Survivor's Best Strategic Player Ever Deserves More Recognition From Fans

Since Jeff Probst began hosting Survivor in the year 2000, the show has developed one of the most loyal fan followings of any reality TV show. Thanks to how passionate those fans are, there are often debates about how to rank each season and who the best players ever are.

Even though some Survivor facts are obvious, like who the first player to be medically evacuated, others are highly debatable. A perfect example of that is the fact that people can debate who the best strategic Survivor player ever is. However, there are extremely strong arguments that prove why Tony Vlachos deserves that title.

Tony Is The Best Strategic Survivor Player Ever, Winning The Game Twice

When Survivor fans debate who the best players in the game’s history are, there are many different ways to quantify something like that.

If a fan cares about the challenges the most, there is a very strong argument that Ozzy Lusth is the best player ever. After all, Ozzy is widely considered to be the biggest challenge beast ever. If a Survivor fan likes players manipulating others, then they are likely to look at Cirie Fields, “Boston” Rob Mariano, or Parvati Shallow.

However, looking at Survivor from a big picture perspective, the game’s results indicate Tony Vlachos being the best strategic player ever. After all, the results of what Tony has accomplished during his Survivor tenure are pretty undeniable.

The first piece of evidence to back up the claim that Tony is the best Survivor player ever is obvious. Alongside Sandra Diaz-Twine, Tony is one of only two players in Survivor history who has won two seasons of Survivor.

While trying to figure out who the best strategic player in Survivor history is, it is a no-brainer to look at the only two-time winners. After all, those two players got the best results from their strategic Survivor decisions.

From that perspective, the next thing to look at is whether Sandra or Tony had better results. The main argument that Sandra made better strategic decisions is that she won the first two times she played. In Tony’s case, he was the second player voted out during his first return season.

However, it can easily be argued that Tony has gotten better strategic results than Sandra. After all, they played against each other twice. The first time they played together, Sandra lasted 10 days longer than Tony. However, the second time they played together, Tony lasted 23 days longer than Sandra.

On top of comparing days like that, Tony was able to recover from his first bad season. After getting voted out second, Tony returned and became the Sole Survivor. However, since Sandra won the second time, she has played three seasons and never done better than being the 7th player voted out.

Tony Vlachos Completely Evolved His Strategy After He Already Won The Game

Of course, the fact that Tony won twice isn’t the only thing to consider when trying to figure out if he is the best strategic player ever. It would be silly, for example, to ignore the fact that Tony got voted out very early the second time he played.

That said, looking at what happened after Tony’s utter defeat puts that season in a bigger context. While considering how strong Tony’s strategic gameplay was, it is important to look at how losing Survivor: Game Changers altered the way Tony plays the game.

In January 2020, Tony spoke to Entertainment Weekly about how losing his second season of Survivor affected him. Most people who got voted out that early would probably played scared trying to avoid meeting that fate if they got the chance to return. However, Tony told EW that losing taught him to play fearlessly when he returned for Survivor: Winners at War.

The fact that Tony turned what could have been a weakness into a strength shows what makes him such a great player. With that in mind, it is fascinating to look at how his strategy evolved by the time he returned for Survivor: Winners at War.

During Survivor: Cagayan, Tony played one of the most energetic and unpredictable games in the show’s history and won.

When he returned for Survivor: Game Changers, Tony was even more chaotic and he got voted out second. After that second season, it seemed like Tony was a one-trick pony.

Then Tony completely switched things up for Survivor: Winners at War. While Tony could still be unpredictable, he was notably acting silly to lower his threat level. Then, as the season continued, Tony took control of the game and began building an incredible resume.

While it was impressive that the always energetic Tony was able to lay low, that wasn’t the biggest improvement in his Survivor: Winners at War strategy. Instead, the most impressive thing that Tony added to his game was heart.

After previously playing like a puppet master, Tony built bonds so deep that he and Sarah Lucina both wept when he beat her in the final 4 fire-making challenge. Sarah even consoled Tony when he beat her and it was a genuine moment.

Survivor’s Other Best Strategic Players Have Failed To Evolve

After Tony won Survivor: Cagayan because by turning on people, he made the conscious decision not to stagnate as a strategic player. However, almost all of Tony’s competition for the title of the best strategic Survivor player stagnated after their biggest success.

Consider Russell Hantz’s Survivor history. Even though he lost Survivor: Samoa, he got to the end of the game and believed he should have won. Every time Russell returned, he played essentially the same game since he tried to push people around.

Then there is “Boston” Rob Mariano. After winning Survivor: Redemption Island by controlling everyone, he tried to do the same thing during Survivor: Winners at War and flamed out. Think about that, Rob tried to force a tribe made up of all-winners to have the same buddies rule he enacted with a bunch of new players who worshiped him.

Ozzy Lusth always relies on challenges and Sandra Diaz-Twine has her famous anyone-but-me strategy. It is no disrespect to any of those wonderful players, but they became fantastic at one thing and stuck with it. The only other great player who really changed things up is Cirie Fields and she deserves loads of praise, but she has never won the game.

Since Tony has won twice and evolved in ways most of his peers never could, he deserves to be called the best strategic Survivor player ever.