The Amazing Race 12 will drop its non-elimination legs, introduced in the first season, executive producer Jonathan Littman told The Orlando Sentinel’s Hal Boedeker.

As a result, two episodes will be dropped (12 episodes aired last season; 13 the previous few seasons), and Boedeker reports that’s “to create more excitement.” Presumably, that means punishments for arriving last at the non-elimination leg–most recently the “marked for elimination” penalty, and earlier the stripped-of-cash-and-clothes penalty–will also disappear. And now Phil can always say “the last team to arrive will be eliminated.”

Littman also said that the new cast “is a tough group.” However, “They’ll be younger. We still have a good balance.”