SPOILER ALERT: This Puzzle Will Help You Solve Our Next One!

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Today's sudoku is part of a pair we were sent by the constructors Emphyrio and Zombie Hunter; Simon attempts Am5rican F5ver in this video while Mark will attempt The French Connect7on later tonight. SPOILER ALERT: Apparently the puzzles have similar break-ins so be warned!!

Have a go at the puzzle at the link below:

Rules:
Normal sudoku rules apply. Along thermometers, digits must increase from the bulb end. Adjacent digits on the green line have a difference of 5 or more.

The puzzle Mark will attempt later tonight is this one:

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Hi! We're Simon Anthony and Mark Goodliffe, two of the UK's most enthusiastic puzzle solvers. We have both represented the UK at the World Sudoku Championships and the World Puzzle Championships.

Thank you for watching!
Simon and Mark

[emphyriohazzl]

Thanks a lot for featuring this puzzle and for the nice comment! :) Simon solved it nearly perfectly and spotted almost all that I was hoping for solvers to spot :).

For the back story about the 2 puzzles, ZombieHunter and I were talking about expanded Phistomephel and sets in general and I sent him a screenshot of a derived set, mentionning "that looks like a fun one to set a puzzle around". I came back one hour later and he had already posted the first draft of his French Connect7ion based on that set, and solving it was really fun and impressive. ZH came with the idea to have both of us set a puzzle on this same set, and named his French Connec7ion (I am french and he's american). I wasn't sure if I would come up with anything as interesting, but I decided to try with a slightly different set (basically just switched box 456 and box 789), tried various things with GWs and thermos, checking what would break and why, and eventually came up with this puzzle one or 2 days later, which I obviously named Am5rican F5v5r (both movie titles, 5 being key in mine, 7 in his).
I am also very glad to have read comments of people who solved set based puzzle for the first time thanks to this puzzle :). I wanted it to be relatively easy, even though it alas also mean that the solve path isn't very tight (lots of nice logic pieces can be bypassed. But Simon spotted most of the intended ones :) ).

[abhisheknanda]

To everybody (including myself) that's often bothered by how Simon doesn't spot the obvious sometimes, it's important to note that Simon's style is to first completely break the back of the puzzle before getting to the trivial parts. And he has excellent intuition to be able to spot the constraints that hold the puzzle together, as does Mark.

[sandramangano]

"Did we do all the 1's? Yes we did"
*1 in box 1 silently crying because Simon did not put it into its corner*

[kazkim]

After seeing Mark's start because I couldn't have seen the break-in in a million years, what helped me was removing the colors from the thermos and the green line as the numbers matched up, so it was easier to see what numbers were needed or not.

The logic and creativity needed to construct this is mind-boggling.

[Rangsk]

I really love how these setters are figuring out creative ways to broadcast their intended use of SET and give immediate rewards for finding it. A great puzzle by Emphyrio and a wonderful solve by Simon as usual!

I've also solved Zombie's "French Connection" puzzle, and (spoilers) you definitely found the correct SET for that as well :) I'm looking forward to Mark's solve of it!

[cane_puzzles]

Notice that Row 1 has the digits arranged in an interesting order

[marklindsey]

Brilliant setting Emphyrio. And Simon--masterful as always!! That was a pleasure to watch.

[yoork]

Where can 1 go in box 8 --> that makes the whispers line clear. cause corner sees all other 3 digits. Was such a fun to solve this. thanks Simon

[juliusseizer]

Sitting here just astonished that I'm not only able to understand things like set theory, but now I'm able to spot it and solve a puzzle I couldn't have hoped to take on before finding your channel. Thank you, for the umpteenth time guys 👍🏻

[Matilda_the_Hun]

Came back to watch both after solving them. I did Mark's puzzle with the exact same SET, (which I'm honestly kind of proud of!), but I tackled this one *completely* differently. I always look for 5s when there's a hi-lo line, and if you make R4C2 a 5, you quickly run into a contradiction in column 8, where 5 can only go in that column in both boxes 6 and 9. So that gave me R4C2 is a 4, and I solved the puzzle in basically the opposite path as Simon.

[bebopjelli]

After watching this channel for months now, I've had my first yelling at the screen moment. 26:08 when is blurts out there is a 7/8 pair I'm sat there going, "get the six". Followed shortly by him asking if he knows how many 6's.

I love these videos. You get to play along.

[KeksiOliOtettu]

If Mark solves his first, it's a reminder to us that even gods bleed.

[curtissumner]

58:22. That green line rule with the 5 min difference is quickly becoming one of my favorites, what a fantastic puzzle!

[FelElement]

Surprised Simon didn't realize it's a "shifted" Phistomefel's Ring.
In this puzzle, if you shifted the grid up 3 rows it would look like a regular Phistomefel's Ring grid.
In Mark's puzzle the top and bottom group of rows are swapped instead.

[kilimanjarocruz]

25:03 for me. Probably the first time I saw a SET application immediately. Great puzzle!

[TheJonesy]

I Absolutely loved that the top row is 1-9 consecutively

[TheMCEnthusiastPlays]

at 10:41 I really appreciate the switch between purple/blue to orange/blue, it really made it much easier to see with my colorblindness!

[th.nd.r]

LOVED THIS. Very step-by-step like the previous one, and I loved the set stuff. Want more Emphyrio puzzles.

[benjaminrealy]

61:12. I definitely figured out HOW much faster than the video. And very proud of it. However made a dumb placement in box 6 that threw everything out of whack that took me a while to notice then even more time to correct. (Would have been better off just starting from blank)

[benstallworth]

The SET you used in this video is basically just a translated version of Phistomefel's ring, right? It made me realize that you can prove Phistomefel a lot easier than the "usual" proof (i.e. without having to worry about any double counting of corners) if you highlight the 5 middle columns as one set, and the first two and last two rows as the other set. Then you can simply remove the middle box from the 5 middle columns and everything in both sets, and you have Phistomefel's ring!