Quick winning principles
- Build long horizontal spines with vertical branches—easier to peel into than square grids.
- Dump Q, Z, X, J into short words immediately; they bottleneck peels.
- Peel only when your grid has 2+ insertion points for any letter.
- Call 'Bananas' only when every branch can accept a wildcard letter.
Ideal strategy
- 1
Topology first: a T-shaped grid with 3 open ends beats a compact 4x4 that traps vowels in corners.
- 2
Peel discipline: premature peels flood you with tiles while insertion points are locked—wait for 2+ open hooks.
- 3
Letter dump sequencing: play V, K, W into 2-letter words attached to main spine before building fancy long words.
- 4
Split recovery: when stuck, break a non-critical word to free a central vowel—speed beats aesthetics.
- 5
Race psychology: opponents peel when you peel; slow-play to build hooks, then burst 3 peels in sequence to force their dump.