THE SWAP


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The producers of the show has shown a liking of this particular twist as it appeared in five of the first nine seasons. It's pretty much a 50/50 sort of thing so a player should be prepared for it just in case. If it's going to happen, it tends to be around the mid-point between the beginning of the game and the merge.

A swap basically accelerates the game and brings down strategies and tactics usually reserved for the post merge game. This is really the way a post swap game should be looked upon, as two merged tribes with one very important difference. Those two tribes are still competing for immunity, so a tribe can still avoid going to tribal council, or perhaps even choose to go to the voting circle by throwing a challenge. It seems many players have become rather skittish about throwing challenges but after a swap, throwing a challenge can easily become an attractive tactic to either get rid of a particular player, or to protect one of your own that may be in the minority on the other side of the island. Either way, it's most definitely an option.

Don't Abandon Your Mates & Keep Your Eyes Open

But before we get to booting people, we should talk about a couple of other things. One, don't abandon your former tribe-mates now that they have been forced to the other side, nor should you expect members of the other tribe to betray the relationships they have already built. With rare exceptions, players will stay true to what they have already built. Two, keep your eyes open. If you've read the previous two documents, you know how to determine the social standing within your own tribe. Apply this to the other tribe. In fact, you should have been doing this all along, paying attention to who is interacting with whom during the times when the tribes are together. Hopefully, you will already have an idea of their dynamic before a swap or merge even comes.

Splitting Tribes When You Have Some Control

One thing to note about swaps is that they are not completely random reshufflings of the tribes. In fact, players often have a say in how the tribes are redistrubted. A good example is Survivor-Vanuatu. When the tribes were down to seven and six there was a swap where each tribe picked a leader (in this case Scout of Yasur and Lea of Lopevi). Scout was picked to determine the tribes by first spliting two members of Lopevi, then two members of Yasur and alternating back and forth. Lea then picks which tribe he wants to be a member of and then the extra member of Yasur tribe chooses where she wants to go.

This method of spliting the tribes was almost forced to create one tribe made of five Yasur and two Lopevi against four Lopevi and two Yasur, here's why. Scout has to go until she runs out of pairs. Remember, Scout and Lea are out of the mix, so there are six Yasur and five Lopevi to split up. She'll end up with two Yasur and two Lopevi in each tribe when she comes to a point where there is only one Lopevi and two Yasur left. She then has to send a Lopevi to one tribe and a Yasur to another. Next, Lea decides which tribe he will take and which Scout will take. Lea will almost surely pick the tribe that has the majority of his own tribe members on it, meaning we now have two six player tribes with a four-two mix in each. The final Yasur member then picks a tribe and she would also likely pick the tribe in which her group is dominant, giving us a very predictable final distribution.

So, lets say there is a swap. Moreover, let's say we get to divide the tribes by a predetermined set of rules and, being the good players we are, we already have a decent idea of the leadership structure of both tribes. How should we proceed? The first thing to determine is what will be the likely make up of the resulting tribes. Will your tribe be in the majority in one, or both, or none? First, aim to get yourself and a close ally together on the tribe in which you will have the majority, if there is one. You will also have to send some of your people the other way. Do not send over the most isolated players in your tribe as you will be running the risk that they may jump ship. Send over two people that will stick together and stick with the tribe. Remember that there may be someone from the other tribe making decisions too, this happened in Survivor-Amazon. Obviously, if the swap is more random (as in Survivor-Africa, Marquesas and All-Star) this is all moot.

How do we split the other tribe? Just as you want to keep your close allies together, you'll want to split theirs up. First, if you can, split the N-players with the leader coming to you and the second going the other way. Second, if you will have a majority situation at your end, bring the D-players (especially the PP-players and AP-players) your way and send the T-players (especially the PU-players and AU-players) to the tribe where you may have a minority situation. I've summarized all this, and then some, in the table below.

From Your Tribe From The Enemy Tribe
Your Tribe will be
in the Majority		 To Your Tribe -Yourself
-A Close Ally		 -The Leader
-Other D-players
To Other Tribe -Two Close Allies Loyal to the Tribe -The Second
-T-players (especially PU's and AU's)
Tribes will be Tied,
or Your Tribe will
Be in the Minority		 To Your Tribe -Yourself
-Any Close Allies		 -The Second
-T-players (especially PU's and AU's)
To Other Tribe -Enemy Alliance Members -The Leader
-D-players


One final factor to take into consideration is a players athleticism. Don't forget, the tribes have not merged yet and you still, very likely, want to win some immunity challenges. This is especially true if your tribe is going to be in a minority situation.

Let's Do Some Booting ...

If you are the tribe already in the majority, a swap can be a real blessing. It not only gives you the opportunity to remove players from the other tribe, but you may even have the ability to choose who. The following phrase will come up again and again as we go deeper into the game and things become more ruthless.

When taking down an enemy, shoot for the head.


This is a very simple idea but it is more than often missed as players seem obsessed with taking out physical threats. That is the wrong way to go. If you want to bring down an enemy alliance, it is the leader that has to go first, period. So if you are going to remove a player from the other tribe, take out an N-player as determined by the methods talked about in Defining Your Position. A swap can also seriously effect tribal dynamics. A T-player may suddenly find themselves with the opportunity to take control of their tribe after a few key players have moved to the other side of the island. This is something we'll talk about in depth later in the middle-game but, again, a swap has a tendancy to accelerate things. A T-player in a mixed tribe, where they have a majority, will likely have new and willing accomplices from the other tribe who just want to save their skins. Taking a shot at the leadership may not be a bad idea, but you have to weigh the next important factor first.

... But Don't Get Carried Away

You still want to make sure that your tribe is in the majority come the merge, so don't remove one of your own (regardless of the temptation) until you are guaranteed that majority if the merge were to occur at its normal time. Although the minority tribe members in a mixed tribe will be eager to help now, they will more than likely scuttle back to their previous alliances once the merge hits so don't give them the opportunity to form their own majority at that time. This also needs to be considered when you begin thinking about throwing challenges. Take the Yasur example from above where they had a five to two majority in their tribe. It certainly is tempting to throw the next two challenges and boot the two Lopevis in their midst, but what if they lose the challenge after that? They would feel pretty foolish then. Don't volutarily put yourself into the situation where you have to win immunity challenges. If the likely merge is neigh and your tribe is guaranteed the majority come a normal merge, then go for it, but otherwise wait. Your tribe in the majority at the merge is still an overriding objective.

As mentioned earlier, a swap has a effect of accelerating the game so that tactics that usually don't appear until after the merge suddenly become important. There's more to talk about here but what I would suggest doing instead is reading the end of The Early Middle Game that deals with when tribes are tied at the merge, and The Late Middle Game which deals with the situation where one tribe has the majority. Again, swapped tribes should be thought of as merged tribes where you can still have some control over whether you go to tribal council or not.