Advantage Slots

You’ll soon hear all about how I despise most buffalo-themed games. Buffalo Ascension bucks that trend big time. Talk to any pros and their eyes light up when discussing it.

What’s all the fuss about and what should you look for? As a baseline number, 3,900 or higher is a good starting point:

Make sure you’re looking at the bottom of the machine, where you can see all the numbers for the different bets. In the example above, there’s 3,920 for the $1 bet, so that’s a play until the number falls below that.

However, some grinders play anything 3,000 or higher, such as in the example below:

Now, notice what this example has at the top of the second column: eight free games with 3x and 5x multipliers. If a column has free games at the top, I’m comfortable with 3,000 or higher too.

Remember when I mentioned 0-3-3 being preferred over 3-3-0? Well, the previous example was 3-3-0, meaning columns two and three are three spaces above reset each, while column four is at reset (0). Believe it or not, 0-3-3 is better than 3-3-0 because that fourth reel usually pays more than column two when it’s triggered.

As stated, this example happened to have free games at the top, so it’s fine to play the 3-3-0. If it didn’t have the free games, I’d have stayed away from it.

I also play a 1,920 or higher if any of the outside columns have something called a “super stampede” at the top. Normally, only the third column will have a super stampede. Finding something like this is rare.

I’ll explain all this soon. But first, what’s so important about having numbers above 3,900, 3,000, or 1,920?

Well, the highest the board gets is 5,488 if all three columns are at the top. The lowest, so full reset, is 1,000. If one board is significantly larger than another, you have a much greater likelihood of not only reaching the prizes at the tops of the columns but also hitting coin bonuses and nice line hits along the way.

(You can see/hear where I ramble through this concept in one of my “random slot thoughts” videos.)

If there’s a micro board and very few places to land coins or matching symbols, you have a tiny percentage chance to ever come out ahead. You can think of it like Hexbreaker 3 in some ways.

As you spin, landing arrows increase the height of a column by one. And once you reach the top of a column, you get to this game’s version of a bonus.

Pros love this game, so depending on the casino, it’s sometimes hard to find anything worth playing. It’s easy to see why, because unlike other buffalo-themed advantage games, great boards often win and losing boards lose. That’s what grinders want to see in an advantage game.

There are two different bonuses, the first being a little iffy to actually classify as such. Regardless, once you reach the top of a column that has “stampede” or “super stampede” written on it, the game sends down buffaloes to cover some of your existing symbols. Again, if you have a small board, there’s only so much space for the buffaloes to cover, so that’s another reason why bigger is always better with Ascension.

How many buffaloes come down is up to the slot gods, but hitting a super stampede almost always yields more buffaloes than a regular stampede.

The other column option — eight free games with 3x and 5x multipliers — gives you just that. You spin at least eight times, with two coins granting you five extra free games. During that bonus, any sunset acts as a multiplier for line hits, and if you’re really lucky you can set off a stampede or two during this bonus with multipliers. Triggering a stampede will reset that column immediately, but the free games column stays seven spaces tall for the duration of a bonus, which can sometimes be lengthy if you’re retriggering a lot.

Otherwise, you can also land three coins at any time to get a conventional “eight free spins” bonus. You still get multipliers for sunset symbols, but they’re 2x and 3x multipliers instead of 3x and 5x.

Here are my videos for Buffalo Ascension: