If you love playing Words With Friends against your friends, family or players from all over the world, you may be wondering how to improve your overall game. If this is the case for you, WordsRated has put together a useful guide that will have you racking up those victories in no time at all!
1. Attempt different combinations
When playing word games, it can always be tempting to play the first word that appears in your mind or play words without considering all of the options available to you. To help counteract this, remember that WWF will automatically count up the word scores of the letters you have drafted on the board before you decide whether or not to play them.
By taking mathematics out of the game, you will instantly see how valuable your word is so you can focus solely on word-building. Instead of playing hastily, spell out each word you are considering and see how their points scores differ before eventually deciding to opt for your highest value word, or perhaps a lesser scoring word that will limit the score of your opponent.
2. Monitor the board layout
Unlike Scrabble, bonus tiles in WWF are spread out more evenly across the board which helps make them more accessible to players throughout the duration of the game. On the Words With Friends board, the 60 bonus tiles that have a board coverage of 26.67%.
Due to this high percentage, the very best WWF players are always aware of bonus tile positioning and understand how to place words on these to gain additional points and win the game. Players should also try to consider the impact bonus tiles will have on the words your opponent can play and the tiles they land on in order to limit the opponent from scoring high.
3. Keep a balanced rack
Also doubling as a useful strategy in Scrabble, players of Words With Friends should always make sure to balance their rack. To do so, you will need to ensure there is a healthy balance between vowels and consonants within your 7 letters to give yourself the best possibility of building new words.
As an example, if you find that your rack is dominated by consonants, consider playing only consonants or a consonant-heavy term on your next turn. Once your turn is over, you will be able to replace your used letters with new letters from the bag that may include a greater selection of vowels, making it easier to create words in your upcoming turns.
4. Play high value letters
In Words With Friends, the highest value letters are “J”, “Q” and “Z” (10 points each) alongside the letter “X” (8 points). Even though these letters can be played at any point in the game, as the game progresses they can become even more valuable if players have similar scores.
Beginners and intermediate players may struggle to use these letters, hanging on to them for too long or swapping them in order to find a letter that is easier to combine. However, as experts of the game know that these are a great way to boost your point score, they will practice going through word lists that feature the most difficult letters to learn new vocabulary that can be used in-game.
5. Join words together
One great way that you can make high scoring words is to use the existing words on the board as stems to expand or create new words. The benefit of this is that you will be able to pick up the standard letter values from the tiles you join together on the board, while gaining points from the new letters you attach to these.
There are different ways of doing this, such as adding the letter “S” to the end of a word before creating a new word that will be joined from the end. Alternatively, players may see an opportunity to connect two separate words together on a row or column, forming a much longer word by adding letters to the spaces in-between.
6. Create parallel words
Did you know you can create multiple words within one turn in Words With Friends? To perform this advanced move, you will need to build a word that runs parallel to a word already placed on the board.
To make this work, it is useful to have a great knowledge of two-letter words that will be formed on each letter and shared between both words. What’s more, creating longer parallel words will increase the number of words you create, providing a welcome boost to your points score!
7. Learn smaller words
When dealing with difficult rarer letters or letters that don’t combine well with other words, it can be worthwhile to learn some of the game’s 2-letter and 3-letter words. In particular, these can be used to get yourself out of a tricky situation towards the end of the game where there is not much board space left to place new words.
Short words can be a great way to counteract an opponent that is implementing a defensive strategy, as you will be able to re-utilize letters from their words which would not be worth combining with in other circumstances. For example, if your competitor places a word with the letter “I” in it and it is also accessible, it could be combined with the high-scoring letter “Q” to form the word “QI” for a steady score of 11 points (or more if placed upon a bonus tile).
8. Use power-ups
In Words With Friends, players can use 4 different power-ups to help them in multiple ways during the game. The total number of power-ups are shown to the player in the navigation and each time they are used they will decrease by 1.
- Tile Swap Plus: Allows players to swap tiles with those from the tile bag without losing their current turn.
- Hindsight: Shows a good alternative move that could have been played, only available after a turn has been played.
- Word Clue: When players are out of ideas, this power-up will highlight an area of the board and some suggested tiles to use in that area.
- Word Radar: Will highlight all the possible places where it is possible for the player to play a word using their current tile rack.
Power-ups can be earned by using coins earned in the game through a variety of challenges, through opening mystery boxes or by purchasing them with real money. Make sure to use them and see how your points scores begin to increase!
9. Compete against stronger opponents
To truly get better at most types of competitions, players should always strive to play against other opponents who are better than them at the game at hand. This also applies to WWF, where weaker players will be able to see the specific strategies utilized by the stronger players.
Although written guides can be an effective way to learn new strategies that you can implement in the game, playing against better players is interactive and can improve your skill set more rapidly. The important thing is to make sure the opponent is only slightly better than you rather than greatly superior, as a great mismatch can end up having a detrimental effect on learning.
10. Try a cheat tool
If you have tried all of the given methods but are still struggling to beat your opponents, why not try WordsRated’s Words With Friends Cheat? To use it, simply enter the letters from your rack (in the letters field) alongside any letters you would like to combine them with from the board (in the includes field) and click on the “Find words” button to see a list of playable words.
As this tool gives the player outside help, we encourage their use for games where both players have agreed to their use to see who can create the biggest score, or simply for training your personal dictionary. When used in a balanced fashion, a cheat tool can be a great way to build your vocabulary, allowing you to learn new words to play in future games.
Overview of winning tips and tricks for WWF
So there you have it, follow our carefully selected strategies and you can be well on your way to becoming a master of Words With Friends! By combining regular play with some steady guidance, you will be able to see improvements in your game in no time at all.
Consider also tracking your ranking against your friends or in the global leaderboard, accessible through the game’s standings navigation tab. By making this a regular habit after each game played, you should have an added impetus to become a better overall player.
To make the most progress, we suggest working through each strategy on the list one at a time rather than trying to cover all strategies from the get-go. As with any skill, practice makes perfect, so keep competing against other players and notice the wins start to roll in!