Roman

**Roman** was a contestant of SurviVARs: Wildemount.

## **Profile**

**Discord:** romantikism

**Gender:** she/they

**Timezone:** EST

Roman was somehow both the topdog of this season as well as the underdog. She played a very dominant game, and somehow managed to dominate even when she was on the bottom. Her game had a lot of ups and downs, but she was always a central character of the season. She came out strong, being the first to find a clue to the Hidden Immunity Idol. She raced Dongoosh to find it, but when both struggled to get to the end they decided to work together. Roman had already finished the logic puzzle, but she pretended to be behind and repeated the entire puzzle just to keep up appearances with her new friend Goosh. With Dongoosh’s help, she was able to claim the first Idol of the season! However, Lars and Jake were sitting in a sort of power position on this first tribe, and they had Roman in their sights as a potential first target. Roman could’ve been in trouble until a swap forced Shaun and Famine to swap places, and she immediately went to work (alongside Dongoosh) pulling Shaun in as a third member to their duo.

When the tribes swapped, she continued to play an intentional social game by sharing the idol clues with Sparky after he shared the truth of his Skull card with her. He tried to lie and say the Clay idol was already claimed, but Roman had seen the “already claimed” message from Dongoosh so she was able to see through his lie. With knowledge of 2 out 3 idols, Roman was situated very well. Roman then went on to play a pivotal role in the Thanos tribal council, where she was one of only four players to cast a vote. She was locked in with Aowyn at the start, and the pair hoped to get Deadpool and Ano to throw their votes onto Sparky so that on the revote they would be able to beat them 2-1 thanks to revote rules. Both sides had the same idea, though, and it wound up being a 2-2 tie between Aowyn and Deadpool. This is where Roman did some of her best social work (with Aowyn playing a major role as well), convincing Ano to flip on the revote despite this pretty clearly not being in their best interest. Roman was in a clear power position on Tealeaf, and had an idol as well. Roman conspired with the OG Brenatto members on her tribe to get her a card from the Deck of Many Things, but continuing the trend of the season she pulled a cursed card that forced her to vote for her #1 in Trust Rankings. This wound up being Shaun. She lied and told her tribe that she received a Safety Without Power that had a 50% chance of activating, and the tribe believed her.

When a second swap switched Jake and Orange with Shaun and Lars, Roman’s forced target was removed from her tribe and she was now free to vote wherever. Orange and Jake threatened to upset the control that Aowyn and Roman had on Lavorre, but she was still in an okay spot. During the double tribal, we saw the first signs of key players (Aowyn and Sparky) growing wary of Roman and being tempted to take a shot at her. Even though the tribe decided to go the easier route and vote off Bella, Roman had enough of a threat level to catch Bella’s lone vote on her way out.

Entering the merge, Roman resparked old relationships and told Dongoosh about Sparky’s idol. People saw her as a strategic threat, and so Roman was going to have to be clever if she wanted to make it far. The Sindira vote was easy, even if Roman had to throw a vote onto Shaun thanks to her deck draw. She told Sindira to play her Shot in the Dark, and even though it didn’t save her this started a trend of effective Jury management that could’ve paid off in spades had Roman made it to the end. When everyone started whispering about who could’ve thrown the rogue vote, Roman’s name was completely left out of the conversation, leaving her in the clear. Still, her threat level remained. At the auction, she won the ability to draw from the Deck once again, earning her the Throne card (which allowed her to see the first two votes cast once played). This, combined with an idol, would prove a deadly combination. Shaun played this round hard, and wound up playing himself right out of the game, but Roman was able to tell him to play his Shot in the Dark as well.

Then we hit the pivotal Orange vote, and the time for easy targets was gone. At first everyone wanted to flush Sparky’s idol, but these conversations started to draw hard lines in the sand as alliances were formed. Roman was growing frustrated with how leaky Dongoosh and Jake were getting, so she formed an alliance of her own with Sparky, Ano, and Aowyn. Orange started to push Roman pretty heavily as a target, and when word got back to her through the Jake/Aowyn pipeline they decided to place their target firmly on Orange. As these two giants took shots at each other, Roman had an idol and Orange didn’t, which wound up sealing his fate.

Soon after this, Touchy Subjects revealed that Roman was indeed the biggest threat in the game, both strategically and socially. She had an inescapable target now, and no more idol to save her. Flower and Riley (who at this point had two idols between them) planned to target the newly formed duo of Roman and Sparky, who were now the threatening underdogs with seemingly no way to escape. Riley and Flower pretended to go along with Sparky’s plan of blindsiding Dongoosh, and Roman played her Throne card to see if that’s where their votes really went. She saw Aowyn and Riley’s votes (since Flower lost his vote to the Mimic Idol), and they were indeed for Dongoosh. Everyone else voted, and Roman sent a stray vote to Riley just in case an idol was played, and also so that she could keep her relationship to Dongoosh. This was when Riley and Aowyn switched their votes to Roman, unaware that the Throne card allowed Roman to see this shift. Roman had enough of a heads up to get Sparky to play his idol for her, cementing their role as a duo and keeping her safe from Flower and Riley’s move. This prompted Flower to play his idol for Riley, leaving only two eligible votes for Dongoosh and Sparky (since Flower lost his vote and Ano and Jake were partying with the crab people). On the revote, Roman was locked onto Dongoosh in order to protect Sparky, and Aowyn kept her word to Sparky as well. Dongoosh was sent home, and the Roman/Sparky bottom duo was left alive and kicking.

They were left alone, and with no more advantages to save them. The writing seemed to be on the wall. Sparky managed to win immunity, and was even tempted to transfer immunity to his bestie Roman, but it seemed like the writing was on the wall for her. Ano and Aowyn were left as the swing votes, and they considered keeping Roman in as a shield. Unfortunately, they were both too loyal to Jake, Riley, and Flower, so Roman was sent home with 5 votes against her. As a final message, she cast one vote against Jake in order to ruin his perfect game. She became the fifth member of the jury, and would ultimately go on to vote for Riley to win.

Roman was a MASSIVE player this season. Between her idol saves, clutch advantage management, and dominant social and strategic game, she was a real front runner for Player of the Game despite placing 7th. She won Best Duo with Sparky for everything the pair accomplished in order to save themselves, and her blindside against Orange was nominated for Best Move. She also walked away with nominations for Underdog and Villain of the season, cementing her place in this cast’s hall of fame. Roman is an absolutely cracked player, and did very well in a cast that was equally cracked. She should be super proud of how dominant her game was even if she didn’t make it to the end. It was a blast to host Roman and watch her wheel and deal, and I would do it again in a heartbeat.

### **Nominations**

**Villain**

Roman wasn’t a villain because she was disloyal or mean, but because she prevented so many moves that the season’s “protagonists” were trying to make. When the first half of the merge is almost entirely dedicated to taking you out, that makes you a villain of the season in at least one way. Roman was saved twice by Immunity Idols, one of which was played on her behalf by Sparky (who very nearly made the cut for villain of the season), and both idol plays resulted in fan favorite characters going home in Orange and Dongoosh. A ton of people were rooting for Roman in this game, and she had a lot of heroic attributes as a character, but her role in this game was that of the evil Queen that needed to be dethroned, and the anti-Roman arc of the early merge set the tone for all of the game to come after it.

**Underdog**

Roman isn’t a traditional underdog. It’s rare to call the biggest threat of the season an underdog, but that’s exactly what Roman was. She was seen as a strategic force from day one, and this saw important players like Aowyn turning against her very quickly. At first, it looked like Roman only had Dongoosh at her side. At merge, she wasn’t super trusted despite being very well-liked. Nobody wanted to see her come anywhere close to FTC, so she was up against a wall. Surviving the pre-merge was a testament to her social game, but surviving into the merge was all about strategy and skill. She had been the first to find an idol, and played it at the exact right moment to save her skin and send Orange packing. Then her relationship with Sparky saved her again when he played an idol for her, sending Dongoosh home in the wildest elimination in SurviVARS history. It was at that point that Roman was left idolless and allyless (if either of those are actually words). There was nothing left to save her, and Roman was finally cut out of the game. She didn’t make a super deep run into the endgame, but every step she made was a masterclass in maneuvering, and it was a joy to watch.

**Best Move (Orange's Blindside)**

This round was so chaotic, and I think it might have been the longest recap of the season. So many plans came and went, and I only want to go so far in detail here (mostly because I don’t have time to crack this egg open again), but it pretty much ended with everyone wanting to pile the votes into Sparky and see someone get idoled out. Everyone wanted a different final target, so the social dynamics at play were wild. Everyone was leaking everything, and everyone wanted to get their way here. After two easy votes at the start of the merge, this was where the dam broke. Ultimately, Sparky somehow ended up receiving 0 votes, and Roman perfectly read the situation in order to play her idol and send the most socially powerful player (Orange) home. The best move of the round looks like Roman’s idol play, but so much was happening behind the scenes that it’s hard to say that anyone really played this round poorly. Everyone was on top of their game, everyone was working overtime to get their plan in place, and it was the start of the best merge game this ORG has seen.

**Player of the Game**

Roman seemed to have a threat level to manage by the end of round one, but this didn’t slow her down in the slightest. People didn’t all trust her, and she was actually in a bit of hot water at the very start, but once she picked up steam she was unstoppable. She got her hands on an idol before anyone else, and used her knowledge of the hunt to build relationships with Dongoosh and Sparky, both of which would prove very valuable to her game. She entered the merge as the biggest social and strategic threat, which meant she had a huge red target on her back. Still, her relationships kept her safe, and when they couldn’t she was able to play her idol and scrape one round further. She was one of the first OTT threats to be toppled by the more UTR threats, but she still made it further than she should have if you consider all of the odds against her. She may not have made as deep of a run, but she was a monumental presence for the time she spent in the game.

### **Awarded**

**Best Duo (With Sparky)**

These two players both had a similar story in that they were sitting pretty in the pre-merge (advantages, allies, trust rankings, all that jazz) but then entered the merge as huge targets with a lot going against them. It seemed like Roman, Sparky, and Ano were the three names on everyone’s mouth, yet they continued to survive. Roman and Sparky became inseparable through their position on the bottom. Between constantly leaking info, playing idols for each other, and doing whatever they could to flip numbers on their sides, these two players were the antagonists of the merge that kept our “heroes” on their toes. These two didn’t make it to the endgame, but they fought tooth and nail to make it as far as they did and they were the thorns in everyone else’s side until they were finally booted back to back.

**Best Move (The Dongoosh Clusterfuck)**

This move was chaos incarnate, and there was certainly a lot of BS involved here. Yet, looking at it closely, a lot of people played this round really well. Jake played his advantage at the perfect time, and wound up winning immunity because of it. Ano was very smart to use their SWOP and remove Jake from the game, leaving their alliance with a lot of control. Riley was able to save her idol thanks to her relationship with Flower, who was able to use his mimic idol thanks to his relationship with Orange. Flower and Riley expertly navigated Roman’s Throne card that allowed her see parchments, changing Riley’s vote (and Aowyn’s, since Flower had lost his vote to the mimic idol) at the last second to prevent Roman from knowing they were trying to blindside her and Sparky. Roman easily got Sparky to play his idol after seeing them change their votes, a testament to her social game with Sparky. Roman threw a rogue vote onto Riley in order to cover for an idol play (which was a good read even if she threw it into the wrong direction). Only two votes counted in this Tribal Council despite 8 players being in the game, and this was a testament to everyone having good reads, playing advantages at the perfect time, and all moving optimally to try to outplay each other. Dongoosh was the ultimate casualty, and it was heartbreaking to see, but this was still top notch gameplay across the board.