[dredmorbius]

I'd quickly realised that a set of words which covered most of the alphabet (20 words, leaving b, g, j, q, v, and z excluded) allowed solving virtually all Wordle puzzles. The game quickly lost any challenge.

  wimpy
  crowd
  thank
  fuels

Altering order might give faster results. The order presented leaves the most common letters (e, t) for last. Z is quite uncommon, q is virtually always followed by u, similarly common pairs such as ch, sh, and th, as well as three- and four-letter combinations ing and tion, though those won't show frequently in five-letter words of default Wordle.

It would be possible to vary word choice based on revealed matches and hits, but if your goal is simply to solve (rather than minimise attempts), the above list works quite well.

[magneticnorth]

> The game quickly lost any challenge.

I only play on hard mode for this reason. My next guess must always be a possible answer based on my current information, and that varies the puzzle enough from day to day that I still find it enjoyable to play occasionally.

[dieselgate]

I haven't played wordle much since it was purchased but NYTimes ran a story in the last couple days saying how "Hard mode" is actually easier based on their research. Just throwing it out there as food for thought not in a "gotcha" sort of way.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/18/upshot/wordle-hard-mode.h...

[calfuris]

Hard mode forces most people to play smarter than they usually would. I'm not sure if that's the same as being easier. Hard mode is certainly harder for a skilled player, because that player could play normal mode as if it were hard mode but without having to worry about avoiding hard mode traps like _IGHT or SHA_E--if they encounter such a scenario they can just play known-bad words that check several possible solutions at once (e.g. FIRES for _IGHT to check FIGHT/RIGHT/EIGHT/SIGHT).

[empath75]

It's not "easier", it just forces a more guess-efficient strategy.

[drivers99]

Does that not lead you to situations where you have to guess the last letter on each round? Or do you choose words to avoid getting trapped in that situation in the first place?

[copypasterepeat]

I try to avoid the common traps, but it can be tricky.

I also impose this additional constraint on myself, which the game doesn't enforce, that I can't reuse letters that have been marked gray. Sometimes you just can't think of the next word, or might be tempted to use a gray letter because that way you could get more information from other letters, but I avoid using them.

[magneticnorth]

yes, I do the same thing. I wish there was a way to get the implementation to enforce that rule too so I never accidentally try a word that I already know can't be the answer.

[magneticnorth]

Yes, that does happen occasionally, and it's part of the game for me to try and avoid getting trapped like that.

[mcphage]

> I'd quickly realised that a set of words which covered most of the alphabet (20 words, leaving b, g, j, q, v, and z excluded) allowed solving virtually all Wordle puzzles. The game quickly lost any challenge.

You can even go further—there's a set of 5 words which uses 25 out of 26 possible letters, leaving you one more word to enter the right answer.

But here's the thing: while that means you'll almost always win, your # of guesses will always be high.

> but if your goal is simply to solve (rather than minimise attempts)

Pretty much nobody's goal is to simply solve. Once they've played it for a few days, everybody's goal is to minimize guesses. That's the flaw in having a long word list—you always do badly.

[topaz0]

The only virtuous goal is to type some fun words imo.

[Brendinooo]

gotta see how your strategy holds up in sexaginta-quattuordle

[lkbm]

This is how I played Quordle and Octordle, but with just three words (doubt, glyph, raise). Might not scale for all combinations.