‘Survivor: Kaoh Rong’: Full predictions before season 32 premiere

We’re not even going to mince words on this: If we pick you to win “Survivor,” we’re really not sure that it is a great thing for you. The last two people we’ve picked to win are Vytas Baskauskas and Vince Sly, and those didn’t work out so well. Before that, we had Josh Canfield, Tasha Fox, Aras Baskauskas, Brenda Lowe, Artis Silvester, Kim Spradlin (the one that we got right), Mikayla Wingle, Andrea Boehlke, and Tyrone Davis. (We’ve covered the show for various sites since “Samoa,” but “Nicaragua” is when we started to make winner picks.)

Here’s a quick statistic: Of our picks, we’ve had in total seven make the merge, but only one of them make the final three (which was, of course, the one we picked for the winner). Maybe we’re getting too clever with picking outside the box, or maybe the show is doing a very good job at casting people who are very diverse, interesting, and could all win this game.

Before getting into it with “Survivor: Kaoh Rong,” it’s worth mentioning that we had a much harder thought process with this than most others that we’ve done. We’ve gone back-and-forth on two different people who could in our eyes when this game, but we’re in the end going with a combination of our gut and also a little bit of our heart here.

18th – Alecia Holden (Brawn). We just don’t see her meshing very well with the rest of her tribe. While we do think that the beauty tribe strongly favors the women this season, the women on the Brawn tribe could have trouble in the early going.

17th – Debbie Wanner (Brains). We really want to see Debbie go farther than this, but we fear that, just like Alecia, she won’t work well with the rest of her tribe. We see people like Liz, Aubry, Peter, and Neil working together very well in the early portion of this game.

16th – Joe Del Campo (Brains). Like Debbie, Joe is an amazing character and we’d love to see him deep in the game. Unfortunately, we think that he’s not going to be particularly flexible strategically. We said this in our spotlight of him, and it bears repeating now: We don’t think he will go home because of his age.

15th – Caleb Reynolds (Beauty). Yep, we’re calling a shot here on Beast Mode Cowboy going home early, and there’s two reasons for that: A sentiment that he’s already has his time in the sun, and also a feeling that he could very well be one of the evacuations since he goes at things so hard.

Tribe Swap

14th – Liz Markham (Brains). We just don’t think that she will be able to keep her strategic mind under wraps at all. Yes, we know it’s expected for her to be smart given the tribe designation, but you still have to know when to turn it off at times.

13th – Scot Pollard (Brawn). The reality for Scot is that he’d need to play an almost-perfect game if he was to make it to the end, and we just don’t see that happening. He’s too much of a physical threat, and there are so many easy reasons to get rid of him.

The Merge

12th – Nick Maiorano (Beauty). Nick totally comes across as the sort of player who is going to make some really big push to have something happen, only to then have it blow up dramatically in his face not too long after that.

11th – Michele Fitzgerald (Beauty).  We feel like Michele and Nick will be fairly close, and this’ll just be an easy way to get rid of one right after the other. Also, we like to think that the Brawn and the Brains teamed up and targeted the Beauty tribe at the merge. (The reality is that it probably won’t be that cut-and-dry.)

10th – Neal Gottlieb (Brains). We either see Neal as another medivac, or a guy who just plays too hard and too all over the place that nobody really trusts him in the game. This gets his in trouble at around this point.

9th – Cydney Gillon (Brawn). She’s going to have a very hard time adapting to not having her typical bodybuilder diet out there. We figure at about this point, her body will have more or less given out on her.

8th – Peter Baggenstos (Brains). For whatever reason in this season, we fear for the Brains tribe. Nobody likes to feel stupid on “Survivor,” and the capacity for this tribe to do that to others could be a danger. It also hurts Peter that he’s likely to be a good physical competitor.

7th – Jennifer Lanzetti (Brawn). She makes it a little bit further than we had originally projected, and we actually think that this will be a pretty big blindside for her since Kyle has been working close with her for most of the game.

6th – Aubry Bracco (Brains). This marks the end of the Brains tribe’s journey to have a representative in the final three. We think that Aubry is very smart and will be easy to get along with; the problem is that she has two former tribe members on the jury and will be considered a threat there.

5th – Darnell Hamilton (Brawn). This may be wishful thinking for Darnell (a guy who may not keep his opinions in check), but our reality is just that we like him a lot, and as a result of that we want to root for him to do particularly well in the game. We do think that he’s someone people will like to be around, despite being at times a little too candid, and has some of the social skills to do well.

4th – Kyle Jason (Brawn). It’s easy to guess that Kyle is going to be an All-Star and a very popular player among many. He’ll be a ruthless player, and sometimes even a villain. Unfortunately, we just think that he’s going to be put a little too much stock in some of his ability to win at the final four and manipulate others, and that will be his undoing.

3th – Julia Sokolowski (Beauty). We feel like the Beauty tribe is going to be so underestimated this time based on how poor they did for the most part during “Survivor: Cagayan,” and the sneaky thing about them here is that so many of them are fans of the show and know it well. Enter Julia. She’s going to be involved in many decisions, but will be the token “person who is not respected at the end.”

2nd – Anna Khait (Beauty). This was a really tough decision, since on paper Anna has almost everything to be a great “Survivor” player. Our only concern here is looking at the jury, who has people like Peter, Cydney, Jennifer, Darnell, and Kyle on it. Is she going to be able to appeal to them on a personal level in the same way that our #1 player is?

Winner – Tai Trang (Beauty). Anna would be the safe pick since many out there are picking her to go the distance and win, but there’s something about Tai we find infectious and intensely likable. We think he’ll be so popular at camp that no one in the early going will want to get rid of him, and his social relationships come the tribe swap / the merge will help his alliance of him, Julia, and Anna pick up other players here and there. He probably helps to lure in people like Darnell, Kyle, Jenner, and Cydney to work with him, and while we don’t think that he will be the master strategist of the season, this feels to us almost like the sort of season where the social game in these harsh conditions will matter more than being the architect behind a big move or two. With his background and his story, we just don’t imagine Tai losing in a final three to almost anyone, provided of course he doesn’t make any huge blunders.

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