Wizard Junior uses the same game play as its older brother, Wizard, with players bidding on the number of tricks they will take during a hand, but simplifies things for the younguns so they can get a handle on trumps and tricks. Wizard Junior uses colors instead of suits, and each color has fewer cards than the 13 used in the original game. The game also takes players through two bidding rounds for each hand so that they get a better handle on what others expect to take and how to judge their hand.

A simple variant to make it even easier is to allow 2 rounds of bidding, with the last and final bid counting as the real bid. This allows people to get a guess at what others think they may take before making their final bid.