Best Of

I was able to test the ice for a little bit just now. The following findings are, I think, closer to what's happening, but further testing is needed.

Ice blocks appear to have 8 durability, and a Sprink is released after it loses 2/4/6/8 durability. Making a match next to the ice takes away 1 durability. Hitting the ice with a special candy takes away durability equal to the number of 1x1 spaces of ice affected. For example, if I fire a striped candy across the ice, it takes away 2 durability (guaranteeing a Sprink) because it affects 2 of the 4 spaces containing the ice.

Some of my more detailed findings regarding 2x2 ice nests and where testing is still needed:

• making a match next to the ice: 2 needed for a Sprink
• hitting the ice with a jelly fish: 2 needed for a Sprink (1 ice space affected)
• hitting the ice with a striped candy while not also making an adjacent match: 1 needed for a Sprink (2 ice spaces affected)
• hitting the entire ice nest with a distant striped + wrapped: frees 2 Sprinks (4 ice spaces affected)
• hitting 1 corner of the ice with a wrapped candy while not also making an adjacent match: unconfirmed, but I expect it to require 2 hits for a Sprink (1 ice space affected per corner explosion)
• interactions with color bomb: unknown
• hitting it with a color bomb + color bomb combo: frees 2 Sprinks (4 ice spaces affected); doing this with Super Charger frees all 4 Sprinks because it affects all 4 ice spaces 2 times for a total of 8 hits (EDIT: thank you for confirming this, MannyFae!)
• making a match next to the ice and setting off a special candy in that same match: unconfirmed, but I expect it to subtract durability based on both the match and the special candy

Once again, there is still plenty of testing needed to confirm this behavior, but I think it's a step or two in the right direction. Some of my expectations are based on interactions with the color clusters from Concert Chaos because I noticed some similarities between it and the ice nests. Please take these findings as a starting point, not as the definitive truth. It is quite difficult for me to test this blocker because event levels can't be replayed, and there is only one event level every 15 levels.

EDIT 2: I just now encountered a larger ice nest that is 2 rows tall and 4 columns wide. It behaves very similarly to the 2x2 nests, and it has 16 durability instead of 8. Making a match next to it subtracts 1 durability, and hitting it with a special candy subtracts durability equal to the number of ice spaces affected. For example, if I fire a distant striped + wrapped that affects the entire 2x4 ice nest, it will affect 8 ice squares and consequently free 4 Sprinks.

Brilliant, thank you for this explanation and testing. This really helps to make sense now.

Thank you all for these helpful and informative comments. It's great to see I'm not the only one baffled by these behaviours. Well, it's Christmas now so I won't be doing any more testing on this event myself for a few days. But thank you all for the info and the testing!

Happy Christmas! 🎄

I think her 'the ice only reacts to direct hits' means that only hits that are perpendicular to the Sprinks count as a hit. That is, the blue match didn't count because it was completed to the right of the nest

Definitely a possibility @Alienscar

I've been having the same issues as Christine, and I would greatly appreciate it if King could tell us exactly how those blockers are supposed to work. 'Don't always free a sprink' it is just too ambiguous. I tried to test it, but the board I got today had all the ice cubes at the bottom, and they were crushed before I could start making matches near them.