Christmas 2009 Puzzle Contest - Part 1, Part 2 and final Part 3 (extended deadline)

Hope we get to know who the winners are today....

Could you at least give us the correct answers? Or may we assume that the contest rule about discussing solutions is obsolete? I am just being very curious about how close I got to the correct answers.

Well here are the answers I submitted:

P1: 90
P2: Coal, Surf, Rock, Twig, Iron, Santa Claus
P3: what is missing is 3 more Water cards as there are only 6 while there are 9 Fire, Earth, Water, Biolith and Spell cards. This also fits with the "Excluding neutrals" clue on page 5.

At least I agree about puzzle 2, but got slightly different answers to P1 and P3.

I guess we dare to reveal what we have submitted then!?

P1: 93
P2: Identical to Dragonsorcerer
P3: Rituals

This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 02/02/2010 12:50:05

P1: 94
P2: Identical to Dragonsorcerer
P3: I know I have this wrong now. Stupid me, I put no neutral card as I didn't read through the rules again after the update and forgot.

Edit
I wish I kept the finder word so I could try to find the 3 I missed.

Here are the answers while you wait until Mark has the free time to present the solutions

P1 – there are 97 card names in the WordSearch
P2 – the Sudoku words are COAL, SURF, ROCK, TWIG, IRON and SANTA CLAUS
P3 – the tile puzzle has no Set 2 Water creatures, as the string has 3 of all the other set element creatures and spells (ignoring neutral cards)

It would be interesting if those that participated could post their entries in this thread now that the deadline has passed and we await prize award announcement

YES!!!! All correct!!! DJ Rocks!!

hmmm, interesting. There is a possibility that there are neither any Set 2 water creatures, nor any rituals (or did any of you find any ritual spells in your solutions?). What then?

97 words is impressive. Is that what you have found, or was it a guess based on the expected number of remaining cards?

I wrote out by hand all 8 directions of the grid and as I wrote them the names kind of popped out of the paper!! Took ages and had to go through all 8 pages again several times before I felt confident I hadn't missed any. Fist of Verzar (105) was the last one I found going backwards up the 1st column overlapping Verzar Canine (37) (also going backwards up the 1st column) and Flailmonger (176) going down....

sjabth wrote:hmmm, interesting. There is a possibility that there are neither any Set 2 water creatures, nor any rituals (or did any of you find any ritual spells in your solutions?). What then?

Venoan Hard Bargain (291) is in the string

Without looking at the string in finite detail, there is the possibility that there isn't this type of spell, that race not included or the other affiliation not shown, the answer to submit is the obvious one and this was indicated early on. The fact that there are 3 of all the others except the set 2 water creatures, or that there are only 6 water creatures and 9 of the others which is still a valid submission, screams out as the answer

DaviDuke wrote:

sjabth wrote:hmmm, interesting. There is a possibility that there are neither any Set 2 water creatures, nor any rituals (or did any of you find any ritual spells in your solutions?). What then?

Venoan Hard Bargain (291) is in the string

Without looking at the string in finite detail, there is the possibility that there isn't this type of spell, that race not included or the other affiliation not shown, the answer to submit is the obvious one and this was indicated early on. The fact that there are 3 of all the others except the set 2 water creatures, or that there are only 6 water creatures and 9 of the others which is still a valid submission, screams out as the answer

hmmm, yes, I was wrong on this one (I simply missed that it is a ritual )-: However, I had a very interesting excel solution (but I guess most of us had).

Well, anyway, I was way behind on puzzle 1 anyway with just 93 cards, so never mind.

I had the correct answer for 2 and 3 (set 2 water creatures, listing the card names by card number made that easy to spot). I missed several words in the first puzzle though.

I believe I submitted 92 words, I just couldn't find any more after that, searched for hours without finding anything, but I expected there had to be more. I would assume that anyone guessing more than the actual number would be counted down more than those who guessed less. I could have guessed 99 for example and it shows that I didn't actually find that many names, since there weren't that many in the puzzle. And I think those that took the time to painstakingly find 90+ card names deserve more credit than those who just assumed there would be more than they found and added a few to there guess, or just guessing completely.

I got all the same answers to the soduku puzzles and also made the guess that the tile puzzle was missing set 2 water cards. After complaining about no connection between the names seeing that all elements and major card types ie rituals, betrayers, heros etc. were represented I did notice after putting them in order that there seemed to be a sample of each element from each set except for set 2 water cards. I'm disappointed that I missed some card name in the first puzzle, but at least I was expecting it and didn't flub on the other two.

1. 96
2. Identical to Dragonsorcerer
3. i found there were missing 3 water of set 2

I had

P1 – 96 card names in the WordSearch
P2 – the Sudoku words are COAL, SURF, ROCK, TWIG, IRON and SANTA CLAUS
P3 – Missing was nr 130-139, so my guess was cards in the 130's and in the 310's as Dioskuri (311) was missing is well. Every ten was mentioned except 130's and 310's

I think only there are more things that were missing in puzzle 3 besides only water from set 2