Wordle et al.

[pooka]

I have sets of starter words that exhaust the vowels, including y, and the 1 point consonants (from scrabble), or Wheel of Fortune gimme (in final fortune) TSRLN. 
First I was using wordy guest chain, which actually missed L. 
When wordle started being edited, I leaned toward train slope ducky (or ducky, depending on how I felt that day).  Today I added a new set.  But I guess I'll wait till tomorrow to post.  [bagel syrup joint, which j is kind of an odd choice.]
I use these more for squardle and quordle, I still give hard mode a shot in Wordle. 

[pooka]

I guess I'll look harder at the 2 (D, G) and 3 point (B, C, M, P) letters.
I guess bagel tonic syrup is better, but doesn't get d. 
Nasty Doric Bugle is probably the most parsimonious set so far. 
Giant Syrup Model is also 24 points.  I guess the point total of the individual words could be important, depending on which game one is playing.
PPS.  Radly isn't a word, according to quordle.  Which is too bad, since it went with topic and lunge.  But now I have 2 Ls.     I missed the s somehow.

[pooka]

The status of s in a valid wordle bears some examination, since wordle is never a plural ending in s.  Except for the one case I can't quite remember.  Pants?  something of that nature.  I don't think squardle uses a final s very often either.  Does S remain a most frequent consonant in those conditions? 
Ah, here is a resource (if you scroll down down down there is a chart of how often letters have appeared in live wordle solutions. 
https://www.stadafa.com/2021/09/every-worlde-word-so-far-updated-daily.html
I may download it when I'm at home to get the cutoff on the original list vs. the edited game.  I'll have to see when that started.
At present, the top 15 letters in descending order (with vowels and y separated) is:
EAOIUY
RTLSNCHPD  (from these we get Later Sonic and Du_py +h, which can become dumpy by pulling up M in place of h).

here is an analysis that placed s at the top:
https://leancrew.com/all-this/2022/01/wordle-letters/

[Tante Shvester]

My starting words are all anagrams of TRACE.  CRATE. CARTE. CARET. REACT.  Like that.  If I get no hits, my next guess is LOUSY.

[Brinestone]

My starting word is PIANO, followed by QUERY. It's a very effective combo, and it makes me smile because I have a personal connection to both words. Though, I don't play very often anymore.

[pooka]

Since they started curating the solutions, I have been playing less and less hard mode.  I'm kind of questioning whether it's still fun for me.  I do love me some squardle, though.

[pooka]

My games of choice these days are weekly squardle, and duotrigordle jumble.  Squardle doesn't have ads.  Daily squardle is 3x3 5 letter words, and weekly squardle is 5x5 5 letter words. 
duotrigordle jumble is fun to see if you can go through without any other strikes.  There is a perfect challenge duotrigordle, where your first word (if a cromulent 5 letter word) is all green.  I haven't gotten the hang of how to win that. 
The trouble is I was starting to waste a serious amount of time playing duotrigordle, since games generally take 10-15 minutes, so by the time I'd done the daily, the daily sequence, and the daily jumble, and a perfect challenge, I was on my phone using my fingers for an hour.  Sorry about that oxford comma.  I felt it was warranted by the number of words in each list item.