Todd Crowned China's Sole Survivor

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The tribe has spoken: Todd Herzog is the winner of Survivor: China.

The 22-year-old flight attendant and world-class schemer outwitted, outplayed and outlasted his competitors for 39 days to be crowned the $1 million winner of the reality show's 15th edition and the youngest winner in the series' history.

Herzog was named the winner in Sunday's live finale, scoring four votes to fellow finalists Courtney Yates' two and Amanda Kimmel's one.

"I wasn't the strongest," Herzog said after being announced as the winner. "I wasn't the smartest. But I was definitely the most strategic.

"I knew that the second that I got out there that, no matter what it took, I would do everything that I possibly could to be sitting right here. I had all of these people in my mind that could help me get here, and I can't believe it worked."

Everything, in this case, including forming a day one alliance with beauty queen Kimmel and continuing throughout the season to align himself with various tribe members, including Yates, a waitress, and fourth-place finisher, lunch lady Denise Martin. Unfortunately, his alliances, which inevitably resulted in backstabbing, strained relations often irreparably between him and his tribe.

As it happens, Martin didn't walk away completely empty-handed. The 40-year-old from Douglas, Massachusetts, was awarded $50,000 by Survivor producer Mark Burnett after it was revealed that she lost her mystery-meat-spooning job as a result of being on the show.

Gravedigger James Clement, meanwhile, won the viewer-determined $100,000 prize, a lesser consolation to the million-dollar jackpot, despite failing to use either of his two Hidden Immunity Idols over the course of the show.

Herzog, a lifelong Survivor fan, credited close study of the series' previous 14 seasons in crafting his strategy to win. The openly gay Mormon, who has been avidly watching the show since he was 14 years old, said his betrayal of fellow contestants, which got him dubbed a "slippery little sucker" by Yates, was not personal.

"I know that I played a game where I had to lie and I had to backstab and I had to hurt people that I cared about," he said in making his final plea for the $1 million. "The main thing I can ask tonight is that you are able to see the difference between my strategic fame and the relationship I actually built with you.

"All I could hope for was that people would be able to say, 'Survivor is a game,' " he said during the live finale. "And I meant it when I said I made relations and bonds with people and that those were true. But everything inside of the game was the game, and I meant that, and I knew I would fight it to the end."

While Herzog's fellow competitors may not have appreciated his calculated moves, viewers certainly did.

Even before the advent of the writers' strike, when scripted fare was still going strong, Survivor: China dominated its Thursday night time slot, averaging more than 15 million viewers this season, a boost from last season's ratings slip.

On last night's finale, host Jeff Probst announced details of the show's forthcoming 16th season, dubbed Survivor: Micronesia—Fans vs. Favorites.

As the name implies, the next "half all-stars edition" will be comprised of both popular former castaways and a group of Survivor "superfans," who will compete against each other.

The new season kicks off Feb. 7 on CBS.