Connections July 18, 2026: Hints & Answers (#1216)
Recap
This Connections puzzle required strategic thinking to group terms into categories like basketball violations and video game metrics.
The sixteen tiles
The sixteen tiles as dealt. Reveal a group below to tint and caption its tiles here.
Connections hints, one rung at a time
Six rungs, softest first. The recap above already named the groups, so this ladder is here for anyone replaying the board fresh rather than as a spoiler shield.
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Hint 1: Four one-line nudges, one per group
The softest hint there is.
- Yellow
- Foul Play
- Green
- State of
- Blue
- Game metrics
- Purple
- Famous phrases
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Hint 2: What linked each group, described
Still no titles and no tiles named.
Yellow group
Actions that break basketball rules suddenly stopped
Green group
Mental positions or perspectives people hold strongly
Blue group
Aspects of video games that players monitor closely
Purple group
Phrases that follow a popular cultural expression
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Hint 3: Board facts
Counted off the sixteen printed tiles.
Sixteen tiles, four groups of four, ordered yellow → green → blue → purple from most to least obvious. 1 of the sixteen tile was more than one word.
- Tiles
- 16 across 4 groups
- Longest tile
- 14 characters
- Shortest tile
- 3 characters
- Multi-word tiles
- 1
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Hint 4: The trap on this board
Which tiles pulled in two directions.
Some cards could fit into multiple categories, consider 'VIEW' and 'SCORE' carefully before placing.
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Hint 5: The four category titles
Half the answer.
- Yellow
- COMMIT A BASKETBALL VIOLATION
- Green
- BELIEF
- Blue
- THINGS TRACKED IN VIDEO GAMES
- Purple
- WORDS AFTER "POP"
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Hint 6: One tile from each group
The anchor most people misplaced, matched to its title.
- Yellow — COMMIT A BASKETBALL VIOLATION
- GOALTEND
- Green — BELIEF
- OPINION
- Blue — THINGS TRACKED IN VIDEO GAMES
- HEALTH
- Purple — WORDS AFTER "POP"
- CULTURE
Every Connections group from that board
All four groups, folded. Opening one tints its four tiles above and captions them with the category name.
Yellow group · 4 tiles
COMMIT A BASKETBALL VIOLATION
CARRY, DOUBLE DRIBBLE, GOALTEND, TRAVEL. The yellow group is 'COMMIT A BASKETBALL VIOLATION' with cards CARRY, DOUBLE DRIBBLE, GOALTEND, TRAVEL.
Green group · 4 tiles
BELIEF
ATTITUDE, MIND, OPINION, VIEW. The green group is 'BELIEF' with cards ATTITUDE, MIND, OPINION, VIEW.
Blue group · 4 tiles
THINGS TRACKED IN VIDEO GAMES
HEALTH, LIVES, SCORE, TIME. The blue group is 'THINGS TRACKED IN VIDEO GAMES' with cards HEALTH, LIVES, SCORE, TIME.
Purple group · 4 tiles
WORDS AFTER "POP"
CULTURE, FLY, QUIZ, TART. The purple group is 'WORDS AFTER "POP"' with cards CULTURE, FLY, QUIZ, TART.
This board by the numbers
- Puzzle
- (#1216) · Saturday, July 18, 2026
- Tiles
- 16 in a 4 × 4 grid
- Groups
- 4, yellow to purple
- Multi-word tiles
- 1
- Longest tile
- DOUBLE DRIBBLE
- Mistakes allowed
- 4 before the board locked
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