Okay, so on first look it read like a pretty tough board for both Red and Blue. I was happy to have an animal blocker at first, but quickly realized "Mammal" would take care of that. Sick rand, imo.

Gold - 2: My first read was Copper, then I saw Pan & Mine. I was pretty happy that Copper was picked out of the gate, because I was struggling for a place to group it.

Sun - 2: Ray & Spot, obv. I knew there was a chance of Shadow, but it was neutral and I certainly didn't think it'd be picked first.

Tool - 2: I thought File & Knife were pretty obv, but figured we had an outside shot for Needle to get picked too as a sewing tool. When I conversation started up about needing four picks but only having three this turn, it made me reevaluate my next clue since we had to pick up Spot.

Eye: The good part about this clue is that it easily covered Needle and Mouth (body part), had good equity as an overlap between Sun and Eye for Spot just in case. Also, it introduce (to me, at least) Octopus. I thought cluing an animal here was obvious and I thought the only one of the set known for its eyes would be an octopus. I was stretching, I guess, but I always think of octopus and squid as having tentacles and a giant eye (or eyes). Didn't happen, but we got Washer for neutral, so I wasn't too worried.

Madison: I had to laugh at this one. Xander going for Square & Park were obvious to me, but Madison Park is nothing of note afaik. Madison Square Garden is, but oh well, they got them and also picked up Knife. That put the pressure on because Mammal was going to win it for them next round.

Limbs: I thought of this last second before posting. Was going to post "Hike" in order to get Forest (now that Park was gone) & March and then hope that Eye would lead you guys to Octopus. Instead, I decided to do another overlap - this time between Eye and Limbs. My thought was that, in connecting Eye with Limbs, you'd deduce there would be better clues to get there if it was some other animal. Whale was obviously out, but I was hoping "Limbs" instead of "Arms" or "Legs" would lead you away from Kangaroo and Unicorn. The ambiguity that you guys identified with tentacles was exactly what I was after. I was happy that Octopus was named pretty quickly, but then you guys just as quickly talked yourselves out of it and went with an animal that hadn't even been discussed. Oh well. For March, once Octopus was decided, I thought it'd be relatively simple to get away from the other animals and connect Limbs to an action (Marching). Probably a stretch, but we had to go for the win.

Would love to hear thoughts on how I could've done better here. My second time as Spymaster, so I have a lot to learn.

gg, guys. We'll get 'em next time.

Yeah, this was irritating.

Welp. Don't think we're ever guessing march and gifting unicorn didn't hurt because mammal - 3 surely gets them there at the end. Gg reds.

JM3 GOAT

Also, nice job to everyone banging out 3.5 rounds in a day. Impressive pacing.

Should get a bonus point for that.

it's easy to get lots of rounds in when consecutive first guesses are wrong

Let’s play another while we wait, imo.

I'm in if there's time lol

Gg

IBD I think you played fine. Octopus is a brutal draw given our board.

Inorite. Venom 5 definitely the way to go.

No u.