MTV's The Challenge has become a cultural phenomenon that even regularly beats AEW in the ratings on Wednesday nights. So to bank off of that success, MTV and Paramount have started spinoff series including The Challenge USA, Challenge All Stars And even World competitions. These spinoffs haven't always been given the full attention from viewers due to the lack of star power but that's all changed with Challenge USA 2.

​

New cast members from Big brother, Survivor and The Amazing Race have been joined now by all stars from The Challenge main show including legendary competitors Wes and Johnny Bananas and current reigning champion Tori Deal. This automatically has brought back interest into this series and regular viewers of The Challenge get to experience new blood in the game and gives us a chance to see new champions emerge and strategies from other games brought into The Challenge House.

 

To start the season, 3 teams were created with different players being picked to join the squads. The Red team was filled with players that have a lot of red flags and have a harder time working well with others, the Green team was filled with good players that couldn't trust each other as Survivor players ruled the pack and the Blue team dominated most dailies as they are the strongest team and individual players mixed into one. After the dailies, players would get put up for elimination and the rest of the players would secretly vote to put a ball into a hopper to select who played the elimination. You could have 6 balls or 1 ball but you'd still have a chance to go in. If you lost the elimination, you'd leave the house and your team would have one less player. If you won, you'd have the choice to rejoin your team or defect to another team. This brought a new strategy to the game where now you can join a stronger team to protect yourself but it does make your previous team weak and they'll hold it against you. This year's younger players started the season strong by going after veterans and putting them against each other. Tori is the reigning champion from the main show and Jonna is the 2 time champion from the All Star show and they were put against each other in elimination on episode 2!

 

Through the first 9 episodes, Survivor players have only gone down by 1 and they have really stuck together in the game to stay strong. But that team seems to be crumbling just a little especially between Chris and Michaela not trusting each other. The veterans have started to play mind games with the younger players by using their secret vote to mess with their minds. They put other players in a hat and secretly pick a player that they don't know who voted so they don't have to lie and no one can suspect it's coming from them since some of the strategy behind it wouldn't make sense for them to be involved in. Operation hat trick has led to some fights between the younger players and mistrust and it shows why the veterans are legends in this game. With 14 players left in the house after 9 episodes, it does look like team Survivor is shaping up to make big moves in the remainder of the season with their players Cassidy, Chanelle, Chris, Desi, Michaela and Michelle. Veterans remaining are Bananas, Cory, Faysal(who is also working with Big Brother), Josh (also with Big Brother), Tori and Wes. Big Brother only has Tyler and Alyssa S but they do have some allies that can help them with the veterans and as numbers for the veterans, they can be protected.

 

Now that it's coming down to the wire, betrayals will surely be coming and bigger players might be at risk to go down more often. This could be one of the better seasons of The Challenge since the new blood has decided that they will not be playing the veteran's game and new winners are always a welcome sight in Challenge fandom. Can't wait for the next episode!