Astervivor: New Zealand

***Astervivor: New Zealand*** is the first season of *Astervivor*.

New Zealand is regarded as a good season of the *Survivor* format, with an albeit slow beginning that climaxes into an explosion of blindsides and constant alliance forming and breaking. Ray became the first member of Astervivor Royalty (another name for Sole Survivor), defeating Morris and Rugbilore in a 7-0-0 unanimous jury vote.

## Production

Production for *New Zealand* is rather forgotten by the hosts, as most of the season was decided upon reasonably early. The season was originally going to have 18 players, but it was decided to have 21 players, as Life had came up with the idea of the Unmerge featuring in the season.

Casting for Astervivor Season 1: New Zealand was opened up on July 12th, 2021, and was meant to close on August 8th, 2021. However, due to a later surge of applicants, the hosts decided to end casting early. There were 24 applicants, 21 being marooned and 1 joining after marooning had begun due to a Day 1 quit.

## Hosts

There are a total of 5 hosts in *Astervivor: New Zealand*.

## Format

* **Tribe Composition:** The 21 castaways were divided into 3 tribes of 7.
* **Tribe Dissolve:** When there is only 16 castaways left, the Kōwhai tribe is dissolved and the rest are divided into 2 tribes of 8.
* **Merged Tribe Composition:** The final 12 castaways were merged into one tribe.
* **Unmerged Tribe Composition:** The final 10 castaways were once again divided into 2 tribes of 5.
* **Remerged Tribe Composition:** The final 8 castaways merged back into one tribe.
* **Final Tribal Council Format:** Three finalists (Rugbilore, Ray and Morris) faced a jury of seven. The jurors individually addressed the finalists.

## Features

### Twists

* **Double Tribal Council:** On Day 9, castaways on Kōwhai had to vote out two members of their tribe instead of one. Fantails would block the votes of one player in both votes, and Idols would make a player immune for both the votes.
* **Tribe Swap:** On Day 10, Kōwhai was dissolved and the rest were reshuffled.
* **Unmerge:** On Day 21, the Merged Tribe of Kahikatea was disbanded, and the castaways were reshuffled into two tribes of 5.

### Powers

* **Hidden Immunity Idol:** Found somewhere on the map, Hidden Immunity Idols, when played, would negate all votes at a tribal council. These were valid until the Final 6.
* **Fantails:** Fantails are small medallions similar to a Hidden Immunity Idol. When played, Fantails would block one vote of a person of their choice. These were valid until the Final 6.

## Season Summary

Twenty-one castaways, divided into three tribes, Pōhutukawa, Kōwhai and Tī Kōuka started off well. They were told about the Fantail advantage, as well as that Hidden Immunity Idols would be in the game, but they were not given a map to search for these until the second day of the game.

Within the first eight hours, HBomb quit the game and with the rules stating the one player was allowed to come into the game to support the tribe before the First Immunity Challenge had ended (funnily enough, the first Immunity Challenge hadn't even begun), Brainz was added to the Pōhutukawa tribe.

The power difference between each of the tribes seemed to be even until a surprise Double Tribal Council happened for the Kōwhai tribe, sending both Clove and JJ home. A tribe swap happened straight afterwards, where all of the remaining players were put on either Pōhutukawa or Tī Kōuka.

Tī Kōuka originally faced a losing streak before pulling through and forcing Pōhutukawa to go to Tribal Council twice, making the swapped tribes even when the castaways merged at the Final 12 into the Kahikatea tribe. One player, George quit the game unexpectedly even though he was on top of the Pōhutukawa tribe in the pre-merge. Alliances were revealed and many people fought for immunity soon after, sending Mooly home after she wanted revenge.

Another surprise twist was unveiled, that being the Unmerge, with the tribes being once again being seperated, five on Kōwhai and five on Pōhutukawa. Both tribes lost a member during the unmerge, creating an interesting battle when the tribes merged back into Kahikatea in the Final 8. A dominant player, Cam lost all of his alliance members when former alliance member Ray flipped on them and Poteet had a streak of immunity wins. At the Final 5, Poteet lost immunity with Ray winning, sending him home. Ray won immunity won again at the Final 4, allowing her to make it to the Final Tribal Council. Hades decided to voluntarily vote himself out to make sure that fellow players Rugby and Morris made it to the Final Tribal Council as well.

At the Final Tribal Council, Rugby was criticized for following Morris and Ray in their pursuits, and whilst Morris' underdog story made the jury second-guess him, all of the jury praised Ray for the game she performed, hiding under-the-radar before being dominant when the time was right. Ray, after 39 days, was voted the title of Astervivor Royalty, receiving all the jury votes. She decided to make Morris second-place after the game he performed as well.

## Trivia

* This is the first ever season of Astervivor.
* This is the first season where second and third place had the same amount of jury votes. This tie was broken by Ray who thought Morris played a better game than Rugbilore.