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Spoilage

From Countdown

Spoilage, an anagram of Aegilops, is a variant available on Apterous, and is mostly a variant intended for fun. As the name suggests, it is perhaps considered the direct opposite to Aegilops. Despite this, in over 10 years it has never been the Daily Duel format, which is an odd fact considering that Blind and Goatblind have. In 2010, a tournament was made in the format, which celebrated its second edition in 2020.

The numbers format was later used for the Numberists specials on ZoomDown, though with notable disdain by host Paul Anderson every time it is used.

Letters Rounds

Letters rounds involve making the longest word which includes those letters in that order. Whilst the theoretical maximum is unbounded, the maximum is limited by the length of the longest word in the dictionary: at present, this is PNEUMONOULTRAMICROSCOPICSILICOVOLCANOCONIOSIS. As a result, there are no bonuses for words over a certain length. In rounds where there is no valid word that uses all the letters, the aim is instead to use as many of the letters as possible. So, in a four-letter round, if there are no valid words that use all four, you need to try and find the longest one that uses the first three (and so on, if it's still impossible).

Example

Rnd Selection Player One Score Player Two Others Max.
1 AN ANTIDISESTABLISHMENTARIANISM 0 – 45 PNEUMONOULTRAMICROSCOPICSILICOVOLCANOCONIOSIS 45
2 CCI FLOCCINAUCINIHILIPILIFICATION 29 – 45 PNEUMONOULTRAMICROSCOPICSILICOVOLCANOCONIOSIS 90


Numbers Rounds

Just super hard. The large numbers are between 101 and 999, and the small numbers are between 1 and 10 without duplicates, with a four-figure target. Like Hyper, but on steroids. With 7 numbers available, one may only select between 4 and 6 large numbers. Scoring is done by Stepdown — 10 points are awarded if you find the best solution, 9 points for being 1 away, and so on. This means that for possible numbers rounds, 10 away will score 0 points.

Example

Rnd Selection Player One Score Player Two Others Max.
3 752 583 852 688 3 9 8 → 6115 6115
(752 + 3) × 9 − 688 + 8
39 – 45


100
4 148 157 161 987 518 616 1 → 9218 39 – 45 9217 ☓

Best: 9217 = (987 − 148 − 161 − 616) × 157 − 518 + 1

110


Conundrums

The conundrum will have a 12-letter answer, but only a few letters are displayed. As per Aegilops, these are in order, and contestants should fill in the gaps.

Example

Rnd Selection Player One Score Player Two Others Max.
5 SAGZ 39 – 55 STRATEGIZING
(29 seconds)
120
6 IRSTIY irresistibility ☓
(1 second)
39 – 55 IRRESISTIBLY 130