[ceautery]

Originally I used BLACK, WHITE, SOUND, and tried to guess from there, occasionally throwing in GRUMP if the word wasn't obvious. I didn't like the repeated vowel, and knowing if there was a Y in the word would help, so I switched to:

AMUCK FETID SWORN GLYPH

100% so far. One or two of those may have involved aggressively grepping /usr/share/dict/words, though.

[mod]

I've used STEAL, ROUND for almost the entire ~80 games I've played, and I'm still 100% so far, no assistance or grepping. (Notably very close to the author's first two guesses he came up with without assistance)

I have a go-to third guess when needed, I just can't think of it right now.