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I haven't used a marked deck in a while, but when I started to get seriously into cards as a medium for mentalism, I used one as an out as well as for thought reading. Dunno why I stopped, really. It's not like you have to use the markings for every trick.

I personally make my own marked deck. What I use is a red-backed Bicycle deck and a red pen. I simply plot out flower petals on the top and bottom. I have my own system and it's pretty weird. However, the best thing is that I have these annoying cousins who always try to debunk my tricks and I love nothing more than to stump the snots by using my marked deck. They're so stupid they can't see the inked out dots!

warmerclimate wrote:Just a few days I came accross it.

Judging by the reviews, it seems that there is a mixed bag of reactions and experiences.

Do you own one? Would you recommend it?

i own one, but rarely take it out, i think its WELL worth the money, as it can influence the way you perform other tricks.
I also apply the marking system, supplied with the RAMA, to my usual bike deck, the marking method takes a bit to get used to, but once you do, you can read a card at a glance, its great.
Others may find the rama an excellent tool, but im slowly working towards 'un-gimmicked' card sleights... may keep the marking system though!

I don't own a marked deck although I'm considering getting one after marking a card in my red bike deck... i blotted out one of the birds behind the naked bike-riding angel...

...and now i need to tell a short story...


I marked a Queen, and used it to play a little "find the queen" game with the kids who live on my floor at school. It was so easy to see (knowing where to look), that I'd only glance down for ONE second and NEVER look at the cards again. Naturally, no one's attention was on the cards-- as I was staring right at my "opponent's" face the entire time.

I used a patter about reading people's faces and watching for twitches and posture, etc...

they're all ASTONISHED!! They keep asking me about it.

Anyway-- one kid was skeptical, and after examining my cards (and finding nothing), he challenged me to do it with his cards-- and pulled out three of his own. He had two 7's and a King.... but the king was SLIGHTLY BENT!!!!!!!!! MY LUCK!!!!!

So I NAILED it.... and now they all believe I possess some ability to read people like a lie detector!

Try it out

I use the Boris Wild MC, it's amazing that NO ONE picks up on it. I've actually had people saying 'it must be a marked deck' and I answer saying they can check the cards. They usually look at them and can't find a thing. Then they just realise I must have special powers....

It's easy to use them all the time, because then you don't have to switch. And if you're a beginner then you can practise your sleights, but KNOW they're correct before you turn a wrong card round!

I was just thougt of something. I make my own marked decks. Would anybody like me to post a video showing how I mark my decks? I've got a pretty good system not many people have noticed it. If it's okay with everybody I'll post a tutorial for marking decks in the "File Sharing" section.

On the RaMa deck, I've had one real resounding failure with it and one raging success with it. I can't say too explicitly how the failure came about, but the success was great in that I had the deck on the table, and a friend just picked it up and riffle shuffled it. So naturally I then asked her to cut to a card, then picked her chosen card out of a second deck. What was really nice about it was that to this day she (being knowledgeable of such things) assumes I forced a single card on her, a misconception I have subsequently strengthened by telling her that she "totally picked the two of hearts".

The markings do take a bit of getting used to, and I'm certainly not as fast enough with reading the cards as I'd like to be. I tend to do a little bit of business where (because, naturally, I don't want to handle them ) I try casually to put the cards back in the case without looking, but fail, and so look down at them briefly to see what I'm doing. Then I try and leave a reasonable gap before making use of the knowledge. That said, the failure was crashing, so I've not really had the nerve to do much with the deck since.