Dawit

Dawit is the sole visionary of Visionary Survivor: Clash of Casts. He also competed on Visionary Survivor: Egypt and Visionary Survivor: All-Stars.

## Egypt Summary

Although his confessional didn’t showcase it very well, Dawit was actually one of the more active players in Egypt socially, which is rather ironic based on how generally disliked he was by the spectators due to his less than friendly style of communication and interesting strategy. However contrary to popular opinion Dawit actually played a subjectively decent game all around.

As a member of the original Bennu tribe, Dawit never had to worry about being eliminated before merge. However, that doesn’t mean that he wasn’t prepared for it. Dawit spent much of his time on Bennu communicating with everyone on his tribe to ensure that his name wouldn’t come up at any potential tribal councils. Because of this, he found himself as the glue between a lot of if not all of the other castaways on his tribe which gave him a very distinct advantage that gave him access to an abundance of information.

When the merge took place, Dawit seemed to still be in good standings with all of his old relationships. In addition, with Bennu having a majority over the Griffin and Sphinx tribes, who never made any efforts to work together, it seemed as though Dawit would be able to easily cruise his way into the final six with the rest of Bennu. And after all remaining original Sphinx were left, it was only a matter of time until the game came down to strictly original Bennu remaining. That was until Blair and CK had other plans.

With only eight castaways remaining pretty much everyone left at the F8 was looking to make some moves. Although Kalina was still a rather popular name due to her threatening presence, Blair and CK decided that it would be best to make a move on Dawit. This stemmed from the fact that Blair was aware of Dawit’s jury curry strategy that involved him purposefully throwing stray votes as to avoid the majority vote. Thus he wouldn’t have any blood on his hands should he have made it to the final tribal council. But when Blair threw him under the bus, he became a member of the very jury he was trying to stay in good graces with.

## Clash of Casts Summary

From flop to pop we love to see a qween shine! No for real though Dawit easily had one of the most impressive wins in Visionary history from start to finish. Dawit came into the season hot, he knew how he wanted to play, and he did what he needed to do to get to the end with a resume that was virtually unbeatable. Throughout Dawit’s game he came up with a couple of key strategies that really took his game to the next level. The two strategies being smokescreening and the infamous “catch and retrieve” strategy, as Otter called it.

Dawit immediately started the game in a pivotal swing vote situation, which really set the tone of his play style for the season. He reconnected with former Bennu tribemates Aidan and CK, but he also had strong ties to Darryl and Kiibo that he was leaning on as a backup option. Even though he was confident in his numbers, he made winning challenges a priority as he became very vocal in leading his tribe through the first two challenges. To add onto his dominance, he also found the idol that was attached to the Vision Market on the first day.

After the swap, Dawit was in an interesting spot. He was separated from his closest ally Darryl, who had agreed to share Vision Tokens with him, and was also separated from Aidan and Kiibo. The only person who remained on the Ksitigarbha tribe with him was CK, who he never really had any intentions of working long term with anyway. So after being swapped, Dawit formed a new majority alliance with the three season four alumni, Eddie, Otter and Sean, a season four alumni, Monkey, and of course CK. The purpose of this alliance for Dawit was really just to have some numbers for the time being until he could reconnect with Darryl at another swap or the merge, but ultimately this new alliance did bring him some important long term connections. The first being Monkey, someone who found and was willing to share an idol with Dawit. And the second being Otter, someone who wanted to use Dawit as a shield, which in turn Dawit used to his own advantage by constantly staying one step ahead of him.

After losing the second post-swap immunity challenge everyone was on board to eliminate Booty… which naturally made Dawit suspicious. Suspecting that Booty had something up his sleeve, he requested that his majority alliance split the vote in case of an idol play. When Dawit proposed the idea, no one in the alliance seemed to be on board no matter how much he pushed, which made him even more skeptical. As tribal council grew closer Dawit became more and more paranoid, eventually he started to develop a theory that the season four alumni were working together with Luke and Schmutz and didn’t want to split the vote out of fear that they would lose trust. This was honestly a plausible theory, and Dawit was correct except for the fact that Otter wasn’t actually included in this alliance.

Nervous about how the next few days would play out, Dawit told CK about his theory, which sparked CK’s own paranoia that caused him to act out. Now nervous about the season four alumni working behind Dawit and CK’s backs, CK attempted to start gathering numbers to eliminate Otter, and it almost worked. But after CK went through all the trouble of trying to get himself and Dawit into a better collective decision, Dawit decided that keeping Otter was better for his own personal game than keeping Booty. So he turned on CK and became the swing vote in eliminating Booty in a 5-4 vote that left CK on the bottom of the tribe, and boosted the trust in Dawit’s relationship with Otter.

With his plan having backfired and now feeling betrayed by Dawit, CK was ready to make a public enemy out of him. With a double tribal council coming up, CK was anxious to make a move against Dawit and reclaim some power. He was so fixated on getting him out that even after Dawit won immunity for the double tribal council CK was still aggressive in throwing him under the bus, even attempting to expose Schmutz with him. CK was successful in getting people to start thinking and did put a lot of negative energy on Dawit and Schmutz, almost convincing Eddie to vote for Schmutz, but ultimately a majority of the votes fell onto CK even with Luke and Schmutz turning on each other. With his name still a bit slandered because of CK, Dawit wasn’t very sure how votes would land if he went to another tribal council before the merge. And fortunately for him he didn’t as the Ksitigarbha tribe won every remaining challenge before the merge.

Heading into the merge Dawit’s main two priorities were finding the merge idol and eliminating Kiibo. Having almost double the amount of tokens needed to buy an idol clue, Dawit convinced his ally Monkey that he needed a few more tokens to buy a clue that they could both use to begin searching for the idol. Which Dawit later found after a few days of searching and narrowing down the options. During the days of his searching, his feud with Kiibo started to intensify. At first, they were open to working with each other despite Kiibo purposefully eliminating Darryl right before the merge out of fear that he would become a third wheel. But the more they talked the worse they felt about the vibes they were getting from each other, ultimately getting to a point where both started targeting each other behind the other’s back. Since Dawit’s former tribe had an overwhelming majority of 7-3.

After finding his second idol, Dawit knew that all he needed to do was get to the final six, and he’d be set for the final four. And after he eliminated his biggest target, he was completely set to begin the smokescreen phase of his game for the next few tribal councils until he got to the final six. This strategy started with Luke and Schmutz. While CK did nearly ruin Dawit’s game, he also did Dawit a favor by accidentally creating a rift between Luke and Schmutz that has risen to the surface by the final nine. After Schmutz won immunity she had her sights locked on Luke, and the season four alumni were ready to back her up so that they could even out the numbers between season four alumni and non season four alumni. But with Schmutz immune, the best option for Luke was to target a season four alumni to minimize the threat that they posed. So he connected with Dawit, and with the help of Brett, Monkey, and a few advantages they were able to eliminate Jethro with more than enough votes.

At the final eight, having been a large influence on the last two votes, Dawit crept back into the shadows a bit so as not to alarm anyone with his threat level. By this point Schmutz had completely ruined her social standing after targeting Luke so aggressively and failing, and Otter had broken his trust with Eddie and Sean after accidentally flipping into the new majority. As relationships started shattering, Dawit couldn’t help but continue to get his hands dirty. In an attempt to salvage her relationships and work back into the majority, Schmutz went to Dawit and threw Eddie and Sean under the bus, the only two people who were really willing to work with her. Dawit immediately used Schmutz’ actions against her by telling Eddie and Sean that she was trying to expose them, and in return got her eliminated in a unanimous 7-1 vote.

At the final seven, Dawit was about to pull off the most impressive move of the entire season. After losing immunity, a majority of the tribe was beginning to question how much longer they were willing to go with Dawit. And because his social game was just that strong, he was completely aware. So he made the bold decision of publicly revealing that he had an idol at camp, and told the entire tribe he was going to play it. This sent the entire tribe into a scramble mode, in which half the tribe was willing to settle on voting on Eddie, and the other half wanted to call Dawit’s bluff by voting for him anyway. After finding out that people were targeting anyway, he made a deal with Eddie that he would give him the tokens he needed to buy a tribal exit ticket, which would grant him safety for the round. When Eddie agreed and told him how many tokens he needed, Dawit asked Brett to give him the last token needed. Brett complied in an effort to build trust with Dawit, and Eddie was able to buy the ticket. After Eddie left tribal, Dawit played his idol, meaning that all votes cast for Eddie and Dawit were nullified, leaving one vote unblocked. With the sole vote, Dawit eliminated Sean, who he suspected of buying a legacy advantage at the merge auction. In return Sean willed his legacy advantage and his last five remaining tokens to Eddie, which Dawit was completely fine with especially after Eddie told him.

At the final six Dawit needed to win immunity. His name was easily becoming the most popular at camp, and it was only a matter of time before his great social bonds wouldn’t be enough to save him. And when he needed it most, he managed to pull through and beat Brett in an 80 plus minute endurance challenge. Now with immunity around his neck, he had some freedom to control yet another vote. With everyone left completely in the dark at the last vote because of Dawit’s idol reveal and play move, everyone was still scrambling trying to secure numbers. This ultimately gave Dawit an opportunity to pull something off with Brett. While Otter would’ve been the initial target, he made it very clear to everyone that he would be playing his tribal exit ticket, and no one seemed to be willing to call his bluff so late in the game. The problem was that no one really wanted to vote for anyone other than Dawit and Otter. In preparation for a finale push, Monkey formed an alliance with Brett and Eddie that would target Dawit, Luke, and Otter. But the alliance didn’t last very long when Eddie told Dawit about the alliance due to feeling indebted to him for saving him. Thus being a prime example of Dawit’s catch and retrieve strategy. Upon finding out about Monkey’s new alliance, Dawit was heated. He and Monkey had been a tight duo up until the final six, but after Dawit left Monkey in the dark at the final seven Monkey was ready to break off. So after some discussions Brett and Dawit managed to get the votes to land where Brett, Eddie, Luke, and Otter all received one vote. This left their two votes as the deciding votes, in which they sent Monkey home.

At the final five Dawit was sitting pretty with an idol in his pocket, but for the time all season he was pretty powerless in the vote. With himself, Brett, and Otter all holding onto advantages that secured their spots in the final four, it appeared that whoever lost the challenge between Eddie and Luke would be advantaged out of the game. However, Dawit also knew that if Otter won the challenge he would gain the last two tokens needed to by himself a challenge advantage that he would likely use at the final four. So as far as Dawit was concerned, anyone but Otter could win the challenge. Wanting to cram in a couple last minute moves for his resume and wanting to finally win an individual immunity challenge, Brett gave his all and pulled through in the challenge. This meant that both Eddie and Luke were in danger. But ultimately Brett decided to play his tribal exit ticket on Eddie, advantaging Luke out of the game.

The final four was Dawit’s final obstacle. With no more advantages in play to fall back on as crutches, Dawit knew he needed to win the final immunity challenge or else he was most likely the one going home due to being such a big threat. But as always, Dawit prepared for the worst. Having had a few conversations with Otter in the past in which Otter seemed to paint Brett and Eddie as borderline goats in the game, Dawit did his best to appeal to Brett and Eddie’s sense of loyalty by making himself appear to be a better ally to them than Otter was. After Brett won the challenge due to Dawit making a mistake in the challenge and receiving a penalty, it essentially came down to Brett and Eddie to determine who would join them in the final three. Ultimately, the decided to award Dawit for his loyalty, and make Otter the last juror.

Coming into the final tribal council Dawit had played an incredible game and he knew it. His opening remark consisted of an incredible speech that, while it didn’t leave much room for questioning, highlighted all of the best moves Dawit made in the season and really explained his strategy and social play well. Ultimately every juror saw him as the best representative of the season, and awarded him with the title of Sole Visionary in a unanimous vote.

## All-Stars Summary

The number one question for Dawit in All-Stars was whether or not he would be able to dominate the way he did in season five. Most people figured he would quickly be targeted for his reputation and become an early pre-merge boot. But just like in season five, Dawit had lots of tricks up his sleeve.

At the start of the game Dawit quickly linked up with Blair and Kaden, the three of them agreed that they would need each other to survive since there were not only the three winners perceived as the most dangerous, but also arguably three of the most threatening players in the entire season. But on a tribe of six, they needed one more even though they had secured an idol on the second day. That’s where Mink came in, but not how you might expect. Dawit initially wanted Mink as their fourth since he was perceived as a bigger target than Bee and Joel. But this didn’t work out too well as Mink got caught up on one little comment Dawit made about Blair and Kaden being close. Mink knew how threatening the two were, so when Dawit made that comment he was locked on wanting one of them to be the first to go home after Royalty lost the first challenge.

But naturally, Mink wanting Kaden gone didn’t really sit right with Dawit. So after Mink wouldn’t budge, he approached Joel with a new plan. If Mink wouldn’t flip on Joel, then Dawit was determined to get Joel to flip on Mink. Using scare tactics, Dawit convinced Joel that if he didn’t flip and vote Mink, then he, Blair, and Kaden were all going to vote Joel and force a tie. Not wanting to leave his game up to chance at just the first tribal council, Joel reluctantly flipped and sent Mink home in a 4-2 vote. And blindsiding Mink, Joel became the target when Royalty lost the second challenge. Now that Joel had flipped on Bee, it wasn’t that hard for him to convince Bee that Joel was against her and it was going to be one of the two going home. After successfully flipping her, Joel was eliminated in a 4-1 vote.

After finally getting a win at the third challenge, the tribes swapped and Dawit was moved onto the new Legend tribe with former tribemate Kaden, Rey, Rochelle, and Schmutz. Dawit was honestly swapped into one of the best situations for his game. He was already on good terms with Kaden, had a decent history with Schmutz from season five, and he already wanted to work with Rey and Rochelle prior to the season. As a result of this new swap, Dawit was looking pretty good if he ever went to tribal council, which didn’t happen until the final pre-merge tribal council. After placing in the bottom two of the sixth immunity challenge, the new Legend and Legacy tribes were sent to a joint tribal council, in which both tribes would vote off one person from the nine castaways in attendance. The new Legend tribe had a 5-4 numbers advantage so their plan was to stick together, up until Schmutz decided to tell Derek she was willing to flip. Afterward, Derek told Dawit and Kaden that Schmutz was trying to flip, and they created a plan to blindside Schmutz with the help of the rest of new Legacy. Everything was going according to plan until Robby decided to clue Rochelle in on what was happening, which then resulted in Rochelle confronting Schmutz about her wanting to flip, which sent both camps into chaos. Ultimately, Kaden made the last minute decision to flip all of the new Legend members to Robby, and eliminated him in a close 5-4 vote.

The start of the merge in more ways than not felt like the beginning of the end for Dawit. The original Legacy tribe had reunited and formed a majority alliance with Bee and CK. THis left Dawit, Derek, Kaden, and Rochelle as outsiders. Dawit was the initial target of the majority alliance, up until he bought a tribal exit ticket at the last minute. Assuming that he would buy one, the majority alliance came up with a plan to split the votes between Dawit and Derek. But after a production mishap, Derek was able to play a legacy advantage on top of Dawit’s tribal exit ticket with no resistance from the majority alliance. This double advantage play left Bee and CK with the only two votes cast, and Bee was eliminated by the wheel.

While the first merge vote ended up going their way, it didn’t provide any momentum for Dawit and his minority alliance. Ironically, it actually fueled some members of the majority alliance to want them out even more. But at his lowest, Dawit managed to work his social skills and create a couple side deals that resulted in CK, Derek, and Rochelle becoming the three biggest names on the block. But more importantly, the deals resulted in his safety. He had been fond of Rey during his time on new Legend, and he also had intentions of working with Jacob at some point, so the deals came pretty naturally. It was really just a matter of how long they would last. After an idol play from Rochelle that saved Derek, CK and Rochelle were sent home in a double elimination.

Although his situation seemed better, at the final nine Dawit was still climbing back up the hill he had fallen off of at the start of the merge. He had found new allies in Jacob and Rey, but Kaden, his ride or die throughout the season, was starting to become stray. The two had been becoming more and more distant for some time, but it seemed as though they were finally ready to attempt to blindside each other. At first Kaden wanted to eliminate Jacob and thought he had the numbers to do so, but after realizing that Kalina had a tribal exit ticket she was likely going to give to Jacob, he and Derek flipped last minute in an attempt to blindside Dawit with Otter and Schmutz. Ultimately it didn’t work out, as Derek and Kaden broke a rule by sharing the same parchment, which resulted in both of their votes being nullified, and Kaden being eliminated.

At the final eight Dawit was looking strong again. He had narrowly escaped another elimination, and his new alliance with Jacob and Rey was starting to look rather trusting. In addition, Otter had just flipped on the infamous trio, which gave him some reassurance that Otter would be the next to go. And after Rachel secured immunity, he was right. But it didn’t take long for Dawit to be targeted. No one in the game really wanted to sit next to him at the final tribal council, so his new allies led a blindside against him and eliminated him in a 4-3-1 vote.

## Return Interviews

* All-Stars

**Coming into your second season, which area do you think you can improve in most between social play, physical play, and strategic play? How do you plan on improving?**
I think my social game is definitely where I lack. I tend to form relationships with a few people (in my season, like 1 pre-merge and 2 post-merge, even though one of them stabbed me in the back, haha) and stay loyal with them throughout the game. I need to bury that ideology of having few people on my side. My physical play was definitely one of my highlights, I was grouped with a fine group of people who excelled at the physical game, Bennu excelled all the way to merge till we got destroyed lol. I just devote a lot of time to challenges, so I think that will be even stronger if not at the same level. My strategic game was, well, I would say, fairly decent, not the absolute best, but it had its moment. Of course, since Bennu won all its challenges up till merge there was really not enough to talk about. However, I definitely got a stream of who voted who, definitely, but of course the rogue votes got me. I should've played them alone rather than with someone who had nothing to lose. I was definitely easy to throw under the bus, and I should be careful with my game moves and definitely be much more aware of threats. I looked at people like CK as just an easy ally, not much to it. He was so much more of a threat, I just have to be more aware in this upcoming season. With my social game, I definitely plan on being open with my tribe and evaluating how they played their previous seasons. (I didn't even talk to Aidan and CK until Merge, Michael not even once).
**What was the biggest mistake you made when playing in your first season? How did you learn from it?**
Definitely my big mistake was not aligning with Blair, but treating her and feeding information as if she was my # 1. I told her way too much that should've been enclosed. Tabor and I were in the loops, I tried to keep it secret we were aligned, but of course at moments with Blair I would tell her I had Tabor's vote each time we planned on making moves. She made the discovery that Tabor and I had a close relationship, and decided to leave him in the loop for the vote against me. If she had told Tabor, he would've told me and I could've potentially done something to stop that from happening. I'm definitely going to be much more secretive with what I have, but with this being a returner season, I will know how people have played in the past and that'll definitely be a benefit rather a disadvantage. I've definitely learned to keep my mouth shut, I got it this time.
**Have you spectated any seasons besides the one you competed on? Have any other castaways stood out to you?**
Well, I joined the server at the end of S2, so a season I've seen in full or up to the moment is S4. Castaways like Bee and Rochelle have definitely stuck out. Bee is very smart in how she plays, she's more so on the lowkey side, but she knows how to play a mf game. However, people have become much more aware of her game as we approach FTC. I liked how she was able to align herself with the bigger threats (Rey) and still be able to thrive, it might not been seen that way, but I think if she makes FTC she has a chance. Even though I hate her attitude, I have to commend whenever I see excellence. Rochelle is a unique player, she has such a play where I haven't seen thrived. She has definitely been much more successful than Rey, that's noted. She has been behind most of these votes, and even being a "recruit", she has done so well. She has such leader qualities that flow well with how she plays. She recently conducted an idol search with her alliance and managed to use her clue to give her alliance members the upper hand in finding the idol to offset a tie vote. Hoeah was able to find one and her alliance was able to offset an advantage played to give Cortes the power to make it a majority vote, and secure majority as Jethro left. I doubt she'll make FTC because of how much she's a threat, BUT, I will acknowledge she has played very well. Even with her attitude towards Cortes, people managed to want to work with her, it shocked me. Had it been me, she'd go immediately, but wow. Outstanding. Definitely something to learn from her.
**How has Visionary Survivor impacted you?**
It has definitely impacted me, all this gameplay makes me crave for another season because my debut season, I just treated it as some camp because of how Bennu was winning all these challenges. I didn't give it my absolute all, and I definitely will this time. But it's definitely one of the best ORGs out there. The strategy is definitely there and it's so competitive which is why I wanted a second chance. Fantastic! I'm so happy to be able to play again and it's definitely a second chance I will take full advantage of this time around.
**In what ways do you hope to refine your legacy with this second chance you’ve been given? What do you hope to gain from competing again?**

I want to refine my legacy by showing people I'm not this aggressive player with a very decent game, I was VERY VERY quiet to the audience with how I played and I feel you and the audience didn't get the fullest scope of my thoughts and how I played and now I understand why it's VERY important to talk about your feelings and your strategic. Not to just gain viewers, but have them understand/appreciate what you're trying to do. Plus, to not make it boring of course. We need an entertaining season for Visionary. Definitely taking advantage of this. I also want to show people my social game isn't trash lol, I can develop meaningful relationships and this will be the season I do that. Even though I have my moments where I can be absolute mean, I want to play with a side that I don't really show. I rather be nice and play a honest/trustworthy game. Sure, there will be moments where I backstab, but also show a heroic side that wasn't really seen in my last season. I want to show people I have potential to change the game and that's what I intend to be doing.
**Clearly you did something right last time you played otherwise you wouldn’t have been invited back. So this season, are you looking to play more of the same way or change up your play style?**
Last time I played, I had much more of an aggressive and open game style, but what helped with that, people knew I was honest which cultivated trust in most of the castaways I had a pleasure of working with. I had taken the time to show I was trustworthy & proved that by saving multiple castaways when they were being targeted. This included Otter, Luke, and Eddie who all helped me advance in the game in some form or shape. My first time I played, I was very reckless. While I was not playing as much as of an open game, I was more deceitful and attempted to be secretive with my moves. I didn't try to socialize with others and kept the circle of people I wanted to work with relatively small. I'm addressing how I played both times because I want to incorporate a style of game play that outsells what I had tried to do in my previous seasons. I will definitely need to change my game play. I want to be secretive, while having a great social game with other contestants. Basically, I'll put on an act that I've turned into this UTR player due to how hard I've played my last time, but I'll actually be working behind the scenes, but this time without having people know.
**What did you learn from your last season that will help you do better this time around?**
I learned that emotional games can definitely shift how people will vote. There are usually things that contestants do that will upset or alter how someone thinks of them. If you hear straight up that someone is targeting you, your first instinct is that you have to target them back. This has been shown in most, if not, all seasons. I described this as strategic, but it can also be emotional. I really learned this during my time in S5, and I effectively demonstrated how bad this can turn your game around with Otter at F4. Now that I know this at the beginning, it will allow me to potentially shift certain moves I don't agree with strategically or to get some wild cards on my side. Of course, I'll slowly feed this to them, so it's not seen as this big strategic move I'm trying to pull off. I want to emotional connect with this cast, so they will like me & actually feel bad if voting me out comes out of the game plan. I want to emphasize & act as if I can be this big poor meat shield they can use & blindside and that I will be there 100%.. while knowing me.. I will easily cut them off. I've shown I can be trustworthy, so if I can start to develop more of emotional connections, I think that will set me fantastically even though I'm a big threat. We stan growth, everyone has something to learn from.
**With 18 high caliber players returning, who are you expecting to see return? Who are you most and least excited to see again?**
Honestly, my expectations could go either way. I'm expecting Kaden, Kalina, Kiibo, Joel, Rochelle, Blair, CK, Schmutz (possibly due to S2's all-stars, Jack & Sasha being MIA), Robby or Mink, Ry (for the gag), and Otter. I'm excited to see Kaden actually because I feel like he can be a number for me and potentially, Schmutz and Kalina. I don't have anyone per say I'm least excited to see because I want to work with people I was against in the past and new people I've never had the chance to play with. I'm going to very open-minded with my options and hopefully, I can find my fitting in the game with my first tribe.
**How confident are you this time around? Do you think you have what it takes to beat the best of the best?**
I would say I'm fairly worried, not confident at all. This coming from the spec lounge and numerous alumni thinking I have the best win, so off the bat I'm the biggest threat here. However, I will deploy my strategies and push for these challenges, so I can get to the merge. The merge is my goal - I don't want to overwhelm myself with anything else. Once I get to merge, we can talk about other things. I believe if I'm able to snake my competition, I can beat most of these best players. This time, I have harder conditions but I play well under pressure.
**What are you looking forward to most this season? What are you looking to accomplish this time around?**