NYT Strands Strategy Guide: How to Solve It Faster

Most players who get stuck on Strands are not short on vocabulary. They are staring at 48 letters with no plan for where to start. There is no guess limit, so the only cost of a bad start is time.

This guide is the plan. It assumes you know how to drag through a word. If you want the spangram basics first, read our spangram explainer.

Use the grid’s shape

The board is a 6 by 8 grid, and every letter belongs to exactly one answer. That is the strongest tool you have. Whatever word you commit to, the letters left over must still be able to form the remaining words. Every technique below is a way of using that.

1. Read the clue twice

Read the theme clue literally, then again as a pun or a figure of speech. Before you look at any letters, decide what kind of answers you expect.

A made-up example: for the clue “Around the house”, expect short, concrete nouns you could name quickly. For “Say it differently”, expect several words with roughly the same meaning. Knowing the type tells you what to scan for, and it makes the real words you spot by accident easier to ignore.

2. Start at the corners and edges

Because letters connect diagonally, a corner letter touches only three others, an edge letter touches five, and a letter in the middle touches eight. Fewer neighbors means fewer possible words, so the outside of the grid is where you can reason with the most confidence.

Pick a corner and ask what could start or end a word there. If it holds an awkward letter such as Q or J, very few words fit, and one of them is probably a theme word.

3. Hunt for the spangram along the edges

The spangram runs between two opposite sides, so look for chains that begin on one edge and finish on the other. Try long strings as two words, and follow letters around corners rather than in straight lines. What is a spangram? covers the details.

Check any candidate against the clue. The spangram names the theme, so it should make the clue click, not just sound plausible. Because it crosses the whole board, finding it also splits the remaining letters into smaller areas.

4. Check what a word leaves behind

Before you commit to a theme word, look at what it would leave. Every remaining tile still has to reach a neighbor that is also unused.

A made-up example: suppose you can trace a word along the top edge in two ways, and one path would leave a single letter alone in the corner. That path is almost certainly wrong, even if the word is real. Take the other path.

Try this every time two paths look equally good. It takes seconds and settles most ties.

5. Earn hints on purpose

Any real word of four letters or more that is not a theme word counts toward a hint, and three of them earn one. When you are stuck, scan a cluster of unused letters for an ordinary word. It is progress even though it does not fill the board.

A hint highlights the letters of a theme word you have not found yet. It does not give the order, so you still have to trace the path. Spend one when you have run out of ideas, not the moment it unlocks.

6. Let the answers you have found guide the rest

Once the spangram and a theme word or two are down, the remaining words usually share their character. If the ones you found are all short, or all plurals, or all one narrow slice of the clue, look for more of the same. Go back and reread the clue each time. It often reads differently once you know part of the theme.

Connections players use the same trick, solving the surest group first so the rest gets clearer. See our Connections strategy guide.

If the theme will not come, stop naming it and look for repeats instead: the same ending, or the same starting chunk, in several places. Sometimes the theme only appears after you have two answers.

Common mistakes

• Chasing long words. A long word that only loosely fits the clue is a trap. Theme words are specific.
• Forgetting diagonals. If a word you can almost see does not work, check whether a diagonal link completes it.
• Reusing a tile. Each tile can be used once per word, so a path that must loop back through a letter will not work.
• Skipping the clue after the first word. The clue is your best evidence all game.

Using our hints without spoiling yourself

Our Strands hints are revealed one at a time, starting with the lengths of the theme words, and nothing shows until you tap. Take one, try the board again, and only open the next if you are still stuck. To see how past themes were built, the Strands hub lists earlier puzzles.

Looking for something else to play? Try our list of games like Strands, or read Strands vs Connections if you are choosing between the two.

Word Game Clues is an independent hint site and is not affiliated with The New York Times or any of the game publishers mentioned here.