Jacob Kisley

***Jacob*** was a castaway on Essential Survivor: Scotland. He later returned for Essential Survivor: All-Stars.

## Scotland

Usually, when most people choose you as their winner pick for the season, they see something in you that they haven’t seen in the rest of the cast in terms of gameplay. And while he came up short in winning, I’m sure that Jacob proved himself to be one of the best players this season. Getting taken out by a rule that was later revised.

On the Adhair tribe, Jacob first made a strong connection with Antony, bonding over their love of sports. Come to find out that he also was able to make the same connection with Elena, leaving Evelyn out. Thankfully, they were able to boot her before anything got too important. Off-rip, Jacob found the idol, and at first wasn’t going to tell a soul. But after making such a close bond with Elena, he ended up breaking his number one rule in the game and informed her about the idol. As the preswap portion of the game came to an end, Jacob felt like he could really work with both Elena and Antony in the long run, unfortunately… neither of them ended up on his new tribe; Uisge 2.0

At the new camp, it was apparent that Jacob’s positioning in the game had skyrocketed without any of his previous tribemates. He was able to make good bonds with Robby, Calvin, Trey and Alex, while also learning about the idol Robby had gotten back at the Teine grounds. Once Uisge 2.0 finally went to Tribal Council, things got a bit messy. Originally, there was a four person alliance consisting of Jacob, Trey, Calvin, and Alex. And their plan was to boot Rachel in hopes that Robby would waste an idol. But realizing that Uisge would be heading into the merge with a 4-person locked in alliance scared the others, resulting in a new alliance to be formed without Trey or Alex. And since Trey was easily the bigger threat between the two, they voted him off.

Here comes the merge and Jacob's position does worsen a bit, but not to the point to where he’s in danger. His plan was to make everyone know that he's close with everyone so that people would be scared to throw out his name as a target, but all that did was question where people genuinely stood with him. It was no secret that his Ride-or-Die was Elena, with Calvin coming up as a close second. Their plan this round was to ride the wave and vote whoever ended up being the majority’s target. And in this case, it happened to be Logic, who nobody (except Alex and Antony) were saddened to see leave. During the next round, it seemed as if Jacob’s original game plan didn't work all too well because Antony began to tell Calvin that Jacob and Elena were too close. Of course, Calvin reported that back to his allies, deeming Antony as their new target. But then all hell broke loose when word got around that Calvin was throwing everyone under the bus. Leaving Jacob and Elena in the middle, ultimately, they surprisingly chose to keep Antony, blindsiding their former ally.

While the numbers dwindled down, Jacob became more and more itchy to make a big move and use his idol. Specifically for this round, he planned out voting out Robby. From an outsider point of view, Jacob had 5 votes locked on Robby (everyone but Robby and Antony) but not everything was so straight-forward. Before Tribal word got around that Rachel was gonna target Elena, of course, causing her to flip. Oddly, Bee flipped too. And while I’m not exactly sure why, it was enough to foil Jacob’s plan and boot Rachel.

At the Final 6, things couldn’t get even more tense. There was a 3v3 split in numbers, Jacob was mad at Bee for lying to him, there was a random reward challenge, and Robby continued to be a prime target. So much so, that the reward challenge ended up being a showdown between Jacob and Robby, with the former taking the win back home. Jacob earned an advantage in the next immunity challenge, which worked in his favor as he ended up beating Robby by one point. Looked like Jacob was finally gonna get his way with Robby and vote him out, but then a plan was thought of.

Behind the scenes, Robby knew that in a tie vote scenario, the people in the tie become safe and everyone instantly goes to rocks. So in an attempt to cause rocks, he campaigned to Bee about voting Antony and causing a tie. But there were two issues here. 1. Bee was gonna be drawing a rock as well, and 2. They’d only have two votes on Antony. Thankfully for Robby, Bee had an idol she was planning to use, and Antony manipulated the system into self-voting. So at Tribal Council, Jacob used his idol on Alex and Bee used hers on herself. So when the vote tied, Elena was eliminated by default, leaving Jacob alone in the game, having to fight his way to the end.

At 5, Robby won immunity after a 16-long question battle with Jacob. But Jacob didn't have his head go down just yet, he suggested to both Alex and Bee an Antony vote, they agreed, and it seemed like an easy vote… but I hope you can see that there is a pattern and that no one this late in the game was easy. While Jacob was trying to regain his trust with Bee, Antony and Robby were trying to get Alex to flip with them and blindside Bee. Of course, she didn't give any definitive answers so it seemed like they were out of luck. But as Tribal has JUST started, Alex had confirmed that she flipped to Antony, so as they both flipped, Robby was too late and his vote was locked onto Jacob. Causing a 2-2 tie and a historic rock draw between Jacob and Alex. Enough said, Jacob got the bad rock and was eliminated from the game.

## All-Stars

Taking away his gameplay for a second, Jacob’s attitude shined through almost 24/7 during this season. His playful antics, great strategic mind, and his passion to win were a great combination for a Fan Favorite and even a winner. But with Jacob we saw that Final Immunity is a challenge you do NOT wanna lose, so with him coming in 4th, the conversation of ‘Is Jacob the best player to never win’ has begun.

From the moment stepped onto Nicobar territory the game was on, making bonds with Josiah, Logic, Brandon and Zach, this allowed Jacob to move himself into the initial majority of 6 by adding Kamen. A few days later, Jacob found a clue to the Extra Vote advantage. The clue stated that he had to make 5 fires in 3 days to obtain it, but oddly enough, Aidan was really gung-ho about making fire. So Jacob told Aidan that he could potentially be targeted for it and Jacob claimed that Extra Vote in no time.

Fast Forward to the swap, and Jacob was in a solid 6-2 majority over Adam and Payton. When they lost the challenge, it seemed like it’d be an easy 6-2 Payton vote. But Jacob began to feel suspicious about Brandon and Jayden. Then he realized that Adam and Payton were beginning to act calmer than they should in a minority situation. Furthering his claim, Zach finally confirmed it then he told Jacob that he was the target from Payton. But besides that, Jacob also had to manage keeping Josiah from splitting the vote as it would have caused a plurality vote and resulted in one of them leaving. We did manage to keep his alliance in check though, just narrowly slipping by elimination by a 5-4 vote, courtesy of his Extra Vote.

At the merge, Jacob’s peak in the game really started. He was in the majority alliance with the tight group of people. He maintained relationships welle enough on the other side where he wouldn’t be targeted, and he also managed to help out his ally Ben’s positioning by convincing Kim that Brandon flipped on them instead of Ben (they soon found out Ben lied so take that for what you will) At the next vote Jacob remained to stay chill, letting Josiah create the plan and execute it. But this round wasn't totally uneventful for Jacob as Kim told him Tyler has an idol. But oddly enough, Kim and Jacob became less trusting of each other.

Come Final 11, and there is a knockout challenge. And to his surprise, Kim chose to take him out. And after a bit of context, Jacob comes to the conclusion that Ben has flipped back to Kim’s side and she was trying to make him feel safe (100% correct). So in an attempt to cause distrust between that duo, Jacob called a camp meeting and framed Kim with lies. Luckily, everyone ate it up except Kim,fracturing the Kim/Ben/Gabe Final 3 even more. But even though Kim wasn’t in Jacob’s best graces she wasn’t the target; Tyler was….then Brandon… then Kim, and it kept switching until it FINALLY landed on Tyler again before Tribal began. Jacob had already known that they didn't have the votes since Zach informed him that Ben was the original leaker. But right after their little shine in the minority, Brandon and Jayden flipped back to them so they could blindside Kim at F10.

I think it’s a mutual agreement that the Final 9 Tribal Council is easily Jacob’s best display of gameplay. After losing yet another individual immunity challenge, Jacob seemed to be in not so good of a spot. But when he had his run-of-the-mill convos with everyone, he noticed that besides the winners, everyone was going to go after Tyler. While the winners wanted to take out a goat. So once Jacob got news that Ben was on the winner’s side. He played Double Agent, at first telling his real side (the six) to split their votes against the winners 3-3. Then he reported the split vote plan to the winners, Tyler had an extra vote, so all they had to do was use it, and Paul would go home in a 4-3-3 vote. But Jacob, flipping his vote back onto Tyler, created a 4-4-2 vote tie between Tyler and Paul. So taking the opportunity while it was there, he voted out Tyler with his squad.

You’d think he’d calm down a bit at Final Eight… but it’s Jacb. So of course he didn't, he attempted to sway five votes off of Brandon and to Paul. Which DID work by the way, but when Paul overheard and spread a rumor to Zach that he found the idol, Zach got paranoid and backed out. Leaving Brandon out to dry in a 6-1-1 vote. During the next round, Jacob’s target was Jayden. But during downtime, he received news that Paul was actively coming after him, so at ribal, despite Zach’s wishes not to play it, Jacob used his idol, wasting it as Jayden received 4 votes.

At the Final Six, Jacob finally won Immunity, so now his buddy Zach’s name was on the line. And even though he has his own idol, Jacob wanted to sell the fact that he also had Tyler’s idol and he’d threaten to use it on Zach. Well heading into tribal it seemed like the roles have reversed between the two as Zach played his idol despite Jacob telling him not to. Only problem was that they were heading into the Final Five with no idols. But thankfully, Jacob won immunity, and for some reason, everyone was on board to boot Paul.

Now.. now we’re at the Final Four, and Jacob knows that if he doesn’t win Immunity, he’s probably going home. Well after a bunch of effort, hard work, and determination, Jacob fell only a couple points short of Zach’s win. But Jacob would never throw in the towel, so right before Tribal Council, he tried using one of his patented ‘Scare Tactics’ to cause a tie and send it to Firemaking. But it was to no avail, and Jacob became the Final Juror.