Edith Puzzles the World

Good morning sports fans. At 10AM (4AM Eastern), Edith, Nick, Elizabeth, and Darya make their second appearance as N E E D for Speed to face off with the rest of the world’s top puzzling teams in the Teams Final!

How’s it work?

For the Teams Final, each team will receive the two as yet unreleased 1000 piece puzzles and have one minute to examine them, remove.the plastic seals from the box, and decide what order in which to complete them. They then must complete one puzzle, put it away entirely, and then complete the second puzzle within a 3 hour time limit.

What’s at stake?

Well, they’re already in the final event. There is a cash prize for the top 3 teams and puzzle prizes for the top 10, and that would be incredible but given the competition a bit unlikely. Still, Edith’s team has the goal of “beating their table number” – performing better than they are seeded going into this round. This time that means being one of the top 30 teams.

How to watch

Here’s the Livestream on YouTube, which will also be watchable after the event is over. Edith’s team will be at table 31.

How did Edith do?

Here’s the results page, which will probably take a while to be fully updated and accurate. It may crash as too many people are trying to view it so please be patient. Also remember that rankings will take a while to be finalized as times continue to be entered, and not necessarily in the order they finished.

Who’s her competition?

This is the world final and we have some seriously strong teams to watch. Euro Jigsaw Jacks (EJJ) Squad, the supergroup led by Wiktor and Kathi, is a crowd favorite and definitely have a strong shot. Czech Puzzlequeens is a team that has been coming to, and winning, this competition for years now – they were barely unseated last year but should never be counted out. Aussie All Stars put on a great showing last year as well, and their first round this year was record-breaking. From the USA, Dome Sweet Dome and The Whimsy Pieces are both very strong teams that will be in contention for top 10 finishes. I’ll insert one dark horse pick as well: Peaky Puzzlers from Poland did not have a stellar first round (they came 17th in their heat), but they chose what were arguably the two harder puzzles on offer that round. This team contains Weronika and Anna, who (spoiler alert) won the pairs Final yesterday. They’ll be at a low table number due to their first round performance but I would expect them to be in contention for a top rank.