Figure 1. Viewing a hybrid-erasure architecture as a game of Minesweeper. Top: In a standard surface code, we receive syndrome bits (red and blue 1s) indicating that an error string terminates nearby. The decoder must find a valid explanation (red and blue flags) based only on this information. If the decoder guesses wrong, a logical error can occur. Bottom: When some data qubits are erasure qubits, we gain extra information before decoding (black bombs and green checks on left) that help us decide which error string to predict, avoiding logical errors.