The Trade: Your One Do-Over

After your nineteenth turn, with every slot filled, WyldTyle offers one trade. You may roll two more letters, choosing the roll type as usual, and must then swap both onto the board in place of letters already there. Or you may skip it and score the board as it stands. It is the only do-over in the game, and it is also a gamble, because once you roll you are committed.

How it works

1. Decide whether to trade at all. Skipping goes straight to scoring.
2. If you trade, choose a roll type: consonant-and-vowel, two consonants, or two vowels.
3. Roll. You get two letters, either of which might be wild at the usual 8% chance.
4. Place both new letters onto slots of your choosing. The letters that were there are discarded. You can undo and re-place before the second letter lands.
5. Once both are placed, the board scores.

The detail that matters most: both rolled letters must be placed. You cannot look at the roll and change your mind, and you cannot place one letter and throw the other away. Every trade changes two slots on your board, whether or not you wanted it to.

The safe place for an unwanted letter

Because both letters must land, you need a plan for the one you did not want. There are two safe options. If the same letter already appears on your board, swap it for itself; the word is unchanged. Otherwise, find a slot where the new letter keeps the word valid: swapping the T in TENT for an S gives SENT, swapping the last letter of a plural for a different consonant sometimes gives another real word. Hints can help here, since they show valid words for a partially specified pattern.

If neither option exists, the unwanted letter will break a word, and you must weigh that damage against the good the other letter does. This is why the decision to trade at all is the important one.

When to trade

• One invalid word, one letter from valid. The clearest case. A board with seven valid words and one reading BLENT scores about 65. If the trade rolls a D, BLEND completes the board and the score jumps to roughly 97: the word's points plus the 20-point bonus. Even with the second letter doing some damage, the expected gain is large. Trade.
• Two invalid words. Trade, and call the roll that gives you the best chance of fixing both. You have nothing to protect.
• A valid board with a wild in a scoring position. A wild scores zero. If the trade roll produces the real letter, you recover its points; if it produces something else, you need a safe slot for it. Trade only if you have a same-letter swap available for a bad roll, or if the upside is several points.
• A fully valid board with no wilds. Usually skip. The best case is a small upgrade, swapping a 1-point letter for a 4-point one that keeps the word valid. The worst case is breaking a word and losing 20 points plus the word. Unless you have two safe swaps ready, the maths says lock it in.

Setting the trade up

The trade is far more useful if you arrive at it with exactly one problem to solve and a plan for the second letter. From about turn fifteen, play with the trade in mind:

• Identify your weakest word. Which slot is most likely to end invalid? Give it your best letters over the final turns. If you can get it valid, wonderful; if not, make sure it is one letter from valid, not two.
• Keep the other seven safe. A trade fixes one word reliably. If two slots are in trouble, spend a wild or a good letter finishing one of them before turn 19.
• Make the missing letter a common one. If your broken word needs an E, a two-vowel roll gives you about a 51% chance of at least one E. If it needs a K, a two-consonant roll gives you about 6.6%. Where you have a choice about which letter to leave missing, leave a common one missing.
• Keep a duplicate letter on the board. A board with two Ts has a guaranteed safe slot for an unwanted T. Boards full of common letters have more same-letter swaps available, which is one more small reason cheap letters are useful.

Choosing the trade roll

This is the one roll in the game where you know exactly what you need. Call the roll that maximises your chance of the specific letter, and think about what the other die will do:

• Need a vowel? Call two vowels. Two chances at it, and the spare will be a vowel, which is easier to swap safely than a rare consonant.
• Need a consonant? Call two consonants. The spare could be anything from T to V, so know your safe slots before you roll.
• Need one of each? Consonant-and-vowel, accepting that both dice must cooperate.

Placement mistakes

The commonest error is placing the good letter first, celebrating, and then dropping the second letter into a word that was fine. Place the awkward letter first, into its safe slot, while you are still thinking clearly. Then place the letter you wanted. And remember that undo is available until the second letter is down.