The Champions

Soccer is the most popular sport on a global level, and The Champions slot, available at Pragmatic Play casinos, is focused on this game. When you first start playing, you'll pick a team from dozens of different nations, or you can have one assigned to your randomly. All of the equipment and symbols in the game will then be themed around that country's flag and colors. As a result, you can customize your experience overall on the visual side of things while enjoying the excellent features on the gameplay side as well.

Format and Layout

The layout for this title is as simple as it gets with five reels and three rows. The 25 paylines are locked into place, and it's easy to understand why considering the way the features work. Players can bet from one to ten coins on each of those lines for a betting range of 25 to 250 coins, and those coins can be set to be worth $0.01 to $0.50. The end result is that the min bet size is $0.25 per spin, and the maximum is $125, making it easy for players at all levels to find an appropriate wager size that works for them.

The Momentum Progressive Game

There's a really interesting goal-kicking feature that plays out during normal gameplay. The way this works is that you'll choose a spot on the grid of symbols that is marked with a sort of golden bullseye. When you get a ball on that spot, you score a goal and progress up to another level for ten spins. There are 11 total levels, and you start on level one with a 1x multiplier. Level two gives a 2x multiplier, three gives a 4x multiplier and so on until the maximum of level 11 with a huge multiplier worth 20x.

Whenever you score a goal, the spin counter in the top-right corner resets to 10, and that's how many spins you have left at that multiplier. If you get another goal before those are up, you'll progress even further to the next level, and that counter is reset back to 10. If the counter goes down to zero before you hit a goal, then you'll drop back to level one to start the process over again. This is a very innovative feature that offers some chances for absolutely enormous multipliers.

Penalty Shots Bonus Feature

A second bonus feature that really plays on the soccer theme is available in this game as well, and it comes in the form of the Penalty Shots bonus feature. You'll trigger it by getting three of the scattered bonus symbol on the reels at once, and that symbol only shows up on the second, third and fourth reels. When you get this round, you'll have five shots at a goal. The number of shots you get determines your prize. Making one, two, three, four or five shots will pay out 5x, 10x, 15x, 25x or 100x, respectively. These pays are multiplied by your whole bet size.

Payouts and Winnings

The wild Champions trophy symbol appears on all reels and awards 40x for five of a kind. You can pick up 20x for five of the soccer ball symbol on a payline, and five of the jersey gets you 10x. The pair of cleats and pair of gloves award 8x and 6x apiece, respectively, for five of a kind. Along these lines, you can pick up 5x for five of the whistle symbol.

Three card rank symbols show up, but they're designed to look like betters on a jersey, so they fit the theme really well. Three of a kind of the A, K or Q symbol will each get you a 4x payout. This makes it really easy to keep up with what these three particular payouts are, which is the type of thing that a lot of players can appreciate.

Overview

There's no shortage of games in the online slots industry that are based on sports themes. With that having been said, it's not difficult to see that The Champions slot by Pragmatic Play brings gameplay that's on the upper tier of what's available in the sub-genre. While the graphics are admittedly just a tad above-average in nature, the features and play style are tremendous, and we really like how they both tie into the theme in a particularly cohesive way. Overall, if they were to put more effort into the visual appeal of games like this, then they would have some of the best titles that could be found in the industry as a whole.