Toughest Layouts

[Red Jaguars Fan]

As the name goes, this thread is all about the toughest layouts. Take note it includes the placement of temple guards, the number of rooms, the difficulty of rooms, the room where the artifact is, and the number of temple guards before getting there.

If there's a similar thread, I'm sorry.

[Red Jaguars Fan]

First is the Missing Portrait of Hans Holbein. If Rachel went into the Ledges first, she would have been taken out of the temple in the Room of the Secret Password instead of the Room of hte Ancient Warrior. And she and Keith would have to overcome 10 rooms anyway.

[The Bamboo Forest]

Ponce de Leon and the Fountain of Youth. Let it speak for itself.

[Long Live Olmec]

Also, the Lucky Pig of Emilia Earheart was quite tough too.

[nicklegends]

First is the Missing Portrait of Hans Holbein. If Rachel went into the Ledges first, she would have been taken out of the temple in the Room of the Secret Password instead of the Room of the Ancient Warrior. And she and Keith would have to overcome 10 rooms anyway.

There were a lot of difficult arrangements in the episodes preceding this one, too. Take a look at the Spider Web arrangement and the Discarded Seal arrangement. Both were nearly as difficult. I wonder why the staff was so hard on the players during this streak? Was it because they overestimated the advantage the players had retrieving the artifact from the center column of the temple? It seems like that was a pretty universal problem: in only one third-season episode was the artifact successfully retrieved from that column of the temple, and it required somebody has fast as Gator to do it.

[Red Jaguars Fan]

The Bullet-Riddled Handbag seemed as tough, too.

[Purple Parrots Fan]

For me, the toughest layout would be any filming day with the "floating green tubes and plank" moat. That said, episodes "Discarded Seal of Ivan the Terrible," "The Missing Portrait of Hans Holbein," and "The Dried Apple Half of William Tell," were the toughest layouts. I also agree with, "Lucky Pig of Amiela Earhart" and "Ponce de Leon's Water Fountain of Youth, and I found "The Golden Goblet of Attila the Hun" pretty hard too.

[The Ancient Warrior]

My bids for hardest Temple designs go only to "The Missing Portrait of Hans Holbein" and "The Discarded Seal of Ivan The Terrible." Both were really tough, since Keith and Rachel had to go through every single room just to reach the artifact, but Travis and Elisa were both excellent players and they STILL didn't make it in time.  I can't make up my mind between the two.

First is the Missing Portrait of Hans Holbein. If Rachel went into the Ledges first, she would have been taken out of the temple in the Room of the Secret Password instead of the Room of the Ancient Warrior. And she and Keith would have to overcome 10 rooms anyway.

There were a lot of difficult arrangements in the episodes preceding this one, too. Take a look at the Spider Web arrangement and the Discarded Seal arrangement. Both were nearly as difficult. I wonder why the staff was so hard on the players during this streak? Was it because they overestimated the advantage the players had retrieving the artifact from the center column of the temple? It seems like that was a pretty universal problem: in only one third-season episode was the artifact successfully retrieved from that column of the temple, and it required somebody has fast as Gator to do it.

They probably felt they were getting too many wins early in the season and then overdid it with trying to balance things out.  The results were those downright brutal designs which they'd balance out again with the super-easy last day of production.

[The Silver Monkey]

IMO, Scheherazade's layout was rather difficult, too.

[Red Jaguars Fan]

Oh yeah, any artifact in the center of the temple is hard. What makes it harder is that you might enter it via the bottom floor.

[The Purple Parrot]

The Discarded Seal was by far the hardest. That team didn't make a single mistake or error in the entire run and they were both fast players and even still they didn't make it.

Also, I feel an extremely difficult run that gets overlooked a lot was The Golden Cup of Bel Shazzar.

[The Ancient Warrior]

What made the Golden Cup tricky was the long dead end and the reverse psychology idea behind the dead end NOT being the direct path.  I'm convinced Sean could've gone down from the Treasure Room, but just didn't try to before time ran out.  From there, he probably could've gone up from the Tomb of the Ancient Kings.

But yeah, the reverse psychology tactic behind that was what made that run tricky.  Sean and Catherine weren't bad players, but that trick foiled their plans.

[Purple Parrots Fan]

I agree with both. You'd think they're in the clear since they didn't try the direct path, but nope, didn't work. That seemed to happen a lot in Season 1. The contestants try for the lower level, with the artifact in the shrine, but their well thought out plans end up not working. At all.