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Well, I'd like to start off my 1000th post by saying this:

STEPH SEETHING LOVE <3<3<3

Not that that has anything to do with my 1000th post, but whatever. Now that all the jealous haters are scared away, everyone looking at this thread is now somewhat rational. Awesome. =]

Seriously, though, the gameplay poll in LTS that took place over the past couple months inspired me to make my own ranking, and I wanted to use my 1000th post to start it. I'm not ranking the 25 best players ever, it's the best games ever played, so that means that people can show up more than once. For the people that played twice, I'll specify which season I'm ranking them in.

This list clearly won't be universally agreed on, either. Everyone's going to disagree with something I say, and some people might disagree with everything I say Oh well, it'll be controversial, and controversy is good.

I'll try to make a new write-up about once each day. I don't want to speed through this too quickly, but I don't want it to drag on forever.

Some disclaimers:

Without further ado, here is # 25...





















































25. Earl Cole (Winner- Survivor: Fiji)

"Everybody's nervous and you still wonder in the back of your mind, like it might be you. You never know when people are trying to trick you. There's a lot of actors here, a lot of poker faces. This is my poker face." -Earl

Well, I said this list would be controversial. I bet there are lots of people who think Earl should be a lot higher, and I know there are some people (*cough* survivorisdabest *cough*) who think he shouldn't be here at all. Oh well.

Earl started out on the trainwreck tribe of Ravu, where he was one of the few level-headed people. He quickly got into the majority, and he had an influential role in that alliance. Earl was the one Rocky approached in episode 1 about saving Jessica and Erica. He also had one of the main parts in blindsiding Jessica.

Over the course of the next couple days, Earl formed a strong alliance of himself, Yau-Man, Michelle and Anthony. He had a lot on influence in the next couple vote-offs. He was on Exile Island for Erica's boot, but Erica said post-show that she was close to Earl, and if he were there, then she probably would've stayed. Even Erica, who was in the clear minority, considered Earl as a powerful figure in his tribe, and had social connections with him. Mookie and Rocky caused lots of drama with Anthony after the Erica boot, but Earl kept his alliance under control and the 4 of them voted off Sylvia. He then got Mookie and Rocky to vote off Rita. In doing so, he took out someone who was uneasy with him (Rita voted for Earl in the Sylvia boot), and kept one of his allies (Anthony).

At that point, Yau-Man was Earl's strongest ally. The two of them shared HII clues, in order to find the HII and use it to their advantage (which they later did). It was also smart of Earl to make the old Asian man his closest ally, knowing that people would underestimate him.

Earl then was put on New Moto, A.K.A. the "Haves" tribe. Immediately after the swap, he made a point to befriend Cassandra, who was in the minority on old Moto, in an attempt to gain the majority on his new tribe. It would eventually work. He was also put on the winning team at the F10 twist, so he went 4 straight rounds without having to go to Tribal Council.

When it was time for Earl to go to Tribal Council again, he had lost two of his strong allies in Michelle and Anthony. Fortunately for him, the person from the opposite tribe who he chose to befriend (Cassandra) brought over three open votes (Dreamz, Stacy, Boo). He had little or no role in the Edgardo blindside, but the social connection he made with Cassandra paid off. His social connections kept him in a good position for the next two vote-offs as well.

At the Final 6, his connection with Yau-Man prolonged his stay in the game, because Yau's deal with Dreamz put a huge target on Yau's own back, further ensuring that Earl would not be next. You all know how it went there. Yau played the idol, so Earl and Yau originally voting in the minority turned out to be the majority thanks to the idol. He loses points for that, which is part of the reason he's only at #25.

Earl set himself up to go to the Final 3 with the alliance he had, but he had little to no power in those boots. He was ensured to survive, but he was not in the position of power. He did want Boo gone at F5, but he gets credit for that thanks to his edit because he won.

Earl's biggest post-merge move was booting Yau-Man at the Final 4. Everyone was shocked when Dreamz kept immunity, so Earl needed to make a heads-up move. He knew that there was no way he could beat Yau-Man in a jury vote, so he surprised everyone by voting out Yau-Man. That move won him the game.

In summary, Earl played better pre-merge than post merge. He set himself up to go far, but credit for the actual execution of him getting to the Final 3 is due more to Dreamz and Cassandra than it is to him. He is on this list because he played an exceptional social game, set himself up to go far, and got all 9 jury votes, so he must have done something right Lots of his game was riding his alliance to the end, but he wasn't someone like Sierra who stumbled backwards into said alliance, he had a huge part in forming that alliance.

So basically, I view Earl as a good player for his strategy actually working and he won. I put Earl on this list only because he won unanimously. So yeah, that's why Earl's on this list, but only at #25

Loses points for: Having very little power post-merge, the fact that his closest ally was technically voted out at F6. Most of his post-merge game was just riding the alliance that he originally set up.