Survivor Winter Park: Lord of the Lads

## Cast

***Lord of the Lads*** is the fourteenth main season of *Survivor Winter Park* and the second season in the third era.

As the first season of a two-part experiment, the all-male cast in *Lord of the Lads* led to dynamic and light-hearted gameplay, with competent newbies taking over the game from the multi-time returning players. With blindsides against close friends left and right, Charlie Hoeckendorf's deep integration into every alliance allowed him to win over Juan Varela's gameplay from the bottom and Maddox Muscato's lack of control in a 7-4-0.

## Production

*Lord of the Lads* was conceived at the same time as *Guild of the Girlies* with the hope that the third era of *Survivor Winter Park* would be more experimental than ever before. Cole Groth would once again take back hosting for this season, with the intention of shrinking the crew team down in size from the previous few seasons to prevent the sheer number of people attending days of the game without providing any assistance.

When casting the season, Cole's focus was to attract groups of friends that would all have fun together while not sticking together purely on the basis of their friendship, making it easier to introduce multiple players into the cast at once. While returning players were not a focus, the four that were selected (all being multi-time players already) had asked to participate in the season and were given the chance to do so. The only person notable in the cast before dropping out was Paul Ramos, who had played in *The Forest Enigma*.

As a way to counteract the power of the Hidden Immunity Idol and force people to stop stalling on playing them, Thorin Groth introduced the idea of a "shot clock" on the idols, forcing them to be played after a few rounds before being put back into hiding. In the past, many players who would find the idols would often never think of using them until the final few rounds of their expiration, as most players who would find them were good enough at the game to not need them.

Physical challenges were a focus for the season, unlike *Halloween Spooktacular* and *The Forest Enigma*, for the purposes of seeing how far the all-male would fight to win immunity.

## Twists/Advantages

### **Twists**

* **Lord of the Lads:** After every immunity round, the winner would be granted the ability to force all their tribe members to follow some task of their (in actuality, Cole's) choosing throughout the round.
* **Instant Merge:** Instead of starting with tribes, the fourteen players immediately began the game at the merge, with every player being a jury member.
* **Secret Idol:** Continuing from *March Madness*, players were given the opportunity to play idols at the voting booth, instead of in public. However, they could only play the idol for another player instead of themselves.
* **Blitz Round:** Starting at the Final 12, a Blitz Round began. The events following that immunity challenge until the Tribal Council at the Final 11 were all taken at a quickened pace.

### **Advantage**

* **Hidden Immunity Idol:** The Hidden Immunity Idol returned with a shot clock: there would be three different idols hidden at three different points, expiring at the end of every point. The first was Final 14 to Final 12, the second was Final 10 to Final 8, and the third was Final 7 to Final 6, the last round it could be played.

## Season Summary

*Lord of the Lads* saw a wild opener to the all-male 14-player merge, with factions splitting between a voluntary elimination from Alexander Adams and the physical threat Derek Romich, immediately showing the cross-country faction of Derek, Griffin Hallemeier, Joseph Ales, and Juan Varela against the long-time friends faction of Bryant Richey, Reid Walker, Samuel Fitts, and William Turner, with Alberto Oliveira, Charlie Hoeckendorf, and Pedro Kawamura playing in the middle. Every returning player would see themselves targeted quickly, but Pedro would save himself and his ally Alberto Oliveira through multiple idol plays. The cross-country faction would be dismantled by the end of the first day, with JC successfully saving himself from the shuffle.

Day 2 would see Pedro brought back into the light as a target, but his immunity wins would result in the blindsides of Sam and Bryant back-to-back. Charlie would continue to rise as a power player, constantly coming out on the right side of the vote while allowing him to bring his season-long ally in Reid further to the end, now aligned with JC to form a power trio. The three would clean up the game with the eliminations of Alberto and Pedro, now sitting in the Final 4, with Maddox Muscato, a consistent wildcard, as an extra vote. After losing immunity, JC would secretly become the target of his alliance, which cleverly caught onto their betrayal by forcing a tie against Reid with outsider Maddox, where Reid was eliminated from the game as the final jury member.

The Final Tribal Council would be the closest final vote in ages, with both Charlie and JC receiving major credit for their successful navigation of their separate alliances to make it to the end game, with Maddox incidentally being lost in the shuffle. Charlie was credited with being in control of almost the entire game since the beginning, while JC's clever alliance hopping and Final 4 move brought him back into the conversation for the vote. In a close 7-4-0 final vote, Charlie would be crowned the Sole Survivor over JC and Maddox.

## Trivia

* *Lord of the Lads* is the third season with an all-male Final Tribal Council, following *Season 1* and *Good vs. Bad vs. Neutral*.
	+ It is the only all-male Final 3.
* Joseph Ales is the only returning player from this season to not later play in *All-Stars*.

## Future return list

* None for *Guild of the Girlies*.
* **1 for *Clash of the Champions*:** Charlie Hoeckendorf
* None for *Dynamic Duos*.
* **5 for *All-Stars*:** Bryant Richey, Griffin Hallemeier, Pedro Kawamura, Reid Walker, and William Turner
	+ **Total returns:** 6 returns across 4 seasons (an average of 1.500 returns per season).