Brian

**Brian** (briantran87#5733) placed 11th in Season 7 & 10th in Season 8.

Establishing fast on the Bati Tribe that he was one to watch, Brian would quickly become the leader of the Batis. With a strong, positive, and friendly merge showing, Brian found himself with allies to spare and in a position of power very quickly in the game. Unfortunately for him, he would suffer from the “Bati Curse” and go to two of three Tribal Councils before swap. It was here that Brian’s strong demeanor began to show cracks to his tribemates, as he was prone to a bit of perceived “paranoia” as he wanted to understandably plan for the worst always, despite the two boots basically being inactive or straight up asking to be voted out. Due to this, Brian’s game would unknowingly and slowly take a turn for the worse. At the swap, Brian was outed to others as being a challenge threat; indeed, he carried his tribe to victory many times, and almost singlehandedly was able to win immunity pre-swap even with the “Bati Curse.” While initially keen to get out the OG Papukeni duo in a 2-2-1 tribe split, Brian would flex his social game to onboard Dylan and Jesse into a new alliance with OG Bati Leo due to these rumors reaching him. He told them that the Yalo had never gone to Tribal Council, and that they’d be too strong of a unit at the merge if they didn’t take the chance to boot KJ. Unbeknownst to him, Leo was in on the potential Brian elimination plan, and was even aware that Dylan and Jesse considered throwing immunity just to vote him out so he could not have an immunity run at the merge. Luckily for Brian, his social game and subtle seed planting paid off, and when the Nu Papukeni tribe lost immunity, everyone was in agreement that KJ needed to go. Making the merge, Brian was stoked to potentially have the majority still as there was a very heavy “anti Yalo'' sentiment that he and fellow OG Bati AJ were spreading throughout the tribe. This was very initially going to hold up, with Jesse and Dylan initially wanting the OG Papukeni and OG Bati to pagong the OG Yalo as the OG Bati wanted. However, when the OG Papukeni began to change their minds when Brian’s “steps ahead” type strategy was being leaked to the Papukeni by Leo and AJ, the OG Bati tribe as a whole began to suffer greatly. Brian, Leo, and AJ seemed to put noticeably less social effort into the OG Yalo members due to assuming they’d be pagonged. As such, the three found themselves left out of a brewing plan to blindside Brian while they had the chance by the three swing votes they could have used most. This was especially ironic, as AJ and Leo’s leaking of Brian’s targets was also in assumption of a “steps ahead” strategy, which all came crashing down immediately due to being perceived as “snakes” and “overplaying.” Despite being fairly aloof to the plan, Brian did sense his name was out there and did his best to keep the OG Papukeni onside. Unfortunately, the Bati’s neglect to put in any social effort to the Yalos saw Brian become the first casualty of the merge in an 8-3 vote, sending a good natured Brian to the jury. He is remembered for his birthday shenanigans, in which he humorously and seemingly unironically leveraged for his tribe not to vote him out due to it being his birthday during Tribal Council, which unknowingly hurt his social standing with several players.

Returning in Season 8, Brian repeated being seen as the leader of Ilolma despite his confessionaling that he was “a new UTR Brian.” This led once again to him being well positioned on his OG tribe, forming a particularly close working relationship with Rye. Brian did not particularly feel strongly about getting any of the Ilolma’s out, and despite having a pecking order still wanted them to stick together for as long as possible. This would prove to be easy for him when 4 Ilolma members were given the majority at the swap on Nu Ilolma. Initially, all of these players were content with just staying Ilolma strong (a massive and rookie mistake given their threat level) but eventually they became open to working with Katt and Elise. Despite this, Brian claimed to not want to go overboard making new allies, stating that is what the “old Brian” would do. This would eventually prove to be his undoing, as this only heightened the perception of him as the leader of a pack of returnees and skyrocketed his threat level going into the merge. At the merge, Cherry’s rumor of “The Frat” alliance sparked a rivalry between Rikki and Brian, more noticeably one sided on Brian’s part early on due to Brian thinking Rikki was a snake betraying the Ilolma core. This led to Brian playing aggressively to end the members of said fake alliance, which only caught him the target of the majority of the game. After the second immunity challenge, the non-Ilolma members wanted to take an Ilolma out after being scared by Smokin’s parting words that there could be a 5-5 split left in the game. This led to all out war between Rikki and Brian, with Cherry in the middle puppeteering the entire feud and vote via false information. Cherry went so far as to actually name “The Frat” alliance with the other he/him players minus Brian when Rikki made an alliance of them, saying that Brian was actually the one all along spreading that rumor and making shit up. Essentially the entire game except his number one Rye were thirsty for his blindside due to all the rumors on top of his perception as “controlling” and what would hold an Ilolma majority together, despite him at least wanting to cut Rikki. Miraculously, Brian was able to find the Pati Hidden Immunity Idol in his time of need! Unfortunately, the tribe did a very good job of hiding that his name was even out at all due to Rye being the only player that would leak it being left in the dark. Brian was then truly and completely blindsided in an 8-2 vote with an idol in his pocket, being shocked and confused why he could have possibly been targeted given the vs Rikki rumors circulating (as well as being unaware of how much Cherry had been shitting on their games). He is remembered for claiming to be a “new” Brian and taking a page from Season 7 winner Dylan’s playstyle, a move which would greatly cost him as what “old” Brian wanted to do was typically a better idea, i.e. aligning more strongly with the other tribes pre-merge.