A total of 456 players entered Squid Game: The Challenge, but there can only be one winner. 

With $4.56 million hanging in the balance (or over the dormitory, rather), all of the contestants have fought fiercely for their chance at taking home the life-changing cash prize. Challenges both new and familiar have tested the group mentally, physically, and emotionally, but the three remaining players have managed to outlast them all. 

And now, we wait for them to face off in the final episode of the season, which launched on  Dec. 6 at 9PM ET/6PM PT (All caught up? Read our interview with the winner of Squid Game: The Challenge).  Ahead of the grand finale event, it’s time to get even more familiar with Sam (Player 016), Mai (Player 287), and Phill (Player 451) before one of their lives changes forever. Below, find out more about their journeys this season, what or who they’re fighting for, and how they’ve managed to stay in the game for this long. Check out the poll at the end for who fans thought would take home the $4.56 million dollar grand prize.

Pete Dadds/Netflix

Sam (016)

Sam might tower well above the rest of the players when it comes to height, but he’s purposefully kept a low profile to make it to the end of the competition. “I grew up a little gay boy in a very religious family,” he says. “I’m pretty confident in my ability to hold my cards close to my chest.” And he does so early on in the game, letting bigger and bolder players take risks, while personally remaining content to exist mostly in the background. Just like the other two finalists, Sam avoids a near-certain elimination in Dalgona by receiving the third most difficult, but still precarious star shape. His time in the competition is almost cut short, however, during an especially close call in Warships when a boat he’s in takes significant hits. 

With the help of some key alliances — including Ashley (Player 278), who saves him from elimination during the Dorm Test of allegiance before Glass Bridge, and Siobhan (Player 023), who he in turn chooses to save — Sam endures. Most importantly, the 37-year-old Florida-based artist has tried to play a strategy of “civil decency” to ward off the chaos of the game, which puts him slightly at odds with Mai (Player 287) after she nominates Ashley for elimination during the Episode 8 dice roll test. “I’ve been trying to play this game in a way that I’d be proud and  [also in line with] how I’d act in the outside world,” he tells Mai (Player 287) in Episode 9. “As long as we keep our eye on our hearts and our humanity, because we all have that good core.” If he wins, Sam plans on getting a large art studio for his work, helping his husband with his film projects, helping rescue and protect animals, and investing wisely.

Pete Dadds/Netflix

Mai (287)

Long before her journey on Squid Game: The Challenge, Mai’s life had always been about beating the odds. Born in Vietnam, Mai came to the United States as a refugee when she was just 8 years old. Since then, Mai has continued to use the difficult memories to remind herself “to be strong,” propelling her through single parenthood, a 20-year career in the Navy, and now, the competition of a lifetime. Along the way, Mai makes friends — and a few rivals as well. During the Dorm Test of allegiance, she “breaks the chain” agreed upon by other women players in the game by choosing to save her friend Chad (Player 286). She and Chad became close early on, along with a few other players including Figgy (Player 033), Brownie (Player 258), and Cookie (Player 285) — adding Mai “Mai Tai,” the group coined themselves “The Snack Pack.” 

But arguably her biggest clash in the competition is with Ashley over a disagreement about what Mai describes as “selfish” behavior during Glass Bridge. Because Mai questions Ashley’s “character,” Mai tries and fails to eliminate her in a subsequent game of dice, only to isolate herself from some of the remaining players in Episode 9. Ultimately, the 55-year-old immigration adjudicator is able to leverage suspicions about her gameplay during Circle of Trust, in which she makes the surprise decision to eliminate her ally Roland (Player 418) instead of one of her foes. “This game is all about self-preservation,” she says in Episode 9. “I have to do what I have to do to survive.” If she wins the prize money, Mai dreams of purchasing a home to spend her retirement in and donating to causes she cares about.

Pete Dadds/Netflix

Phill (451) 

As a self-described “go-with-the-flow kind of guy,” Phill had no grand designs on making it to the final three — let alone winning the cash prize. In fact, the Hawaii-based scuba instructor, who moved from his home country of Brazil to the United States in middle school, never put much thought into how he would navigate any of the challenges until he first set foot in the dorm. “I basically have no strategy going into this,” he says. “I’m kind of going in blind. I really just have no idea how this is going to go.” And yet, Phill outmaneuvers almost all of his fellow players over the course of the challenges, carving out the star shape in Dalgona, besting Bradford (Player 337) in an emotionally charged Marbles face-off, and guessing who put the gift box on his table not once, but twice during Circle of Trust. 

While the game remains as unpredictable as ever, Phill has locked down key alliances that have stabilized his game, including Jackie (Player 393), his fellow finalist Sam, and Ashley, whom he chooses to save during the Dorm Test of allegiance. But he’s also had to make some ruthless choices, like betraying his friend Hallie (Player 355) during Circle of Trust in a final stunning twist. Should Phill come out on top in the finale as the winner of Squid Game: The Challenge, he plans on giving away a good portion of this prize pot. “If I suddenly become a millionaire, I wouldn’t keep most of the money,” he says. “I’ve personally been helped a lot throughout my entire life by family and friends and I’ve never really been able to reciprocate.”

In anticipation of the upcoming finale, we asked Netflix reality talent and a handful of Squid Game: The Challenge players who attended the opening of the Squid Game: The Trails Live Experience in Los Angeles who they’re rooting for. Selling Sunset star Brandi Marshall says she’s cheering for Sam, because she sees him as kind. “I think he deserves it. He hasn’t really done anything like cross anybody,” she says. Milton of Love is Blind Season 5 is also all in on Sam. “Something about Sam’s swagger, man,” he says. “He reminds me of a guy similar to myself — tall, intelligent, handsome. Why not?”

Chris of Dated & Related thinks it’ll be Mai: “I just like her strategy playing the game, honestly. She’s smart, but she’s also taking risks and taking chances, so I think that’s how I would play it. So that’s why I appreciate her.” Harry Jowsey of Too Hot to Handle Season 1 is also rooting for Mai because he was touched by “her story and what she’s overcome.”

Of the Squid Game: The Challenge eliminated players, Spencer (Player 299) is torn between Sam and Phill. TJ (Player 182) and Trey (Player 301) are more clear: TJ wants Sam for “height representation,” and Trey is “Team Phill 100%” because he affectionally says Phill is “perfect.” LeAnn (Player 302) is happy with anyone winning because “all three of them are amazing people.” She adds, “They have had amazing lives, so I don’t think I could choose one.”

In fact, LeAnn has a lot in common with Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos — he says he simply “can’t pick.”

Watch Squid Game: The Challenge on Netflix, and follow along with our official Squid Game: The Challenge cast guide.