Use the Svengali Deck

This incredibly easy to use trick deck of cards will enable magicians of any age to do hundreds of magic tricks! It is limited but to your own imagination what you will be able to do once you know the secret!

Steps

1. Learn the secret of the Svengali deck: the duplicate cards are all a little shorter than the other cards. If you hold the deck with your thumb at the upper end and your fingers at the bottom end and allow the cards to flick off your thumb onto your other hand, you will find that the cards fall in pairs with the deck looking totally normal. This is called riffling the cards. When you riffle the cards, since the duplicates are a bit shorter, they will stay hidden behind the normal cards.
2. Decide which trick to perform. You can only perform one trick at a time since you can only force one card (the duplicate) onto a spectator. If the same card is forced for multiple tricks, this will be very suspicious.
3. Set up a Svengali Deck with the ordinary cards alternating with the duplicate cards.
4. Learn some beginner tricks:
   • The Do the Svengali Astonishing Prediction Trick trick gives the illusion that you can predict what card a spectator will choose by writing it down before the trick starts.
   • The Do the Svengali Mind Blower Trick trick gives the illusion you can find a spectator's card while dealing out the cards face down.
   • In the Do the Svengali Blurt out Trick trick, you announce the spectator's card while shuffling it back into the deck, right after they choose it.
   • The Do the Svengali Card in Pocket Trick trick makes the spectator's card appear in your pocket, and anywhere else you want.
   • In the Do the Svengali Find Your Own Card Trick trick, the spectator picks their card from the deck after it has been shuffled and cut into many piles.
5. Learn some advanced tricks:
   • The Do the Svengali Backed up Card Trick trick creates the illusion that the magician has messed up the trick, when he has actually done it perfectly.
   • The Do the Svengali Wet Tablecloth Trick trick gives the illusion that the spectator's card traveled from the deck to sit underneath a tablecloth.
   • In the Do the Svengali Picture Perfect Trick trick, the spectator's card appears inside a picture frame.
   • In the Do the Svengali Signed Card Trick trick, the spectator's name is written on the card before it appears in an impossible location.
   • In the Do the Svengali What Is Your Name Trick trick the spectator finds their card after spelling out their name with the cards. This trick can be expanded by using multiple objects/names and creating an amusing story around them.
   • In the Do the Svengali Amusing Coincidence Trick trick multiple spectators pick cards to be found.
   • Reversal! Before doing your show turn over the third card from the top of your deck (a duplicate) so that it is face up in the face down deck. Riffle though the cards and, as per usual, get a spectator to call out, "Stop!", and to look at the card they selected and to replace it. Be careful not to riffle too far as you do not want to expose the reversed card! Give the deck a cut or two or perform a riffle shuffle (Claim to be "mixing up the cards".). Spread the cards out either in your hand or across the table to show that the "freely selected" card has reversed in the deck!
   • Lie Detector! If you present this well you will find it to be a great trick with lots of laughs! Tell your spectator that you have been training yourself as a human lie detector and you are going to prove them just how good you are. Force a duplicate card onto the spectator and have them put it in their pocket. Explain to them that you are going to begin calling out cards at random and they are to say "That's not my card," every time you say one, even if it is their card! Begin calling out cards and pretend to listen to their answer each time they say "That's not my card". Eventually call out the name of your force card and they will say "That's not my card," then you shout, "Liar!"
6. Learn some tricks that use a different set up. For these tricks you will want to place all your duplicate cards on top of the ordinary cards.
   • Double Dilemma! Casually spread out the bottom half of the deck to show that all the cards are of different value. Now spread out the top half of the cards, face down, and let your spectator choose one. They will obviously chose one of the duplicates! Now ask another person to pick a card, but this time, only fan out the bottom half of the deck, so they take one of the indifferent cards. Now ask another portion to take a card, but they will take one of the cards from the bottom of the deck also. Now here comes the sneaky bit: You take the duplicate card and put it into the lower half of the deck, and the two indifferent cards go to the top of the deck with the duplicates. You can easily give the deck a couple of cuts because, since the duplicates are a little shorter than the other cards, you will be able to feel the top edge of the pack and cut the deck exactly so that the duplicates and indifferent cards are still in two separate groups! Give the deck a couple of cuts to, "Make it impossible to find the cards!" Look through the cards and you will easily be able to find a duplicate card and set it down on the table, face down. You will also easily be able to find the other two cards because they will be mixed in with the duplicates! Once all three cards are down on the table, turn them over to finish your miracle.
   • Very Ambitious Card! Once more start with all the duplicates on top of the indifferent cards. After showing the deck to be "normal" have a spectator pick a duplicate and return it among the top cards. Do a couple of cuts and say, "I have a feeling you chose a very ambitious card, and it always returns to the top of the heap!" Turn over the top card of the deck to show a duplicate card. They will, of course, believe it is their card! Say, "I'm not kidding, it will always jump right back to the top!" Take the card and put it in the middle of the deck (it does not matter where), then turn over the top card. It will, again, be a duplicate card! You can do this just a few times or so many times it drives your spectator crazy!
   • Stop the Presses! Most newspapers will have a free, or at least very reasonably priced advertising section. The week before your show take out an advert displaying the words "(NAME OF CARD)". Get a copy of the paper and have it lying around somewhere near the area in which you will be performing. Spread out the deck to show all the cards to be normal. After forcing one of your duplicate cards on a spectator, acknowledge an ad you saw in the paper today and how it was just the strangest thing. Open up the paper to reveal the most shocking revelation!

Tips

• If you received a joker with your deck, before starting your trick, run through it, remove the joker and place it to the side to give the illusion you are using a regular deck of cards.
• To make the choosing of the spectator's card more realistic, simply spread out the cards either in your hand or on the table, and let them pick any card. You have a fifty-fifty chance of them choosing one of the duplicate cards. Should they not chose a duplicate card, you could always riffle through the deck to show all the cards to be the same, while saying, "you know, that's weird because you chose the only card in the deck that is not a (name of card)!"

Warnings

• You can only do one trick at a time because if you use the same deck for two tricks in a row, the same card will be selected every time so the audience will realize that you are forcing the card among them. Never use the same Svengali deck on same person or audience more than once unless it's a different force card.
• Due to the secret of the deck, you cannot let the audience examine the deck prior to performing the trick.
• Svengali decks are sold inexpensively at most novelty and toy shops, so you probably won't amaze everybody with your miracles, especially other magicians, since the Svengali deck is such widely known.

Things You'll Need

• Svengali Deck

Related Articles

• Set up a Svengali Deck
• Do the Card Trick That Fooled Houdini
• Read an Audience's Mind
• Recover from a Bungled Magic Trick

See also

• Perform a Fake Shuffle (With a Deck of Cards)
• Do the Salty Card Trick
• False Cut Cards
• Perform the "Drunken Shuffle" Card Trick
• Do a Cool Disappearing Card Trick
• Do the Twenty One Eleven Card Trick
• Perform an Easy and Convincing "Guess Which Card" Trick
• Build a Tower of Cards
• Make a Card Come Back to the Top of the Deck
• Do Magic

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