Codenames 39

[JR4]

Round 3 Answer Key:

AMAZON	SPIDER	WHIP	EGYPT	COPPER
SQUARE	CHINA	MASS	FIGURE	SPACE
SHARK	TOOTH	STAFF	BILL	SHOT
ICE CREAM	HOOD	FIELD	LAP	WASHER
CODE	MUG	SWING	ROW	GAS

[pindicator]

First off I hated my board but thought there was a chance we get there in 3 clues. I originally thought I might be able to get it in 3 with clues of Piranha (AMAZON, SHARK, TOOTH), Matrices (SQUARE, ROW, FIGURE), and Pope (HOOD, FIGURE, WASHER) though I was torn between pope and monk for the last one. I thought maybe if i led with the worst clue first that would give the team time to suss it out more. But then I didn't go back and look at the full board with Pope and that messed me up with Square.

Pope: 4. Intended words: MASS, FIGURE, HOOD, WASHER
I screwed this one up. Since this was my last grouping I was trying to find a way to clue Mass, Hood, & Washer and I started with Priest with washer being a tie in to baptism. However, I thought Pope might be a better word for Hood to clue in the pope hat and then that would also give me FIGURE since he was the figurehead of the catholic church. I thought I might lose a bit on the baptism connection though. I completely forgot about SQUARE. I did see STAFF was probably going to be picked but figured we could work through that.
Water: 3. Intended words: SHARK, WASHER, ROW
Originally I was going to clue Piranha for SHARK, TOOTH, and AMAZON but with red picking AMAZON for us I had no good 3-combo left and I didn't want to settle for a 2 since it looked like red might try to win next guess. I thought Mug and Spider were both possibilities but I just figured I needed to risk it. I really didn't see how else to combine a lot of my words and had no other 3 guesses.
If we had another round I would have tried Head: 3 to get at HOOD, TOOTH, FIGURE and hope that Row would be guessed as the +1. But I'm not sure that would have worked.

[JR4]

I guess we got a little bit lucky in the end. Getting MUG as a gift helped out.

Blue had a pretty challenging board. Yes, SHARK and TOOTH are easy to pair but it's hard to make safe 3 or 4 clues.

Asia 4 was meant to pick up CHINA, SPACE and FIELD and then either GAS or CODE. I was really surprised when you chose.. AMAZON over SPACE but we still had a good chance of recovering.

Without MUG as a gift, I'd probably risk something like MEDELLIN unlimited, hoping to pick up MUG, SHOT and SPIDER plus the remaining Asia words. As always, there was a constant risk of hitting WHIP, which would be game over.

It obviously helped that Azoth suggested both CODE and SPACE so that I could do an unlimited second clue.

Good game.

[Azoth]

Good job Azoth

MVP

Thanks! Clues can communicate a lot of information in Codenames. I think this game demonstrates the power of the process-of-elimination "Why didn't the spymaster give us this clue instead?" approach. (But, yes, we got lucky with MUG.)

First off I hated my board but thought there was a chance we get there in 3 clues.  I originally thought I might be able to get it in 3 with clues of Piranha (AMAZON, SHARK, TOOTH), Matrices (SQUARE, ROW, FIGURE), and Pope (HOOD, FIGURE, WASHER) though I was torn between pope and monk for the last one.  I thought maybe if i led with the worst clue first that would give the team time to suss it out more.  But then I didn't go back and look at the full board with Pope and that messed me up with Square.

You had a pretty good chance, I'd say! The hardest word there is WASHER, which doesn't connect to anything on its ordinary meaning (a washing machine, or replaceable part). The baptism link to the religious words was clever... but then the clue should have been Baptism!

Baptism (WASHER, MASS, HOOD)
Matrices (SQUARE, ROW, FIGURE)
Piranha (AMAZON, SHARK, TOOTH)

should reliably get the win in 3.