Krillion Tips: How to Score Deeper Without Guessing

Why is your first answer almost always a 10?

Because it is the most typical member of the category, and typicality is what the bottom tier measures. Ask a hundred people for a fruit and the answers bunch around the same handful of examples; nobody coordinates this, memory simply files categories by their best representative.

So the first answer is not a mistake, it is a measurement. The mistake is treating it as a decision — typing it because it arrived first, when it is the one answer you already know is worth ten.

What separates a 30 from a 60?

Specificity, not strangeness. The tier table is a familiarity ladder, and familiarity falls as an answer gets less automatic inside its category. A prompt sets a level — “a country”, “an ice cream flavour”, “something you find in a kitchen drawer” — and the ladder is populated by answers that sit at that level but are less automatic within it.

The move is one level narrower:

• Country → the obvious members are the big, near neighbours. Narrower means smaller, less neighbouring, still unmistakably a country.
• Ice cream flavour → obvious are vanilla, chocolate, strawberry. Narrower means a flavour that exists in shops and that you would not lead with — not a flavour you invented.
• Kitchen drawer → obvious are cutlery and batteries. Narrower means an object that belongs there and that nobody thinks of first.

One level is usually 60. Two levels is where validity starts to break, and an answer that breaks validity earns nothing.

How do you find a Deep Cut with twenty seconds left?

You do not find it by scanning your memory for weird things. You find it by walking the category in a fixed order, which is a search you can run fast:

1. The obvious three. Name them silently so you stop them from taking over.
2. The edges of the category. Smallest, oldest, furthest, most specific type — the boundaries produce the non-automatic members.
3. The proper nouns. Named examples inside a generic prompt usually sit deeper than generic ones.
4. The second instance. If you can name two of a kind, that kind is real and probably Rare or better.

Twenty seconds is enough for one pass. It is not enough for two, which is why the pass has to be a habit rather than a plan.

Why is the famous-obscure answer a trap?

Because it is only obscure in the sense of being unusual to say, not in the sense of being unlikely to be said. The fourth most famous shark, the second most famous Monet, the “interesting” pick off the same listicle everyone read — these arrive as a set, and the ladder knows it.

That is the Too Clever tier, 15 points, and it is the single most expensive mistake in the game because it feels like the right move while you are making it. There is a whole page on how to spot it before you type.

When should you take the safe answer?

Set a hard rule before the run, because you will not make a good decision with eight seconds left. Ours: under ten seconds, type the answer you are sure the game recognises, even if it is a 30. Above ten, keep hunting — but keep the safe answer loaded, so the switch costs one keystroke rather than a new idea.

The arithmetic behind it: seven answers at 30 is 210. One zero and six at 60 is 360, which is better — so the safe answer is not automatically right. One zero and six at 30 is 180, which is worse than the boring run. The floor matters when the ceiling is uncertain.

What single habit moves your average the most?

Decide the level first, then the answer. Most players decide on an answer and hope it lands high; the ones who score consistently decide whether they are going obvious, narrow or deep in the first three seconds, and then look for a member of the category that fits that level.

It is slower to describe than to do, and it works on every prompt because it does not depend on knowing the ladder. If you want the extreme version of the same skill, landing a One in a Krillion is that habit taken to its limit.