Bluff Ranch

## Cast

***Surviving Reelfoot: Bluff Ranch*** is the ninth season of *Surviving Reelfoot*. The season was livestreamed over Facebook for viewers, and footage can be found here. The season featured 18 new players competing over a span of 8 days.

Justin beat Ronnie in a 9-0 vote to become the Sole Survivor.

## Twists/Changes

* **Surplus Store** - Individually, players could visit a in-game store and used a currency collected or won in challenges to purchase food, survival items, and advantages. Tribes would send a player to the Surplus Store after reward challenges, and the winning tribe's Prisoner of War would visit after each tribal immunity challenge. Following the merge, any player could visit the Surplus Store after a individual immunity challenge. The Surplus Store closed after the Final 8. Advantages purchased at the Surplus Store included a mutiny advantage, extra vote, vote cancel, safety without power, and idol clues.
* **Prisoner of War** - After winning a tribal immunity challenge, a player would be randomly chosen from the winning tribe to go back with the other tribe and vote at that tribal council. The chosen player would be immune from the vote and not participate in any revotes. Additionally, the selected player would attend the Surplus Store for their tribe, and would receive a clue to the losing tribe's hidden immunity idol that they must give to a player on the other tribe.
* **Missing In Action** - After being voted out, players could choose to stay in the game and join a hidden third tribe, the Missing In Action tribe, for a chance to get back into the game at the merge. Missing In Action players then competed in a challenge, with the top two finishers rejoining the game. The two players reentering the game would also be immune at the following tribal council.

## Trivia

* This was the first Reelfoot season to feature an 18 person cast.
* This was the first time since Season 2: Orange Country to feature a cast with less than 20 people.
* This was the first time since Season 2: Orange Country where the “Auction” reward challenge was featured.
* The starting tribe colors (Red and Purple) were used again specifically in this season to reference Season 1: Reelfoot Lake, as those were the same starting tribe colors used in that season.
* Justin is the first Reelfoot winner to be voted out, and still go on to win the same season.
* Ronnie is the oldest Reelfoot contestant to make it to the final day of the game, as well as the oldest contestant to make it to the final tribal council.
* Ronnie is the oldest Reelfoot contestant to win an individual immunity challenge.
* This season featured the most pre-merge challenges to date for a season with only two starting tribes, with 12 pre-merge challenges.
* This was the first season to feature a tribe get disqualified from a challenge for breaking the rules of said challenge (Rutherford in the second immunity challenge).
* This was the first season to feature the Mutiny advantage, and the Safety without Power advantage.
* This season featured the fastest time to date where a contestant found a hidden immunity idol, with Todd finding his idol without a clue within an hour after the game officially began.
* This was the first season to feature a tied vote at tribal council in the pre-merge.
* After Carlos used his Mutiny advantage to become a permanent member of Carleton, Rutherford became the first tribe in Reelfoot history to contain none of its original members at some point during its existence.
* Carleton is tied with the Zmeya tribe from Season 3 and the Zhuque tribe from Season 5, for having the most of its original members make the merge with 8. Carleton is the first tribe to accomplish this that didn’t start off with 11 members.
* The “Touchy Subjects/Superlatives” reward challenge has been featured seven times in Reelfoot history. With Shane not winning the season, he becomes the 7th contestant to win this challenge, but not win the game.
* Several players on this season had played previous Live Reality Games with each other. Jerrica and Mike both played Pirate Survival Expedition with each other in 2017. Jerrica, Mike, Carlos and Taylor had all played Home4TheHolidaze.