Every card magician has some favorite tricks which will inevitably include specific trick decks that help to make it happen.
These three decks are core components in many card and close up magic acts and also great ways for newcomers to card magic to expand your trick repertoire very quickly.
Stripper Deck (aka stripped/tapered deck)
A gently tapered cut on the card gives this popular deck a versatile and fun feature. This makes it super simple for you to have your audience member have their selected card found with ease no matter where it is in the deck. There are many exciting tricks that can be done with the use of the stripper deck.
If you’ve ever wondered how an easily extracted card suddenly slid out of a shuffled deck, you may be watching a stripper deck at work. The magic of using a stripper deck is that you can put int the hands of an audience member and it’s undetectable unless they flip the cards (which nobody ever does because it’s not natural to do that).
There are lots of options for styles and colors. The best thing to do is to stick with one that is the same brand and style as other regular decks you want to use in your routine. Nobody will be able to know how you did it as easy as you do!
Marked Deck
Use the power of your mind to psychically detect a card without seeing the face…Ok, that’s not actually real. Using a marked deck let’s the crafty magician or card hobbyist use a quick glance of a nearly hidden mark in the design of the card back to know precisely what card lies on the other side.
This takes practice for recognition but you’ll be wowing your audience in no time as you quickly call out their card as if you had x-ray vision! Many standard bicycle decks or the very popular blue and red cohort decks will give you an option for marked backs. It’s so subtle to the audience member, but for the magician, it will stand out like a sore thumb with practice and make you seem like a true magician with mind control.
Svengali Deck
This nifty deck gives you an excellent effect by letting the magician choose a selected card at random with a quick riffle from the front and no matter where you stop, the selected card is super easy to find. These wicked cool cards are actually cut to very slightly different lengths so that even face up, the riffle shows all the cards are different. Simply choose the card below your selected stop point and it will always be the one you need! (hint: be careful you don’t fan this deck or your secret will be revealed)
Using Svengali and stripper decks is super fun and makes the routine exciting as you blend tricks and wow the audience with uncanny predictions of positioning and pulling out cards with an unbelievable ease right in front of their eyes. If you play your cards right (see what I did there?) then you can also pick up some bonus tuck boxes and stickers and reseal your decks for the ultimate in surprise as your audience member unseals the “new” deck and then you go to work with wowing them time and time again.