Is Survivor 51's Savu the worst tribe in history?

When we talk about terrible tribes, it's almost always because they have a series of losses that only lead to more losses, leaving them weak. But there's something completely different happening to the Savu tribe in Survivor 51.

Spoilers for Survivor 51 episode 3 ahead!

It hasn't even been 10 in-season days and the Savu tribe has experienced basically every type of loss they can. After losing episode 2's reward and immunity challenges, the tribe was exhausted and emotionally down going into Tribal Council. Some players were blindsided when Ana Sani went home instead of Eric Macksound, but the biggest blindside of all came for Rob Antonson when he was told he couldn't vote for himself.

After Savu returned to camp, already down one player, Rob decided to exaggerate an illness and take himself out of the game, putting them down two players after one Tribal Council.

Then, to make matters even worse, the person on the bottom of the tribe, Carter Krull, was randomly drawn between them to visit the Toka tribe, with the option to mutiny and stay at Toka.

"What I'm Smellin' Is Stinky" - Survivor. Pictured (L-R): Eric Macksoud, Ori Jean-Charles, Cristian Chavez, Sharonda Cox, Linnea Capobianco, Kristin Flickinger, Alexis Levine Photo: Robert Voets/CBS 2026 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved. | Robert Voets/CBS

While he didn't plan to stay, he missed the boat back to Savu and-by default-joined the Toka tribe, leaving Savu down three players in six days after only attending one Tribal Council. Toka's Devin Way-their voluntary representative-chose not to mutiny, so no one joined Savu in Carter's place.

So now, after only two Tribal Councils-one attended by each tribe-the Toka tribe leads in players 11 to 7. That means Savu only has 63% of the players that Toka has. And they've only been to ONE Tribal Council.

Luckily for them, Savu managed to win the immunity/reward challenge in episode 3 and will keep themselves from Tribal Council tonight, allowing Toka to eliminate one more player and even out the game at least slightly.

"Weaponized Honesty" - SURVIVOR. Pictured (L-R): Ana Sani and Jeff Probst | Robert Voets/CBS

But with such an uneven distribution, we have to wonder if a tribe swap is on the horizon or if this mutiny is all we're going to get before the merge. Historically, in the new era, the merge comes at episode 6, but if anything is on the table, we've seen merges take place as late as episode 11 in seasons like Survivor: All-Stars and Survivor: Cook Islands.

And as we're seeing no clear frontrunner at challenges-so far tribes have swapped between wins on each episode-it's not as imperative for production to toss in a tribe swap to make things more fair in the game.

But even with a win this week, will Savu's luck continue to tilt to the bad side? Kristin Flickinger-knock on wood-actually sustained an injury and is still fighting through it, but if she pushes it too hard, could Savu lose three players outside of Tribal Council votes?

We'll have to wait another week to find out, unfortunately.

Survivor 51 player tries to make history by forgetting the rules of the game

TONIGHT: Survivor 51 episode 3 (what you need to know)

We unpack Survivor 51 episode 2 after "Weaponized Honesty" left alliances cracking

Survivor 51's Ana Sani admits being a messy player cost her the game

Survivor 51 episode 3 first look photos and predictions

This article was originally published on www.survivingtribal.com as Is Survivor 51's Savu the worst tribe in history?.