How to Solve Duet: Two Gems Per Zone

Duet is Daily Grid's zone-based gem puzzle. Rows and columns do not matter. Every colored zone needs exactly two gems, and no two gems may touch, including diagonally. Dark cells are inert: no gems, no useful marks.

Tap cycles a cell through empty → X → gem → empty. Placing a gem automatically marks its eight neighbors with X; removing the gem clears marks that only that gem was supporting.

Start with the smallest zones

A two-cell zone that is not adjacent has exactly one legal pair: both cells. A three-cell zone often has only a few non-touching pairs. Seat those forced gems first. Large zones wait until neighbor exclusions shrink them.

Treat touching as a hard wall

After every gem, trust the auto-X ring. Those eight cells cannot hold another gem. That ring often steals a candidate from an adjacent zone and turns a “maybe” into a forced placement elsewhere.

Count remaining slots, not remaining cells

When a zone still needs two gems, list the cells that are still open and mutually non-adjacent. If only one pair survives, place it. If every surviving pair shares a cell, that shared cell is a gem.

Finish dimmed zones and move on

Zones that already hold two gems dim in the UI. Stop rechecking them. Sweep unfinished zones from smallest remaining candidate set to largest. If you stall, undo speculative gems rather than stacking guesses. Dailies are built to resolve by deduction.

Recovery checklist

• Find the smallest unfinished zone.
• List legal non-touching pairs inside it.
• Apply auto-X rings from every placed gem.
• Look for a cell common to every remaining pair.
• Never place a gem on a dark (no-zone) cell.

A new Duet puzzle drops every midnight PT. For more boards with the same rules, use Practice. Read the Duet launch note for what shipped with the twelfth daily.