Advantage Playing IGT’s “Ocean Magic Grand”: Now With Giant Bubbles

Just like Golden Egypt was tweaked in the form of Golden Egypt Grand, the same can be said about Ocean Magic with Ocean Magic Grand. The gameplay between Ocean Magic and its Grand version is basically the same with both featuring the randomly appearing wilds & expansion when said wilds land on an Ocean Magic symbol.

There are two notable differences between the games. First is that OM Grand has introduced a giant wild bubble that periodically shows up when Bubble Boost is active. This giant wild takes up 4 character spaces & can turn up to 12 spaces wild when it comes into contact with the Ocean Magic symbol.

The other difference is that OM Grand has 6 rows compared to the 4 in the standard Ocean Magic. However, despite the additional rows, there are fewer paylines. Ocean Magic Grand has 37 paylines as opposed to Ocean Magic’s 50.

How to advantage play & “beat” Ocean Magic Grand?

Just like in the original, any bubble seen in the 1st three columns is playable. Continue playing until wild bubbles reach the top row. Column 5 bubbles are useless. The topic of debate when advantage playing OM Grand is what to do with bubbles on column 4?

Some hustlers will play column 4 bubbles like those on 1-3 to the top. Some treat them like those on column 5 & don’t even touch them. Others will do something in between.

My approach is when Bubble Boost is off I’ll play column 4 bubbles up to the second row from the bottom in hopes that another bubble will rise from another column to link up. If it doesn’t, I stop. With Bubble Boost on I’ll give it one extra spin to the third row from the bottom.

I’ve had success with this approach but hopefully someone smarter than me will do an analysis in the future & come up with a more definitive answer. But for now that’s how I play OM Grand. As always make sure you touch each betting option for any available advantage plays.