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

This message was edited 6 times. Last update was at 05/02/2010 15:42:05

It is time to sharpen your pencils again. We have set up a couple of Eye of Judgment related puzzles for our Christmas 2009 Puzzle Contest this year (thanks to DaviDuke for the help). With each of these puzzles, you can win prize vault credits that you can use to buy EOJ products from our Prize Vault. But if you solve all the puzzles that we will release over the next weeks, you will also be able to win our grand prize: a Mandragora Triplet (272) card (the only ultra-rare that you can have three of in a deck) in addition to some prize vault credits.

Each individual puzzle will give a certain amount of points. The three people with the highest points for a specific puzzle will win the following prizes (in case of multiple people who have the same amount of points, winners will be drawn):
* First prize winner: 5 prize vault credits
* Second prize winner: 3 prize vault credits
* Third prize winner: 1 prize vault credit

The overall prizes are based on the total amount of points gained with all the puzzles:
* First prize winner: One Mandragora Triplet (272) card and 5 prize vault credits
* Second prize winner: 4 prize vault credits
* Third prize winner: 3 prize vault credits
* Fourth prize winner: 2 prize vault credits
* Random draw amongst everyone who solved all the puzzles will gain and additional 3 winners who all get 1 prize vault credit.

General rules
* Deadline: send in the answer for each puzzle individually to contest@eojmanager.com no later than 31 January 2010 and put the name of the puzzle in the subject of the mail. Also make sure to include your screenname used in these forums in your message.
* Anyone who posts answers or even hints to answers (excluding the organizers) for these puzzles on these forums is immediately disqualified from this contest and will get 3 penality points which will also disqualify him/her for any further contests and tournaments for the next three months.

First puzzle: word searcher
The first puzzle is a word searcher. In the word searcher below, you can find a certain amount of EOJ card names. The are hidden both horizontally, vertically and diagonally, left-to-right, right-to-left, top-to-bottom, bottom-to-top and letters can be used in multiple card names. The exact amount of card names that can be found is the answer to this puzzle. Here is the word searcher:

Second puzzle: Sudoku's
The second puzzle are five Sudoku's, one for each element. Instead of using numbers, these Sudoku's use letters. When you have finished each Sudoku, the letters in the white boxes form one word for each element. The letters in the orange boxes from all the five Sudoku's togeter form an expression. These five words and the expression are the solutions you have to send in. You get points for getting each word and expression correct and the winners are drawn from those with the most points. For those who are unfamiliar with Sudoku's, you can find a step-by-step explanation at http://www.sudocue.net/guide.php

Here are the five Sudoku's:

Third puzzle: Title scrambler
Using the scrambled set of 2 letter tiles listed below, unscramble them by placing a tile into a blank cell on the puzzle grid shown. The tile is placed in a cell as it is shown in the list, so do not flip the two letters. The completed grid will be a list of card names ignoring spaces and grammar (reading from top left to bottom right). Discounting neutral cards which are not included in the puzzle, you must identify what is missing from the list of card titles used. Some spoiler tiles have been added as an aid and these indicate the end of one card name and the beginning of another. Note that there may be one or more card titles between spoiler tiles. The spoiler tiles are included in the full scrambled set, so these should be eliminated from the list from the start.

Update: Since this puzzle turned out to be too difficult, we have updated the blank grid and added more spoiler tiles. Except for the blank cells before the first spoiler which is only one card name, there are two card names to find between the spoiler tiles shown. When there is only one spoiler tile showing, this indicates the last letter of one card name and the first letter of the next card name. When there are two spoiler tiles side by side, this indicates the last two letters of one card name and the first two letters of the next card name. The completed puzzle has not changed, so you should be able to identify some of the missing cells from the previous submission of the puzzle clues. We also extended the deadline to give you more time to finish this puzzle.

You may have to refresh your browser to see the updated grid!!!

Here is the puzzle grid:

Here is the set of tiles:

The answer to this third and final contest is that what is missing from the list of card titles.

Good luck and enjoyment with these puzzles!

So all we send you is the answer for this puzzle, not the actual word search???

Wow, lol, that thing is huge!
How many puzzles are there going to be?

DJABACUS wrote:So all we send you is the answer for this puzzle, not the actual word search???

Correct. Simply identify the number of card names you can find

I 've just sent my answer.

Awesome, my stepson, tonypdh has had to do a bunch of these word finds over the past couple of years of school, (he is now in 7th grade) and it looks like it will finally pay off with him helping me. That being said this is probably one of our best shots at getting some more ur cards as I think it has been proven that we don't stand much chance in the regular old tournaments against all you vets with full collections, with the exception perhaps of the newbie tournament. Anyhow he suggested that we submit answers separately as to increase our chances of winning something. I feel like it is alright for us to team up on these to come up with the answer, but would feel like a cheater for us both to be submitting the answer. Can I get some verification of this please, because I know he has a natural affinity for cheating, but I do not and I would not like to start here.

Thank God that you did not make it into a beauty contest.

Awesome puzzle, Mark. Although I suspect that there are hidden messages such as: "copmustdie" and "ldisoverrated" in there

. At least I had not missed the chance to express things like that

.

It would be great if you could tell us how you will calculate the points given the guesses you will get here. Will you e.g. punish "overbids" more than "underbids"? Or is it the absolute distance to the correct answer that will be used to determine the scores?

Can I just ask if there are solutions running diagonally backwards???

sjabth wrote:It would be great if you could tell us how you will calculate the points given the guesses you will get here. Will you e.g. punish "overbids" more than "underbids"? Or is it the absolute distance to the correct answer that will be used to determine the scores?

wtf sjabth...you need to get out more mate !!!

DJABACUS wrote:

sjabth wrote:It would be great if you could tell us how you will calculate the points given the guesses you will get here. Will you e.g. punish "overbids" more than "underbids"? Or is it the absolute distance to the correct answer that will be used to determine the scores?

wtf sjabth...you need to get out more mate !!!

lol. I know.

I see it in this way... If I cannot find anymore, it is for sure not a proof of that there are no more, so it is likely that I have missed a few. The longer I look for another one without finding any, the closer (statistically speaking) the true number gets to my guess, but a good guess at the moment for me is probably to add a few. However, if overbids are more heavily punished than underbids, I might as well stay at my current guess which is... ehh... I can tell you, but I will have to kill you afterwards.

DJABACUS wrote:Can I just ask if there are solutions running diagonally backwards???

It says all directions (8 if I am not wrong), so even diagonally backwards would be possible, I guess...

sjabth wrote:
I see it in this way... If I cannot find anymore, it is for sure not a proof of that there are no more, so it is likely that I have missed a few. The longer I look for another one without finding any, the closer (statistically speaking) the true number gets to my guess, but a good guess at the moment for me is probably to add a few. However, if overbids are more heavily punished than underbids, I might as well stay at my current guess which is... ehh... I can tell you, but I will have to kill you afterwards.

yea probably you won't find all the names, but i've sent the exact number of cardnames I found.(I hope I win something

)

Just a warning: only mail your answer via the email given in the first post. Do NOT send a PM as I am likely to forget to look there when making the draw for winners. So if you already PM-ed me, do resend it via email!!!!!

I thought that was why you asked that question sjabth!!!...fairly good strategy to assume you miss say 2 or 3...but I am confident that i can hunt ALL the names down and if it means going in all 8 directions then so be it!!!