There are two ways to win a challenge. Some people are good at competitions while others are good at navigating the rules — essentially finding a way to break the game as it was intended to be played.
What does “breaking the Challenge” mean? It’s a time when a competitor found a way to be successful in a competition without following the obvious steps to victory (as explained in the rules) but without explicitly violating the rules. Basically, they played the game in the “gray zone” and got away with it.
Also, I’m not going to focus on people who threw challenges, but I will include people who sacrificed themselves to help their team win.
Push It (The Gauntlet 3)
What was intended: Teams were supposed to take 12 planks and make a road in the sand, rotating them from the back to the front when they ran out of wood. Then, they had to push a car to the finish line.
What happened: Because there was no penalty if the car hit the sand, the veterans just forwent the wooden road and muscled the car across the sand to the finish line.
Chain Gang (The Ruins)
This challenge has layers. The goal was for competitors to pull people from the bottom of the rope to a platform. Then, the next person in line would go. If a competitor failed to get to the top, they wouldn’t earn a point. If a competitor dropped and there were people beneath them in the chain, the people below the broken link would be disqualified.
What happened: Wes wanted to throw the challenge, so he threatened to wiggle the rope so other players on the Champion team fell.
What really happened: Ibis was second to last, while Wes was the last link in the chain. Because two players on the Challenger team fell, Ibis dropped — disqualifying herself and Wes. Then it became a race for time and the Champion team won.
Oil Change (Battle of the Seasons)
What was intended: Teams would wrestle in oil and winners of matches would earn points. The first team to accumulate four points won, and the last team without four points would lose.
What happened: Teams Cancun, San Diego, New Orleans, and Las Vegas staggered their wins so they’d be the top teams. Then, the other teams duked it out.
Logged Out (Battle of the Seasons)
What was intended: Teams would memorize a puzzle key and transport their logs up a hill to recreate it. But, there are extra logs, so players had to memorize the pattern.
What happened: Team Brooklyn recreated their puzzle at the base before they transported the logs. This removed the elements of memory and extra puzzle pieces. During Don’t Forget About Me, a similar Challenge on Battle of the Exes 2, a steel trap was used to prevent teams from recreating the puzzle before going uphill.
Final Puzzle (Free Agents)
What was intended: Competitors would use their knowledge of geography to arrange a totem pole with cities, north to south. I don’t really know what production was thinking… does anyone on the show know anything about geography?
What happened: Johnny realized that the “totem pole” was cut from a log. So, matching the cuts in the wood would arrange the cities in order. And it worked, he and Devyn were the only team that didn’t reach the time cap at this stage of the final.
Credit where it’s due, Ninja used a similar strategy on War of the Worlds 2. Rather than solve the purge puzzle by focusing on the image, she just matched the textures of the puzzle pieces.
Water Battle (Battle of the Bloodlines)
What was intended: Teams were supposed to climb a dirt hill, collect water, and transport it into their barrel.
What happened: Bananas was going to win, so competitors realized they didn’t need to fill their own barrels. They gave their water to Cohutta and Jill so they’d outperform Bananas.
Fallout (Invasion of the Champions)
What was intended: Teams were on a pivoting platform, and they were supposed to fight for space on one of two ropes. The person who held on the longest won.
What happened: Shane saw that all the veterans were comfortably clinging onto a rope and making this a game of endurance. So, he became a human cannonball and sacrificed himself, knocking every vet off the platform in the process. This gave the Underdogs the win.
Decontamination (Total Madness)
What was intended: Teams would run through a foam pit to get to a window where they’d memorize a color pattern. Then, they’d run back and recreate it.
What happened: Because every competitor was memorizing the same pattern, some people just remembered the final colors and tried to copy other people’s answers. But, Bananas found the biggest loophole. He angled himself perfectly so he could see the reflection of the color sequence without running through the foam pit… he still lost to Wes, though.
Diamond Dash (Spies, Lies and Allies)
What was intended: In their new cells, competitors were supposed to break concrete blocks into tiny pieces. Then, one player would put the rubble through a grate into a bucket to weigh it down and get a diamond. But, only one person could stand on a platform to reach the grate.
What happened: Devin decided to weigh down the structure using larger pieces of concrete, allowing his whole team to place small pieces through the grate. This accelerated the emerald cell’s time and they won.
Dead Drop (Spies, Lies and Allies)
What was intended: One team would cross a beam to transfer capsules from the opposite platform to their base platform. Meanwhile, members on the other cells would fling weighted balls at the runners.
What happened: CT went into Hulk mode. He took every blow, catching some of the balls and using their momentum. He essentially ignored this element of the game and it worked — the sapphire team won and Emy and Kyle transferred zero capsules.
Stop Being Polite 