Connections Turns 2: 10 Artful Red Herrings (and 3 That Weren’t)

Last year, for Connections’ first birthday, we went full research mode. We looked at all 365 puzzles from year one and pulled out the most common themes, dominant patterns, recurring words and groups, and standout puzzles, whether for their difficulty or creativity. Then, in January, we used data to pick the ten trickiest puzzles of 2024.

This time, we took a different approach: less about stats, more about logic and fun. We dove into the world of red herrings, those fake-out groups that seem like they have to be a category… until they’re not.

How We Picked Them

This research wasn’t just about crunching numbers. Picking red herrings meant going puzzle by puzzle, using a lot of lateral thinking, and asking: what misleads us, and why? We re-reviewed two years' worth of games and tried to spot the trickiest traps, the ones that really made us pause or go down the wrong path. Narrowing it down to just ten was incredibly tough. There were so many good ones!

The first big question we had to answer was: what actually counts as a red herring? Is it any misleading overlap, like when a category seems to have five or more possible answers, or when the words could fit multiple meanings? What about spelling tricks, thematic distractions, or a cleverly placed Connections hint that leads you astray? In the end, we decided to include in our top 10 only the clearest kind: full false groups of four that felt totally legit, but didn’t belong together at all.

We started with a mix of internal and external data, things like difficulty scores and social buzz, and built an initial list of 26 puzzles. From there, we debated (a lot). A small panel of us looked at each one, weighed how strong the mislead was, and picked the final ten that felt the most clever or convincing.

Explore our shortlist of the Top 26 red herrings we considered before we narrowed it down to the final 10 (plus 3 almost-red herrings).

Of course, red herrings are subjective. What tricks one person might not fool another. But we did our best to pick the ones that stood out in both design and impact. In the end, we landed on two lists: 10 full red herrings, and 3 groups that looked like red herrings… but actually weren’t.

Since there’s no clear way to rank them (cleverness doesn’t come with a score), we’re presenting the red herrings in the order they appeared.

1. Puzzle #88 (2023-09-07) – First-Name Trap

See it on the NYT (requires subscription):
https://www.nytimes.com/games/connections/2023-09-07
See it on Lady Puzzle Pro:
https://ladypuzzle.pro/connections-hint-answer/2023-09-07

This early puzzle brought the mislead right to the front of each title. With ROCKY, ROGER, HARRY, and SALLY on the board, it was hard not to see a group of names just waiting to be clicked. And honestly? They do feel like a proper set. But in true Connections style, each one belonged to a different movie title, and the real groups were based on full film names split into pieces. It’s a classic red herring: simple, logical, and totally wrong.

2. Puzzle #387 (2024-07-01) – The Pop Star Fake-Out

See it on the NYT (requires subscription):
https://www.nytimes.com/games/connections/2024-07-01
See it on Lady Puzzle Pro:
https://ladypuzzle.pro/connections-hint-answer/2024-07-01

You don’t have to be a music buff to fall for this one. PRINCE, SEAL, STING, and USHER look like they were born to headline a supergroup, and we’d buy tickets. But while these are all iconic solo artists, in this puzzle, they were split across unrelated categories: currency symbols, directional verbs, scheme, and Canadian geography. It’s a pitch-perfect red herring, built entirely on name recognition and genre-blind clicking.

3. Puzzle #443 (2024-08-27) – The NBA Lineup That Wasn’t

See it on the NYT (requires subscription):
https://www.nytimes.com/games/connections/2024-08-27
See it on Lady Puzzle Pro:
https://ladypuzzle.pro/connections-hint-answer/2024-08-27

This one had sports fans feeling confident … for a moment. THUNDER, HEAT, CLIPPERS, and MAGIC are all legit NBA teams, but the puzzle was playing a different game. Each of those team names actually belonged to separate categories, from explosive sounds to spicy flavors to barbershop gear. A textbook red herring: clean, thematic, and timed perfectly for a wrong turn.

4. Puzzle #486 (2024-10-09) – The Powerpuff Curveball

See it on the NYT (requires subscription):
https://www.nytimes.com/games/connections/2024-10-09
See it on Lady Puzzle Pro:
https://ladypuzzle.pro/connections-hint-answer/2024-10-09

BLOSSOM, MOJO, BUBBLES, and BUTTERCUP? That has Powerpuff Girls written all over it. It practically glows pink. But the puzzle was up to something much sneakier. While three of those names belong to the animated trio and their nemesis, they were actually scattered across totally unrelated categories like musical magazines and fizzy textures. And BUTTERCUP? It belonged to the strangest group of all: names that end in tableware. A wild, wonderful mislead that threw nostalgia lovers way off course.

5. Puzzle #501 (2024-10-24) – The Wordle Starter Fake-Out

See it on the NYT (requires subscription):
https://www.nytimes.com/games/connections/2024-10-24
See it on Lady Puzzle Pro:
https://ladypuzzle.pro/connections-hint-answer/2024-10-24

SLATE, AUDIO, CRANE, ADIEU… if you’ve ever fallen down the Wordle strategy rabbit hole, these words should ring a bell. They're among the most popular opening guesses, backed by data, articles, and plenty of heated internet debate. Seeing them all together felt like a sure thing. But nope, each belonged elsewhere, from French vocabulary to paper crafts to actual NYT offerings (ironically, the only real Wordle connection). A sly, meta mislead that preyed on puzzle players’ broader habits. Well played, Wyna!

6. Puzzle #541 (2024-12-03) – The EGOT That Got Away

See it on the NYT (requires subscription):
https://www.nytimes.com/games/connections/2024-12-03
See it on Lady Puzzle Pro:
https://ladypuzzle.pro/connections-hint-answer/2024-12-03

EMMY, GRAMMY, OSCAR, and TONY are the four iconic awards, and the dream acronym for any entertainer. So when all four popped up in one grid, it felt like an instant click. But this wasn’t an awards show. While those names were definitely there, they were scattered across different, unrelated groups: a mob family, childhood TV, and cutesy nicknames. The puzzle even threw in a nod to "The Sopranos," but the only drama here was the misdirect. A gold-standard red herring, minus the trophy.

7. Puzzle #614 (2025-02-14) – The Valentine’s Day Misdirection

See it on the NYT (requires subscription):
https://www.nytimes.com/games/connections/2024-02-14
See it on Lady Puzzle Pro:
https://ladypuzzle.pro/connections-hint-answer/2024-02-14

BABY, BOO, BAE, GUESS WHO… on February 14th, no less? It really looked like a Valentine’s Day-themed group. But Connections was just playing with us. Each of these words belonged to totally different categories: mollycoddling, rattlesnake behavior, surprise phrases, and even homophones of bodies of water. A festive fake-out that had nothing to do with love, and everything to do with misdirection.

8. Puzzle #635 (2025-03-07) – Severed Expectations

See it on the NYT (requires subscription):
https://www.nytimes.com/games/connections/2024-03-07
See it on Lady Puzzle Pro:
https://ladypuzzle.pro/connections-hint-answer/2024-03-07

This one targeted fans of Severance. Right in the middle of the grid, we spotted the names MARK, HELENA, IRVING, and DYLAN, the core four from Lumon’s Macrodata Refinement team. It looked like a perfect fit: a group of four proper names, each with strong associations to the Apple TV+ show. To make the bait even more convincing, LUMON was also on the board… but tucked away in an entirely different category. In the end, Severance was just the red herring, cleverly planted and painfully effective.

9. Puzzle #716 (2025-05-27) – Spins and Thrills

See it on the NYT (requires subscription):
https://www.nytimes.com/games/connections/2024-05-27
See it on Lady Puzzle Pro:
https://ladypuzzle.pro/connections-hint-answer/2024-05-27

This puzzle didn’t offer just one convincing red herring; it gave us two. First up, TEACUP, COASTER, SLIDE, and CAROUSEL felt right at home in an amusement park. It’s the kind of group that looks so obvious, you second-guess yourself for not seeing it in the final grid. But then, there’s another sneaky distraction: FRISBEE, CLOCK, CAROUSEL, and RECORD (all things that spin). That second set wasn’t a valid group either, but it sure kept solvers circling. A dizzying end to a cleverly layered puzzle.

10. Puzzle #723 (2025-06-03) – A Rising Tide of Wordplay

See it on the NYT (requires subscription):
https://www.nytimes.com/games/connections/2024-06-03
See it on Lady Puzzle Pro:
https://ladypuzzle.pro/connections-hint-answer/2024-06-03

This puzzle floated a sneaky distraction right into our brains. With entries like SHOWBOAT, HUNKY-DORY, FRIENDSHIP, and WITCHCRAFT, many solvers suspected a theme tied to nautical terms hidden at the end of words. After all, dory, craft, friendship, and boat all sail the same semantic seas. It felt like a classic Connections trick: a purple-level wordplay category built on embedded meanings. But nope. No such group here. Just a cleverly coincidental current of language.

The Red Herrings That Weren’t

Not every near-miss is a true red herring. Some puzzles had groups that looked so convincing, players were sure they’d spotted a trap, only to find out they were overthinking it. These three entries caused the most second-guessing, hesitation, and post-solve debates. The potential fake-outs felt too good not to be intentional... but in the end, they weren’t.

1. Not a Red Herring, Just Shakespeare - Puzzle #507 (2024-10-29)

See it on the NYT (requires subscription):
https://www.nytimes.com/games/connections/2024-10-29
See it on Lady Puzzle Pro:
https://ladypuzzle.pro/connections-hint-answer/2024-10-29

When players spotted FRIEND, ROMAN, and COUNTRYMAN in the same group, many jumped to one conclusion: classic red herring. After all, three of the four are famously strung together in the line “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.” Surely that can’t be the real group, right? But surprise—it was! The Blue category turned out to be totally legit, with EAR rounding out the set. An elegant fake-out that wasn’t fake at all.

2. Oh My, It Was Real! - Puzzle #563 (2024-12-24)

See it on the NYT (requires subscription):
https://www.nytimes.com/games/connections/2024-12-24
See it on Lady Puzzle Pro:
https://ladypuzzle.pro/connections-hint-answer/2024-12-24

Sometimes a group seems so obvious that solvers assume it must be bait. That’s exactly what happened with the Yellow category in this Christmas Eve puzzle. “ LIONS AND TIGERS AND BEARS, OH MY!” felt too familiar, too quoted, to be real. Surely it had to be a trick? To make things more suspicious, these four words appeared neatly in a row at the top of the board, which looked like a setup. But no, it was a genuine group. This time, the Wizard of Oz line wasn’t a red herring. It was the real deal.

3. Red Herring, Literally and Legitimately - Puzzle #607 (2025-02-07)

See it on the NYT (requires subscription):
https://www.nytimes.com/games/connections/2025-02-07
See it on Lady Puzzle Pro:
https://ladypuzzle.pro/connections-hint-answer/2024-07-02

This puzzle gave players a meta moment. In the purple group, “RED ___,” one of the entries was literally HERRING, leading many to believe it had to be a trap. Surely this was just Connections being cheeky, right? But no: BULL, CROSS, HERRING, and VELVET are all legitimate phrases beginning with “red.” 

This is the only exception in our list to the rule of featuring red herrings that form a convincing new group of four. But with a literal “red herring” on the board, we simply couldn’t leave it out.

Sometimes, a red herring is exactly what it says it is!

Your Turn

Picking just ten red herrings from two years of Connections was no easy task. There were dozens of clever misleads that nearly made the cut, and narrowing it down meant a lot of replays, debates, and second-guesses.

Think we missed a classic? Or maybe one of our picks didn’t quite fool you? Let us know by liking or disliking below, and share your own favorite red herrings with us.