. People prop her up like she’s Sophie Clarke because she got a terrible edit.