Congratulations to Ken Endo for winning this with a very impressive solving time -- and to runners-up Hideaki and Matej as well !
It looks like the difficulty would have been greater than this year's marathon puzzles but not insane for a marathon. Not clear which of the two puzzles I personally prefer -- the puzzle in the marathon has a nicer aesthetic and flows more smoothly, but this one has a more interesting solve path...
Denis

I already forgot what happened in the Marathon puzzle. This one has a good solving path, but if I recall correctly, nothing particularly striking (cf. my 16x16 Poset Futoshiki), so I don't think I'd make a choice based on the solving path alone. That leaves only the aesthetics to base my decision, in which the Marathon puzzle obviously wins. So the choice of using that puzzle as the Marathon puzzle instead of this is correct.

Edited by chaotic_iak 2016-05-25 2:19 PM