Start with the spoiler-free hints. Go deeper only when you need to. Reveal answers on your own terms.
A direction for each group — no names given.
What kind of thinking each group asks for.
Pointed nudges on the words built to fool you.
Every Connections board plants a few decoys. Here are today’s, and why they pull you the wrong way.
Its 'energy' name seems to point toward exercise or fitness, but the word belongs to an advertising mascot set.
Often thought of as a community center or song title before people remember it also operates gyms and pools.
Could be read as a general object or verb, so it may seem unmoored until the wine context surfaces.
Has a modern tech and identity feel that can briefly hide its old-time legal poster usage.
These four are all places people go to use exercise equipment or take fitness classes, from a simple rec center to a full gym. The trick is that YMCA is easy to mentally file under community or song rather than as a workout destination.
These are all handy objects you'd keep near a wine bottle: a corkscrew for opening, an aerator and decanter for exposing wine to air, and a stopper for resealing. They're a tidy, tightly themed set once the wine context is clear.
Cadbury, Energizer, Playboy, and Trix are all brands that use a bunny rabbit mascot or icon—whether an eager chocolate bunny, a drumming battery bunny, a bow-tied rabbit logo, or a cereal rabbit. The category is playful pop-culture logo trivia.
These four words belong on an Old West wanted poster: the word WANTED, an OUTLAW, a REWARD, and an ALIAS for the suspect. The period-specific law-enforcement context is the hidden frame.
Wyna Liu keeps two categories concrete—exercise facilities and wine accessories—so solvers can gain momentum before hitting the more brand-driven and historical rows. The bunny-mascot group is a clever decoy set because many solvers know the brands but do not immediately recall their shared rabbit iconography, while WANTED and REWARD sit near each other to encourage the frontier-poster reading. The puzzle leans on pop-culture recognition rather than wordplay.
a textbook decoy
requires lateral thinking
Solving the easiest group first reshapes how you read the entire board.
The editors reuse certain misdirection patterns. Learning to spot them saves guesses.
Purple is never what it first appears to be. Six structural patterns explain most of them.
Film titles, band names, and celebrity surnames hide in plain sight.
