S34 was always planned to be Game Changers - Redmond admits that the rumours were false.

Here's the link to Redmond's updated post about S34 rumours.

Season 34 was NEVER intended to be Champions vs. Challengers nor Winners vs. Jury vs. Pre-Jury (although we knew the latter was never the case). By the end of January, when SEG casting first started calling castaways, the theme was already confirmed internally to be Survivor: Game Changers. There was no deviating from that plan, no discussion of a tribe of winners etc. Game Changers was always Game Changers.

Just in case the flames of dissatisfaction with the cast needed any more fanning...