Ultimate Magic Card Set by Fantasma

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Ultimate Magic Card Set by Fantasma

Postby lmw » Jan 12th, '07, 23:26



The Effect
The Ultimate Magic Card Set by Fantasma.

Phantom Deck (svengali)- Show all the cards different have a spec shout stop. You do and with sleights/forces etc. their card is at the top. Show the card no longer at the top and in the middle. Show it gone from the middle and on the bottom. Show all the cards to be the same! (Good books, or rather there's one that always get's a mention (Mark Lewis' The Long and Short of it) have been written on this deck)

Psychic Deck (stripper) – Instantly know what cards your spec chose, locate the cards in a shuffled deck, separate the reds from the blacks etc. For book recommendations there is one on TM (I've seen it advertised in a sig, but sorry to the author, cannot remember who it is).

Paranormal Deck (ID) – The spec is given a an imaginary deck of cards, told to take one out turn it over and place it back in, after some performance you then take out the ID and show the spec that you’d automatically turned their card over in a normal deck of cards before you knew it!


Cost
around £25-£30


Difficulty
(1=easy to do, 2=No sleights, but not so easy, 3=Some sleights used,
4=Advanced sleights used, 5=Suitable for experienced magicians only)

2 for the main uses of the gimmicked decks, however this could increase with your use of the decks, you can take these decks as far as you wish, plenty of info here at TM for them.


Review

This set has three decks of cards as discussed previously. They are all poker sized and stored in the usual box, however each box is then in a metal presentation case. Although, I’m not sure it’d be wise to hand your spec a tin with Phantom Deck (long and short cards) plastered all over it.

The decks are :-
A phantom deck (I believe this is a svengali, it could however be a mirage but I cannot detect RF)
A Psychic deck (Can’t really describe these without giving the secret away, aka a Stripper deck)
A paranormal deck (ID)

Also it has:-
An invisibility handkerchief
Magic Trick Box
Instruction book

The decks overall quality are satisfactory, they could have and indeed should have been better. The range of tricks is well known, however the book lays out in good detail a number of routines, and includes some different patter for each deck to help get you started.

One downside I believe is that you cannot feasibly, do all of these in one routine with nothing separating them, “You want more…hold on then, I’ll just put this ordinary pack of cards away in order to get my other perfectly ordinary cards out”. Hopefully you see what I’m saying, I’m aware that with sleeving/switching etc. etc. things can be done, but that obviously increases the difficulty and means you have to be more aware of non-gimmicked magic, which is not the bad point, the bad point is that people just starting out may get wrapped up in all of the effects due to the nature of the set, again this is my opinion.

The magic box is used to “repair” torn cards, make prediction cards appear magically etc. in my opinion there are better ways to achieve revelation of prediction cards / repaired torn cards etc, involving sleights etc. etc. to get the prediction card somewhere your spec would not have thought of!

The invisibility handkerchief adds a nice touch to the ID routine. Trying to be careful here but it is basically a handkerchief that can be used to “protect” the shape of your imaginary deck and when folded out appears like a standard(ish) handkerchief.


Overall

Personally I think the sets are OK.

I’d have expected better quality cards for the money, maybe printed on tallys/bikes. Also, with all these gaffed decks chuck in a real set to allow you to switch it in should you want to go that route, although the psychic deck could double as your normal deck.

I like to do the ID routine because with a minimum of effort in terms of learning, it gets a strong reaction. Doing the whole routine I believe boosts your performance skills, you have to get the Spec to use an imaginary set of cards, there’s plenty of scope for fun etc. The invisibility handkerchief really does hit the ID routine home, I like it, tis a nice touch! (just beware, hold yourself back you may find yourself wanting to use this deck at every possible opportunity DON’T)

The set is good for people with little experience, as with a little effort it is possible to impress specs. That said equally they can be scaled up, and any one of these decks in the hands of someone who has studied how to use them produce quality magic! It is also, rather obviously, good for someone who wants all of the decks in one purchase with basic instructions on how to use them.

Overall I like the set, I will be mixing in these effects with some other stuff to makeup an overall routine! It is good to have all the main stream gimmicked decks in a single set.

And an ID I would class as a life saver, lost the specs card in your standard deck…ID could save you, if you play it cool

Overall 6 out of 10, card quality for price seems to be my only bug bear with this set.

Cheers
lmw

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lmw
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Postby Spyda » Jan 13th, '07, 17:23

Yes I have a fewe fantasma items which i find have "ok" quality. i have a question tho. is the stripper deck also a marked deck? and do you lfind it hard to strip the cards out of it? if yes, i think i might have that same deck/.

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Postby lmw » Jan 13th, '07, 22:10

I wasn't sure whether to mention it or not but it is. As for stripping out cards I don't find it too bad, I think the overall quality of the cards goes against it, with something like the stripper (ooer missus) you do want things to run smoothly, so low spec cards means low spec stripper (or rather low spec deck gaffed or not).

lmw.

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lmw
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Joined: Jan 5th, '07, 11:18
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