LAST EDITED ON 05-01-14 AT 05:48 PM (EST)

Back then, when a season had a pick 'em to start, those tribes stayed together for the whole pre-merge. It's seasons where production arranged the tribes that we always saw swaps mid-course.

We had 4 Seasons with Pick 'ems at the start:
Thailand = No Swaps.
Palau = No Swaps
Exile Island = No swaps

Gabon not only had a second swap, it had the additional random draw. I'm not saying any of them were fixed but when you roll the dice often enough, you will get the right combination.

That second pick 'em put Crystal and Kenny in a position where winning challenges didn't matter anymore: They had Kota players to throw in the fire: Ace, Jacquie and Kelly at first and then Marcus after the draw. Even if they were so pathetic that they had to vote out GC, the losing streak gave them the numbers. There is only one word for that: ABSURD.

PS. It isn't an accident that we don't see pick 'ems anymore to start a season. Gabon showed them that it almost always leads to one tribe playing "Stupid Survivor" like Charlie said. Only Exile Islands saw balanced tribes come out of it. Chewing Gum was totally overmatched until Suck Job decided to throw a challenge. Ulong picked all the mactors and was pathetic. Caryn picked Willard mostly to protect herself, to have another pathetic player ahead of her in the booting order.

PPS. That fake merge was obviously a last minute production interference. There aren't many tribal challenges that could be won by only one player like Matty did. That challenge was originally designed to be the first individual challenge.