Ace St. Patrick

***Ace*** was a castaway on Essential Survivor: Japan. He later returned for Essential Survivor: Peru

## Japan

Most people always look at the second runner-up and immediately discredit all of their gameplay. But Ace should come across as a different story here. Perception is reality and realizing that too late, may have cost Ace the game.

The pre-swap phase wasn’t too big on Ace’s edit. In the beginning, he laid pretty low. Being recruited into a 5-person alliance with himself, Josiah, Enrique, Jack and Barsam. Later down the line as Barsam got DQed and Richard got booted, he noticed that Jack and Josiah had both loved the leader role of the alliance, which annoyed him. Regardless, he remained to be Josiah’s number one man, even if he roasted his intelligence at times.

During the swap, we saw Ace’s number one shift from Josiah, to Kamen. But his bonds with him (or the whole tribe) weren’t as strong as before. Ace often found himself ranting about the others in his confessional. Once the NuFurui lost the challenge, Enrique was stolen by Geo from NuWakai, giving Ace, Cheren and Kamen a 4-3 disadvantage in numbers. Attempting to get some leverage, he went to Tommy to look for a potential flip, but left with the feeling he was fake. Fortunately, Zent was kind enough to let Ace and Kamen know about the vote, which was Cheren. They reported back to him, letting him know that his time was up… until Kamen pulled out an idol. So with all new hope garnered, the three threw all their votes onto Zent, giving him the boot with only the minority of the votes.

Fast forwarding to the merge, and everyone has united together. Furui met up with Furui, and Wakai… well they only had each other. Before the NuFurui 4 met with the others, they made a pact to NOT give away too much information about what happened at the post-swap phase. Everyone agreed to it and it was smooth sailing from there. But come Tribal Council, instead of voting off Jay like the plan… Jack and Josiah flipped to the Wakai and voted out Cheren. At first, the other 3 were mad and confused about their decisions, but once they fessed up about Enrique spilling the beans about Cheren’s idol off-rip, all eyes went towards him.

At the Final 10, despite knowing that Jack and Josiah weren’t to be completely trusted in this game, Ace had no other choice but to buddy up with them. Luckily for him and Kamen, doing this gave them a lot of power. Right after Enrique won immunity, Theodore and Josiah began to take heavy shots at each other. Both rallying extra hard for the other to go. Seeing them as the duo they were, X and Geo approached them, trying to convince them to stay with the Wakai. But instead of flipping, they stuck to their roots and voted Theodore out. So when X and Geo realized they were getting lead on by the two, it made for some awkward conversation on the way back.

During the first round of single-digits, after dropping out of the immunity challenge, Jay won immunity. This was a pretty quiet round for Ace, he stuck with Furui as they were booting Geo, and his suspicions towards Jack were about to turn into actions. Unfortunately, Geo beat him to the punch, voting Jack out as he saved himself with an idol. So it was safe to say no matter what outcome here, Ace would be pleased. And regardless of all of the scenarios that would have played out during the next round, it was also pretty straight forward for Ace, instead of flipping to Wakai with Kamen, they stuck with Furui and booted Geo. But Geo's final words to Ace definitely stuck around in his head, and proved to be true in the near future.

At the Final 7, more big decisions had to be made by Ace. Around this time, everyone was beginning to realize how big of a threat Josiah really was. Heck, it’d probably be 6-1 had he lost individual immunity. So now, with Josiah safe another round, the only two options left were Enrique and Jay, and for generally the same reasons. They were both physically competent to win out from that point on. In the end, everyone has chosen Enrique over Jay, but Enrique saving himself with an idol threw a wrench in their plans. Although, Luke leaving helped Ace’s game, as Josiah’s number 1 and mindless number has now left the game.

At the beginning of the Season Finale (Final 6) Ace had an easy time navigating through it. Jay won immunity, so Josiah was easily the biggest target left, resulting in his elimination. At the Final 5 however, things weren’t so smooth. Kamen had an idol he found several rounds ago, and since this was his last time to play it. He was obviously safe, then to make matters worse, Enrique clutched out an immunity win. Leaving the only options to be X and Jay. Obviously, Jay was the bigger threat out of the two due to his physical abilities. But also knowing that, it may have been smarter to keep him so he could beat out Enrique when the time came. But then, Kamen thought of a plan. While he worked on Enrique to join their side and not flip, Ace worked on the Wakai to put their votes on Kamen, allowing the Furui 3 to have the majority of the votes, whether or not Enrique votes with them. And in an attempt to cause distrust between Enrique and X had he stayed with them, Ace threw a vote on X. Which meant Jay went home in a 2\*-2-1 vote.

At the Final 4, with the numbers crunching down, (and after X blew up at him after Tribal) it became clear to Ace that Kamen was hindering his game more than helping it. So when the worst possible outcome came when Enrique won immunity, Ace surprised everyone by flipping on Kamen, sending his closest ally to the jury, 3-1.

Now we’re at the Final Tribal Council. And if you were there at Ponderosa, you’d know that Ace had no chance of winning at the start. He was quickly known as ‘Kamen’s Puppet’ and was barely looked at in the FTC compared to Enrique and X (save Cheren). This coupled with X’s underdog story made Ace lose in a 5-3-0 vote.