X-Wing + Omission Sudoku Puzzles

Every puzzle below has X-Wing and Omission as its two hardest required moves, verified by a solver — 2,919 of the 65,284 puzzles in our library match. Rusty on either one? Drill them separately first: X-Wing practice · Omission practice.

Why these two appear together

Both of these techniques exploit the geometry where a box meets a line, which makes the pairing an unusually direct lesson in cost. Omission is the cheap version: if a digit's only homes inside a box all sit on one row, it can be removed from that row outside the box. The X-Wing is the expensive version of a related idea, spanning two lines and two crossing lines.

The trap these puzzles are built to expose is reaching for the fish when a box-line check would have produced the same elimination in a fraction of the time. Omissions fire constantly, cost almost nothing to check, and are the single most commonly skipped technique among solvers who have learned the advanced patterns.

Work them in cost order, and check omissions in both directions — box to line and line to box — every time you look at a box. The line-to-box direction is the one most often missed, because it is less visually obvious than pointing.

Curated X-Wing + Omission puzzles

  1. Practice puzzle #1 — 25 givens · needs Naked Single, Hidden Single, Omission, X-Wing
  2. Practice puzzle #2 — 25 givens · needs Naked Single, Hidden Single, Omission, X-Wing
  3. Practice puzzle #3 — 24 givens · needs Naked Single, Hidden Single, Omission, X-Wing
  4. Practice puzzle #4 — 25 givens · needs Naked Single, Hidden Single, Omission, X-Wing
  5. Practice puzzle #5 — 26 givens · needs Naked Single, Hidden Single, Omission, X-Wing
  6. Practice puzzle #6 — 24 givens · needs Naked Single, Hidden Single, Omission, X-Wing
  7. Practice puzzle #7 — 26 givens · needs Naked Single, Hidden Single, Omission, X-Wing
  8. Practice puzzle #8 — 26 givens · needs Naked Single, Hidden Single, Omission, X-Wing
  9. Practice puzzle #9 — 23 givens · needs Naked Single, Hidden Single, Omission, X-Wing
  10. Practice puzzle #10 — 26 givens · needs Naked Single, Hidden Single, Omission, X-Wing
  11. Practice puzzle #11 — 23 givens · needs Naked Single, Hidden Single, Omission, X-Wing
  12. Practice puzzle #12 — 26 givens · needs Naked Single, Hidden Single, Omission, X-Wing
Get a fresh X-Wing + Omission puzzle →

X-Wing + Omission FAQ

How many Sudoku puzzles combine X-Wing and Omission?
2,919 puzzles in the Precision Sudoku library have X-Wing and Omission as their two hardest required techniques (beyond singles), out of a library of 65,284 solver-verified puzzles.
How do I know whether to use an Omission or hunt for an X-Wing?
Always run the box-line checks first; they take seconds and frequently produce the elimination you were about to spend a minute searching for. Reach for the X-Wing only once omissions, singles and subsets are genuinely exhausted.
Why is Omission skipped so often by solvers who know X-Wings?
Because it feels too simple to matter once you have learned the advanced patterns. In practice it is the highest-value move per second of search on the entire ladder, and skipping it is the most common cause of avoidable time loss in the middle of a puzzle.