Monday, September 9, 2013

StarCityGames.com Crossword Puzzle 8

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Welcome to the eighth installment of the StarCityGames.com crossword puzzle, published here for their Select Newsletter. As before, every word in the puzzle has something to do with Magic: The Gathering, including cards, concepts, lore, slang, and people.


If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, don't hesitate to leave a comment below, email me at infinitegyreblog@gmail.com, or send a tweet to @InfiniteGyre.

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3 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. In a perfect world, yeah, but sometimes one or two weak words in an otherwise solid fill are inevitable. I agree 45-Down is this puzzle's weakest answer, though I did clue it carefully so that it's not actually wrong.

      I didn't say anything about the development code in the clue, which, as you say, is FUT, both according to Wikipedia and according to the three letter codes the Gatherer image handler uses for set symbols (e.g. http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?type=symbol&set=FUT&size=large&rarity=C), though I'm not aware of an official source for these codes.

      I think FST is an ok if nonstandard abbreviation for Future Sight. The MTG Wikia lists it (perhaps erroneously) as the actual development code (http://mtg.wikia.com/wiki/Set), and I've seen it on eBay listings and YouTube videos and the like, as well. In hindsight, it would have been better to clue it as "Var." for variant, rather than just "Abbr."

      Anyway, if that one caused some confusion, sorry about that. 45-Down is definitely kind of meh. It sucks that you are essentially penalized for knowing FUT off the top of your head, and that the answer may just be perpetuating an error. I think that overall the puzzles are of a pretty high quality, but my resources are finite, and every once in a while I have to use an answer I'm not entirely satisfied with.

      Thanks for the feedback and I hope you still enjoyed the puzzle!

      Delete
    2. I've gone ahead and changed 45-Down's clue to "Fomori Nomad's Set: Var." It's still not great, but at least it's no longer misleading. Thanks again for the feedback!

      Delete