Puzzle Notes

Hi friends: 

Hope you enjoyed last week's themeless! Again, most of the feedback was positive, though a small number of you also offered less enthusiastic words about going a week without a theme. We'll see about running more as bonus puzzles in the coming months, but for the foreseeable future it's back to themed action.

Speaking of, Brendan Emmett Quigley's up this week with a puzzle at 3.5/5 difficulty called "Metal Chains." Some themes are inherently more fun to scheme than others, and this one was a blast. Hope you like it, too.

As mentioned last Wednesday, prepare for an exciting announcement next week! There's a new face in town, and we think you'll be happy about the arrival ...

Yrs,

Ben and the AVCX crew [avxwords.com, @AVCXWord]