The draft in Magical Athlete is where the game is actually won. Pick well and your ability fires constantly, dragging you forward while everyone else spirals. Pick badly and you're a passenger. This guide grades every character on how reliably their ability delivers across all four races, on both the Mild Mile and the Wild Wilds. Context matters, so where a character swings dramatically between board sides, that's noted.
A+ - Draft These Every Time
The most consistent racer in the game. Scoocher moves one space every time any other racer's power activates. In a full game of six players with ability-heavy rosters, that's a ludicrous amount of free movement. The more chaos at the table, the better Scoocher gets, especially on the Wild Wilds side where it might practically get you more stars than the one who wins the race. Other people's broken abilities become your fuel. At any player count above three, Scoocher practically plays himself.
Deceptively simple and genuinely oppressive. Flip Flop swaps positions with the racer furthest from them. Near the back? Teleport to the front. Near the front? Stay put and let someone else suffer. The power almost always does something useful, which puts it in a class most abilities can't reach. Hard to draft and hard to beat.
A - Strong Picks, Rarely Disappointing
Legs
Moves 5 spaces every turn. No conditions, no triggers, no asterisks. Pure consistent movement that ignores dice variance entirely. Legs is the closest thing to a guaranteed finisher in the game. The limitation is that it's predictable, and opponents can plan around it. Still, reliable movement is never bad.
Suckerfish
Latches onto another racer and teleports to their new space whenever they move. Pick the right target and Suckerfish is getting double the mileage for free. Devastating when attached to Legs or anyone with strong passive movement. Slightly weaker when the racer it's clinging to gets slowed or eliminated, but that edge case is rare enough not to matter much.
Hypnotist
Warps another racer to Hypnotist's current space. Pulls a frontrunner back, rockets a backmarker into an awkward spot, or simply repositions the board to Hypnotist's advantage. The power is flexible and targets someone else's race rather than just boosting your own. That kind of disruption is underrated in a game this chaotic.
Heckler
Gets a big bonus to movement whenever the leading racer finishes their turn close by. Positions itself behind the leader and surfs their momentum. Punishes aggressive frontrunning. Shines particularly bright on the Wild Wilds where positioning is tighter. Slightly weaker at low player counts where the leader may pull far enough ahead to escape range.
Romantic
Similar in spirit to Heckler but rewards proximity to any racer rather than just the leader. Broad enough to trigger consistently and generates significant free movement across a full race. One of the higher-movement abilities in the game when conditions cooperate.
B+ - Solid, With Caveats
M.O.U.T.H
If M.O.U.T.H. lands on a space with exactly one other racer, that racer is eliminated from the race entirely. That's a game-ending power when used near the finish line. The problem is the setup required: you need to land on exactly one other racer, not two, not none. In a chaotic race that's harder than it sounds. Devastating ceiling, inconsistent floor.
Banana
Trips any racer that passes him, costing them a full turn. Skipped turns are catastrophic and Banana gives them out for free just by sitting there. The catch is that Banana's own movement is ordinary, so you're relying on others running into you rather than winning yourself. Best used as a race-denier on a round you don't need to win.
Lovable Loser
Earns a point every turn spent solely in last place. Counterintuitive and genuinely clever: Lovable Loser is not trying to win the race, it's banking points while everyone else fights at the front. Plan your four races carefully, designate one or two for Lovable Loser duty, and the points accumulate quietly. Easily underestimated in the draft.
Twin
Copies whatever ability the racer directly ahead of them has. Powerful when positioned well behind a strong character. Useless when the racer ahead has a situational or passive power. Requires more table awareness than most characters but rewards it generously.
Gunk
Reduces every other racer's die roll by one, every turn, permanently. Pure attrition. On its own Gunk creeps forward slowly while the field suffers. Combined with Scoocher at the same table, Gunk becomes accidentally the best character on the board, as every Gunk trigger is a free Scoocher move. Even without the combo, consistently slowing everyone else is quietly effective.
B - Worth Drafting, Nothing Wrong With Them
Alchemist
Converts resources into bonus movement. Steady and reliable on the Wild Wilds where bonus tokens are more plentiful. Slightly less impressive on the Mild Mile where opportunities to trigger are fewer.
Blimp
Blimp gives itself a huge early boost but becomes slower later in the track, while also modifying everyone else's main move.That makes it very track-dependent.
Skipper
Whenever any racer rolls a 1 for their main move, Skipper goes next in the turn order. In a full race that 1 in 6 chance triggers constantly across multiple players, and each time it does Skipper effectively steals an extra turn. At higher player counts this fires enough to be genuinely strong. At two players it's much quieter, and you'll spend some races waiting for a 1 that never comes.
Stickler
Requires exact rolls to cross certain spaces, which sounds like a liability but is actually a trap for everyone else. Stickler controls the race cadence in ways opponents struggle to plan around. Fiddly but effective.
Rocket Scientist
Strong on Wild Wilds, average on Mild Mile. Gets bonus movement from specific board features. If you know you're playing a Wild round, Rocket Scientist is an easy pick. Otherwise it's a solid but unremarkable choice.
Duelist
Whenever another racer shares Duelist's space, Duelist can challenge them to a duel. Both roll and the higher result moves two spaces, with Duelist winning ties.It's particularly good in crowded games because the duels can happen repeatedly.
Leapfrog
Jumps over racers. Simple, direct, consistent. Never flashy, always functional. Exactly the kind of ability you're happy to have in race three when you just need to cross the finish line.
Sisyphus
Starts with four free points, which is a meaningful head start. But rolling a six sends Sisyphus back to start and costs a point. If the dice are kind, Sisyphus banks value without racing. If the dice betray you, it's genuinely awful. High variance, high entertainment, legitimately viable if you treat it as a deliberate points-banking strategy rather than a racing character.
Lackey
Whenever another racer rolls a 6 for their main move, Lackey moves two spaces before that racer moves.Sixes are common enough that this will trigger, but you don't control when.Still, getting free movement whenever somebody else rolls well is a nice little perk.
Party Animal
Gains extra movement whenever anyone else lands on their space. Needs traffic to work. At four or more players it generates decent movement without much effort. At two it barely fires.
C - Situational, Proceed With Caution
Copy Cat
Copies the ability of whoever is currently in the lead. Potentially great, often mediocre, always unpredictable. If the leader has Legs, Copy Cat is suddenly excellent. If the leader has Inchworm, you've drafted a liability. Too reliant on who else is at the table.
Egg
Hatches into a stronger racer at a specific point. The payoff when it works is real, but the early game is passive and painful. You need patience and a race that doesn't end before Egg gets going. Experienced players can manage it. New players often find Egg gone before the power kicks in.
Hare
Gets plus two to every roll unless in the lead, in which case the turn is skipped entirely. Brutal when at the front of the pack for the wrong reasons. The joke writes itself, and you'll be living it.
Dicemonger
Grants extra dice rerolls. Feels powerful in theory, adds very little in practice. Dice variance in Magical Athlete is less punishing than it looks because movement is only part of the picture.
Baba Yaga
Strong on Wild Wilds, weak elsewhere. Wild-specific powers are worth knowing about but not worth drafting blindly without board confirmation.
Magician
Magician gets up to two rerolls of its main move.That's excellent in a game where movement is normally determined by a single die.
You don't have complete control and you must use the final roll; but being able to throw away two bad results makes Magician considerably more reliable than most racers.
Cheeleader
Gives other racers bonus movement, which occasionally benefits Cheerleader through positioning ripple effects. Very indirect. Cheerleader is the most chaotic pick in the roster and will lose you races while making everyone else's more entertaining.
Inchworm
Moves one space at a time but gets a bonus for consistent short movement. Too slow to compete meaningfully and the bonus rarely compensates
Coach
Everyone sharing Coach's space gets +1 to their main move, including Coach. That's a solid bonus, but you need company.Coach becomes much more interesting with Party Animal, Suckerfish and other characters that naturally create clustering.
Mastermind
Sets up conditions for future turns. Requires planning across a race that usually resolves faster than expected. Usually outpaced before the plan matures.
Genius
Genius predicts its own die result. Get it right and it gets another turn.The payoff is huge, but you're still guessing a number from six possibilities.It can absolutely produce ridiculous turns, but I wouldn't want to depend on it.
D - Leave on the Table
Huge Baby
Huge Baby effectively creates a personal roadblock on the track. If you're sitting in a strategically useful position, players approaching from behind have to deal with you. They can't simply land on your space, and depending on where you are, that can create a little traffic jam behind the world's least aerodynamic baby.
The power becomes especially nasty on Wild Wilds, where the track has additional spaces that manipulate movement and create more opportunities for racers to bunch up.
