Hogwarts

**SurviVARs: Hogwarts** is the second season of *SurviVARs*. It had 20 castaways marooned for 36 days. It premiered September 25th 2021 and the winner was crowned October 28th 2021.

## Production

This season of *SurviVARs* had 20 castaways divided into four tribes of five. The game lasted 37 days but if someone had to quit or be ejected tribal council would be cancelled.

## Twists/Changes

* **One World -** Every player was able to DM each other at any point in the game.
* **Joint Tribals -** Every pre-merge tribal council featured the two lowest-scoring tribes for each challenge, while the two highest-scoring tribes were immune.
* **Hogwarts Safari -** Advantages and idols were hidden in a separate server which could be explored and interacted with using bot commands.
* **Double Tribal -** At the final sixteen all tribes would go to tribal council in two separate Joint Tribal Councils.

## Season Ranking (5th)

**Cast - 5/6**

Hogwarts was a really split cast. It had some of the all time greatest players we’ve ever seen, but there were also a lot of forgettable ones. What hurts this season the most is that some of the most entertaining personalities couldn’t match it with entertaining gameplay. I’m not blaming the cast, because the gameplay was good. It just wasn’t necessarily fun. I think that Hogwarts had a cast that was relatively quiet and reserved compared to some of the casts that rank higher on this list. So many of them are people I’d consider dear friends, and some of them are up there with my favorite people on Discord, but the gameplay and entertainment was just a bit lacking in spite of these excellent characters.

**Pre-Merge - 1/6**

Hogwarts has our best pre-merge, in my humble opinion, thanks to a variety of factors. As much as the players hated it, One World made things really interesting. Dan and Aria dug their teeth into this game pretty much right off the bat, and it was awesome watching them lead moves and votes even when they weren’t involved in Tribal Council. This was amplified because of the joint tribal twist, so we essentially has a shifting “losing tribe” every episode. There were so many great pre-merge storylines, like the absolute destruction of the OG Slytherin tribe (which later turned into Willow’s awesome underdog story). We had Lupus’s downfall, which is one of our biggest pre-merge moves ever made. Man went home with two idols in his pocket, which is inevitably going to bump up this section of the game in rankings. We had some pretty memorable pre-mergers too, like Quint, Lupus, Derrick, and Fire, who left marks in the game even if they didn’t stick around too long. The Safari was also a highlight of this season, and it was largely a factor in the pre-merge since it kind of slowed down once the three idols were found. I also think that Derrick’s contributions (archived in the iconic #just-derrick-things channel) provided a personality that very few early games have. So, yeah. I think Hogwarts is our best pre-merge.

**Post-Merge - 6/6**

Hogwarts has a stellar pre-merge, but a pretty dry merge game. Not a bad merge game, but dry. It was pretty much the Dan and Aria show, with every single vote being unanimous and predictable. There were some fun moments, but these really had nothing to do with the gameplay or even the actual game. The predictability really hurt the entertainment factor of the late game, even though I think there was some great strategy happening. The season’s Final Three were not bad by any means, but it was hurt by the fact that the entire game was ran by two people and then neither of those people made FTC. We were left with three strong players, but they didn’t really fit the narrative of the merge. Ultimately, the merge game just falls flat. A solid cast doesn’t make up for the merge just being boring at the end of the day.

**Gameplay - 6/6**

This kind of goes hand in hand with the post-merge critiques. The gameplay was strong, but only a few players really held any power. There weren’t any big or unexpected moves after the merge, and the game just kind of bent to Dan and Aria’s will. There was fun gameplay in the pre-merge, but since it didn’t really go anywhere in the long run this doesn’t help this season much in this category. I think that One World really helped the pre-merge, but in the post-merge this meant that people were tired, and apprehensive to make big moves. The gameplay from the top was stellar, but that’s not indicative of strong strategies across the board.

**Story - 5/6**

Hogwarts has some fun storylines, like I’ve mentioned already. The Lupus arc was short, but great. Dan and Aria were certainly at the story’s center, and Victoria had a great UTR winner arc by floating in the periphery of the power duo while snapping up immunity wins. Aside from this, though, the story was really just Dan and Aria’s dominance. There were whispers of big moves, but they never got made. There were hilarious moments, and a lot of character, but this didn’t translate to gameplay. It was a fun community, but it kind of fell short when it came to Survivor, and because of this it didn’t have a very interesting story.

**Hosting Experience - 2/6**

I know that some of my critiques of this season are a bit harsh, but this is where I make up for it. Hosting Hogwarts was a blast. This cast was so fun, and so funny. You can’t have Derrick, Bird, Dan, James, and Merlin in the same game and not have a good time. There was tons of interactions between the players and the hosts, a good spectator base despite being a young ORG, and a theme that everybody loved. We had so many fun moments, like the date between James and Willow that the hosts forced them to participate in. Then, we had my all-time favorite SurviVARS memory… the Dobby meltdown. I was going to let the merged tribe keep their Hogwarts houses to stick with the theme, but when the players started revolting and demanding a new tribe, I went insane and rethemed everything to match Dobby. It was absolute nonsense, but it was fun as hell. Even if the gameplay left something to be desired, the players and the attitude surrounding this season was absolutely top-tier, and that makes it one of my favorite seasons at a personal level.

**Overall Thoughts**

Overall, Hogwarts was a really fun but ultimately flat game of Survivor. I love the players, and some of my favorite memories come from this season, but I have to admit where the season leveled out. The Safari was the start of something that has come to define my ORG, and I’m grateful for the players who subjected themselves to One World without going completely bonkers. I kind of wish Hogwarts ranked higher, because I really have so much love for this season. If anything, Hogwarts ranking this low shows how consistently good this ORG has been, because Hogwarts is still a top tier season for me. If there are four seasons better than this one, I think we’re doing okay.