Pyramid Review
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone Quidditch Card Game
Published by Mattel
$6.99
Harry Potter has taken over the world, and in the Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone Quidditch Card Game you get to imagine a small but popular piece of J.K. Rowling's fictional world.
Quidditch, if you've been in hiding in a Highland cave the last few years, is the most popular athletic event among wizards and witches. The sport is played with two opposing teams of six players. Each team has players in four positions: Two Chasers are tasked with putting the Quaffle (a soccer-size ball) through any of three goal hoops. The Keeper, like a hockey goalie, is stationed to prevent this if he can. Two Beaters attempt to whack the two heavy Bludgers (jet-black, slightly smaller and heavier than Quaffles) to interfere with the other team. Finally, the Seeker hunts the tiny and elusive Golden Snitch. Snaring the Snitch ends the game and scores a hefty bonus in points.
The card game is played by two players (ages 8 and up, according to Mattel). Each player receives a team deck which is shuffled and set to the side. These decks are identical for each player (barring differences in art) and include cards for the team positions (with "strength" point values), dirty tricks cards, and counter-dirty-tricks cards. Each player draws five cards from his own deck.
A third deck represents the playing field or "pitch." The pitch deck has only the three types of balls in play in Quidditch. As with the sport, . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: November 16, 2001
Copyright © 2001 by Steve Jackson Games. All rights reserved. Pyramid subscribers are permitted to read this article online, or download it and print out a single hardcopy for personal use. Copying this text to any other online system or BBS, or making more than one hardcopy, is strictly prohibited. So please don't. And if you encounter copies of this article elsewhere on the web, please report it to webmaster@sjgames.com.