Magicians and Jesters

Four Magicians, four Jesters, and the rules most often played wrong. With three example tricks to check yourself against.

Eight of the 60 cards have no suit at all and obey no obligation to follow suit. Most rounds are decided on them — and most rules mistakes are made on them too. Below: both cards in detail, what happens when one is led, and three example tricks to check yourself against.

The Magician (4 cards)

The strongest card in the game. A Magician beats every trump, every ace and everything else. If more than one lands in the same trick, the one played first wins — not the last. Throwing a second Magician onto one already lying there is throwing it away.

A Magician has no suit. It is never obliged to follow suit and can be played on anything. If a Magician is led, the trick has no led suit at all: everybody else may play whatever they like, and loses regardless. That is the cleanest way to make a trick certain while forcing everyone else to discard.

The Jester (4 cards)

The weakest card in the game, and not therefore the most useless. A Jester loses to everything — every suit card, every trump, every Magician. It also has no suit and may always be played.

Two details that reliably start arguments:

• A Jester led: the suit of the trick is set by the next card played that is not a Jester. So the player after the Jester has a free choice — and in making it decides what everybody after them has to follow.
• A trick of nothing but Jesters: entirely possible in round 1. The first Jester played wins it, and the trick counts perfectly normally towards that player's bid — which is how a zero bid dies.

The Jester is the card you hold a zero bid with: it cannot take a trick, and playing it sheds a dangerous suit card you would otherwise have had to follow with.

Who wins the trick, as a list

1. the first Magician played;
2. otherwise the highest trump;
3. otherwise the highest card of the led suit;
4. otherwise — all Jesters — the first Jester played.

Cards that are neither trump nor the led suit can never win the trick, however high they are. This is the single most common misplay by a table new to the game.

Three tricks to check yourself against

Trump is hearts.

• 10♠ — A♠ — Magician — 3♥. The Magician wins. The 3♥ is trump and still has no chance.
• Jester — 7♦ — K♦ — Magician. The Magician wins. The led suit would have been diamonds, fixed by the 7♦ played after the Jester.
• Jester — Jester — Jester. The first Jester wins the trick. For its player it counts as an ordinary trick — which wrecks a zero bid.

What they are worth, measured

A Magician is not a whole trick. Over 240,000 simulated hands it is worth 0.94 of one, because Magicians collide with each other; a Jester is worth 0.06, which is indistinguishable from nothing. Both figures and the rest of the deck are on the bidding strategy page.

Wizards and Jesters

In the English-language edition of the 60-card game these two cards are called the Wizard and the Jester; in German, Zauberer and Narr. The rules are the same ones described above. Wizard is a registered trademark of Amigo Spiele and nothing to do with us — in Pythia the cards are the Magician and the Jester. Playing plain Oh Hell on a 52-card pack, you have neither, and the trick simply goes to the highest trump or the highest card of the led suit. The overview: all the rules. In German: Zauberer und Narr.