Trick Review: Trilogy by Brian Caswell

This mentalism effect with playing cards offers three strong revelations with three audience members. It’s easy to perform; spectators make free choices with a tiny bit of suggestion; the audience sees you working with a single deck of cards and there’s no sleight-of-hand or difficult handling.

The gimmicked deck effectively does the work and lets you focus on your presentation.

Here’s the plot. You name a playing card and ask a spectator to randomly select a number between one and 52. You name a second playing card and ask a second spectator to randomly select a second number. In the third phase, you name a number and a third spectator names any playing card.

You bring out a deck of cards and show that the cards have numbers between one and 52 written on their backs. You clearly remove the card named by spectator number three and place it face up on their hand. You turn the deck over and remove the cards (face down) bearing the numbers named by spectators one and two.

Now for the revelations. When spectators one and two flip over their cards, they are shown to be the playing cards that you initially named before they selected numbers. And when the third spectator turns over his card, it’s found to display the exact number that you named on its back. As the ads state, there’s no sleight of hand, forces, “aheads” or “roughs.”

The secret relies on a concept that I was aware of, but had never actually seen before. Indeed, this trick is easy to learn and perform. There’s a one-time preparation that takes about 20 minutes and once you do this, you’re ready to go. This one packs small as all you have to do is carry the playing cards, although you may optionally dress this one up with props.

This one can work for close-up or stand-up. I need to mention that the back design is not a standard "Bicycle" or any format that I was familiar with. The back design is fairly generic and doesn't call attention to itself.

I think Trilogy is a nice replacement for “Invisible Deck” that is so well known and often performed. And it allows you to get three spectators involved and gives three phases. This one is good.

-Wayne N. Kawamoto

MSRP: (US) $55

Dealers can purchase from Murphy's Magic Supplies, Inc.