Election Game (Winning Streak)
Election Game
Players who wish to be candidates are given campaign fund of 20 chips. They are now free to use these chips to bribe voters. Candidates are free to drop out of the race and become voters at any time during the main match. The one remaining candidate who collects the most votes wins and other candidates become potential Death Match players for elimination, with the candidate garnering the least votes being forced into the Death Match. The elected candidate's chips transform into garnets after election ends, thus voters are motivated to get as many chips from candidate they think will win. Candidates themselves may keep some chips for themselves and if they win, and cash them in for garnets.
Within minutes of the Main Match reveal, Gura and Sangmin are already talking off to the side. Gura then reveals his cocky plan: if he's running as a candidate, it won't matter who else is running- his charisma and image will make him an easy shoo-in for election. Similarly, "Teacher" Cha again starts his routine and explains his "simple" tactic of teaming up and appointing one voting candidate among them. If an alliance reaches a majority, that candidate is sure to win and everyone among them will gain garnets. He's sure that his own influence means that he'll be able to guarantee first place.
Every player (with the exception of Kyungran and Jimmy Cha) decide to run for candidacy. Cha explains that he wants to back a successful horse with his own influence, and Kyungran hopes to become a faithful kingmaker in this game. The players start making alliances: Yuram, bolstered by Cha's words, hopes to become elected. Elsewhere, Jinho sits down with Poong and Changyeop and drafts the roots of a majority alliance to get himself elected. Despite his gung-ho nature about this game, Gura seems to be spending most of it by himself in solitary rooms.
As the first opinion poll comes in, and most players simply vote for themselves. Jinho decides to join forces with Cha: with Jinho, Poong, and Changyeop, and Cha, Kyungran, and Yuram, the group needs just one more person to guarantee a majority. Minseo is eager to fill that spot, wanting to help Jinho after he saved her in the last Death Match. Finally, Changyeop can rather easily gain the vote of Jungmoon, giving an 8-person power-alliance. They decide that Yuram will be the party candidate and begin handing out her chips to the alliance.
That leaves four people out of this plan: Gura, Sangmin, Eunji, and Sunggyu. Despite this, Gura is still insistent that he's going to win, remarking that the other players will be surprised after results come in. Doubt also forms among Poong; he worked extensively with Sangmin and Gura in the last Main Match, yet seems to be a stalwart follower of Jinho for this one. Sunggyu pulls Jinho aside and tells him that he can't trust the people he's with- yet Jinho is sure that, even if one person betrays, he'll still be able to be on the winning side.
The second opinion poll comes in and Jinho's in the lead. However, the plan isn't for him to win, so he resigns. This starts a chain reaction of resignations: Minseo, Poong, Jungmoon, Eunji, Sangmin, and Sunggyu. This leaves just Yuram and Changyeop of Jinho's party, and Gura. With four minutes to go, Gura steps up to the podium, and surprises everyone when he resigns.
With this, the game should be in the bag for Yuram. All Changyeop needs to do is resign, and Yuram - the only candidate - will by default win. With seconds left, he steps up to the podium and declares that he's... not resigning!
Flashback. Gura had a plan when he pulled Sangmin aside at the very start of the match. Instead of him running for election, he would use his influence to back "the actor", Changyeop. Then, as he explains to Changyeop, he plans on resigning at a pivotal moment to throw the opposing alliance off their game. Changyeop isn't the most confident in this plan, but still decides to stay in candidacy - while Yuram is sure that she'll be able to win the vote.
The game ends, and the final votes come in. By a vote of 8 to 4... Changyeop wins, and is elected. Yuram loses, and Changyeop gives his extra Token of Life to Eunji.
Second flashback. Gura didn't simply talk to Changyeop about this plan. Before Jinho or Yuram even started forming teams, he utilized his errand boys, Sangmin and Poong, to carry messages along to four other recruits: Eunji, Sunggyu, Minseo, and Jungmoon. He picked Changyeop as a glorified puppet and took his chips, distributing them to everyone but Eunji, who would be reimbursed with immunity from the Death Match. Poong even passes a message to the faction, instructing them to follow along with Jinho's plan. In truth, the game was over 60 minutes before the first round even started, and 90 minutes before either Jinho or Yuram recruited people to their own factions.
Unsurprisingly, this leaves players on the outs stunned about who betrayed whom. Minseo brings Cha aside and reaffirms her vote to Yuram, saying that Poong betrayed. Cha and Kyungran both come to the conclusion that Jinho was betraying them the entire time, and that the four votes belonged to Yuram, Cha, Kyungran, and Minseo. Jinho tells Cha that Kyungran shouldn't be trusted- all while Kyungran is doing an interview behind a wall. She overhears this, and comes to argue indignantly against the accusations.
As it turns out, the updated garnet count reveals the truth. This means that Minseo, still claiming that she voted Yuram's way even after the results, is shown to be a liar with her increase in garnets. This is the main reason that Yuram picks her to challenge.
The Death Match is Winning Streak Game, which is just as much a team game as main match was. So loyal remnants of Jinho's team naturally form Yuram's team (Cha, Kyungran and Jinho), while Gura's team groups around Minseo. By all intents and purposes, it should be a blowout on Minseo's side. But Yuram goes first, and despite an early loss to Gura... Jungmoon, Sunggyu, Sangmin, and Changyeop all willingly lose for her. Top this off with Eunji and Poong, and she manages to get a streak of 9. Already confused, Minseo only manages to get to the second player, Jungmoon, before she loses, making it impossible to win.
How did the player with the least influence pull this off? As it turns out, playing from the bottom was, in many ways, an advantage. Minseo gets complacent, whereas Yuram bribes both Sangmin and Sunggyu with garnets - leading to the first ever written promise in The Genius. She convinces Changyeop that she'll be a better ally than Minseo, and Jungmoon joins along with him. By gaining these four pivotal votes, she's able to win.
With that Yuram stays alive and takes all of Minseo's garents, while Minseo is eliminated, a bitter taste in her mouth after being betrayed by the ones she so loyally followed in the Main Match.
Tropes:
- Betrayal Insurance: Cha thinks that with overwhelming majority his alliance is safe even if 1 or 2 people betrays.
- Bribing Your Way to Victory: Yuram in Deathmatch.
- Horrible Judge of Character: Jinho is 100% sure in Poong.
- I Warned You: Sunggyu tries to warn Jinho from trusting too many people, but he just shrugs it off.
- King Maker: Gura.
- Know-Nothing Know-It-All: this episode is when people start to figure out that Jimmy Cha is not as smart as he looks like. His explanations are usually on a surface level, and Jinho for example can already see past that.
- Puppet King: Changeyop, voting candidate for secret alliance.
- Right Behind Me: when Jinho and Yuram are discussing their loss in the main match, Jinho tries to throw suspicion on to Kyungran as one of the traitors that lead to their loss. She just happens to be in the same room, behind the folding screen shooting her confession cam interview, when she hears the diss and angrily storms out to confront him.
- Sarcastic Confession: Gura keeps repeating that he has an ace in his sleeve that will allow him to win for sure despite seemingly doing nothing sitting in a room by himself taking naps.
- Ship Tease: Jungmoon/Changeyop "showmance" continues. Jungmoon specifically asks if Changeyop is already with Jinho before joining the team and then also follows him to Yuram's side during Deathmatch.
- Stunned Silence: majority alliance's reaction to Gura's resignation speech, complete with crow leaving dots as it flies by.
- Thirty Five Minutes Ago: Kim Gura. During preparation time, when all other contestants are hurriedly forming factions and determine who they will appoint to be their faction leader to vote for, Gura sits all by himself and ignores all and everyone. That's because he has already won by forming a secret faction thirty minutes earlier, while all others were still casually chatting and intermingling.
