Magic Tricks

I do a lot of card magic with a normal deck. In fact, I’ve bought many “trick decks” over the last 40 years, and I love to play with them, but I practically never perform with them. I think a lot of spectators are familiar with the Svengali deck, so I never use one. But the Mirage deck is a cleverly revised version of the Svengali Deck, that hides in plain sight.

Personally, I think the part of the trick where the magician riffles through the deck to show that all the cards have “magically” become one card is what ruins the trick and shows that it’s a trick deck. I never do that.

Instead, I use the Mirage to force a card or do a no-sleights ambitious card. It’s great because you can spread the cards to “show they are all different” at every phase of the trick. I now end with a phase inspired by Nathan Kranzo’s hilarious Repetition and it gets amazing reactions.

Another cool thing is, you can mix Mirage decks half and half, so the top half forces one card and the bottom half forces another. Cut the top 1/4 to the bottom and riffle, asking the participant to stop somewhere in the middle, then cut the deck in half and use it to force the second selection.

I think the strongest use of this deck for me is just to force a card, spread the deck to show “the cards are all different and you could have chosen any other card”, put the cards all back in the box and proceed to do a fake lie detection or “read their mind”.

I’ve got three of these decks and plan to get a bunch more. That way I can do the ambitious card with different selections.

This is one of the best values in card magic. I highly recommend the Mirage Deck.