Survivor 49's [Spoiler] Says Idol Plays Are Forever Changed: 'I Brought Power Back To The Idol'

The following contains spoilers from Wednesday's season finale of "Survivor 49"!

Note to any future "Survivor" players: If you're gonna head to Fiji to compete, you should really practice your fire-making skills.

In the finale of "Survivor 49," Rizo was riding high with his two best allies, Savannah and Soph, and one highly leveraged hidden immunity idol still tucked away in his back pocket. While the idol did give him a pass to the Final 4, he was sent into the fire-making challenge against his No. 1 Savannah after Sophi pulled out a huge upset at the immunity challenge. Despite the fact that he became known for big, splashy Tribal Council moves, it had seemed that Rizo's luck had run out, as Savannah destroyed him in the challenge, ultimately snuffing the RizGod's torch for good. (Read our full recap here, plus check out our Q&A with Savannah.) Savannah then went on to beat Sophi and Sage by a final vote of 5-2-1.

Below, Rizo talks to TVLine about all those flashy idol ploys, watching the show back with his family, and whether or not he could've beat Savannah in the Final 3.

TVLINE | If you had defeated Savannah in fire-making, does the RizGod win the game?
RIZO VELOVIC | I think how Savannah ended up winning in a 5-2 vote, I think had I beat Savannah, it would have been the same. I think I would have gotten those same exact votes. So absolutely, I think the winner of fire-making for Season 49 would have ended up winning the game.

TVLINE | There were a lot of emotions this season. Did you expect the game to be so emotional?
Yes and no. I think I'm very content and very secure with my vulnerability and my emotions as a person. I didn't cry because I was miserable out there. I honestly cried mostly happy tears a lot of the time. First episode, I cried because I was so proud to have a "Survivor" moment on my first hour on the beach. I cried with my family letters. I cried at the end because it's how bad I really wanted it. The only time I really cried out of misery was losing that one reward, which was kind of a low moment. But overall, being such a student of the game, I know how much of a toll "Survivor" takes on you, and I'm actually very happy with how I handled most of the game and how I took it all in stride, especially for a guy with zero camping experience and zero outdoorsmanship. [I've] never slept outside a day in my life, so I'm very happy with the result and how I handled the elements.

TVLINE | You spoke a lot about your family on the show. What was their reaction to seeing their son on TV?
I actually did not tell them how I placed on Season 49 because I wanted them to know what I felt like every single day out there on the island. So going into last night, they thought I had a really good shot at winning, and obviously that didn't happen. That was emotional because not only did they wanna win, but they were so proud of me. It was special. It gave me and my family a reason to tune in every single Wednesday. My parents, to this day, still work, so getting us together is pretty hard, but every single Wednesday was a good reason for us to get together. And the family loved one letters [were] special because I was there with my dad and my brother. I haven't seen my dad tear up in a decade, and I saw him tear up because not only did we get to share a moment in front of millions of people, but I represented him, I represented my country of Albania. Same thing with my brother, so it was very special. I couldn't be happier with my edit or how I was portrayed on the show.

TVLINE | Dude. Your idol. I'm not sure if anyone will ever be able to replicate the length that you held on to that thing. You pulled off some nice fake-outs, but was there ever a Tribal where you were like, "Eh, I don't know if this is the right move. Maybe not playing it is too risky?" That sort of thing?
Honestly, no, and I don't regret anything. I take a lot of inspiration from Feras [Basal] from "Australian Survivor" and Tony [Vlachos] from "Cagayan" because those guys truly innovated the way that the idol was. Going into "Survivor," I thought, "If I had an idol, I'm gonna bring power back to this idol," and I think I did just that. And I just wanna say a lot of revisionist history with people like, "Oh, Rizo wasn't a threat, Rizo wasn't this," I think that's utter, complete bulls—t, because you see it every single week. They're like, "We need to get Rizo and Savannah out. We need to get Rizo and Savannah out." Granted, I will say I was lucky in the fact that Savannah did win crucial immunities. But I was able to leverage this idol to essentially give me implicit immunity for the entire game. Everybody in the game knew it and I played on their fears. I said, "Listen, I have this idol," and not only did I do it for myself, I literally did it for my alliance. I told everyone, you could vote for me or Savannah, just know, if you do so and I play this idol, you will go home." What people don't really see is I had a lot of social capital that allowed me to know where the votes were going. So not only did I have an idol and advantage, but I had the social capital to know what was happening. So I can flaunt this idol and show people that I'm safe, but I knew what was going to happen and that was crucial.

I think the biggest move of my game was at Final 10 where we ended up getting MC because I not only took out the nucleus of Hina because MC was so well connected with Kristina, with Alex, with Steven, [but] I was able to gain an ally in Yellow Sophie, who was crucial to the Tres Leches' game because she was the reason why we got Jawan out (even though I didn't want Jawan to go, I wanted Sage). I ultimately wanted the flip to happen, for her to come on our side, and we see very quickly, I flip on Yellow Sophie. I was able to not only leverage this idol to protect Savannah, Soph, and I, but I was able to target people that I wanted out, because... I don't want to say I played with scared players, but I played with risk-averse players where I was willing to take the risk. Like what Yul Kwon did in "Cook Islands," I had a god idol, I just didn't have the luxury of getting to play it after the votes. I don't think it will ever be replicated. The way that the idol is played will be changed from this point forward, and I'm happy to know that I brought power back to the idol, because I think in the new era, everybody was either going home with it or they did what MC and Alex did, right? They didn't want to go home, even if they weren't the vote. They just said, "I'd just rather be safe than sorry." I said it in that episode, "If it's 10th or 4th, I don't care. I'm here to win." And even though I didn't win, that idol brought me the closest I could have gone to win, so I have no regrets.

TVLINE | Ever consider using your idol on Kristina at the Final 5 vote in order to bring her to four and send Sage out?
Yes and no. I saw a lot of feedback from everyone online, like, "Oh, if Rizo wanted to win, he would have blah, blah, blah, [saved] Kristina," but honestly, I love Kristina now, but this was my mindset in the game. I knew I needed somebody to compete against Savannah, at least in the Final 4, and the reality is Kristina isn't gonna win that immunity. Maybe, who knows? She was probably +10,000 odds, but she was not going to win. I would have bet more that Sage was gonna win, and I needed somebody to at least beat Savannah in the Final 4 for me to have an opportunity to go against her in fire, and I know Kristina said she would have gone against Savannah in fire, but had Savannah won final immunity, I'm making fire against Kristina, and honestly, I was OK losing fire against Savannah, because it's like, this is gonna decide who wins the game. I love Kristina now, but had I lost to Kristina in the Final 4 fire, I would have beaten myself up for months and months and months. So, I don't think that would have affected anything, because had I beaten Savanah, I would have won the game. I don't think it was a make-or-break decision. Could have been good points to the jury, sure, but I think at that point, they were over my idol shenanigans and questioning themselves, like, "How are we letting Rizo get away with this every single time?" that I don't think it really mattered.

TVLINE | Did you have any thoughts throughout the game of needing or wanting to get Savannah out? That sitting next to her might not be the best idea?
So, I think what really shifted — because throughout the entire game, I wanted to go to the end with Savannah and Soph, and I felt very confident in my game. The reason that shifted was with Savannah winning her fourth individual immunity. The entire time, Jeff is kind of the narrator of the season, right? Jeff talks about the storylines, talks about what's important about our season. So at Tribal Council, Jeff just illustrates how big Savannah is now winning her fourth immunity. Only five other women have done this, and to me I'm like, "Now she has the chance of beating a record that's never been done in 'Survivor' history." I'm not going to beat that because the jury didn't know what I was doing. So the reason why I did all these shenanigans at Tribal was to differentiate my game, right? I wanted to show people that I was running the game behind the scenes. Nobody knew. I had all these conversations and I had all these social capitals, and you see it in exit interviews. People didn't know what I was doing until I got to Ponderosa, and I think what was so hard that people don't realize is Savannah, Soph, and I played this game so closely together. Nobody really knew what we were doing. I think they were all just shocked how they self-imploded, and the reality it's we caused that self-implosion to happen.

So going to Ponderosa, I kind of gave everybody the real picture of what happened, and it gave people a lot of clarity, and granted, had I done it at Tribal Council, would I have gotten their respect compared to when I went to Ponderosa? I don't know. Could have, would have, should have, who knows? But I think had I gotten there, even with Savannah, I probably would have had a good shot. I think had me, Soph, and Savannah gotten there, Soph probably wins cause the jury is anti-Savannah and I, I think. Not until I got to Ponderosa and I really told them what happened [did] they really respect Savannah, because Savannah had this stupid f–king perception that she was a mean girl. Not the case at all. I think people were just taken aback by how confident Savannah and I were, because I'm not gonna lie, I was having fun at Tribal. I was doing all my shenanigans and Savannah was just confident, which we should have been. Everything we wanted (aside from Nate) happened, and I don't know, I guess they took that the wrong way. Was I confident? Sure, but I think I had every reason to be because everything I wanted to happen literally f—king happened.

TVLINE | Now that you've seen all the episodes, was there anything you didn't know about during the game that you found most surprising?
I don't know, honestly, nothing really did surprise me. I guess like how grand everything is, right? Everything always feels so monumental. Every immunity challenge, every reward challenge, every Tribal Council, every time talking to Jeff, it just felt special. But as a super fan, everything I hoped for the experience to be was exactly what it was.