Easy Killer Sudoku — Learn the Cages

Easy Killer Sudoku is the training level for the variant. It is rated 1.0 to 1.9, basic tier, and the puzzles start with some given digits, so you can solve much of the grid like a normal Sudoku and let the cage sums teach you. The rule to learn: the digits in a dashed cage add up to its small number and never repeat.

What this level asks

Classic rules still apply to every row, column and box. The cages add a second check on each cell, so a digit that fits its row and box can still be wrong for its cage. Expect to check both before you place anything, and expect it to become automatic within a handful of puzzles. Easy puzzles lean on the simplest cage facts, and our easy killers average 1.40 on the Sudoku Explainer scale, so singles do most of the solving.

23

Possible combinations: 1

• 689

Techniques you will meet

• Cage combinations: list the digit sets a sum allows. Three cells adding to 23 can only hold 6, 8 and 9, as above.
• Innies and outies: a cage that sticks one cell out of a box reveals that cell through the 45 rule.
• Naked and hidden singles, exactly as in classic.

Tips for this level

• Start with cages that have a single combination and write those digits in as notes.
• Keep the combinations chart open until the common sums are familiar.
• If the rules feel new, the Killer Sudoku guide walks through a full example. For other arithmetic puzzles, see the math sudoku variants overview.

Next step

When most easy grids finish without hints, move up to medium Killer, where the cages carry more of the weight.