Survivor champion reveals his war plan
Tony Vlachos breaks down his Survivor victory as the 40th season comes to a close
Going up against the stiffest competition he’s ever faced in Survivor, Winners at War champ Tony Vlachos had one strategy heading into the star-packed 40th season: stay off everyone else’s radar.
“These players, I’ve watched them on TV and they all won their seasons, which means that they manipulated people, they outwitted people and they outlasted people. So I knew it was going to be tough,” the police officer from New Jersey told Postmedia the day after he beat Natalie Anderson and Michele Fitzgerald to win the reality competition.
The 40th season of the long-running franchise brought back some of its most iconic winners to face off for bragging rights and a $2-million grand prize.
Vlachos, whose win was announced virtually by host Jeff Probst due to the coronavirus pandemic Wednesday night, didn’t have a single vote go against him all season. He joins Sandra Diaz-twine as the show’s only two-time winner.
Q This is your second Survivor win. How was this one different?
A The first time I played Survivor on Cagayan it was a bunch of strangers. So I didn’t care about them — I just wanted to get them out of the game as fast as possible. This time around was different.
Q You won season 28, Survivor: Cagayan, and were also on season 34, Game Changers. What was your strategy this time?
A I overestimated every player there and I gave them the benefit of the doubt that they were great players and that’s why I played the game the way I did. In the beginning I was quiet and I didn’t try to step out of line or make any moves because I knew these players. Once they saw someone trying to make a move, they would gang up on them. I did my best to be patient until the timing was right for me to make a move, and my timing was right at the merge.
Q Obviously you saw yourself making it to the end. But in thinking back to that finale, who did you think you would be going up against?
A The vision I had for the finale was myself, Ben and Sarah. But of course Survivor being Survivor they had a twist with Natalie coming back in. That upset everything. It wasn’t something I agreed with, but it’s a game and you have to make the best of it.
Q Natalie chose not to go up against you at fire. Was that her biggest misstep?
A In the lead-up, I was trying to bait her into making fire with me, but that was really a bluff because I was horrible at it. If Natalie had made fire against me, she would have killed me.
Q How confident were you that you had the votes to win it all? A If you know me as a player, you know that I’m never
100 per cent confident. I never give myself the opportunity to be blindsided. I’m always thinking there’s a possibility that something could go wrong. I always do that because I don’t want to set myself up for failure. I keep things open to the possibility of losing.
Q You, Sarah and Ben had an alliance. How much of a surprise was it that she voted him out?
A That was the first time in my Survivor career that I was blindsided by a vote. That was the first time I didn’t know which way a vote was going. When it happened, I was like, “Wow, that’s what a blindside feels like.”
Q You had your spy nest this season, but were there any other antics you got up to that we didn’t see?
A There was one night I made a fake idol and I woke up Nick in the middle of the night — I wanted to make sure he was disoriented and groggy — and I was showing him the fake idol and he thought it was real. That’s one of the reasons he didn’t make a move on me, because he thought I had two idols. That was a big thing. I then gave Sarah my fake idol and she brilliantly used it against Natalie and played it off as if it was real and it saved Sarah from getting blindsided and they voted out Denise instead.
Q Survivor’s been on for 20 years. What do you think the biggest life lesson viewers at home can take away?
A I hope people understand that it’s just a game that we’re playing and it doesn’t define who we are as people in real life, because that’s not how we act in real life. That’s how we act in that game. If we were on a basketball court, we’d be dribbling the ball. If we were on a soccer field, we’d be kicking the ball. On Survivor we’re going to lie, backstab, cheat and manipulate. That’s the game. You have to appreciate it and respect it for what it is.
Survivor returns for its 41st season this fall on CBS and Global.
On Survivor we’re going to lie, backstab, cheat and manipulate. That’s the game. You have to appreciate it and respect it for what it is.