LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:

Title: “And the Last Shall Be First”
Prompt: This week’s contest answer is a six-word phrase that I hope will describe those solvers who’ve figured out the meta.
Answer: ALL ABUZZ ABOUT THIS WEEK’S PUZZ, found by 331 solvers, of which 260 were solo solves

Probably the least guessable meta answer in history. Go buy some lottery tickets if you did guess it…

Rough fill, certainly at the very outer bounds of what I’d consider acceptable. TOSAG, GAZ, ZEB, QUOS, CTO, OTH, IDE, EAS, ADEE and a few others must mean that there are severe constraints being placed upon this grid.

Successful meta-puzzlers noticed a pattern right off the bat: the first four across entries begin with the first four letters of the alphabet: AT SEA, BALL, CUDGEL, and DOES A (even more ratty fill, that last one).

Then the pattern breaks down — though curiously, the next two Acrosses both start with A, and then the pattern appears to pick up again with ESTAB and FITNESS GURU…hmm…

Indeed, having to skip a word here and there, each of the 26 letters of the alphabet begins an Across entry, and in order (skipping over those that don’t fit until you hit the one that does). For 26 letters to do that with just 50 Across entries, this has to be meta related. They are:

AT SEA
BALL
CUDGEL
DOES A
ESTAB
FITNESS GURU
GAZ
HAZ
IVANA
JAMB
KOKOMO
LIEU
MORT
NEST
OTH
PERI
QUOS
RETOW
SIDE ONE
TOE
UMIAK
VHS
WAP
XINGU
YUTZ
ZAENTZ

Now what, with a nudge from the title, let’s prioritize checking out the last letters of these, instead of the first letters as we usually do in metas:

AT SEA
BALL
CUDGEL
DOES A
ESTAB
FITNESS GURU
GAZ
HAZ
IVANA
JAMB
KOKOMO
LIEU
MORT
NEST
OTH
PERI
QUOS
RETOW
SIDE ONE
TOE
UMIAK
VHS
WAP
XINGU
YUTZ
ZAENTZ

Those 26 spell out our contest answer, ALL ABUZZ ABOUT THIS WEEK’S PUZZ, which they mostly were. Didn’t do that great at Fiend but Amy mentioned there were some 1-star vandals on all the puzzles this week so we’ll never know. Comments to me were highly positive so I’ll go ahead and count this one as “mostly a win”!

SarAndDrew say:

We tried playing “AAEBAADEGDAEED” on piano because that was the first letters of the non-alphabetical words! Took a while longer to figure out what was actually going on. Fun one!

Evan writes:

I decided to submit on September 25 because I believe this is my 400th correct MGWCC in a row on my 40th birthday.

Nice streak!

Magoo votes “worth it” on the price of admission:

So the first bit of gridfill looked pretty shaky, then the next bit, and so on … I was thinking “There had better be some astonishing payoff” – and there was! Wow!

And finally, nofeetmcgee writes:

A beautiful construction, despite esoterically filled grid (however, it’s justified!). Know-nothings like me need our puzzles quite reachable, so teach us vocabulary with x-words! Yours zealously…

THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:

This week’s contest answer is a noted American institution.

NOTE: Due to the late post, the entry deadline for this puzzle is Wednesday, September 4th, at noon ET.

Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.