Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom

Description And Comments

Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom is a free-to-play, trading card–based game that combines aspects of role-playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons with Disney characters and theme park attractions. Your objective: to help the wizard Merlin keep evildoers from taking over the Magic Kingdom. Merlin sends you on adventures in different parts of the park to fight these villains. Each land hosts a different adventure within the game.

When you pick up your first set of cards, you’ll view an instructional video explaining how to use them; then you’ll report to another location to start your first adventure. Each location in the park is associated with a unique symbol: an eye, a feather, a dragonfly, or something along those lines. Look for these symbols on the map to find the best route to your starting point.

Each adventure consists of four or five stops in a particular land. At each stop, a story will play on a video screen, outlining what your villain is trying to do. Merlin will ask you to cast a spell to stop the villain—to do so, hold one or more of your cards up to the video display. Cameras in the display read your card, deploy the spell, and show you the results.

The audio at each step holds clues to which cards you should use against advanced villains. For example, if a villain says something like “Don’t toy with me!” then you should look for cards with characters that are toys, such as the Toy Story characters; references to “being spotted” suggest using cards with characters from 101 Dalmatians; and so on.

The game has three levels: easy, medium, and hard. The easy version is the default and is appropriate for small children; holding up any one of your character cards is enough to defeat any villain. In the more advanced levels of the game, you need to display two or more character cards in specific combinations to defeat a particular villain. Different card combinations produce different spells, and only some spells work on certain characters in those advanced levels.

The game launched with an initial series of around 70 unique cards; you can obtain 5 new ones per day. Don’t worry if you play more than once and end up with duplicate cards—a small trading market exists within the park. Disney issues new card series over time.

An Anchorage, Alaska, couple offers these tips for playing the game:

(1) Unless you plan to stick with every member of your group every single minute, make sure they all get their own portal keys. (2) Every card has a “rarity,” located above the card number. If you want to trade cards, only trade for similar rarities. The symbol designates its rarity: planet (looks like a circle) is common, moon is uncommon, star is rare, lightning bolt is super-rare. You can only obtain lightning-bolt cards by buying card packs at the Emporium when they’re in stock. They usually sell out by lunchtime, and the days they have them are random (to help increase scarcity). (4) When you’re playing, be prepared for a LOT of people to come up to you and ask what you’re doing. (5) Also, be prepared for people to walk in front of you when you’re playing. This can cause the card reader to time out. (6) You can buy T-shirts with special designs on them that increase your power when you play at medium and hard levels.

This Stamford, Connecticut, reader stresses that Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom takes a while to play:

Be warned—if you want to beat the game, it takes a lot longer than you think.

Touring Tips

You’ll probably encounter a line of 5–10 people ahead of you at each portal, especially if you play during the afternoon. One complete adventure should take about 30–60 minutes to play, depending on how crowded the park is. If the game sounds too confusing, A Pirate’s Adventure in Adventureland is easier.

Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom Wait Times

This chart shows you roughly how long you'll wait for Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom when you visit on a day with a given Magic Kingdom Crowd Level. The blue bars represent the average "peak" wait time (that is, how long the line will be at its busiest). The bottom and top black lines represent the range of peak wait times to expect (for you fellow nerds out there: it's the 5th percentile and 95th percentile of peak wait times). Please note that these are estimates, and for a better forecast for your travel dates, see Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom Wait Times.

Special Needs

• Video Captioning Available

Disney Dish with Jim Hill

Savvy Gamesmanship

The number of guests who line up to play Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom every day is only a bit less than the daily capacity of The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. That’s why Disney was quick to add the interactive Pirate’s Adventure game to this theme park.

Other Attractions in Main Street, U.S.A.

• Casey's Corner Pianist
• Dapper Dans
• Disney Festival of Fantasy Parade
• Flag Retreat
• Happily Ever After
• Let the Magic Begin
• Meet Mickey at Town Square Theater
• Mickey's Magical Friendship Faire
• Walt Disney World Railroad - Main Street, U.S.A.