Power of Merlin Megaways

Theme and Design

Merlin, famous wizard of the King Arthur legend, hosts this game in an ethereal, Arcadian forest setting, all bathed in turquoise light with twinkling magic dust dancing between mossy trees. Merlin himself looks suitably benevolent whilst a mix of potion bottles, shining gems, spell books and wise owls make appearances on the reels.

It’s not a wholly original scene or narrative for a slot, but it feels this feels like we are in the right kind of place for some myth-making of our own as we chase down 40,000x wins.

RTP and Variance

Like most Pragmatic Play slots, Power of Merlin Megaways has more than one possible RTP setting. Three in this case: 96.09%, 95.07% or 94.08%. Which you play at will be at the discretion of your casino. We checked the RTP at five popular online slot sites and this is what we found:

• Casumo (independent): 94.08%
• BacanaPlay (Skill on Net): 94.08%
• Barz (White Hat Gaming):  94.08%
• Vegasland (Aspire Global): 96.09%
• MrQ (independent): 96.09%

Whilst it may feel like there is little difference between an RTP of 94.08% and 96.09%, to give yourself the best chance of winning on this slot we recommend playing at the sites that run at the optimum RTP, in this case Vegasland and MrQ.

Pragmatic Play tell us that this is a highly volatile slot – 5/5 on their own rating scale. So, like many Megaways slots, it’s all about patience and waiting for those electric win sequences where cumulative features unlock the big payouts.

Maximum Win

Power of Merlin Megaways has an excellent max payout of 40,000x. That is unusually high for recent Pragmatic Play slots and not bad for a Megaways game either. Though of course there are higher-paying Megaways slots like Who Wants To Be A Millionaire Megaways (70,000x) or Vikings Unleashed Megaways (50,000x) for example.

If you want to find more games with great potential check out our list of the highest paying online slots with wins of over 100,000x.

Symbols and Paytable

Power of Merlin Megaways follows the classic Megaways model of 6 reels where reels 1 and 6 can have anywhere between 2 and 7 symbols and reels 2, 3, 4 and 5 can have up to 6 symbols. In addition there is an additional 4 reel x 1 row additional reelset above reels 2 to 5 which spins horizontally.

Wins are triggered by landing 3 or more identical symbols (2 or more if it’s the top paying premium) from left to right on adjacent reels regardless of the row they sit on. That gives you up to 117,649 paylines when every reel is displaying its maximum row number.

There is not huge value in the paytable but remember you have lots of opportunity to enhance those wins with tumblers and multipliers.

Low payers then are the cards 9 through to Ace, valued at from 0.1x for 3 9s up to 1.5x for 6 Aces. Premiums are the potion bottle, crystal, owl and merlin himself, valued at from 0.25x for 3 potion bottles up to 20x for 6 merlins.

There is a wild, it doesn’t pay out but it will substitute for all other symbols except the scatter and lightning bolt, to help create winlines.

Features and Gameplay

Power of Merlin uses some standard Megaways mechanics then throws in a random wild transformation feature to keep us on our toes.

Tumble Wins Keep the Action Flowing

First up, the classic Tumble, or Cascade feature. We see this in countless Megaways games. After every win, winning symbols are removed from the reels and new ones drop into the spaces left behind. This may create more wins, triggering the process again. This continues until no more wins are formed.

Lightning Bolts Trigger Wild Transformations

The special reel above standard reels 2 to 5 carries a special symbol – the lightning bolt. If it lands, then one pay symbols is chosen and ALL instances of that symbol on the main reels are turned into wilds.

Where wins are created and a tumble follows, if as a result our Lightning Bolt moves then it will trigger again.

Up To 30 Free Spins, Re-Trigger and Progressive Multipliers

The game really comes to life in the free spins round. You’ll need to land 4 or more Spell Book scatters to trigger this. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9 scatters gets you 10, 14, 18, 22, 26 or 30 free spins.

At this point you can gamble for more spins by spinning a wheel. It’s a straight win/lose situation with 4 more spins added if you win and total wipe out and back to the main game if you lose.

When the round starts you have a 1x multiplier, displayed to the side of the reels. For every tumble during the free spins, the multiplier increases by 1x. It is applied to every win after every tumble.

You can also add a further 4 free spins at any point during the round by landing 3 more scatters.