Good luck Sam....
Number 17 has been a great number (and the hottest number) since 2010, so playing it is always a good idea.
As far as 2016 goes, #29 is a very good number, and it's hotter in 2016 than #17. Last nite saw the 48th hit of this year for #29, and it leads the pack. Year to date, #17 is also doing well (in 3rd place) with 45 hits, but #39 is sitting in second place (between #17 and #29) with 46 hits. I think all of them will hit at least another 10 times in Oct, Nov, and Dec. That'd take them all to just below 60 hits for the year. One of those three will probably make it to 60. Those three numbers have the best chance of getting to 60 hits.
If you consider the case of #21 (the coldest number of 2016 with just 26 hits) you can easily see what I'm talking about. To get to 60 hits, #21 will have to hit 34 more times in the remaining 10 or 11 weeks of this year!! That's a hit rate of 3.4 hits per week! That's NOT going to happen because most numbers hit 3 or 4 times per MONTH! So #21 has NO SHOT of getting to 60 hits this year. On the other hand, #29 only needs 10 hits to get to 58 hits for the year. It will easily hit 1 time per week for the next 10 or 11 weeks.
As for me personally, I haven't been playing T5 all that much recently. There's a reason for that - it's Cash 4Life. If you've been reading the C4L thread in the Jackpot Games forum, then you've seen me over there busy as a beaver. The NY Lottery has been running a C4L promo, and I diverted money I'd usually spend on T5 to C4L. But soon (because the C4L promo is almost over) I'll be back to playing T5. And when I do come back, I'll be playing #'s 17, 39 & 29 on all of my tickets. I'll mix and match two of them on a lot of my lines. Good Luck guys! G5