Dongoosh

**Dongoosh** was a contestant of SurviVARs: Wildemount.

## **Profile**

**Discord:** Dongoosh

**Gender:** he/him

**Timezone:** MST

This is where these rankings become so hard. This merge cast was on a whole other level, and each of them could have ranked anywhere from 1st to 11th on this list. So if you’re listed here, don’t worry about who’s above or below you. You’re all on a legendary level in my eyes. Dongoosh came into this game with a big reputation and with a lot of prove, to himself and to the community. Dongoosh started this game with top tier content, finding the idol hunt immediately alongside Roman. When they both got stuck at different points, Roman approached Dongoosh and they started working together, with both lying about how much they had already achieved (and Roman repeating an entire leg of the puzzle to make it seem like she hadn’t gotten that far). This pair became a very important alliance of the pre-merge, especially once Roman secured the Brenatto idol.

Lars and Jake were viewing Roman as a potential target, but Dongoosh was in high social standing and seemed to be okay. When Shaun was swapped over to Brenatto, Roman and Dongoosh worked hard to get him into their good graces, earning his loyalty and securing at least a 50% majority on their tribe of six. This didn’t last too long, though, and the tribes were swapped. Dongoosh was left with only Jake from his OG tribe, and it was clear that tribal lines would matter here. Dongoosh, Orange, and Danger emerged as the “leaders” of their respective tribes, and they were all pitching cross-tribe alliances in order to eliminate whatever third tribe was left out. When they were given the chance to draw from the Deck of Many Things, Dongoosh and Jake decided to ignore the tribe’s plan to self-vote, and they both voted for Dongoosh. Dongoosh drew the Flames card, meaning he was forced to sign his next three parchments. There was no hiding this one, but Dongoosh would lean into the punishment rather than away from it, resulting in some of the most iconic parchments of the season. Nydoorin avoided the Thanos tribal, but then their loyalties were put to the test when Shaun crushed them in Survivor Cannonfire. Dongoosh could have been in trouble here, but his social game with Orange in particular helped to sway Clay to align with Brenatto, leading to the epic Danger blindside.

Everyone in power was on Dongoosh’s side, and he was sitting pretty. Unfortunately for him, we swapped them again and Dongoosh lost Orange and Jake, two of his closest allies. They were replaced with Shaun and Lars, and Dongoosh did what he needed to keep his footing. He managed to stay at the social center of the tribe alongside Flower and Riley, and Shaun and Lars gravitated to this group in order to keep themselves safe. This left Lavinia as an easy target, and Dongoosh wasn’t going easy on her. When Widowgast lost immunity (largely because Dongoosh did the Folklore challenge while heavily under the influence) Dongoosh started telling people that everyone was saying Lavinia, which wasn’t true. Everyone believed him, and Dongoosh was able to manufacture a consensus narrative from thin air and sent Lavinia home for it. Dongoosh was the kingpin in this group, and nobody could argue that. In the double tribal, Dongoosh was actually in Riley’s sights for a moment, but when she realized that nobody else would flip on him she went with the group’s plan to vote out Lars since Sindira was immune.

Dongoosh entered the merge with his head held high, reunited with his many alliances that he had formed in the pre-merge. Roman told him about Sparky’s idol, Orange and Sparky struck up a Smash Bros alliance with him, and players like Shaun and Flower were staying in his good graces. Dongoosh was in a great spot, and breezed through the Sindira and Shaun votes with ease. Many people were clocking Dongoosh as a strategic and social threat, but he was in no danger. He seemed to be on top of the world here. Then, the dam broke at the Orange blindside. People leaked left and right, with Dongoosh being one of the major leakers). He told Jake and Orange about Sparky’s idol, and soon everyone knew about the idol and was trying to make a plan to flush it. Targets came and went, and Dongoosh hoped that he could idol out Aowyn with a minority vote after Sparky idoled himself. This plan got back to Aowyn, who tried to flip this back against Dongoosh. This trend of flipping targets continued until we ended up with two major alliances targeting each other. Dongoosh was left out of both. As plans came and went, Dongoosh was left thinking that it was a split vote and he cast the sole vote against Flower as Roman negated half of the votes with her idol and Orange copped the rest, going home in a total blindside to both him and Dongoosh.

Dongoosh had fallen from the top to the very bottom. The Survivor Gods are cruel, because this next round was just kicking Dongoosh while he was already down. In theory, Dongoosh should have been safe. He had no power, no alliances, and his threat level had been largely overshadowed by players like Roman, Aowyn, and Sparky. Yet, a perfect storm brewed that sent Dongoosh home in the most bullshitty way. Jake played a challenge advantage that meant the difference between Dongoosh winning and losing immunity. Ano played a SWOP that stole him and Jake away, removing two votes from Tribal. Flower lost his vote to the Mimic Idol that Orange had left for him. A chaotic vote resulted in a 2-1-1-1 split. Roman’s Deck card allowed her to see her name on the parchments and allowed Sparky to play an idol to save her. Flower threw away his Mimic Idol to get his vote back, negating the one vote against Riley. In the 1-1 tiebreaker between Dongoosh and Sparky, Sparky was the much clearer threat but Aowyn had promised not to write his name down so she sent Dongoosh packing. Dongoosh had gone from the top of the cast to the bottom, and then had been sent home when there were so many things that could have (and maybe even should have) gone differently. He was understandably upset, and left some choice words for the players remaining. This wasn’t easy for everyone on the cast to hear, but Dongoosh realized where he had overstepped and was allowed to deliver apologies to the cast members he had hurt.

Dongoosh is an incredible guy. He’s a fantastic player, sure, but a big part of why he succeeds is that he has a such a great heart. If you’ve played with him, you know how charming and easy to love he is. He’s a social king, a strategic warrior, and no slouch when it comes to competitions. Dongoosh was my winner pick for this game, and I don’t regret it. He was sent home thanks to a bunch of things he couldn’t control, and I don’t want him leaving this game thinking that he played poorly. I just wrote the longest character ranking that I ever have in order to explain just how good his game had been up until the tables turned. If just one of any number of things had gone differently, Dongoosh likely could’ve made a very deep run. Any of the jurors would likely tell you the same thing. Dongoosh isn’t just the most robbed player of the season, but probably the most robbed player in SurviVARS. He had built up so much positive momentum just to have it torn away, and he shouldn’t blame himself for that. Dongoosh may not want to play again for a while (and I don’t blame him), but if and when he’s ready to come back, I would be honored to have him, and watch him seize a second chance. Dongoosh is an absolute legend, one of my best friends on Discord, and is now a highlight of my time as a host. Thank you for playing, brother.

### **Nominations**

**Funniest Player**

Dongoosh is a storyteller at heart, and just like all good storytellers he knows how to make you cry (cough cough final words) but he also knows how to make you laugh your ass off. Dongoosh is an incredibly creative guy, and his confessionals are comedy gold. I always heard stories of Dongoosh’s memes and edits, but since I was always playing alongside him, I didn’t see his confessional so these remained vague stories. Now that I’ve witnessed them first hand, they live up to the hype.

**Voice of the Season**

Dongoosh has a theatricality in his confessionals that elevates them to the status of art. Anyone following Dongoosh’s confessionals is familiar with his continuing story that he uses as a backdrop to explain the narrative of the season in D&D terms (which is even more impressive since he wasn’t overly familiar with D&D). He puts so much work into his confessionals, and even used a custom font and everything. That font was practically illegible at the start, but we can forgive him for that because of how damn good these stories were. Aside from the fun tales he told, he was also an excellent day-to-day confessionalist as he updated us on game talk and strategy. We always knew exactly what he was thinking and exactly where he thought he stood. It was easy to see the game through Dongoosh’s eyes, and this is what sets him apart from so many of the great confessionals we had in this season.

### **Awarded**

**Most Robbed Player**

The Goosh man himself, one of the best players in our side of the ORG community, lost to a bunch of bullshit that he couldn’t control. This man was set up incredibly well, and had many paths to the endgame, and then he wound up in an inescapable situation that rivals the Game Changers advantageddon of legend. If one of ANY of these things didn’t happen, Dongoosh probably would have survived: Jake played an advantage that took immunity away from Dongoosh. Ano played a SWOP that removed two players from Tribal Council. Flower lost his vote to the Mimic Idol that Orange left for him. A chaotic vote resulted in a 2-1-1-1 split. Roman’s card let her see the votes coming so Sparky played an idol for Roman. Flower played an idol on Riley (almost as a throwaway) in order to get his vote back. Aowyn promised to not write Sparky’s name down. All of this led to a perfect storm that sent Dongoosh packing with a single vote against him in the first reading of the votes. As a spectator, it was thrilling. But for Dongoosh, it meant that all of the potential he had building from the start had all led to nothing. It was heartbreaking for so many reasons, and we may never see such an insane Tribal Council again.