1. Look before you match.
Before taking a pair, check what each tile is holding back. A tile on top of a stack frees the tile beneath it. A tile at the end of a long row lets its neighbour slide out. A pair that frees nothing can usually wait.
When two pairs look equally good, prefer the one that opens more of the board. More free tiles mean more choices on your next turn.
2. Work on the tall stacks and long rows.
Tiles in the middle of a tall stack or a long row are the hardest to reach. Start working on them early. Clearing the upper layers in the centre keeps the game flexible, while the outer tiles are usually easy to reach later.
3. Clear four of a kind together.
When every remaining copy of a tile is free at the same time, matching them is always safe: no other tile depends on them, and taking them removes clutter. With four free copies, take both pairs.
4. Choose carefully when three are free.
With three free copies and a fourth still buried, your choice matters. The copy you leave behind waits for the buried one, and it stays free while it waits. So match the two whose removal frees the most tiles now, and leave the one that blocks the least.
5. Watch out for stacked twins.
If two copies of the same tile sit one on top of the other, the lower one stays covered until the upper one leaves. Match the other two copies elsewhere first, and the stacked pair can never be removed. Plan to free the upper twin with one of the other copies instead.
6. Use hints, undo and shuffle wisely.
Hint suggests a pair that keeps the board winnable, with a short reason, so it is a good way to learn what a strong match looks like. Undo lets you test an idea and step back.
Shuffle rearranges the tiles you have left. It helps when no matches remain, but a board that still has a winning path rarely needs one. Hints, undos and shuffles all appear in your result, so a clean result is a nice goal for later.
How our levels work.
Every deal is built so that it can be cleared, so difficulty comes from how forgiving the deal is. Mahjong Dawn plays each new deal many times with simple, random choices and measures how often those games clear the board. Easy deals forgive most slips, Medium needs some planning, and Hard deals punish early mistakes.
Levels are measured within each layout, so Hard on the small Lantern and Hard on the classic Turtle each mean the trickiest third of that layout’s deals. Bigger layouts with more layers also take longer and reward more planning.