initially, his alliance included fellow tribemates r.c. saint-amour, pete yurkowski, and abi-maria gomes. no one in this alliance was eliminated prior to the merge, as tandang did not lose one single tribal immunity challenge. after the merge, on day 22, skupin teamed up with whelchel, and five days later, the two of them agreed to form a new alliance with denise stapley and malcolm freberg. at the final five tribal council, the four of them were planning on voting out gomes, who repeatedly called skupin a "moron" in an attempt to convince him and the others to take her to the end as a sacrificial lamb, as gomes was perceived as having no shot at getting any jury votes. gomes was sent to the jury anyway, and at the final four immunity challenge, skupin won immunity, and went on to join whelchel and stapley in voting out freberg.