[Jeff Probst]

Russell, Stephanie, and Yve,

You three have come as far as you can on your own in this game. The power now shifts from the three of you to the eleven jurors you had a hand in voting out.

Here you can leave your Opening Statements to the jury. You cannot add to or edit your opening speeches so please draft them up separately and copy/paste after edits.


Your deadline is 12c/1e pm tomorrow (Saturday, 4/25).
Good luck!

[Yve]

I’m going to try and make this short. First of all, thank you all for playing this fantastic game with me. I’ve been away from ORGs for seven full years. Whether you’d be able to write a novel with our conversations, or we barely spoke, you all have made this one of the best games I’ve ever played in my life. I am truly humbled by this experience. After this game I’ll be heading back into retirement, but I absolutely don’t regret coming back.

I believe that I played a pretty transparent game for everyone to see. I went from the actual bottom rung at the merge to the final three. You’ve all seen me go from an easy vote, to a deciding vote.

I can only know this game from my perspective. I’ve heard things about myself second-hand from allies, and can only what your individual narratives were from my time playing with you all. I would like to clear up questions any of you have about my game. As open as I may have felt as I was playing it, I’m sure I wasn’t as candid with all of you equally about what went on. So I welcome anything you have for me, I want to make sure you leave with all the information you want. In return, I promise to be honest and as frank as possible about everything, and feel free to call me out if you feel otherwise.

You all saw how hard I worked in this game. I made the moves I felt would keep me around longer- in rounds where I was the “easy vote,” I did my best to make sure whoever the other side was voting for was successful. In rounds where I wasn’t as vulnerable, I fought to get threatening folks eliminated. I’m looking forward to continue working just as hard here for your vote, as I would like to earn the right to represent this season as its winner.

Thank you.

[Russell]

Prelude

First, I want to thank Poody and the rest of the hosting team for a really fantastic season of Stranded. This is, by far, my fave because there was a certain maturity and empathy in how everyone involved handled the game. I feel like this is what Survivor should be and I’m proud to be a part of it.

Steph, it’s been very cool to finally play a full game with you after all these years! I really appreciate how clear-cut and respectful our communication has been throughout this process.

Yve, it’s been a pleasure to get to know you this season. I think you’re strategically savvy, empathetic, and the ideal ride-or-die to have in a game. From the wild Cochran boot to the Final 3, it’s been a great ride.

Jury, as obvi as this sounds, my goal with my opening statement and jury answers is to earn your votes. I want to do that by proving to you that I worked hard, made the right decisions at the right times, and that I’m the kind of player that you want to represent an All-Winners version of Stranded. All I ask is that you keep an open mind.

My Personal Approach

So, I won Isolated 3. That game was a beast in itself and I had to fight a lot to secure that win. But, even as proud as I am of my performance there, it’s not actually Stranded. I’ve played Stranded four real times and I wouldn’t call any of those times satisfactory. I’ve never gotten my footing socially or strategically here, so I wanted to come into this game with a bit of a different mentality.

Whereas some of you came here because you wanted to defend your legacy, redeem yourself, or just revel into whatever an All-Winners game could mean: I came in with the desire to learn and adapt. I wanted every conversation to be a learning experience and my goal was to allow those lessons to shape my behavior.

The common thread I found with every person I met- each of you- was that being successful here isn’t about minimizing the aspects of yourself that are less desirable, but it’s about embracing the duality. For example I get a rush, in conversation, by being blunt and saying what I think without worrying about the nuances of how that could come across. This can make me seem too loose-lipped, but I can also help me connect with people who enjoy bluntness. It can make it seem like I’m trying to be manipulative with information sharing, but it can also help me build trust with those who are out of the loop. Our best qualities and worst qualities often come from the same place. My personal goal became to adapt my playstyle, not to minimize my negative qualities entirely, but to lean into the good of them and do my best to get ahead of the negative consequences.

All of this is separate from the more strategic elements of the game because I don’t think I’ve ever really been necessarily bad at strategy, but I have struggled to allow myself to show my sincere sides of my personality because I’ve always felt the right choice was to suppress some of my spontaneity, my aggression, my perfectionism, my bluntness, my humor. In this game, I think I’ve given a lot of you the chance to get to know me and, if you haven’t, hopefully you’ll give me the chance here. I’ve been at my handful of FTCs, but this has to be the most comfortable I’ve ever felt because I’m insanely proud of the decisions I made, how I made them, and how authentic I felt throughout the whole thing. I don’t have any apologies to make and I don’t have any regrets. I did everything right to get here in the only way that worked for me.

My Strategic Game

Modern survivor has designed their FTCs based outwit, outplay, outlast. I do believe, more than any of the three here, I represent those tenets. I set myself up in the game to have a very likely shot to make it to the end, I won the most challenges, and I made the right strategic decisions at the right time that were essential for any of us sitting here to be here.

From the Cristina vote on, my goal in the game was to keep me and Yve in. When neither of us were at risk, that didn’t mean trying to actively get whichever target out, it mean that I was doing the work to make sure that I minimized the chances of us being targeted in the next round. If she was at risk or I was at risk immediately, that means I was putting in the work to get the target onto someone else. The longer Yve and I stayed in, the easier it was for me to gain some momentum to make decisions.

I only plan to focus on the two main moments that I think are necessary to showcase my strategic game, but I’m more than happy to delve into other aspects, like surviving after the Val vote or removing my target after the Cristina elim, based on what your experience with me was.

The time that was most risky for my game was the Final 8 when Loveita and Catalie wanted to target Yve again. Both of them had final deals with Steph and, while Steph knew she had to vote out Cat at some point, at the time she was very set on going to the end with Loveita. With Steph’s rigidity and Kim’s budding reputation of being a sort-of-goat, I put in the work with this round to ensure that 1) the four of us would survive and 2) I would come out in the best position. I went to Catalie, Joaq, and Yve and asked them to vote for Loveita because she was so insanely wall connected at the time. Steph wanted to go to the end with her, Cat wanted her around for protection, and she had just gone with Cass & Kim on the Joaq vote. By severing a lot of these connections, I would be able to set myself up to have the most utility to survive for the rest of the game.

At the last minute, I went to Kim in order to get her/Cass to split their votes. I think this was successful because I’d made it abundantly clear to anyone in earshot that I had no intentions on going far with Joaq and Cat, despite being very close to them throughout the game. While Kim was a little spooked because Cat was impressively digging her claws into both of us, they did ultimately split. While Cat keeping Loveita was a wrench, ultimately setting up Loveita as a threat to go had already occurred and she went on the revote.

I think another very important moment was at the Final 6 with the Cassandra vote. Kim had been putting in a lot of work to get Cassandra out and, inversely, Cassandra’s target was on Stephenie because her and Cat were still trying to keep each other. This is another place where I put in the work to protect Stephenie despite her desire for it. Stephenie was close with Cat and wouldn’t vote for her at 6, so I made the call to throw two votes onto Cat because, I believed, with Steph out, my chances to winning were greatly reduced.

All around this time were my series of challenge wins. I didn’t want to leave myself vulnerable and I especially didn’t want to give anyone the opportunity to pretend like they were dragging me or feeding me information. Individual Immunities in a game like this are CRUCIAL to get information fed to you. I could see why these wins could be dismissed with just experience or inherent skills, but these challenges were all hard-work related. For every single one, I practiced hard. For the two challenges that required game history, I made massive excel spreadsheets complete with this game’s history and a matrix of how we all interacted on our past games.

Long story short, I believe that I created my own destiny in this game by adapting and choosing the right moments to step into the spotlight.

[Stephanie]

Hey guys, it's Stephanie here, ready to prove to you all why I deserve the crown in this epic all-winners season and to claim the Stranded title for the second time!

My journey in this series began six years ago when I became the Sole Survivor in Namibia and I felt I'd gotten everything out of the experience I could ever want so the idea of making a return wasn't especially appealing to me. However, this theme was one I just couldn't turn down when the opportunity arose and I think we're all super proud to be a part of the winner's circle of a series of 30+ seasons and 13+ years so it seemed the perfect celebration amongst the best of the best. I knew it'd be an entirely different calibre of cast altogether given everyone has already proven their ability to win, but I put specific focus on a few of my own strengths to ensure I'd be a contender here, and effectively excelled at these to make it to the final three.

~Social~



This particular aspect was the foundation of my game and opened many doors for me, and I got to work right from the jump on Munin, establishing key alliances with the majority of the tribe. Catalie, Courtney, Cristina, Joaquin, Loveita, Melinda, Russell and Val were all people I felt super solid about working with for the game ahead and evidently that was reciprocated overall as by the end of round three, just before the swap, I ranked 2nd/10 in the social ranking of this tribe. After we voted off Kim Spradlin that round, she even called me out for being a "sleeper threat" alongside Loveita and Melinda, which I felt only brought me even closer to those two girls given we now had that stigma upon us, and Loveita and I had both just topped the ranking together.

By the time the swap came around, I had an easy majority with Catalie, Courtney, and Val on Fenrir, and despite having to kill off one of our own alliance just before the merge and Val having an idol she made known she would be playing, I was still able to form a strong trio with Catalie and Val going into the merge, to eliminate Courtney, despite her trying to put the hit on me.

Even though my timezone made it tricky for me to be here in full every single night, I still did everything I could to make up ground around the clock with any late night dwellers (Cassandra, Kim, Loveita etc.), any early birds in the morning (Melinda's one who comes to mind) and then obviously the other international players in Cristina/Penner I was able to strategize with and get to know in general on a personal level when the rest of you were all fast asleep <3 Even someone like Jeff who I only had two rounds with I felt I was able to foster a social relationship with and our impersonations of the pre-jury ahead of the merge challenge really broke the ice between us.

I used my social game to make people want to work with me and not target me, see a viable path forward with me and a need for me in their games and I think I achieved that by never being a genuine target to leave by receiving more than a single vote at a Tribal Council (I only received four total, three times by Cass and once by Courtney), whereas Russell and Yve both made themselves into easy targets in the early merge especially and didn't have as many available options as I did. I was able to find the perfect balance where people were wanting to work with me and include me in their circles without deeming me as too much of a threat to their games where they'd need to eliminate me down the line.

~Strategy~



My strategic game also had many depths to it which I'd like to showcase. Munin had the 8-6 numbers advantage at the merge and I was obviously feeling pretty good about my position within that hierarchy given my ranking just before the swap, being in a trio with Cat and Val, and knowing I had great relationships with Joaquin/Russell and Cristina/Loveita/Melinda. If anything I felt like after Val left that Catalie and I were firmly in the middle of those two factions within the Munin hierarchy which I could use to my benefit as one would always need my vote to strike against the other.

However, I knew this game was never going to be strictly Munin vs. Fenrir, and to solidify my cross-tribal connections I formed a four with myself and Catalie, as well as Kim and Tammy, to combine our two pairs. I knew I needed something solid as I was coming into the merge without Fenrir connections due to the swap dynamic. We agreed that we might not necessarily always vote together as we had somewhat conflicting allegiances and outright flipping too early could be detrimental, but we'd keep the target off each other from afar and see what opportunities open up down the road. I also knew with idols and whatnot floating around this would keep me out of the line of fire.

After Cass had voted me as her contingency plan at final eleven, I had very lengthy conversations with both her and Penner over the weekend as we tried to work through that, and an alliance of me, them, Cat and Joaquin was thrown around, and eyes were on the Joaquin/Russell/Tammy trio with a desire to break them up before they became too powerful.

The alliance itself didn't hold up as Joaquin caught wind of his name being thrown out there and Catalie heard Penner had leaked its existence to Kim and Loveita. I knew I wanted a Fenrir gone the first vote as I wanted to avoid any possibility of the five Fenrir voting together at nine if we gave them a majority, so Penner was the first target given all the drama that happened that afternoon, and then Loveita and I had planned ahead of time to flip to the remaining Fenrir at nine and blindside Joaquin, telling Joaquin/Russell to vote Tammy in case of an idol play so she was idolled out and not one of us, and the trio was still split up regardless, which is how it played out.

~Agency~



I think another strong selling point to my game and my case to win over my fellow finalists is my agency, positioning and ability to make my own vote one that was sought after.

After I'd voted Joaquin at final nine, I knew it was a risk that'd still pay off as he'd idol out Tammy and not me and I'd still be in a position where he'd have to work me back on his side in the aftermath. He even told me at this point he saw myself as being in the best position in the game. I knew he and Russell were growing concerns of me being aligned with Cass, Kim and Loveita and I was definitely playing that angle up to them while Cat, Joaquin and Russ still sought my vote as the four of us had been aligned since the beginning of the merge, and I worked that middle ground to my advantage.

I also knew that Joaquin and Loveita were more at odds with each other than he and I were so wasn't worried he'd come for me, in addition to me proving to Cass and Kim that I was legit about working and voting with them by putting Joaquin's name down alongside them, to keep that angle open too in terms of voting together moving forward. Plus, despite voting Yve at eight, I was still in a position where she still wanted to work and vote with me and not target me in the aftermath.

I knew Catalie and I were seen as a pair and obviously we were, but I was always making my own moves which put myself in the best position first and foremost, even if they weren't to her benefit. I was very much willing to vote separately from her if need be, which was evident at the final seven when I flipped on the tribal lines to vote against Munin and with the three Fenrir to take out Joaquin, as I knew the threat of him winning out to the end through challenge wins or idol plays was looming and I was very confident I'd have a viable path to the end even with him out of the way.

I was positioned to stay in the game despite Cass' attempts to vote me out at six and five and I firmly believe I was going to be safe at four regardless of winning immunity or not, but felt compelled to go all out in the challenge regardless because I just wanted it that badly to earn my spot here.

~Closing~



I survived sixteen Tribal Councils total, and in terms of swap numbers at the merge, myself, Cat and Val quickly just became myself and Cat from NuFenrir, but I made it here all the same. I never had a problem playing with OG Fenrir and worked hard forging cross-tribal relationships at the merge, making myself approachable for moves so they'd work with me, while also solidifying the initial strong relationships I already had with Munin since our first tribe at the beginning where I was fully ingrained in the inner circle.

I believe this is an area I greatly excelled at over Russell who copped ire at the start of the merge and had a bunch of votes thrown his way from either tribe in back-to-back Tribal Councils. I was never in genuine danger of leaving and had my name written down far less times than my two opponents who were easy names to throw around at the start of the merge especially for one reason or another.

So vote Stephanie for Victory in Stranded for Victory! It would mean everything to me to win this series for a second time and I do believe my effort in the final immunity challenge is a testament to my fight and determination to pull this out, as I'll continue to display in my responses to whatever questions you wish to ask of me.

Thanks guys, best of luck to Russell and Yve and look forward to getting this show on the road!