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| Sneak a Peek at Our Review |
Do you remember the feeling you had the first time you saw the Svengali Deck? You may have seen it as the famous TV Magic Cards as performed by Marshall Brodien. It seemed impossible: a deck is shown to have indifferent cards; a single card is selected by your lovely volunteer5 and returned to the deck. With a tap of the deck, every card in the deck becomes the same card. Marshall promised in his television commercials that performance of the card trick was “easy, once you know the secret.”
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| Marshall Brodien Rocks! |
Now take the excitement you felt watching the Svengali Deck for the first time and multiply it by ten.6
The effect is straight forward. You ribbon spread the deck face down to show the entire deck to be blue backed. You then turn the deck over and ribbon spread it to show that each card is different. You ask the lovely volunteer to select a card, and it is lost in the deck. With the assistance of the two jokers, the selected card suddenly appears on the face of the deck.
You now ribbon spread the deck to show that every card in the deckmatches theselected card. But wait, there’s more! You now turn the deck over and ribbon spread it again to show that the back of every card has turned red.
I have truthfully described the trick. The strength, in my mind, of the trick is found in therepetition of moves. You use the ribbon spread to show the changes in the same manner each time. The audience won’t notice any “funny moves”7 and the effect moves along so quickly that it seems impossible. Check out the video at Penguin Magic of the trick. It is exactly as you see.
There is a downside I need to bring to your attention. The deck is not in Bicycle, it is bridge-sized and you cannot allow the audience to examine the deck. This means you can’t switch it in or out of your routine easily.
I personally don’t think you should let an audience member touch your props. You don’t see singers allowing the audience to touch their vocal chords or dancers allowing the hungry crowd to feel their feet. So keep your props to yourself. If you’re willing to accept the different size of the deck and the different back design, this is the perfect trick. It will make or enhanceyour reputation.
INSIDE MAGIC RATING: Three and a Half out of Four.
Footnotes
5I have been in therapy for the last twenty-two years because…
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