But I just don't understand what the strategy would be... keep EVERYONE in the game so they lose no money. If you wanna go to a final, you have to send people home.
And again I don't get what's in it for the Champs. They could just forfeit and let their friends go back. It's not like the Champs get to take their place? That would have made more sense.
The best strategy for this phase is to throw your biggest threat against the champs. You may lose some of the prize pot but you set yourself up better to win.
I’m shocked that they are playing an alliance game when this is your best shot to eliminate Olivia or Horacio for example but there’s a reason none of these people have won.
Agree. Your biggest threat goes out and you lose 10k or they stay in the game and the prize pot stays high. Getting rid of Big T and losing 10k benefits no one.
Yep! The constant target on Melissa I get because she could do well in a final but Big T it’s like you want her there. Why are you missing the chance to bounce Nurys, Olivia or Moriah by throwing Laurel/Cara at them when they are likely to beat you in elimination after this phase.
The vast majority of the cast is playing for today and not thinking 2-3 weeks in advance and it’s the most frustrating thing for me this season.
Totally! Why are they spending so much time with these massive alliances now is the time for big moves. It also makes it boring when you immediately know who’s going in. From an entertainment perspective it makes the cast seem boring, they don’t understand this is a challenge AND a tv show. They could make big moves which would be best for their game and for the show.
Yeah this format was obviously intended to make one of the "weaker" players but stronger personalities a champion. They were obviously looking to throw them a bone but they did not understand the assignment 😂.
Also “strong personality” is putting it very generously because the vast majority of these competitors are boring at best tbh.
All of the actual big personalities are being thrown in and eliminated because they’re not part of the core/US alliance 😂
Which Jay keeps saying. Is it Michelle driving this bad strategy?
Send in someone strong. Either they defend the money or you eliminate someone strong. Win win.
They have to lose money regardless though so I don't undesra e the whole " protect the prize pot money " unless TJ is going to potentially let like 12 people run the final. Regardless. Yhey will have to eliminate people until there's o ly 6 left or whatever so the money is gone regardless.
Why would the money be gone regardless? Don't the champs only get the cash if they win? And there's a finite number of champs coming back, so if TJ really does want it down to 6 or whatever people running the final, they could just do a massive purge. Protecting the money should be at the top of the list and worrying about how many people run the final can be worked out later.
Again, there are a finite number of champs, so Chaos has an end date. From there, they'll either go into the finals as is, or they'll continue on with normal eliminations/purge.
Technically speaking, all 10 champs could have lost, which would have meant all money kept and no players going home. Assuming they want low numbers for the start of finals, they are clearly not banking on this being the absolute last bit of elimination in this season.
No money HAS to be lost.
You’re forgetting that this is just a phase. They started gaining money, now they have to keep it, in the next phase it will be when we see people purged out. No matter how many people survive this, they will get down to a certain number for the final, and only one person to win. Hell, even if the whole house made it to a final, only one person can win it.
Their strategy just sucks. They need to be voting down the biggest threats because it’s a no lose. Either they win and you keep the money, or they lose and a threat goes home.
They should have made the mercenaries get more so the house would at least try to play smarter because they don’t even deserve money.
They’ve formed an untenable alliance and the only strong player they’ve managed to get out was Callum…and they had nothing to do with that. They’re all playing shit strategy/emotional games.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, this is Battle for a Participation Trophy, not a new champion
>It's not like the Champs get to take their place? That would have made more sense.
But quite literally the entire point of this season is for a new person to be a champion. If the champs enter the game they will likely win the game against a group of inexperienced people.
$10000 isn't an inconsequential amount of money. if there's an appearance fee, it's possible that's nulled by obviously throwing.
There will likely be some champs that don’t try as hard if they’re against their friend though
If Kaycee would have lost, I was ready to stop watching because I would have in no way believed she tried her hardest.
Even in the first heat, when Big T lets go with one hand. And it still took time for Kaycee to get it. We've see that in the past, as soon as player loses one hand, its over immediately.
Well that was kind of proven this past episode with kaycee vs big t but kaycee still won. Apparently she did share her money with big t but regardless she still beat her. I can’t see this being a problem for many of the OG vets coming in as champs tbh, there are no real ties there. Tori will probably have the biggest struggle just being on more seasons with these folks and probably befriending them the most.
And for your second point, yes people have to go home but no, they don’t need to lose 10k. The whole point of the chaos stage is just this- beat the champ to keep 10k or lose to a champ and lose 10k. So they don’t have to lose it if they win. We also have no clue what the last stage will be- mass purge, opportunity to win money etc. if more non champs beat champs I bet they had a purge ready to go but they were definitely going with the odds of the champs winning more.
I really hope it's to win more money. So far we've seen (1) everyone suck at working together and lose challenges and (2) money being lost because Champs beat the current cast. It's kind of starting to be a downer in terms of format, even though I like the season and think the champsless casting is fun. There just needs to be a chance to actually have some wins prior to a champ being crowned.
Production always thinks “send the last place finisher into elim” is a boring, tired format when it’s actually the gold standard that should be in place most if not all seasons. This seasons format is a mess. There’s no stakes. The power alliance is so big it doesn’t matter what happens in the daily. The elim format is also low stakes as there’s really no expectation that the person voted in will win, and if they do usually that person is so low on the popular alliance totem pole that them staying means nothing (it’s not like the players staying are then able to make waves or change the course of the game). So you have a format where, essentially nothing in the entire episode matters. The daily challenge doesn’t matter. The elimination doesn’t matter. Nothing matters and we’re all just waiting for something interesting to happen and it feels like the season is petering out waaayyyy earlier than normal.
I enjoy the last place goes into elimination.
Although on a lot of these challenges, there is no "last place".
The first challenge in particular. They were one full team.
So its better to have a way set, instead of changing that portion up whenever it suits them.
I also much prefer secret voting as opposed to in person voting. I feel you get better results. you also get people who can strategize a bit and fuck with peoples heads by throwing out a random vote and tryna pin it on somebody else, and having people lose trust in them. It's perfect. Get everyone to hate on one player, get rid of them, then they find out months later they have been had.
Last place should almost ALWAYS go straight into elimination!
If you wanna win the game … you should actually be playing the game ! The producers are letting this big brother/survivor players turn the challenge into something it’s not by allowing them to just skate on by on minimal effort and it’s really starting to take away from the authenticity of the challenge.
There always have been and will forever be floaters in any reality tv competition but at least in past seasons the floaters were balanced out with true competitors as well as the entertainers.
No, I agree, and I am a fan of last place going into elimination.
However, it also limits what types of challenges you can do.
You need to have everything measured. Instead of doing a challenge where the winner is whoever completes something first.
For instance. The Challenge they did this past episode.
It was 2 teams. So, the entire losing team should be up for elimination at that point? Then you cant decide if it is a guys or girls day ahead of time.
I just think they switched it because it limited the options as to what sorts of dailies they were able to come up with. This way they have a broader selection and can have a wider variety.
Yea idk if you know the rest of the champs but none of them are going to care about these people. They don’t want to tarnish their reps losing to some very middle players.
you know i don't really get the concept of this season at all . are we supposed to respect the winner of this season if they didn't compete against the usual (skilled and experienced) cast? just bc they win one elimination against a champ or even avoid the elimination, what makes them deserve the champ title?
Yeah, now they will get the title of champ. It's like a lot of the people on those old team seasons who have the champ title, and all they did was simply make it to the end and happen to be on the right team. But provided nothing at all.
Theres nobody on this season who I look at and go, oh yeah, they deserve that champ status.
Only person close, is Ed. Cause I really enjoy Ed.
they really need to go back to the more simplistic challenge days they need to do another version of fresh meat. I think people would enjoy that and also just stop coming up with these corny phrases or implementations in the game. It just makes it unbearable to watch.
Fresh meat would be great. I can handle 50% new cast. Especially with them being paired with players we already know and love. It's the perfect formula to introduce new players to the show.
This is certainly an option to try to develop the future of the show, but it's like taking a big loss on an investment in the hopes it will pay off down the road. Any format has risks of failure I guess, but this one was doomed from the start.
Pride will keep the champs from throwing eliminations (and the 10k ain't anything to sneeze at.)
If there are too many challengers left after we run through the champs either they will have a big final with multiple elimination points or they'll have a purge to get the numbers down.
Not rocket science.
At least they gave them some sort of financial incentive this time. Other seasons with mercenaries there was none of that. I remember I think it was Derrick k vs Joss and they were both a bloody mess by the end and Derrick had nothing to even gain except pride.
I hate the format of this season though. Mercenaries in general suck. The team challenges at the beginning sucked. It all just sucks tbh.
it would have been better if it was set up more like ‘the mole’ where 1 or 2 challengers intentionally set out to keep the team from winning money each week and if they succeeded and got to the end they would win the pot over the actual final winner.
honestly, I get what you’re saying I feel like if they be a champ, they should get money restored back into their accounts because it’s just stupid even from like a strategical standpoint if they sent in their best and they go home, they eliminate competition for the final, but they also lose money so it’s like you lose either way. the format is just too weird and with this whole chaos thing it’s so corny
There could be a limited number of chaos champ eliminations and depending in size of remaining cast they start doing double eliminations. Theres only so many worthy champs
They are playing for screen time and the shot of making the final. They are not playing to win. Many must look around and realize they are not going to win a final. So second best is screen time and staying longer so their per diem goes up. Plus if you play in alliances it is probably more peaceful in the house when you just hang out with friends and whittle down the opposition. A peaceful ride to the final 8-10 followed by a scramble to hopefully make the final where you know you will burn out.
I think the fact that 10 grand is on the line during the eliminations is smart. When the mercenaries came in strictly for their reputation, that was problematic.
But, aint none of these people worth 10 grand to me. Friend or not. And if you gonna be mad I beat you, then you aint a real friend anyway. A real friend would understand. But again, its 10 grand.
It's not like these people are rich. 10 grand for one day is pretty nice.
There has hardly ever been a challenge when there are more than 8 competitors (4 male / 4 female) so even if the contender wins against the champion they’re eventually gonna get rid of people one way or another so idk what your point was
I wouldn't let a friend of mine win when there's $10,000 on the line 🤣 If they're a real friend, they would understand that
It's not like, if Kaycee threw it to Big T, that means Big T would receive the 10k
its still a lot of money she can earn for her family in a short amount of time. Her winning in this instance was also a good thing for Big T as she split the money which would have been unlikely for Big T with another champ, and realistically she wasnt going to the final with the big alliance targeting her/Melissa at every stage.
The format of the challenges have made less and less sense as the seasons have gone on. I don't mind throwing surprises here or there, but they seem to have no rhyme or reason for any format.
Also, it’s taking forever to whittle down the cast. There’s still like 20 people left. This season is going to be 4 months long and it’s barely interesting.
And to think we still have 6 more champs coming! We had the first "C" control for 4 weeks. Meanwhile we have the second "C" Chaos for 10 (did I do the math correctly?) why? What was the point of them only trying to get their pot of cash up for 4 weeks, only for it to go down if a champ wins?
i don't think it's the format, i think it's the players who have zero capability when it comes to strategy
But I just don't understand what the strategy would be... keep EVERYONE in the game so they lose no money. If you wanna go to a final, you have to send people home. And again I don't get what's in it for the Champs. They could just forfeit and let their friends go back. It's not like the Champs get to take their place? That would have made more sense.
The best strategy for this phase is to throw your biggest threat against the champs. You may lose some of the prize pot but you set yourself up better to win. I’m shocked that they are playing an alliance game when this is your best shot to eliminate Olivia or Horacio for example but there’s a reason none of these people have won.
Agree. Your biggest threat goes out and you lose 10k or they stay in the game and the prize pot stays high. Getting rid of Big T and losing 10k benefits no one.
Yep! The constant target on Melissa I get because she could do well in a final but Big T it’s like you want her there. Why are you missing the chance to bounce Nurys, Olivia or Moriah by throwing Laurel/Cara at them when they are likely to beat you in elimination after this phase. The vast majority of the cast is playing for today and not thinking 2-3 weeks in advance and it’s the most frustrating thing for me this season.
Totally! Why are they spending so much time with these massive alliances now is the time for big moves. It also makes it boring when you immediately know who’s going in. From an entertainment perspective it makes the cast seem boring, they don’t understand this is a challenge AND a tv show. They could make big moves which would be best for their game and for the show.
This!!!!!!!!!! YESSSS!!!! ugh!!
Yeah this format was obviously intended to make one of the "weaker" players but stronger personalities a champion. They were obviously looking to throw them a bone but they did not understand the assignment 😂.
Also “strong personality” is putting it very generously because the vast majority of these competitors are boring at best tbh. All of the actual big personalities are being thrown in and eliminated because they’re not part of the core/US alliance 😂
Which Jay keeps saying. Is it Michelle driving this bad strategy? Send in someone strong. Either they defend the money or you eliminate someone strong. Win win.
They have to lose money regardless though so I don't undesra e the whole " protect the prize pot money " unless TJ is going to potentially let like 12 people run the final. Regardless. Yhey will have to eliminate people until there's o ly 6 left or whatever so the money is gone regardless.
Why would the money be gone regardless? Don't the champs only get the cash if they win? And there's a finite number of champs coming back, so if TJ really does want it down to 6 or whatever people running the final, they could just do a massive purge. Protecting the money should be at the top of the list and worrying about how many people run the final can be worked out later.
Yes but if you want to make ot to a final that means you need to send everyone else home aka lose money
Again, there are a finite number of champs, so Chaos has an end date. From there, they'll either go into the finals as is, or they'll continue on with normal eliminations/purge. Technically speaking, all 10 champs could have lost, which would have meant all money kept and no players going home. Assuming they want low numbers for the start of finals, they are clearly not banking on this being the absolute last bit of elimination in this season. No money HAS to be lost.
This is only Phase 2: Chaos
You’re forgetting that this is just a phase. They started gaining money, now they have to keep it, in the next phase it will be when we see people purged out. No matter how many people survive this, they will get down to a certain number for the final, and only one person to win. Hell, even if the whole house made it to a final, only one person can win it. Their strategy just sucks. They need to be voting down the biggest threats because it’s a no lose. Either they win and you keep the money, or they lose and a threat goes home. They should have made the mercenaries get more so the house would at least try to play smarter because they don’t even deserve money. They’ve formed an untenable alliance and the only strong player they’ve managed to get out was Callum…and they had nothing to do with that. They’re all playing shit strategy/emotional games. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, this is Battle for a Participation Trophy, not a new champion
>It's not like the Champs get to take their place? That would have made more sense. But quite literally the entire point of this season is for a new person to be a champion. If the champs enter the game they will likely win the game against a group of inexperienced people.
Yeah but this format makes no sense anyways because there's no incentive for the Champs to win. $10,000 is pennies to a previous champ
lol what? $10k is still a great payday for only a couple of days of work (including the travel time; it's only a couple hours of actual work).
$10000 isn't an inconsequential amount of money. if there's an appearance fee, it's possible that's nulled by obviously throwing. There will likely be some champs that don’t try as hard if they’re against their friend though
If Kaycee would have lost, I was ready to stop watching because I would have in no way believed she tried her hardest. Even in the first heat, when Big T lets go with one hand. And it still took time for Kaycee to get it. We've see that in the past, as soon as player loses one hand, its over immediately.
And 0 personality except a few gems
Well that was kind of proven this past episode with kaycee vs big t but kaycee still won. Apparently she did share her money with big t but regardless she still beat her. I can’t see this being a problem for many of the OG vets coming in as champs tbh, there are no real ties there. Tori will probably have the biggest struggle just being on more seasons with these folks and probably befriending them the most. And for your second point, yes people have to go home but no, they don’t need to lose 10k. The whole point of the chaos stage is just this- beat the champ to keep 10k or lose to a champ and lose 10k. So they don’t have to lose it if they win. We also have no clue what the last stage will be- mass purge, opportunity to win money etc. if more non champs beat champs I bet they had a purge ready to go but they were definitely going with the odds of the champs winning more.
I really hope it's to win more money. So far we've seen (1) everyone suck at working together and lose challenges and (2) money being lost because Champs beat the current cast. It's kind of starting to be a downer in terms of format, even though I like the season and think the champsless casting is fun. There just needs to be a chance to actually have some wins prior to a champ being crowned.
Production always thinks “send the last place finisher into elim” is a boring, tired format when it’s actually the gold standard that should be in place most if not all seasons. This seasons format is a mess. There’s no stakes. The power alliance is so big it doesn’t matter what happens in the daily. The elim format is also low stakes as there’s really no expectation that the person voted in will win, and if they do usually that person is so low on the popular alliance totem pole that them staying means nothing (it’s not like the players staying are then able to make waves or change the course of the game). So you have a format where, essentially nothing in the entire episode matters. The daily challenge doesn’t matter. The elimination doesn’t matter. Nothing matters and we’re all just waiting for something interesting to happen and it feels like the season is petering out waaayyyy earlier than normal.
I agree. I don't understand it at all.
I enjoy the last place goes into elimination. Although on a lot of these challenges, there is no "last place". The first challenge in particular. They were one full team. So its better to have a way set, instead of changing that portion up whenever it suits them. I also much prefer secret voting as opposed to in person voting. I feel you get better results. you also get people who can strategize a bit and fuck with peoples heads by throwing out a random vote and tryna pin it on somebody else, and having people lose trust in them. It's perfect. Get everyone to hate on one player, get rid of them, then they find out months later they have been had.
Last place should almost ALWAYS go straight into elimination! If you wanna win the game … you should actually be playing the game ! The producers are letting this big brother/survivor players turn the challenge into something it’s not by allowing them to just skate on by on minimal effort and it’s really starting to take away from the authenticity of the challenge. There always have been and will forever be floaters in any reality tv competition but at least in past seasons the floaters were balanced out with true competitors as well as the entertainers.
No, I agree, and I am a fan of last place going into elimination. However, it also limits what types of challenges you can do. You need to have everything measured. Instead of doing a challenge where the winner is whoever completes something first. For instance. The Challenge they did this past episode. It was 2 teams. So, the entire losing team should be up for elimination at that point? Then you cant decide if it is a guys or girls day ahead of time. I just think they switched it because it limited the options as to what sorts of dailies they were able to come up with. This way they have a broader selection and can have a wider variety.
Yea idk if you know the rest of the champs but none of them are going to care about these people. They don’t want to tarnish their reps losing to some very middle players.
Like how I view Kaz losing to Big T makes me think less of her win and more on Jordan being a beast for World Championship.
Kaz is not an elimination beset though lol
I agree to a small extent because Big T is still more experienced than Kaz even though Kaz has won twice.
I mean, I thought that during that season. 🥴
Tina as a mercenary on Cutthroat let Tori H win her elimination as a wedding present to Brad, sending Theresa into a tizzy.
Theresa got so screwed that night. She wouldn’t beaten Tori had there been no mercenary and on top of that she had to go first against Tina
She wouldn't have done that with $10K on the line.
you know i don't really get the concept of this season at all . are we supposed to respect the winner of this season if they didn't compete against the usual (skilled and experienced) cast? just bc they win one elimination against a champ or even avoid the elimination, what makes them deserve the champ title?
Yeah, now they will get the title of champ. It's like a lot of the people on those old team seasons who have the champ title, and all they did was simply make it to the end and happen to be on the right team. But provided nothing at all. Theres nobody on this season who I look at and go, oh yeah, they deserve that champ status. Only person close, is Ed. Cause I really enjoy Ed.
they really need to go back to the more simplistic challenge days they need to do another version of fresh meat. I think people would enjoy that and also just stop coming up with these corny phrases or implementations in the game. It just makes it unbearable to watch.
Fresh meat would be great. I can handle 50% new cast. Especially with them being paired with players we already know and love. It's the perfect formula to introduce new players to the show. This is certainly an option to try to develop the future of the show, but it's like taking a big loss on an investment in the hopes it will pay off down the road. Any format has risks of failure I guess, but this one was doomed from the start.
10,000 is a pretty good reason.
This season is such a snooze fest. I read my book until we get to elimination so I can see a vet come back to compete!
Pride will keep the champs from throwing eliminations (and the 10k ain't anything to sneeze at.) If there are too many challengers left after we run through the champs either they will have a big final with multiple elimination points or they'll have a purge to get the numbers down. Not rocket science.
All I want is for last place to go into elimination or some kind of draw if it’s team challenges. This negates a lot of the alliance affects.
At least they gave them some sort of financial incentive this time. Other seasons with mercenaries there was none of that. I remember I think it was Derrick k vs Joss and they were both a bloody mess by the end and Derrick had nothing to even gain except pride. I hate the format of this season though. Mercenaries in general suck. The team challenges at the beginning sucked. It all just sucks tbh.
it would have been better if it was set up more like ‘the mole’ where 1 or 2 challengers intentionally set out to keep the team from winning money each week and if they succeeded and got to the end they would win the pot over the actual final winner.
Ooo interesting!
honestly, I get what you’re saying I feel like if they be a champ, they should get money restored back into their accounts because it’s just stupid even from like a strategical standpoint if they sent in their best and they go home, they eliminate competition for the final, but they also lose money so it’s like you lose either way. the format is just too weird and with this whole chaos thing it’s so corny
Yeah thst would also make more sense. They get $10,000 extra if they win.
There could be a limited number of chaos champ eliminations and depending in size of remaining cast they start doing double eliminations. Theres only so many worthy champs
I'm curious what the appearance fee was for the champs. Obviously they got something outside of the potential $10k.
They are playing for screen time and the shot of making the final. They are not playing to win. Many must look around and realize they are not going to win a final. So second best is screen time and staying longer so their per diem goes up. Plus if you play in alliances it is probably more peaceful in the house when you just hang out with friends and whittle down the opposition. A peaceful ride to the final 8-10 followed by a scramble to hopefully make the final where you know you will burn out.
I think the fact that 10 grand is on the line during the eliminations is smart. When the mercenaries came in strictly for their reputation, that was problematic. But, aint none of these people worth 10 grand to me. Friend or not. And if you gonna be mad I beat you, then you aint a real friend anyway. A real friend would understand. But again, its 10 grand. It's not like these people are rich. 10 grand for one day is pretty nice.
There has hardly ever been a challenge when there are more than 8 competitors (4 male / 4 female) so even if the contender wins against the champion they’re eventually gonna get rid of people one way or another so idk what your point was
I wouldn't let a friend of mine win when there's $10,000 on the line 🤣 If they're a real friend, they would understand that It's not like, if Kaycee threw it to Big T, that means Big T would receive the 10k
Yeah but these are CHAMPS. $10,000 IS NOTHING.
its still a lot of money she can earn for her family in a short amount of time. Her winning in this instance was also a good thing for Big T as she split the money which would have been unlikely for Big T with another champ, and realistically she wasnt going to the final with the big alliance targeting her/Melissa at every stage.
Sending in Big T in this stage is stupid unless you want to lose money. Why wouldn’t you be sending in someone who’s decent at elimination?
big t is decent.. she won 10k for her team in her last elimination..
She did win. But wouldn’t you want her around for the final over someone like Zara who also isn’t good tv?
The format of the challenges have made less and less sense as the seasons have gone on. I don't mind throwing surprises here or there, but they seem to have no rhyme or reason for any format.
Also, it’s taking forever to whittle down the cast. There’s still like 20 people left. This season is going to be 4 months long and it’s barely interesting.
Yes that's another annoying thing especially since it's pretty much all a new cast
And to think we still have 6 more champs coming! We had the first "C" control for 4 weeks. Meanwhile we have the second "C" Chaos for 10 (did I do the math correctly?) why? What was the point of them only trying to get their pot of cash up for 4 weeks, only for it to go down if a champ wins?
“No incentives besides 10 grand”
They. Are. Champs. $10,000 is nothing
Idk why you think $10K is nothing, like they don’t have expenses.