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“Maxways” is Microgaming’s own name for the reel system most players know from Big Time Gaming as “Megaways”. Merlin’s Secret Maxways utilizes the classic 6-reel, shape-shifting grid we all know and love, offering up to 117,649 ways to win alongside cascading reels.
But does this magical, high-volatility release have enough tricks up its sleeve to stand out in a sea of identical grid slots?
Quick Stats
- Reels/Rows: 6 reels + 4-cell top tracker
- Ways: Up to 117,649
- Max Win: 40,000x stake
- Features: Cascades, Lightning Wilds, Free Spins with Gamble, Progressive Multiplier, Buy Free Spins (150x)
Theme and Paytable: It’s All About the Ways
Visually, the game is solid, featuring painted portraits of a Sorceress, Merlin, an owl, a black cat, and potions. The Sorceress is your premium symbol, paying 20x for a six-of-a-kind, but after that, the values drop off a cliff. Merlin pays just 5x for six, and the carved royal symbols pay fractions of your bet.
If you’re new to this style of game, don’t let the low base values scare you. The math model here relies entirely on the ways multiplier. You aren’t looking for one premium line; you’re looking for a swarm of cheap symbols. Over my 25 base spins, my biggest hit was 29.1x, and the vast majority of that came from a massive cluster of Qs multiplying across nearly 50 ways on a tall board.
The Lightning Strike Feature: A Flawed Spell
The base game’s main modifier comes via the top horizontal tracker reel. Occasionally, a Lightning symbol slides in. When it hits, it randomly selects one symbol type on the board and turns every instance of it Wild on reels 2 through 5 (and the top tracker). Even better, if a cascade moves the Lightning symbol to a new spot, it can trigger again.
Here’s my gripe, though: The transformation is strictly positional. Because this game pays left-to-right starting from reel 1, a screen full of Wilds on reels 2, 3, and 4 is completely useless if you don’t have a matching symbol on the first reel to connect them. A Lightning strike can look spectacular, filling the middle of the grid with Wilds, and still pay nothing because reel 1 has nothing to match. It’s a bit of a tease.
Free Spins & The Gamble Wheel
Triggering the bonus requires four Spellbook Scatters, which awards 10 Free Spins. (Note: Landing three scatters triggers a dramatic anticipation spin, but pays nothing and awards nothing, a pet peeve of mine).
Before the bonus starts, you face a gamble wheel. You can collect your 10 spins or risk them for 14, all the way up to a maximum of 30. Be warned: A single loss on the wheel wipes your feature entirely and dumps you back into the base game. If you paid 150x for Buy Free Spins, losing that on a gamble with unpublished odds is incredibly tilt-inducing. Proceed with caution.
Once you’re in the Free Spins, it’s standard Megaways-style fare. A persistent win multiplier starts at 1x and increases by +1 after every winning cascade. It doesn’t reset between spins. Because it climbs based on the number of cascades rather than the size of the win, you want a lot of small, consecutive pops early on to build that multiplier for the final few spins.
When you compare it to something like YGR’s Gold Showdown x3072, which doubles its multiplier but resets it every spin, Merlin opts for the slow-burn tension of a persistent multiplier. The studio claims a simulated max win of 40,000x, which is massive. But to get anywhere near that, you don’t need Merlin or the Sorceress. You need a fully unlocked grid, a cheap royal symbol on reel 1, a Lightning strike to fill the middle with Wilds, and a juicy late-bonus multiplier.
