How To Setup & Play Quidditch Pong

While growing older, I feel bad for not having enough time to watch or read Harry Potter anymore. Problems bring solutions, and the solution for me and all adults who want to relate to their favorite series is to play a Harry Potter-themed party game, specifically, Quidditch Pong.

Providing Equipment

Quidditch Beer Pong, needless to say, is the Beer Pong game personalized for Potterheads. However, differently from the original version of this drinking game, Quidditch Pong requires special supplies. Just so you create a vision, here’s how your setup will look like:

Although you might find the equipment (the hoops, most importantly) on Amazon, you can simply make them yourself, plus, it’s ten times more fun! All you need are 3 hoops with a diameter from 10 to 16cm (they can be different sizes), and stands to connect the hoops to. Once you deal with these hoops, here’s what you also need: 

• 2 baseball bats & balls (whose purpose will be explained below);
• 22+ plastic solo cups;
• Beer for everyone (or other drinks of your choice, considering our shots & shooters recipes);
• Optionally, a tournament trophy for the winning team.

Extra: get clothing pieces related to Harry Potter characters, so it feels like you’re playing in the series! 

Also, here’s a good tutorial on how you can make your own set for Quidditch Pong: DIY Harry Potter Quidditch Pong.

Setting Up Quidditch Pong

You’ve gathered everything you need. You’re following, ain’t you? As a Potterhead you are, the setup will be no trouble. Start by dividing everyone into two teams, in HP language, in two houses. Ideally, there should be 6 people playing, two houses of 3 teams. However, anything from 4 to 10+ (and larger groups) works fine too.

Teams stay on opposite sides of the table and make a pyramid of 10 cups on the edge of the table. Then, keep one extra cup away from the table, not too far away though, and that will be the Snitch cup. Place the hoops in the middle of the table (which preferably should be at different heights), fill the cups ⅓  with alcohol, and you’re good to go! 

How To Play Quidditch Pong

Right after you finish the setup, and decide on the name of your house (Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, or Hufflepuff), you can finally start playing. Start by choosing one seeker and one beater on your team. The seeker targets the Snitch Cup, while the beater aims to block the shots with the bat.

If in your turn, the ball gets into one of your opponents’ cups, they must drink whatever’s in it (just as in standard Beer Pong). If the ball goes through one of the hoops and then gets into one of the cups, the opposing team must drink 2 cups. The shot through the hoops may get blocked by the beater (with the bat) of the other team, but not if it doesn’t get through the hoops. 

Differently from the usual game, in Quidditch Pong, you don’t remove any cups until all players have made their shots. This is how, if you and your other teammates bounce your ball to the same cup, your opponents get +1 penalty cup. 

Quidditch Pong, which is indeed a great idea for a Halloween party game, can be won in any of these two ways: your team shoots the ball into the Snitch cup, or the opposing team has all 10 cups removed from their pyramid, meaning you’ve shot them all, or got the help of penalties too. 

Here’s a video about how the game goes, in case you’re curious: Quidditch Pong!

Spells Depending On The Houses

Depending on the house you pick to represent while playing Quidditch Pong, you get a few spells you could use each one time per game. Here are our favorite creations:

Hufflepuff:

• Room of Requirement: This spell lets you rethrow all your missed shots.
• Wingardium Leviosa: You’re allowed to reorder the cups of the other team, but with one condition: cups must be inside of the original triangle.
• Tarantallegra: Once this spell is used, the other team must dance until their next turn.
• Accio: If you shoot into one of your opponents’ cups, you may bring that cup to your side of the table.

Ravenclaw:

• Confondus: The opposing team gets one re-rack of cups.
• Reparo: You can re-rack your cups into a formation of your choice.
• Felix Felicis: Let’s you reshoot all the shots your team made in the round the spell is used.
• Expelliarmus: Requires your opponent to play without the beater for a round.

Slytherin:

• Crucio: Your opponents have to make trick shots for one round, after the Crucio spell.
• Imperio: You choose a cup, and the shot of the other team counts only if it’s in that specific cup.
• Lumos: When it’s their turn, you may blind them with a flashlight until they finish shooting.
• Avada Kedavra: You’re allowed to remove one cup from your pyramid. 

Gryffindor: 

• Elder Wand: The opposing team doesn’t get a recovery. Once you hit all 10 cups, you win. 
• Invisibility Cloak: You can cover all cups with your hands when it’s the other team’s turn, leaving only one cup available.
• Resurrection Stone: If your opponents make the shot into all your cups, you get redemption, and get 1 cup back. They get the last chance to shoot into the remaining cup. If correct, they win. 
• Episkey: You can add a cup to the opposing side, but they get to choose where to place it. 

Final Thoughts

Quidditch Pong is so far my favorite way to play Beer Pong. And one of my favorite drinking games as well. It’s special not only in the sense of the added rules, and the extra equipment (hoops, and bats), but in the spells too. They add magic to the whole game, so you get drunk, and remember Harry Potter at once!