The only thing that gives me some pause is that this would be an odd clue for Marathon/Himalayas. Not to over-Nichp this, but Eurasia is an objectively much better clue for the two locations in that part of the world.

Only other thing I can think of is Groom (like waiting for the wedding to happen). I can't give a rationale for anything else on that list.

Also don't we need another Wagner word?

Obviously Tank/Boom/Current are 3 of the 5. I can envision Contract, but not Mona Lisa or Marathon.

Did Richard Wagner do Here Comes The Bride? I had just looked this up a few days ago because of the 20 Questions game but already forgot LOL.

Maybe he avoids Eurasia because people frequently forget marathon is a place? What about skate?

Wagner made the ring cycle, is that a valid clue for groom?

Skate because doing it a lot takes endurance my

IBD wouldn't avoid that with me on his team. If he didn't say it, it's because he forgot it was a place.

I think The Ring Cycle and Here Come The Bride are different. I'm thinking of the latter, which would be a valid clue for groom (if Wagner did indeed write it)

I'm more than a little afraid that skates is theirs because of the Stanley Cup.

Wagner -> Mona Lisa could be a connection because it's both art? It's weak, but I don't see another Wagner word on there that also crosses another clue. Mine would have been my next guess for Wagner, but he explicit clued us away from it.

Is there a better clue for groom & marathon, like there is for marathon/himalays?

endurance -> groom could be a hint at the wedding night, as well. You don't want to have a quick trigger.

I really can't think of one.

I don't think it's this, but LOL.

Marathon

If we're going to LOL IBD, best to know now.

Marathon

I think I'm Groom > Skates > Himalayas > Anything else.

Wouldn't something simple like "sports" be better for Marathon/Skates? Endurance just doesn't hit this combo the same way for me.

Shocked marathon is blue

I don't love any of our options here, I can live with Groom -> Himalayas. You're right that endurance would be a bad clue for Marathon & skate

GL to us.

Groom

No, Groom’s the baddie, I’m afraid.

I have a leak as a spymaster where, if I use a name as a clue and there’s a name on the board, almost invariably is it ours and I’ve added it to the number of words I’m clueing for. So yeah, the 5th Wagner word was Mona Lisa.

I of course knew Richard Wagner had written the Bridal Chorus, but didn’t even think of it until it was mentioned in the 20Q thread, which made Wagner instantly a terribad clue. Before clueing I’d wondered if I should go with Prigozhin to avoid the potential of Richard Wagner being considered, but I stupidly didn’t catch the association with Groom until it was too late. You had considered him, but neither of you had mentioned the Bridal Chorus, so I was hopeful it would stay off the radar. I had half a mind to preemptively zero clue it somehow, but I figured that’d be very confusing and I wasn’t sure we’d have enough turns to afford a zero clue.

I just flat didn’t think of Eurasia when thinking of potential geographical clues, and that’s incredibly frustrating. Sorry, team. This one is squarely on me.

Mountie
Chair
String
Princess
Hotel
Embassy
Genius
Brazil
Skates
Knot
Mona Lisa
Boom
Tank
Contract
Marathon
Himalayas
Current
Onion
State
Ranch
Smoothie
Amazon
Peanut
Mine
Groom

Good clues, on a tough board. We were right there, and talked ourselves out of the right answer in the end.

Ugh. GG all. Nice try IBD.

I blame Zeus for whatever the hell that 20Q game is.

Cup was hinting World Cup (or more generally that "cups" can be won in the name of countries) for Brazil and Stanley Cup for skates. I thought the capitalization would get us there.

Didn't know how to get you off Amazon, but I saw their two remaining words and took a chance just letting you guess it.

Yo-Yo was purely a yoyo ma clue, perhaps I should have done Ma instead? Again I thought capitalizing would work, but this was a weird spot. String overlaps yoyo the toy and Yo-Yo the person. String, Genius, Chair (Cello is played sitting down, cellists are assigned a designated chair in an orchestra)

Capitalizing means at least one word is using the capitalization but not necessarily all

But since you capitalized all clues I wasn’t sure you weren’t just always using caps; glad filthy caught that


I think Cups - 2 is better and gets us off smoothie, but that doesn’t mean we woulda thought of Stanley Cup

Oh Amazon isn’t ours so we needed a 3 clue here that somehow linked Brazil, Skate, Hotel


If you had done one more number for Royal clue then it’s easier since we had Hotel for Royal but you may not have seen that

Olympics - 3 would have been a perfect clue for those three has Marathon not still been on the board. Good strat saving the for the end

Looks like eb & nich up next?