According to episodes of the podcast "Talking with T-Bird", Judd Sergeant of "" and Shii-Ann Huang, of "Thailand" and "", were both in the casting process for this season as well. Coby Archa of "" said that his castmate from that season, Ian Rosenberger, attended casting finals. "Fiji" winner Earl Cole was also considered for this season. Jenna Lewis, of "Borneo" and "All-Stars", was considered for the Villains tribe. It was also revealed by Candice Cody that Parvati Shallow was originally supposed to be on the Heroes tribe, and her on the Villains tribe. There were twenty contestants overall, divided into two tribes, Heroes and Villains. After ten contestants were eliminated, the tribes were combined, or merged, to form one tribe, Yin Yang. Nine contestants made up the jury, who ultimately decided who would win the game, and the $1 million grand prize. Due to the back-to-back filming of "Survivor: Samoa" and this season, the other players did not have an opportunity to see Russell Hantz's gameplay in "Samoa" nor reveal more information about him; however, the players were told by the production crew that Hantz was considered "one of the five most notorious male villains of all time" prior to the start of the game. Russell Hantz and Rob Mariano returned to compete once again in ""; Hantz finished 19th while Mariano won the season. Hantz would later compete in "Australian Survivor: Champions vs. Contenders" at an international level. Benjamin "Coach" Wade returned to compete in "", where he finished second. Rupert Boneham, Candice Woodcock, and Tyson Apostol returned for "" which Apostol won. Boneham returned with his wife, Laura, who appeared in "Heroes vs. Villains" as a loved one and they would later compete on "The Amazing Race 31" together; Woodcock, now using her husband's surname of Cody, returned with her husband John; and Apostol returned with his girlfriend (now wife), Rachel Foulger. Cirie Fields, James "J.T." Thomas Jr. and Sandra Diaz-Twine returned once again to compete in the 34th season of the show, "" and finished 6th, 16th and 15th respectively. Diaz-Twine and Mariano returned in "" to serve as mentors. Diaz-Twine, Shallow, Mariano, and Apostol all returned to compete on "", where they finished 15th, 16th, 17th and 11th, respectively.