[Jigs]

I think I would like Rob a lot more if he was genuinely better at the game. This is his fifth time playing and he's made FTC twice; impressive, yes, but his trajectory in Survivor doesn't really match the trajectories of players like Sandra/Parvati/Russell/Amanda, which are all pretty objective in their impressiveness.

To me, Rob is more similar to people like Kelley, Aubry, Malcolm or Joe. They are all three-time players who have done well most of the time but who haven't managed to prove that they can use their cunning/wit to overcome situations in the same sort of way that players like the aforementioned four.

I'm not saying Rob isn't a great of all time. He is. But I have never understood this narrative that Rob is one of the best strategic gameplayers because his Redemption Island win was questionable and he got slayed early in Marquesas and HvV for being a social outcast OR by getting complacent and not covering his bases enough. Parvati's played three times, only ever been voted out once and has never placed lower than 6th. Sandra won the game twice by using strategies that prioritised her ultimate survival above her (un)willingness to work with certain people who she did not personally like. Russell dominated his first two seasons despite his abrasive personality, was never voted out until his third season and was merely a victim of his own notoriety at the time of Redemption Island. Amanda Kimmel cemented herself as one of the strongest members of the dominant majority alliance on all three of her original tribes and played over 100 days of Survivor before ever getting her torch snuffed.