The Challenge: Invasion of the Champions premieres Feb. 7 on MTV

In over Their Heads? The Challenge Underdogs Get the Shock of Their Lives in New Supertease

The latest lessons from MTV’s The Challenge? Don’t expect anything to be handed to you — and do not step to a former Challenge winner.

PEOPLE can exclusively reveal the supertease for season 29, Invasion of the Champions, which brings together 18 former competitors who’ve never won the reality competition.

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The games begin on a promising note, with Battle of the Bloodlines runner-up Cory Wharton summing up the players’ optimism at facing off without the distractions and manipulations of previous victors. “There’s not one champion here,” he says. “I think I could be that champion.”

Not so fast! Just as the underdogs are settling in, host TJ Lavin drops a bomb: “In order to be a champion, you have to beat the champions.”

Cue the whiplash and enter eight all-stars from past seasons — veritable “savages,” according to six-time winner John “Johnny Bananas” Devenanzio — in a terror-inducing group comprised of some of The Challenge‘s most cutthroat, calculating, cold-hearted players ever, who are out to avoid being vanquished by any means.

Think the previous 28 seasons have been ugly? Think again. Or, as Bananas puts it: “Guess where nobility gets you in The Challenge. Nowhere.”