Joel

Joel is the sole visionary of Visionary Survivor: Italy, Visionary Survivor: All-Stars and Visionary Survivor: Blood vs Water.

## Italy Summary

As controversial of a winner as Joel is, his win brought a lot of perspective as to what it means to be a good winner, as well as what kinds of strategies should and can be awarded.

The best way to describe Joel's game would be with the word safe, especially in the pre-merge portion of the game. From day one Joel had a final two agreement with fellow Valentino Jack. At first the two were on pretty even ground when it came to gameplay and although it stayed that way for a while, eventually things started to shake for both of their games. As Jack became more and more of a threat, it seemed as though the more spotlight Jack was forced into, the less attention Joel got.

At the final eight, Jack and Joel were left as the final two original Valentino members left as a result of the many evacuations. At this point Jack took control, knowing that something had to be done in order to solidify Jack and Joel's positions in the game. When Jack executed his double tribal council plan, in some ways he saved Joel by taking the heat off of their duo. Even though Joel still received a vote and was almost eliminated, he was saved by Sasha's stray vote that forced Brandon into a tie with him. This tie resulted in Brandon's elimination by wheel.

While Jack became a public enemy as a result of the double tribal, Joel was actually in a pretty solid position due to not controlling the vote but still being part of it. At the final six Joel began contemplating making a move against Jack, knowing that he wouldn't be able to beat him in the final tribal council. However, because of Jack's advantages, Joel couldn't make a move yet. This continued into the final four in which Joel finally decided to make a move.

Shielding is a strategy that was only recently invented within the past few years in Survivor and one that hasn't been practiced much, especially not to the degree that Joel executed it in. Joel had been hiding in Jack's shadow the entire game as a part of his strategy, but what made it so ironic was that Jack claimed a multitude of times that his strategy was laying low and hiding in the shadows while other juggernauts battled it out in front of him. Little did he know that the biggest shadow was his own, and Joel had taken full advantage of it.

At the final four, with Joel's senses fully intact, he was ready to make a move. All that stood in his way was one immunity challenge. Jack, the strategical mastermind that he was, predicted that Joel was about to make a move against him. With no advantages left in his pocket, he knew he had to win immunity or he would be next to go. Although neither openly stated their intentions, the smart move for Joel was obvious, and it even more obvious that Joel would be making it if given the chance. If that wasn't enough, the fact that Sasha and Ethan were already set on voting together coupled with the fact that Jack didn't see Ethan or Sasha as threats added another layer of tension that also made the challenge a do or die situation for Joel. Essentially, whoever won would be taking the other one out. Ultimately, Joel won immunity, sending Jack home four days short of the final tribal council.

After thirty-five days of using Jack as a shield, Joel was left unprotected with one immunity challenge standing between him and the final tribal council. In anticlimactic fashion, Joel dominated the final immunity challenge, securing his spot in the final tribal council. However, winning the challenge was the easy part, deciding who he would take with him to the end was the hard part. On one hand, he could take Ethan, someone who wasn't even paying attention to the game until the final six, someone who was seen as the biggest floater of the season. On paper it seemed like an easy win to take Ethan,but at the same time Joel wasn't sure of whether or not he'd be rewarded for taking the easy way out. On the other hand, he could take Sasha. Someone who played an incredible game, one of the best of the season, but wasn't well liked by the jury. However, for whatever reason Joel saw Sasha as someone who was well liked by the jury, likely because the jury consisted of all Versace members other than Jack. Ironically, Joel decided to take Sasha, a decision that was viewed as an incredibly dumb move. But for Joel, he wanted to win against someone that played a game equal to or better than his own in order to get justification for his own gameplay.

Now came the end of the road, the final tribal council. The consensus of the spectators was that Sasha would win easily, but it was quite the contrary as the final part of Joel's strategy came into play without him even realizing that it would happen. Joel's shield ultimately played a big part in helping Joel both in and out of the game. Due to bleeding Valentino the same way Rob Mariano bleeds Boston, Jack wanted to ensure that a Valentino member would win, even if it wasn't going to be him. Because of this, Jack spent much of his time at Ponderosa hyping up Joel's game and trying to get other jury members to vote for him in the final tribal council. As an added bonus, many jurors already disliked Sasha due to her "attitude". This lead to rather poor jury questioning for Sasha, and standard jury questioning for Joel. Although many spectators just saw it as them being bitter, the jury awarded Joel the win in a near unanimous 6-1 vote, making him the second Sole Visionary.

## All-Stars Summary

Coming into All-Stars Joel was perceived as the least threatening winner in Visionary. His initial season was one that had many evacuations that caused it to be one of the most boring, and arguably the easiest, season of Visionary. This mixed with the fact that Joel himself was viewed as a weaker player who relied on shields created a reputation that Joel wanted to refine.

To start the game off Joel was placed on a tribe with all six of the Visionary winners. In order to be successful in All-Stars he figured the best course of action would be to take out the bigger threats, just like any other season. But in a season like All-Stars, when everyone is a threat in one way or another, that isn’t exactly easy. Before the first challenge, Joel had already become very adamant about targeting Dawit. Everyone saw Dawit and Kaden as a pretty obvious duo, and Dawit a dominant game in season five that established him as one of the bigger threats in the game, so Joel didn’t want to take any chances. After losing the first challenge the tribe quickly split itself between Bee, Joel, and Mink against Blair, Dawit, and Kaden. The first trio wanted to take out bigger threats, while the second trio wanted to take out the more under the radar players.

Up until tribal council both sides did their best to try and flip members of the other side in order to avoid a wheel. As time moved on it seemed as though Blair and Mink were the two targets. After hours of conversation and no one agreeing to flip, Joel came up with a 3-2-1 split vote plan to try and get Blair to vote away from Dawit and Kaden. He didn’t need her to vote against them, as long as their three votes weren’t together then he, Bee, and Mink would have the majority they wanted. But Dawit’s impeccable social skills got to him first. Knowing that a wheel would be the most likely outcome of the tribal council, Dawit played off of Joel’s fears and used some scare tactics into pressuring Joel to flip. Even though Joel wasn’t actually Blair, Dawit and Kaden’s target, Dawit convinced Joel that he would land on the wheel if he didn’t flip. Dawit was successful in getting Joel to flip, and Mink became the first boot of All-Stars in a 4-2 vote.

Due to Joel’s flipping Bee was left alone on the bottom of the tribe. While Joel assumed that his flipping would have set him up in a better situation, ironically he was worse off than he was before. He had relinquished any power he had to Dawit and had forced himself into a follower position. After the Royalty tribe lost the second challenge, Joel assumed that Bee was the target and reluctantly voted in her direction. But in actuality, the trio that Joel had just flipped to in the last vote wanted nothing to do with him strategically or socially. They figured that it would be smarter for their long term games to stick with Bee, this was ironically because they had convinced Joel to flip and were nervous that others might do the same in the future. So after clueing in Bee, Joel was eliminated in a unanimous 4-1 vote.

### Voting History

 The Devil Works But I Work Harder
 This Is Only The Beginning Baby
 Eliminated, Day 5

## Blood vs Water Summary

Joel came into the season with a distinct goal from many other players. Following his second boot placement in All Stars, he was looking for redemption and proof to himself and the audience that he deserved his win in the controversial Season 2. He set an early goal to at least reach the swap and blew everyone out of the water by making the Final 6, the highest placement for any returning winner up until then. Beginning the game, Joel was in one of the strangest positions on his tribe. Early on he had a significant amount of trust in Gabe, Darryl, and Steven, but also forged alliances with newer players such as Matthew, Epoxy, and Jay. Unsurprisingly, he did not trust Kaden, the other winner, whatsoever due to the conflict between them in All Stars. His early game alliances were simply sporadic to say the least and seemed to vary day by day.

As the returnee tribe lost their first immunity in the third episode, Joel was instantly confronted with the strangest gameplay from Wyatt. Immediately after their loss in the challenge, Wyatt began throwing out random names to random tribemates to gauge their reactions. Unfortunately for Joel, one of the first ones Wyatt began to spread was Joel’s. However, in less than an hour the entire tribe seemed to gather around eliminating Wyatt who had thrown out the majority of the tribe’s names. Joel voted with 7 others to eliminate Wyatt, and ultimately got one vote from Wyatt as he went out.

At the swap, Joel stayed on the Zeus tribe with 5 other returnees, possessing a majority of 6-2 against Amani and Quizzy. This tribe lost their first tribal council, and it seemed that Joel was once again on the chopping block. Despite his lack of trust with Kaden, Kaden’s desire to make a big move pushed him to make arguably the best move of the season and save Joel and Quizzy. While Steven told Joel that the vote was in between Joel and Quizzy (although Joel received no votes from this tribal council), Kaden prepared to save Quizzy and Giully by taking out Steven. Joel ended up being the swing vote at this tribal council and cast his vote for Steven instead of Giully, eliminating Steven in a 4-3-1 vote. The Zeus tribe also attended the third tribal council of the swap, but Darryl was unanimously eliminated in a 6-1 vote just due to all around for failing to connect with most of the tribe members.

The next round, Joel made his second merge and quickly began unraveling and panicking. There was a common theme throughout the early merge of Joel being left out of discussions despite not often being a target and he made it very clear that it stressed him out. In the first merge vote, Joel went along with Nick’s name due to Nick no longer having a partner and a fear of being the merge vote. Although Joel didn’t vote in the majority, Gabe’s legacy advantage ended up eliminating Nick in a \*7-6 vote. At the next vote, he began to note how power hungry Kaden had become, but ended up voting alongside him for Amani. However, Joel did try to flip the votes onto Toon last second, which was not received well and only flipped two votes: Amani, who Joel voted for, and her partner, Gabe.

At the next tribal, the common fear of Kaden among many players led to Joel along with 6 other players voting him out in a 7-4 vote in order to protect his partner, Zura, who was being targeted due to a public statement in the camp chat regarding his internal conflict over whether or not to stay in the game. Over these previous rounds, Joel had voted with Jay twice and was now fairly close with him. At the next vote, he targeted Toon alongside Enrique, Jay, and Zura for all around inactivity and to try to rebuild his trust with Gabe. Once again, Joel only stayed on the right side of the votes due to an advantage play, this time an exit ticket by Enrique. Toon was eliminated with only 3 votes cast for him, one of them being Joel’s.

For the next three votes, Joel simply voted with the majority to take out 3 major threats: Enrique, Giully, and Matthew. Despite his early relationship with Matthew, he felt that he had too much power. Unfortunately, this ended up being Joel’s downfall. After eliminating the three largest threats, as a former winner Joel was a clear target. After Quizzy won the final 6 immunity, he attempted a plan to eliminate Gabe. However, Quizzy, Gabe, Jay, and Maji had all devised a plan to take out Joel and get rid of the final loved ones pair left in the game. Joel was eliminated in a 4-2 vote in 6th place, making him the highest placing returning winner up until season 10. Although his gameplay seemed chaotic and emotional at many points, Joel’s game ultimately ended due to Quizzy’s victory in the immunity challenge. Joel had very little target on his back all season, only receiving votes at 2 tribal councils all season. Make no mistake - despite feeling left out of many votes, Joel’s social gameplay, adaptability, and awareness of his own threat level allowed him to make one of the most impressive runs of any returnee this season, and solidified him as a great player.

## Return Interviews

**Clearly you did something right last time you played otherwise you wouldn’t have been invited back. So this season, are you looking to play more of the same way or change up your play style?**
I know for a fact I need to change up my play style. I won and shocked literally everybody by not only getting to the FTC against all odds, but then claiming the victory against Sasha who may have played a better game than I did. This time around I’m looking to prove that I deserved that win, and that I’m willing to do whatever it takes to win again. If that means burning my closest allies, so be it, I’m here to win, not be a pre-merge boot.
**What did you learn from your last season that will help you do better this time around?**
I learned well hmmmm. I mean I surprised even myself by winning, but I feel like I learned that I’m good at adapting. When Jack took the reins in Italy, I changed my own game style by using him as a shield and got myself to the end. I really feel like adaptability is going to help me do even better this time around. Being adaptable is a skill that I’m going to exercise to the fullest this season.
**With 18 high caliber players returning, who are you expecting to see return? Who are you most and least excited to see again?**
I’m 100% expecting to see Kaden, Dawit, and Blair. I’m kind of expecting to see Bee, CK, Kalina, Quil, Sasha, maybe a couple others. I’m most excited to see Kaden because we’ve had a very buddy buddy pre-game alliance since right after I won S2 for this exact time, and I’m least excited to see Dawit mostly because of how aggressive his play style is.
**How confident are you this time around? Do you think you have what it takes to beat the best of the best?**
I’m not all too confident, but at the same time I kind of am. The way I won, my credibility in this community, nobody’s going to take me seriously as a threat. My plan is simple. I’ve watched every season. I know who the threats are/were. I’ll just throw names out there and people will hopefully be like...yeah wait he was very scary that season. And hopefully it’ll work :slight\_smile:
**What are you looking forward to most this season? What are you looking to accomplish this time around?**