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Crack the Dragon Jousting Riddle: A Logic Puzzle

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Crack the Dragon Jousting Riddle: A Logic Puzzle

Imagine a world where elves, goblins, and treefolk settle their differences not through war, but through a grand tournament of dragon jousting. As the designated scorekeeper for this inaugural event, you find yourself in a predicament: you've overslept, the games have begun, and the only information you can get is from a wizard cursed to lie. Can you deduce the real scores and save your job?

The Tournament of Lies

The rules are simple: each team faces each other once, and the team with the most wins rules Center-Realm. To prevent cheating, wizards monitor the games, but absolute secrecy is paramount. Your task is to record the scores, but after a night of over-celebration, you awaken to find the tournament underway. Desperate, you bribe a wizard for information, only to discover he's cursed to lie. Your boss then reveals that no match has exceeded a combined score of five hits. Armed with these lies, can you uncover the truth?

Decoding the Deception

The beauty of this riddle lies in its reliance on deductive reasoning. Knowing something is false is, in itself, a piece of information. Here's how to break it down:

  • Match Limits: Since there are only three teams, each team can play a maximum of two matches.
  • Elves and Goblins: If it's false that the elves played one match and the goblins played two, then the elves must have played two matches, and the goblins, one.
  • The Schedule: This means the elves played both the goblins and the treefolk, and the goblin-treefolk match hasn't happened yet.
  • The Tie: The treefolk didn't tie zero matches (a lie), meaning the elf-treefolk match resulted in a tie.
  • Elven Victory: The elves won at least one match, and since they tied the treefolk, they must have defeated the goblins.

Unmasking the Scores

Now, let's determine the actual scores, using the