Survivor 51 · The Open Era
Survivor 51 · The Open EraThe Season 51 Cast
Aaliyah Puglia
24Chef
Providence, RI
Alexis Levine
34Criminal defense attorney
Atlanta, GA
Ana Sani
34Voice actress
Toronto, ON
Angelica "Jelly" Loblack
29Sociology professor
Bloomington, IN
Brady Booker
27Pro wrestler
Knoxville, TN
Carter Krull
24Livestock farmer
Sioux Falls, SD
Cristian Chavez
26Head of HR
Salt Lake City, UT
Danny "Kilby" Kilby
30Game designer
London, ON
Devin Way
33Actor
Los Angeles, CA
Eric Macksoud
34Mental health counselor
Windsor Locks, CT
Jenna Doore
30Wedding photographer
Toledo, OH
Kristin Flickinger
49Crisis management
Santa Barbara, CA
Lewis Kelly
28Farmer
Puerto Rico
Linnea Capobianco
25Entrepreneur
Jersey City, NJ
Maggie Nestor
40Farmer
Charles Town, WV
Mike Pinsky
32Baseball executive
New York City, NY
Ori Jean-Charles
27Personal trainer
Spring Valley, NY
Patt Cannaday
33Federal prosecutor
Washington, DC
Rob Antonson
40Airline gate agent
Cumberland, RI
Sharonda Cox
34Resident OBGYN
Richmond, KY
Thien An Nguyen
24Medical student
Fort Worth, TX
Who’s scoring? See the Survivor 51 fantasy points for all 21 castaways.
Cast photos: Robert Voets/CBS
Survivor 51 Power Rankings
All 21 castaways, ranked 1 to 21 before a single day has been played.
Read this first
Every Survivor 51 player is a first-timer. Nobody has played a single day, so there is no gameplay to rank — these are built entirely from the three facts CBS announced on August 26, 2026: age, occupation and hometown, read against how similar archetypes have historically fared. That is a parlour game, not scouting. They will be wrong, and that is most of the fun. Come back and laugh at us in December.
Useful around camp, easy to like, and carrying a job title nobody reads as a threat. The combination that historically survives the first vote and is still there at the merge.
No. 1: Angelica "Jelly" Loblack
29 · Sociology professor · Bloomington, IN
A sociology professor studies group dynamics for a living, which is the closest thing on this cast to a degree in Survivor. The reason she ranks first rather than third is the word 'professor' — it reads thoughtful rather than cunning, so she gets to do the analysis without the tribe deciding she is doing analysis.
No. 2: Eric Macksoud
34 · Mental health counselor · Windsor Locks, CT
Mental health counselor may be the single best-disguised social résumé in the cast. The job is getting people to tell you things they had not planned to say, and nobody has ever been voted out for being too good a listener.
No. 3: Maggie Nestor
40 · Farmer · Charles Town, WV
Farmers have one of the quietly strongest track records on this show, and at 40 she lands in the range where a tribe reads her as steady rather than as competition. Camp utility plus genuine physical capability, without the frame that makes anyone nervous.
No. 4: Carter Krull
24 · Livestock farmer · Sioux Falls, SD
A 24-year-old livestock farmer is useful from the first hour and threatening in none of the ways tribes vote on early. The risk is the one every young player carries: he becomes expendable the moment the game turns from strength to numbers.
No. 5: Jenna Doore
30 · Wedding photographer · Toledo, OH
The most underrated bio on the cast. Wedding photographers spend every weekend reading a room full of stressed people and staying invisible while doing it — that is the job description of a winner, and the title sounds harmless enough that nobody will check.
A real path to deep, with one thing working against them — a profession that invites suspicion, an age gap, or a skill that becomes obvious a little too early.
No. 6: Cristian Chavez
26 · Head of HR · Salt Lake City, UT
Head of HR is professional conflict mediation, which is exactly the skill that decides split votes. What keeps him out of the top tier is 'Head of' — the moment a tribe hears a leadership title, somebody starts counting.
No. 7: Aaliyah Puglia
24 · Chef · Providence, RI
Feeding people buys goodwill that has nothing to do with challenges and cannot easily be argued away at Tribal. At 24 on a cast skewing older, she is likely underestimated early — which is worth more than it sounds.
No. 8: Rob Antonson
40 · Airline gate agent · Cumberland, RI
An airline gate agent de-escalates furious strangers for a living, which is an absurdly good preparation for day 11 in the rain. The most sleeper pick on this list; the only thing holding him at eight is that 40-year-olds get read as the safe first vote when a tribe panics.
No. 9: Lewis Kelly
28 · Farmer · Puerto Rico
A farmer brings camp value and an Irish accent brings an outsized amount of goodwill in the first week. Being the one international player cuts both ways — memorable is good until the merge, when memorable becomes a jury argument someone else has to beat.
No. 10: Sharonda Cox
34 · Resident OBGYN · Richmond, KY
A resident OBGYN is calm in situations that make everyone else panic, and being the person who handles a medical scare is an alliance you never had to negotiate. Ranked here rather than higher because 'doctor' triggers the same threat instinct as 'lawyer', just more slowly.
No. 11: Ana Sani
34 · Voice actress · Toronto, ON
Making a living being instantly likeable to people who cannot see you is a strange and genuinely relevant skill for a game decided by how you sound to a jury. Performers tend to be a season’s best confessionalist or its first blindside, which is precisely why she sits at the midpoint.
Genuinely unpredictable. These are the players whose season depends almost entirely on which tribe they land on and who they sit next to on day one.
No. 12: Thien An Nguyen
24 · Medical student · Fort Worth, TX
Usefulness and stamina under sleep deprivation are the two things that keep you off the bottom in week one, and a med student arrives with both. Everything after that depends on whether the tribe leans on them as the camp medic or files them under interchangeable.
No. 13: Kristin Flickinger
49 · Crisis management · Santa Barbara, CA
Crisis management is, verbatim, the job. At 49 she is the oldest player on a cast where the median is early thirties, and modern Survivor has been unkind to that gap early — but the players who survive it tend to go a very long way.
No. 14: Devin Way
33 · Actor · Los Angeles, CA
Actors get camera time, and camera time correlates with lasting. But an actor who is visibly performing gets voted out fast, and there is very little middle ground between those two outcomes.
No. 15: Linnea Capobianco
25 · Entrepreneur · Jersey City, NJ
Entrepreneurs are used to talking people into things, which works right up until a tribe decides that is what is happening. At 25 she has the energy for the early game; the question is whether the pitch reads as enthusiasm or as a sales job.
No. 16: Ori Jean-Charles
27 · Personal trainer · Spring Valley, NY
A personal trainer is a genuine asset in every pre-merge challenge and a genuine liability the second the merge arrives. Fantasy-wise that is a real profile — front-loaded points, high risk of a mid-season exit.
Nothing here says bad player — it says early target. Big physical presence or a job title that makes a tribe nervous is how good players go home ninth.
No. 17: Mike Pinsky
32 · Baseball executive · New York City, NY
A baseball executive negotiates and models outcomes for a living, and in a New York accent it will sound like exactly that. The skills are real; the difficulty is that every one of them is legible to the tribe from day one.
No. 18: Brady Booker
27 · Pro wrestler · Knoxville, TN
Pro wrestler is the most physically obvious profile in the cast, and physically obvious is how good players finish ninth. Strong pre-merge fantasy value on challenge points, then a cliff — draft accordingly rather than avoiding him.
No. 19: Alexis Levine
34 · Criminal defense attorney · Atlanta, GA
Criminal defense attorneys argue losing positions convincingly, which is a literal description of Final Tribal Council. The problem arrives well before that: lawyers who hide the job last, and lawyers who lead with it rarely do.
No. 20: Danny "Kilby" Kilby
30 · Game designer · London, ON
A game designer on Survivor announces "I have thought about systems like this one" before saying a word. That reputation is the hardest one to shake in the first three days, and it usually costs someone who deserved better.
No. 21: Patt Cannaday
33 · Federal prosecutor · Washington, DC
Federal prosecutor is the most threatening job title on the cast, full stop. Cross-examining people for a living is superb preparation for the endgame and a serious problem for reaching it — last here is a statement about the first vote, not about the player.
How the community ranks them
Reader ranking closed before the premiere with 2 ballots — too few to publish a community order beside ours, so this one stands alone.
Drafting Survivor 51?
These rankings are an outlook, not a draft board — the two are different lists. A player who goes home ninth can still out-score a finalist if they win challenges on the way, and in The Open Era every idol and advantage from fifty seasons is back in play, which makes points a lot less predictable than placement.
By the Numbers
Here is what the cast list looks like once you add it up.
Jobs
Farming is the one job more than one player shares: 3 of the 21 — Carter, Lewis and Maggie — which is a remarkable share for a cast this size and historically a very good sign for camp life. The legal profession supplies 2 (Alexis and Patt), the kind of résumé that tends to attract early votes. There are also 3 people whose jobs involve keeping others calm or alive (Thien An, Eric and Sharonda).
The outliers are the fun ones: a professional wrestler, a Major League Baseball executive, a voice actress, a game designer and an airline gate agent. Almost nobody here has a job that reads as generic, which is unusual and makes for a lot of very confident day-one assumptions.
Geography
By current residence, the cast spans 17 states, provinces and countries. The only places sending more than one player are RI (Aaliyah and Rob), ON (Ana and Kilby), CA (Devin and Kristin) and NY (Mike and Ori). 2 of them live outside the United States.
Cast photos: Robert Voets/CBS