Tbh, even though Twnz and DJ won, I think Fish was this event's best player in terms of strategy. Look at the six players in the 3v3, this is how I think they got there:
Twnz: Got so many immunities by taking objectives that hardly a map went by when he wasn't the one doing the eliminating on red. Some of those objectives he got by taking other people's launches (eg. Riv) and he was a strong enough fragger that he was never in danger of being on the bottom on defence, which was pretty much ALWAYS the second round for the reds. This meant that he wasn't at the bottom of the second round scores and when other reds did vote they had no strategy, just picking the lowest scorer. Twnz was safe for practically the whole time, particularly since he took two votes which both should have been DJ's. Twnz's strategy, if he had one at all, was Get Primary Immunities. Did this work? Clearly.
DJ: Again never on the bottom of the second round frag count. The players on red who could have caused him trouble got mostly bumped early on (Salva: one bad round and paid heavily; Riv: hugely unlucky d/c in Balli, leading to lowest score; XB: one bad round, like Salva, let himself down on Bridge def by being unable to claim a good fragging spot; Sphere: self-pwned in Desert and Twnz pounced). Even in spite of Twnz unknowingly stealing two of DJ's votes, DJ spotted the 'reds def in second round' pattern and identified that as his path to Survival. His strategy worked and he deserved to win, whether or not Twnz was on his team.
Loco: The luckiest player on the red team imo. Look at the screens in the report; his best performances usually only got him to around the middle of the tables, he had at least four very narrow second round escapes when certain players only just came lower than him, should have gone out in Lavafort][ if I'm being honest (Mym's combined score = 9, Loco's combined score = 0) and was consistently saved from elimination by red voting out whoever was lowest in the second round. Clearly no strategy, just amazing luck
One plus point was that he was always willing to set launches, which the voters might have spotted, so fair enough.
Stylefish: The event's second best player imo, after Twnz. Made sure he was always near or at the top of the tables on any given round and played far more intelligently than most of his team-mates. Did himself a massive favour by winning a permanent immunity in Bridge (8v8) but I'm pretty certain he would have made it to the 3v3 without one. Always found def spots which would get him frags and keep him safe, unlike others such as m1cro or Bn, and fought hard for every objective he could find and thus survive all the second rounds. And if he got an occasional vote into the bargain then all the better.
Killerdude: Usually did only
just enough to keep his head above water and, like DJ, recognised that the second rounds were always the important ones. Had votes been based on the first round he would definitely have been out in Siege][ and DustBowl and he still should have said goodbye after Ballistic, yet Fish amazingly chose higher-placed Insp. Strategic or not, he had probably even more luck than Loco.
Smant: Apart from leaving jumpboots for himself, smant's strategy mirrored kd's, except to an even greater degree. Time and time again he did only the bare minimum to avoid being last, yet should still have almost certainly gone out in The Scarab, and certainly in Bridge. A bit of luck and not being worst for 90% of the time got smant through to the 3v3.
So, a mixture of luck, chance, weird decisions and immunities all contributed in different ways to the fates of all six players. If there is a golden rule of Survivor, maybe it's something like:
get all the immunities you can on attack for a bonus, but whatever you do just don't be last in the second round. This didn't work for everyone but they would appear to be the exceptions that disprove the rule.