What is your favorite trick deck ?

A deck made up of 52 normal cards, I can do more tricks with one of those than with any other kind of deck.

Depending on the spectator and your handling, a convincing Svengali Deck always makes me chuckle when watching people freak out about what just happened in their own hands!

Fo gigs, I always have a belly stripper deck that I use like a regular deck. For those rare moments that someone will talk about gambling or poke, I go in to a gambling routine with a shuffle deck and use the bellies.

My favorite!

Cheers,

Slim

Over decades, I've bought a massive pile of expensive single-effect trick decks. Hundreds of dollars worth of decks costing $20 to $50 each. Out of all these decks, I've only found three that have the strong impact, uniqueness, real-world practicality, and entertaining presentation possibilities needed to go into my professional repertoire, making them worth carrying an extra deck while my pockets are stuffed for strolling. Those three are:

Card-Toon (Harlan)
Arthur (Wiehl)
Off World (Vallarino)

For inexpensive or make-it-yourself trick decks, I've used an Invisible Deck, a Solid Deception deck (Paul Harris), and a Detour de Force deck (John Bannon).

Dozens more have been just a waste of time, money, and pocket space.

Great post Emory. I find that Card-Toon also plays very strong, although sometimes it's the animations that get more reaction than the reveal. But definitely a winner!

Off World has been of interest to me - but how do you find it plays with lay people? I can imagine that people familiar with the original Out of The World would be blown away, because it's a real magician fooler especially for those who aren't expecting that; but I'd love to hear how you find it works with non-magicians, and how easy the handling is.

Wiehl's Arthur is one I'm not that familiar with - is this something completely new, or is it similar to any other existing tricks? You've obviously tried a lot of gimmicked decks over the years - what is it about this one that makes it one of the three in your list?

Cheers, and thanks again for the great contribution!

Thanks for the kind words.

One of the first few magic books I bought (from Al's Magic Shop while I was an undergraduate at the U. of Maryland) was Harry Lorayne's Close-Up Card Magic, from which I learned Out of the Universe. I performed it frequently as an amateur in college ages ago, but then retired it. Decades pass. Then I tried it again just a few years ago at a restaurant where I've performed for 21 years. (I get a lot of very frequent repeat customers and thus need fresh material.) Performing it again after so many years somewhat surprised me. I remembered it as a fairly zippy trick from my early amateur days, but for restaurant magic, it now felt way... too... slow...

So, this is why I like Off World in the restaurant: You immediately begin creating a series of magic results instead of delaying everything until a single grand finish. And, you can promptly terminate the effect just as soon as your instinct tells you that you've done just the right amount.

(I still have a positive opinion of both Close-Up Card Magic and Out of this Universe, but I now feel that Out of the Universe is best suited as a casual-gathering-of-friends trick rather than as a fast-paced restaurant/strolling trick - which is what I get paid to do. An aside: the ambitious card routine that I use evolved from the ambitious card routine in Close-Up Card Magic, and still mostly retains its overall structure - that routine does have the pace and repeated highlights ideal for restaurant use.)

In Chris Wiehl's Arthur, a spectator selects a card representing Merlin's sword, and it is inserted halfway into the middle of the deck, outjogged. While you hold the deck vertically, a spectator grasps the card and you let go of the deck. Somehow the entire deck remains around the card instead of immediately falling to the floor - The card won't slip out of the deck that is suspended in mid-air, just as the knights in the Arthur legend were unable to pull Merlin's sword from the stone. Performing for family groups, you can make a young boy the star of the routine as he represents the boyhood Arthur and is ultimately able to easily remove the card (sword), while dad and any older brothers are the strong fully-grown knights who could not.

It's a strong effect. Also, it looks quite distinctly different from any other card trick - a big plus when performing for people who have already seen me do a lot of card magic.

Also, I usually dislike suspensions, as they're almost always inherently weaker than levitations. Suspensions too often are more puzzles than magic. But this is the one suspension that I really like, as it is so obviously impossible to have 51 cards just hanging in mid-air around a single card inserted into them.

Thanks for following up Emory - that's very helpful and much appreciated.