Survivor 49 Discussion Thread

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It's the start of another Survivor preseason. This time for Survivor 49! The cast dropped today, which you can check out below.

Feel free to talk about all things Survivor 49 in this thread. As always, this thread will contain spoilers of every episode that has aired, so stay away until you're caught up! Discussion of previous seasons and players is also allowed. If you happen to run into a spoiler somewhere, please do not post it here.

Looking forward to another season of Survivor!

Meet the cast of 'Survivor 49'

The 'Survivor 49' cast has been revealed. Check out the photos, bios, and tribe divisions for the 18 players competing for a million dollars.

ew.com

 

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Jeff Probst said in an interview that Survivor 49 features two of their alternates. It's pretty rare for an alternate to make the actual season. Often in the new era, they're cast on a future season. However, due to some kind of rules violation, two players were sent home, and the two alternates were put in 12 hours before filming. Those players are Jason and MC.

This cast also features two alternates from previous seasons - Sage and Sophie.

 

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The On Fire podcast is not keeping with the tradition of having a player from the previous season on it. Instead, they're bringing in Jeremy Collins for season 49.

I really like this. No offense to the new era players, but I feel like we hear from them a lot since they're so fresh. I like to hear from older seasons, since we haven't heard from them in a while.

 

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Time for my preseason winner picks. As before, I'll do one man and one woman. I tried to keep the S50 casting out of my predictions, and honestly I didn't even remember which woman was on until after I made my rankings.

For the men, they all seemed very "average", and nobody really stood out too much. I didn't find tons of flaws in them, but I didn't love any of them, either. That being said, Steven is my male winner pick. I think he might be a solid all-around player.

It was tougher for the women. I saw a lot with winner potential, but also had higher risk. I like Savannah, Sophi, Sophie, and Kristina. Kristina's obvious question mark is can she make it past the premerge and help her tribe in challenges. If so, she has a personality you're drawn to. Sophi has an electric personality, but I worry she'll be viewed as a "Parvati" or "Dee", and people will be scared of her. I think Sophie was a well-rounded player, but I fear she could be viewed like Bianca as the "strategic woman". Savannah was fun in her interviews, and I feel like she had some really good answers, but I feel like she could be too big of a "villain" and get targeted.

All that said, I'm picking between Savannah and Sophie, and I think I'm leaning Savannah.

So my official winner picks are...

Male: Steven
Female: Savannah

I started making picks before season 31. Since then, I've gotten the following right:

33: Adam
39: Tommy
44: Yam Yam (my top pick was Matthew, but threw Yam Yam in as a backup in case Matthew was med evac'ed)
48: Kyle

In 46, my top pick was Kenzie. However, I thought she was too perfect, so I switched to my #2 in Soda. So my thought was right, but my official pick was wrong.

I also got close with Victoria (I think she would've won if Chris hadn't come back), Ricard, and Jesse.