Brandon Weaver

***Brandon*** was the Lone Survivor of Essential Survivor: Brazil. He later returned for Essential Survivor: All-Stars.

## Brazil

While we knew Brandon would be a good player from the start, we didn’t know how he’d exactly get to the end. If he would even make it there to begin with. But all in all, he made it there. Embodying the true definition of a UTR player. So as a winner of the franchise, we couldn’t help but smile.

From the marooning, Brandon did what many other people would do and began to socialize with his tribe 1-on-1, in doing so he found himself a core alliance with Adam and Tae, two people he trusted a lot. He also got into an alliance with those same two plus Kim and Jerry. As the game moved forward and the majority alliance decided to take out Winter, Brandon had realized that it’d be smart for him to hide behind Kim and Adam two way bigger targets than him, and yet his close allies in the game. Now as Samba had gone to their second Tribal Council things began to get more and more haywire with every minute.

For starters, Janeiro had sent Kim to Exile Island, which would be bad on its own, but they still had numbers with Jerry… or did they? One thing that made this Tribal Council so special was all of the paranoia and false information that was spread throughout it all. Mainly caused by Lucifer trying to bring Jerry onto his side. And Dimitri led a charge against Jerry. But to save you all the trouble, I’ll cut it short. One of Brandon’s closest allies in Tae had gone home due to Jerry flipping over to Lucifer’s side. But while this move soured Brandon’s relations with Jerry, he knew that one vote would be powerful regardless, so he made up a story about the others attempting to blindside him. And right then and there, Jerry was back on his side. Right in time for the merge.

Here is where Brandon really started to show his strategic prowess. For starters, he had found the merged tribe idol. But more on that later, Brandon’s first move is this game came as a plurality vote. Let’s talk about how. After Jerry won Immunity. Milo had come up to Kim & Brandon, revealing that Janeiro was targeting Adam for the first merged vote. With this info, Kim knew immediately that she’d play her idol on Adam, going along with the Samba plan to vote out Paul. But Brandon thought two steps ahead here . He knew that Milo was attempting to play both sides, and that they could happen to have some sort of advantage as well. So him and Adam had decided to throw two votes onto Evan, which worked as he went home in a 5\*-3\*-2-1-1 vote. But the next vote didn’t go as planned, as Kim was idoled out by Lucifer. Throwing a huge wrench in Brandon’s game.

But at the Final 10 and onwards, Brandon’s game had never seen another low point again. But another big move he had was when he convinced Jerry that Payton was targeting him next, causing Jerry to lead a Brandon-driven charge on the suspecting guy. Voting him out with ease. The next vote-out (Lucifer) was a walk in the park for Brandon as well, as all he had to do wasconvicne Dimitri to flip on his alliance, which he did. Let’s not forget that Brandon was doing all of this without being targeted once! Even though the Final 7 vote wasn’t as crazy, the next vote really cemented hBrandon’s path to victory from the endgame.

When the intended target, Paul, won immunity Brandon realized that Adam had a similar game to his. So with a lot of heavy thought and consideration, Brandon orchestrated Adam’s blindside, 4-1-1. Saying goodbye to his ally, turned the threat for the win. At the Final Five, it was easy for Brandon, since he had an idol. Had he not played it, he would’ve gone home 3-2. But since he played it, Dimitri was finally sent packing. At the Final Four, it was clear to everyone left including Brandon that Paul had to go. Luckily, Brandon won immunity, sending the penultimate Janeiro home. Bringing his two followers to the Final Tribal Council. And as he sealed the deal with an amazing FTC performance, Brandon won in a 7-1-0 vote.

## All-Stars

Widely considered to be the best winner of the franchise, Brandon didn't have much to prove as the previous season speaks for itself. And while he didn't have nearly as much control in the game as he did his winning season, it was nice to see Brandon find ways to maneuver himself through the game episode by episode until he got cut at the Final 8.

Knowing his huge winner status, Brandon immediately resorted to his previous gameplay and attempted to remain as UTR as possible. He even remained UTR when his former Brazilian Lucifer was being targeted, tempted to amp up his status and really rub it in, but he declined and stayed with the flow of everyone else for the remainder of the preswap.

At the swap, Brandon found himself in a 6-2 majority. And the two people in the minority were his fellow Brazilians. Adam, who he wanted to stay. And Payton, who he wanted gone just as much, or even MORE than Lucifer. But as time went on, Brandon realized that the trio of Jacob/Zach/Josiah were going to run things and pick everyone else off if nobody had stopped them. So as Jayden and Brandon flipped, they created a 4-4 split in the votes. But, to guarantee that one of them doesn’t go home, they needed to have someone from the other side throw their vote. So while Brandon worked on getting Josiah to split, Jayden held it down with their original tribemates and attempted to keep everything under wraps. Unfortunately, they knew the gig was up, gaining Josiah back as a number and playing an extra Vote Advantage, courtesy of Jacob. Taking out Payton 5-4 and leaving Brandon as Target Numero Uno.

Coming into the merge, Brandon knew he was presented with two opportunities, he could either stick with the Nicobar that would’ve voted him out if they had the chance, or flip to the other side with the Brazil folk… I think it’s clear what he did. Even his original side knew that he flipped when they sent him a decoy vote in Enrique, and their reasoning was that he was rude to Ben… but regardless, Brandon pushed heavily for a Kamen boot, but stuck with his alliance in voting out Zach. Meanwhile, both Gabe and Ben flipped, causing an Adam blindside. The following episode, he was completely INV, so we’ll skip over that.

By Final 11, Brandon’s game plan was to make sure that everyone knows that he is not a threat to their game and can be used as a shield for later in the season. One common theme with Brandon’s game is that his personal game plans never correlated with what his alliance wanted. For example, this round, he was extremely adamant in his confessional about not wanting to vote Josiah out just yet. But in a few hours, his alliance comes up with a high risk-high reward plan specifically to take him out, which they succeeded in. In the next immediate round, Brandon figured that he’d have to begin to make a stand with the other side as they neared single-digits. So in doing so, he planned on taking out Jayden as a sacrifice. But when Jayden came to him proposing a Kim blindside,Brandon scrapped everything and went full throttle on that, taking out Kim and in Tyler’s words, ‘Fucked us both over’.

At the Final Nine, once Zach won immunity, Paul began to throw out both winner’s names immediately. Causing for an alliance of Ben, Brandon and Tyler to form. Their plan was to target Paul, but in an 6-3 minority, they needed a miracle to pull that off… and that miracle as Jacob. Jacob kept giving them info about what his side would be planning, so when they were told Jacob’s side would be splitting the vote, they trusted Jacob to have them split 3-3, then flip with them on the revote. But Tyler was smarter than that, and used his extra vote on Paul… but Jacob was smarter than that too and made the split 4-2 instead of 3-3, sending Tyler and Paul to a revote. And obviously, Tyler was taken out in ninth place. Leaving Brandon in a really rough spot, with a little bit of hope.

Despite being the reason his main ally went home, Jacob was an advocate for Brandon to stay. He wanted to orchestrate a Paul blindside, which seemed to be in the works, but Jayden leaked the plan to Pal, who leaked that he had an ‘idol’ to Zach. Causing for Zach to immediately back out of the plan, resulting in Brandon as the easy consensus vote.