Wizard (card game)

Wizard is a trick-taking card game for three to six players designed by Ken Fisher of Toronto, Ontario in 1984 and based on the older card game Oh Hell. Fisher self-published the game before it reached commercial printing in June 1986, after which it was produced by Waddington Publishing until 1994 and has since been published by U.S. Games Systems. A standard Wizard deck holds sixty cards, made up of the fifty-two cards of a normal deck plus four Wizard cards and four Jester cards, with Jesters ranked lowest and Wizards ranked highest regardless of suit. Players bid on how many tricks they expect to take in each hand and score points for bidding accurately, a structure that distinguishes Wizard from most trick-taking games, where simply winning tricks is the goal. The game has remained continuously in print for decades and is often cited as an accessible modern entry point into the trick-taking family.