Merlin

**Merlin** was a contestant of SurviVARs: Hogwarts and SurviVARs: Secret War.

## **Profile**

**Discord:** Merrrrrp

**Gender:** he/him

**Timezone:** PST

## **Survivor**

* S2 - Hogwarts
* S5 - Secret War

**Player Ranking (7th)**

Merlin’s beard!! Just being named Merlin in a Harry Potter season is enough to earn you top 10 in rankings, but his solid gameplay earns him the 7th place spot. He positioned himself well early on, and this let him coast his way into the endgame with ease. As impressive as this was, it’s also why he doesn’t rank higher. Merlin talked a lot about wanting to make big moves, especially after Touchy Subjects exposed how the rest of the tribe viewed him, but he never seemed to close the deal. That being said, he was always vocal about the trajectory he saw the game going. His “stop scrambling” parchment caused more jury drama than I predict he expected, but it was fun to see. He was always present, and wasn’t a goat by any means. That’s why I earned two jury votes in the final 3, and was only one vote shy of tying for first place.

#### **Voting History**

**Player Ranking (3rd)**

I have to preface by saying that this final three is separated by a hair’s width. All three of these players were incredible, and it’s only because I’m stubborn that I’m not just letting them share #1 in character rankings. By just the narrowest of margins, the young wizard takes 3rd in the rankings. Merlin’s story was absolutely crazy this season. He wasn’t even supposed to play! He was an alternate, but then Will dropped at the last minute, and we had to put Merlin in with absolutely no preparation. This should have put him at a disadvantage, but no. He stepped up to the plate and played one of the best games SurviVARS has seen. The moment he sent Aria home with a single vote, we knew he would be one to watch. I think that he made the most out of being underestimated and used it to his advantage as he rode the middle with absolutely no visibility or threat level. While all of the big dogs devoured each other, Merlin was making small moves that had big consequences. When Izzy really started to gain momentum, it looked like Merlin might have been the only one capable of stopping her. If Izzy and Red didn’t have such a powerful allegiance in the endgame, and weren’t keeping each other safe like they were, then Merlin was set to win it all. He may not have taken the crown from Izzy, but he was one of the most enjoyable parts of Secret War and proves that alternates should NEVER be underestimated.

### **Nominations**

**Most Robbed Player**

Merlin was one of the main players to watch almost from the start, and proved time and time again that he was playing well and was playing to win. He was playing a beautiful middle game and had a real shot to win it all. He had tons of different paths forward, and was positioned alongside Winston to end up in FTC with almost any combination. His bad luck began when Winston disappeared and was voted out, but Merlin still managed to recover. He situated himself right back into a secret driver’s seat, but unfortunately for him, people caught on. Izzy, Red, and Rich took him out in an epic 3-2-1 thanks to the leaked idea for the split vote. He wasn’t robbed of making a deep run, and we were lucky to see him all the way up to the end. Instead, he was potentially robbed of winning the whole game. That definitely deserves some recognition.

**Villain**

It feels strange calling Merlin a villain, because he’s really a lovely person and a very rootable character. In many ways, he was one of this season’s primary protagonists. So why is he up for the Villain award?? He has the heart of a hero, but definitely played this game like a villain. He was smart with his alliances, and was playing both sides like a pro. For most of the game he was able to vote wherever he wanted and with whoever he wanted, and nobody was using it as a reason to take him out. He threw stray votes (which sometimes worked), flipped consistently, and only had true allegiance to himself at the end of the day. This was a potentially game-winning strat until people caught on and sniped him at F6. He’s not a villain because he was cruel or mean, but because he played like a boss ass bitch. He’s the best Antihero that SurviVARS has seen.

**Underdog**

Merlin was an alternate to this game, and was put in at the last minute. This gave him no time to prep for an All-Star game, and he knew he had to step up to the plate in order to survive. And boy did he step up… Merlin wanted to prove himself after what he perceived as a failure in Hogwarts, and he wound up positioning himself into power at every step of the way. He was trusted, even when he was scheming behind people’s backs. He played UTR, while secretly manipulating the whole game from the sidelines. Once he hit merge, he started to think that he wasn’t going to be able to win, but we think he was under-valuing how good his game way. He didn’t have the unbreakable bonds that many of the other late game players had, and didn’t seem to have a ride or die to keep him safe. Still, he never wavered in his badassery. He’s not an Underdog because the game was set against him, but because of his battle against perceptions. He was never the goat that he (or even some of the jury at times) thought he was.

**Best Duo (With Winston)**

If Izzy and Victoria were the topdog duo, Merlin and Winston were the underdog duo. They weren’t exactly number ones, and weren’t always as close as many seemed to think, but these two worked wonders together. They worked with Izzy to establish total control of their first tribes, utilized the insane Stark/Ultron swap numbers to cruise through that phase, and then reconnected in the merge to continue running the show from the middle. They were two of the biggest contenders in the premerge, and it took the other players quite some time to realize how deadly they were together. One person flipping around in the middle is dangerous enough, but two people can be unstoppable once they start riding the middle. If Red hadn’t have played his idol and Winston stuck around, these two could have controlled the endgame and we may have gotten a very different ending to this season.

**Best Move (Alice's Elimination)**

This is easily my favorite Tribal Council of the season, and maybe in all of SurviVARS. So many different factors were at play, and they all had different effects on the tribal. Two prior winners were targeted, which is already a recipe for a wild Tribal. It was right after the auction, so everyone was paranoid about advantages. It was also the round where the Soul Stone was revealed, so many of the heavy hitters were weighing whether or not they could safely vote against their #1. Alice played a Stone Steal, which allowed her to take the Mind Stone from Vic to steal JRay’s vote in an attempt to save herself. Great move! JRay used his extra vote to help balance this out. Great move! BK used the chaos to throw a vote towards Biggy, sacrificing Alice but earning a Soul Stone. Great move! (Although it also kind of ended BK’s game in hindsight). All of this compounded into one of the most chaotic, unpredictable Tribal Councils this ORG has seen.

### **Awards**

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

This move was a major turning point in Secret War’s merge game. Victoria had so many advantages that I don’t want to go back to count them, and was going to be able to guarantee herself F5 and potentially comp beast her way to the end like she had done in Hogwarts. She was set up to become unstoppable, and all she had to do was survive F7. Unfortunately for her, Izzy recognized this too. It should have been 4-3 against Red, but Izzy flipped to send Victoria home. Victoria took a major gamble in holding onto her idol, and other players took advantage of that to send a massive threat home. It was the moment Izzy and Red cemented themselves as the players to beat, and set the stage for the rest of the game to come.

**Player of the Game**

Merlin was madly underrated this season, by himself and by others. He had a ton of control in the premerge, navigated the swaps with ease (and some dope moves like the Aria boot), and then entered the merge with little to no threat level despite his excellent positioning in the middle of the numbers. He was able to flow between alliances without burning bridges, and was the only player this season to never vote outside of the majority unless he was throwing votes in the premerge (which we certainly won’t hold against him). The jury didn’t always value his game as much as the spectators and hosts did, so it’s hard to say if he would have actually won in the end. But no matter what, Merlin was a massive presence in this game, even if the players didn’t always see it for what it was. He came into this game wanting to prove himself after Hogwarts. And by God, he did.