Merlin and the Ice Queen Morgana

Theme and Design

A Fantasy Slot With An Icy Atmosphere

Merlin and the Ice Queen Morgana is your classic Fantasy story slot and the production has some epic qualities to it. The backdrop appears to be the top of a stone castle with forests and hills in the distance. The setting changes from night to day, and when Morgana arrives, shards of ice suddenly appear. There are murmuring from Merlin about ‘defeating her’ and the evil laughs thrown back from Morgana, who it turns out is his apprentice, but clearly now a wayward one.

Overall, this is Play n Go so the production is not at the level of a Relax Gaming or Nolimit City slot, but it’s not bad, and for those in search of another Arthurian-style slot it pushes the right buttons.

RTP and Variance

Like many Play n Go slots, Merlin and the Ice Queen Morgana has multiple RTP settings. They are 96.2%, 94.2%, 91.2% and 87.2%. It will be down to your casino which setting they choose to run the game at. Therefore, when playing this game I recommend taking a moment to check the RTP on the game info screen before you start spinning.

Here are the settings from five popular slot sites:

• Casumo (independent) – 94.2% RTP
• Duelz Casino (SuprPlay) – 87.2% RTP
• BacanaPlay (Skill on Net) – 91.2% RTP
• Barz Casino (White Hat Gaming) – 94.2% RTP
• All British Casino (L and L Europe) – 94.2% RTP

As you can see, none of these sites choose the optimum RTP level. But of the five, Barz, Casumo and All British offer the best setting, close to the maximum at 94.25%.

This is also a medium-high variance slot, not as volatile as games like Book of Dead or Clash of Camelot from the same studio, but still unpredictable nonetheless. It can be a frustrating play but can also kick out some huge wins when in the mood.

Maximum Win

The top payout here is a very solid 20,000x. That is really good for a Play n Go slot, whose highest paying game currently is Kiss Reels of Rock at 50,000x. Wild Falls 2 (15,000x) and Clash of Camelot (35,000x) also have good potential. For more like those, check out our list of the Play n Go slots with the highest maximum wins.

Symbols and Paytable

Good Value At The Top End Of The Paytable With 250x Merlin Wins

Merlin and the Ice Queen Morgana is a 5 reel slot with 3 rows and the choice of between 1 and 10 paylines to bet on. This is quite unusual for todays online slot, most of which run with a fixed payline number. For the purpose of this review we are going to assume that you are playing with 10 paylines in play.

That gives you quite low value in the paytable until you reach the top end of the premiums. But I should add that this is offset by the fact that there are plenty of multipliers up for grabs later in the game to enhance these wins. And there needs to be if you want to get anywhere near that 20,000x top win!

There are five low pay symbols. These are the cards, 10 through to Ace, valued at from 0.2x for 3 10s up to 2.5x for 5 Aces. Premiums are the ring, cauldron, spell book and Merlin Wizard valued at from 0.2x for 3 rings up to 250x for 5 Merlins.

Morgana is the Wild, substituting in for all other symbols to complete paylines, and the Fire Scatter is required to unlock the free spins round, explained in the next section.

Features and Gameplay

Wild Expanders Drop Regularly But Free Spins Are Elusive!

Merlin and the Ice Queen Morgana follows some aspects of the classic Book of format, but I should point out that it is not completely formulaic. There are a few tweaks to keep things interesting.

Morgana Wilds Appear Stacked With Multipliers

Firstly, the Morgana Wilds may appear stacked as well as in normal form. When it appears stacked then it will come with a multiplier of 2x, 3x, 5x and 8x that will be applied to any win it is part of.

Free Spins Round With Extra Expander Symbol

The free spins round will be familiar to anyone who has played Book of Dead. It starts by landing 3 or more scatters which bring up 10 spins. What I like here is that you also get a payout of 1x, 10x or 100x for 3, 4 or 5 scatters.

Then, before the round starts, one symbol is randomly chosen as an Expander. It only takes affect when if in expanding it would create at least one win.

And finally, the Morgana Wild can also substitute for Expanded Symbols to complete paylines to give you the maximum chance of landing wins in your bonus round.

Gamble Your Wins

The final touch to this game is a Gamble Feature. On ANY win you can click to gamble on the turn of a card. Bet on the suit of the color to win 4x or 2x your win respectively. However, keep in mind that if you guess wrong, you lose the lot!