Post mortem:
Lock (3): Pick, Steal, Laser
Animal (3): Dog, Rabbit, Cricket
Montezuma (2): Aztec, Mexico
Photons (1): Laser
Yes, you read that correctly! I thought our word was "Steal", not Seal. So we got pretty lucky there that Seal also worked for Lock!! (If I had noticed it was Seal, of course, it could just have been another animal)
I knew Lock was a stretch for Laser, but was trying to get something for all three of those (remember, I thought it was "Steal"), and was thinking about thieves, spies, traps, locks, etc... And I figured go with it before the more obvious ones so you could use extra guesses if you wanted.
Clearly, it also helped they guessed our "State", though I planned to tie that into Aztec and Mexico with something like "Guadalajara".
Our having Mexico hurt Blue, as they had China, New York, and Africa, but were blocked from simple clues like "Locations" or "Geography".