One of the few two-time winners in Survivor history, Tony Vlachos is a legend of the game, having played three times prior. Coming to Survivor: Australia V The World, Tony was prepared to add another win to his impressive mantle.
“When I first got the call, the first question I asked was, ‘What’s the prize money?’ They told me $250,000 AUD, and I said, ‘What does that convert to in American?’” Tony laughed.
“Then they started pitching that it’s the world crown, the title of the world. That’s when I said I’m going. I’m all in.”
Entering a shortened game with such a huge reputation, and on a tribe with two other players from the US, Tony knew he had to lower his threat level immediately. His strategy was similar to his approach in Winners At War, where he kept a low profile.
“Basically, I did everything opposite to what Rob was doing,” Tony laughed. “What Rob was doing was crazy to me. I was fascinated by it. I was like, wow, is that how I played Cagayan? Just went in there, brazenly telling people who’s going home and what to do? I can’t do that.
“I had to stay quiet, especially when me, Tommi, and Rob saw that there were four girls and three guys, we knew it was an uphill battle. We knew we had to be good to these girls,” Tony continued.
Rob’s dominant approach to the start of the game made him an early target, with the World tribe unanimously voting him out in the first Tribal Council. His mistake was assuming that the tribe would want to preserve strength to avoid going to as many Tribal Councils as possible before merge.
“Great players know we don’t need to win challenges because we can go to tribal and get rid of Rob, Tommi and Tony,” Tony said. “We don’t need to win, we can lose three challenges in a row, get rid of us three and then a merge is coming. Keeping that in the back of your head, you gotta play nice with these girls because they’re the majority alliance right now.”
This season’s short duration also meant that relationships had to be set in stone as soon as possible, or you risk finding yourself completely sidelined from any strategic opportunities.
“There’s no time in short seasons like this, so when I went in there, I didn’t have time to form bonds or create cracks with my alliance. I just had to go with the flow until we hit the merge, and then it would have been a different story,” Tony added.
With Parvati and Cirie on the tribe, the Americans immediately formed a quiet alliance, agreeing to work together but limiting the time they spent together so the international players wouldn’t constantly target them.
But as the game went on, Cirie and Parvati formed connections with Lisa and Kass, an alliance that quickly began to make Tony feel uneasy, especially when he attempted to make his own connections with the three remaining international players.
Attempting to talk strategy with Lisa and Kass, Tony found them changing the subject or avoiding his line of questioning altogether. “That was my game. I had to sit down with Tommi in the shelter, go get coconuts, and make fires. That’s all Tommi and I did while the four girls were congregating right in front of us, planning which one of us was going home.”
Deflated, Tony’s only option was to hope he could avoid Tribal Council long enough to make it to merge, where his options would open up.
“At first, when I was talking to Parvati and Cirie, I really wanted to stay strong with them,” Tony explained. “I still believe, even after watching my vote out, they would have stayed true to me, but they weren’t trusting me.”
Refusing to bring him in on strategy chats and leaving him out of the loop when it came to the locked box on the beach, Tony began to realise that Parvati and Cirie were keen to keep him around as a shield, but weren’t really working with him.
“I wanted to work with them, and that’s the truth! I wanted it to be three Americans strong right at the end, sitting down in front of Jonathan, saying, Okay, which one of us is going to get lucky enough to win. That’s what I wanted,” he laughed, “it doesn’t matter what I wanted.”
On Sunday, the tribes were playing for one of two individual immunity necklaces – one for a player on each tribe – and both tribes would be heading to Tribal Council, but Jonathan revealed that only one player would be heading home. Arriving at Tribal Council, Jonathan explained that one randomly selected player from each tribe would go head-to-head in a fire-making challenge. The winner of the challenge would win immunity for their whole tribe, sending them back to camp. The remaining tribe would vote someone out.
“Everything I was hoping in my mind wouldn’t happen… happened,” Tony said. “I was hoping the tribes picked their fire maker because I would have definitely gone up there to make a fire. That didn’t happen. Then he said we’re going to draw for rocks, and in my mind I was just like, please don’t let it be Cirie. It was Cirie.
“Everything was just against me, everything was going bad for me! My stars were not aligning.”
Though she’s a force in the game, Cirie doesn’t have the greatest track record when it comes to fire-making, and unfortunately for the World tribe, she failed to ignite much of a blaze. As the Aussie tribe went back to their beach, Tony began hatching a plan to create some chaos.
Tying one of his shoes around his neck and tucking a rock into a sock, Tony attempted to bluff that he had an idol, hoping to push Kass and Lisa to vote for Cirie.
“I just tried to create some confusion, some panic,” he explained. “Unbeknownst to me, Kass had an idol. Parvati knows there’s a hidden idol on the podium. I was doomed.
“I saw a shoe looking at me, I saw a rock, I saw a sock, and I thought I gotta put something together… I had no idea what I was going to do,” Tony said.
In the lead-up to the vote, Parvati had told Tony that she would do what she could to protect him. But Lisa and Kass were working overtime to protect Tommi and the international alliance they had built.
“Even now, after watching the episode, I still don’t know if I was the target,” Tony admitted. “I still don’t know! Nobody was giving a final answer to anybody. I still don’t know who was going home. I know who went home, though, that was me.”
Survivor: Australia V The World continues Sundays at 7pm and Monday - Tuesday at 7.30pm on 10
