Every season we wonder if the amount of confessionals a player gets in their edit dictates who the winner could be. And with so many awesome fans tracking not only how many confessionals a player gets, but how much screen time comes with those per episode, it’s easy enough to take all that data and see if we can predict our Survivor 50 Final 3 based on how past winners have performed.
Now, to keep this fair and real, this list is based on the average percentage of confessionals and screen time per season. So rather than ranking our winners by how many confessional or how much time they got overall, it’s based on the total amount of confessionals and time in their own season. This way it’s more comparable season-by-season.
9. Mike Gabler – Survivor 43
With 8.94% of total confessional in his season and 8.96% of the total confessional screen time, Gabler had the least amount of gameplay narrative of all our winners. Considering he claimed his winning tactic to be flying under the radar instead of making moves, this makes a lot of sense.
8. Dee Valladares – Survivor 45
Surprisingly, one of the most fan favorite winners-and someone other players have even referred to as the best new era winner-Dee only had 9.43% of total confessionals and 8.96% of total confessional screen time in Survivor 45. Her closest ally, Austin Li Coon, was actually the highest ranked confessional player by both amount and time in her season.
7. Erika Casupanan – Survivor 41
While Erika only had 8.45% of her season’s confessionals, the hourglass advantage surely helped boost her total confessional time up to 10.57%. But again, the Survivor 41 2nd and 3rd place finishers-Deshawn Radden and Xander Hastings, respectively-both outranked her with 56 total confessionals each compared to her 39.
6. Maryanne Oketch – Survivor 42
Our first castaway to hit double digits in both categories, Maryanne had 10.88% of the total confessionals for Survivor 42 with 10.90% of the total confessional time. And again, she was outranked by her runner up, Mike Turner, who had 9 more confessionals than her with close to two more minutes of confessional screen time.
5. Kenzie Petty – Survivor 46
One of the most social players of her season, Kenzie was featured in 11.29% of the total confessionals and 13.09% of the total confessional time. While her win against Charlie Davis is still controversial, the two players only had a 12-second difference between their confessional screen time, with Kenzie just beating out Charlie. And the third highest time went to Q Burdette, which isn’t surprising with how much drama he ended up in the middle of.
4. Savannah Louie – Survivor 49
Savannah had 13.01% of her season’s total confessionals-the most by far of her fellow castaways-but with only 11.49% of confessional screen time, her runner up Sophi Balerdi saw an extra two and a half minutes of screen time, comparatively. And of course, looking at the overall season, Savannah had the most confessionals in episode 8, “Hot Grim Reaper,” when she iconically won immunity and got to bank her vote.
3. Rachel LaMont – Survivor 47
Almost the opposite of Savannah, Rachel had 11.81% of total confessionals in Survivor 47 with 13.5% of confessional screen time. Considering she went on a journey, got a secret idol in her auction item, tied the all-time women’s immunity record, and pulled off one of the biggest blindsides of the season, it’s not surprising her confessional screen time was the highest of her season.
2. Kyle Fraser – Survivor 48
The only new era winner to have the most confessionals (13.54%) and most confessional screen time (14.68%), Kyle was definitely the main character of his season. He even beat out Eva Erickson-easily one of the players who had a huge narrative within the season-by 16 confessionals with nearly 6 more minutes of confessional screen time.
1. Yam Yam Arocho – Survivor 44
And the most featured winning narrative of the new era so far goes to Yam Yam who had a whopping 15.28% of the total Survivor 44 confessionals with 14.41% of total confessional screen time. The only player who had more screen time than him was the incredibly social Carolyn Wiger, and by less than one minute.
Survivor 50 predictions
Looking at the past patterns, and the interesting consideration that the second or third place players often end up with more screen time than the winner, we’ve calculated who we expect to see in the Final 3 based solely on the performance of other players at this same point in the season.
So after episode 10, the three players whose edits show they could possibly make it to the end are Cirie Fields, Emily Flippen, and then either Jonathan Young or Rizo Velovic taking the final spot.
