The Wiz

The Wiz review

It looks like Elk Studios will start the new year with a good dose of magic, as they’re preparing for their first slot release of the year, The Wiz! Short for ‘The Wizard’, the Wiz is a fantasy slot with 178 ways to win designed for mobile first, featuring wilds with multipliers and a free spins bonus game. If you’d like to learn more about its interesting mechanics and rewarding win potential ahead of its release on the 9th of January 2019, read our review of The Wiz slot, which should help you decide whether it’s worth playing for real money or not.

The Wiz slot features

The Wiz is a 5-reel slot with 178 ways to win set against the background of a magical kingdom inhabited by sorcerers and dragons. Symbols on the reels include low-value spoons, keys, rings and brooches, and higher-value potion bottles, chests, moons and sun symbols, with the latter being the most rewarding (giving you just 10 times the stake for 5 in a line). Like all other slots by Elk Studios, The Wiz includes the ‘Betting Strategies’ feature, which allows players to choose from 4 strategies that correspond to different types of gaming behaviour.

The highlight of the base game in The Wiz slot is the multiplier wild, which consists of a wild dragaon symbol that comes with a random win multiplier of between 2x and 5x each time it lands. If you’re lucky enough to land more than one of these, you can expect a decent payout, otherwsie all base game wins are not likely to amount to much.

The Wiz slot free spins

You can get a free spin in the Wiz slot by landing just 2 Wizard scatter symbols anywhere on the reels. Of course, this serves only as a teaser as you’ll only get 1 Wizspin with 2 wizards. If you land on 3, 4 or 5 Wizard symbols, you’ll get 5, 7 and 10 free spins respectively. This round can be re-triggered by landing on 1, 2, 3 or 5 scatters (by up to 10 extra spins if you get 5 scatters). However, it’s worth noting that the wizard is rather elusive in this game and will not appear as frequently as you might hope!

During the free spins round in The Wiz, you’ll benefit from more premium symbols, as all the low-value symbols will be transformed into their corresponding high-value symbols as follows:

• The spoon will become the jar of potion
• The key will transform into the chest
• The brooch will transform into the Moon
• The ring will transform into the Sun.

To add to the excitement, the Dragon wild will also become a Walking Wild during the free spins, and will move one reel to the left after every spin, until it disappears from the screen. Of course, it will carry its multiplier along with him, applying it to all wins he ends up forming a part of!

The Wiz slot bonus

If you’re not sure whether The Wiz is right for you, we suggest you try it with some bonus funds first. You can do so by registering with an online casino that offers a welcome bonus, in order to be able to use your match bonus to play The Wiz. Check out the below casinos first, which all offer games by Elk Studios PLUS a great UK welcome bonus!

Where to play The Wiz slot

The Wiz slot min/max bets, RTP, volatility and maximum win

The Wiz is playable by staking from 0.20p up to £100 on each spin. The RTP is an average 96.1% and volatility is medium to high, with the highest payouts to be had during the bonus game. We found hit frequency to be on the low side, although it might be worth persevering until you get to the bonus game for a chance to win up to £500,000!

The Wiz slot graphics and sound

It’s very hard to find fault with this game’s visuals. It’s been designed to prompt us to suspend our imagination with its ‘fairytale-castle’ looming in the blue-skied background. All symbols have been crafted in great detail and contrast nicely against the semi-transparent reels. A gentle instrumental soundtrack plays in the background, which picks up and turns into an adventurous piece once you trigger the bonus round.

The Wiz slot – our Conclusion

The Wiz is a beautifully designed game that will impress at first glance, however, we think that its payout structure is likely to disappoint given the low base-game wins and below-average hit frequency. It’s mostly suited to those high rollers who have the patience to wait for the bonus round to trigger, since this is where the real rewards are to be had. We would have loved a little more excitement during the base game and found the payouts to be very low (almost always lower than the initial stake, even with the wild multiplier applied!). What’s more, 5 free spins is very little for landing 3 scatters and you can easily find slots that would reward you with many more. If you love fantasy slots, we can also suggest Quickspin’s recent Ivan and the Immortal King slot, with its increasing multipliers of up to 20x! You’ll find this slot already available at Casumo by clicking on the link below (the Wiz will be available here on the 9th of January).