Quick winning principles
- Buy 2-cost ink cards early; they thin deck and fund 4-5 cost power cards.
- Wilds belong in decks with high consonant density, not vowel-heavy starters.
- Trigger genre bonus before playing your longest word, not after.
- Dump starting cards aggressively—7-card hands with 3 starters lose tempo.
Ideal strategy
- 1
Ink curve: rounds 1-3 buy ink, rounds 4-6 buy wilds or genre cards, rounds 7+ buy point-doublers. Breaking this curve leaves you drawing starters on turn 10.
- 2
Wild placement: hold wilds for the consonant bottleneck in your best word, not the first playable word—one 12-point play beats two 6-point plays.
- 3
Genre stacking: Romance + Mystery on the same word multiplies; plan purchases so 2 genres trigger on a 7+ letter word.
- 4
Deck thinning math: every starter left in deck is ~4% chance to draw it; buy ink until starters are <15% of deck.
- 5
Endgame denial: buy commons opponents need for genre triggers even if you won't use them—deny their multiplier turn.