Trying to Predict the Survivor 46 Frontrunners Is Almost as Tough as Being on Survivor

The only thing harder than actually winning Survivor might be predicting who wins Survivor. For 45 seasons, fans of the show have read into and over-analyzed so many pieces of Survivor content to decipher what they're saying about who goes far in the game. We pore over pre-season profiles of the castaways, show promos, the first 10 minutes of the season — there are clues to be found!

After digging into the Survivor 46 cast bios, the Q&As they've given to various outlets, and re-watching the trailer and promos for the new season over and over again, there are definitely some indicators for success. The trailer is a big one:

Over the last four seasons, the eventual winner has been highly featured in the preview trailer. Last season, Dee Valladares was the first talking-head interview we saw in the trailer. The season before, Yam Yam Arocho was the last person. Gabler and Maryanne were both featured in their own seasons' trailers. The Season 46 trailer seems like it could be significant in a couple ways. For starters, it shows quick snippets of audition videos for 15 of the 18 contestants. The other three — Kenzie, Tiffany, and Venus — are featured later in the trailer, so they're fine. Of those 15, though, only 10 get to speak. While the CBS marketing folks could certainly opt to deliberately hide the eventual winner, that doesn't seem incredibly likely, so this seems like bad news for:

• Jem, the 32-year-old brand ambassador, originally from Guyana
• Jess, the 37-year-old software engineer from Hong Kong by way of Toronto
• Bhanu, the 41-year-old IT analyst originally from India
• Jelinsky, the 22-year-old slot-machine salesman from Las Vegas (another untrustworthy salesman!)
• Charlie, the 26-year-old law student (another untrustworthy lawyer!)

The flip side of this is that only five players get talking-head clips from the island, which indicates that they are all likely to make a big impact on the game. Last year, the preview showed talking heads from nine players; only two (Brandon and Sabiyah) failed to make the merge, while five (Jake, Julie, Drew, Emily, and Bruce) made it to the top 8. So expect these five players to make a significant impact:

Tevin Davis is the breakout star of the trailer, complete with a catchphrase ("stay positive, test negative"), a smile as wide as the Pacific Ocean, and an uncontrolled cackle at the sight of his Survivor buff. He has “fan favorite” written all over him. Boisterous fan favorite can sometimes mean tribe outcast if the rest of the tribe isn't vibing on the same wavelength, but Season 42's Maryanne proved that you can be dealt those cards and still win the game.

Ben Katzman has described himself as a "real-life Dewey Finn" in interviews; like Jack Black's character in School of Rock, he's a musician who pivoted to teaching music to kids. He's also referred to himself as a Pauly Shore character and in the trailer says he's "ready to manifest the shred." He's expressed a desire to play a game like Season 43's Cody, which seems about right. Cody lasted a lot longer than many suspected he would — as have more recent oddballs like Carolyn — so just because Ben seems more like a character from someone's improv show than a real person doesn't mean he can't make his way to the merge and beyond.

Venus Vafa says in the trailer that she wants to be the first Persian contestant to win Survivor, which makes for a great motivating force. At 24 years old, she's a data analyst who wants to go into immigration law, which is wildly impressive. The challenge will be in getting other people to want to work with her, since she describes herself as having a "Mean Girls exterior" and says "the threshold to earn my trust is high."

Tiffany Ervin is a 33-year-old visual artist and says her friends would describe her as a "nut," but if you've seen any 30-second spot for Survivor over the last few weeks — including the promo that aired during the Super Bowl — you'd know that Tiffany thinks she's "about to kill it." There is a magnetism and confidence around Tiffany that should serve her quite well.

Kenzie Petty is a 29-year-old salon owner with bright red hair and seemingly boundless enthusiasm. She's the last person we see in the trailer — the Yam Yam spot (she's even wearing purple to match Yam Yam's tribe colors). She's either going to be a high-volume pain in the neck who gets voted out before the merge or else she's going to last a very long time. Whatever it is, she won't go quietly.

Are Tevin, Ben, Venus, Tiffany, and Kenzie the only players you should place your bets on before the season starts? Not necessarily. It might mean something that Hunter McKnight (28-year-old science teacher from Mississippi) is the first face we see in the trailer. Or that from her pre-show interviews, Moriah Gaynor — a local government employee who's super into spreadsheets — might be the most enthusiastically prepared contestant ever to play the game. These seven players do seem like the strongest personalities at the outset, so even if they don't end up winning the game, they're at least positioned to be major Survivor stars.

Joe Reid is the senior writer at Primetimer and co-host of the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast. His work has appeared in Decider, NPR, HuffPost, The Atlantic, Slate, Polygon, Vanity Fair, Vulture, The A.V. Club and more.