The Ten Most Failed Starting Tribes Post Merge

Sometimes tribes fail while still in the tribal part of the game. Sometimes, they don’t fail until after the merge when they fall apart at the hands of the other tribe or their own failures. And a lot of times these tribes had actually been doing well before the merge. Sometimes, they were clearly the better of the two tribes before the merge. But for one reason or another, they fail after the merge. Now what are the ten worst tribes after a merge? Read on and find out.

#10 Rarotoga (Cook Islands): For better or worse, when they controversially split tribes by race, the white tribe did very well in the premerge game. Due in part to how things worked after the mutiny, the members of all of the Rarotoga tribes, which included all of the remaining white players, were the main targets and it only took one person to flip and cause all of the members (including the flipper) to be voted out, one by one. What could have been a good tribe quickly turned around after the merge due in part to one of its own members too. Thus the tribe failed.

#9 Manono (One World): Who can forget the dumb tribe that gave up immunity? I figure that they are worthy of this list, even if their hugest mistake happened before the merge. They entered the merge with even numbers to the women’s tribe. They made the same mistake that Lopevi did back in Vanuatu. Only, unlike Lopevi, there wasn’t a tribe member on it that could overcome the odds of the women and by the finale, all the men in the game were voted out. They are the dumbest tribe in Survivor history after making two huge mistakes (the first one being far more serious than the other) and paid the price by all getting voted out at the hands of the better gender.

#8 Samburu (Africa): This tribe could have easily turned things around after the merge and it failed. They had a numbers disadvantage compared to the other tribe, but then the other tribe got rid of two of their members. But, this tribe just couldn’t keep things together when that happened and missed the chance to turn things around. Thus, they were eliminated one by one.

#7 Savaii (South Pacific): If this tribe only had the common decency to treat John Cochran with respect, they might have never brought forth their own demise. The tribes were even at the merge but nobody cared jack shit about John. His tribe was openly against him throughout the entire premerge game that you have to wonder why he gets the hatred and dumb move label for it instead of him. There was so much contempt for John among his tribe mates, in a way, they deserved to have him betray them. South Pacific was a pretty bad season due to overall predictability, but this tribe was terrible when it came to the treatment of one of its own and they all lost the game because of it.

#6 Kucha (Australia): Poor Kucha would have probably had an advantage were it not for Michael getting medically evacuated. Then, there were rules with tie-breakers that they other tribe knew that they didn’t which got themselves at a number disadvantage. Now while things were a bit out of their control for the beginning of the postmerge game, they could have flipped just one member of the other tribe to their side and regain the advantage. But even though there were times when Kucha members weren’t voted out, they pretty much failed throughout the rest of the game.

#5 Yasur (Vanuatu): This poor tribe was actually doing well early into the merge. They only had one member of the other tribe left to eliminate. Not only that, but he just lost the immunity challenge and was now a sitting duck. Then everything fell apart for them. One member after another got voted out leading to the one remaining member of the opposing tribe taking control of the game and winning. This tribe could have had what Salini would later have, but instead, the tribe fell apart in the end.

#4 Solana (Cagayan): With things going well for this tribe heading into the merge, you’d think that it wouldn’t have had that much of a problem in the future. But then, so much falls apart for the tribe all at once that they are the first tribe since Ulong to have their highest ranking member come in 7^th place. These are the only two tribes I can think of to have that low a number be their best member. It’s hard to even think about how the tribe fell apart so much, but it just didn’t work out for them.

#3 Timbira (Tocantins): Like many other tribes, they entered a numbers advantage at the merge and were even helped when a member of the opposing tribe was medically evacuated. But then, they started turning on themselves, one by one. Soon, almost no one was left in the game still that was on this tribe originally. It may have been more coincidence than anything else, but this tribe still failed a lot after the postmerge game happened.

#2 Pagong (Borneo): Poor Pagong just didn’t know what to do when it came time for the merge. They went with the highly ineffective vote to your conscious strategy so terrible that no group of contestants have ever done that since. How can they be that bad at the game? They thought of eliminating the other tribe one by one. Instead, that’s what happened to this tribe. They were so terrible at the merge that none of the five people who reached it were in the final five. If only they had stuck together.

Well, in my mind, only one tribe can be considered the worst tribe after the merge. This tribe had so much going for it and lost it all by being manipulated by the other tribe into getting rid of its own. They had the greatest advantage completely wasted.

#1 Galu (Samoa): Whether you love this season or hate this season, you might not have thought that a tribe that merged with double the members of the other tribe would have just one member left by the time of the finale. First off, a move got one of their own voted out and they would forever lose the power to split the votes. Then, members started flipping to the other tribe. By the time you got to the final three, not a single member left from Galu was still in the game. They turned an eight to four advantage into one of the biggest turnarounds in Survivor history. This tribe who had done so well before the merge failed spectacularly after it. Thus, I have it as the biggest postmerge failure as a tribe.

I hope that you liked this list of mine. I also hope that you understood it. I picked the tribes that may have been doing well before the merge, but failed after the merge. I hoped that I made good picks. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.