XWord Muggles Forum

Solved at 12:23, with some affirmations and a little nudge from super-kind solvers. 1/2 credit. Looking forward to the live panel this afternoon!!! And the new puzzle for this week.

anyone willing to give a nudge? i'm on the right track but just want some confirmation

Having a brain freeze on this one. Can't see one step much less a staircase. sigh

Solution:


WSJ+ Live: Across and Down with WSJ Crosswords - The Crossword Contest

802puzzler wrote: ↑Thu Sep 17, 2020 9:01 am I believe I solved after a few rabbit holes! I sent in an answer, then woke up with a new tactic and voila! What happens if you send in a wrong answer and later, a correct answer?

That’s a great question for the q&a this afternoon! You should post it.

Never did find this thread (until now that is), and only this morning was able to get the puzzle to download properly. Grid / meta solved in about 30 minutes, but ~5 hours too late to submit.

Love me some Mike Shenk puzzles! Grid + meta very enjoyable. Looking forward to listening in this week.

Congrats Meg!

Meg wrote: ↑Fri Sep 11, 2020 10:37 am Not easy at all! But the mechanism is elegant!

Congrats on winning the Mug - Meg!!!

Yay, Meg!!

Sorry, Wendy (Three M********s candy )

I can’t believe it!! Thanks fellow muggles!

Congratulations Meg!!!

Congrats Meg!

At work, they scheduled an interview for me at the same time as the WSJ+ event, so unfortunately I couldn't watch it. I thought that there was a good chance that a muggle would win. Did they announce how many correct answers were submitted?

Meg wrote: ↑Thu Sep 17, 2020 3:24 pm I can’t believe it!! Thanks fellow muggles!

So happy for you, Meg! It couldn't have happened to a nicer MUGgle!

802puzzler wrote: ↑Thu Sep 17, 2020 9:01 am I believe I solved after a few rabbit holes! I sent in an answer, then woke up with a new tactic and voila! What happens if you send in a wrong answer and later, a correct answer?

"UP TO THE CHALLENGE" That was amazing! I wasn't even close.

I found an answer using a different method that really seemed to make sense! Coincidence??? I used the first letters of answers whose clues began with T,H,E,M,E and came up with "DO B ABSTEMIOUS" which I thought was a funny nudge about how often we talk about drinking in the Muggles Forum. LOL!!!

Best takeaway:

This one eluded me, too.

I was able to spot the four "meta" combinations, but wasn't going to submit the only combination not in the puzzle (I'll let you determine what that is) since there was none of that going on "while solving [actually, not solving] this meta."

Also realized that the four cells above the "meta" combinations could all be reordered into words. Don't even want to tell you how many times I voiced out "poutetchhallgene" trying to get it to mean something.

The webinar was totally entertaining -- hope there'll be more to come.

Great puzzle, TFTXWD

Congratulations Meg!

Arrgh! I was way off base. I took the first letters of the clues for the four theme answers and they spelled RAPT. Probably should have put me on notice that I had to anagram to get them. I noticed someone else watching wrote in about getting that answer when they announced the solution.

Anyway, the more important thing:
Yay, Meg!!