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Which of the following decks would you recommend--stripper, svengali, mental photography, ID, and brianwave deck. Which three out of five would u reccomend?

How do the svengali, brainwave and stripper decks work?

We cannot give away secrets. Please don't think that we are being rude, but that is just the way it is.

A svengali deck along with "101 tricks with..." would be really nice.

I do feel it is best to start to with nomal cards and a DVD or book as you will begin to build up a good base of skills. Using gimmicks all the time will not teach you about magic. Imagine how much better it would be if you could just borrow a deck of cards off someone and start performing with that deck. The person will know that is a regular deck and will be even more impressed.

Good DVD:

Born to perform

Good Book:

Mark Wilson's complete course in magic (essential purchase!)
Royal road to card magic (read reviews of it first)

The best of luck with your magic.

IF you can answer my first question do so or have answered it thank you. But i dont see a difference between the brainwave deck..[/url]http://www.penguinmagic.com/product.php?ID=78[url]...and the ID....[/url]http://www.penguinmagic.com/product.php?ID=165[url].

Both tricks predict the spectators prediction...are there any differences and are they worth buying seperately. [/url]

Hi,

I have both but i use ID the most, great for table hopping. Always have that in my jacket pocket.

so which three decks would u reccomend?

wingman04 wrote:IF you can answer my first question do so or have answered it thank you. But i dont see a difference between the brainwave deck..[/url]http://www.penguinmagic.com/product.php?ID=78[url]...and the ID....[/url]http://www.penguinmagic.com/product.php?ID=165[url].

Both tricks predict the spectators prediction...are there any differences and are they worth buying seperately. [/url]

Brainwave has that climax of having the card turn to a different colour.[/url]


but I would go for invisible just because I think brainwave uses the same principle but has a bit of a problem if you are a beginner and have a poor memory.

saying that ID still has a system...

As i said i recommend a book or DVD but if you really want to use decks then:

1. ID 2. Mental Photography and a svengali. You will find these low cost at most magic stores. Hope that helps and good luck with the magic.

Personally, I'd say go with just the stripper deck. However, ID and Mental Photography are good effects.

I'm not the biggest fan of ID - but I find it far superior to the Brainwave deck. ID will get killer reactions, but I personally find it limiting.

Mental Photography is an instant, sleight free marvel. The effect will get great reactions, so it's a great beginner's trick since it's easy to do and the response bolsters your confidence (always a plus). Extremely limited in what you can do with it, however.

Svengali is cool for a little while, but once you learn even the basics of sleight of hand and card control, the deck is useless. Sure, you can wow people all over the place, and even a simple ACR routine is astounding, but it's a very limited utility. If you are dead set on a Svengali deck - I'd say go with a Mirage Deck instead. It's exactly the same effect, but you can spread/fan the cards for the spectators.

I say a stripper is the best choice because it's a deck that can help you as you begin to go more into sleight of hand. You can pass a stripper out, you can let people touch the cards. None of the other trick decks allow for that. The stripper is a greatly underused utility, and one that I think more people should be open to using. The gimmick is all but undetectable, the spectator can grabs the cards if they feel compelled, and you're capable of pulling off mind-numbing effects with it. And to top it all off, even when you DO start learning more card handling techniques and sleights, you can STILL use the stripper as a normal, working deck. Sleight of hand skills and a stripper deck are a deadly combination.

That's my two cents.

I do own an ID, and there are tons of sweet tricks you can do. I also have a svengali deck, I used it maybe once. I really don't like them what so ever.

But the truth is, you should get a book, and a normal deck of cards.
Personaly I think you should get now you see it now you don't. That has a lot of the basic card magic you would want to learn, and some cooler more advanced stuff, aswell as some coin, cigarette stuff, and even balls. And it's really well illustrated, which can help when you're starting out.

Stripper decks are brilliant though I can get one for £2.50 and there is so much you can do with it

you can even do normal tricks

I see every one has a different preference so ill probably end up buying a stripper, svengali, Invisible and mental photography and mark wilsons course in magic...it'll end up being only $30

Demitri wrote:Svengali is cool for a little while, but once you learn even the basics of sleight of hand and card control, the deck is useless.

I would disagree in the strongest terms with this statement. With just "the basics of card control" can you get a spec to pick a card, then cut the cards themselves into six piles, choose any one at random and then turn over the top card (themself) to reveal their card?

Don't let the simple ideas restrict what can be done with a simple gimmicked deck, there are plenty of other ideas out there.

Get ID instead of Brainwave. They are basically the same but brainwave is harder. (I got my ID today). Brainwave requires good memory and I don't have a good memory. Also the idea that "its the only blue card in a red deck" is just not that amazing really, the addition of this adds nothing to the trick.

Mahoney wrote:Also the idea that "its the only blue card in a red deck" is just not that amazing really, the addition of this adds nothing to the trick.

I absolutely disagree. The back colour takes it from "He could have just turned it over using hand sleight" to "OMFG!"...

I don't think BW requires a good memory, any more than ID does. Tip I got when I bought it, was to put a slight pencil dot on certain cards. This works a charm...

~Sym~

nickj wrote:

Demitri wrote:Svengali is cool for a little while, but once you learn even the basics of sleight of hand and card control, the deck is useless.

I would disagree in the strongest terms with this statement. With just "the basics of card control" can you get a spec to pick a card, then cut the cards themselves into six piles, choose any one at random and then turn over the top card (themself) to reveal their card?

Don't let the simple ideas restrict what can be done with a simple gimmicked deck, there are plenty of other ideas out there.

What I meant was - once you learn some basic handling techniques and how to control cards, the utility of the deck becomes dated. The more you can do with cards, the more limiting a svengali deck becomes.

Yes, Svengali can do incredible effects - but it's more limiting than a stripper deck. Both utilities are great - but as you get more advanced, the Svengali becomes more obsolete.