Evaluation: Wild Card

If a player uses the Wild Card in the Bonus Round, should they get the choice to call any letter they want? Just a consonant? Just a vowel?

I never actually thought about being able to call a vowel using the WC. This is a good point. I think you should be able to call ANY letter you want if you have the WC in the bonus round.


The old Free Spin and Double Play tokens weren't lost to Bankrupt. Why should(n't) the Wild Card be?

The WC allows you to make a lot of extra money if used properly, so I think it should be lost if you hit a bankrupt.


What's a Wild Card worth to you?

It's my favorite piece of cardboard on the wheel (obviously besides the million dollar wedge), so I really like the WC and what it brings to the game.

I never thought about that, though it probably makes sense with Free Spin's retirement.

I've always thought the Wild Card was a bit of a misnomer since it couldn't be used for vowels in the Bonus Round. To me that's like saying, "Jokers are wild, but you can't use them for the Fast Forward category when it's in play" (if you know what I mean). I mean, I guess that's like in pai gow poker where a joker = ace unless you have 4/5 on a straight or flush, at which point it fills in that last space...anyway, I'm going off on a tangent.

That said, I thought it would go the way of the Double Play after most players seemed to either use it at inopportune times or forget all about it. The nice thing about forgetting all about it only really kicks in if you win the game, but I suppose that saves it from being a complete waste.

As much as I would like to see it used more in the main game, as Javier said, it's really only worth it on the top dollar value (now more than ever). I'd remedy it slightly by doing what they do in the speed-up round: add $1,000 to whatever amount it's used on. Yes, it makes top dollar worth even more, but at least using it on $500 would still yield a decent chunk of change. Could make close games even more interesting if a trailing player has it and is only a couple thousand dollars behind.

Should you be able to use the wild card in the speed-up round to call another letter and get an additional 3 seconds to try and solve?

Here's another interesting question that I only thought of just now:

Spain's version splits the two functions of the Wild Card into two different wedges: the Doble Letra (Double Letter), which functions the same as a maingame Wild Card usage; and the Ayuda Final (Final Help), which gives the player some extra assistance in the Bonus Round, but with three options the player chooses via blind draw: an extra consonant, an extra vowel, or 5 seconds of extra time--in the past, they've also offered an extra clue to the puzzle.

Would you prefer this approach? Why or why not?

I think the Wild Card already confuses players as it is for having too many rules, which casual viewers often don't get to learn because the card is almost-always lost to Bankrupt or unused. People seem to understand the Bonus Round portion of it fine, but it's the maingame part of it that's pretty fuzzy. We've seen several contestants over the years try to use it illegally (trying to use it to buy a vowel, trying to use it in the Speed-Up Round, just flat out asking to use it even if they didn't spin as we saw last month).

My biggest problem with it is that its maingame uses are at least 90% dependent on Pat. I recall an episode where he talked somebody into using it on $5000, and you could tell by his body language that he was just going along with it and wouldn't have used it on his own accord. The money earned from the extra consonants sent him to the Bonus Round. In one of the episodes I saw at my taping (which doesn't air until November)...



Yes, it's the contestants' responsibility to remember the rules, but Pat has always been inconsistently babying people into using it, and it really can affect the game based on whether he chooses to open his mouth or not. I have seen several times where he will not acknowledge the card on $2500, only for it to get lost to Bankrupt one or two spins later. If Pat tells someone about using the Wild Card, they don't have to say yes, and I've seen it happen before, as well. We've had a few contestants say no to using it in the maingame in favor of saving it for a later-round TDV hit or the Bonus Round.

Here are my three main pointers about the Wild Card:

1. Although its almost never seen on the show (I can't remember when), the fact that you can use this after buying vowels would be something I'd love to see more, especially after landing on the TDV wedge where you can easily afford to buy all the vowels, and then after some additional information, use the remaining consonants to call a letter that you not only know is in the puzzle, but preferably one that you know there will be multiple letters. 

2. Generally speaking, use the Wild Card if you'll acquire at least $2,500 upon usage, whether its a single consonant from any TDV space, or even five N's for $500 each, especially if you're close to solving the puzzle. An extra consonant in the BR is nice, but since you need to win the match without landing on Bankrupt, having at least a decent chunk of change for just winning a round shouldn't be discounted since those winnings are yours to keep. 

3. Overall, its quite an improvement over that rather short-lived Double Play token from Season 13, where the main key is that you get to control not only when you can use it, but potentially do better than double than your previous turn in terms of calling multiples, and this doesn't include the extra BR consonant. With these added benefits, the fact that this token isn't Bankrupt-safe heightens the risk and tension when its on the line.