LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:

Title: MGWCC #887 — “Connect Four”
Prompt: This puzzle’s contest answer is a familiar four-letter proper name that begins with a consonant.
Answer: CAIN, found by 173 solvers, of which 68 were solo solves

This meta got a just-about-right-for-Week-5 number of correct entries, but was still a bit of a mess. Let’s start with my intended path of breadcrumbs for solvers to follow:

Step 1: Notice that there are four theme entries, all on the Acrosses:

16-A: [Planned California city to be named for podcaster Marc?] = SANTA MARON
27-A: [Kids’ sports league founded by gridiron coach Ewbank?] = WEEB T-BALL
41-A: [Bird’s nest owned by a boot-making company?] = FRYE AERIE
55-A: [Boxer Mayweather who really needs to change up his moves?] = STALE FLOYD

Step 2: Notice that each of these consists of two words, and that if you replace one letter in each of those two words with another letter, you have two cluable crossword entries with four consecutive same letters:

SANTA MARON — replace the T and M (with A’s) to get SANAA / AARON (Sanaa being of course the capital of Yemen)
WEEB T-BALL — replace the second “e” in “Weeb” and the T (with B’s) to get WEBB / B-BALL
FRYE AERIE — replace the Y and A (with E’s) to get FREE / EERIE
STALE FLOYD — replace the E anf F (with L’s) to get STALL / LLOYD

Step 3: Find another clue that can satisfy those eight new words. They are:

SANAA = [Middle Eastern capital] at 11-D, which is DOHA
AARON = [Judge on a baseball field] at 46-D, which is UMP. That’s Aaron Judge, if you didn’t know.
WEBB = [Actor Jack] at 32-A, which is BLACK
B-BALL = [LBJ’s activity] at 4-A, which is HOOPS
FREE = [Loose, as a pet] at 15-D, which is OUT
EERIE = [Strangely unusual] at 60-A, which is ODD
STALL = [Lag] at 40_A, which is DELAY
LLOYD = [Actor Christopher] at 61-A, which is REEVE

In grid order those spell out…well, nothing. This was a super-weird step in retrospect; it was intended only to very that getting those four letters in a row in the theme entries was the right path.

Step 4: OK, so putting that weirdness aside: I wanted solvers to notice that ABEL is formed four times when you change the letters in Step 2 above:

SANAAAARON
WEBBBBALL
FREEEERIE
STALLLLOYD

Step 5: So we’re looking for four ABELs in the grid, and they are hidden in four clues, whose answers’ first letters spell out contest answer CAIN (hence the need for the “that begins with a consonant” specification in the prompt. As the graphic above shows, these hidden ABEL-clues’ answers spell out contest answer CAIN, found by 166 solvers.

So there’s a nice meta hidden somewhere in this idea, but I don’t think I quite found it. That you could short-circuit CAIN from just seeing the four ABELs in the clues was unfortunate (I didn’t think anyone would do that, but a few did).

THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:

Today’s puzzle is Week 1 of 4 in June. No instructions given here since there are no-instructions solving options available.

–Matt