Wheel of Fortune

## *Survivor* Gameplay

### Description

A wheel spun after every immunity challenge to potentially determine who a player cannot vote for.

### Appearances

*March Madness*

**Wheel of Fortune** is a twist used in *Survivor Winter Park* and is the main twist of its 13th season.

## Overview

The Wheel of Fortune twist was introduced as part of the "Madness" from the *March Madness* title, with a literal wheel being a tool for random chance being a more main-stream element of the game, including the random selections for Exile Island visits for the opening and the tribe swap, as well as random switches during challenges. For this article, however, the focus is on the vote-loss element of the twist, in which players would lose their ability to vote for players on their tribe at random. In alphabetical order, players attending Tribal Council that round would spin the wheel without looking, stopping it at random intervals. If the wheel landed on their own name or a player currently immune, then the player's voting power would not be restricted by any means. However, if the wheel landed on the name of a player non-immune and at their voting round, they would lose any ability to write down this person's name.

## Strategy

Due to the complicated nature of not being able to vote certain people, there are many strategies that can be created:

* Intentionally spreading your votes thin to mitigate the concern of not being able to vote out a player.
* Keeping an ally safe with the knowledge that you cannot vote for a certain player.
* Forming an alliance with the player that you cannot vote for.
* Planting your vote on a secondary target under the guise of not being able to vote for your primary target.
* Having other players vote for your target in lieu of your inability to do so.

## Twist History

With the game opening with larger tribes (seven members on both), the Wheel of Fortune had little impact for a majority of the Tribal Councils. A majority of the spins would land on players not on their tribe, and the few times it landed on players that were on their tribe, they had no intention of voting for that player anyways. There were a few notable instances of players not being able to vote for their primary target: Garrett Walker voting for Isabel Otero instead of Shane Rosenthal in Round 3 and Sebastian Wright voting for Benjamin DeLoach instead of Zachary Cohen-Neamie in Round 4. As every elimination in the pre-swap phase was a unanimous decision, the inability to vote a certain player hardly impacted the outcomes of the votes, beyond a few changes.

The wheel became a primary issue during the post-swap phase of the game, in which the new Zamba tribe intended on targeting Arthur Pacheco-Navarro at both of their Tribal Councils but he became an ineligible mark by multiple voters at both rounds. During the first round of this situation, only Ben and Olivia Hindle could write down his name in a five-vote tribe, and with little time before the vote began, the majority of the tribe decided to take their shot at a bigger threat by siding with Arthur to eliminate Garrett at that round. The following round had the same results, with more time to break down how their vote would go. In order to avoid a tie vote, the tribe convinced Arthur to vote for Olivia. As Ben and Seb were unable to vote for him, they would instead vote for each other. From there, the votes of Ava Thigpen and Olivia were enough to eliminate Arthur in a complex 2-1-1-1 vote right before the merge.

In the merge phase, the twist once again changed little about the game. No players landed on a player they would've voted for that round (with the exception of Isabel targeting Marina Rentz in Round 8, instead voting for Ben) and the twist would eventually be retired at the end of the second day, leading into the Final 6.

## Wheel History

The table below lists the name spun by every player for every round. If they didn't attend Tribal Council that round, they have the triangle of their tribe's color. If the color is green, it indicates that they landed on a player who couldn't be voted for anyways and thus could vote whoever. If the color is red, it indicates that they landed on a player who they could've voted for and now are restricted from doing so.

## Trivia

* Adam Holbrook, Alex Rodriguez, and Garrett Walker are the only players to spin the wheel multiple times (thus excluding Charlotte Batten) and always lose their ability to vote a player.
	+ Coincidentally, they are all returning players who changed tribes during the tribe swap.
* Benjamin DeLoach's name was spun the most times, being landed on nine different times. Garrett's name was spun the least, being landed on only once (Sydney Vargas' name was never spun but she was only in the game for one round).
* Every one of the six spins by Sebastian Wright landed on a male player.
* For whatever reason, Charlotte Batten's name was left on the wheel for Round 3, despite her elimination in the round prior. She was the only player to be spun after their elimination.