Real World Road Rules Challenge: The Ruins is the 18th season of the MTV reality television game show, The Challenge (at the time known as Real World/Road Rules Challenge). This is the last season to use Real World/Road Rules in the on-screen title, before being shortened to The Challenge in the 19th season.
The Ruins took place in Phuket, Thailand, with cast members from The Real World, Road Rules and The Challenge competing. This season was played in the format of two teams — Champions and Challengers; players on the Champions team had won at least one previous challenge, while players on the Challengers team had never won a challenge or made their Challenge debut.
The season premiered on September 30, 2009 and concluded with the "S#!t They Should Have Shown" special on December 23, 2009.
Contestants
Champion of
Format
This season of the Real World/Road Rules Challenge puts the Champions against the Challengers. The two teams compete in numerous missions, typically called challenges, in order to win cash, prizes and advance in the overall game. The winning team in each challenge receives a cash prize of $20,000, which is split evenly among the team members and placed in their individual bank accounts, as well as a bonus prize for each member of the team.
Before every challenge however, the Champions and the Challengers each select three players of each gender within their team to be nominated for elimination. After the challenge, the six nominees from the winning team pick one guy and one girl among themselves, as well as a male-female pair from the losing team's nominees to battle against in the Ruins.
In the Ruins, there are two events — one battle for each gender. The winners from each event get to stay in Phuket, and have a chance to compete for a share of $120,000 in the final challenge. The losers are eliminated from the game, and lose all of their prize money in their individual bank accounts to the event winners, though their bonus prizes are not affected.