Survivor 51 · The Open Era
Survivor 51 · The Open EraSurvivor 51 Fantasy Draft Guide
Read this first
Drafting mid-season
Strike the boots →
Anyone already voted out is off the board. The elimination timeline has the order.
Read the scoreboard →
Points so far tell you who is winning challenges and finding idols — the stuff that keeps scoring.
Catch up on the recaps →
Alliances, targets and who is on the bottom: the context the numbers leave out.
Most drafted so far
Across 125 tribes that have locked in a roster — league and solo.
- Carter Krull33.6%
- Kristin Flickinger30.4%
- Ori Jean-Charles30.4%
- Patt Cannaday30.4%
- Alexis Levine27.2%
Five rules for a blank-slate draft
Drafting a season of 21 complete unknowns is a different exercise from drafting returnees. Here is how to think about it, who to target, and who is likely to be gone before they repay a high pick.
Draft for points, not for placement
The winner is one player out of 21. Points come from challenges won, idols found and advantages played — all of which a ninth-place finisher can rack up on the way out. A challenge beast who goes at the merge will usually out-score a quiet finalist who never won anything.
The Open Era makes early exits cheaper and late safety rarer
With fifty seasons of twists in play, more scoring events happen per episode and placement gets noisier. Do or Die can end your first-round pick in week four. Spread your risk rather than betting the roster on two favourites.
Two tribes means fewer, bigger votes
A two-tribe start with 21 players means larger tribes and fewer Tribal Councils before the merge than a three-tribe season. Pre-merge eliminations are slower, so pre-merge challenge points matter more than usual.
Nobody has tape — so fade the consensus, not the player
Every ranking you will read this month, including ours, is built from a job title and an age. That means the consensus is weakly held and mispriced. If your league is drafting off the same lists, the value is in the players everyone has agreed to be lukewarm about.
Take the camp-useful player earlier than feels right
Chefs, farmers, medics and counselors survive the first two votes at a much better rate than their challenge stats suggest, because tribes keep people who make camp bearable. Surviving is the precondition for scoring anything at all.
Our preseason read
Early-round targets
Our top six by preseason outlook. Camp-useful, socially equipped, and carrying job titles that do not make a tribe nervous on day one.
- 1
Angelica "Jelly" Loblack — Sociology professor, 29 - 2
Eric Macksoud — Mental health counselor, 34 - 3
Maggie Nestor — Farmer, 40 - 4
Carter Krull — Livestock farmer, 24 - 5
Jenna Doore — Wedding photographer, 30 - 6
Cristian Chavez — Head of HR, 26
Our preseason read
Let someone else reach
Not bad players — early targets. Big physical presence and job titles that make a tribe nervous are how good players finish ninth. If they fall to a late round, take them happily; just do not spend a first-rounder on the profile.
- 18
Brady Booker — Pro wrestler, 27 - 19
Alexis Levine — Criminal defense attorney, 34 - 20
Danny "Kilby" Kilby — Game designer, 30 - 21
Patt Cannaday — Federal prosecutor, 33Blindsided
Before you draft
Read the scoring sheet first — it decides everything above. A league that pays heavily for idols drafts differently from one that pays for challenge wins, and the Open Era is going to produce a lot of both.
Cast photos: Robert Voets/CBS
More to explore
Sole Survivor Guide
Double points on every gain. Who deserves your crown.
League Template
Free printable draft board, roster sheets and a full cast checklist.
The Cast
All 21 first-timers, ranked 1–21, with the numbers behind the cast list.
Scoring Rules
Point values for every fantasy event, from idols to blindsides.