It’s merge time, following a swap where majority tribes voted against each other every time. So this should be easy to map out. Are you all ready to vote today?

Andy: It’s hard to say how these factions will come together. I think part of Jay’s calculus was thinking that Bret and Sunday will stay with him. I don’t think we’ve gotten the proper sense of how loyalties have shifted post-swap, even though all the voting results should have given us a clue. As a result of these divided loyalties, I don’t think the merge will show us two sides clashing, but a bunch of groups trying to set themselves up for future success. As a result, they’ll all punt on showing their cards this week, and instead go after the giant man who has been embarrassing them through a lot of the challenges (while it’s true that post-merge challenges aren’t necessarily tuned to a guy like Chris, that could be easy to forget coming this soon after the tribe portion of the game). Just as the first post-merge vote in Cambodia featured everyone coming together to vote out Kass, I think this time, they come together vote out Chris. Then the fight will begin next week.

John: Even though there’s a popular assumption that merge boot targets are often the most physically imposing players, they can just as often be people that are least likely to have an idol (or to be given an idol). Taylor seems like a safe target here, since they can be fairly certain he doesn’t have an idol, and at least a little confident that he won’t be given one. Jay, who we now know is a stone cold killer, is not going to use his idol to save Taylor.

Matt: I think there are more than two factions out there and that Chris will make an obvious target for them to band together against (also this will pay off the David betrays Chris one final time arc).

Mark: There are so many groups and subgroups in this merge that it makes predictions hard. I’m going to do it anyways. With Team Triforce, the remaining Gen-Xers, and Team NotJay up in the air, I’m going to say a duplicitous one like Michelle will take the blame, idol play or not. She’s on the outs with the nerds and the Vanua folks, and we’ve seen her tribe gang up on her for weeks. Plus, voting out an alpha male is obvious, and this season has been anything but obvious so far.

Emma: Survivor has never had a merge when there are three tribes, and with each tribe losing once and voting out someone from the majority, this is the most up-in-the-air the merge vote has been in a long, long time. Which is fun to watch, but exceedingly hard to predict. So while I don’t want this to be the case, I’m going to guess the tallest blade of grass will get cut down and go with Jay.

	Andy	John	Matt	Mark	Emma	Readers
First Boot	Jessica	CeCe	CeCe	Jessica	Rachel	Sunday
Second Boot	Figgy	Figgy	Figgy	Figgy	Figgy	Figgy
Third Boot	Lucy	Paul	Paul	Bret	Paul	Paul
Fourth Boot	Lucy	Lucy	Lucy	Lucy	CeCe	Lucy
Fifth Boot	Figgy	CeCe	CeCe	Jessica	Taylor	CeCe
Sixth Boot	Figgy	Taylor	Figgy	Jessica	Figgy	Taylor
Seventh Boot	Bret	Bret	Sunday	Bret	Bret	Bret
Eighth Out	Chris	Taylor	Chris	Michelle	Jay
Score
Preseason Winner Pick	Taylor	Adam	Ken	Taylor	Zeke	Mari

Make your picks below and don’t be afraid to give your explanation in the comments.