NYT “Strands” Tips, Spangram and Answers for Thursday, October 17th

Looking for clues, spangrams and answers for Wednesday' Strands? You can find them here:

ForbesNYT “Strands” Tips, Spangram and Answers for Wednesday, October 16thFrom Paul Tassi

I wasn't that familiar with “Strands” and had to rely on a lot of clues to get through. Let's see how you're doing.

How to play Strands

The New York Times Strands puzzle is a nod to the classic word search. It's currently in beta, meaning it won't last unless enough people play it every day.

Every day there is a new game of Strands to play. The game presents you with a letter grid of six by eight letters. The goal is to find a group of words that have something in common and give you a clue as to what the topic is. When you find a topic word, it remains highlighted in blue.

You also need to find a special word called Spangram. This will tell you what the words have in common. The spangram connects two opposite sides of the board. While the topic words are not a proper noun, the spangram can be a proper noun. When you find the Spangram, it will remain highlighted in yellow.

Be warned: you must be on your guard.

“Some topics are fill-in-the-blank texts. They can also be steps in a process, elements that all belong to the same category, synonyms, or homophones,” notes the New York Times. “Just as she varies the difficulty of the Wordle puzzles within a week, (Wordle and Strands editor Tracy), Bennett plans to throw curveballs to the Strands solvers from time to time.”

What is today's Strands clue?

We'll start with the NYT notice and then I'll do one myself. The NYT note reads:

Dream teams

And mine is:

Group chat

This could bring you here.

What are today's Strands answers?

Time to move on to the actual answers, starting with another long Spangram:

FANTASYLEAGUE

And it says here on the board:

The remaining answers are:

• SCHEDULE
• DRAFT
• STAND
• MATCHUPS
• WAIVER

I don't watch sports. I have never played in a fantasy league in any sport in my life. That's why I'm surprised I was even able to get through this. I thought these were just general sports words, although “dream teams” is actually a pretty clever reference given the subject matter. I get ROSTER and draft, but I have no idea what a waiver is in this context, so someone will have to fill me in on that. I'm sure many of you had it much better than I did.

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